How Far Should We Take Our Protests?

 

 

#OliverAnthony has got me thinking about Protest Songs through the years. Last time I talked about SUN CITY and "Artists United Against Apartheid" in South Africa. They used their musical VOICES to make a difference.

Now I want to look at a way to use music WITHOUT VOICES. This is so intensely depicted by #Sting in his video for  "THEY DANCE ALONE"   (1987) which focuses on PINOCHET.

WHO WAS 'PINOCHET'? (Pronounced "Pin-O-Shay")

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general and dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. On September 11, 1973, Pinochet seized power in Chile in a coup d'état, with the support of the US, that toppled Allende's democratically elected left-wing Unidad Popular government and ended civilian rule.

The new government rounded up thousands of people and held them in the national stadium, where many were killed. This was followed by brutal repression during Pinochet's rule.

The US provided material support to the military government after the coup, although criticizing it in public. A document released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile", revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende, and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or U.S. military, even though some were known to be involved in human rights abuses.

'He shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions, and made Chile his sultanate (Kingdom with an Absolute Ruler). His government disappeared 3,000 opponents, arrested 30,000 (torturing thousands of them) ...

 Pinochet's name will forever be linked to the Desaparecidos, the Caravan of Death, and the institutionalized torture that took place in the Villa Grimaldi complex.'

— Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, National Review

(According to the Valech Commission)

In Latin America, this was carried out under Operation Condor, a cooperation plan between the various intelligence agencies of South American countries, assisted by a United States CIA communication base in Panama.

In 2011, the commission identified an additional 9,800 victims of political repression during Pinochet's rule, increasing the total number of victims to approximately 40,018, including 3,065 killed."

THESE THINGS MATTER. ❗️

As we see our Government and civilization crumbling and our freedoms taken away we have to decide NOW, while our "cooler heads prevail", just where we will draw our lines in the sand so that we won't simply become another part of an uncontrolled, angry mob.

The Truth with Love,

Always Laura-Lee 😔✝️🇨🇦

LINK My Previous SUN CITY post

Dark Days for Democracy (Book Review)

 

Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA by Amaryllis Fox
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the ebook version and listened to the audio version read by the author, Amaryllis Fox herself, simultaneously.

It was an interesting, satisfying, and well-written memoir of how Fox came to work for the CIA. It is fascinating to learn how the organization recruits, trains its workers, and is organized and structured. I also found learning the different methods of trade-craft and all the different training ops very interesting. Amaryllis is a likable person who readily shares her thoughts and does a good job of reading her book aloud with intensity and emotion but without going "over the top" with her narration.

What I disliked about this book was how dark it was as Amaryllis takes us through the various events in her life and world events that deeply impacted her and led her to pursue this type of work as her career. The decline of her mental and emotional state as she is constantly forced to live a lie every day of her life and wonder who she can trust is difficult to witness. As well as the destruction of her close personal relationships and her struggle with keeping her priorities straight and some semblance of reality and normalcy while living a life that is a complete fabrication. It tragically shows the huge sacrifices made by the youngest and brightest among us to gather and disseminate information to keep the world literally "safe for democracy".

Sex is referred to but not in a graphic manner, profanity used though sparingly, and the descriptions of violence are restrained so they don't demean or detract from the reality of what actually happened to the people who suffered. The reality of operating a clandestine life and the pathos that Amaryllis Fox has endured made me wish there was someone around while I read it so I could get a hug and then send someone out to hug Amaryllis too.

I feel like this story needs to be told and these civil servants acknowledged, so if this topic is your "thing” then definitely go for it, but if you need an emotional boost or are already feeling slightly depressed, I think you should move on and pick something else to read.

" For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" Mark 8:36

Sincerely, Laura-Lee (was here)

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