Salon.com > Pinochet

When Don Draper toppled a dictator

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:10:00 +0000

Close your eyes and picture America’s most famous ad man, the fictional Don Draper of the cable TV hit Mad Men. Now push aside your favorite scenes of Don’s bedroom antics, bourbon-fueled lunches, and persuasive client pitches and think: over five seasons of storytelling, what has the dashing ladies’ man done that’s truly made an impact on the world outside his agency office suite?

In the cinema, however, the story is different. Set in Chile in 1988, the recent Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee No features the equally handsome Santiago ad man René Saavedra (played by Gael García Bernal, no less), who heads a campaign against Augusto Pinochet. The impetus is the Chilean military dictator’s call for a referendum to decide his permanence in power. The opposition responds by persuading Saavedra, a young advertising executive, to take on its “No” — meaning no Pinochet — campaign.

Pick of the week: This is how you overthrow a dictator

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 01:00:00 +0000

Early in Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s Oscar-nominated “No,” a young adman is having an argument with his boss about whose side the Americans are on. It’s the late 1980s, near the tail end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and Lucho (Alfredo Castro), the owner of the ad agency, is berating the younger René (Mexican star Gael García Bernal) for supporting a “No” vote in the upcoming national referendum on the Pinochet regime. Only Commies support the “No” cause, Lucho sneers; the financial support is coming from Cuba, Nicaragua and the Soviet Union. Besides, the Yankees and the CIA are behind Pinochet, and they’ll never allow him to be defeated. You’re wrong about that, René calmly insists; this time the Yankees are with us.

Was Ryan’s Social Security plan inspired by Pinochet?

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:25:00 +0000

While the Republican Party and its wealthy plutocrat backers have been accused of waging an elitist virtual war against the American majority, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have financial and ideological ties to rich Latin American elites who have waged real wars against average citizens in their countries.

The anti-democratic ethos of today's GOP, displayed in Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's apparent contempt for 47% of U.S. citizens, is reflected in the origins of Mitt Romney's private equity firm Bain Capital, which was founded with money from Central American financiers linked to government-backed death squads in El Salvador. Paul Ryan's budgetary ideas have a similarly dark origin, in the paradigmatic case of what author Naomi Klein has dubbed "The Shock Doctrine".