Chilean Mine Disaster – Newsnight Sees Pinochet’s Shadow….

As the story of the rescue of the Chilean Miners unfolded I realised that behind my hope that it would be successfully resolved lay an ever deepening dread – that the BBC would somehow find a convoluted way of placing the blame on Augusto Pinochet, one of the key figures in the BBCs pantheon of evil.

Watching Friday’s Newsnight my fears were vindicated when a breathless Wark interviewed Ariel Dorfman, an American/Chilean writer who proceeded to wax lyrical on the darkness of the mine being symbolic of the dark days of the Pinochet regime and the return to the surface as Chile coming to terms with its political past. Naturally there were clips of the Presidential palace being attacked by Pinochet’s soldiers during the coup against the extreme left wing and KGB funded President Allende in 1973 – though, of course, no mention of the protests and strikes against Allende’s policies during 1973 or the Chilean Supreme Court’s declaration of illegality of many actions of Allende’s government and it’s paramilitary formations. No mention either of the fact that Dorfman was an adviser to Allende.

Although the effusive Matt Frei and sundry other BBC hacks filled the airwaves for three days with a veritable Chile Fest two important pieces of information were either underplayed or scarcely mentioned…….the Christian/Catholic piety of the miners and their families and the fact that President Pinera, who impressed all with his handling of the whole crisis and his conduct during the rescue, was the first elected Conservative Chilean president for over fifty years….

As Private Eye would say…shome mishtake here surely….

Footnote: No mention either of Dorfman’s role in the Duke University rape scandal of 2006

Dorfman is one of the group of 88 professors who, in the wake of the Lacrosse players scandal, signed a controversial letter thanking protesters for “making a collective noise” on “what happened to this young woman” – assumed to be rapeThe letter, which was later published as a full-page ad in local newspapers and reprinted across the country, has been widely criticized as a prejudgment; later it was determined that no sexual assault had occurred. The charges against the players were eventually dismissed and the District Attorney who prosecuted the case, Michael Nifong, was disbarred and jailed.

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33 Responses to Chilean Mine Disaster – Newsnight Sees Pinochet’s Shadow….

  1. Anonymous says:

    Thought it was Emily Matlis? Either way completely adoring one-sided bias.

    Paul ‘the trot’ Mason’s pieces from Amerikkka this week were something to behold btw. Whiteys from the 1950s and Republicans are at fault for the current economic crisis in Gary Indiana, oh, and a theatre shut in the seventies was representative of this decline. The next day Mason’s first mention of tea partiers insinuated they’re all birthers… Oddly the truther movement, that is far more prevelant amongst Democrats, is never the first thing mentioned about Obama supporters…

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  2. Cassandra King says:

    Pinochet wasnt exactly a saint was he? I mean he was a soldier and meted out soldiers justice to traitors and terrorists and bandits who had a death grip on Chile and funded and aided by the enemy of the West the KGB.

    The BBC has always been ultra careful to revise and rework history as far as Chile was concerned, its history starts with the attack on the presidential palace and a wholly unprovoked asaualt on Allende for no reason.
    This alone clearly shows how perverted the BBC has always been, how crooked and dishonest.
    The Marxists took Chile to the edge of the Cuba abyss and there would have been all the death sqauds and murders and political prisons the revolutionary left is famous for around the world.
    The soldier Pinochet came in just before the collapse of Chilean democracy and stuck the boot in and didnt stop putting the boot in for years to come but who is really to blame for that? He was damned if he did and damned if he didnt but at least Chile was saved from the USSR and Cuban trained death squads.
    I think Pinochet dosent deserve a medal but he doesnt deserve the sick perverted BBC revisionism either, all thats needed is the truth and yet again the BBC steadfastly refuses supply it to us because if it did their fabricated world would fall apart.

    I hate the BBC they are a mortal danger to us plain and simple, they are the poison in our system.

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    • David Jones says:

      A “mortal danger” is the plain truth.

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    • john in cheshire says:

      General Pinochet is one of the few people I admire. And so are Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The ’80s seems to have brought out the best when it was most needed. Since then it has been downhill as far as public servants are concerned.

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  3. Chuffer says:

    Another mystery: when the drillers first broke through to the chamber, they were an Americal company. One or two were briefly interviewed. Not a mention of them since then.

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  4. Guest Who says:

    But, but… the bloke in charge tells us, actually everyone who disagrees, that ‘they got it about right’.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vc3vf/Newswatch_15_10_2010/

    Moving on.

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  5. Tallfish Bob says:

     The rescue vehicle was designed by NASA. In true International Rescue fashion they should have named it Thunderbird 6 (I checked on wiki there where only 5!)
    F.A.B mi lady

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    • Gerald says:

      I think that you will find that there was a Thunderbird 6 but it only appeared in the film that I greatly enjoyed at the cinema with my young son many years ago.

      I believe it was a Tiger Moth, but am quite willing to be corrected.

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  6. George R says:

    It’s a pity for BBC-Newsnight Fidelistas that:

    – ‘rightist’ President Pinera is more popular in Chile than

    -‘leftist’ Obama is in the USA

    ‘Telegraph’:

    “Chile miners rescue: President’s popularity soars”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/8062354/Chile-miners-rescue-Presidents-popularity-soars.html

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  7. ltwf1964 says:

    it’s the amazing the amount of twisted crap and downright lies that you see when you view the world through a pair of marxist glasses

    they should’ve gone to specsavers instead of  shitetalkers

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  8. Martin says:

    The BBC have been sniffing around the edges of this story for weeks now. They are clearly looking for an angle. 

    Let me tell you how the BBC will try to embarass Cameron next week when the President comes to the UK.

    The BBC will try to link Cameron to Thatcher and of course Thatcher to Pinochet and will ask the Chile President if he thinks David Cameron’s support of Mrs T is an insult to his country and of course the UK gave Pinochet the right to stay here blah blah blah. All the gay Guardian readers will be knocking one out in the urinals at this story.

    Expect Dame Nikki Nampbell, Newsnight, the Toady show etc to continually try to humiliate Cameron over this.

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    • NotaSheep says:

      The BBC will try to humiliate David Cameron over anything they can, that’s how they roll… Why the Conservatives (or as close as there are) do nothing about it escapes me.

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  9. RGH says:

    An interesting feature of the Chilean Mine rescue effort that the BBC, despite its extensive coverage, tended consistently to downplay, was the skill and competence of the Drilling companies from the United States. These companies expertise drilling and superb logistics in the Atacama deserves coverage in its own right.

    This story, in the German Media, did not get even a mention by the BBC, though it is of considerable relevance to the engagement of skill and the human spirit.

    My translation:

    Texan Greg Hall, owner of the drilling company, found the technical solution to the problem of rescuing the 33 miners. His wife explains how prayer and his social engagement helped him in this.

    Cypress, (Texas). (kath.net)

    The Texan, Greg Hall, drilling company owner, who coordinated and led the rescue effort for the 33 miners, is to be ordained as a permanent deacon in his Diocese. The CNA (News) Agency spoke to his wife, Angelica about his christian motivation.

    Greg is the owner of Drillers Supply International, a company which has been active in Chile since 1993, supplying amd manufacturing equipment for the gold, silver and copper mining industry.

    With the miners trapped underground, Greg worked and prayed all night, tying to come up with the solution to the problem of how to get a wide enough shaft down. ‘Prayer is part of our daily life, said Angelica who runs the business together with her husband  from the Archdiocese of Galveston/Houston

    Original Text:

    Der Texaner Greg Hall, Unternehmer für Bohrgeräte, fand einen technischen Weg zur Rettung der 33 Bergleute. Seine Frau erzählt, wie das Gebet und sein soziales Engagement ihm dabei halfen.
    <img src=”http://www.kath.net/img/blank.gif”/>
    Cypress (kath.net) Der Texaner Greg Hall, der bei der Rettung der 33 Chilenen federführend war, wird im Februar in seiner Diözese zum ständigen Diakon geweiht werden. Die CNA hat mit seiner Frau Angelica über seine christliche Motivation gesprochen.

    Greg Hall ist Eigentümer von “Drillers Supply International”, einer Firma für Bohrgeräte, die seit 1993 auch in Chile tätig ist und hauptsächlich Geräte für Gold-, Silber- und Kupferminen herstellt.

    Während die Bergleute eingeschlossen waren, lag Greg Hall in der Nacht wach, betete intensiv, überlegte und arbeitete daran, wie eine größere Öffnung gemacht werden könnte. „Gebet ist ein Teil unseres täglichen Lebens“, erzählt Angelica Hall aus der Erzdiözese Galveston-Houston, die die Firma gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann betreibt.

    The skill and conviction of this engineering entrepreneur, able, successful and a Christian would not compute in the Beeb world view.

    After all, American Christians are all red neck teabaggers, with their pro-life and free enterprise bigotry.

    That the mining professional who cracked enormous technical problems, in a geologically difficult environment, in a race against time should be a devout Christian who attributes his skill and success to God, is for the world-weary Beeboid, a non-story.

    Still, some will read this and draw their own conclusions.

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    • Cassandra King says:

      Mining industry workers are Satans spawn to the BBC ecofascisti, the industry is among the top targets of the rent a rabble watermellons. It must be because mining is akin to stabbing their earth Godess Gayer ere ere or whatever the silly name is.

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      • Span Ows says:

        “ecofascisti”…hahaha, love it. Also a great comment above. I was banned from the BBC R5 live news message boards a couple of times, once was for my solid and vociferous (and all true) defence of Pinochet and what had gone before, your comment sums it up nicely. I am of course completely biased 😉 but all the people in Chile I work with are pro Pinochet (although to be honest it is one of those issues that completely splits the country…the lefty righty waltz)

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      • Demon1001 says:

        Except for Comrade Arthur, his NUM and his violent rent-a-mob thugs he used to take round the country to intimidate decent people in his crusade to rid us of the “evil” Margaret, even though this campaign started well before Mrs T even came to power.  The BBC revisionism would try to make you believe that anyway.

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  10. burbette123 says:

    Do any of the pack of beeboid jackasses bray in Spanish?  What a waste of taxpayers’ dosh.  No wonder there was something missing from the “reporting”. 

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  11. Gerald says:

    Great post Mr Riddick.

    To sum up the perennial view of the BBC of dictators – left wing good, right wing bad.

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  12. dave s says:

    They are so bloody predictable. Allende, Castro,Guevera ,Chavez, all the poster boys from their student days.
    The beeboids are not real leftwingers just privileged children playing with politics. Lenin would have shot the lot.

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  13. RGH says:

    Allende, Salvador. All round good egg and hero of the right on PC brigade.

    How about this:

    In 1987,  VictorFarías, of the Free University in Berlin,published Heidegger and Nazism, which concluded that Heidegger’s philosophy is inherently fascist. The book obatined international attention and was published in 14 countries. During this period Farías also published studies on Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges.

    Farías created controversity with his publication of Salvador Allende: Antisemitism and Euthanasia (Salvador Allende: Antisemitismo y Eutanasia) which reviewed Allende’s graduation thesis and claimed that the former Chilean president expressed anti-Semitic views and supported Nazi Germany’s plans of sterilization of the mentally unfit. Farías’ book, published in Chile, Spain, France, and Brazil, was heavily criticized by Allende’s supporters, who published another book claiming to refute Farías’ thesis.

    In 2006, Farías responded with Salvador Allende: The End of the Myth (Salvador Allende: El fin del mito), which debunked some of his critics and published new documents detailing the Nazi connections of the Chilean Socialist Party in the 1930s and well as the dealings between the Soviet Union and Allende’s Chile based on documents from the East German archives.

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  14. Johnny Norfolk says:

    I watched it all on Sky, as there was none of the BBCs foolishness.

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  15. Millie Tant says:

    I would find it very interesting to know more about the extraordinary technical feat involved. It seems the BBC has failed in its mission to inform us in any depth about the whole remarkable event despite the presence of umpteen Beeboids. What were they all doing? All I saw in the brief time I could endure, was Tim Somebody interviewing people and Frei Boy wittering on.

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    • RGH says:

      Chasing after Woman’s Hour favourite, Isabel Allende when she popped over for an afternoon in the sand and dust of the Atacama.

      I kid you not.

      Allende is sooo cool and stuff.

      And her Dad was…….

      OK, you can’t choose your parent.

      But the BBC sees the link as somehow positive. Strange world.

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  16. barrenga says:

    ‘two important pieces of information were either underplayed or scarcely mentioned…the Christian/Catholic piety of the miners and their families and the fact that President Pinera, who impressed all with his handling of the whole crisis and his conduct during the rescue, was the first elected Conservative Chilean president for over fifty years….’

    You couldn’t have been watching the same BBC coverage as I was. The faith of the families and the miners was emphasised numerous times. I guess we hear what we want to.

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  17. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Matt Frei constantly labeled President Pinera as “Conservative”.  A good portion of Frei’s air time was spent hammering home the narrative that Pinera was a political opportunist, and that this was all a cynical photo-op to make himself and his Adminstration look good.  No irony there, no sir.  
     
    Frei’s story – repeated several times a day – was that Pinera was seizing this event as a means to elevate Chile to international status, that by pulling off this miracle the country had finally arrived at adulthood, nationwise, and could at last move out from under the shadow of Pinochet.  
     
    The one time Frei got to stick a camera in the President’s face, he asked him if Chile could at last move beyond Pinochet.  He was obsessed, and I kept wondering why he thought the world still acted as if Pinochet was still in charge.  
     
    Frei also clearly got emotionally caught up in his own story of Chile as a success because of this rescue.  At first, he was trying to take Pinera down a peg by making it out to be a cynical move.  He missed an opportunity to point out that it was in fact other countries who made this rescue as successful as it was.  I think he had no idea, couldn’t be bothered.  He was there for the superficial emotional story, and stuck with it the entire time. 


    As for that Duke professor, he and the other 87 refused to apologize.  Instead, they released a fatuous statement about how they don’t regret a thing because rape actually does happen sometimes, and they were happy to give a voice to those people who have suffered.  The twisted morality of Leftoid Academia in a nutshell.

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  18. D B says:

    Radio Five Live political correspondent Chris Mason couldn’t let the rescue pass as a simple day of joy either:

    “As Lady Thatcher celebrates her birthday, the focus of the world’s media is on the plight of a group of miners.”

    Ooh, bit of politics. Shiny suit. Double seat, double seat, got to get a double seat.

    The Thatcher birthday/miner thing was a big deal on Twitter for the usual smug, self-congratulatory leftie tossers, but was it too much to expect that a BBC political reporter resist the urge to cheapen the day with snarky political point-scoring? Oh no wait – it’s the BBC isn’t it? Silly me.

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    • Asuka Langley Soryu says:

      A lot of those smug, self-congratulatory lefty tossers on Twitter are BBC employees. As evidenced on this very blog.

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  19. cjhartnett says:

    A joy to hear Evan and Monty on Wednesdays “Toady Show” having to bluff and blag their way through the Chilean miners rescue.

    Obviously they were merely waffling over pictures that they were watching live on BBC rolling news like the rest of us. Did not stop them from trilling in an arch fashion about the quaint shows of spirituality from the miners and their families…”ah bless” moments abounded.

    Evan had no inclination to ask them about the legalisation of spliffs and the efficacy of a Gay Pride march in San Jose I`d say!

     God bless you RGH above…fully sourced and real journalism about the role of the USA in rescuing the miners. Not a peep from the Beeb-but had they spilt oil there we`d not have heard the end of it.

    Funny too that Clintons other half has a view on Coalition cuts to defence, and the BBC reports them. Thought the Beeb raged at the States using Britain as their aircraft carrier,..did Greenham teach them nothing! Ah but ” we are where we are” eh?

    Still…cuts to defence are wanted-but no cuts by the Tories though-cue tumbleweed across the plains when asked which of these two horns of a dilemma they wish to straddle…anyone asked Evan?

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  20. DP111 says:

    More on the faith in God that sustained the miners in their adversity.

    Faith and the Rescued Chilean Miners
    By Janice Shaw Crouse

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/faith_and_the_rescued_chilean.html

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  21. DP111 says:

    A German company was involved in the rescue

    German Mittelstand Gives Chilean Miners, Economy Escape Route

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-30/german-mittelstand-gives-chilean-miners-economy-escape-route.html

    as well as a German invention used in the rescue of trapped miners. 

    Dahlbusch Bomb

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlbusch_Bomb

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