Reference to Pinochet's privatization of Chile's natural resources by Robert Kennedy, Jr:
RFK, Jr. Calls Koch Brothers “Deadly Parasites On American Democracy”
— September 13, 2015
[font size=1]
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance, spoke to a group of activists, including more than 200 Waterkeepers from 30 nations at the organization’s annual conference in Boulder, Colorado. Photo credit: John L. Wathen / Hurricane Creekkeeper
[/font]
. . .
“In China, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, environmental destruction went hand in hand with political despotism and corruption,” he continued. “Thanks to the Pinochet regime, the forests and waters of Chile are no longer owned by the Chilean people. Every single river in Chile is now owned by a Spanish company, Endessa which plans to dam all of them for private profit. So the people of that nation no longer own their rivers, they don’t own their forests. Even the highways, railroads, utilities, airports, stadiums and prisons—all the public spaces that once formed our civic lives are being occupied by private and corporate wealth.”
Kennedy recalled that during the 1994 campaign to save the iconic BioBio river from Endesa’s dam builders, the Chilean human rights lawyer, Juan Pablo Ortega had lamented, “Supposedly we have a democracy after Pinochet left, but it’s folly to call a system a ‘democracy’ when the people have no control over their resources. We Chileans are no longer the sovereigns of our lands.”
Kennedy assured the crowd that “This is what the battle is about. It’s about losing control of the commons. The air, the water, the wildlife, the fisheries and public lands, the shared resources of our society: The commonwealth assets that provide the gravities around which communities coalesce.”
More:
http://ringoffireradio.com/2015/09/rfk-jr-calls-koch-brothers-deadly-parasites-on-american-democracy/
Energy & environment:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112791142