Mastodon

Felipe Portales

Chileno, Sociólogo de la Universidad Católica; Director de Derechos Humanos de la Cancillería (1994-1996); Académico de la U. de Chile (2005-2017). Escritor: "Chile: una democracia tutelada"; "Los mitos de la democracia chilena" (dos volúmenes); "Historias desconocidas de Chile" (dos volúmenes).

Constitution: total victory for the right

“I never thought I would be defending Pinochet’s Constitution”, said recently María Pardo, constitutional councillor of Convergencia Social (La Segunda; 18-10-2023), that is, one of the top leaders of the Frente Amplio! And a few days ago, the centre-left philosopher…

Chile: 50 years of neoliberalism (III)

In turn, the prominent intellectual of the “socialist renovation”, Eugenio Tironi, has argued (as a virtual epigone of Adam Smith!) that “the society of individuals, where people understand that the collective interest is nothing more than the result of the…

Chile: 50 years of neoliberalism (II)

From the political point of view, as early as August 1991, President Aylwin himself “notified” the country that “the transition has been made” and that “in Chile we live in democracy” (El Mercurio; 8-8-1991), given that by that date none…

Chile: 50 years of neoliberalism (I)

Remarkably, it has been overlooked in the commemoration of half a century since the unfortunate destruction of our democracy that not only was a 17-year terrorist dictatorship installed, but also that its long-term design has been fully successful to this…

Vatican, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism (IV)

With the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Catholic – and extreme right-wing secular – anti-Semitism in Europe increased even more. Thus, in 1921, the Vatican magazine CiviltaCattolic conceptualised that “at bottom Bolshevism is not the old Judaism that embraces (…) the…

Vatican, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism (V)

The Vatican and church hierarchies not only said nothing in defence of the Jews in the face of growing Nazi persecution, but maintained their radical anti-Semitism unperturbed in the 1930s. Thus, for example, even in a country as remote as…

Vatican, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism (IV)

With the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Catholic – and extreme right-wing secular – anti-Semitism in Europe increased even more. Thus, in 1921, the Vatican magazine CiviltaCattolic conceptualised that “at bottom Bolshevism is not the old Judaism that embraces (…) the…

The Vatican, authoritarianism and anti-Semitism (III)

After the loss of the Papal States in 1870, the Vatican intensified its conservative, intolerant and anti-Semitic positions. This was expressed fundamentally in the biweekly, semi-official Vatican magazine La Civilta Cattolica, directed by Jesuits, which from 1880 to 1938 published,…

The Vatican and pedophilia. The absent gospel (I)

With this title, Editorial Catalonia has just published a book on the subject. The idea has been to delineate as accurately as possible the dimensions of the phenomenon and to search for its deepest historical roots in order to understand…

Chilean Congress will not implement new constitution

In case of winning the “I approve” in the plebiscite of September 4th, we will face an unprecedented situation in a constituent process at world level: That the organ in charge of concretizing in laws a great part of the…

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