[Peace-discuss] This is pretty unbelievable

Tue Nov 12 20:41:58 UTC 2019

Here it is.   We could wish this story were unbelievable.    It seems
entirely in character.

> washingtonpost.com
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/11/john-cobin-chile-shooting-protesters-video/>
>
>
>
>   A Californian economist loves neoliberalism. When Chileans started
>   protesting it, he opened fire on them.
>
> By Teo Armus   Reporter on the Morning Mix team
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> John Cobin, a U.S.-born economist and former member of a
> neo-Confederate group, is so passionate about a free market — and
> about Chile — that he has devoted the past two decades to marrying the
> two.
>
> But Cobin’s unusual story took a violent turn this weekend, when he
> drove through one of the many crowds that have paralyzed Chile in
> recent weeks as they protest income inequality and a high cost of living.
>
> The 56-year-old was arrested Sunday, police said, after he repeatedly
> fired a gun into a crowd in the beachside town of Reñaca, seriously
> injuring at least one person.
>
> “I did not do anything wrong,” Cobin said in a video
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G707Xtsjeo> filmed just before his
> arrest. “It was very dangerous, very scary time for me. Thankfully, I
> had my gun to be able to defend myself."
>
> After speeding his pickup truck through a crowd of people, video of
> the scene shows
> <https://twitter.com/itsthekaishot/status/1193667139942653952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1193667139942653952&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc>,
> Cobin shot his gun at demonstrators five times.
>
> The shocking incident underscores the violence that Chilean protesters
> have been facing at the hands of their government, and occasionally
> other civilians. As of Friday, at least 20 people have been killed and
> about 1,600 have been injured, according to human rights observers
> <https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1051011>, as crowds face water
> cannons and tear gas and pellets are shot in close range
> <https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000006782083/chile-protests-riots.html>.
>
> The protests erupted in mid-October, when student-led strikes against
> a metro fare increase quickly widened into massive anti-government
> demonstrations that blocked off streets and set subway stations
> aflame. Even as the Chilean government reshuffled its cabinet and
> increased taxes on the wealthy, crowds have continued to rail against
> decades of neoliberal economic policies, including the privatization
> of water, highways and the pension system.
>
> It was those policies that first made Chile such an attractive
> destination for staunch free-market Americans like Cobin.
>
> A professor with a PhD in public policy, he moved his family to Chile
> in 1996, setting up a business to help other recent arrivals from the
> Anglophone world and teaching courses at Andrés Bello National University.
>
> In the United States, he had grown sick of
> <http://www.chile-consulting.cl./node/6> political correctness,
> eroding family values and high taxes, and his attempts at political
> relevancy had proved futile. He had participated in the League of the
> South, a neo-Confederate hate group, and failed in his libertarian bid
> for a U.S. congressional seat in South Carolina. Days before the
> election, he was arrested
> <https://www.wistv.com/story/5638028/libertarian-congressional-candidate-denies-domestic-violence-charge/>
> on charges of domestic violence.
>
> In Chile, however, he emerged as a prolific conservative commentator,
> hosting a talk radio show called “Red Hot Chile,” traveling to every
> major town around the country and remarrying a Chilean woman. He
> dubbed himself the “biggest neoliberal in the entire country.”
> (Chilean media outlets would later describe him
> <https://www.theclinic.cl/2019/11/10/john-cobin-gringo-supremacista-blanco-se-atribuyo-disparos-contra-manifestantes-en-renaca-en-streaming-por-youtube/>
> as a white supremacist.)
>
> In 2012, he helped three other Americans found a libertarian compound
> in the mountains, Galt’s Gulch, named for the fictional capitalist
> haven in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged
> <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451191145/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0451191145&linkId=da3f0d88713c942ef50a055ce51d1748>.”
> Cobin quickly split and founded a competing sustainable farm and
> libertarian compound, called Freedom Orchard.
>
> A brochure
> <https://vergellibertad.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/freedom-orchard-brochure2.pdf>
> for the mountainside compound advertised an idyllic 400-unit paradise,
> where “liberty-loving people from all over the world” could enjoy low
> taxes, organic produce, and freedom from “intrusive and abusive
> government meddling.” One group, however, was not welcome on his
> orchard: liberals from the United States.
>
> “You’ve already messed up your country,” Cobin told Mother Jones in
> 2014
> <https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/libertarian-expat-communities-chile/>.
> “We don’t need you.”
>
> In countless interviews and letters to the editor, he also expressed a
> particular admiration for the anti-communist policies of Augusto
> Pinochet, Chile’s disgraced former military dictator. Cobin
> established ties with Hermógenes Pérez de Arce
> <https://www.ft.com/content/e583ffce-e641-11da-a36e-0000779e2340>, a
> widely read — and to his opponents, widely reviled — conservative
> newspaper columnist known as one of Pinochet’s most prominent
> defenders. (Pérez de Arce, who could not be reached for comment, is
> serving as Cobin’s lawyer.)
>
> In an undated video
> <https://twitter.com/jmrodriguezle/status/1193676725894483969?s=20>
> circulating on social media, Cobin had even spoken about eliminating
> the “communist plague."
>
> “When they show off machetes, we’ll have the most massive firearms
> legally allowed in this country, and shoot to kill,” he said. “Not
> shoot at their legs, [but] straight in the heart so no witnesses are
> left.”
>
> On Sunday, it seems as though he got close.
>
> In a since-deleted YouTube video he sent to his online followers,
> Cobin recounted how he had been driving to a gun range when he
> stumbled through protesters in Reñaca, a beachside resort town about
> 20 minutes north of Valparaíso, the country’s third-largest city.
>
> According to Chilean news reports
> <https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/region-de-valparaiso/2019/11/10/gobierno-se-querella-por-homicidio-frustrado-contra-chaleco-amarillo-que-disparo-a-joven-en-renaca.shtml>,
> about 2,000 people were protesting along a main road, partaking in a
> tactic in which they stop cars
> <https://twitter.com/Tania_Tania_C/status/1193687524872478720?s=20>
> and ask drivers to dance with them as a show of solidarity. Cobin,
> wearing a neon yellow vest, refused. He started speeding through the
> crowd instead.
>
> As Cobin tells it, the mob began banging against his pickup truck when
> he took out his gun and loaded it. He was fending against the
> possibility of assault, he said, as he began firing.
>
> “I was in fear for my life, being attacked by a violent mob,” he said.
>
> Video of the incident
> <https://twitter.com/itsthekaishot/status/1193667139942653952?s=20>,
> however, showed a largely isolated vehicle moving past the crowd.
> After Cobin opened fire, a barefoot protester threw an object toward
> Cobin, who responded with more shots in the direction of the
> demonstrators. One of his bullets hit someone in the thigh, reportedly
> landing that man in the hospital.
>
> As footage of the incident circulated around Chilean social media,
> Cobin was identified and doxed, his address and phone numbers released
> on social media. His phone was ringing off the hook, he said, as
> police came to his home to arrest him.
>
> “We will not tolerate that anyone, regardless of their condition or
> belief, use firearms to impose their ideas,” said
> <https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/region-de-valparaiso/2019/11/10/gobierno-se-querella-por-homicidio-frustrado-contra-chaleco-amarillo-que-disparo-a-joven-en-renaca.shtml>
> Jorge Martínez, the governor of Valparaiso. Cobin is set to be
> presented on Monday on charges of attempted murder and severe
> injuries, even as many critics say government forces have gone
> unchecked for the same sort of violence.
>
> Late Sunday, another trace emerged on social media: Cobin had taken a
> selfie with the police officers who arrested him.
>

On 11/12/19 1:08 PM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote:
>
> David,
>
>  
>
> Would you mind copying and pasting this article ?
>
> I cannot access it.
>
>  
>
> David J.
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:*Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net]
> *On Behalf Of *David Green via Peace-discuss
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 12, 2019 12:36 PM
> *To:* Peace-discuss
> *Subject:* [Peace-discuss] This is pretty unbelievable
>
>  
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/11/john-cobin-chile-shooting-protesters-video/ 
>
>  
>
>  
>
>
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