Friday, March 19, 2010

Pinochet cards



Purchased on my trip to Chile in 1988, these are simple cardboard postcards , printed only on one side, and reflect the gleeful end of a dreadful era. I imagine they were mailed to friends, distributed as handbills or political tracts or simply collected, the way one collects political buttons and other ephemera. Good article about Chile's relationship with military, in the past and post-earthquake, here.

Above, "He lost because he didn't know the Ten Commandments." And in the word balloon: "Thou shalt not kill, thou shall not steal, thou shall not lie"... You get the idea. Pinochet lost the plebiscite that would have given him additional years as military lord over the country.

Top: Goodbye, General, the carnival is  over!" The purgative: the vote "No" on his rule.

Bottom: "He was the only one and he left as the last one." In other words, we don't want to see his like again! Hear, hear.

6 comments:

  1. Absolutely fascinating. I enjoyed every word of this post--thank you for postcards and the translations! Happy PFF!

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  2. Really interesting! One of my prized possessions is a pin with "September 11, 1973" on it, which is theday Pinochet came to power. It was given to me while my friend and I were hitchhiking in Chile in 1978, by an army guy in one of the cars that gave us a ride!

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  3. These are interesting. I didn't know anything about Chile. I wonder whether there are still political postcards here. I used to see a lot of them in the 1980s.

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  4. Interesting post. Happy PFF.

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  5. Mary, that pin is truly a prize.

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  6. I could never understand why Margaret Thatcher was so kindly disposed toward Pinochet. But them Thatcher was a law unto herself.

    Sorry to be so late with my post and my comments this week.

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