Get Malik Out of Ad-Seg Keith "Malik" Washington is an incarcerated activist who has spoken out on conditions of confinement in Texas prison and beyond:  from issues of toxic water and extreme heat, to physical and sexual abuse of imprisoned people, to religious discrimination and more.  Malik has also been a tireless leader in the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery which gained visibility during nationwide prison strikes in 2016 and 2018.  View his work at comrademalik.com or write him at: Keith H. Washington TDC# 1487958 McConnell Unit 3001 S. Emily Drive Beeville, TX 78102 Friends, it's time to get Malik out of solitary confinement. Malik has experienced intense, targeted harassment ever since he dared to start speaking against brutal conditions faced by incarcerated people in Texas and nationwide--but over the past few months, prison officials have stepped up their retaliation even more. In Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) at McConnell Unit, Malik has experienced frequent humiliating strip searches, medical neglect, mail tampering and censorship, confinement 23 hours a day to a cell that often reached 100+ degrees in the summer, and other daily abuses too numerous to name.  It could not be more clear that they are trying to make an example of him because he is a committed freedom fighter.  So we have to step up. Who to contact: TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier Phone: (936)295-6371 Email:  exec.director@tdcj.texas.gov Senior Warden Philip Sinfuentes (McConnell Unit) Phone: (361) 362-2300

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Major George Tillery

MAJOR TILLERY FILES NEW LEGAL PETITION SEX FOR LIES AND MANUFACTURED TESTIMONY

April 25, 2018-- The arrest of two young men in Starbucks for the crime of "sitting while black," and the four years prison sentence to rapper Meek Mill for a minor parole violation are racist outrages in Philadelphia, PA that made national news in the past weeks. Yesterday Meek Mills was released on bail after a high profile defense campaign and a Pa Supreme Court decision citing evidence his conviction was based solely on a cop's false testimony. These events underscore the racism, frame-up, corruption and brutality at the core of the criminal injustice system. Pennsylvania "lifer" Major Tillery's fight for freedom puts a spotlight on the conviction of innocent men with no evidence except the lying testimony of jailhouse snitches who have been coerced and given favors by cops and prosecutors. Sex for Lies and Manufactured Testimony For thirty-five years Major Tillery has fought against his 1983 arrest, then conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an unsolved 1976 pool hall murder and assault. Major Tillery's defense has always been his innocence. The police and prosecution knew Tillery did not commit these crimes. Jailhouse informant Emanuel Claitt gave lying testimony that Tillery was one of the shooters. In May and June 2016, Emanuel Claitt gave sworn statements that his testimony was a total lie, and that the homicide cops and the prosecutors told him what to say and coached him before trial. Not only was he coerced to lie that Major Tillery was a shooter, but to lie and claim there were no plea deals made in exchange for his testimony. He provided the information about the specific homicide detectives and prosecutors involved in manufacturing his testimony and details about being allowed "sex for lies". In August 2016, Claitt reaffirmed his sworn statements in a videotape, posted on YouTube and on JusticeforMajorTillery.org. Major Tillery has Fought his Conviction and Advocated for Other Prisoners for over 30 Years Major Tillery Needs Your Help: Major Tillery and family HOW YOU CAN HELP Financial Support—Tillery's investigation is ongoing. He badly needs funds to fight for his freedom. Go to JPay.com; code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC Tell Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: The Conviction Review Unit should investigate Major Tillery's case. He is innocent. The only evidence at trial was from lying jail house informants who now admit it was false. Call: 215-686-8000 or Email: justice@phila.gov Write to: Security Processing Center Major Tillery AM 9786 268 Bricker Road Bellefonte, PA 16823 For More Information, Go To: JusticeForMajorTillery.org Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com Obtain Updates: www.justice4majortillery.info *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* On Monday March 4th, 2019 Leonard Peltier was advised that his request for a transfer had been unceremoniously denied by the United States Bureau of Prisons. The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appreciates and thanks the large number of his supporters who took the time to write, call, email, or fax the BOP in support of Leonard's request for a transfer. Those of us who have been supporting Leonard's freedom for a number of years are disappointed but resolute to continue pushing for his freedom and until that day, to continue to push for his transfer to be closer to his relatives and the Indigenous Nations who support him. 44 years is too damn long for an innocent man to be locked up. How can his co-defendants be innocent on the grounds of self-defense but Leonard remains in prison? The time is now for all of us to dig deep and do what we can and what we must to secure freedom for Leonard Peltier before it's too late. We need the support of all of you now, more than ever. The ILPDC plans to appeal this denial of his transfer to be closer to his family. We plan to demand he receive appropriate medical care, and to continue to uncover and utilize every legal mechanism to secure his release. To do these things we need money to support the legal work. Please call the ILPDC National office or email us for a copy of the postcard you can send to the White House. We need your help to ask President Trump for Leonard's freedom. DONATE  ©2019 ILPDC | 116 W Osborne Avenue Tampa, FL 33603  Web Version  Preferences  Forward  Unsubscribe   Powered by GoDaddy Email Marketing ® Free Leonard Peltier!

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1) When 'Do No Harm' Means Evacuating Hospitals in California
Medical evacuees are the new refugees of climate change.
By Stephen Parodi, November 1, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/opinion/california-kincade-hospital-wildfire.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Medical personnel evacuated patients from the Feather River Hospital as the Camp Fire raged through Paradise, Calif., in 2018.Credit...Noah Berger/Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. — I must have missed the wildfire evacuation course in medical school. Learning how to move critically ill patients while flames lick the ground just feet away wasn't part of my residency training. Most physicians never anticipate having to empty their hospitals while smoke fills the halls and the sky glows red. 

This is becoming our everyday reality in Northern California, where I lead an emergency management team for more than 4 million patients. Just last week, the Kincade fire broke out in Sonoma county. The blaze, fueled by an extreme wind event, rapidly engulfed tens of thousands of acres of land. Nearly 190,000 people were evacuated. 

At the same time, more than 2.5 million people across Northern California were without power for several days — a preventive measure by the local utility to stem the chance of a fire caused by transmission lines.

Every autumn now ushers in a season of uncertainty and fear.

During the massive 2017 Tubbs fire, I oversaw the physicians and care teams who moved 122 patients to safety as hurricane-force winds drove flames toward our hospital doors.

Throughout the night, critically ill babies were bundled up, placed in incubators and then put in ambulances. Laboring mothers and their families were presented with unimaginable choices: Should we wait for the baby to be born while fires rage outside? Should we move now and risk delivery in the ambulance? Surgeries underway in the operating room required battlefield-like urgency. Close the patient. Stabilize. Get everyone out.

Medical evacuees are the new refugees of climate change.

We managed to safely evacuate all patients that night in 2017, but there was tremendous loss. My colleague, a fellow physician who helped lead the hospital evacuation, called home to warn his family about the fires. As he listened to his 15-year-old daughter scream through the phone, fire engulfed their home. His daughter and wife survived — but they lost pets and everything they owned.

When I stood outside the hospital the day after the Tubbs fire, surrounded by smoldering embers and soot so thick I could taste it, I saw a war zone. The hospital was intact. But everything beyond the makeshift firebreak had turned to cinders.

In October 2017, more than 250 fires ravaged Northern California — names like Tubbs, Nuns and Atlas left a permanent imprint, one that I had hoped would be an isolated memory of a tragic situation. But in 2018, the fires returned. The city of Paradise was devastated in the deadliest wildfire in California's history. 

Now, the Kincade fire has forced the evacuation of the Santa Rosa Medical Center for the second time. Last Saturday, in the dark of night, 70 ambulances lined the facility while my colleague led the orderly transport of 110 patients to safety. His wife packed what they could from their temporary rental home and fled the area, again.

From the command center, I face heart-wrenching decisions. In the hospitals that remain open, we must delay elective surgeries because we're operating on emergency power. And every week we do this creates months of backlogs. A patient with a sick gall bladder who delays an elective surgery could wind up in an emergency room — or worse — if the gall bladder becomes inflamed and bursts.

As wildfire smoke fills the air, respiratory issues flare and underlying chronic conditions become acute. Patients who rely on insulin, which must be refrigerated, wonder how they will keep their medication cold and their sugar levels managed without power. Cellphone towers falter without generator backup, roads close and the ability to communicate with our patients is compromised.

When the lights come back on and the firefighters manage to tame the flames, we face traumatized communities. Children who packed up their toys in the middle of the night and parents who wondered whether they were leaving their homes for the last time relive the experience, like a horror movie on repeat.

The shelters where our physicians and others volunteer are filled with people who already live on the margins — medically, socially, financially. We donate supplies, we give our hearts, yet their mental, medical and social health needs only increase.

We have been told that this is the "new normal." 

The health care system often serves as an early warning for larger challenges: Food and housing insecurity, unsafe physical environments and social isolation often present at the doors of our hospitals. These issues demand a medical response, but a cure can't be found through the tools that physicians and care providers have at their disposal.

The consequences of climate change will not be effectively addressed by individuals alone; society must take collective responsibility. Improved infrastructure and preparedness, like de-energizing the power grid, are important steps, but we need a concerted effort at the local, state and federal levels.

We must update the infrastructure required to meet basic human needs, including clean water, clean air and a safer environment. These are the bedrock principles of public health. We need to return our focus to restoring the foundational elements necessary to support human life.

As an infectious disease specialist, what I did learn in medical school was that 100 years ago, we changed the course of human history with sewer lines and water treatment facilities. Next, vaccines saved lives on a massive scale. The climate crisis is this generation's own great problem to solve.

The health care system's early warning light is blinking red. The power grid goes dark. The smoke moves with the wind. Our stethoscopes and scalpels won't suffice. When I took my solemn oath as a doctor, it wasn't to evacuate hospitals. We must refuse to let this be our new normal.

Stephen Parodi (@StephenParodiMD) is an associate executive director at the Permanente Medical Group at Kaiser Permanente.

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2)  Suicide Has Been Deadlier Than Combat for the Military
The Pentagon has made strides in helping those in need, but the rate of deaths is rising.
By Carole Giacomo, November 1, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/opinion/military-suicides.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Struggling with mental demons, Kayla Williams went to her bathroom and held a gun in her hand, contemplating suicide. It was 2004, and she'd been home for only a few months after serving as an Army sergeant and Arab linguist in the Iraq war.

But hers is one story that doesn't end in tragedy: Ms. Williams held those demons at bay long enough to get help and learn to manage the challenges of marriage to a combat-wounded veteran while writing two books about her experiences. "I'm doing well," she told me. She is now the director of the Military, Veterans and Society program at the Center for a New American Security. 

Her journey, like that of so many others, has not been smooth. Recovery sometimes requires working with several therapists, changing providers when one isn't working and undergoing repeated treatment. The government has begun to acknowledge the danger that suicide poses for an all-volunteer fighting force and has invested $1 billion in seeking solutions. 

But that hasn't proved to be enough. Suicide rates for active-duty service members and veterans are rising, in part, experts say, because a culture of toughness and self-sufficiency may discourage service members in distress from getting the assistance they need. In some cases, the military services discharge those who seek help, an even worse outcome.

More than 45,000 veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves in the past six years. That is more than 20 deaths a day — in other words, more suicides each year than the total American military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The latest Pentagon figures show the suicide rate for active-duty troops across all service branches rose by over a third in five years, to 24.8 per 100,000 active-duty members in 2018. Those most at risk have been enlisted men under 30. 

The data for veterans is also alarming. In 2016, veterans were one and a half times more likely to kill themselves than people who hadn't served in the military, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Among those ages 18 to 34, the rate went up nearly 80 percent from 2005 to 2016. The risk nearly doubles in the first year after a veteran leaves active duty, experts say.

The Pentagon this year also reported on military families,estimating that in 2017 there were 186 suicide deaths among military spouses and dependents. 

Military officials note that the suicide rates for service members and veterans are comparable to the general population after adjusting for the military's demographics — predominantly young and male. But given the military's size and influence, it is an institution that is well placed to lead the nation in suicide prevention.

Other than pointing to national trends, officials have offered few explanations for why military suicides are rising. Studies seeking more answers are underway.

Experts say suicides are complex, resulting from many factors, notably impulsive decisions with little warning. Pentagon officials say a majority of service members who die by suicide do not have mental illness. While combat is undoubtedly high stress, there are conflicting views on whether deployments increase risk.

Where there seems to be consensus is that high-quality health care and keeping weapons out of the hands of people in distress can make a positive difference.

Studies show that the Department of Veterans Affairs provides high-quality care, and its Veterans Crisis Line "surpasses most crisis lines" operating today, according to Terri Tanielian, a researcher with the RAND Corporation. (The Veterans Crisis Lineis staffed 24/7 at 800-273-8255, press 1. Services also are available online or by texting 838255.)

But Veterans Affairs often can't accommodate all those needing help, resulting in patients being sent to community-based mental health professionals who lack the training to deal with service members. 

Kim Ruocco's husband, John, a decorated Cobra gunship pilot who flew 75 combat missions as a Marine, also returned home tormented. But he did not seek help to deal with depression and combat trauma. He killed himself in 2005 as he prepared for a second deployment to Iraq. As an executive at the nonprofitTragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, Ms. Ruocco now helps grieving families and friends and raises awareness about the risk of suicide. She says even when service members in distress know about available resources, they often resist.

"One of the biggest battles is the military culture," Ms. Ruocco said. "Seeking mental health treatment goes against everything they are taught in boot camp," where service members are told "to push through pain, to think of everybody else before self, to solve problems with lethal force if necessary."

Marines wouldn't think of not working out physically, she said, but "there is no space and time for self-care until it interferes with their ability to do their jobs." She is confident that if Marines had been drilled on the importance of mental and emotional health, her husband would have found a safe way to cope.

Not only do these deaths devastate families; suicides can also undermine morale and cohesion within units that lose a member this way and can discourage potential recruits, threatening the viability of the all-volunteer force.

The other obvious imperative is doing more to reduce easy access to firearms — the most widely used method of suicide — by distributing gun locks, training individuals in safe storage methods and enabling military commanders to remove a service member's firearm if warranted. Health care professionals who treat service members and veterans should discuss this issue with their patients, just as they encourage people to wear seatbelts and bike helmets.

In the end, everyone has a role in helping those we love who are experiencing tough times to discuss their struggles, reduce alcohol and drug use and seek professional help. 

To quote the Marine commandant, Gen. David Berger, "We must create a community where seeking help and assistance are simply normal, important decisions Marines and sailors make."

As mentioned above, the crisis line for veterans is 1-800-273-8255(press 1). Another resource for those having thoughts of suicide is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.

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3) Gary Jones, U.A.W. President, to Take a Leave of Absence

He is taking a leave amid a federal investigation into financial wrongdoing at the union.
By Laura M. Holson, November 2, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/business/uaw-president-gary-jones.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

Federal agents in August raided the home of Gary Jones, the president of the United Automobile Workers, and executed search warrants at a union resort in Michigan.Credit...Paul Sancya/Associated Press

Gary Jones, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, which is under investigation over allegations of financial wrongdoing, is taking a leave of absence, the union said in a statement on Saturday.

The union said Mr. Jones sought the leave of absence after a vote by its executive board. The statement did not elaborate on the board's vote.

In August, federal agents raided his home and executed search warrants at a U.A.W. resort in Michigan, the F.B.I. said at the time. 

The investigation has uncovered the improper use of millions of dollars of funds and bribery of union officials by auto executives. In some cases, money was spent on personal travel, Rolex watches and other high-priced items.

In the statement, Mr. Jones said the union was fighting for its members.

"I do not want anything to distract from the mission," he said. "I want to do what's best for the members of this great union." 

His leave will begin on Sunday. The union's vice president, Rory Gamble, will serve as interim president.

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4) Hong Kong Protests: Police Face Off With Demonstrators After Election Rally

The event, which was billed as a campaign event for local elections, quickly descended into chaos around the city.
By Amy Qin, Austin Ramzy and Tiffany May, November 2, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/world/asia/hong-kong-protests.html

Protesters marched Saturday near Victoria Park in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong, shortly before a clash with the police.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

HONG KONG — Police officers in Hong Kong on Saturday fired tear gas and clashed with protesters around the city, capping 21 weeks of antigovernment demonstrations that have convulsed this international financial hub and helped to sink it into a recession.

In scenes throughout the night that have become part of the new normal in Hong Kong, the city's central financial district and several dense commercial neighborhoods were enveloped in shrouds of tear gas as riot police battled with protesters, who wore masks in defiance of a ban on face coverings enacted last month. Earlier in the afternoon, police shut down two rallies in the Central district that had received official authorization, citing the clashes elsewhere.

The day began when several thousand protesters turned out for a rally at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay. It had been billed as a campaign event for Hong Kong's upcoming district council elections, after the police rejected the organizers' initial application to hold a demonstration. (Police permission is not always required for election events.)

Here's the latest on the Hong Kong protests.

Chaos Returns to Streets of Hong Kong

• The mood was tense from the beginning, as police quickly declared the Victoria Park rally an unauthorized assembly and tried to disperse protesters using tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons. Later, as the police continued their dispersal efforts, some protesters responded by throwing petroleum bombs, vandalizing metro stations and shops seen as sympathetic to the Chinese government, spraying graffiti and building barricades on streets.For the first time, protesters also targeted the offices of Xinhua, China's state-run news agency.
• Dozens of protesters were detained, adding to the more than 2,800 who have been arrested since the movement began. Two pro-democracy election candidates, Osman Cheng and Richard Chan, were seen being taken away by the police.

Court Blocks Online Messages That 'Incite Violence'

• • A Hong Kong court on Friday granted a government request to temporarily bar anyone from "disseminating, circulating, publishing or republishing" information that "promotes, encourages or incites the use or threat of violence."
  • The order specifically cited Telegram, a messaging app, and LIHKG, a Reddit-like messaging forum. Both are widely used by demonstrators to organize protests.
  • The ban came one week after another court barred the publicfrom harassing police officers, including taking their photos while on duty or posting their personal details online.

Beijing Signals Renewed Push for 'Patriotic Education'

• • Chinese Communist Party leaders who met in Beijing during the past week signaled that they were exploring a tougher approach to the unrest in Hong Kong. Mainland officials renewed a call for "patriotic education" in the territory, aimed at fostering greater loyalty to China.
  • Shen Chunyao, the head of a central government committee that oversees policy in Hong Kong, also indicated that Beijing might revise how the top official in Hong Kong, called the chief executive, is appointed. He confirmed that the Chinese government was considering new legal measures to "safeguard national security" in Hong Kong.

Candidates Seek to Convert Public Anger Into Votes

• • The demonstration on Saturday in Victoria Park was an unusual combination of protest and election rally. Candidates for district council carried banners and wore sashes bearing their names; they talked with potential voters as thousands of people dressed in black milled about.
  • "There are many ways to struggle and fight back against the government, from inside the institutions and outside the institutions," said Sam Cheung, 26, a university tutor and district council candidate from the Tuen Mun area in northern Hong Kong.
  • The elections, scheduled for Nov. 24, will test the protest movement's ability to take advantage of its momentum to gain institutional influence. That effort suffered a blow this past week when a government official barred Joshua Wong, a prominent activist, from running in the district council race.
    Elaine Yu contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Christopher Buckley from Beijing.
    
    

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5) Iraq Demonstrations Grow, and Government Scrambles to Respond
By Alissa J. Rubin, November 1, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/world/middleeast/iraq-protests.html

The demonstration in Baghdad on Friday was the largest in a month's worth of protests.Credit...Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Tens of thousands of Iraqis, with support from Shiite religious authorities and the country's president, gathered in the center of the capital on Friday in the largest of a month's worth of antigovernment protests.

Two demonstrators were killed, but pronouncements from religious and political leaders appear to have staved off a repeat of the violence of the early days of the demonstrations, when security forces killed nearly 150 protesters. 

The religious authorities said Friday that the government should protect peaceful protesters who have called for an end to corruption and a change in leadership, a message that was echoed by President Barham Salih. 

Although casualties were down and the security forces appear to have exercised restraint, the respite rests on a knife's edge.

Behind the scenes, the security forces and civilian officials have discussed almost daily whether to use force to oust protesters from the Jumhuriya Bridge, which spans the Tigris River and leads to the Green Zone, a government and diplomatic center. 

So far they have not, in order to avoid a repeat of the deadly, early-October violence that transformed what were initially small antigovernment protests into a nationwide movement. In addition to the deaths, thousands of protesters were wounded.

Parliament and government officials are discussing ways to meet at least some of the protesters' demands, and Mr. Salih seemed to put himself squarely on the side of the demonstrators.

"The status quo is unsustainable. We are in need of big changes," Mr. Salih said.

"There is no security solution," he added. "We reject repression and the use of force and violence. The solution is in reforms." 

Mr. Salih has proposed discarding the current electoral system, in which voters cast ballots for a list of candidates belonging to a particular political party. Instead, under his plan, they would vote for representatives by district, a move intended to make members of Parliament more accountable to constituents and to reduce the influence of the political parties.

Mr. Salih also said that Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi would resign, but only after the parties anoint a successor to avoid a power vacuum. 

Opposition politicians and many protesters have called on Mr. Mahdi to resign, prompting him to offer to step down in a letter this week to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who has been encouraging the protests. 

The president's repetition of Mr. Mahdi's intentions seemed aimed at reassuring Iraqis that the offer was genuine. "The prime minister has expressed his willingness to submit his resignation, asking the political blocs to reach an acceptable alternative," Mr. Salih said.

Both the United States and Iran have weighed in on the protests, signaling that they view calm in Iraq as a priority. But while the United States has sided with the demonstrators, Iran has charged that the unrest has been fomented by Israel and the United States. 

One of the victims on Friday, the first woman to lose her life in the demonstrations, was hit on the head by a tear-gas canister. 

The tear gas used by Iraqi security forces is delivered in metal canisters that function like grenades, causing "gruesome wounds and death after the grenade embeds in the skull," Amnesty International said in a report this week. 

"The tear gas is not being used as a dispersal mechanism," added Belkis Wille, the senior Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch. "It's being used in lieu of live ammunition."

Falih Hassan contributed reporting.

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6) ‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests
By Amanda Taub, November 3, 2019
"As free trade, new technologies, the rise of China, and other seismic changes have reshaped the world’s economies, political divisions have emerged between those who gain from the current system and those who do not."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/americas/chile-protests.html

A million or more Chileans took to the streets on Oct. 25. (Photo by Tomas Munita)

SANTIAGO, Chile — The suddenness of the protests, the anger that spilled onto the streets every day, might have been surprising anywhere. But in the country often lauded as Latin America’s great economic success story, it has shocked the world.

For three weeks, Chile has been in upheaval. One day alone, more than a million people took to the streets of Santiago, the capital.

Perhaps the only people not shocked are Chileans. In the chaos, they see a reckoning. The promise that political leaders from the left as well as right have made for decades — that free markets would lead to prosperity, and prosperity would take care of other problems — has failed them.

“Chile woke up,” thousands of protesters chanted one recent Sunday afternoon in Santiago’s O’Higgins Park.

For a while, the promise seemed to be working. The country moved from dictatorship to democracy in 1990, and decades of economic growth and democracy followed, with one government peacefully replacing another. 

But that growth did not reach all Chileans.

Inequality is still deeply entrenched. Chile’s middle class is struggling with high prices, low wages, and a privatized retirement system that leaves many older people in bitter poverty. And a series of corruption and tax-evasion scandals have eroded faith in the country’s political and corporate elite.

“This is a sort of legitimacy crisis,” said Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, a political scientist at Diego Portales University in Santiago. “People start to say, ‘O.K., why is it we have to pay that, and the very rich are not paying their fair share?” 

“And at the same time, we have a political class that’s totally out of touch,” Mr. Kaltwasser added.

In an attempt to restore order, President Sebastián Piñera scrapped the four-cent subway fare increase that set off the initial demonstrations. Then he deployed the military in Chile’s streets for the first time since the country’s transition to democracy. 

When that didn’t quell the protests, Mr. Piñera went on television to ask for forgiveness and promise higher pensions, better health coverage, higher taxes for the rich and pay cuts for politicians. Later, he asked his cabinet to resign.

But demonstrators were not convinced.

At the protest in O’Higgins park, that was certainly the view of Luis Ochoa Pérez, who was selling flags near the entrance. 

“The abuses haven’t stopped,” he said, “so we have to go into the streets.”

His best-selling flag, of his own design, demanded Mr. Piñera’s resignation.

Minutes later, it sold out.

‘It’s Not 30 Pesos, It’s 30 Years’

Javiera López Layana, 24, an activist and student at the University of Chile who helped organize the protest, was buzzing with excitement. 

Many of the speakers had used the term “el pueblo” when describing the Chilean people, she pointed out. To an outsider, it seemed like a tiny detail. But that term, which in Latin America is associated with the left, had been taboo in Chile for as long as Ms. López could remember. Its resurgence seemed as if it could be a harbinger of more significant change.

The end of the Pinochet dictatorship, in 1990, came with an implicit caveat: Military rule would end, but the socialist policies of Salvador Allende, the leftist president Gen. Augusto Pinochet had deposed in a coup, would not return. Subsequent governments preserved the extreme laissez-faire economic system imposed in the 1970s and 1980s.

But today, widespread public anger over the inequality and economic precarity that many Chileans see as a consequence of that system means that conservative economic policies may be more of a threat to political stability than a means of ensuring it. 

“It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years” has become one of the slogans of the protests — a reference to the proposed metro fare increase that set off the crisis and to the three decades since military rule ended.

The country’s median salary is now about $540 per month — below the poverty line for a family of four, said Marco Kremerman, an economist with the Fundación Sol, a left-leaning think tank in Santiago. Median payments in the national private pension program, the only safety net for retirees, are about $200 per month.

There is broad agreement, among protesters and experts alike, that the country needs structural reforms. Replacing the current Constitution, which was adopted under the dictatorship, would also signify that Chile is emerging from the 30-year shadow of the Pinochet regime.

“When we’re in debt, living in misery and impoverished, we don’t necessarily think of the Constitution,” Ms. López said. “But in the end, we need to make changes.”

Generation Fearless

That evening, Ms. López and her family gathered around the kitchen table at their home in Lo Espejo, a working-class municipality far from the city center, and discussed the protest movement. 

Seeing the military once again patrolling the streets had brought painful memories, long repressed, to the surface.

Ms. López’s grandfather revealed to her, for the first time, that he had been arrested during the military regime, and his sister killed by the government, because they had hidden a leftist politician and his family, then helped them escape to safety abroad.

Her father described how dictatorship had divided Lo Espejo in his youth. One neighbor, who still lived nearby, was interrogated and tortured by a man they had both grown up with. Another had a sister who worked for DINA, the feared secret police.

In part because of those experiences, they have been cautious about joining the protests, even if they support the goals.

“Javiera’s generation, they grew up without fear of the dictatorship,” said Ms. López’s mother, Pamela Inés Layana Guendelman. “She’s fearless.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ms. López said.

“But it enrages me” she said, as tears welled in her eyes. “Every time I go to a protest in Plaza Italia, or a protest in La Alameda, I have to come back here, to Lo Espejo, and see the same crap, the same misery, that has been there for many governments. And nothing has changed at all.”

In many ways, Ms. López personifies the contradictions of Chile’s political crisis.

Her parents and grandfather strained to send her to private schools, she was the first in her family to go to college, and she now hopes to attend graduate school. At least on paper, Ms. López seems to be a success story, proof of the benefits that hard work is supposed to bring under Chile’s free-market system.

But when she reached the University of Chile, she said, she confronted an educational system that seemed designed to keep her in Lo Espejo forever. Though a scholarship covered much of her tuition, she has still had to borrow money to complete her degree. Getting a master’s will mean borrowing even more.

“Education was supposed to be our ladder out of poverty,” she said. “But the debt turns out to be a heavy backpack.” Her background may also dilute the value of her degree: Employers are widely believed to discriminate against candidates from poorer social classes.

Families like hers have become a new constituency in Chile, one that has sacrificed to succeed in a supposedly meritocratic system, only to find that they are still excluded from its benefits. 

“There is this discourse of merit, of striving, of how ‘you should get up earlier,’” she said. “But even if we get up early, nothing is going to change.”

The Larger Conflict

One recent day, at the near-shuttered University of Chile, as clouds of tear gas billowed outside, student leaders scrolled through Instagram and Twitter posts announcing demonstrations.

“We are the generation for whom the joy never came,” said one of them, Nicole Martínez, 26. Her words were a bitter twist on “joy is coming,” the slogan from the campaign that ended military rule.

But the Chilean political crisis is not unique to Chile. It carries unmistakable echoes of a problem that is at the center of political conflict all over the developed world.

As free trade, new technologies, the rise of China, and other seismic changes have reshaped the world’s economies, political divisions have emerged between those who gain from the current system and those who do not.

In much of Europe and the United States, onetime industrial towns declined as economic growth accrued to large, globally connected cities, instead. For many, even those who have seen modest objective improvements in their own standards of living, watching others surge ahead while they struggle has left them feeling angry and disillusioned. In many countries, trust in institutions is falling, surveys show.

The same economic changes have shattered longstanding political coalitions, weakening mainstream parties. Far-right populists and other outsider politicians have moved to fill the vacuum left behind.

And with no effective channels for public anger, mass frustration has erupted into protest movements like France’s Yellow Vests and the demonstrations in Chile.

The Chilean movement, like the Yellow-Vest movement, has no clear leaders, said Ms. Martínez, with information mostly spreading through people’s social networks.

“It is a social explosion,” she said.

Pascale Bonnefoy contributed reporting

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