I ran into a beautiful bit of doublespeak this morning. In his critic of the European and Latin American left during the 1980s, the French political scientists Guy Hermet referred to Peru’s “progressive military dictatorship” and noted a “redefinition of democracy in Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Honduras, and Guatemala” since 1979. I am going to say that a “progressive military dictatorship” is an oxymoron and to call the actions of the murderous regimes in Central America and the Southern Cone a “redefinition of democracy” is an act of mental and moral gymnastics.
Andrew W. Wilson 