28 August 2006

Radicales K

Se rompe pero no se dobla (
You can say anything about President Kirchner, but you have to admit that he manages to be in the center of almost everything political. Lo and behold, he has just broken up a 100-year-old party! The Radical Civic Union (UCR), after adding compulsory presidential resignation to its centenary partisan tradition and getting beaten to a pulp in every election, has decided that compromise (aka the "screw-the-principles strategy") is the best choice, and a number of them became Radicales K ("K Radicals"), where the K is for Kirchner. Página/12, the leftist newspaper with creative if not helpful headlines, loves using that K (I'd say they popularized it). La Nación, the rightist newspaper that passes as the serious and unbiased representative of "the people" (what's that Fox News motto?), has succumbed to this usage too. I don't know what the Radicales K think. Is it politically correct (in both senses) to call them "K"? Shouldn't they be termed something more descriptive and flattering, like "Radicals for Victory" or "Radicals Unbound" (by tradition, morals, whatever)?

Ironically, one of the founders of the party, Leandro Alem, gave the UCR and Argentina this wonderful motto with regards to principles: Se rompe pero no se dobla, "It breaks but it does not bend". Broken it is, and probably bent over too.

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