After the elections

The legislative elections are over, and if you're following the news, you'll be surely aware of the big picture: Néstor Kirchner has lost, the government's power in Congress has been cut down, and several presidenciables (that is, likely presidential candidates) are already lining up (or have been lined up by the media) for the 2011 election.

So I'll just concentrate on the small things and the analysis. First, let's get Kirchner out of the way... Néstor Kirchner lost to Francisco de Narváez by a handful of votes, a lot of votes actually, but only about two-and-a-half percent of the Buenos Aires Province vote. Of course, what happened is that the list of candidates headed by NK got a few votes less than that led by FDN; in formal terms it was a tie, but Kirchner's insistence on the paramount importance of this election worked like a self-fulfilled prophecy: almost everyone assumed positions as if it were the one and final battle of a war, and the election turned into an opportunity to bash the government. And bashed it was: Kirchner, who had achieved record levels of popularity during his term, lost to a group of the strangest bedfellows politics has inflicted on us as of late, led by a right-wing Colombian-born multimillionaire with an image constructed hastily by the media in a matter of months. Many of the so-called "barons" of Greater Buenos Aires, who rule the poorest and most densely populated parts of Argentina as virtual feudal lords and are keen observers of reality, betrayed their alliance with Kirchner, unnanounced.

In any case, after what must have been a very long night and a terrible day, Kirchner dutifully resigned from the presidency of the Justicialist Party. He released a short video accepting the defeat and I swear he looked mildly drugged.

Yesterday in the afternoon, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner gave a press conference. First she started out by reciting highly optimistic figures for the composition of the new Congress, and feigned not to have the exact numbers of her husband's defeat on hand (while, as everyone knows, she probably had the figures down to the least significant digit painfully etched in her short-term memory). Then she tried to turn the whole thing on its head, pointing out how an awful lot of people had still voted for the government's party. When a journalist pointed out that she'd gotten 45% of the vote when she was elected and now her husband got only 31%, she was upset and accused the media of having a double standard because they hadn't gone and asked that to Mauricio Macri and his candidate Gabriela Michetti (in the City of Buenos Aires, Michetti got 30% of the vote, only half of what Macri and her had gotten two years ago). She also resented the petitio principii of a journalist who asked about the manipulation of INDEC's figures of inflation — which did beg the question, of course, because the government has never admitted to that manipulation, although everyone, including some of the president's favorite economists, is certain of it.

At that point, approximately, I stopped watching the press conference. It was pointless. Either Cristina has learned nothing or she needs a few days to let it sink in, but based on previous experience, the latter is unlikely. We're left with the hope that she won't attempt something funny before December, when the new Congressmen will take their seats.

Before the elections (III)

This is probably a breach of electoral law, but what the heck, these are littering the streets everywhere... This is my vote for tomorrow:

As you see, the ballot has two parts; on the left is the vote for the senators of the Progressive Front (whose major force is the Socialist Party, which rules Santa Fe Province since 2007 and Rosario since 1989), and on the right, the vote for the deputies (diputados, or what Americans would call Representatives). I'm mainly supporting Rubén Giustiniani for senator, and against the ghastly Carlos Reutemann. I don't care much about the deputies — on that department my vote is for the coalition rather than the candidates.

If I wanted to, I could vote for different parties, by manually cutting the ballots along the vertical dotted line; senators and deputies are formally separate elections after all. Or I could just vote for senator Giustiniani and leave the deputies' place blank (i.e. not placing any vote for deputies in the envelope I'll be given), but I feel it's important to strengthen the opposition in the Lower House.

I'll be voting at my old primary school, about four blocks from my house, probably just before noon as usual. Then we'll all have to wait until eight or nine in the evening to get the preliminary results. I'll blog about that as soon as I can.

Before the elections (II)

I left out some details in my previous post about the upcoming legislative election, just to keep it short and avoid digression. I think I need to clarify some things, for those who don't live in Argentina and have no idea what's the voting system is like. Some general information can be found in the Wikipedia articles Elections in Argentina and Argentine legislative election, 2009, but here I'm interested in the little things that make fraud and deceitful tactics easy (or easier).

There are two kinds of problems with this election (and many past ones): what I'd call ethical problems, and systemic problems. The latter are technical details; the former are often allowed (or encouraged) by the latter. Let me explain.

The main systemic problem in legislative elections is the fact that, for Deputies (the members of the Lower House), we use proportional representation, whereby you vote for party-approved lists of candidates, rather than single candidates. The more votes a list receives, the more candidates the party gets elected. This in itself is not bad, but in a very uninformed society like Argentina's, it means most people don't know who they're voting for, beyond the first candidate in the list, who's usually chosen to be as charismatic and well-known a character as possible. Most of our current representatives never have to do any campaigning besides standing next to the "poster guy", and get elected merely because they've secured (by whatever means) a place in the list.

Compounding this, there's another problem with the system: we use paper ballots as a universal means of vote, and each party or coalition is in charge of printing and supplying the public with their ballots. When you go to vote, you're let into a cuarto oscuro (literally, a "dark room", though of course it's not dark) where you face dozens of piles of ballots, each with different logos, party symbols, colors, etc. The ballots for each party have the party name and the first candidate in the list printed in large type; the second and maybe the third and fourth candidates in the list are printed somewhat smaller, and the rest are in normal type. There's nothing to stop the sensible, concerned citizen from reading and assessing the whole list, but as I said, Argentina's political culture is very primitive, so most people only know the first candidate and will vote for him or her without paying attention to the rest of the bandwagon, or simply look for the party name among the ballots and put that into the envelope.

The different ballots thing also enables a whole host of fraudulent activities. For example, pseudo-parties created with the sole purpose of having an extra ballot in the "dark room" and confuse the voters, either by closely mimicking the name and typography chosen by another party, or by suggesting there are alternatives where there aren't (in this case the pseudo-party might be a "mirror" of another party — different name, same candidates). There are (in)famous cases of parties registered only to have a first candidate with a last name very similar to a major candidate of another party.

The state must pay for the ballots so each party has an opportunity to participate even if it doesn't have a lot of contributors. In every election, many little parties pop into existence, ask the state for money to print their ballots, and vanish. Control is absent.

If the ballots for a party run out, they have to be replenished by the delegates of the party present in the election table. If the party couldn't provide a delegate, the ballots won't be replenished and some people might have to go without voting for the party they had in mind. So it's a very common practice in some areas for voters to be sent into the voting rooms to steal or ruin other party's ballots. People can be also sent in to plant fake ballots for a competing party, differring from the real ones by minor details that won't be noticed by the voters, but will be cause for voiding them afterwards, during the count.

It's quite clear these problems exist and could be easily solved by printing a single standard ballot, with the names of all the candidates in it, and having the voters mark them with a pen, as is done in other countries. It's also very clear why this hasn't been done — the party that most benefits from these tactics is the one in power, and wishes to remain so.

Some other problems with the system derive from the fact that the laws regulating the elections are lax, and moreover, nobody respects them, and the judges are unable or unwilling to do anything about it. But mostly the remaining problem is one of ethics. There's no law forbidding a person from running as candidate to a post he or she will never accept once elected (or will accept only to resign immediately), but in a normal society such dishonest behavior would be punished by public opinion; in Argentina, however, we have "testimonial candidates" at the top of the public's preferences.

The main offender in the ethics field is, no doubt, the Front for Victory, i.e. Kirchnerism. As is regrettably usual in Argentine politics, but taken to the extreme by the ruling couple and their allies, there's a confusion and merging of the conceptual limits of state, government and party. One sees Néstor Kirchner campaigning and can almost forget he's only a candidate in a given district — the full structure of the national government has been put at his disposal (funds, transportation, official coverage, the Cabinet, the President herself), even though it's illegal (and even more so because it's just before an election). We have no president, we have a ruling cabal presided by Néstor Kirchner, and Congress is virtually non-existent.

There are many who still passionately support the Kirchners because of their past achievements regarding human rights, the renewel of the Supreme Court, and the economic recovery, as well as the idea (unfounded in my opinion) that their ethical "rough edges" will be polished in time. Despite the fact that wealth inequality hasn't decreased and that the Kirchners show no sign of changing their friends' capitalism for socialism, many in the left still believe "the model" is an ongoing revolution towards a better country. Others don't have that faith, but refuse to position themselves against the Kirchners because they know the opposition is worse.

Despite all the problems with our system, I still hope we can all change this state of affairs. Right now the battle between Kirchnerism and opposition is a zero-sum game. Maybe after next Sunday, or next year (once the candidates have taken office) the politicians who haven't done anything but fight each other will find a way to discuss and, if necessary, compromise, so we can move on.

Before the elections

It's only a few days to the legislative election, so this is a brief "state of the campaign" post. I'll refrain from emphasizing the appallingly low level of today's politics, if only because the post would turn into in a long, bitter rant if I tried to convey that.

First, my home district, Santa Fe. Here the senatorial race is the major one, because we have two great contenders: former two-time governor Carlos Reutemann, and Rubén Giustiniani, backed by current governor and former two-time mayor of Rosario Hermes Binner. Both candidates are already senators and both are sure to be reelected; the real issue is, first, who will win (even by one vote), and in a distant second place, which party will get the third senator.

Reutemann is a well-known, wealthy, conservative Peronist who for some reason (certainly not his charisma or his performance when in office) has consistently captured over a third of the vote in every election. Giustiniani is your typically neat low-profile militant of the very moderate (almost European-like) Socialist Party who ran (big mistake!) as candidate for the vice-presidency next to Elisa Carrió in 2007. Reutemann is playing the anti-Kirchnerist card, an attribute he earned by positioning himself against the ruling couple on the issue of Resolution 125, even though he barely did anything but raise his hand on command on all other issues. Since half the population of the province barely knows Giustiniani, until a few months ago Reutemann took his triumph for granted, but since governor Binner stepped into the campaign, Giustiniani has come close to his opponent, to the point that the predicted result is very close to a tie.

The leading candidates for the Chamber of Deputies are almost completely unknown; they're only getting votes because they'll be on the same paper ballot as their respective senators. Ironically, the only candidate everyone knows is the one heading for the distant third place: Agustín Rossi, by now politically disgraced in his own home turf due to his complete, unwavering submission to Néstor Kirchner.

In the Province of Buenos Aires, well... you have a contest of unscrupulous millionaires, a huge, impoverished clientele, well-oiled political machines with their filthy cogs obscenely in view and no-one doing anything about it, the government doing campaign for its party with state funds, the opposition wipping up the visceral hate for the Kirchners of the mostly right-wing citizenry, and no government proposals whatsoever except for "it's us or chaos". It's sleazy. So you'll forgive me if I refuse to take one more step into that crap.

Several problems with this election and with the system in general: first, the ballots printed by each party with their own candidates (instead of a universal ballot where you have to select what you want), which leaves ample space for fraud and many borderline illegal practices; second, the use of (linear) proportional representation in a country like Argentina, with a ridiculously skewered population distribution, which makes it possible for a party to win an election just by concentrating their efforts on a few hundred square kilometers crammed full with very poor, very influentiable people; third, the lack of political awareness of most of the citizens, understandably tired of anything to do with politics, which makes it easy for opportunists to flourish and for the unscrupulous to "disappear in the crowd".

I feel fortunate that I inhabit a district where, at least, the choices are clear-cut and the fight has not turned dirty beyond words. I won't vote for Reutemann, the love child of Carlos Menem and completely deprived of ideas besides his own plans to maintain influence; I won't vote for Rossi, a mouthpiece of the Executive Branch who would bring its own province to its knees to further the Kirchnerist agenda of centralized control; I'll vote for Giustiniani, who has some ideas I like and belongs to a structured political project that's going in the (general) right direction.

Testimonial candidates, or, lying for Kirchner

In the past, people voted for parties. But the candidates were important. They were expected to support the party platform, but also to do things independently, since a party's legislative bloc is not a committee. Otherwise it would be simpler to choose one representative per party and give each a certain number of beans to represent their voting power.

When Resolution 125 was killed in the Senate, the Kirchners realized that legislators were not beans they could count and hold in their hands. But Cristina and Néstor still need their beans. Now they're dangerously close to losing the majority, they'll do anything to retain it, including the latest fad: "testimonial" candidates.

Testimonial candidates are the quintessential beans. They're not even expected to get elected and then vote as the party leader tells them: their only function is to bring in votes. They're expected to resign without even taking office and leave their place to their stand-ins and to the next ones in the list. This is so because testimonial candidates must perforce be highly visible characters with political influence, and these are already taken up, mostly at executive positions, so they're not to be "wasted" as mere beans.

A few weeks ago, Néstor Kirchner told a number of loyal governors and mayors of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area to run for legislative posts, with the understanding that they'd have to campaign and let their valuable names be placed in big bold letters at the top of ballots, but nothing else. They are to (unofficially) take a couple of months off from their government obligations and just get elected. Most of the mayors accepted to run for the post of city council member. Some said they wouldn't, but offered to put their spouses or children on the lists instead (that's advertising by association for you); after all it's not as if beans must know what to do once elected, except raise their hands at the appropriate moments. The governors weren't so obedient, but Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires, the largest and wealthiest province of Argentina, complied. He's now the best known of testimonial candidates.

Why "testimonial"? Well, the Kirchners believe (or want us to believe — it's not clear) that they're leading a movement based on a certain "model". El modelo is said to stand for a lot of very nice things, like wealth redistribution and social justice. It's like Christian salvation. Like religious believers, the governors and mayors are being told to testify. Their contribution to "the model" is to be where the leader tells them to, defending the bean count (i.e. the legislative majority). There's no need for them to take office; once the beans are in place, it doesn't matter who they are; in fact, it's better if they're not well-known, politically experienced people, as these tend to become ambitious on their own. The testimonial candidates just stand there saying "I support this model".

Whether this insulting farce will work or not, we'll see after June 28.

25 years of democracy

Today it's been 25 years since the formal return of democracy in Argentina. On October 20, 1983 a democratically elected president, Raúl Alfonsín, took office after more than seven years of dictatorship and over half a century of erratic shifts between legal presidents and military usurpers.

My personal reckoning is that, although I was born exactly six months after the coup d'état, I have so far spent four fifths of my life under democratic rule. During that time I've voted quite a few times: three times for president (1999, 2003, 2007), four for governor (1995, 1999, 2003, 2007) and many more, at least once every two years to elect national and provincial legislators, and once every four years to elect city mayors and councilmembers, plus a couple of primaries. My generation is possibly the one that has voted the most times during the entire history of this country.

On the national level I've always either voted for the loser... or later regretted not voting for him. During all this time, this thing that gets called "the democratic process" hasn't offered me much satisfaction. But I don't want to despair. Never has Argentina experienced so many years (a quarter of a century!) of uninterrupted free elections on all the levels of government. We move on and crises hit us and sometimes we'd rather have everything blow apart, but in our heart of hearts we know and wish it will go on no matter what.

I have my reservations and my protests in store and readily available, but today I want to end this on a positive note. For 25 years now we've refused, as a people, to be deprived of our right to choose, and even when all our options look bad, we always have one more chance ahead of us. And that counts.

(El texto original de este post, en castellano, está disponible en Sin calma: 25 años de democracia.)

March of the penguins, part 2: Two down and counting

Things are moving in the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Although the Scourge of Statisticians Guillermo Moreno hasn't been removed (yet?), Secretary of Agriculture Javier de Urquiza had to go, and today the unthinkable happened: Chief of Cabinet Alberto Fernández has resigned. De Urquiza was replaced by Carlos Cheppi, formerly head of INTA (the National Agricultural Technology Institute). Fernández's place will be filled by Sergio Massa, up to now mayor of Tigre, Buenos Aires, who led ANSES (the National Social Security Administration) back in 2002. On inquiry, Massa said he'll be there to serve as "the President's spare tire". What personality.

Alberto Fernández, the man I once called "quite possibly the most aggressively ignorant and intolerant minister Argentina has ever had" and "that filthy rat", has been with us for a long time; when Cristina Kirchner was elected he was one of the many things left over from Néstor's government she should've thrown away as quickly as possible, and didn't. As both presidents' mouthpiece (the official spokesman for the Presidency was merely decorative), Alberto was in charge of implementing the policy of constant derision of the opposition and the media that made Néstor Kirchner well-known as a "strong and confrontational leader" — which he was, until he became simply a bully. But Fernández started to fade together with the Kirchners' popularity ratings, and he just wasn't himself since the long farm tax crisis began, during which he conducted unsuccessful meetings with the farming leaders. Rumours of his resignation had popped up every now and then since April or May.

This government defends its own members more than it cares for its own sustainability, its image, or its results. Fernández should've been expelled when he was the most aggressive and the most unpleasant in the eyes of public opinion; most people would've liked his shrill voice to be silenced, and the government would've scored points; now his resignation won't serve any real purpose. But hey, one less Fernández can't be a bad thing altogether.

Some recent pearls of wisdom from Alberto Fernández:

• In May 2007, as inflation grew beyond the obfuscation powers of Guillermo Moreno's INDEC: "The opposition candidates are dealing irresponsibly with the issue of inflation… They're trying to create inflationary expectations in order to ruin Argentinians' lives."
• In August: "[After Néstor Kirchner's four year term] we are standing at the gates of paradise."
• In September: "There's no inflation in Argentina."
• After the 2007 presidential election, which Cristina won in the countryside (!) and lost in the big cities (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario): "I ask porteños to stop voting and thinking as if they were an island."
  

They say Alberto is ill and with high fever right now, possibly because of stress. We don't want that. Get well, Alberto! And then get away. Buh-bye!

Julio Cobos hits Kirchner with a piece of sanity

Yesterday at about 4:15 AM I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and went to the kitchen grab a glass of water. I'd gone to bed early, as usual, the latest news reporting that the government's export tax bill had accumulated 37 votes as announced by the senators themselves, with 35 votes for the opposition. So it was with masochistic intent that I turned on the TV, expecting to see hordes of Kirchnerists beating drums and waving banners in celebration of the victory of their leader's will.

What I saw instead was Vice President Julio Cobos, presiding the Senate, slowly taking the microphone, and at the bottom of the TV screen there was a huge announcement: "URGENT - THERE IS A TIE AT THE SENATE - COBOS HAS TO BREAK IT". The vote tally (as announced) was 36–36. A senator had done a major flip-flop at the last minute. Cobos wanted to put off the vote and continue the debate later to reach a consensus, but the leader of the majority had rejected it outright with a biblical quote: "What you must do, do quickly" — Jesus' admonition to Judas. Cobos took a while. First he ordered the vote. It was a tie. In this case and only in this case, the president of the Senate gets a vote to add to the 72 senators.

Cobos then took the mike (and here I was, half naked and suddenly very awake before the screen in the dark kitchen) and with a croaky voice and many pauses, he explained that he had to follow his inner convictions, that he thought the bill as it was was less than useless, that he hoped he would be forgiven if he made a mistake, and finally (by the time the leader of the majority looked like he was about to explode) that he could not vote yes.

The session ended in a mess. Canal 7, the state channel, immediately cut the transmission and went back to some old documentary. The rest of the news channels switched to hurried analyses of the vote and to the triumphal speech by Eduardo Buzzi, president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation, in the farmers' encampment in Palermo. I went back to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I got up again at 5:30 to go to work.

The papers closed late to catch the news. The papers from Buenos Aires must have arrived in Rosario at about 10 AM, and then they disappeared from the stands. Everybody was speaking about Cobos and the Kirchners. The vibe I caught (I don't presume to speak for the whole of public opinion) was cheerful and hopeful. Like when you're watching a movie and the bad guy is beaten for the first time and the happy ending is not there yet, but you can see it coming. The only concern was for the Kirchners' ability to process the opposition, accept it, and work to fix what's wrong — an ability to accept they might not be absolutely and automatically right every time — an ability they have so far shown not to possess in the slightest.

Yesterday afternoon Cristina went to one of those stupid inaugurations she likes so much, and gave a calm speech where she spoke of "defection" and of "those who haven't yet understood what our project is, but eventually will", avoiding names. Two hours ago she'd had to call a few people to notify them she wouldn't resign, a rumour that had been floated by her own close ones, and which was apparently was what Néstor Kirchner wanted.

I wrote about this in a slightly different mood on Sin calma. If you read Spanish, check out Es para Kirchner que lo mira por tevé. I still have lots of things to say in both places.

To be continued

Rallies in Buenos Aires

Today the Senate is going to start discussing the export tax bill, which, as you will remember, were approved by the Chamber of Deputies by a difference of only seven votes. Although the Peronist majority in the Senate is even greater than in the lower house, senators are much more committed to their local constituencies. A significant number of Peronist senators are voting no to the government-sponsored bill. Only one or two votes decided at the last minute might make all the difference, and it's entirely possible that there's a tie — in which case the president of the Senate, Vice-president Julio Cobos, will have to break it.

Both Kirchners (the formal president, Cristina, and the de facto one, Néstor) and their high-profile ministers have been wooing the senators, pressuring them, threatening them, to get votes. The end result we'll only see later today, or tomorrow.

The farmers' organizations and the national government are organizing parallel rallies for today in Buenos Aires. The farmers want to (but probably won't) repeat the numeric performance of the May 25 meeting in Rosario, and the government wants to do better than the farmers. Néstor Kirchner has the mob-like truck drivers' union on his side, plus the Peronist Youth and a few other useful idiot clubs, to provide him with a lot of screaming fans, and the farmers have received the support of a true Prince of Sleaze, the leader of the Gastronómicos (the bar and restaurant workers' union).

It's all pretty stupid if you ask me. And divisive, and dangerous. The rallies are basically a bragging competition and won't serve any purpose. Néstor Kirchner is simply unable to stay quiet and hope for the best, and his hateful insolence is contagious. And the farmers must know that this is it, that they're not going to change anybody's mind now, because this has long ago ceased to be about taxes. It's all about ideology and people's conceptions of what government must handle power.

I believe that Kirchnerism is fascism, just as old-time Peronism was — corporatist, demagogical, perversely fusing patriotism with partisan loyalty, corrupt to its very dark core by its own nature. It must be brought down, by legitimate means, because it's wrecking the economy and destroying our dignity.

I don't believe for one second that this is the worst government we might have had at this time. Neither do I believe that the wealthy farmers would choose a better government (better for us) if they had the opportunity.

But the thing I believe the least is that we must somehow choose either populism or oligarchy, and violently reject the possibility of alternatives, the possibility of dialogue and compromise. I'd rather have no rival rallies hurling abuse at each other, no passionate masses in the public squares, no more demonstrations. Not for a while, at least. We'll have to do a lot of cleaning up, as a people, after this.

More complicated than seven votes

Last Saturday evening the mobile tax exports bill was approved by the Chamber of Deputies. Now it will go to the Senate, and if approved there it will become law.

Each politician and political pundit in Argentina has a slightly different view of the legislative debate and its result. The Kirchnerists are publicly exhilarated, though of course we don't know what they actually believe. For the hardcore K-people, it was a show of power and a triumph of loyalty. For the less sophisticated (the usefully idiotic palaeo-leftists, the Peronist Youth, and all the scum between those extremes), it was victory against the "oligarchy". For more than a few legislators, however, it was simply well-deserved relief from the strain of being pulled in several different directions — by the de facto President Néstor Kirchner, by the farmers, by the governors of agricultural provinces, by the urban middle class threatening with more cacelorazos, by our vulture-like media.

For the ones who lost, it was either the first step towards the unification of the opposition or merely one battle in a war that won't end soon. And they got a precious victory of principles: Cristina Kirchner had to subject to the will of Congress.

Mathematically, the result was simple enough: 129 to 122. The Front for Victory had to call on all of its allies for help, and some of their own defected. If three of the Río Negro deputies hadn't been offered a tax exemption that benefits the apple and pear producers of their province, the difference would've been reduced to one vote. If a certain deputy hadn't chosen to abstain at the last moment, instead of voting for the first minority, it would've been a tie. A year ago, even six months ago, Kirchnerism could've passed any law; yesterday it could've lost by a few votes, if only certain deputies hadn't been bought beforehand. That didn't happen, so the Kirchnerists won.

Néstor Kirchner won — the deputies explicitly ratified the authority of the President to set and modify export tariffs. This is so unconstitutional even a ten-year-old could take this matter as far as the Supreme Court, as it will most surely happen, but Kirchner has never been bothered by the law. The rest of the bill was changed almost beyond recognition — first it establishes a new tax and then it returns the money to 85% of the taxed. But the core of the problem, the one thing that matters to Néstor Kirchner, and which we citizens should never stop protesting — the short line that says that the President is entitled to do as she pleases with tariffs, is still there. So Kirchner can count this as a victory.

However, in a sense, it may be said he lost, too, and he's taking her wife and her party down with himself. Cristina Kirchner's approval rate has plummeted, most people don't believe she exercises power in more than symbolic fashion, the party is divided even at its core, and its alliances are coming apart. Right after Felipe Solá announced his vote against the export taxes, fellow Peronist deputy Carlos Kunkel called him "you traitor son of a bitch" so that everybody could hear. Vice-president Julio Cobos was told to "shut up" by an anonymous phone caller, echoing a previous, slightly more polite suggestion by minister Alberto Fernández. Cobos, who will be presiding the Senate next week, calmly replied he won't resign ("How could I resign, when so many people voted for me?"). Many of Kirchner's former allies, who are aligned with Cobos, will vote no to the taxes.

It's been almost four months since this all began, and everything has turned to the worse — consumer spending is down, credit rates are up to ridiculous levels, capital flight has accelerated, the high dollar-peso rate that made industrial exports competitive has had to be decreased to avoid a run on the dollar, and estimates of GDP growth have been taken down a couple of notches already. The export taxes that should've brought billions into the government's coffers are nowhere to be found, since the farmers refuse to sell, and the government is paying tens of billions per year to subsidize utilities and public services, and somehow has to honour a few additional billions of debt payments. Kirchner hates the idea of "cooling the economy", so public spending continues to rise. How will this end? One ugly word — stagflation.

English coverage:

• Al Jazeera: Argentina parliament backs tax hike
• Yahoo!News: Argentina grain tax bill clears lower house
• BBC News: Argentine MPs approve farm taxes
  

Congress making history — for good or bad

Another round in the government-vs.-farmers fight: last night the relevant committee in the lower house of Congress wrapped up a package of two different proposals to be debated by the whole Chamber of Deputies. One of them is a joint proposal of the opposition, which, after miraculously reaching an agreement, narrowed it down to "Let's suspend the President's bill for a while and see what we can do." This one was the most predictable, of course. It's in the minority, but it's quite a large minority.

There's a proposal championed by dissident Peronist, and former Buenos Aires Province governor, Felipe Solá, plus some other like him and many of the so-called Radicales K, i.e. former members of the Radical Civic Union. It's a compromise solution that maintains the mobile tax exports but decreases the amounts. If I got it correctly, this proposal doesn't count — the committee will only issue two, one for the minority and one for the majority.

The majority proposal is that of the Kirchnerists. What it basically says is "OK, we'll give you greedy farmers more subsidies, and if you ask for it using complicated forms we'll give you back some of the money we'll be unlawfully extracting from you in the first place." And then it explicitly says: "The President still has the right to do as she pleases with export taxes, no matter what the Constitution says, so all of the above is a joke."

The Kirchnerists say they have the votes it takes to pass the law — there's still some room for doubt, but wills can be bought, and they will. Needless to say, as soon as the law is passed the farmers will go back to the roads.

In the meantime, seeing how his own party turned to internal discussion (some legislators were actually thinking for themselves!), Néstor Kirchner has escalated his denunciations and threats. I won't be quoting him anymore, since it's sickening and pointless. The guy is clearly paranoid and very dangerous; in any normal country his own party would be shunning him (if only for political convenience), but Argentina being what it is, we'll have to wait until next year's elections to get rid of his influence.

This is all coming undone fast. Vice-president Julio Cobos hasn't spoken to Cristina in two weeks, since he started showing the common sense that seems to genetically absent in the Kirchners, and now even the ministers and senators tell him to shut up, which he says he won't. Cristina Kirchner seems unable to stop doing inflammatory speeches, but she can no longer get out of the safety zone. Kirchnerist shock troop commander Luis D'Elía went a bit far on his violent rants and was told to shut up and go abroad to preach his hypocritical "Revenge of the Poor" sermon, but the rest of the Kirchnerist mob is mobilized and waiting. Hebe de Bonafini was accused for inciting the take of official broadcasting media and asking for the farmers to be removed "with tear gas and sticks". Some politicians we saw as sensible, more-or-less honest representatives of the people have shown themselves as idiots and cowards at the very least, or simply as well-paid handmaids of the Kirchners.

It's painful process we're going through these days. The country is divided, and some of the worst elements in our society are working hard to widen the rifts. We've always had inept politicians, corrupt governments, economic uncertainty, but it's been long time since we had such violent popular leaders, such senseless verbal rage being poured on us without restraint. I'm optimistic, only in the sense I think it will all work out in the end. But how much time can we afford to lose?

The export tax: debate and circus

There are a lot of things to report about the the government vs. the farmers and the legislative handling of that infamous Resolución 125 (Bill No. 125 of the Executive Branch) that imposed mobile export taxes on soybeans. So many things, in fact, that I've been unable to summarize it these days. You simply can't stay on top of it all.

In short — No. 125 is being debated at the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house), although so far it's been more like a disordered assembly than a true discussion among lawmakers. Clearly as a dilatory measure, Kirchnerism staged an open meeting, where everyone who wished to do so could get in and listen. Insignificant organizations representing minuscule groups of interest demanded to be heard one after another, and the audience applauded or booed. In the meantime, different groups of politicians were lobbied or pressured in different directions, Néstor Kirchner tried to re-inforce his hateful black-and-white view of the issue, the president spoke here and there, the vice-president was rebuked and praised for his meeting with several opposition governors, and finally came... the tents.

First the farmer leader Alfredo De Angeli announced they were setting up a "green tent" on the square before Congress to mark their position. The Kirchnerists reacted quickly and set up several tents of their own. The government of Buenos Aires City ordered them to be taken down, but the Kirchnerist mob insulted the official in charge and refused to acknowledge the authority of the city government or its laws. The Federal Police was asked to intervene, but since it responds to orders of the national government, nothing happened. Yes, you got that right — the City of Buenos Aires has no police force of its own, and the police it's got simply won't enforce the law if the perpetrators are Kirchnerist militants. The government of Buenos Aires filed an accusation (the tents have no security measures and are invading public space without a permit) but a judge, prompted by a Kirchnerist deputy, granted them immunity, the reasoning being that once the tents are installed, the police would have to force the people out and that would be worse than letting them stay. Glory be to fait accompli!

There are now six Kirchnerist tents before Congress, with wooden floors, electric power and heating, plus pamphlets and plasma TV sets. The farmers finally set up their own, and the MAS (a socialist group) brought another one, favouring neither the government nor the farmers. The farmers also hired a giant inflatable bull, which was promptly named "Alfredito", while the Kirchnerists erected an inflatable penguin called "Néstor" (symbol of their leader) and supplied several of their pamphlet-handling militants with egg-shaped costumes. They're considering to bring in a mechanical bull as well. This sounds like a circus, and in a sense it is. Once the entertainment is over, however, no-one knows what might happen.

The government party would have enough legislators on both Houses to turn the presidential bill into law, but only if they were to align with the partisan line dictated by Néstor Kirchner. That won't happen. Most Deputies have had to accept that the bill won't pass unchanged, that they're going to have to concede some things. At least 30 and possibly even 40 Peronist Deputies are going to vote partially or totally against the bill, either because they know it's wrong as it is, or because their constituencies won't forgive them if they submit to Néstor K's wishes. (In fact, unless a miracle erases people's memories or typical Argentine political short-sightedness prevails, it's likely that Kirchnerism will suffer a terrible blow in the legislative elections next year. Some formerly popular politicians are already unable to walk the streets of their home towns without bodyguards.)

Many non-Peronist allies of K are unsure what to do or have already turned their backs on Kirchner, disturbed by his violent discourse and his wild accusations of widespread conspiracy against his wife the nominal president. The opposition is, as always, scattered, but they're converging on a couple of projects regarding the export taxes.

The farmers say that if Congress turns the bill into law without fundamental changes, they'll go back to the strike and take the roads again. Kirchner has told his fellow party members to raise their hands and pass the law exactly as it is. The need to find some middle ground and some compromise settlement is obvious and should be (for savvy politicians) a simple matter of time. But this is Argentina after all...

Crazy Argentina, take 4: Crumbling country

The campo-vs.-government conflict keeps getting nastier and nastier. The farmers went back to the roads, only to block grain trucks on their way to the ports; but the truck drivers, who haven't had any work for almost three months, decided to go after them and block the roads, in some cases letting only private cars and buses pass, or not even those. As in the first days of the farmers' protest, there are regions and cities almost isolated from each other — as of today it was very difficult to go from Rosario to the towns on the northern Greater Rosario, and impossible to get to Santa Fe.

Also, once again proving that the Kirchners and their minions have no moral boundaries, several opposition politicians and agricultural organizations' leaders have been summoned to court under accusations of illegally blocking roads (not that it's not illegal — it's just that Kirchnerist piqueteros don't usually receive such treatment, and never so swiftly); Néstor Kirchner says that he's ready to resist even as the whole country demands a peaceful solution ("This is a long fight and it's only begun…The government is going to show them it has the power") because the farmers' "would already have staged a coup if they had bayonets"; Kirchner's son Máximo says the Kirchnerist Youth are ready to kick farmers' ass if necessary; Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (co-owner of a US$11-million dollar luxury hotel in Patagonia) asked the farmers to "think of the poor", for whom apparently fake inflation rates are no longer enough; and the state-financed shock troop leader Luis D'Elía has warned that he and his gang are planning to "refresh the memory of the oligarchy" and they're coming to Rosario on Flag Day (June 20) to clean, so to speak, the stain left by the massive meeting of May 25.

In the meantime, there's a different protest every day, fuel and natural gas are running out, as are milk and dairy products, beef, vegetables. And of course, our patience.

May 25 in Rosario and Cristina Kirchner: Complain, deny, repeat

I was speaking, yesterday, of the meeting called by the agricultural organizations in Rosario last Sunday, May 25, to protest the export taxes and the government's handling of agriculture and cattle farming (from now on "the meeting of the campo"). In passing I mentioned the media coverage.

It appears that hundreds of reporters and photojournalists came to Rosario, and the meeting was, of course, in the cover of every newspaper the next day. The coverage itself was varied. La Nación, predictably, gave a lot of space to old-fashioned "common man in the street" personal testimonies, and romanticized the whole thing as an epic march of the dignified rural middle class. Both La Nación and Clarín supplied a lot of video and audio, and gloated over the defeat of the government strategy. Página/12, also predictably, attacked the meeting with irony, noting how some people who protest against taxes came to Rosario flying their own airplanes or driving brand-new SUVs.

Página also did another thing, which to me was an echo of the Kirchnerist model — denial and repetition. The online edition devoted more than 50% of its content to reposting old op-ed pieces dating from the beginning of the government-vs.-campo crisis. Some were brilliant, valuable arguments for the export taxes; some were sectarian, sentimental, others cold and technical; but they were all old. Pertinent, maybe, but old. Repeated. Why republish them?

That curious fact immediately reminded me of the Kirchnerist government's insistence on certain issues to the exclusion of a reality that's biting them in the nose — the grown-up equivalent of a child closing her eyes, covering her ears and shouting "la la la I can't hear you". Kirchner (Cristina/Néstor) doesn't want to see reality. That's why Cristina had thousands of people brought to her speech in Salta, and for that audience she reveled on her husband's administration's socioeconomic achievements. This time she kept it short. She's been known to go at it for an hour. Néstor Kirchner himself never tired of congratulating himself about the economy on every single speech he gave. Repetition, noise, a mantra of figures of poverty, GDP, employment, exports, industrial production. Nonsense. Even the true parts.

Why nonsense? Argentina is doing badly on many respects. It's much, much better than six years ago, but it's not better than 15 years ago. There are problems. When the people insist that there are problems, the president can't tell them to shut up. She can't tell them to value what they've got and thank their stars they have such a good, progressive, popular government, and act offended when some dare complain about an issue. A government is not to the people what a a father is to his son — we're all adults here. The government additionally has the responsibility of keeping the high moral ground.

Of course, when a crypto-fascist movement like Peronism is in power, citizens are treated like children. Though Kirchnerism doesn't really have a cult of personality, the purposefully crafted mannerisms Cristina employs to resemble Evita Perón are rather obvious.

Now, a good father may occasionally display frustration or sadness when his children don't appreciate his efforts, but eventually he'll stop whining and do what must be done. Cristina Kirchner isn't even up to that role. She has complained about her children's lack of love for what she did for them, she has repeated ad nauseam that she's doing her best and wants to be everyone's good mother (if only us children would obey!), she's yelled at us a little, and after that, sensing no response, she has frozen. She doesn't know what to do next. She's surrounded by powerful, violent, resentful people, and she knows she has to take them into account. They put her where she is now, after all. One of them even sleeps with her (we presume) and presides over her political party. What to do? Cristina doesn't know.

May 25: the people's meeting in Rosario, and Kirchner's show in Salta

Yesterday, May 25, the campo held its meeting here in Rosario, at the Flag Memorial. The four main agricultural organizations and many others called for people to come from all corners of the country. Although the initial protest was triggered by the increase of the tax export on soybean, the government handled it so badly it ended up turning it into a movement that demands global changes in all areas: differential tax exports, subsidies or tax exemptions for local production, help for smaller producers to avoid the concentration of land, a comprehensive policy for agriculture and livestock farming, and a general change in the style of government of the Kirchners.

Marisa and I had arranged to have breakfast at 8 AM with the Rosarigasinos and four visiting photographers coming to Rosario via Buenos Aires, at a bar located on Belgrano Ave., which comes from the south and leads to the Flag Memorial. That's where the attendants to the campo's meeting were coming. The morning was cold but the wind was mercifully calm. Even at so early a time, we saw bus after big bus bringing people to the meeting, plus tractor trucks old and new, plus cars, and people marching on foot with Argentine flags, banners and signs.

We took our breakfast and then went out to check out the masses. The morning was splendid; the air was filled with expectation, and tens of thousands of white and sky-blue flags were flying. We took a detour around the back of the Flag Memorial to avoid the greatest concentration of people and heard the announcer over the loudspeaker, thanking the attendants and reading the banners with the names of the places where they'd come from. Many were from small towns in Santa Fe, some of which I'd never heard about before; many from the superproductive area of southern Santa Fe and southern Córdoba, but also people from the drier north, from Chaco, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, from the rich lands of north and central Buenos Aires, from Tucumán and Salta in the far northwest, and from Neuquén and Río Negro in the southwest. There were whole families and many older couples, plus heterogeneous groups marching together. Every time the announcer read the name of a town there was a roar coming up from some place or other in the crowd.

I took a lot of pictures and some video, but I didn't stay for the speeches. Our visitors followed us down Belgrano Ave., along which people continued to arrive past the police barricades. There was a rumour that the organizers wanted to start early because then President Cristina Kirchner would be speaking on the official TV channel, which requires all others to cut off their broadcasting. I don't know what became of that, but I learned later that Cristina, presiding the celebration in Salta, spoke for only 14 minutes in front of a crowd formed by a majority of people who were paid to be brought and planted there to applaud her.

Cristina's crowd waved banners with political legends or signs noting who had paid for them to come — Kirchnerist mayors and union leaders who always need to display their loyalty to whoever's in charge to continue receiving their pay. I didn't even bother to listen to Cristina's speech later; in any case, her diction and style are so irritating, and her every sentence so full of pretense, that I can't stand her for more than five seconds.

Our meeting (the one in Rosario were the people came by their own will and only waved Argentine flags) gathered 200,000 people according to the police, or more like 300,000 according to the organizers. There wasn't a single incident or disturbance among the attendants or towards other people or the host city. Kirchner's disgracefully political meeting gathered 150,000 according to the government, although the police said it was more like 70,000 (we know how the Kirchners love to tweak numbers in their favour...), and as seems to have become customary in Peronist meetings, some tough guys from the truck drivers' union (whose leader sat near Cristina) engaged in a brawl with some other tough guys paid to attend by the Kirchnerist government of Tucumán.

The coverage: the openly Kirchnerist Página/12 and its child Rosario/12, the local La Capital, the also local, unfortunately titled Rosario3, the outraged conservative La Nación, the arch-enemy of everything that's good, Clarín, and the BBC.

I have more to say about this (you were fearing that, weren't you) but I'll shut up for today.

Rosario after the general strike

After Thursday's general strike, Rosario's taxi drivers met with the authorities and then decided to work normally during the weekend (the city will be full of visitors, so they can't lose that money) and suspend the night service starting on Monday. Political characters of various stripes latched onto the horrible murder that triggered this and took advantage of it to speak ill of the provincial and municipal governments.

While the initial response of the taxi union was understandable, the rest immediately seemed to me to be staged for political purposes. Yesterday evening, after the tense meeting with the authorities, the head of CGT Rosario, Néstor Ferrazza, was seen at Agustín Rossi's campaign launch meeting for the presidency of the Santa Fe Justicialist Party. It was Ferrazza who decreed the general strike with less than two hours notice, and it's Rossi who's been more active criticizing the new Socialist administration since his party lost the election here.

This kind of strike had been unheard of for years. Later Ferrazza called it "a Rosariazo against insecurity", which for people with some knowledge of history seems not only a exaggeration, but really dangerous speech. The Rosariazo was a series of protests against unpopular measures of the dictatorial government of Juan Carlos Onganía, during 1969, at a time when the whole country was in unrest. There were many wounded and dead, and the city turned into hell, because the government used as much violence as it could. Comparing it with last Thursday's strike is an insult. We the common citizens suffered great inconvenience, but the government tried to solve the situation with words. Everybody, except the ones blocking the streets, behaved democratically and as calmly as the awful situation allowed.

What's it about "insecurity"? After five years of economic growth at unprecedented rates conducted by a government that claims income redistribution as its main goal, poverty is still about 30% and income inequality is about the same as in the peak of the last crisis, while nothing has been done to improve education or to bring back the dream of upward social mobility. And then these filthy low-grade politicians disguised as speakers for the working class demand that insecurity be solved by a local government with no power to affect national policies, dictated by a president who's more concerned about how many people applaud her awful, divisive speeches than anything else.

Tomorrow's 198th anniversary of the creation of the first national government. The four agricultural organizations are going to have a mass gathering here in Rosario, at the Flag Memorial, while Cristina Kirchner will be speaking in Salta, far north, in a place where she doesn't have to fear opposition and where her paid supporters will be carried in large numbers. If all goes well, I'll be here taking pictures and contributing with my presence.

Eye of the storm III: Powers that be

Still more about the campo crisis, farmers' strike, agricultural lockout, or whatever your choice of words.

Once I said that Cristina's first speech (the one I heard while I was held in Villa María, back from vacations, by a road block) was the worst piece of diplomacy I'd ever heard. I need to correct — Cristina's last speech at Plaza de Mayo, surrounded by the dreadful camarilla his husband assembled, and facing the crowd of vociferous supporters herded like cattle to applaud her, was the worst piece of diplomacy, the one thing anyone seeking to solve a conflict should never do. Intended as a show of strength, it enraged everyone and ended up having the opposite effect. Most analyzed it as a show of weakness and insecurity. I think it was a knee-jerk reaction, triggered by a mentality that equals adulation with approval.

Decisions in the national government are taken within a circle of four or five people, with occasional nods to a few more. Orders for the rest of the administration come from the top, from those few people. No experts are consulted. Past experience and history are ignored. Congress is bypassed. The press is informed by leaks or learns about new government measures when the president starts ranting about them in partisan meetings. So are the governors, even those that identify as Kirchnerist, and the public. That's what everybody saw these days, and what angered many, I think. Myself, I'm sick and tired of my representatives being silent.

Agustín Rossi, deputy for Santa Fe, has been verbally punishing or threatening dissidence and opposition, and no-one has approached him to tell him that he should be lobbying for his province's interests in Congress, instead of campaigning (unsurprisingly, there are already signs reading "A BETTER COUNTRY WITH CRISTINA & AGUSTIN" painted all over Rosario). Carlos Reutemann, senator for Santa Fe, a man I have no love for whatsoever, surprised many by signing a statement next to governor Hermes Binner, asking the national government to turn back the export tax increase and sit down to discuss properly. Rossi promptly notified Reutemann in public that his candidacy for the 2009 legislative elections "is no more". Reutemann's sin was putting the interests of his constituency (and his own political interests tied to them, of course) before the loyalty to this Kirchnerist "project" no-one can exactly describe, but which seems to reduce to "say yes to whatever Cristina woke up this morning thinking of".

This was just one example. Here's another: the governor of Chubut, Mario Das Neves, sharply criticized Chief of Cabinet Alberto Fernández for his rough handling of the crisis. Two Kirchnerist governors quickly and bitterly responded, and Néstor Kirchner ordered public works and fund grants for Chubut to be suspended as punishment. Das Neves is now a pariah, as is Juan Schiaretti, the governor of Córdoba who belatedly and half-heartedly aligned with some of the farmers' demands, and is now shunned by both the farmers and the national government.

The message is clear: one either accepts the Kirchners micromanaging our resources to achieve their goal of "income redistribution" (a goal that is as far today as it was in the 1990s), or opposes them and therefore turns into an enemy of the poor, or worse. This is how most people interpret the government discourse now, and that's why (regardless of what they said) the cacerolazos were not about the agricultural producers, but about government policies. And the reason why no-one wants to acknowledge that is, simply, that the pro-government folks were right in more than a few cases when they pointed out that people hate the Kirchners due to socioeconomic class issues. I know this — I've heard it said to my face — many people hate the fact that the police aren't sent to beat up those dirty piqueteros, and that the government spends a lot of tax money on welfare for the poor, while taxes and inflation eat away the money that the middle class deserves to have so as to spend it in SUVs and vacations abroad. Today it's not politically correct to demonstrate against a government for those reasons — so many people used the campo strike as an excuse.

The bad thing is, aside from that, why should it be wrong to admit that you don't like your government because it uses the poor as an excuse for their real plans? I don't like this government. I would like it to be straightened by a strong opposition in Congress, and by strong independent leaders of the same party who look after their constituents' interests, rather then the Kirchners'. But no-one wanted to say that. Most people restrained themselves; some, obliquely, attacked Cristina's stereotypically feminine spending habits; others reacted to Luis D'Elía's attack on the Plaza de Mayo demonstrators; many blamed the strike and the crisis on Cristina's arrogance. Yet what if the president wants to have a collection of expensive shoes? It's her money. It's not like she's spending millions. What about D'Elía? A more serious matter, no doubt: a hateful bigot with a band of thugs at his disposal, encouraged by the government. But then the Kirchners distanced themselves from him and can do it again at any time, and it only takes the police to do their work. The real cause of the urban cacelorazos is, by and large, the hate of the middle class for the emergence of this political model.

Argentina had more than enough of this sixty years ago. Back then it ended with a coup d'état — a few hundreds dead, a few hundred exiled, and then it was "back to business" and no trouble for anyone... except if you wanted to criticize the new powers. That kind of thing fortunately won't happen now. For good or bad, there's no easy way out.

Eye of the storm II: The papers

A few more things about the farmers' strike, or as Página/12 calls it, the agricultural businessmen's lockout. The strike, lockout, or whatever you call it, is now on hold while the leaders of the movement wait for their call to negotiate with the government.

Covers of Página/12 and La Nación for March 26 (the day after Cristina's inflammatory first speech, the cacerolazos in upper-class Buenos Aires, and the disbanding of Plaza de Mayo demonstrators by Luis D'Elía's thugs).

Since the subject of Página/12's word choice came up, here's something I meant to say before. I was appalled by Página's coverage of the conflict. I'm well aware that Página is a leftist newspaper, and like all media, they select news and editorialize on them from that perspective. I'm a lefty myself, not a radical, but in general I'm in agreement with that perspective.

Sometimes Página's op-eds go over the top and I don't like that; I don't like how certain people in their staff see 1970s' politics, or class struggle, or whatever their pet subject, in every bit of current news. To balance that, I read La Nación, which is right-wing and anti-government, but also has a few really good writers, alongside some whose opinions make my stomach turn.

Well, my discovery these days was that Página/12 is obviously, visibly, on the pay of the national government. Página's coverage of the strike/lockout was so deliberately skewed, so unctuously pro-government, so grossly anti-strike, so monolithically defensive of Cristina, that I can't be convinced that ideology alone is responsible. I felt angry. The rest of the media coverage was sloppy, partial, sensationalist, sentimental..., as usual. Even La Nación didn't dig so much in the trash. Página's was a pro-government campaign, almost as subtle as Luis D'Elía screaming his hate for the rich.

The fact is, I'm a "salad bar"-type political pragmatist. I tend to distrust and discount the opinions of people who are in the extremes, but outside of those, I applaud anyone, from the left or the right, who comes up with a good idea, or something that looks like a good idea. I had a deep distrust of Néstor Kirchner when he ran for president. I changed my mind as he did some really cool things, like renewing the Supreme Court, facing up to the utility companies that wanted to triple their fees, maneuvering around the defaulted bond-holders who would see the country broke to get paid, and repealing the laws that prevented the torturers and murderers of the last dictatorship from being tried. Then he started channeling Juan Domingo Perón or something (that is, Perón minus the articulateness and good diction in speeches) and the worst elements in his government acquired power, and then he passed it all on to Cristina, who has been doing exactly the opposite of what should be done since Day 1.

All this time (getting back to the subject) I heard Néstor and Cristina criticizing the media for this and that. Néstor K once said the media should inform objectively instead of doing opposition politics (that is, kill the editorial section, kill political analysis — just repeat whatever the government officially communicates to the press), and more than once he pointed at specific journalists and specific papers. Cristina is even worse. For all her supposed communicational talents, she sounded remarkably stupid, to me at least, when she tried to make a sarcastic comment — "It seems as if the media were forbidden from printing good news." The Kirchners never understood journalism, maybe because in Santa Cruz the media were few and were controlled by their friends and cronies.

Up to the export tax crisis, Página/12 was (so it seemed to me) rather neutral, not in the sense that it didn't editorialize, but in the sense that it wasn't systematically putting out an apology of the government. La Nación, on the other hand (so it seemed to me) was always trying to poke holes in everything the government did. Granted, as of late Página would have real trouble finding something good to say about the government, and the ideological strain was showing; and La Nación was enjoying a free ride on the scandal rollercoaster, so it came out as more objective (negative spin wasn't necessary) and didn't look so clearly anti-government.

When the countryside rose, Página/12 suddenly shifted gears (or so it seemed to me...) and launched an all-out offensive against the critics of the Kirchner administration. Even the witty Rudy & Paz comics became bitter, unfunny attacks on the "oligarchy". You could count a half-dozen headlines each day, every one of them a long editorial piece, pointing out the many sins, past and present, of the participants in the protest — and not one objective criticism of the idiotic measure taken by the Ministry of Economy which had caused all the trouble in the first place.

It got me really mad. I've gone mad with La Nación over the coverage of certain episodes by specific writers, here and there, and I'm accustomed to see through its supposed objectivity into its rotten conservative heart. But I didn't expect this from Página: a whole paper, which used to cover a variety of topics seriously when appropriate, or with well-placed irony and sarcasm in other cases, turned overnight into a government propaganda machine. Not for a left-wing government, but for an administration that's fast turning us back to old-style fascism. I can barely read it anymore. In fact, since the campo crisis started, I almost don't read about it in the papers — I pick and choose only the shorter informative articles, and quickly skip over the editorials.

It's all bare ideology out there now. Dialogue, compromise and solutions seem to have been banished.

Eye of the storm

Now that the farmers are off the roads and the president is off her soapbox (the farmers are hastily harvesting; the president is busy in Paris — see, I can even alliterate parenthetically!) I'll say some things I've been holding up about this mess we've all gotten into.

I say all of us, because countryside or town or big city, rich or poor, oligarch or proletarian, tax-burdened or welfare-assisted, we can't escape one another. Even Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has to come back from Paris and face the country she was elected to govern.

I'm not going to discuss the illegality of blocking roads. That's ridiculous, in a country where everybody has been blocking roads to ask for whatever they felt was their right since 2002. It may be a nuisance or a huge inconvenience, but the farmers did it and they had reasons.

What political analysts say, and they must be right, is that people block roads (an extreme, disruptive form of protest) because they've found that's the only way to get the attention of those who can solve their problems. And that's because those who are supposed to represent them (us) aren't doing their job. Not a single governor, deputy or senator reacted to the strike of the campo to understand what their constituencies were telling them. Politicians are supposed to have quick reflexes in this field. Our politicians, however, have had it easy. That's bound to change soon, I expect.

Cristina, for example, delivered an aggressive speech when she had to go for appeasement and dialogue. She was met with rage in the countryside, and banging pots and pans in some of the big cities. Her answer was to organize a show of strength, bringing thousands to applaud her, not without first letting that rabid classist bigot Luis D'Elía loose with his band of thugs. Her ministers publicly defended D'Elía's mob tactics. Deputy Agustín Rossi, instead of representing his district (Santa Fe), turned into the de facto Kirchnerist Political Commissar and went around attacking the critics. The president gave another speech where, after insulting the farmers and the cities' protesters in several ways, she invited the farmers to dialogue in the most affected way.

All this time, nobody tried to, or was able to, get close enough to Cristina or the members of the Cabinet to explain them that this is no way to handle a country in flames. Cristina continued to believe that she, her husband, that filthy rat Alberto Fernández, and that pathetical rag doll of an economy minister Martín Lousteau, were basically right.

The Kirchners don't know how to deal with a normal country. In the crisis, Néstor Kirchner fared well because he was stubborn and didn't fear bending the rules. He started making mistakes when the waters quieted down and the "normal" troubles began creeping in, such as inflation. Cristina received an isolationist government, and eagerly embraced it. She's aware of her surroundings, of the typical urban politics of Buenos Aires, of his allied robber barons encroaching on the metropolitan area, of large-scale political ties with the quasi-feudal governments of the outer provinces. Nothing else. And yet she and her team seem to think they can micromanage a country like Argentina just by tweaking inflation figures, paying or pressuring the media to publish their version of the truth, keeping hold of a few governors of provinces chronically dependent on federal relief, and periodically forcing busloads of unionized workers and squadrons of welfare slaves* to attend meetings with banners inscribed "VIVA CRISTINA" to show the rest of us how powerful she is.

* If a strong union has a presence in your company, and said union is allied with (or bought by) the government, your union delegates will come to you and suggest that you should march with the guys and cheer for Cristina in the upcoming rally, for which they'll supply transportation to and from, as well as drinks, some food, and maybe complimentary hats. If you're a poor person enrolled in one of the many social movements that were born of the 2001 crisis, and which the government controlled by delegating distribution of welfare and favours on their leaders, then said leaders will come to you and suggest that you should go and cheer for Cristina, too, to show your appreciation for the hand that feeds you. That's how it's done. I mean, poor people gathering freely, for free, just to applaud a filthy-rich politician? In Argentina, Land of the Ever-Complaining? Please.

It doesn't work. It can't. A sizable minority of Argentinians hate Cristina's guts because she has a past of leftist militance, because she's a Peronist, because she relies on the strength of the "insolent poor". Peronism is divisive — not a topic I can deal with. A few hate the Kirchners because they interpret their human rights policy as revenge — the revenge of "terrorist sympathizers" against the state terror of the 1970s. Others don't like how the government tolerates the requests of poor people (pickets and disruptive demonstrations) and encourages "laziness" through welfare, while "decent working people" have to bear with increasing inflation and insecurity and feel nobody brings answers to them. Some criticize the fine points, or the whole layout, of the economic policy. The opposition is a complex mix, and though disorganized, it's not an isolated minority that can be scared by hired crowds.

Cristina Kirchner threw them all into a single bloodied bag. I found myself inside that bag, next to really despicable people, and I didn't like it. She still doesn't understand. She's been bringing back a really dangerous cocktail of ideas from the past, mixing in some unsuitable modern ingredients, stirring with liberal doses of misguided rhetoric, and serving it to people unable to resist the punch, or to people who believe that such ideological cocktails are passé — for which she only gets a complaint and loses a few customers, while 30 years before she would've had the whole bar set on fire.

We're now at the eye of the storm. There were the pickets, the roadblocks, the milk being spilt beside the road, the thousands of starving chickens being killed, the empty supermarket aisles, the cacerolazos, the displays of intolerance and exaggerated outrage, the marches and countermarches, the speeches, the awful media coverage. Then came the truce. Thirty days. The government wasted a week already. The opposition is moving together in Congress. Cristina is in Paris, looking all stateswomanly and probably shopping for jewelry in her spare time.

I have so much more to say about this... I'll leave it for another day. It's so complicated, I tell you, I don't want to ramble, and still, just see what huge mess I've just written.

Out with the old

You may or may not remember Antonio Baseotto, the last bishop of the institution that grouped the military chaplains. Baseotto, an anti-Semitic, pro-dictatorship right-wing fanatic, used to enjoy a juicy wage paid by the State. Argentina not only pays salaries to the Catholic Church hierarchy, but in addition, Baseotto was deemed to have a job of spiritual assistance to the troops. Long story short, he said something he shouldn't and was fired by the Argentine State, but the Vatican refused to acknowledge the dismissal.

From that moment on, the relationship between Argentina and the Church deteriorated. The very idea of the Military Vicariate was questioned. It was created during the dictatorship of 1957 through a Concordat (the same kind of treaty that saved the Pope from being expelled from his lands by Mussolini, or the one that preserved the privileges of the Church during Germany's Third Reich). It means discrimination in favour of the Roman Catholic Church. It imposes religion on the troops. It's a financial burden for the state, too.

So these days, Congress is deciding what to do with this link to medieval times, and from the looks of it, it's going to be a big no, even though not everyone agrees. Some say spiritual support is absolutely needed by the troops; some say that's OK but they can go to their regular church if they do need it; others say it's OK to have a chaplain in the war front, but not in peaceful times like these.

What I think is, there's a lot of politics here, but aside from that, a lot of confusion, fostered by religion and by our culture. "Spiritual" doesn't mean "religious". In my experience, very religious people are often less, not more, spiritually advanced than the rest. They cling to their little god and their small-minded prejudices under the guise of dogma, and they don't see the big picture. They have a twisted, one-sided view of the world and of human nature. That's for starters.

Secondly, and this is obvious, having a Roman Catholic chaplain in a country where many people aren't Catholics is discrimination, plain and simple. If a soldier really needs spiritual assistance from a religious "professional", we must suppose he needs someone who shares his same religion. One can hardly expect a Jewish soldier to be consoled by references to a Jesus Christ who welcomes heroic soldiers in the heavens. (If you heard somewhere that Argentina is a Catholic country, now hear this. Most Catholics in Argentina are only nominally so. Catholicism is in retreat. Even the Church acknowledges that most baptized people only go to church once or twice a year, or on special occasions such as weddings.)

Third, you might believe that the State, which puts the soldier in a position where he may be killed for his country at any time, should make sure that he gets spiritual assistance, by paying religious institutions to provide priests, rabbis, or whatever, just as it provides for other needs. This is debatable, but consider it from the other side. Religious institutions who are granted the right to embed their preachers into the Armed Forces, like those who work in prisons and asylums, are given a prime opportunity to evangelize and indoctrinate — they get to the people when they're the most vulnerable, the most permeable to suggestion. Why should we pay religions to indoctrinate our soldiers?

I'd pay if soldiers got real help. But since I don't believe that praying with the troops or sprinkling them with "holy" water is of any value, I won't pay. Let the religious institutions fight for their place, and support themselves. By paying bishops and chaplains, we're in effect supporting the Church with a tithe we didn't sign up for.

It's already preposterous to treat this tiny piece of land inside Rome as if it were a country, worthy of consideration and respect from the rest of the nations. If it weren't for historical and cultural reasons, the Pope would be shunned by the leaders of most civilized nations as what he is — the top of the hierarchy of a theocratic dictatorship, with views ranging from the bizarre to the outright dangerous, and an undue, and bad influence, on pressing world matters (such as the prevention of the spread of AIDS).

The Concordat gives the Vatican some powers that no country has on the soil of other sovereign country, and privileges that no sectarian group should enjoy in a modern society. So I say to Congress, end this ridiculous thing already!