Most Economist articles on Milei have been on the positive side. This one much less so. (Limited giftlink)
Yup.
We’ll see what happens, I’m done trying to prognosticate anything.
It looks like the beggining of the usual austerity death spiral, where austerity provokes recession which causes tax revenue to drop which necessitates more austerity and so on.
But I don’t know anything anymore.
At this point most of us in the rational side of the divide are just eating popcorn and seeing that bastard, Adorni, the one who mocked the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo as presidential spokeman and was rewarded with a post as Chief of Staff (or something like that, “Jefe de Gabinete”) sweat as more and more acts of corruption are discovered, at ever accelerating rates (first it was one undeclared house or taxpayer paid vacation for his wife a week, now is about 2 scandals per day).
Milei just called into a news program to angrily complain about the stories that keep appearing about his beloved Adorni.
Any rational government would already given him the boot, but he’s still there for some reason.
My wife and me were just an hour about debating if it’s just idiocy or if it’s a kind of “If I go down I’ll take all of you with me” situation.
I think it’s both.
You think you lost your country, but somebody found it (link in German). Such a pity that the finder does not seem willing to give it back:
Peter Thiel moves to Buenos Aires. President Milei is proud of himself. Thiel has also bough a nice bunker in Montevideo, across the Río de la Plata. Just in case civilisation collapses, he calls it a plan B.
I also found a source in English that seems to welcome Thiel:
Interesting that they always seem to use pictured from the same vent. An event that took place several years ago.
I mean:
pictures from the same event.
I hate it when typos make sense.
We lost it not in the sense of misplacing it and being unable to find it again but in the sense of it being stolen by oligarchs it seems.
off-topic
I am in this country only because I am too old and too poor, and my loved ones are too old and too poor, to leave this country. If I had the means I would leave immediately, because the only solutions seem to be magically replacing the people in power with people that actually give a flying fuck about someone other than themselves.
Moving to another country is useless, the problem is global.
Moderating: Please don’t take this thread off to the USA. We have plenty of threads for that.
off-topic enough
Some places are better than others.
Isn’t it interesting how rabid nationalistic anti-globalists have turned out themselves to be a global problem? I think it is weird how well they work together despite hating each other so much.
Today in eldiario(dot)es:
I remember how the fascists in Spain used to look down on the Portuguese when I was a kid. They were not really white back then. Now they are, it seems. Some of them, at least.
And about stealing your country, dear Frodo: stealing fair and square, buying under price, occupying native territories, leasing forever for a song… soon there will be no limits to how much the rich can aquire take from Argentina as long as the government and the governors get a cut:
Last time the right was in power (and in danger, later concreted, of losing it) there were unfounded fears of the left coming back and taking “revenge” against them. The left mostly made jokes about instituting a “Ministry of Revenge” upon coming back to power.
This time I think we’ll really need something like that.
I wonder if I will be able to convey what’s happening since Friday to non-argentinians, the general theory here is that it’s impossible but I’ll give it a try:
So, on Friday Carlos “El Indio” Solari, died in his house at the age of 77.
Outside Argentina, Uruguay and parts of neighbouring countries nobody knows who he was.
Inside Argentina, EVERYBODY knows who he was.
He was the frontman, singer and soul behind “Los Redonditos de Ricota”, the great (many say the greatest) rock band in Argentinean history.
It’s hard to properly transmit what this man represented, his esoteric, hard to understand lyrics were nonetheless beloved by many, may be even more in the poorer sectors of society than in the more comfortable classes (though he was beloved or at least admired / respected by most).
I think this video speaks more clearly about that than I could ever manage in writing:
If you can do yourself a favour and watch the whole thing.
Solari’s politics and his lyrics, always obscure and purposefully ambiguous, were nonetheless clearly on the left side of the political divide, as clearly demonstrated by the cover of one their best albums:
So, back to current affairs, when someone so beloved by millions dies, in Argentina, their funeral is an affair of state, for example when Diego Maradona died his wake was held at the Casa Rosada (Argentina’s equivalent of the White House).
But this time the government is in the hands of Milei and his ilk…
So, Pink House? forget it!, Congress? no siree “we cannot guarantee the safety of the event”.
So now Axel Kicilof (see here for more info) leftist governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, and Carlos Ferraresi mayor of Avellaneda (a city (inside? contained by?) greater Buenos Aires (so in the same urban conglomerate but in the Province, not the city of Buenos Aires proper) have taken the incredibly courageous decision to hold Solari’s wake in a park in Avellaneda.
Why courageous?
Well imagine an event that
- Will attract at the very least a million people
- People (“Ricoteros”) who are known to get rowdy on occasion (imagine if you can a well-intentioned and affable football hooligan)
- Organized in two days (the wake is today)
- That you have to manage with police forces that are also known to get rowdy more than occasionally (imagine a fascist, bad intentioned and badly disciplined football hooligan)
- With little to gain if everything goes well and sure to be blamed if things get out of hand.
And if you think Milei and company are above sending someone to try to infiltrate the event and make things get out of hand then I have a Mailbox to sell you…
Basically Kicilof and Ferraresi are betting on the masses to act responsibly (and taking some brilliant measures like having the local firemen manage security instead of the police)
I’m really proud of voting for both of them but a bit frightened their bet will not pay of.
Anyway so far so good, not a single incident in the wake.
I have probably bored you all to tears but I wanted to try and explain this.
No, thanks for sharing. While I’m sure that I’m missing a LOT (duh) from not speaking the language, the song was absolutely rocking! I enjoyed it a great deal but why don’t either of us find that surprising?
Looking at that crowd - I don’t think I’ve seen that sort of energy in any of the live concerts I’ve been too, but then again, I can count those on the fingers of one hand (too pricey, would rather own a CD and get to listen to it as much as I like). That extra POV helped me at least have an idea of the sort of energy you may expect at the wake, and the risks if it is provoked.
Here’s hoping for “so far so good” holding for the duration. 
Still holding so far, the line to enter the wake now extends from Avellaneda to Buenos Aires City, about 7 kilometers.
I forgot to mention that last night people spontaneously started to congregate at the Plaza de Mayo (as you do whenever something important happens, since at least 1810)
Everything went suimmingly, with this kind of scenes mostly ilustrating my point about Ricoteros:
But then the city police (managed by the increasingly fascist mayor of the city of B.A. Jorge Macri) arrived and there issued the usual scenes with tear gas and the like.
Scenes that don’t look likely to be replicated themselves in the Province for some reason…
Yeah, I’ve done a bit of crowd control stuff, enough to be aware of the things that could can wrong at events.
From what I can tell from your description, I think the things that could go wrong for an event like that are pretty much .. well… all of them. I hope it stays OK.
I didn’t say I liked their music… but I do 
, though like you I don’t go to concerts much. In fact I never went to see him, I’ve gone to see Maiden and Megadeth.
Maiden because any band who makes a song about Alexander the Great has me as a fan.
Megadeth because my wife is their biggest fan in the world (to the point that we DO NOT listen to Metallica in my house under any circumstances).
Another funny thing is that I’m a fan of “Los Redondos” somewhat against my will, see I don’t like music where they lyrics don’t make sense… except for them.
Though with time I understood that there are 2 hidden ideas behind the seemingly nonsense lyrics.
- Half of them do make sense, but the sense is not immediately obvious and needs some interpretation and context.
- The other half are just poetry: trying to transmit an image or sensation through words, even if it doesn’t make logical sense.
“Los Redondos” are an extreme case, but Argentinian crowds are famous the world over for their energy in concerts (and football matches), it’s no coincidence than both AC/DC and Megadeth have live albums recorded in Argentina, there’s even a doc about it:
Now it’s raining, the line was 8 km at some point but I don’t know how long is it now, probably a bit less after 12 hours.
Absolutely no ugly incidents, rumor has it that a man was caught stealing a cell phone, made to apologize, return the cell phone and let go unharmed.
I’ve seen video of a car getting stuck on a street that’s under repair and the crowd building a sort of bridge to help the driver get the car out, while singing all the time.
Nice - puts paid to the efforts of the opposition to identify their opposition as dangerous, and that all peaceful (or 99.9% peaceful) congregations are riots about to happen.
Hope it helps.
I understood about six words of that and may have got those wrong (due entirely to my not knowing the language, the diction appeared quite clear); but the energy both of the artist and of the crowd came through the distance, the language barrier, and the 9" screen with a great deal of power.
May the music carry you all through and the bridges built lead to change in good directions.
And thank you for posting this, and for explaining it.
So, the bet paid off.
Today at about 7 A.M. the wake ended after more than a million people peacefully paid their respects.
Some notes of interest:
- The mayor of Buenos Aires (The city) has been lately using increasingly fascist/racist rhetoric against what’s called “El conurbano” (Greater Buenos Aires, the part of the great urban conglomerate that’s not within the political borders of the actual City of Buenos Aires.
Universally imagined by right-wing inhabitants of the city as a lawless territory full of ugly, violent, and worst of all brown people, Greater Buenos Aires has always been a bugaboo for them. But now the Mayor is actively stoking the fear, for example by mounting a police operation to “secure the borders” (called “operación Muro” (operation Wall (!)) to “Keep the worst of the conurbano out”.
But then this happened and when people tried to congregate in the center of his “Civilized” city riots broke out (in all probability police-induced or at least caused by police incompetence).
When the actual wake was held in the dreaded “Conurbano” more than a million people got together with minimal time to organize themselves and everything worked out without the slightest hitch. Put that in your pipe you fascist shit and smoke it!.
I’m proud of having been born and lived my whole life (except for a couple of years when my family moved to another province) in the Conurbano.
Buenos Aires city (“La capital” as we call it) is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and I love to visit it, but to if you want to actually have a garden in your home and/or have a decently sized home you cannot live there unless you have exorbitant amounts of money. (also there are too many stupid right-wingers).
-
An interesting insight into Argentinian culture: why was Carlos “El Indio” (the indian) Solari so nicknamed?
For good or ill Argentinian culture has no taboo about nicknames referencing ethnical characteristics (or for that matter, in informal settings, about referring to Native Americans as “indians”, though it’s frowned up on formal settings and increasingly in informal ones), if you sorta look oriental you are “El Chino”, if you are blond you are “El gringo” or “El polaco”, if you are somewhat brownish you may even be “El Negro” or, if you look somewhat like one of the original inhabitants you may be “El Indio”, it’s understood that the nicknames are not a putdown (people are often proud of them, and in polite society if someone does not like their nickname it is not used).
BUT, Carlos Solari did not look like someone that would be nicknamed “El Indio”, so why is he called that? well… you see, when a person has the same surname than a even slightly famous football player they often inherit their nickname, (for example Diego “El cholo” Simeone got his name from a previous unrelated player called “El Cholo” Simeone, and now his son is “El Cholito” by genetic transference :D).
So, there was a Jorge “El Indio” Solari who played as midfielder for Velez Sarsfield in the sixties… -
Speaking about Football, an audio whatsapp message from “El Indio” to a certain Lionel Messi surfaced yesterday, sent (or not sent, some say but rescued from his cell-phone) a few months ago it says:
Lionel, compatriot. “El Indio” speaking.
I’m just one more person here who wants to greet you, who wants to applaud you. You have been an Argentine sporting treasure. God and the Devil have given you unimaginable skill. Congratulations.
You’ve given me some very joyful moments and also let me make fun of some foreign friends.
Well, I’m sending you a hug—have a good life from here on out. You deserve a good life.
P.S.: How about winning one more world championship? You’ve got it in you, man… You’ve got it in you.
So I’m revising my expectations for the incoming world cup, I still don’t think we’ll win it, or even reach the final, but if “El Indio” says Messi still has it in him…