Authoritarian tendencies in the Argentine government of Mauricio Macri

With authoritarian-minded governments and movements in ascendancy in various places of various types, there's a lot of speculation about an wide-reaching authoritarian trend internationally: the US under Trump and his pliant Republican Party, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Russia of course, Austria, Brazil, the Phillipines, Argentina to some extent. Most American would probably include Venezuela in that list, and that's partially accurate. But the reporting on Venezuela in the US is pretty pathetic. And with it, we can never forget, "Venezuela claims the world’s largest proven reserves of petroleum, an estimated 298 billion barrels of oil." (Michael Klare, The Desperate Plight of Petro-States TomDispatch 05/26/2016)

Such trends are hard to measure. Marc Plattner gives his version of such concerns in Liberal Democracy’s Fading Allure Journal of Democracy 28:4 (Oct 2017). That publication's website states, "The Journal of Democracy is part of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, housed within the National Endowment for Democracy." The NED is rightly suspected of an excessive enthusiasm for regime change in countries in which US neocons and "humanitarian hawks" disapprove of the government in power. I mention that not to suggest that their arguments be disregarded, but rather that they should be understood in the broad context of NED's outlook and practice.

Plattner is looking back at the triumphalist "end of history" narrative after the fall of the eastern European Communist governments after 1989 in what former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer once called revolutions by implosion.

Looking at the global situation today, a quarter-century later, we see a vastly different picture. Those same principles and practices, which by the 1990s seemed to have fully regained their former attraction and to have spread to a much wider range of countries than ever before, now seem again to be losing their luster. Today liberal democracy is clearly on the defensive. Authoritarian regimes of various stripes are showing a new boldness, and they appear to be growing stronger as the confidence and vigor of the democracies wane.

Plattner expresses particular concern about the rise of populism in Peru:

In April 2016 in Peru, voters handed a landslide congressional victory to Popular Force, the party of populist former dictator Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year prison term for severe human-rights violations committed during his presidency. The party’s 2016 presidential candidate, the former leader’s daughter Keiko Fujimori, won a very substantial plurality in the April first round—almost 40 percent, nearly twice the vote share of second-place finisher Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Yet this still left her well shy of a majority, and she was forced to face Kuczynski in a June runoff. She lost to him by less than a single percentage point, but her party’s legislative majority means that her influence on Peru’s political direction is considerable.

While the Peruvian case is important, the election of the rightwing/oligarchic government of Mauricio Macri in Argentina (end of 2015) and the "soft coup" in Brazil (2016) are currently notably more significant in terms of their effects on democracy and the neoliberal policies that undermine it.

Neither Argentina nor Brazil has abolished elections or political parties. And the "soft coup" that put current President Michel Temer in power in Brazil was more authoritarian in nature than the straightforwardly democratic election that brought Macri to the Presidency in Argentina.

But Macri's government is a great example of predictably bad economic policies - although of the kind approved and insisted upon by the IMF and the "Washington Consensus" - and how they are easier to maintain in more authoritarian conditions than in democratic ones. Macris's government came after 12 1/2 years of kirchnerismo government, i.e., left social-democratic Peronism under the Presidencies of the late Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Although Macri in his 2015 campaign made gestures toward Peronist perspectives and was supported by a Peronist faction (Peronism is a complex political phenomenon, to put it mildly), his economic policies have been the textbook neoliberal playbook of budget cuts, privatization, low taxes for the wealthy, and lower salaries and wages for the majority. The results, of course, have been high inflation and a slumping economy.

Kirchnerismo was notable in having broken with the Washington Consensus on free trade and debt by maintaining capital controls and refusing to pay vulture funds for debt that had to be defaulted on after the financial crisis of 2001. The goal was to develop the domestic economy and in particular to develop Argentine industry. Foreign debt has been a problem for Argentina as a block to national development and independence from foreign control since the "unitarian" government of Bernardino Rivadavia took a major loan from the British Baring Brothers bank in 1824. Developments in Argentina would later touch off what became known as the Baring Crisis of 1890-91, which "originated in Argentina but it was felt all over the world, first in London." (Gerardo della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor, Straining at the Anchor: The Argentine Currency Board and the Search for Macroeconomic Stability, 1880-1935 [2001])

The Elliott Management hedge fund of Paul Singer, an American vulture capitalist and one of the largest contributors to the Republican Party, bought up defaulted Argentine debt and sued in American courts, getting a bizarre and genuinely radical decision in their favor from Federal Judge Thomas Griesa in a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court. Once Macri was elected President, he quickly made a settlement that was extremely favorable for Singer's vulture funds, taking on new debt to pay it off. (The Vulture: How Billionaire Rubio Backer Paul Singer Made Billions off Argentina Debt Crisis Democracy Now! 03/11/2016; Katia Porzecanski, Singer Makes 369% of Principal on Argentine Bonds in Debt Offer Bloomberg Markets 03/01/2016)

Time magazine of 05/02-09/2016 included Macri in its list of 100 Most Influential People, with a two-paragraph tribute from Mauricio Macri:

Argentina is rich in natural resources and human capital, but its economic progress has been hobbled by the ineptitude and corruption of its political leaders. Over the past decade, the policies of Argentina's ruling duo, Nestor and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, led to rampant inflation, falling currency value and capital flight. The result was the 2015 election of the reformist Mauricio Macri.

Macri has removed Argentina's currency controls, allowing more freedom for trade. He has pledged to reintegrate Argentina into the global economy, seeking private investment from abroad. And he has taken action to end the 15-year default that has kept the country in economic exile since 2001. Macri still has important tasks ahead of him, including taming inflation. But if he lives up to his promise, Argentina may finally do the same. [my emphasis]

At that time, the Macri government was raising regulated prices on public utilities and the economy was slumping. Macri's supporters were telling everyone to be patient and wait for the segundo semestre (second half of the year). Argentina is in the first half of Macri's third year as President. But still waiting for the segundo semestre. This video from the beginning of his second half-year in office mocks, "The second half was born dead." Segundo semestre de Macri 07/01/2016:

There have been some disturbing signs of political repression.

Gastón Chillier and Ernesto Semánmarch wrote about the concerns that were already emerging in Macri's "first half-year" in What Obama Should Know About Macri’s Argentina New York Times 03/23/2016, including the already-iconic case of indigenous activist Milagro Sala. Obama left the general impression with US voters and a political press that's largely oblivious to Latin American affairs that he had a left-leaning policy on Latin America, largely because of his pragmatic abandonment of the long-standing, failed Cuba policy. But actually his Latin American policy was generally conservative, including welcoming the political-military coup in Honduras and the extra-constitutional soft coups in Paraguay and Brazil. Obama's relations with Cristina's government was distant. But he made a point of embracing Macri after his election:

Mr. Obama’s historic trip to Cuba has all the pageantry of a farewell to the Cold War in Latin America. His visit to Havana will serve as a symbolic climax in the normalization of American relations with Cuba’s Communist government. But his excursion to Argentina has a very different resonance.

Shortly before Mr. Obama’s arrival in Buenos Aires, his administration announced the declassification of United States government documents relating to Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship. Yet the visit is not about the current state of human rights, but about free trade and hemispheric security.

An acknowledgment of the malign role the United States played in the early years of the dictatorship is welcome, if overdue. But to ignore the red flags on human rights raised by the recent actions of Argentina’s new ruling party is a worrying reminder of that legacy. For Mr. Macri, Mr. Obama’s visit is already an endorsement. [my emphasis]

There have been some questionable legal investigations of senior officials from the previous government, including Cristina herself. The details of such cases can be difficult to judge from outside. The allegations against Cristina herself always looked fairly thin to me.

But after the 2017 midterm elections which brought her back to Congress and gave her a stronger position as leader of the opposition, the questionable arrests escalated and included the previous Foreign Minister and former Vice President Amado Boudou. And a new legal charge against Cristina Fernández that didn't result in her arrest because of her new parliamentary immunity. But the charge related to a sensational suicide of a prosecutor named Alberto Nisman in early 2016, who had been working for years on the AMIA bombing case from 1994. I know enough about the details of that case to say with confidence that those charges are bogus. So those are not good signs.

There have also been some questionable acts of repression against some of the many demonstrations against Macri's policies. Those are also difficult to judge from afar. But it's a pattern that is certainly disturbing from the standpoint of democracy and human rights.

And the borrowing that has historically been such a burden and trap for Argentina is continuing. Axel Kiciloff, currently a Congressional deputy from Buenos Aires city, the last Minister of Economics under Cristina's government and still a close ally of hers, warns that Macri's government is taking on a "colossal" amount of debt that, in his formulation, is being used for speculative purposes and is of "little benefit for the national economy." Kiciloff also charges Macri with trying to evade constitutional procedures and attempting to govern by decree. ("El DNU es anticonstitucional" Página/12 14.01.2018)

What was "kirchnerism" in Argentina in 2003-2015?

The present-day stream of Peronism in Argentina that is known as "kirchnerism" takes it's name from the Presidencies of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and his wife Cristina Fernández (2007-2015).

I'm not familiar with the seemingly left-leaning American Herald Tribune. But I came across this article from it which gives a good concise description of kircherismo, Macri and the Argentinian “la grieta” by Frederico Acosta Rainis 02/03/2016.

During that period of development, a Keynesian model was unleashed, promoting “inclusive growth” based on consumer impulses, the increase in purchasing power, full employment, and the extension of the state apparatus coupled with its security. Other fundamental pillars included the strategic reorientations of its international alliances, especially with an emphasis of the Latin American south-south relations; an overarching human rights political doctrine, having helped usher in a minority rights program and the employment of memory-truth-and-justice commissions for crimes against humanity in the era of dictatorship (1976-1983).

Along with these policies, and though the discoursive and symbolic gestures, the Kirchners were able to create a universal sense of culture - nationalist, anti-colonial, and anti-oligarchy - casting itself on a large portion of the youth, and interpolating itself throughout various sectors including those which were unfamiliar to the concepts of Peronismo - its political antecedent. This narrative, attempting to make a unity without fissures, allowed for the emergence of a popular support necessary to make progressive steps addressing a few historical, and fundamental, reparations; external debt reduction, re-nationalization of the oil firm, YPF, and more sustenance for pensions and retirement, among others.

El retorno de Cristina?

Cristina Fernández, that is, the President of Argentina 2007-2015.

Not that's she really been absent from the political scene since leaving office in 2015. Her successor Maricio Macri campaigned on a moderate program, or at least a moderate-sounding one. Since assuming office in December 2015, he has instead instituted a standard neoliberal/IMF/Washington Consensus economic menu. And the results are what should have been expected: falling real wages, higher unemployment, cutbacks of essential government services, a cave-in to the blackmail from vulture funds that had bought up defaulted Argentine debt, and taking on new debt, some of which reportedly uses Argentine state property as security. Dropping capital controls has contributed to a high inflation rate, even by Argentine standards. (It's not the kind of triple-digit hyperinflation that Argentina experienced in the late 1980s, at least.)

Cristina has been a regular, public critic of Macri's government. And she still has strong support within the Peronist Partido Justicialista (PJ) and the broader electoral coalition of the Frente para la Victoria, (FpV). This photo and slogan has been popping up in hard copies and online.

La Esperanza de un Pueblo, el Terror de la Oligarquía. pic.twitter.com/8iWCdYEJtA

— Juan Manuel Huss (@juanchohuss) May 24, 2017

The slogan says, "The sun of the 25th is appearing." Or, "Sunrise of the 25th is coming" probably works, too. That's a reference to the 25th of May, a national holiday celebrating the official proclamation of a new national government on that date in 1810, displacing the Spanish Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros (1756–1829). It's known as May Revolution Day, a key event in the establishment of Argentina as an independent nation. Argentine Independence Day is celebrated on July 9, commemorating the formal declaration of independence of 1816.

May 25 took on a particular political and patriotic significance for the kichneristas. Cristina's late husband Néstor Kirchner became President on May 25, 2003, the beginning of a dramatically new reformist direction for Argentina in which neoliberal political prescriptions were largely rejected in favor of a more activist government aggressively promoting Keynesian policies and recovering the language and spirit of left Peronist populism. (Martín Granovsky, “Llegamos sin rencores y con memoria” Página/12 06.05.2003) The 25th of May was treated as a major day of celebration of what they called the "national and popular" tradition of Argentina, i.e., left-nationalist, democratic and militant social-democratic ones.

Cristina took part in a meeting with other political leaders this week working to form an effective political coalition in Buenos Aires Province for the 2017 legislative elections. (Sin definiciones, pero con afiches Página/12 24.05.2017)

Former Finance Minister and current Deputy in the lower House of the Argentine Congress Axel Kiciloff considers Cristina to be the leader of the movement (kircherista/peronista/FpV), 22/05/17 - Kicillof: "Cristina es la jefa del movimiento y yo soy parte de él":

Republicans endorsing Hillary

Bob McElvaine makes a plea for undecided and even Republican voters to support Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump on the basis of patriotic sentiment in Patriotism over partisanship Clarion-Ledger 10/01/2016. He lays great stress on the economic issues: "The truth is that what Trump proposes is a return to the policies — massive tax cuts for the richest and deregulation of the financial industry — that produced not only the 2008 collapse (which Trump cheered because he could make money off it) but also the Great Depression. The slogan for Trump’s trickle-down economics should be: 'Make America a Great Depression Again!'"

He cites endorsements of Hillary from traditional Republican newspapers like the Arizona Republic, the Dallas Morning News, and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Bob doesn't mention this San Diego Tribune endorsement in the Clarion-Ledger column but he linked it on his Facebook page: Endorsement: Why Hillary Clinton is the safe choice for president 09/30/2016.

It's nice to see Hillary getting so many newspaper endorsements. But I can't say I'm thrilled by the reasons the San Diego Tribune gives for supporting her. Like: "As a U.S. senator, the Democrat showed she can collaborate with Republicans, using what Roll Call labeled an 'incremental approach' that 'could help restore a working relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill that has been in tatters' for years."

The only way that's going to happen is if Hillary wins the Presidency and mounts an unprecedented level of Democratic Party effort to beat the Republicans in House and Senate races in 2018. Until the elections take place and Republicans know they're electorally on the run at all levels, the Trumpified Republicans Party will keep up their obstructionism on domestic issues that we've seen the last eight years. Or should I say the Ross-Barnettified Republican Party?

Also: "Argentina is finally coming out of the chaos created by Cristina Kirchner and several of her predecessors. Trump could be our Chávez, our Kirchner." (!!!)

O.M.G.

I wish we could have a 12-year run of solid Keynesian economics like Néstor and Christina Fernández de Kirchner brought to Argentina in 2003-2015. After decades of neoliberal/Angela Merkel/Washington Consensus economics, during the first 10 years of the Kirchner era Argentina had one of the healthiest growth rates in the world, higher even than China's. And the healthiest in Argentina's entire history.

he usual Bipartisan Wall Street drone, I will seriously injure myself doing backflips of joy. As for Trump being "our Kirchner," it's hard to imagine anything less possible. Cristina's successor, the "safe" oligarch Mauricio Macri who took over in December, has returned to the disastrous Merkelist policies of the 1990s, and the Argentine economy has been in a nose-dive ever since. With no prospect of returning to Kirchnerist levels of health under these policies.

Now, Trump could certainly be our Macri. Only he would probably be worse. And he would be in command of a nuclear arsenal. This graphic of Macri is more likely what a President Trump would be.

Left, right and economic progress in Argentina

Mark Weisbrot summarizes the lazy conventional wisdom about the conservative trend in Latin American politics (Has the Left Run Its Course in Latin America? The Nation 05/10/2016):

There is a popular narrative here in Washington and media circles that Latin America’s left-populist turn has finally run its course. It goes something like this: A commodities boom, led by demand from China for Latin American raw materials exports, fueled regional economic growth in the 2000s. This happened to coincide with the election of left governments that were reelected after spending lavishly on handouts to the poor. They alienated foreign investors and their economic policies were unsustainable. Now Chinese growth has slowed, commodity prices have gone south, and with them the fortunes of Latin America’s nationalist, populist left. November’s election of right-wing challenger Mauricio Macri as president of Argentina, the Venezuelan opposition’s landslide congressional win in December, and economic and political crisis in Brazil — including the current effort to remove President Dilma Rousseff—herald the beginning of the end of an era. In this view, the region will continue to elect more right-wing—or, in business-press parlance, “moderate” (and pro-US)—governments that will return to some of the more sensible economic policies of their predecessors.

Horacio Verbitsky (El tercer semestre Página/12 22.05.2016) writes about Federico Sturzenegger, the current head of the Banco Central de la República Argentina, appointed by current President Mauricio Macri, a devotee of neoliberal economic dogma. Sturzenegger is part of Macri's PRO party and was elected as a deputy (legislator) in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires in 2013. Verbitsky describes the communication strategy on which Sturzenegger was coached along with other PRO candidates on how to defend their policies in public. As Verbitsky recounts it, this was part of the instructions:

No explicar nada. Si se explica qué es la inflación, habría que decir que la emisión monetaria genera inflación, que entonces debería reducirse la emisión, y que si se reduce la inflación habría que hacer un ajuste fiscal y que si se hace un ajuste fiscal la gente va a perder su trabajo. Eso es lo que no hay que decir. Desde el gobierno se puede hacer lo que se considera necesario, pero no hay que decirlo en medio de un debate. Mejor decir que están mintiendo con los números de la inflación o decir cualquier cosa; hablar de los hijos de uno. No importa.

[Don't explain anything. If you explain what inflation is, you will have to say that the issuance of money generates inflation, that therefore the money supply will have to be reduced, and that if inflation is reduced there would have to be fiscal austerity, and that if fiscal austerity is implemented people will lose their jobs. That's what you don't need to say. The government can do what it considers necessary, but doesn't have to say it in the middle of a debate. Better to say that they {Cristina Fernández' government} are lying with the inflation numbers or say whatever; talk about your kids. It doesn't matter.]

When you have a standard economic prescription that will damage large numbers of ordinary people in order to enrich the wealthiest even more, you have to dress it up some other way. Or, as Sturzenegger's coach recommended, avoid talking about them as much as you can.

Cristina's last Finance Minister Axel Kiciloff in his book Diálogos sin corbata. Para pensar la economía, la política (y algunas cosas más) en el siglo XXI (2015) discusses the dominance of liberal/neoliberal (free market/Herbert Hoover/Angela Merkel) type economic policies, associated especially with the military dictatorship of 1976-83 and the government of right-Peronist President Carlos Menem (1989-99).

Durante el liberalismo esto resultó tarea sencilla porque traían de afuera el recetario económico. Más allá de que tuvieras o no ideas propias, te decían lo que, había que hacer en el Ministerio de Economía, y eran políticas que todos conocen: ajuste fiscal; ajuste financiero, que significa bajar la liquidez, bajar el credito, la politica monetaria contractiva; apertura de la economía, es decir, ningún tipo de resguardo o administración del comercio exterior, dejar que todo venga de afuera ...

[During liberalism, this {finding an economic theory} turned out to be easy work because they brought a recipe book from abroad. Aside from whether they had their own ideas or not, I'll explain what they had to do in the Ministry of Economics, and those were policies everybody knows: fiscal tightening; financial tightening, which meant reducing liquidity, reducing credit, the contractionary monetary policy; opening the economy, that is to say, no type of protection or administration of external commerce, let everything go abroad ...

That latter reference is to the Hail Grail of the corporate-deregulation "trade" treaties like TTIP and PPT, the unrestricted flow of capital, both into and out of a country. This makes a developing country not only vulnerable to financial speculation that can create a run on its currency and and cause a financial panic. It also means that the country's development can be dominated by external political and market forces. The governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner pursued a policy of capital controls that had as its goal promoting domestic industry for the balanced development of the Argentine economy and reduce its vulnerability to economic attacks from other countries.

Kiciloff also gives this brief summary of the standard neoliberal prescription, "Ese plan de cuatro puntos - ajuste fiscal, ajuste monetario, apertura de la economía y endeudamiento - es el plan permanente del liberalismo y de la ortodoxia." ("This four-point plan - fiscal contraction, monetary contraction, opening of the economy and indebtedness - is the permanent plan of liberalism and orthodoxy.")

That prescription is also known as the Washington Consensus because the United States has promoted it assiduously through the IMF and the World Bank and the corporate-deregulation "trade" treaties. That four-point plan is a good summary of what the Macri government has been implementing at a rapid pace since it took office this past December.

Verbitsky's article includes the following table projecting a probable scenario for the growth of public and private debt in Argentina:

The orange bar shows the projected public debt plus the private debt denominated in foreign currency as a percentage of GDP (PIB). The immediate concern about the growing debt is not the percentage of GDP as such. It's that most of the current new debt is going not to long-term investments in Argentina but to paying what is essentially ransom to vulture funds that bought up already-defaulted debt. And the private debt denominated in foreign currency becomes bigger as a percentage of GDP the lower the Argentine peso falls in relation to the foreign currency.

And this is part of the standard neoliberal recipe that Macri's government is applying to the Argentine economy. They justify it by claiming that the economy was previously in bad shape. Verbitsky writes, "Macrì no para de repetir que desde hace cinco años la economía no crece ni crea empleo privado, lo cual es lisa y llanamente falso." ("Macri never stops repeating that the economy hasn't grown for five years nor has employment increased, which is plainly and simply false.")

He cites El Revelador, which provides this table and the text explanation shown below:

Durante la campaña electoral de 2015, la oposición al gobierno de Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, repetía (y lo sigue haciendo) que hacía 4 años que la Argentina no crecía. Y lo decían en términos porcentuales del PBI. Cierto es que dejó de crecer al ritmo en el que lo hizo en los años previos. Pero contextualicemos observando lo que ocurrió en el mismo período sumado (2011-2014) en los siguientes países:

Mientras que en 2014 nos cansamos de escuchar que Argentina hacía 4 años que no crecía, en ese período, su PBI creció porcentualmente más que el de Alemania, España, Estados Unidos, Francia e Italia todos sumados.

[During the 2015 election campaign, the opposition to the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner repeated (and are still repeating) that since four years Argentina did not grow. And they say it in terms of percentage of GDP. Certainly it stopped growing at the rhythm that it did in the previous years. But let's put it in context of what happened in the same period in total (2011-2014) in the following countries:

While we kept hearing in 2014 that Argentina hadn't grown in four years, in this period it GDP grew percentage wise more than that of Germany, Spain, the United States, France and Italy all together.]

So when Mark Weisbrot talks about what US elites and mass media talk about "more sensible economic policies," it the neoliberal prescription that they are praising as "sensible."

Weisbrot's point is that economic policies that work well for the majority of people are a strong attraction. And it's left governments, the so-called "Pink Tide," that have been delivering that. As he writes of the Argentine case:

Changes in economic policy were also key to Argentina’s success after its default and devaluation at the end of 2001. The remarkable economic growth and poverty reduction that followed over the ensuing decade — real GDP increased by about 78 percent, and poverty was reduced by more than 70 percent (these numbers are based on independent estimates, as the government’s estimates of inflation are disputed; see http://sedlac.econo.unlp.edu.ar/eng/statistics.php)—had relatively little to do with commodities. It was not even export-led growth.

One necessary condition for Argentina’s robust recovery (real GDP grew by more than 60 percent from 2002 to 2008) was the government’s default on the foreign debt and its taking a hard line in the renegotiation. Right away, this achieved a sustainable debt burden—rather than getting Argentina stuck in a series of recurring crises due to too much debt, as with Greece, for example. And again in contrast to Greece, Argentina freed itself from the demands of its creditors for continuing austerity. The government was also able to tax exporters to capture the windfall from the devaluation, use the central bank to manage the exchange rate, implement a financial-transactions tax, and pursue other policies that enabled the country to emerge from depression. [my emphasis]

In fact, Weisbrot is downright optimistic about the prospects for the democratic left in Latin America:

The Latin American left has led the region’s “second independence” in the 21st century, altering hemispheric economic and political relations, and—even including the economic losses of the recent downturn—presiding over historic economic and social changes that benefited hundreds of millions, especially the poor. Despite the electoral setback in Argentina and the current threat to democracy in Brazil, they are likely to remain the dominant force in the region for a long time to come.

New York Times explains Argentine President Macri's radical free-market policies

President Mauricio Macri won the Argentine Presidency earlier this month. He certainly cannot be accused of compromising his goals in an Obama-like desire for bipartisan harmony with the now-opposition Peronists. The party of the latter is the Partido Justicialista (PJ) and their Congressional bloc is called the Frente para la Victoria (FpV).

Macri is basically an Argentine version of Mitt Romney, born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. And he's fully committed to One Percenter economics, aka, predator state policies (Jamie Galbraith's phrase), Herbert Hoover economics, the Washington Consensus, neoliberalism, Merkelnomics.

He hasn't yet been in office a month and he's moved ahead rapidly with his radical economic program in good "shock doctrine" fashion. Jonathan Gibert gives an account of the initial measures in Argentina’s New President Moves Swiftly to Shake Up the Economy New York Times 12/27/2015. Complete with a photo of Macri looking very like Count Dracula.

A key part of the beginning was a drastic devaluation of the Argentine peso by letting it float freely against the dollar. At the same time, he dropped export controls that had been part of the previous government's strategy to promote domestic development. And as Gilbert reports, it was the traditional oligarchy based on agribusiness that got a windfall benefit from Macri's currency move:

The devaluation and a slashing of export taxes favored influential farmers on Argentina’s Pampas lowlands who had speculated about such moves by hoarding their grain harvests. They struck an agreement with Mr. Macri’s government to immediately sell billions of dollars of grain stocks, like soy, to ease the shortage of funds at the Central Bank.

But while these agricultural exports are now more profitable for the farmers, for people like Mr. Raspa, the devaluation is eroding their salaries and fueling price increases as imports become more expensive.

Gilbert's short piece relies heavily on the classic person-on-the-street interviews, many of which in the United States at least are actually practiced informal spokespeople referred to the reporter by interest groups to repeat their positions as though they were random citizens.

But Gilbert's description is generally pretty good. The immediate effect of the devaluation was a burst of inflation without corresponding adjustments to wages and salaries, immediately lowering the real incomes of millions of workers. In the neoliberal view, this is a good thing.

Gilbert also explains other drastic - and constitutionally questionable - actions of Macri:

Mr. Macri must also tread carefully, analysts said, because of his small margin of victory in the election. A decision to temporarily appoint Supreme Court judges by decree, bypassing Congress during its summer recess, was criticized as an overreach of executive power. This, together with moves viewed as steps toward the dismantling of a media law that is strongly endorsed by Mrs. Kirchner’s supporters, has left him less room for unpopular measures.

Mr. Macri has already moved to cool the simmering economic tensions, keeping Mrs. Kirchner’s [Cristina Fernández de Kircher, Macri's predecessor] price control programs in place for now and offering a small one-time payment to around eight million recipients of state pensions or child benefits.

Still, repercussions are already being felt. “It’s the workers who always pay for these crises,” said Raúl Lemos, 54, who manages a downtown paint store, as he clicked through an online price list showing that the price of some products had risen by 25 percent overnight. “Sales are going to drop.” Similarly, Sergio Camerucci, 52, who manufactures trophies and sells them to sports leagues, said the price of the plastic he needed to make the trophy bases rose by 20 percent after the devaluation. [my emphasis]

The comment that price controls were retained is very misleading. In fact, there was a massive increase in prices after Macri's election even before his inauguration and the devaluation in anticipation of Macri's action.

The "dismantling of a media law" to which Gilbert refers is the Ley de Servicios de Comunicación Audiovisual. Macri's intention to undermine it has both economic and political imperatives. The law basically inhibits further monopoly concentration of news media, which is dominated today by two major media groups, that of La Nación and that of Clarín, both known by the names of their flagship newspaper properties. The Nación group is the traditional media advocates for the oligarchy, agricultural and otherwise. Clarín is almost as bad. Clarín gave Néstor Kirchner favorable coverage during his Presidency (2003-2007), because he didn't try to interfere with their media acquisition activity. But one of the differences between Cristina and her husband was her hostility to Clarín because of their generally conservative tilt. So when she was elected President in 2007, she moved ahead with the media law limiting media monopoly and Clarín became her bitter opponent.

Since Gilbert's article, Macri has gone further and is attempting to reorganize the media regulatory agencies by executive decree and change the law itself by the same means. (Werner Pertot, La victoria de la terapia de shock Página/12 31.12.2015) This seems especially high-handed since his supporters have a majority in Congress.

Cristina Fernández now has a Facebook account called "Casa Rosada Argentina 2003-2015," in which she has been actively pointing out problems with Macri's new policies and administration. The inflation. Reduction of energy subsidies on homes. The attempt to govern by decree. (Marcela Valente, Macri desmantela la Argentina de Cristina Kirchner a golpe de decreto La Voz de Galicia 26.12.2015) Macri's Shrub-Bush-like indifference over recent massive flooding in Argentina. Nepotistic appointments. (Agustín Ceruse, Los ministros de Macri que le dieron cargos a familiares Big Bang! News 30.12.2015) Harsh measures against protesting workers.

In one weird twist that could easily have happened in some corrupt Republican state in the US like Texas or Wisconsin, three prisoners doing time for murder escaped from a high-security prison in Buenos Aires Province. Se fugaron de la cárcel Martín y Cristian Lanatta, los condenados por el Triple Crimen La Nación 27.12.2015; Manhunt begins after Lanatta brothers, Schillaci make dramatic getaway Buenos Aires Herald 12/28/2015)

What makes this more than a crime story is that two of the prisoners played a role in the election campaign, in which Macri ally María Eugenia Vidal won the governorship of Buenos Aires Province, the country's most populous, in a contest against Cristina's candidate Aníbal Fernández:

The prison break by 40-year-old Martín Lanatta, his 41-year-old brother Cristian Lanatta and Víctor Schillaci, 33, shocked the nation in the midst of the Christmas holidays, as the brothers had made the headlines earlier this year by accusing ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández of being the alleged mastermind of the murders of Sebastián Forza, Damián Ferrón and Leopoldo Bina, three businessmen who were kidnapped and killed in a case linked to ephedrine and drug trafficking. [my emphasis]

Quite a coincidence, as various Peronistas were quick to point out. (Triple fuga de la cárcel con un arma de juguete Página/12 28.12.2015) That fit with the law-and-order theme of Vidal's campaign and, despite the lack of any credible evidence at all to back up the unlikely charge, played a notable role in the campaign. One of the escaped murderers, Martín Lanatta, was interviewed on TV in August.

Aníbal Fernández isn't worrying too much about bipartisan harmony at the moment, either. He said, “Estos tipos ‘fugados’ son asesinos, que formaron parte de la campaña, junto con el actual gobierno” ["These "escaped" guys are murderers who took part in the {election} campaign together with the current government"]. (“Algo iban a cobrar” Página/12 28.12.2015)

The Governor's excuse is pretty inspired, in a bluff-your-way-through kind of way. She says they broke out because she's gotten a lot tougher on crime in the last month! Seriously: "What happened was the result of decisions we made, of clear messages, of our ‘no” to corruption, of the fight against drug trafficking. That message and the actions we have carried out since day one have had costs." You have to admire her chutzpah on this one! (BA governor reports “penitentiary service complicity’ in jail breakout Buenos Aires Herald 12/28/2015)

Supposedly, the two used a plastic pistol to escape and steal a police car. As the article just linked notes, there are, uh, questions about the validity of the official story. The two brothers among the three had tried to escape in 2013, unsuccessfully. (El ensayo de 2013 Página/12 28.12.2015)

The neoliberal Long Run in Argentina and elsewhere

Paul Krugman takes on a couple of favorite neoliberal sacred cows in this post, Destructive Long-Termism 12/28/2015:

One of my long-running gripes about much discussion of current economic issues is about what I consider the long-run dodge. By this I mean the attempt to change the subject away from unemployment and inadequate demand toward supposedly more fundamental issues of education and structural reform. Such efforts to change the subject seem to me to be both wrong and, to some extent, cowardly. After all, if the clear and present problem is inadequate demand, then we should have policies to deal with that problem — I don’t care how important you think the long run is, we should deal with the crisis at hand. [my emphasis]

He quotes Tim Taylor, who he criticizes for offering dismissing the importance of fiscal and monetary policy in the present moment in favor of an even longer catalogue of neoliberal perennial platitudes, which Taylor lists as follows: "Thus, I’d argue that the growth-based agenda should focus on a different list of issues: expanding education and training; expanding research and development spending; tax and regulatory reform; expanding international trade; and investments in energy and infrastructure."

And Krugman gets a little snarky on one of the favorite neoliberal buzz-phrases:

Again, I have nothing against structural reform; some of my best friends are structural reforms. But if you have a persistent problem of inadequate demand — which is the secular stagnation argument — then find things that will boost demand. Don’t throw up your hands and whine that you can’t, and/or use demand-side problems to argue for other stuff that has no obvious relevance to the problem. You may think you’re being wise and judicious, but you’re actually engaged in an act of evasion. [my emphasis in bold]

Allianz' Mohamed El-Erian provides his own list of neoliberal prescriptions, but not to criticize them. Instead, he's celebrating the fact that the new government in Argentina intends to implement them (Argentina’s Economic Big Bang Project Syndicate 12/21/2015):

• Run down the financial reserves and wealth that were accumulated when the economy was doing better.
• Borrow from foreign and domestic lenders.
• Cut public-sector spending directly, while creating incentives to induce lower private-sector expenditure.
• Generate revenues through higher taxes and fees, and earn more from abroad.
• Use the price mechanism to accelerate adjustments throughout the economy, as well as in trade and financial interactions with other countries.

El-Erian argues that such measures "can contain the spread of economic hardship among the population, protect the most vulnerable segments, and put future generations on a better footing."

But he criticizes Argentine President Mauricio Macri, whose neoliberal policies he supports, for implementing them in the wrong sequence. El-Erian writes:

Macri took over the presidency with a bang, launching an audacious – and highly risky – strategy that places aggressive price liberalization and the removal of quantitative controls front and center, ahead of the five measures relating to demand management and financial assistance. Already, most export taxes and currency controls have been scrapped, income taxes have been cut, and the exchange rate has been freed up, allowing for an immediate 30% depreciation of the peso.

Historically, few governments have pursued this type of sequencing, much less with such fervor; indeed, most governments have hesitated, especially when it comes to full currency liberalization. When governments have taken similar steps, they usually have done so after – or at least alongside – the provision of financial injections and efforts to restrain demand.

The reason is clear: by taking time to set the stage for liberalization, governments hoped to limit the initial spike in price inflation, thereby avoiding a wage-price spiral and curbing capital flight. They worried that, if these problems emerged, they would derail reform measures and erode the public support needed to press on. [my emphasis]

El-Erian's argument doesn't seem to be entirely coherent. He seems to be upset that Macri's particular approach of drastic immediate devaluation without corresponding adjustments in wages and salaries will too quickly alienate the voters against the neoliberal program.

It's notable that El-Erian prefaces his list of options by claiming vaguely that Argentina's economy has been ailing for many years. Which, to put the most generously possible, is wildly misleading. The government of Carlos Menem gave the country a heavy dose of the neoliberal medicine in the 1990s, leading to the financial crisis of 2001. But since 2001, especially since President Néstor Kirchner came to power in 2003, the economy has grown at a healthy pace with rising real incomes and higher levels of employment.

Yes, Néstor's government and the successor government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner committed various sins against the neoliberal Gospel: capital controls, wage and salary increases, price controls, fiscal stimulus, expansion of government services, restoring public ownership of the previously privatized Aerolineas Argentina and the YPF energy company, successfully defying the vulture funds, thumbing their noses as the auterity measures demanded by the IMF.

As Krugman notes, the true believers in the neoliberal Washington Consensus and its variants like Angela Merkel's Herbert Hoover/Heinrich Brüning "ordoliberalism" are happy to ignore the immediate needs of ordinary workers and the middle class in favor of their preferred One Percenter policies, using the promise of the benefits of the Long Run to justify economic damage in a short run that may never end.

Wars, refugees and complexities of anti-imperialism

The single most constructive thing that the United States, the Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and even France and Britain could do to ease the refugee crisis in Europe would be to stop promoting wars and "regime change" operations in the Middle East.

Wofgang Münchau (The deadly disunity of the Europeans Financial Times 09/06/2015) writes on the EU and the European refugee crisis: "Angela Merkel is, for once, on the right side of the argument." (my emphasis) That is truly an historic moment!

He also says:

The EU has 500m inhabitants. Setting aside refugees, net immigration — the difference between those coming into and those leaving the EU — was 539,000 in 2013, about 0.1 per cent of the total population. Net immigration was higher in 2010, when it stood at 750,000. ...

Net immigration including refugees is clearly rising. Still, this is not an immigration crisis. It is a collective action crisis.

Its solution would be straightforward in the presence of a central authority empowered to take decisions. But this is not how the EU works. It works through co-ordination and harmonisation — through fiscal rules, banking regulation and neighbourhood policies. But none of them prevented the crisis, and none of them helps solve it.

As Yanis Varoufakis recently called attention to the way in which the dysfunctional response to the financial/debt crisis in the eurozone has compounded the problems the EU has in developed common policies and implementing them effectively, now particularly in the refugee crisis (On CNBC discussing Greece and Europe – full transcript, 4th September 2015 09/04/2015):

You’re quite right; in the end we created a common currency which divided us. And the deeper those divisions grew, the greater the failure to be united when it came to other matters. For instance, the refugee crisis. For instance, ways of dealing with the dearth of investment throughout Europe. Instead of getting closer together we were torn apart. In the United States, in the 19th Century, there was one financial crisis after another. Even at the beginning of the 20th century – and especially after 1929. Every time, the United States faced a major financial crisis it managed to consolidate. To get closer together. To create institutions that were common and which created shock absorbers for the system. In Europe, the idea was that we must bind ourselves together by means of the same currency in order to create this process. But, the first time a crisis tested us, following the financial that began in Wall Street, the City of London, and so on – we failed. Instead of consolidating, we are dividing and multiplying. And failing at other realms. So Europe’s monetary failure is spreading to other realms. [my emphasis]

Thalif Deen writes in Europe Invaded Mostly by “Regime Change” Refugees Inter Press Service 09/03/2015:

The military conflicts and political instability driving hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe were triggered largely by U.S. and Western military interventions for regime change – specifically in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria (a regime change in-the-making).

The United States was provided with strong military support by countries such as Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain, while the no-fly zone to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was led by France and the UK in 2011 and aided by Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Canada, among others.

And the article highlights the concept of "regime change refugees":

The United States was directly involved in regime change in Afghanistan (in 2001) and Iraq (in 2003) – and has been providing support for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad battling a civil war now in its fifth year.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who says he is “horrified and heartbroken” at the loss of lives of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean and Europe, points out that a large majority of people “undertaking these arduous and dangerous journeys are refugees fleeing from places such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

James A. Paul, former executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum, told IPS the term “regime change refugees” is an excellent way to change the empty conversation about the refugee crisis.

Obviously, there are many causes, but “regime change” helps focus on a crucial part of the picture, he added.

And the use of that term is a reminder that the anodyne phrase "regime change" describes a reality that can and sometimes does produce conditions that are catastrophically bad. Syrian and Ukraine are two current examples of that.

The left-Peronist site La Batalla Cultural raises an important point about regime-change operations in Los idiotas funcionales al imperialismo (Sept 2015; accessed 09/07/2015). The title, "The Useful Idiots of Imperialism," has a definite Leninist ring to it. But the point made by the article is a fairly basic one. Powerful countries like the US for Britain or France are happy to use democratic- and humanitarian-sounding claims and slogans to promote interventions whose aims are primarily narrow power-political ones. The difference in the US between "humanitarian hawks" and neoconservatives when it comes to advocating war is getting harder and harder to discern. Even the rhetoric is similar. Neocons are more likely to use cynically pragmatic arguments, but they have always used humanitarian claims to promote war as well.

The fact that a regime is bad in some way, even seriously bad, does not in itself justify military action against it. All the considerations of classic Just War theory still apply, including considering realistically whether the military action has a reasonable prospect of success. Any military action like the Iraq War of 2003 that produces more than a decade of civil war, massive population displacement and intensified international conflict is hard to see as one that ended up in a success in anything much more than killing a lot of Arabs and Kurds. Those who pointed the small chances of a good outcome prior to the invasion were not sympathizers of Saddam Hussein, as the Republicans inevitably called us. Actual sympathy for Saddam Hussein's general form of governance in the US was effectively nonexistent.

But it is possible to distinguish between the particular regime and the nature of a particular war. The Malvinas/Falklands War of 1982 is an excellent example. It pitted a cruel and unpopular dictatorship in Argentina against democratic Britain.

But Argentina had by far the better claim on the territorial question of to which country the islands belong. As the UN webpage on decolonization says as of this writing, " At present, 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGTs) across the globe remain to be decolonized, home to nearly 2 million people." The NSGT designation is a euphemism for "illegal colony." The Malvinas Islands are one of those cases. Ten of the 17, including the Malvinas and Gibraltar, are controlled by Great Britain.

In 1982, the Argentine military dictatorship landed its armed forces on the Malvinas. Britain retook the islands. But despite the unpopularity of the dictatorship, the war was tremendously popular among Argentines. That, of course, was part of the dictatorship's calculation. They hoped for a patriotic rallying to the government. Instead, the defeat of Argentina in that popular military cause was the nail in the coffin of the dictatorship. Losing wars is always unpopular. Losing wars that the public considers genuinely patriotic and justified is especially unpopular.

The current Argentine government headed by Cristina Fernández and the previous one held by her late husband Néstor Kirchner both strongly emphasized human rights and insisted on a thorough legal and educational reckoning with the crimes of the dictatorship.

But they also have pressed the claims of Argentina to the Malvinas - including the rights to major oil reserves to be controlled by the country that controls the islands - and have made a big deal out of honoring the veterans of the Malvinas War of 1982. Their recognition of the justness of Argentina's claim to the Malvinas in the 1982 war does not mean that they or their supporters admire the government that conducted the war. They don't even recognize the legal or moral legitimacy of that extra-constitutional and criminal dictatorship.

The Argentine Pope also supports the nation's legitimate claim to the Malvinas, as illustrated by this photo from August of this year, with him holding a sign saying, "It's time for dialogue between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Malvinas":

In an article appearing on Cristina's website, Alicia Barrios writes (A Francisco nadie lo toma por sorpresa #MalvinasArgentinas 21.08.2015):

Francisco es, fue y será muy malvinero. Todos los años, el 2 de abril, celebraba misa en la Catedral metropolitana junto a todos los familiares y ex combatientes de Malvinas. Los alentó y abrazó siempre. A las seis de la tarde las puertas del templo se abrían de par en par para ellos. Recordaba con emoción a los 649 caídos en combate. En ese día glorioso y doloroso para la memoria de los argentinos, de la misa salían con una sonrisa. Esperanzados para seguir luchando un año más. Antes era un ruego desde el país, ahora es desde el Vaticano para el mundo. Al Papa no lo tomó de sorpresa la presencia de Gustavo Hoyo, director de Diálogo Malvinas. Se acercó. Tomó la pancarta en sus manos y les dijo: “Sigan adelante”. Posó para la foto. Nunca dudó, sus homilías así lo demuestran, que las Malvinas son argentinas. Él sabe mejor que nadie, que decir la verdad no conforma a todos.

[Francisco is, was and will be a malvinero [i.e., supporter of Argentina's claim to the Malvinas]. Every year on April 2, he celebrated Mass in the Catedral metropolitana together with all the relative and ex-combatants of the Malvinas [from the 1982 war]. He always encouraged and embraced them. At 6:00 in the evening, the doors of the temple opened wide for them. He recalled with emotion the 649 fallen in combat. On this glorious and mournful day for the memory of Argentines, the left the Mass with a smile. We hoped to keep to keep fighting another year. Then it was a prayer from the country, today it is from the Vatican for the world. The Pope was not surprised by the presence of Gustavo Hoyo, director of Diálogo Malvinas [Diálogo por Malvinas, a campaign promoting Argentina's claims to the Malvinas]. He took the poster in his hands and told them, "Keep going forward." He posed for the photo. He never doubted, as demonstrated by his homilies, that the Malvinas are Argentine. He knows better than anyone to state the truth not accepted by everyone.]

For whatever reason, the Vatican decided they needed a little diplomatic dissimulation on that particular event, presumably to avoid the impression that the Pontiff was directly endorsing a particular political campaign, in this case on an issue rather than a candidate. (Nadia Khomami, Pope Francis 'tricked' into calling for Falklands talks The Guardian 08/20/2015)

See also: Carlos Cué, El Papa sostiene un cartel a favor del diálogo para las Malvinas El País 19.08.2015; Rosie Scammell, Pope Francis holds sign urging Falkland Islands dialogue, causes stir in Argentina Religion News Service/National Catholic Reporter 08/21/2015. The points Barrios makes about how Francis knew very well what he was doing are convincing. Who knows what the diplomatic mealy-mouthing afterward from Vatican press people was about?

Getting back to the polemical article in La Batalla Cultural, they are taking an anti-imperialist position informed by a Latin American view not so familiar to most Americans, and not always a comfortable one for people in the US and Europe. One widely-held perspective on the Argentine dictatorship of 1976-83 is known as the Two Devils theory, a kind of Both Sides Do It approach in which the crimes of the dictatorship are considered together with violent actions by the leftwing guerrillas in Argentina before and during the dictatorship. The latter are certainly a major part of the historical story. The now-annual journal La Lucha Armada en la Argentina, for instance, is a journal devoted primarily to a serious historical study of the leftwing guerrilla movements of that period.

But the crimes committed by the military government not only were far more massive in number. They also were done in the name of the Argentine nation and under general cover of law. And of the Christian religion, as the dictatorship endorsed a strong reactionary/national brand of Christianity that was deeply rooted in part of the Argentine Catholic Church. (Pope Francis has no justification for being proud of the general role he played during the dictatorship. But it's clear that he now identifies more with the liberation theology that was violently and murderously persecuted by the dictatorship.)

Americans can understand how the Two Devils theory can be misused as a defense of the dictatorship by reference to the current political movement in the US known as Black Lives Matter. White racists who want to see the widespread practice of (mostly white) police killing unarmed African-Americans (mostly men) continue, are eager to make a both-sides-do-it argument, arguing that the advocates against criminal violence by police practiced on young black men is somehow an incitement to active violence and murder against police. It is a bad-faith argument that really is directed only at providing phony justification for police murdering African-Americans at will and with impunity. (See Charlie Pierce, who addresses this issue though not exactly like I'm going here in Texas Cop Killing Could Spark National Backlash Against #BlackLivesMatter Esquire Politics Blog 08/31/2015)

Sometimes "both sides do it" is really an attempt to validate the actions of one side.

La Batalla Cultural (LBC) argues that not only is the Two Devils framing dominant in the way Argentines think about the dictatorship and the guerrillas. It also argues that this attitude carries over into views of foreign policy, and specifically to the Syrian conflict. LBC makes the point that a Two Devils approach to a situation like Syria, in which the Assad regime in Syria is equated with ISIS/Daesh and its Sunni backers can make an effective cover for regime-change intervention by countries like the US, France and Britain for whom alleged humanitarian concerns are entirely subordinate to other power-political consideration. LBC puts it this way:

Tenemos ahora en Medio Oriente un clásico escenario de invasión imperialista. Los Estados Unidos y sus amigos de la OTAN (en una palabra, el Occidente capitalista y cristiano) están poniendo la mesa para entrar con todo en Siria y hacer allí un nuevo Irak o Afganistán, para luego apropiarse de los recursos naturales y disponer de la suerte de los pueblos. ¿Cómo? Con estas sencillas jugadas, que son de manual:

1. Financiando y armando a los grupos llamados “rebeldes” sirios, que son lo equivalente a la oposición cipaya de Venezuela o Argentina (o de cualquier otra semicolonia) hasta fogonear bien la guerra civil
2. Con la guerra civil en marcha, poniendo en el territorio al “Estado Islámico” o ISIS, un tercer actor para complicar y desestabilizar aún más.

[Today we have in the Middle East a classic scenario of imperialist invasion. The United States and its friends in NATO (in a word, the capitalist West) are setting the table to enter Syria in full force and make a new Iraq or Afghanistan there, in order to later appropriate their natural resources and control the fortune of the peoples. How? With these open plays that are right out of the book:

1. Financing and arming groups called Syrian "rebels," that are the equivalent of the opposition loyal to foreigners of Venezuela or Argentina (or of any other semi-colony) to the point of fomenting civil war
2. With the civil war in progress, set up a third actor in the territory of the "Islamic States" or ISIS to further complicate and destabilize {the situation}.]

LBC particularly calls attention to the way that the ugly consequences of these policies, like today's refugee crisis between the Middle East and Europe, can be used by warmongers as excuses to continue and intensify the very policies that generate the problem in the first place.

This is why, despite the record of some its major figures like Henry Kissinger, I can't give up my fondness for the "realist" school of foreign policy theory. At its best - as in Stephen Walt's work - it emphasizes careful evaluation of the potential negative consequences of foreign policy decisions and the dangers to clear thinking that comes from taking one's side's own propaganda too seriously.

And LBC is also reminding its presumably mainly Argentine readers that a regime-change approach used in one part of the world without effective international criticism and resistance can be used in other parts, as well.

Argentina 1976-83: Death flights and kidnapped babies

Alejandra Dandan y Victoria Ginzberg report in “Vildoza fue piloto en los vuelos de la muerte” Página/12 05.04.2015 on the story of one of the children adopted by members of the Argentine military during the dictatorship of 1976-83.

This was one of the signature horrors of that dictatorship. Women who were arrested as dissidents by the dictatorship and were pregnant were often allowed to carry their pregnancies to term. The mothers were then murdered and the babies given up for adoption as orphans, often to military families. Their mother's relatives were not notified of the birth or the adoption or often even the mother's death, much less the manner of it.

Human rights groups like the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo have located some of those adopted children. The governments of Néstor and Cristina Fernández have been supportive of that effort and given it a high profile. There are some good fictional treatments of those children discovering their real origins and being reunited with their natural mothers' families. Like the 2003 movie Cautiva (Captive). Or the 2012 TV Pública -argentina miniseries Volver a nacer, which unfortunately isn't currently available for viewing in the US. But it is on YouTube and has been available for US viewing in the past, so I hope it will be again. The latter is a series about two twin sisters, one adopted by the officer responsible for murdering her biological mother, the other adopted by a woman who didn't know that the baby had been kidnapped and the mother murdered.

Dandan's and Ginzberg's story is about Javier Penino Viñas, who was adopted by Jorge Raúl Vildoza, who was an officer in the infamous ESMA torture center during the dictatorship:

Javier Penino Viñas nació en el centro clandestino que funcionó en la ESMA durante la última dictadura militar. De allí se lo llevó Vildoza, lo anotó como su hijo y lo crió como tal. Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo lo ubicaron tempranamente, en 1984 y, para no entregarlo, los Vildoza se escaparon, primero a Paraguay y luego a Sudáfrica. Javier fue Javier Vildoza, pero luego fue Julio Sedano. Y, finalmente, en 1998 viajó a la Argentina para presentarse ante la jueza María Servini de Cubría, hacerse el estudio de ADN y ser Javier Penino Viñas, hijo de Cecilia y Hugo, secuestrados y desaparecidos durante la última dictadura. Conoció a su familia biológica, con la que tuvo y tiene una relación con altibajos, pero nunca cortó el vínculo con los Vildoza. Su apropiadora, Ana María Grimaldos, fue arrestada en 2012, en la Argentina. Durante las dos décadas que estuvieron prófugos, ella y Vildoza entraban y salían del país – aquí vivían sus dos hijos biológicos – con identidades falsas. Cuando la detuvieron, la mujer se declaró viuda. Según su relato, Vildoza murió en 2005 y fue cremado bajo uno de sus nombres falsos. No hay manera de comprobarlo.

[Javier Penino Viñas was born in the clandestine torture center that operated in the ESMA {a military school} during the last military dictatorship. Vildoza took him from there, recorded him as his son and raised him as such. The Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo located him early, in 1984 and, in order not to have to surrender him, the Vildozas escapted, first to Paraguay and later to South Africa. Javier was Javier Vildoza, but later was Julio Sedano. And, finally in 1998 he traveled to Argentina to present himself before the judge María Servini de Cubría, had to a DNA test and is Javier Penino Viñas, son of Cecilia y Hugo, kidnapped and "disappeared" during the last dicatatorship. He met his biological family, with which he had and has a relationship with ups and downs, but never cut off the connection with the Vildozas. His adopted mother, Ana María Grimaldos, was arrested in 2012 in Argentina. During the two decades they were fugitives, she and Vildoza entered and left the country - their two biological children lives here - with false identities. When she was detained, the woman declared herself a widow. According to her account, Vildoza died in 2005 and was cremated under one of his false names. That could not be confirmed.]

And you think you have issues with your parents!

Página/12's interview with Javier covers things his Navy father told him about the dictatorship, including one of the other signature horrors of that regime, the "death flights" in which kidnapped suspects would be drugged unconscious and dropped into the sea to drown. His "adoptive" ("kidnaptive"?) father Vildoza told him he had been a pilot on such flights. Vildoza had the impression that there was a clerical influence on this method of execution, with some priests assigned to the military arguing that for some combination of moral and PR purposes, that was a preferable way of killing prisoners than a firing squad or torturing them to death. (There was a separate diocese at the time just for the military.)

New President elected in Uruguay, Argentine politicians welcome the choice

Tabaré Vázquez has just elected the new President of Uruguay as the candidate of the current President José Mujica's left-leaning reformist Frente Amplio. Vázquez previously served as President 2005-2010. The Uruguayan Presidential term begins in March, so his new term is for the 2015-2020 period.

Here is a Spanish-language video report from Visión 7 - Uruguay: Tabaré es el nuevo presidente TV Pública argentina 12/01/2014

BBC News reports (Tabare Vazquez wins Uruguay's run-off election 12/01/2014):

Uruguay's leftist candidate Tabare Vazquez has easily beaten rival Luis Lacalle Pou in a presidential run-off.

Final results gave Mr Vazquez, from the governing Broad Party, 52.8%, compared with 41% for Mr Lacalle Pou, of the right-wing National Party.

Mr Vazquez, 74, is a cancer doctor who served as president from 2005-10. ...

Mr Vazquez has pledged to boost social spending and keep the economy in its current good shape.

He also wants to reform the education system and fight crime - two of the weakest points of Mr Mujica's government, the BBC's Ignacio de los Reyes in Montevideo reports.

Outgoing Uruguayan President José Mujica was noted for his austere lifestyle as well as for his popular-democratic politics. Here is a 2012 interview with him, Entrevista exclusiva al Presidente de la República José Mujica Daniel Castro YouTube Channel 11/23/2012:

BBC News provides a Uruguay profile of Mujica 12/01/2014:

Like his predecessor, Tabare Vazquez, Mr Mujica belongs to the left-wing Broad Front (Frente Amplio) coalition, and promised to continue President Vazquez's policies.

He was a co-founder of the left-wing Tupamaros urban guerrilla movement during the 1960s, and was imprisoned during the 1973-1985 military dictatorship.

Mr Mujica played a key role in transforming the Tupamaros group into a legitimate political party. Though he is popular with working-class Uruguayans, his rebel background alarmed conservatives, and while running for the presidency he was at pains to stress that he had left his militant past behind.

On being inaugurated as president, he said it was important to look to the future, and insisted that he bore no grudge against Uruguay's armed forces. [my emphasis]

Reaction from Argentine President Cristina Fernández and her Peronist Partido Justicialista was favorable. This is notable, because Cristina's predecessor, husband and political partner Néstor Kirchner had fairly tense relations with Uruguay when the now Vázquez' previous presidency in Uruguay overlapped with Néstor's in Argentina. The main dispute was over Uruguay's authorization on the construction of two paper factories (pasteras) in binational waters of the Uruguay river shared by Uruguay and Argentina. Néstor's government took Uruguay to the International Court of Justice over the dispute, which had to do with the pollution the plants could produce. It was eventually resolved by a bilateral agreement for pollution monitoring. But the dispite did spill over into Cristina's first Presidential term.

Página/12 reported in 2012 (Uruguay suma otra pastera 02.09.2014) that the dispute over the pasteras was "uno de los mayores conflictos diplomáticos de la historia entre Uruguay y Argentina" ("one of the biggest diplomatic conflicts in history between Uruguay and Argentina").

Here is a TV Pública argentina report on Cristina's congratulations to Vázquez, Visión 7 - Cristina felicitó a Tabaré, presidente electo de Uruguay 12/01/2014:

Jorge Capitanich, the head of Cristina's Cabinet and often a public spokesperson for her government said, "La presidenta Crtistina [sic] Kirchner) se comunicó con Tabaré Vázquez para felicitarlo por las elecciones en la República Oriental del Uruguay y, en la exposición, el mismo Tabaré Vázquez manifestó que el tema de las pasteras es una cuestión del pasado." ("President Christina [sic] Kirchner communicated with Tabaré Vázquez to congratulate him on the elections in the Western Republic of Uruguay and, in the discussion, Tabaré Vázquez himself put forward that the theme of the pasteras is a question of the past.") ("La relación bilateral será auspiciosa" Página/12 01.12.2014)

La Nación, traditionally the main press organ of the anti-Peronist oligarchía and bitterly anti-Cristina, reports that two possible 2015 Argentine Presidential candidates, the Peronist Governor of Buenos Aires province, Daniel Scioli, and the neoliberal Socialist Party leader Hermes Binner, were present at Vázquez' headquaters on Sunday as the votes were coming in. (Daniel Scioli y Hermes Binner, presentes en el bunker de Tabaré Vázquez 01.12.2014) Another potential 2015 Argentine Presidential candidate, the Peronist Jorge Enrique Taiana, a Buenos Aires legislator who served as Foreign Minister in both Nésto's and Cristina's cabinets, was also present in Montevideo. (“Un nuevo triunfo democrático” Página/12 01.12.2014)

Taiana resigned as Foreign Minister (Canciller is the official title) after a reported dispute with Cristina over how the Uruguayan pasteras would be montiored, which his supporters apparently claimed was all a big misunderstanding. (Fernando Cibeira, Cambio de mando en el Palacio San Martín Página/12 19.06.2010) His father, Jorge Alberto Taiana, served in Juan Perón's Cabinet during his Presidency of 1973-4 and also served as Perón's doctor. (Taiana, un "hombre del Presidente" La Nación 28.11.2005)

Another possible Peronist candidate for 2015, Defense Minister Agustín Rossi, hailed Vázquez' win as one in a recent string including the re-elections this year of Presidents Dilma Roussief's in Brasil and Evo Morales' in Bolivia as a progressive reform trend which he predicts will be repeated in 2015 with the Peronist electoral alliance, the Frente para la Victoria (FpV).

Cristina will be attending a meeting of the South American alliance UNASUR this week in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Vázquez is likely to show up there, though his actual Presidential term doesn't begin for three months.

Campaigning over Néstor Kirchner in Argentina

The next Presidential election in Argentina is in 2015, with incumbent President Cristina Fernández stepping down after two terms. There are several potential candidates lining up to be nominated by the Partido Justicialista (PJ), the Peronist party of which Cristina and her late husband and predecessor as President, Néstor Kirchner, are a part. It's not unusual in Argentina now for parties to make electoral coalitions on which they run and organize their voting blocs in Congress. The Peronist party is currently running as the lead party of the Frente para la Victoria (FpV).

Página/12 asked seven leading potential candidates, which they call "precandidates," for the FpV nomination to talk about the legacy of Néstor Kirchner, who died four years ago. (El Néstor Kirchner que yo conocí 26.10.2014)

It's an interesting way to get them to state their general outlook by asking them to focus on a symbolic figure, whose image is in some ways a more important symbol for Peronists now that the party founder Juan Perón or even Evita.

The candidates who contributed to the tributes are Julián Domínguez (President of the Cámara de Diputados, the lower House of Congress), Aníbal Fernández (Senator and former head of Cristina's Cabinet), Florencio Randazzo (Minster of the Interior and Transportation), Agustín Rossi (Defense Minister), Daniel Scioli (Governor of Buenos Aires province), Jorge Taiana (Legislator for Buenos Aires City) and Sergio Urribarri (Governor of Entre Ríos).

Scioli and Urribarri have previously emphasized their adherence to the political direction of kirchnerismo, the term used to describe the social-democratic policies of Néstor and Cristina. (Contra el frente derogador Página/12 20.10.2014)

In this current piece, Scioli makes particular mention of his approval of the economic policies of kirchnerismo that defy the neoliberal orthodoxy. "Sigamos sus políticas de desendeudamiento e inclusión," he says. ("We will continue to follow his policies of debt reduction and inclusion.")

Urribarri goes light on policy, light as in not mentioning any. He focuses instead on an anecdote about Néstor and declares that he won the confidence of both Kirchners.

Dominguez praises Néstor for sticking to his policies in his Presidency in dealing with "un default irresponsablemente generado por las tropelías de los noventa" ("a default irresponsibly generated by the outrages of the 90s"). He also praises Néstor for politicizing young people across the political spectrum, which may a condescending way of dismissing La Campora, the Peronist youth organization that is a pillar of support for kirchnerista policies. But Dominguez also praises Néstor at the end for his promotion of the organization of South American nations UNASUR, for his assertive policy in defending the Malvinas Islands as Argentine territory, and his policy of judicial accountability for criminals of the military dictatorship of 1976-83.

Fernández calls Néstor "el Perón de mi época" ("the Perón of my era"), in politician's style putting the phrase into the mouth of an anonymous young person he heard talking about Néstor's death. And he tells what in America the blogger Digby would call a "Tipnronnie" story, referring to the favorite tale of our Pod Pundits about how Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill and President St. Reagan would argue over policy during the day and then get together and have a friendly beer in the evening. Fernández' message here to the PJ base seems to be: don't hate because I may oppose some favorite policies of kirchnerismo.

Randazzo recounts Néstor's support against the economic cartels.

Rossi praises Néstor in a grandly symbolic way: he made a lot of young people enthusiastic about politics, he was "el dirigente político más importante de la primera década del siglo XXI en la Argentina" ("the most important political leader of the first decade of the 21st century in Argentina"). The latter comes off like a not-too-subtle dig at Cristina. His contribution sounds like a carefully-parsed press release from a politician trying not to irritate the PJ base while avoiding signalling a clear direction.

Taiana emphasizes his participation with Néstor in negotiations with Colombia to get Argentine prisoners of the guerrilla group FARC released, emphasizing Néstor's priority on building regional alliances, which Cristina has continued.

Remembering military dictatorship in Argentina

Silhouettes symblozing the "disappeared", a popular human rights protest image

Historian Luis Alberto Romero of the University of Buenos Aires takes an analytical look at the collective nature of Argentines remembering and evaluating the traumatic period of El Proceso (The Process), which was the chosen self-designation of the brutal military dictatorshiop that ruled Argentina from 1976-83, in a paper he presented in August 2006 at a history conference in Rio de Janeiro. Romero also served as a principal investigator with the national Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET).

The published version from which I'm working is titled Memoria de El Proceso y problemas de la democracia: El historiador y el ciudano (Memory of El Proceso and problems of democracy: The historian and the citizen" and appears in Lucha Armada en la Argentina 10/2008. That journal title translates to "Armed Struggle in Argentina". But, despite its hair-raising title, it's not some Argentine neo-Weather Underground publication. It's an intellectual journal devoted to issues around El Proceso, the "dirty war" it conducted against guerrillas and dissidents, and the restoration of democracy in 1983. Romero's article actually reflects a conservative-leaning viewpoint on the issue he addresses.

What becomes history is first present-day life and current politics. At some point, events fade into the past. Presumably when there's no longer anyone alive who was around when the events were occurring, it becomes purely history.

But in between the events and that point, there is a process that occurs in which they gradually become more "history" and less "current events". Those who feel they have something to lose by the events being remembered honestly tend to want to declare them to be old news sooner rather than later.

Romero describes how the general public image of the dictatorshiop was established in the transition to democratic government. What he describs as the Nunca Más view developed in the time between the election campaign of 1983 and the conviction in 1985 of senior leaders of the fallen military junta on criminal charges, in which was known as the Juicio a las Juntas. It's worth noting that the generals had set up an amnesty arrangement for themselves to preclude being prosecuted before they surrendered power. But that indemnity was quickly rejected by the newly-elected President Raúl Alfonsín. Romero also reminds us that the trial included the leaders of the two main guerrilla groups, ERP and the Montaneros, whose violent actions had provided the ocasion/excuse for the military to take power in 1976.

The junta and El Proceso were ugly business for Argentina. The country had experienced other periods of military rule in the 20th century, most recently in 1966-1973. but those were relatively benign autocracies - though for their victims their benignity was very relative. But El Proceso was brutal and genuinely dictatorial.

Torturers- and murderers-in-chief: Junta leaders Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera and Ramón Agosti

What finally ended the credibility and hold on power of the ruling junta was the Malvinas War of 1982, more familiar to American readers as the Falklands War. Argentina had never recognized the legtimacy of British control of the Malvinas Islands (and still doesn't!), which the Royal Navy seized in 1833. (It was actually an American warship that drove away the Argentines but the British claimed the islands.) The junta provoked the war by militarily occupying the islands in 1982. Britain drove them off in a short war.

The junta had miscalculated badly based on arrogance, ignorance, overconfidence and general bad judgment. But a big part of their motive in starting the war was to rally the Argentine public behind them.

And they weren't entirely mistaken in that. The Malvinas are seen as a patriotic cause by most Argentines and there was considerable enthusiasm for the war. Then they lost. Romero writes:

Desde junio de 1982, la opinión pública achacó a los militares la derrota en la de Malvinas y, sin distinguir demasiado, también les reprochó el haber ido a guerra, un hecho que apenas dos meses antes había sido ampliamente celebrado.

[From June 1982, public opinion blamed the generals for the defeat in the Malvinas and, without distinguishing all that much, also reproached them for having gone to war, an act that scarcely two months before had been widely celebrated.]

Then as censorship began to be eased and more reports of the regime's torture, murder and kidnapping began to circulate:

En ese contexto, el Proceso, la dictadura, fue visto como una poderosa organización dedicada al mal: una imagen demoníaca, potente y perversa a la vez.

[In this context, el Proceso, the dictatorship, was seen as a powerful organization dedicated to evil: a demonic image, strong and perverse at the same time.]

This process continued into 1985. And it was most likely necessary for the dictatorship to be radially rejected, stigmatized in that way in order for democracy to flourish. Military officials tried more than once to stage a coup against the new civilian government, attempts that were successfully surpressed.

This is what Romero calls the Nunca Más image of the dictatorship. The other side of this image was that the public had extremely high expectations for democracy. He quotes Raúl Alfonsín in what was presumably a moment of enthusiasm saying, "Con la democracia se come, se educa, se cura ..." (With democracy you can eat, you can get educated, you can get well ...). Alfonsín had a social-democratic viewpoint, so this could have been an expression of his more general vision of social democracy. But Romero takes it as a typical expression of overblown expectations.

Such expectations were far from fulfilled. The country still suffers from great poverty, a situation that was certainly not altered by the adoption of "neoliberal" economic policies readily embraced by Alfonsín's right-Peronist successor, Carlos Menem.

And over the years the public image of El Proceso has evolved in ways that Romero interprets as three distinctive trends. The Nunca Más viewpoint of the years just after the dictatorship, he argues, included a too broad assumption of public innocence, merging as it did with a kind of "a plague on both your houses" attitude that demonized the guerrillas, as well. Romero writes that "según esta versión, ambos demonios son en cierto modo ajenos a la sociedad" (according to this version, both demons are in a certain way separate from the society).

The three trends of memory that he sees as having involved include the following:

Emergió una memoria militante, que reivindicó las luchas previas a la dictadura y a los combatientes, hasta entonces presentados simplemente como “víctimas inocentes”. También emergió una memoria que llamaría rencorosa, preocupada por ajustar cuentas con el pasado, a costa del pluralismo construido desde 1983. Finalmente, ha cobrado estatuto público, entre quienes justifican la dictadura, o al menos no la condenan, una memoria centrada en la reivindicación de las propias víctimas de la violencia guerrillera.

[A militant memory emerged which rehabilitated the battles previous to the dictatorship and the combatants even to the point of presenting them simply as "innocent victims". There also emerged a memory that we could call rancourous, pre-occupied with settling accounts with the past at the cost of the pluralism constructed since 1983. Finally, a public rule has gained popularity among those who justify the dictatorship, or at least don't condemn it, a memory centered in vindicating the victims of the very violence of the guerrillas.]

Romero isn't happy with any of these views and takes refuge in the identity of the professional historian who has to carefully sort through it all. He argues that the historian's work inevitably conflicts with the public functions of memory as expressed in his three trends of memory. Historians, he says in a memorable if not especially sympathetic phrase, "are closer friends to the truth than to Plato".

But despite this above-the-fray posturing, he does seem to have a more contemporary point to make. The potencial problems of the "innocent victims" viewpoint are fairly obvious: it can ignore the ugly reality of the excessive violence committed by both guerrills and the junta. And it can become an excuse to duck real questions of responsibility, and to avoid understanding and learning from the complex reality of what happened. The guerrillas of the ERP and Monteneros were supported in part by Juan Perón and the Partido Justicialista (PJ) of that time.

And, as he says, El Proceso had some significant level of public support:

Que en la "sociedad" el mensaje represor de la dictadura encontró una amplia recepción, debido a la tradición autoritaria y excluyente, que era un componente fuerte de la cultura política argentina.

[That in "society" [meaning respectable, prominent citizens] the repressive message of the dictatorship found an wide reception, owing to the authoritarian and exclusivist tradition that was a powerful component of the Argentine political culture.]

Those who justify El Proceso are either embracing anti-democratic ideology or they're looking for excuses for their own guilty actions, or those of their political parties.

But Romero argues that what he calls the adherents of "rencorosa" (rancorous) memory are basically irresponsible fanatics, among whom he explicity includes the current president along with her predecessor and husband:

Autoproclamados catones y robespierres, muchos de los cuales ni siquiera estuvieron en la defensa de los Derechos Humanos en tiempos de la dictadura, encontraron en esos juicios retrospectivos la forma de construirse un pasado de militante, como le ocurre, por ejemplo, con Néstor y Cristina Kirchner.

[Self-proclaimed censors and Robespierres, many of who weren't even active in the defense of human right in the time of the dictatorship, find in these retrospecitive judgments the form to construct a militant pass for themselves, as occurs, for example, with Néstor and Cristina [Fernández] Kirchner.]

The online version linked above was amended for the journal version to explicitly include Cristina along with her husband in this criticism.

Claiming that the Kirchners have been acting like Robespierres is just ridiculous. And Cristina Fernández was active as a human rights attorney during El Proceso.

There is a specific partisan context here. During the Presidency of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-89), which immediately followed the years of El Proceso, a number of official steps were taken to air the story of the ugly side of the dictatorship and its "dirty war" against guerrillas, dissenters and the inconvenient. Including what is known as the Juicio a las Juntas mentioned above and the establishment of the Comisión sobre la Desaparición de las Personas Comisión sobre la Desaparición de las Personas (CONADEP) that investigated those who went missing during El Proceso, most of them murdered. But, under the pressure of two coup attempts by the military, he later approved two laws known as "Punto Final" and "Obediencia Debida", that put an end to further prosecutions.

Leopoldo Galtieri, chief leader of the junta at the time of the Malvinas War

But Néstor Kirchner, (President 2003-2007)persuaded the Congress to annul those laws, opening the way for additional prosecutions, which have been taking place. The current President Cristina Fernández is also committed to continuing legal charges against those who committed crimes during El Proceso.

In an essay included in the collection El presidente inesperado: El gobierno de Kirchner según los intelectuales adrgentinos (2004), Jose Natason, ed., Romero talked some about Néstor Kirchner's policies in this area, and seemed to be particularly frustrated that Kirchner made it sound as though human rights organizations in Argentina had accomplished nothing important in the two decades since the Juicio a las Juntas, and even ignored the importance of that trial. He also complained in a general way about how Kirchner had gone about converting the notorious ESMA detention center into a national museum, though he didn't go into more specifics.

This article by Romero deals with related themes: Una necesaria relectura de la violencia política Clarín 23.01. 2007. It suggests that Romero may have regarded the Kirchners' politics of historical memory too solicitous of the record of their own Peronist JP party in the early 1970s. The JP had not only encouraged the ERP and the Monteneros when they were trying to return to power. They also formed right-wing death squads to suppress them after the JP came to power in 1973-6. Romero argues that those incidents need to be included when discussing the "terrorism of the state" in Argentina.

This article, La refundación de la política de Derechos Humanos, Parte 1 por Eduardo Pedro Reviriego El Diario (not dated, but is from 2008 since it quotes the journal article discussed here). Parte 2 is available here.

In any case, Romero doesn't seem completely above the fray as he seems to aspire to be. He sounds in "Memoria de El Proceso y problemas de la democracia: El historiador y el ciudano" as though he's ready to have the days of El Proceso become purely history.

Tags: argentina, cristina fernández, el proceso, luis alberto romero, néstor kirchner