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May 21, 2013
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 The Argentine ModelPosted on Oct 23, 2011
While politicians from Athens to Washington are pushing through devastating austerity programs, Argentines voted in droves Sunday to re-elect their populist, welfare queen of a president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Fernandez is the widow of Nestor Kirchner, who died a year ago after winning the award for world’s best husband (Nestor decided not to run for re-election so that his wife could take a turn). But before he left office, Nestor Kirchner infuriated global elites by defaulting on Argentina’s $95 billion foreign debt. Greece, facing an external debt load five to six times that amount, has decided instead to severely cut back on public spending while it works with other governments to address its debt crisis. Argentina, on the other hand, pumped money into subsidies and social programs. And while the rest of the world has been circling the drain, financially speaking, Argentina’s economy has been booming, with GDP growing last year by more than 9 percent. There are a lot of learned fellows who don’t approve of the economic policies of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner, but the undisputed result in the short term is a thriving economy and a landslide re-election. −PZS
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By ehrenfest, October 28, 2011 at 12:25 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Che does not seem to learn, he reads the NYTImes and the daily beast, I am yet to see a NYTimes article that is not complicit with the american government when it reports from Argentina. Cristina Fernandez is well like in Argentina because of this,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/argentina-finally-serves-justice-on-the-angel-of-death-2376896.html
The NYTimes has a deal, of all papers, with Clarin! they help to report from there. Moreover, look at where the NYTimes have their foreign bureau: Colombia, where the americans have the largest military base in the continent after they were ejected from Manta. Please stop writing BS, educate yourself!
And please “Che”, stop using the accent in your name.
Report thisBy mbs85, October 25, 2011 at 5:46 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
She was caught in a huge international bribery scandal where Chavez’s state-owned oil company was caught illegally giving her campaign $800,000 (in a suitcase in Miami) so she would favor them?
This is a joke, how is it any different from large corporations giving millions to election campaigns?
Report thisBy Ché, October 25, 2011 at 1:58 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Cristina’s suppression of a critical press…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/08/31/latin-american-democracies-lash-out-at-the-press.html
The suitcase bribe…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/world/americas/10suitcase.html
Using thugs to break up striking workers…
http://www.offnews.info/verArticulo.php?pageNum_rsRelacionadas=2&totalRows_rsRelacionadas=1943&contenidoID=10751
The liberal opposition I was referring to was indeed Binner, who got 18% of the vote. Thus, I said less than 20%.
I can’t believe that progressives are cheering the victory of a Peronist candidate over the socialist one.
Hopefully Argentines will wake up soon.
Report thisBy EmileZ, October 25, 2011 at 1:49 am Link to this comment
There is a fantastic documentary called “Social Genocide” about the disasterous effects of neoliberalism in Argentina. Here is the summary from IMDB…
“After the fall of the military dictatorship in 1983, successive democratic governments launched a series of reforms purporting to turn Argentina into the world’s most liberal and prosperous economy. Less than twenty years later, the Argentinians have lost literally everything: major national companies have been sold well below value to foreign corporations; the proceeds of privatizations have been diverted into the pockets of corrupt officials; revised labour laws have taken away all rights from employees; in a country that is traditionally an important exporter of foodstuffs, malnutrition is widespread; millions of people are unemployed and sinking into poverty; and their savings have disappeared in a final banking collapse. The film highlights numerous political, financial, social and judicial aspects that mark out Argentina’s road to ruin.”
Report thisBy kmdyson, October 24, 2011 at 11:03 pm Link to this comment
Argentina’s economic policy doesn’t fit with the Milton Friedman school of economics…so they just vilify or ignore it…and soon it passes from the news cycle…into oblivion…maybe OWS can help…
Report thisBy pano, October 24, 2011 at 8:20 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Viva Argentina!
Report thisBy mrfreeze, October 24, 2011 at 7:41 pm Link to this comment
ehrenfest - Thanks for your comment!
Report thisBy MeHere, October 24, 2011 at 5:36 pm Link to this comment
The progress in Argentina is quite remarkable. The Kirchners (first husband,
now wife) have managed to move the country forward within a democratic
framework. They have not sent out the police or the army to suppress
opponents and any statements to the contrary are purely false.
Argentina went through difficult decades: The non-violent but misguided
governments that Peron led which advanced labor rights but they were corrupt and never created civic consciousness. There were also the military dictatorship and dirty war, the insane Falklands War, and the free-market based governments of Menen which ended in a deep economic crisis.
The country still has problems that will need to be worked out but there’s no
Report thisindication that it’s becoming fascist. The extreme right wants an oligarchic
government and their frustration compels them to avoid reality and disseminate
lies.
By ehrenfest, October 24, 2011 at 1:33 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I am an Argentine. I find it ridiculous that a guy who uses the name Che (as in Guevara) is so ignorant about the country were he was born. Besides Che has no accent. I am sorry for him. Liberal in Argentina means the same as in the UK, a bunch of fascist right wingers. That would be Carrio who got 1.8 %; the second party in the polls was the Socialist (Frente Amplio Progresista) with Binner (the governor of Santa Fe) as the candidate for president who I do like a lot. And what do you call the press? Clarin? La Nacion? the two newspapers who associated themselves with the military dictatorship that disappeared 30,000 people and got as a thank you the exclusive ownership of the mills of press paper after the military kidnaped and murdered the original owners? The same press whose owners are prime suspects in the cause of kidnapping of children of missing people? Please, do not put your nose where you do not know what is going on. The poor saps like me who have to live there would be very grateful if you educate yourself before speaking.
Report thisIn Argentina there are problems, of course, after the interminable years of military dictatorships it would be foolish to expect any better, but the idea that there is a dictator-like government now would make me laugh if it were not so tragic. I lived through the dictatorship of 76-83. One of my elementary school teachers was kidnapped by the police as was one of my TAs in the University. One of my friends lost his brother in law and his sister who was pregnant of 8 months with twins. Both were tortured to death in a concentration camp. Her twins were sold to a military couple, the man was of the couple was one of the muderers and it took almost 20 years for the truth to come out. That press that now keeps screaming that they are censored are the same guys that were cheering the military. Where were you when we were going through this? Perhaps according to you there was freedom of the press during the liberal government of the junta.
By mrfreeze, October 24, 2011 at 11:32 am Link to this comment
Che’ - I appreciate your comment. A couple of things:
1) The “fascist” things you note (bribers, squelching a liberal press, violence against poor farmers) happen here in the U.S.. Sometimes it’s the government that perpetrates these injustices and many times it’s our corporate fascists who do.
2) I’d be curious to see some links and background connected with your comment.
Argentina has always fascinated me because, a) my wife and I love Argentine Tango…..and, b) Argentina resembles the U.S. in so many ways (the environment/land, an immigrant population, etc.).
Report thisBy Robespierre115, October 24, 2011 at 11:27 am Link to this comment
@Che, the more “liberal” press? You mean the corporate press owned by the oligarchy? All over Latin America governments are finally starting to break the back of the old news outlets owned by the big families that own entire countries.
The suitcase case never amounted to anything, if it were authentic the U.S. would have kept that case going forever, the same way the US-backed neofascist regime in Colombia keeps finding convenient info in Raul Reyes’ “magic laptops.”
The 2008 strike was another attempt by the big landowning, cattle oligarchy to try and suffocate the economy.
Here in the U.S. we’re tired of “liberal parties” because they only provide clowns with names like Barack Obama.
Report thisBy Payson, October 24, 2011 at 5:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Argentina learned their lesson in the past. Austerity measures, in the end,
weaken the economy further and isolate the majority of the population from any
ability to improve their situation and participate in the economy.
Some of my students are children of educated Argentinians who moved to the
United States in the 1990’s in search of better opportunities. Many of them are
moving back to Argentina. Frankly, I don’t blame them.
The ongoing cheerleaders in Congress shouting for austerity(especially for
Report thisanything that benefits the citizenry at large) continue to astound me. How can the
refusal to invest in the the American people possibly lead to a positive outcome?
By Ché, October 24, 2011 at 1:08 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
You do know she’s suppressed political opposition by censoring the more liberal press (and openly attacking specific liberal journalists and cartoonists who were critical of her administration)?
She was caught in a huge international bribery scandal where Chavez’s state-owned oil company was caught illegally giving her campaign $800,000 (in a suitcase in Miami) so she would favor them?
And worst of all, was responsible for sending violent thugs to beat up farmers who dared to go on strike in 2008?
The economy has been doing well in Argentina in the last year so a people who are scared of losing that growth are overlooking these awful incidents (and many more) to re-elect her. This is how fascists are created.
The Broad Progressive Front (the liberal party) in Argentina got less than 20% of the vote. This is a sad day for the country and yet this article proclaims it a great one.
Report thisBy Robespierre115, October 23, 2011 at 11:43 pm Link to this comment
Not just Argentina, but Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua and others in the region have been fighting the capitalist, neoliberal models for more than a decade now. Remember that Argentina went through a similar if not worse economic crisis in 2001, check out Naomi Klein’s documentary “The Take.” We just don’t know much about these events because in the US we have a bad habit of ignoring our neighbors. Events like the Cuban and Sandinista Revolutions, the Allende moment in Chile and other key events are part of AMERICAN history, because this is the AMERICAN continent.
Report this