Argentina General Discussion 🇦🇷

[Libertas Vel Mors]

— we had everything before us —

At first, things seemed to be on right track after Perón's reelection. Industry was booming - the best example was the way Argentina kickstarted its domestic automotive industry with the IAME Justicialista. The ridiculously propagandistic name aside (the car even had a Justicialist logo on the back!), it showed how advanced Argentine technology was at the time and that the country had no problems competing with Europe or America. Living standards kept increasing, a new scientific insititute was founded, hundreds of kilometres of railways were built and Argentina's national debt was paid off.

— we had nothing before us —

Perón was always opposed by the old landowning classes and urban bourgeoisie, but his massive popularity and the fact that Army was, the Evita incident aside, still loyal to him meant that they couldn't do much but tolerate him. However, his increasingly autocratic style made him more enemies than he needed. First, he alienated the Church, then the new middle classes he helped create and, slowly but surely, the army as well.

— we were all going direct to heaven —

...or so might have thought the people marching towards the Cathedral of Buenos Aires on June 11, 1955. A record 200 thousand people attended that year's Corpus Christi procession. They weren't just Catholics - the whole opposition was united in solidarity with the Church, even traditionally secular groups like socialists and communists. They were incensed at Perón's latest round of anticlerical reforms that aimed to at last achieve not just separation of Church from the state, but eradicating its influence in society altogether. In fact, this very parade was prohibited by law, but that just helped to turn it into an angry protest that called for removing Perón from the presidency.

This, in turn, helped to infuriate his supporters, especially the most radical ones. The next day, June 12, the Catholic-turned-radical-Peronist Nationalist Liberation Alliance attempted to set the Cathedral on fire, prevented at last minute by a rally of Argentine Catholic Action, led Mons. Manuel Tato. The editor of a religious newspaper covering the events was arrested, Tato was stripped of his position and forced to leave the country.

Until now, Perón got away with things no previous President could dream of, but what he did this time was a step too far.

— we were all going direct to hell. —

Argentina wasn't involved in World War II, not even indirectly. Aside from a September 1939 incident in Río de la Plata, the country was isolated from the conflict. Fortunately, Argentina wasn't at war with her neighbours either, and so the Morón air base on outskirts of the capital remained unused, its planes staying in hangars - until Thurday, June 16, 1955.

On that day, a workers' rally was taking place in Plaza de Mayo. It was called by Peronist trade unions in response to an alleged burning of national flag during the June 11 Corpus Christi procession. More than that, icreasingly credible rumours of a coup were spreading. At midday, thirty aircraft took off from Morón and bombed the square and surrounding government buildings. More than 300 civillians were killed.

The country descended into something akin to a civil war. Rebel army units tried to capture Casa Rosada, but they were stopped after a series of firefights in surrounding streets. Despite anti-aircraft fire, planes from Morón carried out more bombing and strafing runs. That night, radical Peronists sought revenge: they burned down ten churches and looted two convents. In response, radical Catholics created armed commandos and called for overthrow of the President. Fighting broke out in the streets, infrastructure was sabotaged and buildings of Peronist organizations were bombed.

On September 16, General Eduardo Lonardi, commander of the Córdoba garrison, took over the city. He faced resistance from loyalist infrantry units and more than 100 people died in the fighting. The next day, rebel navy ships bombed the coastal city of Mar del Plata. Bahía Blanca was bombed and taken over by rebel marines, who were expelled by loyalist forces. On September 19, the coup seemed to be failing: Lonardi's troops in Córdoba were surrounded and a loyalist attack was imminent. However, in a show of force, the ships of rebel Admiral Isaac Rojas bombed Mar del Plata again, hitting fuel tanks in the port and causing great destruction.

This seemed to convince Perón that he had to go unless he wanted the country to descend into a full-blown civil war. Paraguyan dictator Alfredo Stroessner gave him a helping hand and on September 21, Perón fled aboard a Paraguayan gunboat and requested asylum in the country.

And it was over.

Similarly to my comments above (And I apologize if I'm nitpicking, your posts are overall great!), I think a lot of your economic praise for Peron is misplaced. For instance you mention the IAME Justicialista, but as the page you links to mentions, less than 200 were ever made, the engines had to be imported from Germany, and the car was never commercially available. More importantly, the economy as a whole was never too great under Peron: there was a perception of economic success, buoyed especially by government propaganda, but a lot of Argentina's issues (for instance, inflation) which continue today emerged under Peron. Even during the post-war boom, for instance, while the Argentinian economy did grow, it grew far more slowly than either its neighbors or comparable first world countries.

[Estrella]

Similarly to my comments above (And I apologize if I'm nitpicking, your posts are overall great!), I think a lot of your economic praise for Peron is misplaced. For instance you mention the IAME Justicialista, but as the page you links to mentions, less than 200 were ever, the engines had to be imported from Germany, and the car was never commercially available. More importantly, the economy as a whole was never too great under Peron: their was a perception of economic success, buoyed especially by government propaganda, but a lot of Argentina's issues (for instance, inflation) which continue today emerged under Peron. Even during the post-war boom, for instance, while the Argentinian economy did grow, it grew far more slowly than either its neighbors or comparable first world countries.

No problem! You seem to know more than I did when I wrote this two years ago, so feel free to nitpick

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So Macri went to visit Trump

https://twitter.com/mauriciomacri/status/1512144390931849217

The reason? Who knows...

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1512228435023867905

[PSOL]

Truckers won a recent strike, will get a 20% increase in Freight rates. Since the government is on its last legs, they’ve adopted a more conciliatory stance in meeting halfway for various protests and strikes. Hopefully we get more victories like this and for the government to put a nice #populist goody package during election time.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Truckers won a recent strike, will get a 20% increase in Freight rates. Since the government is on its last legs, they’ve adopted a more conciliatory stance in meeting halfway for various protests and strikes. Hopefully we get more victories like this and for the government to put a nice #populist goody package during election time.

It was pretty obvious that the truckers would get a good raise
It's not because of #populist/goody two shoes reasons but rather because the of the power of the Moyano family, which leads the truckers' union  and a good chunk of the general labor movement, which have a long history of making deals with pretty much any president and governor, and has connections well outside of the already extremely important truckers'union (which is as strong as it is because he was gladly helping in dismantling the rail network during the 90s)
Due in large part to Argentina's three-fold health care system, the bosses of the largest unions have an incredible amount of power and fortune, amd they've stayed in their top seats since the age of the dinosaurs
Don't confuse the  bosses of the Argentinean labor movement with their US equivalents

I doubt there is any union boss in the US which has done even a couple of the things that make Hugo Moyano such a prominent, and wisely despised (to the point where he's actually led the rankings for the politician with worst public opinion on more that a few polls), character in  Argentinean politics (btw most of these are also shared by many other of the main union bosses), like:

Having stayed on the same post on top of the union since the late 1980s
 is the president of one of the country's largest sports teams (with one of his sons as the second in command in both the truckers union and the club)
 is the treasurer of the country's largest sports association (and is the father in law of its president, who btw is the VP of a state-owned garbage collecting company that works as an extension of the truckers'union)
, got his other son Facundo to become a narional congressman at the age of 27, and stayed in the post for a decade, and at the same time Facundo was still  the leader of yet another labor union  (despite having only worked on that field for less than yeats before becoming its leader)
owns and controls several companies closely linked to the union and the football team which he already controls, including being the owner of one of the country's largest shipping companies in association with the man who is suspected to be the frontman for several businesses operated by the country's vicepresident
owns a couple of mansions and luxury apartments  and even owned a 5 star hotel for a few years
has been involved in a billion corruption and money laundering scandals
and, as you may've noticed from many of the other points, directly or indirectly, has most of his extended family working for/under him and in what are often very powerful roles

[Velasco]

Hugo Moyano is my hero and Alex forgot to say he is also the president of a football club called Independiente

More seriously,  we don't have  nothing comparable to Moyano's union in Spain.  However, we had recently a truckers' strike promoted by an association of self-employed truckers with alleged connections to the far-right. On the other hand, freight transport by rail represents less than 5% in Spain!

I have two questions:

What's the prevalence in Argentinian transport sector of that modern form of slavery called self-employment?

What's the remaining share of freight transport by rail?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Hugo Moyano is my hero and Alex forgot to say he is also the president of a football club called Independiente

More seriously,  we don't have  nothing comparable to Moyano's union in Spain.  However, we had recently a truckers' strike promoted by an association of self-employed truckers with alleged connections to the far-right. On the other hand, freight transport by rail represents less than 5% in Spain!

I have two questions:

What's the prevalence in Argentinian transport sector of that modern form of slavery called self-employment?

What's the remaining share of freight transport by rail?

I couldn't find any statistics about the first question

Over 90% of freight is by truck

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hugo Moyano is my hero and Alex forgot to say he is also the president of a football club called Independiente

More seriously,  we don't have  nothing comparable to Moyano's union in Spain.  However, we had recently a truckers' strike promoted by an association of self-employed truckers with alleged connections to the far-right. On the other hand, freight transport by rail represents less than 5% in Spain!

I have two questions:

What's the prevalence in Argentinian transport sector of that modern form of slavery called self-employment?

What's the remaining share of freight transport by rail?

This is embarrassing.

[Estrella]

Something I love about political debate that apparently happens in literally every country in the world is how discussions about changing the electoral system usually devolve into clueless extreme assumptions that have no connection to reality: one group thinking that electoral reform will be a magic bullet to solve all political problems (see Italy's love of single-member districts or some of the arguments for PR in FPTP countries) and the other panicking about end of the world, often with a heavy dose of looking down on voters as idiots.

Anyway, ballot papers in Argentina look like this:



Like in the US, most - but not all - elections take place on the same day. Every party has its own ballot paper listing its candidates for each office with big photos, logos and colour to make them easy to distinguish. Sometimes, up to six offices can be on a single ballot paper: President, Chamber, Senate, governor, provincial legislator and mayor. Parties that don't run, say, presidential or municipal candidates have a boleta corta, where those offices are missing. Voters who want to vote for these parties or want to vote for different parties on different levels need to literally split their ticket and cut the ballot with scissors.

There are many arguments both against (psychologically restricting choice) and for (ease of voting - for a straight ticket at least - and counting) this system. The provinces of Córdoba and Santa Fe have moved away from it entirely and introduced boleta única, a single ballot paper for all parties (all offices on one ballot in the former, separate ballots for each office the in latter). For years, there has been talk of switching to this system on the federal level, but as usual with electoral reforms, it went nowhere. After the last election, opposition raised the boleta única proposal again and earlier this week, a motion obliging the government to start debate on the project somewhat surprisingly passed the Chamber with Juntos voting for and Todos against.

It remains to be seen if this will go anywhere, but still, there have been some strange reactions: from the inevitable dubious warnings about how it's actually a Macrist conspiracy, to things like this thread: boleta única will cause fragmented legislatures (because people will be able to vote split ticket without playing origami?), more personalist and province-based politics (as if that wasn't the case now), bigger ballot papers (...) and end of the world Argentina turning into Peru - all, of course, in the interest of shadowy powers who want paralyzed legislatures so that they can rely on courts (this complaint is presumably not unrelated to the government's recent spat with the judiciary). Hm.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

I shaded the 2021 legislative elections by result