Ignacio Zuleta
07/05/2020 - 19:10
- Clarín.com
- Politics
The future, the other victim of the virus
The terminal victim of the plague is the ability of politicians to build the future, a precious but necessary resource. If they do not offer a future, politicians will join the lists of victims of this coronavirus, which, because it is implacable, has a biblical aura. The conspicuous product of the politician is not the speeches, nor the recipes of management, nor the exhibition of force. Your product is the future. For the construction of the future, prophetic vision, understanding of reality above the average, and expressing the representation of people are required. Without that, it fails its mission. Dynamite its essential role, it would be said in these hours. And dynamite your own future. The course of the plague puts in crisis the ability of the dome to build the future. The discourse is that society faces an invisible enemy, who does not know where it comes from or where it is going, or how long it will harass us. Nor if the chosen remedies are going to work because nobody can extract laws from experience. There were rabid quarantines that failed , and openings that dispersed the virus, which prefers to travel to Miami and not appear for José Ignacio.
Believers understand that it is a volatile and cheating retaliation from mother earth that defends itself against human pride. Underneath that discourse run political actions, forced by the difficulty to build a future, such as the attempt to put the responsibility on the neighbor of the opposite bank of the stream. Or to build muscle by taking advantage of public support, which always, in crisis situations, embraces power. Or take advantage of the crisis to impose reforms that previously seemed utopian, such as huge taxes or money laundering, or effects on the freedom of others or the right to property.
Giant Time
It is useful to imagine this crisis as a war, at least in its consequences. The only thing a war brings is what you learn . Two months after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt said: "The news is going to get worse and worse, before it gets better and better, and the American people deserve to have it raw." Telling the truth is the way to start building the future . Telling the truth does not end with predicting future horrors or punishing the neighbor who wants to see the sun. It is also to look at better times and reward the collective effort. Politicians and governments believe that the virus is something that can be combated with a tweet, that quarantine or isolation is enough to remedy the damage, or with conventional economy prescriptions to repair the productive machinery that has exploded around the world. .
On top of these routines, expected in leaders of a certain age and who have made their careers with manual solutions, there are effects without antecedents and for which the inherited toolbox is not enough. Shock in the public is also not expressed by opinion polls that guide the actions of the leaders. Neither questions nor answers work. Opposite is a collective experience of crushing expectations , an idea embodied in all generations that everything one had was lost, and that one must undertake, as after a war, a new life and on a new basis.
Wizard time
Governments apply quack compresses to the devastation within the public, who experience this as a Chernobyl. Those situations call for imaginative solutions and out of the box (according to Yankee jargon). These types of exceptional recipes also require exceptional behavior, which may arise from common leaders but who have read the new reality with inspiration. You don't need supermen but open-minded thinkers . In the recent cycle there were two moments in which there were reactions of this type. One was Raúl Alfonsín with the Austral plan and the war economy that modified the course in 1985. The debt problem was huge and turned governments around the world. The recipe was imaginative. New currency, drain, etc. It may have been the foundation of a new world, but it failed because of politics. It was a weak government, Peronism dominated most of the provinces and the Senate, and it recovered from divisions in 1987.
The second test of this type of solution was brought by the short Cavallo-Menem cycle with convertibility , a new currency, another drain to de-index the economy and a clean and jerk of stability. It was short-lived. It opened in 1991 a cycle of optimism that was also buried by politics in a couple of years. On October 3, 1993 Peronism lost the elections for deputies in Córdoba. The list was headed by Juan Schiaretti, delegate of Domingo Cavallo, who aspired to be a candidate for president in 1995. A month later, on November 4, Menem agreed with Alfonsín on a reform with reelection. That project divided Peronism and the radical opposition and took power away from Cavallo's reformist program, which lasted just six months in office during the renewed mandate of La Rioja.
The world contributed the "Tequila", tied to the uprising, in January 1994, of Subcomandante Marcos, who was not even a commander but who threw us, Cristina would say, the world on top . Somewhere there is the leader who, even with an old and ordinary mind, imagines the solution at the height of the tragedy that the public believes to live, without anyone showing them that there is a future, a category that is not in the books either. It is within each one and is the food of life.
Pampa authoritarianism: the Vicentin commission hands Congress over to the Executive
In these hours the opposition of the Senate will decide whether to bring to justice , by means of an amparo action, the rejection of the approval of a law that creates an investigative commission on the financial wrongdoings of the Vicentin firm. That resource is discussed by the senators with a selected group of constitutionalists, who analyze whether it is convenient to bring it to justice, or wait until it reaches the Deputies and fight the battle there. Those experts provided the basis for a draft request for a declaration of unconstitutionality , which will circulate among opposition senators as of Monday. The main reproach is the political inopportunity to create an investigative commission by law, when a resolution was enough. A resolution requires 2/3 of the votes in the Senate and a law is passed by a simple majority. The rest is literature, because legality is sustainable. What is less solid is the situation in which he would leave Congress. A law can be vetoed by the Executive. A resolution no. If the bicameral comes out by law, it will be within decree range and will be an institutional capitulation of one power over another . And nothing less in something that is a faculty of the Senate, that of investigating to gather evidence and legislate, not to judge or condemn anyone, as the unsuspecting believe that throw fuel on the fire that can set them on fire.
Unimaginable that a Praetorian gesture by Cristina ends in a diminutive capitis before Fernández. The same commission is fallow , because the opposition has moved forces so that the Peronist deputies of Santa Fe and Córdoba put conditions to approve it. After the opposition was five votes out of 129 to manage the quorum, the ruling party takes care of adventures that expose its legislative weakness. Or in any case, they reveal Alberto and Cristina's dependence on Massa's strength to operate the camera. That special session on May 21 had been requested by Juntos por Cambio and other opposition blocs, to repeal decree 457, which expanded the spending powers of the Executive. Five votes were missing, which can now appear if the Vicentin commission project comes. No one sees it on the horizon . For the same fear of the opposition, repeating those 124 votes, in the agreement that the block chiefs closed this weekend, a project is included to shield those powers by law for more spending. There are interesting carrots to accompany the agreement: a mega moratorium, papal jubilee type, that no one will be able to reject due to the figures it reaches, which reaches $ 800,000 million.
An artificial democracy
Because there is no future is that the ruling party has broken ties with the opposition , limited today to the negotiation in Deputies so that there are 30 more consecutive days of semi-virtual sessions, and to the conversations of the Ministers of Health of the Nation and PBA with CABA. The pause until the end of the lock - July 17 - prolongs the agony of virtual parliamentarism. The Together for Change blocks spend hours embroidering a position that unifies and improves goals in both chambers. In the Senate the overwhelming majority of Peronism complicates their lives, but they have in their favor that in that chamber "a Covid limit" governs the issues to be dealt with. In the talks of the opposition with the Christianism of the soft parts, they demand: that this restriction be tightened to deal only with stinking issues, that there be a computer audit to know if there is a quorum when it comes to voting, that the legislator who wants to attend person can do it, and that there are formal parliamentary work meetings to negotiate the issues to be discussed.
There are other niceties of the virtual system that are difficult to remedy . For example, time management. In the Senate, the order is Praetorian because Cristina manages her own speakers and the opposition regulates them according to issues. In Deputies there is an explosion of protagonisms. All the legislators feel they have the right to speak, without respecting the zoological scale that always ruled in the face-to-face, when only those who had the permission of the chief spoke. Now, giving speeches from home, and reading, is very easy . This has inflated the use of the word by 50%, and it is what is talked about the most, compared to what happened before. A challenge for technology because there is no system that seamlessly banks 260 speakers in simultaneous connection for more than 6 hours. Programs in use need some pause, or crash, as happened twice in the last session, which lasted more than ten hours.
The plot of the spies, fruit of the poisonous tree
The crime of El Calafate adds morbidity to other dark plots such as that of foolish spies. The Government tries to complicate the media, radio and TV entertainers and some journalists with espionage. It is the fruit of the poisonous tree last year, when Dolores' justice consented to a state agency, the Provincial Memory Commission, reviewing the behavior of journalists. Also, to incorporate into the judicial lexicon the concept of Psychological Action, an invention of military codes to designate actions of the ideological enemy. As invention as "lawfare", a concept that some use to designate something as old as the political instrumentation of justice, which goes back to the processes of Socrates, as if they were news of anti-populist neoliberalism.
This time the plot imagines spies who were so unprofessional that they walked and jabbed at Macrismo and opposition politicians, with a direct terminal in the presidential office. Those spies made sure to leave everything on their phones and computers , waiting to show the testimonies to the first person who asked for them. They were also so convinced of the virtues of the laws of repentance, that they had to sing everything in the first interrogation. They would deserve a punishment for crimes against boludez. The alleged officials of the former SIDE and of security, Messrs. Arribas, Majdalani and others, do not defend themselves, nor do they defend their president, for whom Rogelio Frigerio said that he did not put his hands on fire. Only Miguel Pichetto and Elisa Carrió have come out to disqualify a plot that they believe seeks to discredit the previous government.
Nor does any revelation appear that moves the agenda. The accusation of the Peronism to the journalists to be spies is exhausted in the insult . The loss of prestige of this trade exploits, like all those linked to security in Argentina. The police authority represents the State and lacks legitimacy in the public, because the State has committed barbarities from its origins. From the viceroyalty that has been chasing the creole. Even Martín Fierro had to go to the border to escape police persecution. The complication of this force with dictatorships and dictatorships have prevented a policeman, and even less a spy, from being a hero in Argentina. That is why there are no police or espionage novels in which the protagonist is a uniformed man or a secret agent. Calling a button, or a spy, is an insult. An escrache to delegitimize the media and put them on the opposite sidewalk. A losing memory that has only led Peronism to failure . It happened to Perón before 1955, to Menem and to the Kirchner cycle.
This, if it is not lawfere, what is it? Cristina would say
Neither method is novel. In the 90s, the same journalists now demonized by the Government were the object of escraches in ATC programs, an official signal (ista) like now, encouraged by Guillermo Patricio Kelly, to mention someone who has already died, but who has left heirs . A decade later, the same names were subject to disqualifying attacks on the Kirchner ATC, in programs such as "6,7,8". The source of those entertainment and proselytizing sketches were the same as in the 1990s by the intelligence services, which provided background photos, videos, and reports. The peak of these fabrications was the complaint to a group of journalists for allegedly integrating a “criminal micro-enterprise” through which they published secret information. Since August 2006 -Néstor president, Alberto as chief of staff, Oscar Parrilli secretary general of the Presidency- SIDE investigated this plot. Did you know about these inquiries about journalists - worthy of the Nixon Oval Salon - did you promote them or consent, as the ruling party now claims, that Macri and Marcos Peña were aware of the Arribas-Majdalani viscosities? Since they did not stop them . Nor did Cristina president. It cost the accused years of prosecution, liens, and attorney fees. In 2016, when the government had changed, the justice dismissed them. This, if it is not lawfare, what is it? Cristina would say.
They are also moved by the enthusiasm of the ruling party for the judicial procedures, confident that they will harm the body of the current opposition, and celebrate the fact that they apply the same recipe to the Macristas that they complain about they applied before . They should remember that these accusations do not dent anyone's political destiny. Peronism regained muscle in the elections when its leaders, from Cristina down, were on fire at the gates of the dungeon. Their vote was not changed, because the public is more cunning than the leaders. Like other Peronism ventures, the clientele is not the voters of non-Peronism - 40% - but their own. The tribes that make up the tri-border government dispute strength to show who has the longest. Cristina maintained in 2017 37% support in the elections. The prosecutions did not hurt her. Nor are these spy plots, naive in form and substance, will get a single vote out of the opposition.
Pichetto, who is alone and waiting
This pause also gives time for other accommodations. Massa did not comply with the agreement to swear in Miguel Pichetto as auditor and he could not participate in the session of the controllers on Tuesday. The discussion was about the opposition's project to modify this year's audit plan and include the extraordinary expenses that the Executive makes to face the plague. The discussion was tough, but the decision was postponed until Pichetto took office. Massa delayed the oath, an unnecessary procedure because the record of his appointment is sufficient. "I want to take the oath because they have told me that, if not, they can challenge it," he told the Cambiemos bosses on Thursday, when they asked him to comply. "Call him, put a Bible on him and take an oath. Or send the minutes of the session and that's it, ”Mario Negri replied. The opposition sees that Massa is holding Pichetto hostage so as not to irritate Christianity.
The session to approve the 30-day extension will also occur after the harsh quarantine that has been in effect since last Wednesday is lifted. With Pichetto there will be three representatives to the opposition, to balance the three of Peronism. In the middle is the auditor appointed by Massa when he was in opposition, Gabriel Mihura Estrada, and who looks with seriousness at the calls of Peronism to get caught at the party. That is, to reject with them the request of the radical auditors. There were sarcasms at that meeting and the government official Javier Fernández punished the NGO Poder Ciudadano, for asking that the plan be modified as the radicals requested. He demanded that this organization not be interested in the expenses, for example, of the government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. Audacity for two reasons : one, that Poder Ciudadano is the Argentine chapter of Transparency International, the NGO that rates countries in a ranking of corruption. Complaining about yourself is complaining about the decimal metric system. And more now that IT is chaired by the Argentine expert Delia Ferreyra, one of the people who knows the most about these issues in the world and, also, electoral technology. He turned the electronic vote to Macrism , for example. Second, because Poder Ciudadano provided one of the tests that Cristina presented in Justice to denounce a spy plot. Poder Ciudadano contributed the result of its analysis of the appointment book of the presidential area, which indicates a trafficking in persons who are being investigated by traps during the previous government. The auditor Juan Ignacio Forlón, delegate of the Kirchner family in that body, will have taken note.
