A Fool and His Chains
Milei's many enemies, mainstream presstitutes and Voltaire's timeless wisdom...
Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World...
Welcome to the New Year, dear reader. And extra special salutations to our new readers, who join us at the perfect time to witness what we’ve been calling (with our characteristic flair for understatement) “the greatest political experiment of our time.”
We refer, of course, to the strange goings on in our adopted home of Argentina, where we while away the summer days in the grand old capital city of Buenos Aires.
As you are no doubt aware, the long-suffering citizens of this once-prosperous nation recently voted to “throw the bums out,” and so elected a laissez-faire, anarcho-capitalist in President Javier Milei, a man who promises to gut the parasitic “political caste” and pull the plug on the whole Charybdian whirlpool that is the putrid state.
Unlike similar-sounding politicos in other nations, with whom the mainstream press are apt to lump him, Sr. Milei is neither a creature from the left or a critter from the right... neither more of Column A nor of Column B... neither tweedle-dumb nor tweedle dumber.
Rather, he appears to exhibit a firm understanding of free markets and Austrian School economics (he has a pair of masters degrees and has authored over 50 academic papers on the subject...with, unfashionably enough in this day and age, zero accusations of plagiarism).
As might be expected, the man with the trademark chainsaw has no shortage of enemies... powerful, entrenched forces who do not appreciate the fact that he has upset their stolen apple carts. He will have to wage battle with fierce political adversaries...as well as a mainstream media that can only be described as farcical in the extreme.
Case in point...
Mainstream Presstitution
Ahead of a recent planned protest – where mafioso union leaders pay professional “piqueteros” to block streets, bring traffic to a halt and generally make a nuisance of themselves, a la Just Stop Oil brats elsewhere – Milei’s government issued an official communication (essentially) stating that... while it is absolutely the right of free people to protest their government, they must not infringe on the rights of ordinary citizens going about their daily business.
Those found to be doing so would risk losing their planes sociales (welfare checks). The phrase “el que corta no cobra” (he who cuts does not get paid) quickly began making the rounds on social media.
Leaders of the march had boasted 50,000-plus protesters would be on hand to block the main Avenida 9 de Julio... an estimated 3,000 bothered showing up, barely enough for a decent asado.
What’s more, some 12,000 citizens called into special hotlines to report that they were being blackmailed by their public sector employers to attend the protest, threatened with losing their government salary if they did not march. Sweet, sweet irony.
A few days later, President Milei posted a cartoon on his social media accounts, showing him liberating a protester from a cage from which he clearly wished not to be freed.
One local English language paper, always happy to provide a little comic relief...at their own expense, chose to interpret the cartoon in the least charitable way imaginable...or even, for that matter, unimaginable.
“It will be interesting to see how President Javier Milei handles reactions to his mega-decree politically. His initial responses have not been encouraging: he posted a cartoon to Instagram showing himself locking up a person banging a pot.”
Needless to say, the paper in question neglected to feature the cartoon itself in their article, lest readers draw the “wrong” (i.e. not the paper’s) conclusion.
It is at moments such as these one recalls the timeless words of Voltaire:
It is difficult to free a fool from the chains he reveres.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
It is actually more sinister. They are "social organizations" that run government welfare plans. They act as intermediaries between the government and the welfare recipiants. The people calling the hotline are welfare recipiants who are being blackmailed by these social organizations. If they don't go to the marches, they threaten to withhold their next month's installment. These organizations take a cut of each wellfare check each month, something like 1%-3%. How they ended up running the welfare plans I am not sure, but they are politically connected with peronists, very corrupt, etc. The fact that these people cause so many problems with cutting traffic is crazy, since they are not "protesting" against anything. Rather, they are trying to maintain and increase the wellfare amounts, so they themselves can get a bigger piece of the pie through the % cut they take on every welfare check. Milei is trying to cut out these middle men and deliver the welfare directly (he considers these people victims of the system, so cutting them off right away would be immoral, especially in the current economic situation.).
Milei is the real deal! Brilliant Voltaire quote. Reminds me of Mark Twain’s “It’s easier to fool someone than convince them they’ve been fooled. Or Yuri Bezmenov: “As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. He will refuse to believe it. That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization."
https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-reason-with-a-demoralized-person-yuri-kgb