Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina…
Wandering around the historic Recoleta neighborhood yesterday afternoon, we stumbled upon a group of porteños setting up some information booths for La Libertad Avanza party. (That’s Javier Milei’s “Liberty Advances” libertarian party.)
What was strange, as you can plainly tell from the video, is the complete lack of bloodshed and chaos in the streets… the absence of any violent outbursts… the obvious dearth of pain and suffering among those individuals seen in the clip, who were apparently not aware of just how dangerous a state of anarchy really is in practice.
Not wanting to spoil the party, we didn’t let on that anything was amiss...
The Recoleta barrio is brimming with history, from the nearby cemetery to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and the storied Alvear Palace, a few blocks down the street.
The café you see toward the end of the clip, La Biela, was a favorite of Argentina’s greatest man of letters, Sr. Jorge Luis Borges. The blind bard used to stroll the two or three blocks from his apartment, down on Avenida Quintana, to take his afternoon cortado and confer with fellow literary figures over the pressing matters of the day.
Walking in his footsteps, we wonder what señor have thought were he alive today, in the midst of Argentina’s anarchist revolution? He who said, in his collection of short stories, Brodie’s Report (1970):
“I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges
One can not be sure, of course, but we have our suspicions…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
Even before all the USAID shenanigans gurgled to the putrid surface of the nation’s broadsheets, careful readers suspected the media was long bought and paid for. The so-called “fact-checkers” were so cringingly biased, it was starting to become difficult not to notice that something was amiss.
And now, thanks to the ongoing, line-by-line audit of the fed’s books, we’ll likely see a lot more rot in the system… more even than the most cynical among us could have expected. We’ll hold our nose and continue to cover the story, best we can…
As mentioned in this space before, America's trust in mass media has been circling the drain for some time, with less than a third of recent Gallup Poll respondents expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”
Here’s the survey, through last year…
According to Gallup, 2023-2024 was the third consecutive year that more U.S. adults registered no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another third (33%) of Americans expressed “not very much” confidence.
It is against this well-earned decline in trust that we offer a special shoutout to our dear Notes Members; we’re ever grateful for your generous and ongoing support.
As you know, Notes is an entirely independent, reader-supported publication (as in, we accept no advertising, bow to no boss and bend no knee).
Rather, we’re interested in free markets, free minds and free people…and we hope you are too!
So if you’re enjoying our work, and would like to help support the project, please consider joining our small but growing community of free-thinkers, deep readers and cheerful skeptics, here…
Meanwhile, we’re off to enjoy a backyard asado and share a glass or two of malbec with some amigos. It’s not exactly Super Bowl “wings ‘n’ beer,” but it will do…
Go team!
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
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