Argentina's Presidents Survivor - our survivor ALFONSIN prevails over Frondizi !

[Edu]

Oh, fab, i didn't know that you were waiting for me to start this, i would have tried to arrive home faster instead of keeping everybody hanging.

Anyways, i think the list is ok, but maybe you could cut some of the early names and leave the important ones, like for instance just leave Rivadavia, Rosas, Urquiza (Maybe Derqui too) and then leave all of them from Mitre on to the present. Most of the early names in the list may have been important for some time, but considering they weren't presidents and that most didn't even fully control the whole territory, it may become a boring task eliminating them (and frankly i have no idea which ones i would eliminate early or try to keep late in the game ).
But it's just a suggestion, if everyone else wants to play with all the names then i won't really complain. I'm just concerned about the general lack of knowledge about them (including me with some of the names )

From Mitre onwards i don't really have a complaint, except for Molina Gómez. When i saw that name i thought: "who the f*** is that? lol. I don't think he really belongs in the list despite being president for a couple of days. And this is honestly the first time i ever heard of him Of course we had so many presidents, interim presidents, military juntas, etc that it's hard keeping track of them all and not become insane

As i said, these are only small suggestions, whatever you decide is fine, fab

[Edu]

Oh by the way, Videla, Ongania, Jose Felix Uriburu and Aramburu need to go ASAP. Probably Rosas and Roca could follow swiftly. Then Sarmiento, Figueroa Alcorta, Justo, Guido, Isabel Peron and Galtieri are also good candidates for early ousting.

And now that i see him, Rawson shouldn't be here either, he was sort of a figurehead that lasted a couple of days maintaining the government house for Ramirez to take power.

[Edu]

Viola wasn't that bad compared to Videla or others, he in fact went against some of the harsher measures made by Videla. Yep, he was a son of a bitch, but he at least reincorporated some politicians so they could take part of the government, he also didn't enforce some of the prohibitions as hard as Videla did (or Galtieri after him for that matter). Yes the economic situation under him was bad, but if we oust argie presidents based on that we should do just 1 single huge round .
Still, he should be a target soon, but not now.

Rosas and Roca are early elimination candidates but despite the bad things they did, they also did some stuff right, which gives them a pass for now.


I'm going to vote for Jorge Rafael Videla, maybe there are some in the list that killed more people than him, maybe it's true that the times before the coup were f***ed up, but not only is he one of the worst here for various reasons, i also have personal reasons to hate him the most, so yeah, Videla needs to go.

Then I'll vote for José Félix Uriburu. The guy who started the nice tradition of overthrowing the government that the military and other powerful groups didn't like. Yes, Argentina up to that point didn't have the best democratic record in the world, elections were constantly rigged and the same power group ruled the country while regularly getting richer and with little to no regard for the rest of the people, but in the 10's and 20's that changed a bit, elections became freer than ever and the same people that governed for decades had decreased power.
But this guy screwed everything up, overthrew the government, torture of political opponents and suspected anarchists or communists became a normal thing, he closed newspapers, executed workers and union heads and set up a clearly fascist government (and I'm not one to throw around that word lightly) among other things
And after all this? electoral fraud returned and the same people that were voted out years ago returned like nothing had happened, and then it was all downhill from there. If you want to blame someone for the screwed up country we have you would probably end up pointing the finger at this guy and not Peron, like it's usually done.


In case it wasn't all that clear because of my rant: I vote to eliminate Videla and J. F. Uriburu

[Edu]

Pity that Lewis and Al haven't voted, we need more people

[Edu]

No problem man, i'm sure everyone here is more concerned about your health than about a game

Hope you get better soon

[Edu]

You got the wrong Uriburu out fab, I don't think that Xahar and Hash voted for the dull Jose Evaristo, but for the dictator Jose Felix

[Edu]

Oh, i forgot to vote

Aramburu
Ongania

[Edu]

You got the wrong Uriburu out fab, I don't think that Xahar and Hash voted for the dull Jose Evaristo, but for the dictator Jose Felix

OMG, of course.
As I said, I don't really feel better and you see the result...
I've got a big fever since 20 days, now and I'm not able to get rid of it. It's not the swine flu, just an infection, but it lasts and lasts...

Sorry, I fix all this mess...

No problem, hope you get better soon

Roca
Mitre (He was the one who referred to the blood of Gauchos as fertilizer right? Or was that Sarmineto?)

That was Sarmiento.


I'm still baffled at people voting for Viola or Bignone who were pretty mild dictators (in Bignone's case, everybody knew that he was just a transitional president till elections were held).

Anyway, my votes

Juan Carlos Onganía

Juan Lavalle (this guy was part of the Unitarios in the civil war [people who wanted to have a centralized government in Buenos Aires which would rule the rest of the country without consulting or caring for every other province], he overthrew Dorrego, executed him and then allied with Rosas and he basically paved the way for Rosas to gain power [more power than what he already had, mind you].

[Edu]

Lavalle
Ongania (what is he still doing here?)

[Edu]

Isabelita and Galtieri are good choices for the next round

[Edu]

Isabel Perón
Leopoldo Galtieri

Both for obvious reasons.

[Edu]

After we get rid of the military guys, we have to go after all those Oligarchial era non-entities.

Agreed, it's not like those guys offered free and fair elections, allowed dissent and benefited everyone thanks to the "success" the country was having. A bit better than the dictators we had afterwards (and some before) but it wasn't a democracy and they were also very corrupt.

Of course there were some worse than others, Between the period from Roca to Farrell the ones that need to go first are: Juarez Celman, Figueroa Alcorta, Justo and Farrell
The ones to keep would be Pellegrini, Roque Saenz Peña, Yrigoyen and Ortiz

Also i would suggest we get in agreement to eliminate both Rawson and Molina Gomez soon in one swift stroke. The guys were just caretakers and both "held" office for 2 days each, they shouldn't even be here to start with




Anyway, my votes (and it gets a little hard, there are a bunch of military dictators still in the game, but none of them were THAT bad compared to the other ones already eliminated)

Galtieri (yep, drunk piece of crap)
Jose Maria Guido (yeah, this may seem like a strange choice, but the guy was just a puppet for the military who overthrew one of our best Presidents [Frondizi], the way he came to power was a bit odd. when the military arrested Frondizi, nobody really cared to go to the "Pink House" [our government house] to actually take charge of the situation, they waited till the other morning. But meanwhile in the Pink House because Frondizi was arrested and the vicepresident had resigned, the supreme court decided to appoint the next in line to the presidency, that guy was Guido. So it was a surprise to the military heads to go into the Pink House to take office and find the office was already taken by this guy . Apparently he was persuasive because the military decided to keep him as a figurehead and Guido was happy to follow those orders. The guy was useless, his time in office was marked by a mini-civil war between 2 factions of the military, the economy was crap and the guy committed the same mistake of banning the peronist party which in the end only helped Peron to get an even greater Martyr status. Plus it's always nice to set up a precedent were the civilian administration happily legitimizes the military coup and subsequent dictatorship. Maybe he doesn't really deserve to go now, but i wanted to mix it up a little bit with some unknown who was still pretty bad

[Edu]

Alejandro Lanusse
José Maria Guido

[Edu]

Rawson

Molina Gomez

Of course, you may argue they shouldn't have been in the list, but they were REAL, even if very short, presidents.

But i guess then you should have included Puerta and Camaño who were presidents for a day more or less
By the way, don't take my criticism the wrong way fab, you are doing a wonderful job, especially considering you have been ill



The temptation of eliminating Guido is more powerful than the temptation of eliminating the caretakers. Let's have a compromise

Guido
Molina Gomez


The piece of crap of Agustín Pedro Justo should be eliminated soon too.


To be honest, before this started, i was worried that Peron was going to be ousted in the first rounds or some other crazy sh**t, cause of the bad reputation he has in the US, but i'm glad that while few, every voter here actually thinks when they vote

[Edu]

And, Edu, for Puerta and Camano, apart from the fact you didn't want them (), they were only acting ones. Molina Gomez and Rawson were real ones, even if short-lived.
But, sure, at a point, choices are a bit arbitrary.

Well, in a way Puerta and Camaño were acting presidents because they were in office during a democracy and there was a constitutional way for power to change hands. Molina Gomez and Rawson were just "real" presidents because they were De facto presidents who in practice had no real power and they themselves acknowledged that they were in essence acting de facto presidents. Lonardi was even managing government business while Molina Gomez was still "president".
Rawson apparently will go out this round, so it's a moot point anyway


Arturo Rawson
Agustín Pedro Justo (hey, if you want to blame someone for the destruction of the Argentine economy, start blaming this scumbag instead of Peron )


Urquiza, Lonardi, Bignone, Juarez Celman, Figueroa Alcorta, Lastiri, Campora and even Pedernera should be going soon.

[Edu]

     Argentinian Presidents are not something I am very knowledgeable about, so when I heard what I did about Sarmiento I decided I ought to vote against him.

Well, i don't blame you. He was a very good and prolific writer and it's no wonder that among those thousands of pages people were going to find some nasty stuff
He was pretty racist against the native americans, he criticised the most poor provinces and he didn't have a nice opinion (to say the least) about the gauchos. So some of the things he wrote are pretty shocking by today's standart, But at the time i wouldn't say that his views were too much out of touch with the mainstream beliefs. I sort of give him some slack cause of that.
Despite this, he was a pretty good president who modernized the country and greatly promoted education. He had other faults during his administration, but on the whole he was pretty good, especially considering that he was president during a time where the tension between Buenos Aires and the rest of the provinces was sky high.
Though as the years pass opinions about him seem to be more extreme. Some think he's one of our greatest presidents and some think he was one of the worst, the truth should be somewhere in between

IMHO, All the crap dictators and most of the nincompoops that succeeded Roca till Peron came along should probably go before him

[Edu]

Wow, Argentina has had some sucky leadership.

No sh**t


Justo José de Urquiza
Eduardo Lonardi (he might have ruled for just a little while and he was certainly tamer than Aramburu. He also had the right idea in regards to Peronism [that is, don't ban the party and make Perón even more of a martyr than what he already was]. He was still a dictator who continued the nice tradition of deposing leaders when it's convenient, screw him


Lastiri had very close ties with José Lopez Rega, who is one of the most infamous people we ever had. Lopez Rega virtually controlled the 3rd government of Perón and fully controlled the administration of his wife Isabel. Lopez rega was a far right loon who believed in witches and some other weird sh**t and who was actually the head of the "Triple A" a far right terrorist and paramilitary group who was very much involved in all the horrible stuff that happened during the 70's.
Lastiri was an incompetent figurehead who was famous for his huge collection of ties, i'm guessing he didn't buy them with his hard earned money
And yeah, he was a member of the P2.
Still, i don't think he should go just now, since his tenure was so short it certainly wasn't worse than what was considered the norm those days


Lastiri will probably be out and Lonardi still in, i'm guessing that my next 2 votes will be something like: Lonardi and Juarez Celman, but i'll have to think about it

[Edu]

Ok, I'm going to vote for the last military dictators of the 20Th century (Juarez Celman can wait a bit ), after that scum is gone I'll concentrate on the pieces of crap like Quintana, Figueroa Alcorta and Juarez Celman and then the rest of the aristocratic puppets like the first Saenz Peña and the first Uriburu.

Quintana did try to make the British bomb the city of Rosario because of problems with a bank he represented, but in the end nothing happened thanks to Avellaneda and his foreign minister, and the guy still had a somewhat mediocre, somewhat decent presidency. He was interior minister for a while before becoming president though and he was pretty virulent against the revolutions at the time of the radicals who wanted reform. A good choice for some of the coming rounds.

We also shouldn't forget Pedernera (if he is not ousted this round) and Castillo (who has been flying under the radar)

Eduardo Lonardi (same reasons as before)
Reynaldo Bignone (Yep, he ruled mildly and just as a caretaker while democratic elections where prepared for 1983, However he is still a suspect in several crimes and another trial against him has already started or will start soon. He was so much of a figurehead during his last year in office that the people gave him the nickname "The Big none" an obvious pun thanks to that funny name of his, probably making him the first Argentine president to be mocked with a nickname in english )

[Edu]

Lonardi
Juarez Celman (pretty authoritarian even by the standart of the oligarchy of the time, had a fight with Roca which destabilized the country, gave the lands taken from the native americans to Buenos Aires settlers, a major economic crisis took place during his term, he was an incompetent buffoon, a british puppet and a corrupt bastard. He did some stuff right, but not much, his time has come)

[Edu]

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

I can't bear her (I can't say it's personal, of course, but...) and it seems to be worse and worse: every peso seems to have to be put in the "Kirchners hole" !

WTF? Kirchner? before Quintana, Figueroa Alcorta, Uriburu, Luis Saenz Peña, Castillo, Menem, De la Rua, Rodriguez Saa and Duhalde? Are you trying to get revenge on the eliminations of De Gaulle?


Manuel Quintana (for the reasons i stated before)
Hector José Campora (I never really liked him and i think his time to go is coming soon [though not neccesarily now], but I'll throw a bone to fab and see if he lays off Kirchner for a while )

[Edu]

Considering my Kirchner vote might have prompted Gully's Menem vote, I'm almost certain not to vote for her again for the next 5 rounds... I don't want to have this big fight before some rounds.
And it was a try...

Oh man, please don't tell me you are going to defend Menem in later stages, it's probably not his time yet, but it's getting dangerously close


José Figueroa Alcorta
José Evaristo Uriburu

[Edu]

I don't like Menem at all, don't worry, but I prefer him to the Kirchners, who are destroying, step by step, the recovery Argentina managed to reach.
If Menem is ousted, the Kirchners should go too.

I just don't like the bias in the US and in some of European countries against every South American politician who is or seems to be on the right and in favour of any "progressive" however inefficient, dull, corrupt, stupid, dangerous or anything else (s)he is...

Well, i strongly disagree, i think Menem should go way before Kirchner goes and it's got nothing to do with being "progressive" or "leftie" or whatever. Since this started i tried to be as objective as i can probably be and from that objectivity i can say that Nestor Kirchner was much better than Menem.

Should i start naming every scandal of corruption that happened under Menem? Most of the scandals in the Kirchner era are pretty tame compared to the hundreds of million corruption deals in the Menem era. the Swiftgate, the Yomagate (drug trafficking scandal), the rotten milk that the government bought from businessmen who backed Menem and then distributed the milk among poor people in some "charity" programs, the IBM-Banco Nacion scandal (one of the biggest bribery scandals in the Menem administration), The multiplication of our external debt, the record breaking levels of tax evasion, his environmental policies which were a piece of crap and his horrible environmental secretary (Maria Julia Alsogaray, famous for her corruption scandals) who did nothing when thousands of acres in the Patagonia burned, Menem's house in Anillaco (his home town) which had even a private airstrip and an artificial lake (the airstrip was as big as the one our second most important national airport has), and those are just some of the ones that come off the top of my head right now. Is the Kirchner administration corrupt? yes, but in a country were EVERY damn administration was corrupt, they are pretty mild in that aspect, Menem had a scandal every 1 or 2 weeks for christ sake.

And it's not just the extreme (even by our standarts) corruption. How about the time were Argentina was acting as a peace mediator between Ecuador and Peru in their 90's war and we illegally sold weapons to Ecuador. Not only that, but we also sold weapons to Croatia which was also illegal. And then to cover up their tracks they decided to blow up a military factory in Rio Tercero killing a few people in the process, i don't remember Kirchner being responsible for murder in these past years.

Also people like to criticize Kirchner for being authoritarian, but then forget that during the menem era TV shows (even in private stations) were cancelled because they revealed some corruption charge against menem. I remember a news show that got cancelled after they took images of the aforementioned Menem mansion in Anillaco. There are also several reports of beatings against journalists and even against some of the top political cartoonists (which were comedians, not even journalists). Does pressure over some of the media happen in the Kirchner administration? yes, but like in the corruption deals, that is pretty normal in our country where the media was always bribed or "threatened" in basically every single administration we ever had. It's when those "threats" actually become physical assaults or actual cancelling of the shows because of a whim of the president (Menem) or when they are killed (like in every military dictatorship we had) that i actually have a real problem with. Again, Kirchner is pretty mild in this aspect.

Of course then i have to talk about the media itself, which is largely a huge piece of sh**t, there are quite a few excellent journalists but those don't get that much attention. It's not easy to govern a country where the media is overwhelmingly against you like in Cristina's case, every move you make (be it a good one or a bad one) is criticized for days and months and the journalistic quality is pretty low. And the government has 1 public channel (compared to every other of the main channels here which are privately owned) and if they dare put a program in the friggin government channel praising the Kirchner administration then everyone is up in arms calling them "biased", so in the end, not even the government channel ends up being favorable to the government, LOL.
Menem's case was quite different, even if a lot of the media was against him (especially in the last years of his presidency) there were a lot of famous journalists and newsmen (most, if not all of them, right wing) who vigorously defended him. Now with Kirchner you are going to have a hard time finding media people defending them, right wing, left wing or whatever. I think i can count 1 newspaper that sometimes praises the government and then that's it. It's pretty strange that someone that has being criticized by basically the whole media for years now is accused of being authoritarian against that same media, I'm more inclined to say that the media overreact like they usually do (i remember during the Swine flu scare how the media was blaming Kirchner for it ROTFL)

Then i find your claim that the Kirchner's are destroying the recovery that Argentina managed to make a bit strange. The better part of the economic recovery happened under Kirchner, i know that you hate them but they helped a lot in that recovery that "Argentina" made. And i also disagree that they are destroying everything. I mean, it's no secret that the world is undergoing a global economic crisis, you can't really expect Argentina to continue to grow or have the same economic prosperity than what we had a few years ago, it was pretty obvious that we were going to suffer a blow, as did almost every other country in the world. If you don't want to credit Kirchner with the recovery, fine, but if you lay the blame entirely to their government because of an economic crisis during a period of worldwide economic instability, then i think you are grasping at straws.

It's no secret that in this country people like to whine about everything, it's a fact that most (if not more than 95% of our governments since Rivadavia) started with high or decent approval ratings and if they stayed long enough their rating would plummet straight to the bottom, it happens every single time (the only exception to this rule is probably Duhalde, who started with extremely low approval rating and ended up with decent ones). And lots of people like to complain about everything and a lot of the times they do it irrationally. Like for instance the Swine flu scare i mentioned earlier. I mean, there were people who were ripping Kirchner apart accusing them of the Swine flu, some even called them murderers and that wasn't a fringe group, lots and lots of people believed that, and it's basically impossible for the government to do ANYTHING without having loads and loads of irrational criticism. Again, it's not entirely easy to govern a country where everything bad that happens is considered your fault and everything good that happens is ignored or even attributed to the opposition. Even in things where government has little to do with it.

So yeah, a lot of people like to complain just because it's cool. They do forget that Pensioners are receiving more money today thanks to the government increases than they did in quite a while, they forget that the poorest elements in our country, while still not out of poverty are better off than years ago thanks to government social programs, that tax evasion is down, that corruption is nothing compared to what was before, etc. I am from the middle class and i see friends and family alike complain about how bad things are, but honestly i don't know how can they say that when their standart of living hasn't changed, people still travel abroad, people still buy expensive imported stuff, and people in general are still living quite well off and not living that much differently than years ago. I came to the conclusion that even when they are still well off, people like to act like everything is going to hell. I also have an uncle who doesn't live in the city of Buenos Aires, but in the province. He is a dentist in a pretty poor neighbourhood and he always told me (in the 90's for instance) that people were living like rats, there were no jobs and people didn't even receive help from the government. Nowadays, not only his dentist practice is doing much better but all of his regular clients are happy and tell him that they were never as well off as they are now and he deals with dozens of people a week. In general and in the opinion of someone that has lived in this country his whole life i can probably say that people (even now) are better off than years before (and by years, i mean decades).

Even some of the right stuff that menem did, wasn't because his great moral sense, it was because of scandals. menem got rid of the disgusting obligatory military service not because he didn't believe in it, but because a young soldier was murdered by his superiors and in the following investigation all kinds of horrible stuff that was done to young recruits regularly came to light and the public pressure was so strong that menem was forced not only to scrap the draft but also dismantle large portions of the army (which is probably the best thing menem ever did, ensuring that the military would never (or at least for some time) be in any position of taking over the country, which is a huge relief.

[Edu]

Oh wow, this is my first post i actually have to cut in half


On the other hand Menem did one of the most disgusting things in our recent history which is to pardon major criminals from the 70's including military heads of government of the dictatorships, mass murderers and right wing and left wing guerrillas members. That was a supposed move to pacify the country but in reality it was rightfully seen as a slap to everyone that knew someone who had perished thanks to these guys. Nowadays you could argue that the Kirchner's are more biased to left wingers, but even if it's just the right wing military heads that are put on trial again it's a step forward in my opinion because no one can actually deny that these people belong behind bars for the rest of their lives (and not in those private prisons or whatever, but among the gen pop of some scummy prison).

Also, one of the best things that Kirchner ever did was the reorganization of the Argentina supreme court.
Menem virtually controlled justice in this country by making the supreme court a puppet controlled by himself, he expanded the number of judges in the supreme court and filled every new seat with absolutely incompetent judges who only said, yes, Mr president, yes, Mr president, yes, Mr president and not much more. The head of the tribunal during the menem years, Julio Nazareno was even suspected of not even being a friggin lawyer because his knowledge of law was so slim it actually embarrassed even the first year law students. The Supreme court was a circus full of clowns with only 2 or 3 judges who actually knew what they were doing, and probably the best and most impartial judge during that era was fayt (who is still in the court by the way).
Kirchner actually proposed modifications to the court and Congress began impeachment trials against the menem puppets from the court (finally!) and one by one they started to resign or got ousted. many thought that Kirchner was going to do the same as menem, except put puppets of his own. But he actually put on the court capable, well respected and independent judges that are a lot of things, but puppets of Kirchner they are not. Sometimes they rule in favor of the government, sometimes they rule in favor of the opposition, and have proved time and time again that they became an independent body and probably the best Supreme court we had in a long, loooong time. Of course the Kirchner haters still call them puppets if they rule in favor of the government and say nothing when they rule against it, disgusting hypocrites.

Then i also reserve some lines for the opposition. People that vote against Kirchner don't actually realise the the opposition in general is much, much worse. menem? Reutemann? the incompetent ex Formula 1 pilot who was Santa Fe province governor twice and stood idle while the province was flooded by water...twice? Macri? the corrupt businessman, car smuggling, IMF lover, daddy's parasite good for nothing? Solá? the guy who was a Menem supporter, a Ruckauf supporter, a Duhalde supporter, a Kirchner supporter (he was actually a pretty huge Kirchner fan while governor of the Buenos Aires province) and now a Kirchner critic and major opposition leader? Carrio? Who has proven time and time again that she is even more authoritarian with her party than anything Kirchner ever did? Or maybe Cobos? The "honorable" vice president who fully supported Cristina when he was in the ticket that is now a major opposition figure and who votes against the government and actually campaign against it while STILL being in the vice president's office?

Seriously, when was the last time in the world that a vice president of the same party of the president in a democratic country actually campaigns against the government and even votes in the senate against it? If Biden voted against the healthcare plan or the stimulus that Obama proposed and then stayed in office i think that everyone would be up in arms calling him a traitor and he would be hanged by the balls. In this country, that guy could become head of the opposition LOL.
And i hope no one tries to argue that Cobos is from the Radical Civic Union and Kirchner is a peronist, because: 1) Being a member of a party doesn't mean much nowadays, people are judged more by who they support and less by party affiliation 2) Cobos was one of the Radicals that started supporting Kirchner fully while they were governors and Cobos was actually expelled from the party once he pledge vicepresidential support to Cristina. Now of course the radicals want him back and he is happy to oblige.

There is even more i want to write, but I'm pretty tired and i don't even know if anyone will read this huge message i wrote as it is (I'll be lucky if at least fab reads it ), so i better stop, but this are basically some of my arguments about why Menem is worse than Kirchner and why Nestor Kirchner (Cristina can go out earlier if you want) deserves to be among the top 10 without even a remote hint of a doubt.

[Edu]

Damn, i forgot to vote

Vicente López y Planes
José Figueroa Alcorta


Wow, there are still a lot of irrelevant guys that need to be ousted soon before we start witht he big ones.

Castillo and Luis Saenz Peña are good candidates for the few next rounds.
And WTF is Rodriguez saá still doing here? the guy was president for 1 week and was as irrelevant as they come, plus he is a corrupt bastard who ruled the San Luis province for 18 years like a feudal king (and now the province is ruled by his brother since 2003 )
Arguments can be made for Pellegrini and de la Rua (who is one fo the most incompetent presidents we ever had and that's saying a lot).

Also, can we start to get rid soon of guys like Viamonte and maza? who were just guys that governed the province of Buenos Aires for a short while and where just minor historical notes compared to Rosas (they might have been more important during the early days of our independence but not anymore when they actually had the power).
Also, maybe Derqui can go his merry way soon.

[Edu]

Well, who says the survivors aren't interesting ?

Thanks, Edu, for all those information.
I must say that your "everyday" examples of Argentina's political (and general) life are really interesting and useful.

Let's say that, of course, my knowledge of Argentina's politics reaches very quickly its limits.
Let's says also that Menem has already faded a bit in outside memories and one tends to judge more kindly the past... You remind us of many misdeeds I must acknowledge I haven't in memory any longer... Good point, in general and for this survivor !
Let's say that, as I've said, I prefer Beria than Putin, which says something of what I think about Menem.
Let's say that, of course, Nestor deserves to stay longer than Cristina.
Let's say that, when talking about "progressive" bias, I wasn't referring to you, as I've always noticed your sense of moderateness and fairness. I was mostly referring to French medias (and French vulgate), which are so biased and stupid on many foreign countries, but especially on South American ones.

Let's say that Menem is interesting "historically", as an object of history if you want, as he put (or tried to put) the old Peronism to the dustbin... that's because I'm more interested in him than in the Kirchners.
A bit like Andropov was more interesting than, say, Eltsin (although Eltsin was roughly democratic and Andropov remained an old style apparatchik despite some "reformist" ideas).

Oh, and I've read ALL your post
I urge everybody to read it: it's in better English than my own posts, so very easy to read...

BTW, I'm proud that this survivor is the first opportunity for you to cut a post !

The amount of scandals during the menem era were so many that it's inevitable to still remember some of those, if you look him up you'll find a lot of stuff i didn't mention

I mainly post in the survivor threads and not in other sectors of the forum because I'm not really an expert in US politics (that's why I'm here ), i like to read about it but most of the serious posters around here would probably wipe the floor with me. I don't have a lot of stuff to contribute and that's one of the reasons i like the survivor threads, especially this one where i can at last talk about something in depth instead of just reading other people thoughts on the matter

Thanks for your kind words

Why Ramon Castillo should go now? Granted, we're already in round 16, but I'm not sure.

He wasn't THAT bad, but as you say we are in round 16 and this guy is living on borrowed time.
The guy was one of the "old" conservative politicians, he was elected as Ortiz Vice president (with electoral fraud obviously), but Castillo didn't favor the proposed political reforms of president Ortiz and instead of being a mediator between the government and the "oligarchs" who still wanted to run the show, he was more of an irrelevant figure who did little to support Ortiz. Ortiz was very ill and by 1940 he was basically on medical leave all the time and Castillo became de facto president and slipped Ortiz reforms under the rug. He had to balance during his term the 2 factions of the army (the pro-allies and the pro-axis) so I'm going to cut him some slack since it was a very delicate situation. He made some good decisions, but overall he represented the political dinosaurs of the past 60 years or so who still wanted to cling to power using fraud or whatever was deemed necessary. Plus he is known for his relative inaction in times where a more pro-active president was needed.
And he was also interventor of the Tucuman province under Jose Felix Uriburu, not the nicest of jobs (for those of you who don't know, the federal interventor of a province was the guy appointed by the president and Congress to rule a province that was deemed unstable or was threatened by an external power. More often than not though, these interventions were just ways for the government to controll the provinces using authoritarian methods that are justified as constitutional)

Good post Edu. I read all of it.

Thanks, at least now i know 2 guys read them for sure




This round i'll vote for
Manuel Vicente Maza
Ramón Castillo