Preparing the ground for Maximo Kirchner to occupy the front stage

[Judi Lynn]

Monday, April 30th 2012 - 07:25 UTC
Preparing the ground for Maximo Kirchner to occupy the front stage

Maximo Kirchner, the son of Cristina Fernandez managed to show the strength of his grouping La Campora by turning up with an estimated 20.000 militants out of the 55/60.000 that showed out to the rally in a fully packed Buenos Aires stadium.

Furthermore contrary to previous demonstrations when Maximo avoided the cameras and preferred the back stage, this time he was in the front lines of the stage mounted in support of his mother, next to cabinet ministers and lawmakers, closely following events and in attitudes with crossed arms which for many reminded his late father and president Nestor Kirchner.

“Máximo was brought up in a house where politics was an everyday thing, and he shares that commitment and conviction. He’s an intelligent member, very sensible and has shown great solidarity”, said Kirchnerite lawmaker Fernando Navarro.

“People have eyes fixed on him because he is committed to leading a growing youth movement and he is the son of Kirchner and Cristina. He is ready to run for the Lower House in representation of Santa Cruz in 2013. It can happen it’s up to him”, added Navarro who said that the irruption of so many youths into politics, be it through La Campora or other groupings “means democracy in Argentina is consolidating”.

More:
http://en.mercopress.com/2012/04/30/preparing-the-ground-for-maximo-kirchner-to-occupy-the-front-stage

[FLAprogressive]

1. is he obsessed with the Falklands like mom?

[Peace Patriot]

2. "obsessed with the Falklands"? What is your point?

You make me wonder if you know anything about the Kirchner and Fernandez administrations, their dramatic turnaround of Argentina's economy after rejecting ruinous U.S./World Bank/IMF policies, their galvanizing role in Argentina's democracy and their critically important role in the rise of the Left and the success of Leftist policies throughout South America.

The Falklands issue is an old one--it is a sovereignty issue on which there is actually a consensus of right and left in Argentina (that England stole the Falklands from Argentina in the 1830s), and, as a matter of fact, Argentina is supported in this by the entirety of Latin America (all of whose leaders recently voted, in a CELAC meeting, in Argentina's favor on this matter). So, um, is all of Latin America "obsessed with the Falklands"?

How would you feel if, say, China had seized the Hawaiian islands in the past and was now building up military forces there? How would you feel if China's main interest in doing this was OIL?

England just partnered with the U.S. (Bush Junta) to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq to steal their oil. England's main motive in the Falklands is to encroach upon Argentina's off-shore OIL and is, indeed, building up its military forces there. Is this not a legitimate matter of concern to Argentina and to all of Latin America--bearing in mind that Brazil's former president, Lula da Silva, said that the U.S. reconstitution of its 4th Fleet in the Caribbean "is a threat to Brazil's oil" and given the obvious hostility of the U.S. to the two OPEC countries, Venezuela and Ecuador?

I wonder, too, why your comment is so off-point. The article is about young Kirchner as a new figure on the Left, successor to his parents' hugely successful administrations. Those administrations have not been about the Falklands; they've been about ECONOMIC JUSTICE.

[FLAprogressive]

3. The Falklands have been British before Argentina even existed as a country.

You need a history lesson. There was no native population, so no colonialism. The people who live there don't want to be Argentinian.

Nationalist saber-rattling and warmongering isn't good no matter whether it comes from the right or the left.

[ocpagu]

4. They don't have to be Argentinians.

They can remain British, or whatever they want to be. Argentina does not challenge the citizenship or nationality of the Kelpers. It's the land they occupy that is the object of Argentina's claim.

[FLAprogressive]

5. Why does the land belong to Argentina? Would you like to see us give Guam to whatever country is

closest?

The land has been British before Argentina even existed as a country. Most Argentinians are white. This isn't "poor anti-imperialist brown people" vs. "evil colonialist white Britain".

[Peace Patriot]

6. Well, I can see that you've wholly bought the British line on this.

I don't. And I do know the history of it quite well. You are wrong that Argentina wasn't a country when the British conquered the islands, throwing the small colony of Argentines out. (There were no Indigenous on the islands but there were Argentines.) And I think it's curious that the British, from their first moments of conquest and colonization to this day, have never put the Falklands' colonial status to a vote. All major decisions--military, foreign policy, economic--are made in London, by the Crown and by the PM, and always have been. They have no sovereignty. I do think that the islanders' wishes are important but they have never been asked, and I truly wonder about the small farmers and business people, workers and the poor of these islands and what their wishes might be--the wishes of the majority--as possibly opposed to those of the 1%-ers who likely identify with the 1%-ers running this Margaret Thatcher-created England--looted by transglobal corporations, dragged into a war that 80% of the British people opposed, with high unemployment, hopeless youth and trashed and looted public services. The islanders are hogtied to that "neo-liberal" country and are the chattels of its military.

South America, on the other hand--including Argentina--is on the rise, economically and as to social justice and real democracy. I think the Crown and the PM in London don't dare put the Falklands' colonial status to a democratic vote, frankly. There is a chance that they would lose and they are not about to give up this strategic military location, for whatever imperial wars the U.S. "military-industrial complex" might devise and for its proximity to Argentina's oil.

I have seen no polls of the islanders and there has been no vote, ever. But I don't buy the British ruling class line that these islands belong to "the Crown," that they were legitimately acquired and that their interest is not typical imperial exploitation and that they care about the islanders' wishes. I have no reason to trust what they say, any more than I trust what our own ruling class says about its bloody-handed, transglobal activities.

[naaman fletcher]

7. No they didn't throw the argentines out

they were allowed to stay, and many did.

Besides, there were others there before the argentines, shouldn't they get the claim?

Anyway,

you say the islanders have never been asked. Would you agree that if the UN conducted a poll and the Islanders voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the UK that the islands should remain UK?