Expat Position Regarding Politics

[ariel81]

I continually say this to Argentinos: If you're going to criticize another Argentino's English, make sure your own house is in order.

Something to think about when you wake from your coma.

no,coma is being brain dead,you have to have a brain in order to be brain dead
what he doesnt know,its that im dislexic,so im a disaster writhing,but I did my degree outside argentina,and you have to have perfect english to study in my former alma mater (i know 5 languages,i want to know how many he knows )

 

[Bajo_cero2]

I continually say this to Argentinos: If you're going to criticize another Argentino's English, make sure your own house is in order.

Something to think about when you wake from your coma.

I don't critize his English, instead that he doesn't use the space bar neither the dot. I used the Spanish word coma because I didn t know if he know the English word for that comma.

By the way Ariel, b...t, the spelling correcting nowadays is automatic if you want to.

 

[Caliexpat]

In my view an expat, as a guest, should keep out of politics. This means taking no stand for or against the govt., for or against any cause in the country in which you're a guest. Let the locals decide their own fate. I'm here in part because I want to forget about politics in this sense.

I think it's dishonorable to go into someone's house and start criticizing how they do things.

I believe we should say, feel and think what we want at the time we feel it as long as we are sincere and respectful. There's nothing with discussing these topics among ourselves and our Argentine family/friends. It's a part of life, even if it takes place in another country part time. In fact, I think one of the major problems of today is that far too many people don't have an opinion about anything and are far too apathetic.

 

[AmigoArtistico]

Sorry for the long post, and I know some of this is off-topic. Ignore at will...

Great post.

Just a couple of comments:

...(including some of my 19 year-old's friends calling one of their friends "negrita" because she has dark skin, and she doesn't seem to mind at all)...

They call one of my wife's nieces negra, because her skin is slightly dark, morocha (which is enough to be called negro or negra in Argentina). She is not offended by this at all. It's considered a term of endearment.

On the other hand, the exp<b></b>ression "negro de mierda" is clearly and absolutely pejorative in virtually all cases.

Putting term limitations on elected officials is very similar - who says that people can't choose who they want to be in office, and who says that an arbitrary limit of time already served on who can serve as an elected official is the way to fix entrenchment and corruption? I despise the idea of people becoming professional politicians, but I feel like the idea of limiting their terms isn't going to change things for the better either.

Here's an excerpt from fee.com which mentions several reasons why term limits are important:

It was Benjamin Franklin who summed up the best case for term limits more than two centuries ago: “In free governments, the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors . . . . For the former to return among the latter does not degrade, but promote them.”
In other words, when politicians know they must return to ordinary society and live under the laws passed while they were in government, at least some of them will think more carefully about the long-term effects of the programs they support. Their end-all will not be re-election, because that option will not be available.
Nationally, the notion of the “citizen-legislator” remains a popular vision. The public is justifiably cynical about the hollow promises of so many lifelong professional politicians who are often purchased with special-interest money. Opponents of term limits are frequently the same interests who milk government for all they can get, such as defense contractors in Washington or the teacher unions in state capitals.

I think term limits are important in any country -- certainly in the U.S., and absolutely in a country like Argentina with its frail institutional infrastructure.

...unions...

I think, at least at this moment in Argentina, unions are a necessary evil. And by the way, the teachers have one of the most powerful unions. Also, despite the fact that it's illegal for police (and perhaps firemen and doctors) to unionize, that wouldn't really stop them if they made the effort. The police showed two years ago what they could do when they acted collectively even without a union. The strength of any group of workers is in its numbers and in its inability to be replaced. If they organized, the government would have no choice but to negotiate with them. The government has claimed that it is impossible to have police unions, but where I come from, the police are unionized. Argentina is somehow different than the rest of the world (as has been implied by this government's words and actions a thousand times, from the cepo on down)?

This is a good example. I love the health care I get in Argentina (although I've had nothing serious so far), although I pay for a plan because I don't like the idea of going to public hospitals for a few reasons. Among them the wait time that I've watched a majority of my wife's family deal with.

I've used the public hospitals a few times (usually for some urgent or semi-urgent problem when I can't get a turno for a few weeks through my obra social). I've had good results with one major exception.

I was having problems with my eyes, seeing rainbows around lights. I asked for a turno at Hospital Italiano but couldn't get one for a month and this seemed very urgent, as the symptoms suggested glaucoma and immediate treatment was recommended.

I went to the guardia at Hospital Santa Lucía three different times in a five day period (I was told to come back to be checked after 48 hours each time because I had conjunctivitis). I saw three different doctors (all who spoke English), the last of which told me I shouldn't come back. I don't know if he meant to say that I didn't need to come back, but his whole demeanor was very rude, so I'm not really sure. None of the doctors checked the pressure of my eyes, despite the clear symptoms of glaucoma (which can permanently blind you in a matter of hours). All of them told me I did not have glaucoma.

When I went for my turno at Hospital Italiano three weeks later, the doctor took my eye pressure and informed me that I had glaucoma in my left eye, for which I've now been taking eye drops for a year.

And Hospital Santa Lucía is known as one of the best hospitals in the city for eye problems.

I could be blind now. Scary.

Anyway, despite this, from a healthcare point of view I think an older person with limited resources is much better off in Argentina than in the United States. (Although maybe I'd think differently if I was blind now and couldn't be writing this.)

On education...

I really don't know, nor do I have any way of knowing, what the quality of education is in Argentina. But:

• It's scary to think that Kiciloff was permitted to teach his theory of economics at UBA as if it were correct and proven
• The money allocated to primary and secondary schools in the década ganada has fallen far, far short of what is necessary; these schools have essentially been ignored for the past ten years. The horror stories abound; just spend a few minutes with Google.
• The number of children who neither go to school nor work (los "Ninis") has grown to epidemic proportions, creating a massive and extremely-difficult-to-solve problem for Argentina for years to come. See this from a couple years ago: http://www.lanacion....ian-ni-trabajan; and the problem has only gotten worse. In my neighborhood, these children are everywhere. I was speaking to a man working in a sanitario a couple blocks from here; he's lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, and was telling me (in Spanish), "You see all these children here on the streets, in every cuadra, every day? Many of them sitting around all day drinking beer. This never happened before. It's not normal. It's very bad. It's not normal. It's never happened before. I don't know what's going to happen. This is very bad." I have to agree with him.

 

[ariel81]

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Great post.

Just a couple of comments:

...(including some of my 19 year-old's friends calling one of their friends "negrita" because she has dark skin, and she doesn't seem to mind at all)...

They call one of my wife's nieces negra, because her skin is slightly dark, morocha (which is enough to be called negro or negra in Argentina). She is not offended by this at all. It's considered a term of endearment.

On the other hand, the exp<b></b>ression "negro de mierda" is clearly and absolutely pejorative in virtually all cases.




Here's an excerpt from fee.com which mentions several reasons why term limits are important:



I think term limits are important in any country -- certainly in the U.S., and absolutely in a country like Argentina with its frail institutional infrastructure.



I think, at least at this moment in Argentina, unions are a necessary evil. And by the way, the teachers have one of the most powerful unions. Also, despite the fact that it's illegal for police (and perhaps firemen and doctors) to unionize, that wouldn't really stop them if they made the effort. The police showed two years ago what they could do when they acted collectively even without a union. The strength of any group of workers is in its numbers and in its inability to be replaced. If they organized, the government would have no choice but to negotiate with them. The government has claimed that it is impossible to have police unions, but where I come from, the police are unionized. Argentina is somehow different than the rest of the world (as has been implied by this government's words and actions a thousand times, from the cepo on down)?



I've used the public hospitals a few times (usually for some urgent or semi-urgent problem when I can't get a turno for a few weeks through my obra social). I've had good results with one major exception.

I was having problems with my eyes, seeing rainbows around lights. I asked for a turno at Hospital Italiano but couldn't get one for a month and this seemed very urgent, as the symptoms suggested glaucoma and immediate treatment was recommended.

I went to the guardia at Hospital Santa Lucía three different times in a five day period (I was told to come back to be checked after 48 hours each time because I had conjunctivitis). I saw three different doctors (all who spoke English), the last of which told me I shouldn't come back. I don't know if he meant to say that I didn't need to come back, but his whole demeanor was very rude, so I'm not really sure. None of the doctors checked the pressure of my eyes, despite the clear symptoms of glaucoma (which can permanently blind you in a matter of hours). All of them told me I did not have glaucoma.

When I went for my turno at Hospital Italiano three weeks later, the doctor took my eye pressure and informed me that I had glaucoma in my left eye, for which I've now been taking eye drops for a year.

And Hospital Santa Lucía is known as one of the best hospitals in the city for eye problems.

I could be blind now. Scary.

Anyway, despite this, from a healthcare point of view I think an older person with limited resources is much better off in Argentina than in the United States. (Although maybe I'd think differently if I was blind now and couldn't be writing this.)



I really don't know, nor do I have any way of knowing, what the quality of education is in Argentina. But:

• It's scary to think that Kiciloff was permitted to teach his theory of economics at UBA as if it were correct and proven
• The money allocated to primary and secondary schools in the década ganada has fallen far, far short of what is necessary; these schools have essentially been ignored for the past ten years. The horror stories abound; just spend a few minutes with Google.
• The number of children who neither go to school nor work (los "Ninis") has grown to epidemic proportions, creating a massive and extremely-difficult-to-solve problem for Argentina for years to come. See this from a couple years ago: http://www.lanacion....ian-ni-trabajan; and the problem has only gotten worse. In my neighborhood, these children are everywhere. I was speaking to a man working in a sanitario a couple blocks from here; he's lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, and was telling me (in Spanish), "You see all these children here on the streets, in every cuadra, every day? Many of them sitting around all day drinking beer. This never happened before. It's not normal. It's very bad. It's not normal. It's never happened before. I don't know what's going to happen. This is very bad." I have to agree with him.

Dude,marxist economic theory is dictated in every university,its a theory,you dont stop studying something just because it failed,its theory,not praxis,have we stopped studying,dont know,malthusian tehory,for example?
regarding negra-negro,well,i have been called that too,and im milky white

 

[AmigoArtistico]

Dude,marxist economic theory is dictated in every university,its a theory,you dont stop studying something just because it failed,its theory,not praxis,have we stopped studying,dont know,malthusian tehory,for example?
regarding negra-negro,well,i have been called that too,and im milky white

Dude, the difference is that Kicillof taught it (and now applies it), as if it hasn't already been proven to be a failed theory. Did you read what I wrote?

I thought I liked you, dude, but now I'm not so sure.

Are you sure they weren't calling you negro de mierda?

By the way, it's really hard to take someone seriously who can't form a single correct sentence.

(Or,should I, say, dude,its really,hard to,tak somone serosly whoo,cant form a singl corect,sentense.)

 

[ariel81]

Dude, the difference is that Kicillof taught it (and now applies it), as if it hasn't already been proven to be a failed theory. Did you read what I wrote?

I thought I liked you, dude, but now I'm not so sure.

Are you sure they weren't calling you negro de mierda?

By the way, it's really hard to take someone seriously who can't form a single correct sentence.

(Or,should I, say, dude,its really,hard to,tak somone serosly whoo,cant form a singl corect,sentense.)

Sorry about the familiarity.,didnt knew it offended you.
Kicilof,as an academic,is brilliant,he finished in his promotion,with the best grades,ans a technician,and a minister,is a complete disaster,thats because,he is not a technician,he shouldnt be there,in a normal country,he wouldnt,but our queen,took a fancy of him,and now we are stuck
No,nobody wil call a milky white blue eyed like me negro de mierda,dont worry

 

[wineguy999]

Sorry about the familiarity.,didnt knew it offended you.
Kicilof,as an academic,is brilliant,he finished in his promotion,with the best grades,ans a technician,and a minister,is a complete disaster,thats because,he is not a technician,he shouldnt be there,in a normal country,he wouldnt,but our queen,took a fancy of him,and now we are stuck
No,nobody wil call a milky white blue eyed like me negro de mierda,dont worry

As shallow as it is, the thing that bugs me most about [background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]Kicilof is his inability to dress like a grown-up member of the political world. Put on a freaking tie![/background]

 

[Johnny]

As shallow as it is, the thing that bugs me most about [background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]Kicilof is his inability to dress like a grown-up member of the political world. Put on a freaking tie![/background]

That's one of the few things about him I like ! Ha Ha !! Though in all honesty its probably a maneuver to show he is one with the common man. I'm surprised he doesn't sport a three day growth of beard at all times (hard to do !), but I reckon the sideburns are to suffice.

 

[ariel81]

As shallow as it is, the thing that bugs me most about [background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]Kicilof is his inability to dress like a grown-up member of the political world. Put on a freaking tie![/background]

Well,it is not shallow really,image is very important.