Has It Always Been So Bad?

[Girino]

I don't have a TV at home and I just read La Nación online, but I have been on vacation in a place where the TV is on 24/7, specifically on TN - 'mala onda las 24 horas'.

Just yesterday, in the rich neighborhood of Recoleta, a restaurant was assaulted in full daylight. It is a highly patrolled area, with a PFA agent every other block. The guests were robbed, as well. There was some shooting. This remembered me about the threads about "where could a freelancer go to work from with his full Apple stuff in display"...

Last week, at around 7 AM in the morning we heard a crash and screams. A policeman out of duty was speeding along the promenade of Mar del Plata with his car, hit a parked car, that in turn hit a young a lady walking on a 3 meters wide sidewalk. The girl had her leg amputated. We saw the blood stain against the wall for days, then it rained and it went away. Already forgotten.

The girl was taken to the same hospital two days before a doctor working there denounced as "falling apart" to the Buenos Aires governor, Maria Eugenia Vidal. She described horror stories of patients being moved around the hospital with supermarket shopping carts, shared monitors to check vitals for multiple patients because there aren't enough, no endoscopy tools available and specialists resigning because they can't do their job, etc. There is so little you can do when you are hit by a car and taken to such a hospital, regardless how fancy your private health insurance is.

It was not possible to determine if the driver was DUI because the ten alcohol meters the police of Mar del Plata was given all broke down. I am not sure if the issue is that they are imported goods (thus cannot enter anymore) or if it is just a matter of not having money to fix them. Anyway, who cares?! Can't be done. Already gone!

And some days before that a police car was driving in a one-way street and killed an old lady, injuring a young girl (she might lose an eye and has multiple fractures).

All of these things in a 40 millions country, which is less than my country population (60 mil). Where it is normal to go out for a coffee and get shot for a cell phone, were crazy driver might run over you and nobody will give a shit because it is always someone else's fault (it cannot be imported, there isn't enough personnel, there are no enough resources to train them, it broke down and nobody repairs it, etc.). And this would be the most European country in the south of the world? This sounds like wild west.

Sorry, but for how much I can love Argentina, it is not worth risking my life for.

 

[estebandepraga]

You're absolutely right! I is a horrible tragedy and people put up with it. IT WASN'T LIKE THIS YEARS AGO! WE are fortunate because we have other options but the vast majority of the 40 million DO NOT! I think that the new gov't will make changes in terms of not putting up with this scene but it will take time! It all depends if one wants to wait for these "possible" changes!

 

[Ries]

if you think Argentina is scary, dont watch any recent Italian TV or movies.

I have recently been watching the TV series Gomorrah, and also Romanzo Criminale.
And then I watched the original film Gomorrah, and All Cops are Bastards.

Those criminals in Italy- they make the pickpockets on the Subte look like amateurs.

Compared to the USA, I find Buenos Aires refreshingly safe.
I have a sixty year old friend who was beaten on the city bus in Seattle, for his cell phone, last December.
I have never been on a collectivo here where I saw someone urinate or defacate on the bus- happens all the time on buses in practically every city in the US.
I dont know a single woman in Pittsburgh, or NYC, or Seattle, or LA, who would take a bus, alone, at 4am.
Happens every day here.

Certainly, there are criminals here, and bad cops.
Just like my home country, only fewer of them here.

When I hear old Argentines talk about "the good old days", they leave out the part about the racism, classism, and police corruption and beatings- because that only happened to poor people. Never in Recoleta, eh?
And they leave out the facts about the series of military dictatorships.

 

[Girino]

if you think Argentina is scary, dont watch any recent Italian TV or movies.

You should read the original book by Roberto Saviano to understand the modern Italian mafia. That said, the 'good' thing about mafia is that there is a value of system and they don't act randomly. The chorros from BA will kill you for less than 50 USD, for a cell phone, for your taxi change or just because you are walking on the sidewalk at the wrong time. They don't respond to anybody, nor to a boss nor to the police. They are like mines.

In Italy there is not shooting like in the US or Argentina. You don't go to campus and a freak comes in with an AK-47 killing dozens. You don't go to a restaurant and get robbed. You don't get shot unless you are in a bad fringe of the society, at a bad time, and you don't mind your own business. The mafia is after money, not after the hype of a kill.

Things described in Gomorra happens in the worst part of Naples and the rural South of Italy. 95% of Italians don't live there. It is like taking the worst neighborhoods of Detroit and saying "you should see what the black gangstas in the US do, you're better off in BsAs where the chorros looks like poor boys led astray".

 

[Bajo_cero2]

You wanted a change, you got it!

 

[Girino]

You wanted a change, you got it!

I just thought I was in for a cheaper and less dangerous one. I think I relied too much on the local advices, they got used to this stuff and say "it is not that bad" like they are in a sort of romance. They more they suffer together, the more united.
No asado, mate or good weather will matter once you take a bullet.

 

[RodalfoWalsh]

if you think Argentina is scary, dont watch any recent Italian TV or movies.

I have recently been watching the TV series Gomorrah, and also Romanzo Criminale.
And then I watched the original film Gomorrah, and All Cops are Bastards.

Those criminals in Italy- they make the pickpockets on the Subte look like amateurs.

Compared to the USA, I find Buenos Aires refreshingly safe.
I have a sixty year old friend who was beaten on the city bus in Seattle, for his cell phone, last December.
I have never been on a collectivo here where I saw someone urinate or defacate on the bus- happens all

I'm from Seattle and live here in buenos Aires year round. What you said is just crazy to me, there is no comparison in terms of saftey. I feel much less safe here than I ever did in Seattle and I've traveled all of Seattle in public transport, at night as well.

 

[wineguy999]

You wanted a change, you got it!

Dame la mochila!

 

[nativexpat]

The problem is that there is no sense of justice.

I know I can be run over by a car (although chances are probably higher in BA), or in the middle of a shooting anywhere in the world, but you know that if it happens in Argentina, you will not find justice. And that's what makes it sad.

No one knows what will happen to you when you leave your house. To me, life is much more of a miracle in BA.

Hit and runs are the crimes that upset me most. All those signs with yellow stars. I really would like stricter penalties for reckless drivers.

*the area where the Le Ble shooting happened yesterday has been a mess for quite some time.

 

[gpop]

You wanted a change, you got it!

HUH? Was BA void of crime, corruption, and ignorance before December 10?
It's the governments fault. It's someone else's fault... always.

The common denominator is the people that live here. it's all good when there's something to be proud of, but when the shameful stuff comes out, it's someone else's problem.