READERS WRITE

SHEER GREED

“Obras sociales“are union-run health schemes that a lot of Argentines belong to. I shudder at the thought that they may become state-controlled. If they are run by the populism of the current administration, they are likely to be a fertile ground for corruption when it comes to contracting providers of services.

Kirchnerism has a reputation of allowing the winning of contracts secretly in return for bribery . Besides, if they are appropriated by this administration, Kirchnerism will in all likelihood staff them with militants from La Cámpora, the leftist youth organisation created by Máximo Kirchner, who have been looking at the Obras sociales with covetous eye,s ready to lay their hands on what is not rightfully theirs. Adrian Insaubralde,

Santa Fe

UTTERLY DISGUSTING

In the last few days, two repulsive government decisions have been added to the miseries that the Kirchner regime piles on us day in day out. The first one was the utterly disgusting demagogic “show” put on in the CCK in remembrance, so they called it, of the so far 90,000 fatal victims of Covid. Trying to shy off public indignation which will undoubtedly grow when the 100,000 mark is reached? All this indecency takes place instead of officialdom concentrating on vaccinating as much and as fast as possible. And, to boot, using a lot of taxpayer money for the event which included well-known artists one of whom, the announcer on this occasion, starting off by welcoming “todos, todas y todes”!!! It was one awful political event, with no relatives or friends of victims represented. At the same time pictures circulated around town of the former, and disastrous, health minister Ginés González Garcia in Madrid chatting in a hotel with his friend, pharmaceutical millionaire Hugo Sigman, and afterwards lazily drinking beer on Calle Fuencarral, all this portraying obscene irresponsibility or something worse.

The other ghastly action has been to strand thousands and thousands of Argentine citizens and residents abroad, when Alberto The Small decided not to allow entrance into the country of no more than 600 travellers per day. In effect, through this wholly unconstitutional disposition, the government has temporarily exiled these people, many of whom had journeyed abroad for a few days simply, not being able to do so here, to get themselves vaccinated.

Ladies and gentlemen, to call all this authoritarian is being to gentle. In my eyes we are viewing fasci-communism (allow me to create a word today!) in rapid advance, and we must stop it by getting out the proper votes in the upcoming months, because “It´s the Republic, darn it”! Harry Ingham,

City

ANOTHER ‘FAUX PAS’

Alberto Fernández led a tribute to Covid-19 victims at the Kirchner Cultural Centre (CCK) last Sunday. To me, it all looked like a carefully artificial mise en scène staged for the occasion. Usually, such homages are paid once a tragedy such as this pandemic is over, not while we are still in its midst.

The relatives of the almost 100,000 people who have died so far were not invited to this ceremony. Most likely our president didn’t want to run the risk of being blamed in public for the lack of vaccines that has caused so many lost deaths. There were some artists who sang, read poetry and performed music: Laura Novoa, Patricia Sosa, Lito Vitale, Susana Moncayo, Nadia Szachniuk, Juan Falú. Most of them (if not all) charged for this. I found this ‘detail’ quite shocking. I mean, this wasn’t meant to be some kind of ‘show’ or concert. We are grieving daily so many fatal victims. I would have expected those artists to perform for free or – in any case, if they were paid – to donate that fee to the strained health system. To put it shortly, I found this ‘tribute’ untimely and demagogic. Another faux pas of this blundering, careless, blunt and clumsy administration. ‘Otro más, y van…’

Irene Bianchi, Ringuelet, La Plata

BATTLE OF THE BULGE: PART 150

Dear Sirs,

Oh, dear, we have fallen off the map! Not only does the BBC ignore us almost completely, Bloomberg considers that our handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been woefully bad and places us at bottom of the class and to add insult to injury, Morgan Stanley Capital International has demoted us to the category of ‘stand-alone’, which is not complimentary, implying that from an ‘emerging economy,’ we may be now a ‘submerging one.’ Ouch! Recent figures concerning the local economic situation are tending to confirm this deterioration.

Add to this that Chairman Putin is ‘going slow’ with the provision of the second dose of his pet Sputnik V vaccine to our longsuffering country and that total fatalities from this dreadful pandemic are fast approaching the dreaded figure of 100,000 and President Alberto Fernández must be very worried. His veep ignores all this and floats serenely above the flotsam and jetsam of daily politics; when she condescends to speak in public, she skirts around all dangerous issues and harks back to her times at the helm, which of course were happier. Altri tempi!

The provision of the Pfizer vaccine for young folk, who desperately need it? Not on your Nelly! We know what side we’re on... P-fooey!

David Parsons, via email

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