“El toro Cobos” a.k.a “The Farm Strikes Back”

In 2008 Argentina was greatly divided into two factions: those who supported the “campo,” Argentina’s main source of income, and those who supported the Cristina’s government, something I will never understand. Is my bias clear enough? Okay, now we can proceed to explain the facts of the situation that led many Argentine cities to run out of meat and dairy products for a couple of weeks.
In 2008 the then Minister of Economy, the hunky Martin Lousteau, announced a new system of “retenciones” (taxes) on four of the largest export products, and the products derived from them, from Argentina: soy, sunflower, maize and wheat. The objective of this measure was to balance the unstable fluctuations of international prices, fight the so-called “sojización” (soy was rapidly taking over as the cultivated product of Argentina), and preserve the politics of the ‘high dollar’. All this means basically squat to me, since I’m a literature student and don’t understand any of this economic balderdash, but what I do know is that this measure meant raising the taxes of soy.

This policy was quickly criticized by the four main agricultural organizations of the country, who, two days later on March 13th, declared a general strike with road blocks, to be extended for 129 days. The hoo-ha got worse when on March 25th the organizations declared that the strike would go on indefinitely until the taxes were taken down, at which Wannabe-Evita Kirchner answered there would be no discussions until the lock down was removed. Which is quite cliché, the whole ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ bit, don’t you think? But it was getting to be quite a bummer situation, because meat was quickly running out in major cities, and when porteños don’t get their “milanesas”… PEOPLE DIE! Sorry, I was too tempted to use the Mr. Bigglesworth quote from Austin Powers, but seriously, what were people like me going to do without our “milanesas?” If you answer with anything containing the word ‘vegetables,’ I will punch you in the face! And what about all those soccer moms desperate for their zero-fat yoghurts? They would have to eat chocolate, and then get fat and miserable, and therefore make their husbands miserable. You see how close society was to crumbling?

Thousands of people starting coming out onto the streets in mass protests, either in favour of the “campo” or the trashtastic Cris, and there were many violent exchanges between the group. Lousteau had to resign, but with such a pretty face he probably would’ve had a better career on a ‘telenovela,’ and he was too cute to be taken seriously as a Minister anyways.

On the 5th of June a federal trial declared the “retenciones” to be unconstitutional because of the way they were carried about. I mean, despite she wished it were so, Cristina couldn’t just say the word and raise taxes. This is supposed to be a ‘democracy,’ remember? Someone should have given her a ‘Dummy’s Guide to being a President,’ but I guess she skipped the lessons to go shopping. Anyhoo, even the amount of taxes was declared illegal, since it was in the 40% and constitutionally the maximum was 33%.

17th of June Cristina announced she would be sending the law as a project into Congress, you know, doing things the right way for once, so the bloody taxes could actually be legal. It passed the House of Representatives with a few modifications, and as the project went into the Senate the whole of Argentina waited with bated breath for the outcome.

Conspiracy theories were running rampant, from the “campo” trying to overthrow the government to Cristina trying to get her grubby hands on more money for the Hermes handbags. The project entered the Senate on the 11th of July, and various Senators were ‘escrachados’ (threatened or pressured or made to look bad). One of Cristina’s party senators, Emilio Rached of Santiago del Estero, had his mother come in for a good scolding and he finally voted against his party and against the project, resulting in a tie.

It was chilly winter’s morning on the 17th of July, and everyone was watching the debate take place at around 5am. Because of the tie, it was up to the Vice-President, Julio Cobos, to cast the final vote. In a shocking move that swept the nation, Cobos said these fateful words “Que la historia me juzgue. Pido perdón si me equivoco. Voto... Mi voto no es positivo, mi voto es en contra”, which for all of you ignorant in the Spanish language, means he voted ‘no’, basically turning against Darth Kirchner and bringing hope back to the galaxy. You won’t find this shit on MTV, this is drama. 

Some people were pissed, some were ecstatic, I was celebrating with a “milanesa” which had never tasted so good. Basically some other stuff went down that I don’t understand because I snored my way through Economics in High School, but I’m pretty sure it was a kind of happy-ending for those backing the “campo.” Darth Kirchner was momentarily vanquished, but since she is harder to kill than a cockroach of course she lived to spoil another day.

To the ‘milanesas’ and ‘asados’, God bless you!

El Pendejo Porteño