Argentina Enacts Law on Free University Studies

[Judi Lynn]

Argentina Enacts Law on Free University Studies

Buenos Aires, Nov 11 (Prensa Latina) Argentine Government enacted today a law ensuring free university studies, as if they were a human right and a public good.
The new law, sanctioned on October 28th by the Senate, was signed by President Cristina Fernandez; chief of Cabinet Anibal Fernandez; and Education Minister Alberto Sileoni.

The Law on Effective Implementation of State Responsibility in Higher Education establishes the unavoidable and principal responsibility of the State.

It also guarantees equal opportunities for access, permanence and graduation in higher education for those who need it and meet stipulated legal conditions, set a note circulated in the Official Gazette.

One of the articles in the gazette highlights that state-university studies are free and entail the prohibition of establishing any kind of taxes on them.

http://www.plenglish.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4338231&Itemid=1

[Peace Patriot]

1. Wha-a-a-at...education is good for society, democracy, happiness?

Our overlords--buying elections with billions in filthy lucre, and stealing elections with privately owned 'TRADE SECRET' code in the voting machines (everywhere in the U.S.)--don't want you to know this. Our people remaining ignorant or drowning in debt is part of their game plan.

[forest444]

2. Hence their support for Mugricio Macri - who believes in charging tuition, but not in student aid.

Last edited Fri Nov 13, 2015, 04:27 PM - Edit history (1)

He is the real reason this law was just passed: not because public universities in Argentina weren't tuition-free (they in fact have been free since a law to that effect was signed by the populist President Juan Perón in 1949), but because those who support free public colleges felt they needed to fully codify and reaffirm this right against the very possibility of a Macri presidency next year.

Macri, you see, has not only expressed his opposition to free public higher education (or even free grade schools, given his record of severely underfunding them as Mayor of Buenos Aires); but he's also opposed to Progresar, the college expense assistance program that provides up to US$100 a month in aid to all public college students in good standing whose parents earn less than than US$1,500 a month. Enacted by Cristina Kirchner in January 2014, Progresar helps 600,000 public college students out of 1.4 million - two-thirds of them women. This would be one of the first things to go if Macri takes office.

Like in the U.S., opposition to public higher education in Argentina has an ugly history. Over the past several decades, the two loudest opponents have been the Argentine Catholic University (UCA) and "University of the Savior" - which is even more reactionary than the UCA (Dirty War butcher Admiral Emilio Massera was given an honorary degree there). Neither of these provide anything like a real college education, and their degrees wouldn't be worth the paper they're printed on - except that they make a great business card for job-seeking graduates in a country where wealthy right-wing Catholics still control most corporate boardrooms.

Macri is himself a UCA graduate, with an Engineering "degree" (he has never worked or taught as one), and most of his associates are either UCA or U. Savior alumni. As Mayor of Buenos Aires, he spends more on parochial and private school subsidies than on the public education budget (by law a local responsibility, unfortunately).

So you can imagine what his education policy would be like if he's elected in the upcoming November 22 runoff - a fitting irony, since November 22 is also the anniversary of the Free University Education Law signed by Perón.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Well, that's bad news--but thank you for the info! It is very appreciated!

How is it possible for Macri to be elected? They don't have 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines in Argentina, like we do here, do they?

[forest444]

5. You're welcome, Peace Patriot.

As to why the election is close, one can always point to any number of issues - but no explanation would be complete without mentioning the power of the media.

The media, more than anything else really, has made this an uphill battle for Scioli, no doubt about it. While it's true that most of the rest of the country is a lot more populist politically (Cristina Kirchner still has a 50% approval nationwide), and that consumer sentiment is actually quite high (it's currently at 57, when the all-time high was 61 - and this is measured by a group opposed to the Kirchners), it's difficult for any populist - even a centrist like Scioli - to win when you have a country where all three major media groups look like Fox News.

Can you imagine if, instead of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, we had Fox1, Fox2, and Fox3? And if World Net Daily (which is similar to Clarín in tone) and the Wall Street Journal dominated the U.S. newspaper market? The Presidency would - barring some extreme circumstance like the 2008 Wall Street collapse - probably be out of reach for any Democrat (which, as you know, was precisely Reagan's plan when he had the FCC illegally authorize Fox News in 1985).

As I mentioned to Judi Lynn, all one can do is hope for the best.

[forest444]

7. As for black box-style voting machines:

You'll be glad to know that they are not widely used in Argentina - except in Buenos Aires, where Macri used his prerogatives as Mayor (and coziness with right-wing judges) to impose them in city elections.

Sure enough, they've been shown to be easily hacked. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026942187

He's already stated his plans to have them imposed nationwide if he becomes president. And presumably, to have computer scientists arrested for showing this up for what this is.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Horrendous irony, by all means. It would be an enormous step backwards, toward darkness. n/t

[forest444]

6. Yes. For all but the top 10% it would be - and a lot of people would end up leaving.

Just like my folks and close to a million others did in the 1980s after José Martínez de Hoz enacted many of the same policies Macri espouses, and just like 800,000 more did after the collapse of Menemomics in 2001 (most of this latter wave have, thanks largely to the Kirchners, since returned).

Scioli's team is trying to remind voters of precisely that, of the country the Kirchners inherited in 2003. The ad that drives this point home the best, I think, is this one called ¿Te imaginás? - "Can you imagine?" - in reference to the possibility of going back to the status quo ante (all scenes are real footage from 2002/03; not for the faint of heart!):

[Judi Lynn]

8. Just saw your posted message from the Scioli group. Missed it altogether until a moment ago.

How could so many people not know?

As you discussed, many dissidents moved away, couldn't live with that fascist barbarism any longer.

Many people have been born since then who simply don't know, and maybe the fascists have gathered strength all over again because the Dirty War destroyed so much opposition, so many people, lives, families, leaving so many pig fascists at the top of the heap grabbing all they could while it was easy for them.

The political spot clearly should awaken some people to try to find out more about what the hell happened. It would get the attention of any serious, non-inebriated citizen.

We hope with you they won't throw it all away. Clearly the fascists may have the advantage we learned they have here in the US with public voting being controlled by private business at some elections, by this election. What a shame.

[forest444]

9. Behold the power of the media.

Most Argentine voters, frankly, should be old enough to remember the catastrophes brought about in the early '80s and again in 2001 by the kind of laissez-faire policies Macri espouses, and consumer sentiment is currently near an all-time high (as measured by the centrist Di Tella University - opponents of Kirchnerism).

But 7 years of relentless Breitbart-style media attacks by the three largest media groups in Argentina have taken their toll. Perhaps not as much as they would have liked (Cristina Kirchner does enjoy a 45-50% approval rating despite the many struggles and the media war leveled against her for years, both at home and abroad); but enough to give their candidate (whose misdeeds - even criminal ones - are seldom if ever reported) a sporting chance he would otherwise not have.

Besides which, her party has been in office for over 12 years now, and after so many years, as you know, voter fatigue begins to set in even under otherwise optimal conditions. Twelve years of consecutive election victories by any one party, lest we forget, is a record in Argentina (excluding the landowner-dominated PAN era from 1874 to 1916, since those elections were not free).

Macri, if you'll recall, is running on the Cambiemos coalition - which of course means 'change'. And "change," in and of itself, sounds catchy to a sizable percentage of voters after 12 years.

Just as it did to many American voters in 2000.

[Judi Lynn]

10. You bet! 2000, Presidential "Election." Simply beyond belief!

I'm assuming you were in the U.S. then, and fully aware of how that election operated, specifically in Florida, and 2004, in Ohio.

Astonishing aggressive criminality by the right-wing. It's the only way the right-wing here has ever really taken power for generations.

The very idea Clarin is still in business shows the right-wing has more power in Argentina than it has any right to have. Clarin should have been destroyed for the filthy part it played in serving the Dirty War so completely as a total propaganda organ.

Stands to reason the right-wing controls the other papers, too, now, in Argentina, just as the right-wing power-mad lunatics found a way to buy control and merge all of the US newspapers together, and emptying them of real value in no time at all.

It is kind of interesting watching them go about their evil schemes, and succeed, but they are not going to keep it forever. They are too evil. The people will find a way to drive them out. Evil won't get to win, in the end. Their only hopes have ever been for immediate self-gratification for themselves and immediate family, friends, and then hope to die peacefully in their sleep at advanced ages, and not be around to see the effect of the evil they're spreading in the present.

I have a feeling they will be in for an amazing surprise!

As it is, Henry Kissinger knows there are people all over the world who would give anything to put him in jail after being tried as a war criminal. The others are running up big karmic debts for themselves, too.