the “democracy” of illegal espionage

” – Hi Tano, today the Focus was delivered to me!! Thank you.

-Nothing to thank for. As soon as the Toyotas come in I’ll give you one.

– Uhhh, great. Big hug!!!!”

“Tano” is the Minister of Security of the most important city in the country. Who thanks is a federal judge. They are not characters by Sergio Olguín or Eugenia Almeida. There is no fiction here. They are the living reality of the decadent Argentine political regime.

The dialogue between Marcelo D’Alessandro and Sebastian Ramos It came out in the last few hours. Recreating the “tradition” of Jaime Stiuso, he was born from an illegal leak. A new hack (and they go…) to the cell phone of the Buenos Aires official. A new confirmation that political espionage works 24/7 under the management of the Frente de Todos, the one that demonized endlessly illegal wiretapping and the link between spies and the Judiciary. That practice that macrismo has always known how to exercise with intense passion.

The national ruling party is almost obliged to celebrate it, to turn it into political tool for the impotent epic battle that wages for these hours. The impeachment of the members of the Supreme Court appears as an instrument of election turmoil against a boss opposition that actually has plenty of ties to the judicial caste.

That obligation arises from his structural impotence. Lacking an economic and social program to deal with the economic catastrophe, the Frente de Todos unleashes all its fury on the so-called Judicial Party. She makes him the agent of all misfortunes.

This perspective, however, does not quieten the centrifugal tendencies that inhabit the ruling party. The lack of a clear political leadership is disorganizing Peronism, pushing it towards divisions and mutual accusations. In that dense game of All against all Two prayers are raised to heaven: that CFK accepts to be a candidate and that Alberto Fernández accepts not to be.

On the other side of bourgeois politics, the chaos seems to take over Together for Change. Almost compensating for the lack of candidates from the ruling party, the bosses’ opposition launches new candidates for president at every moment. A true “overproduction” of figures that oscillates between the right-wing rage of Pichetto or Bullrich and the poor consensualism of Larreta. In a desperate race towards that “political center” that seems not to agree with the calls intense minoritiesthe Buenos Aires head of government offers an empty speech that -in more than recent times- contributed to the expansion of multiple adjustment policies.

The consensus of which Larreta speaks, was already given by Massa’s Peronism and the PJ governors voting for all the adjustment laws during the Macri government. They also have that consensus today with the adjustment applied by the FDT to pay the IMF. There is no crack in that.

— Nicolas del Caño (@NicolasdelCano) February 24, 2023

Representatives and unrepresented

A few days ago, the journalist Mario Wainfeld critically reviewed the document prepared by the Frente de Todos Political Table: “It lacks any reference to ordinary people, thanks to their temperance, effort and solidarity in difficult years.”

It is difficult for the ruling party to carry out this act of gratitude. The Frente de Todos came to power with the promise of “recovering what was lost.” His management was and still is almost the opposite. The population has already announced their discomfort in the 2021 elections, by retracting millions of votes.

He strategic collapse of the ruling Peronism is measured, among other things, in the uncontrolled numbers of the inflation; in the three million people looking for a second job; in the abyss that separates the salary of registered and unregistered workers.

The Frenteto document illustrates, once again, the growing separation between representatives y represented. That rising tensionborn of the great national failureswhich Antonio Gramsci was able to identify as an essential element of the organic crises.

Accepting the “inheritance” that Cambiemos bequeathed, Peronism became continuation of the previous setting; as guarantor and guarantor of the debt contracted by the macrista management with the IMF. In doing so, he deepened a pre-existing national decline, accelerated between 2016 and 2019.

The democracy of espionage and corporations

The ongoing social crisis has as its context the four decades that have elapsed since the end of the Dictatorship. Analyzing what they define as “the stagnation of democracies in Latin America, researchers Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and Scott Mainwaring find structural reasons in the complex combination between a governance of poor social and economic results; “Hybrid States” incapable of offering solutions to essential demands such as public services or health; and the standing veto exercised by economic and social actors of weight that, in many areas, offered a continuity in relation to the dictatorial regimes.

If we look at the Argentine territory, those continuities They are reflected, for example, in the intelligence services. Antonio “Jaime” Stiuso served in the Side from 1972 to 2014. In this long career, the so-called “chief of spies” went through the Dictatorship and the efforts of Alfonsín, Menem, Duhalde, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner. How surprised, then, the validity of the methods of illegal espionage?

They can also be guessed in the continuities within the repressive apparatus itself. Just yesterday, in 2019, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires confirmed that 282 of its police officers had gone through the so-called years of lead from 1976-1983. How many had functions within other forces, federal or provincial? Or within the judicial apparatus, where -also until 2019- only 48 judges and prosecutors of the more than 400 denounced or suspected of participation in the genocidal regime had been prosecuted.

“Failure” of democracy?

Expressing a lot of frustration and no rebellion -as Fernando Rosso well defined-, the libertarian right Build your own story about democracy. Criticizing exclusively the political civil service, he eliminates from the analysis any reference to economic power or that pure caste which constitutes the leadership of the Judiciary.

Formally located “outside” the political system, the business community it exercised and exercises another constant veto to the democratic mechanisms. “Voting” daily through the economic duress, big capital decides the destiny of the country rejecting the will of millions. Will that this political regime only enables to exercise every two or four years.

That capitalist democracy is the Stiuso democracy and illegal espionage. Of the Stornelli, the Sebastian Ramos and the Rosattis; privileged caste closely linked to economic power and intelligence services. How can we not remember those other illegal chat rooms that illustrated a pleasant trip to Lago Escondido by judges, businessmen from Grupo Clarín and Marcelo D’Alessandro himself?

Los debates on the “crisis of democracy” refer, necessarily, to the distance between what were their discursive promises initial and harsh results of the present. However, it would be improper to speak of the “failure” of him.

As a political system, the capitalist democracy accompanied the policies of national surrender and adjustment pushed by big imperialist capital in these decades. It was the regime of a tenacious attack on the standard of living of the working majorities, paused only in the years of the so-called boom de las commodities. A source of disappointment and disillusionment for millions, he complied with the slogan that his social nature dictated to him: bourgeois profitability above the life of the popular masses.

Question capitalist democracy

A unrestricted democracy would imply leave behind the limited horizon of capitalism. overcome, of revolutionary waythe ceiling that imposes the social and political domination of the capitalist class, allowing millions to discuss and decide -freely and consciously- about the multiple problems that affect daily life.

For example, collectively debate the use of natural resources in a friendly relationship with the environment, escaping the extractivist logic that all capitalist political forces push today. Or discuss, likewise, the destinations of the national wealth produced by millions of hands and today appropriated, mostly, by a few.

Such a democracy can only begin to develop under a government of the workers and the poor people. Betting strategically on this perspective requires the necessary building a revolutionary political party of the working class. It implies working to organize and set in motion the force that the working class, women and youth have put on stage on several occasions.

That means, among other tasks, deploying a persistent struggle in all fields. Combat, for example, the reactionary conceptions of the libertarian right while actively battle for revolutionary socialist ideas. Face politically the enemies of the working class in each popular neighborhood, in each place of work or study. Work there too for the democratic and conscious organization of the exploited and oppressed. In develop strategically That perspective militates daily in the PTS-Frente de Izquierda Unidad.