Chaver Sanders : Zei Gezunt , Genug

                This is a letter to Bernie Sanders

                         

                     Shalom Chaver Sanders. I was going to write this in Yiddish but I don't have the vocabulary; and yours is probably very rusty too. Just as well; we do not want to exclude the non Yiddish readers of my blogs--that is all of them. So just a few lapses into words now embedded in the Anglo American vernacular.

  Congratulations on Indiana and the campaign generally. All Bundists, alive and long gone, have been kvelling. Unfortunately Trump[f]'s success the same night has clouded the mood. I found myself deep in contemplation and for the first time in decades I drifted into a solitary séance.

     I began channeling the East London Jewish Workers Circle. Strange given the last member died more than a dozen years ago and he had stopped going to meetings 20 years before that-nobody else there. Anyway it was a packed meeting-almost enough for a Minyan. I was warmly welcomed as the "yingle"  [boy] and Chaver Liebovitz, as always, gave me a lollipop. I tried a joke and asked if we were meeting in heaven or hell. I was told it was a Narish Kasha [foolish question]; they are all atheists. Neither Dante nor the King James Bible is in the Bundist cannon.

    Apparently this was the EGM -Eternal General Meeting. They quickly elected officers for the rest of eternity and moved onto the meat of the agenda .Your campaign was the third item. First was discussion of Palestine. Boy do these guys despise Netanyahu! They are very concerned about the policies of some of their Zionist cousins, not least on West Bank Settlements and foot dragging on a Palestinian State. Finklestein speaks fluent Hebrew and he was charged with writing to both the Israeli Labour Party and to Mapam. He was to close the letter with fond felicitations and an admonition to watch their backs. I was not clear whether the warning was about Hamas or Netanyahu I did not have the heart to remind them that Mapam no longer existed.  

     Next up was Livingstone ,Naz Shah and Labour Party anti semitism. This is not a bunch of "softie bourgeoise salon socialists"[their words], they know of violent anti-semitism from der haim. All lost close family to the camps. They do not toss out accusations of anti-semitism lightly. All have been Labour Party supporters since they arrived as refugees. They all despise Livingstone. They always have.They were not impressed by his grand standing as leader of the GLC and then as Mayor of London. They recognised the damage he has done to "their" Labour Party for over forty years. They know a Stalinist when they see one.

They did not for a moment believe that Labour was "rife" with anti-semites;and recognised Tory Media baiting of the left. But they were concerned with some of the apologist conspiracy theories from a few Trade Union leaders and close Corbyn supporters. They have faith in the rank and file of both the party and the unions. One member raised the question of whether Corbyn was ant-semitic or just had a "tin ear on this stuff”. The response was -silence. Nobody could bring himself to accuse the Leader of the Labour Party of that most original of Mediaeval Christendom's sin.

This group would lean over backwards to give Jeremy the benefit of many doubts--"He is new ,he's young, he’s been distracted, he will learn on the job".Chaver Esther Cohen -she has by far the best English-was delegated to send a letter to Jeremy raising the Circle's concerns.

   We then moved on to Chaver Sanders in "Amerrika".The mood lightened nay was joyous. How they kvelled [took pride]." Bernie has achieved so much " "He has changed the agenda" "led the Democrat Party to rediscover  its soul" .Yes to universal health care, break up the banks--even the Jewish ones they guffawed, big on Yiddish irony this group--redistribute wealth, screw big Pharma, a carbon tax and get the billionaires out of campaign funding. Especially that "Zionist bastard" [Katzenberger was getting a little excited] Sheldon Adelson. 

A couple of the members think you must be their distant cousin on their mothers' side. They may be in touch. All are very impressed that you have got these issues firmly on the agenda. Given their location they are pretty well informed about US politics.They each seem to have as many relatives in Brooklyn and Westchester as they do in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak or in Finchley. But then the discussion turned to Trump[f]. "Bigot, exploiter, mysoginist [Esther]". Katzenberger again “he will load those poor Mexicans in cattle cars" and he "could hear the echo of marching Jackboots".

They turned to me, “comrade  from  Ameerika". "Chaymle, what gives?" "He is obviously a nasty lunatic. He hates Mexicans, blacks [women too added Esther] and presumably Jews as well -even his own bankers[hee hee]!" .Well he has a Jewish daughter, I said in weak mitigation. Maybe you are confusing him with his father. Accused of discriminating against black and Hispanic renters, arrested at a KKK rally and probably a member of the German American Bund before WWII.Apples and trees were then mentioned.My father, Chaver Rosenberg, cut through all this."Who cares if he is anti-semitic, he is a racist, a self serving bully and must be stopped. He will be a disaster for America, its workers and its minorities.Anti-semitic or not he will turn on the Jews if it suits him”. Others concurred.” and if bad for America, then bad for middle east peace, for progressives everywhere and good for Stalin-I mean Putin" said Ziegelbohm.

        So what to do? "Well" said my father, ever feet on the ground [or wherever he is now]."America is not going to elect a Brooklyn born Jewish Socialist from Vermont”. The Democratic Party Primary electorate is not America, anymore than the fools voting in the Republican contest are America. Trump must be stopped-at the ballot box-by progressives and by ordinary US citizens. To fail would be a Shanda [a disgrace].

We must bite the bullet and accept that Hillary Clinton is the more likely candidate to ensure Trump[f] is beaten. Sure she has some problems and some baggage. When have we ever had perfect standard bearers? She has the best chance to beat Trump[f] .Chaver Sanders cannot get enough delegates to win the nomination anyway. Campaigning against Clinton is now a distraction;sentiment is not action. We must unite to stop Trump[f] -NOW. Bernie has achieved much and he can continue to lead back in the Senate.Who knows we may look back on a Hillary Clinton presidency and come to call her a Shvester?

        A resolution was passed  "Bernie:  Zei Gezunt , Genug  " and I have been mandated to communicate the view of the East London Workers Circle [Posthumous] branch to Chaver Sanders via an open letter to The Forward in New York. To be sent with great affection and respect.

   The Tsherman moved to close this Eternal General Meeting of the Yiddisher Arbeiter Circle, saying that today was the voting for London's new Mayor to replace Boris the Buffoon. Solidarity required the Circle to help get out the vote for Labour's Sadiq Kahn to stop Tory Zac Goldsmith. Ironic I suppose. He had heard many Jewish Labour supporters were voting for Sophie Walker of the Women's Equality party.

Attractive girl, whispered my father. Old sod, he would say that, especially if his grand daughters were in earshot.

   

We ended with a verse of the Internationale in Yiddish. Always gets a tear from me.

Is Corbyn Anti-semitic?

                                                    Labour Anti-Semitism

For those not following the day to day shenanigans in UK Labour Party  this blog will only be meaningful if I state that a major row –according to the Tory Press” Labour  Civil War” -has erupted over a series of arguably anti Semitic incidents within or around the party and its leadership. 

While much of the fuss is exaggerated, much is not. The ham fisted handling of the issue by Jeremy Corbyn has led for renewed calls for this overthrow and many Jewish Labour members have resigned or protested in other ways. The sub text is not just that he tolerates anti semites in his inner circle but that he is himself anti-Semitic. This may be a little harsh; he has handled this issue about as competently as he has handled everything else.          

                                                                                                             

The small Jewish population of the UK has been steadfastly Labour since its major immigration 1880-1914 and the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900. Even for the bourgeois lawyers, doctors, academics and business people that succeeded the generations of the Jewish proletariat, voting labour was the default option. Labour provided a hospitable home for the Jews with a direct or folk memory of Tsarist and popular anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe.

In the mid war and post WW II periods every local party branch in London, Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow had active Jewish members. The Jews were and are about ½ of 1% of the population but in the post war period Labour elected dozens of Jewish MPs. There were several in every post war Labour government and Labour’s disastrous leader at the last election is Jewish—no causality. Labour is not a Jewish party but it is the party of the Jews. That bond is in the process of being shattered. Accusations of anti-semitism is no small matter.

                                                                                                              

                                          

Deadly attacks in Europe and an upturn in anti semitic incidents has not left the UK untouched and of course has unsettled British Jews. They have been particularly concerned by incidents of cultural and academic anti semitism.

Few are fooled by the “we are only anti Zionist’ dog whistle coming from the usual suspects.The banning of Israeli productions at film festivals. The calls for a boycott of Israeli academics or speakers ;and the intense singling out of Israel for condemnation while many much worse regimes are ignored or even lauded. I have googled in vain for the petitions to ban academics from Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Nothing yet but I’ll keep on trying.

Labour specifically, has had a series of problems reported from University Labour Clubs.  Particularly ugly issues at Oxford led to the resignation of its chairman in protest and have  precipitated a formal party inquiry.

 For King Cyclops the issue is very personal:

• Shortly after WW II, I was born in Whitechapel into an immigrant, Jewish ,democratic  socialist household .

• We lived in state housing, went to state schools and benefitted from free health care.

• All three children went on to receive free higher education .

• Mine was first generation to enjoy the fruits of Labour’s Welfare State. 

• My jobs while at  university ,rolling barrels in Trumans Brewery and the Parcel Post were a short walk from the family flat above Spitalfields Market .Both jobs were unionised .  

• Later, teaching in higher education I became chairman of my union branch.

• As a kid my father took me to meetings of the Jewish Workers Circle—all in Yiddish.

• By seventeen I was a member of the Labour Party. MY Labour party at home in Spitalfields.

• My first official office was as the university delegate to the Manchester City Labour Party.

• After college I was elected a Labour  Councillor in Camden, London.

• I also became Camden’s elected member for the Inner London Education Authority.

• By 1973 I had moved back to Spitalfields and was elected to the local council. That year we had finally won the last three remaining opposition seats –from the Communist Party.

• I had also become the Parliamentary candidate for Hornsey,   North London.

                                       

                                Harold Wilson at a rally in Hornsey ’74..King Cyclops is far left, [in picture!], meeting chairman ,Wilson

                                Mrs. Wilson and renowned feminist Joyce Kilgour

King Cyclops lost both’74 elections. Jeremy Corbyn was the local party agent/organiser—no causality.

• In 1975 I went to graduate school in the USA.I intended to come back; try for selection in the  Spitalfields seat. I dreamed / aspired to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.

• I had spent my early adult life active in the Labour party and the Trade Union movement. I had a life ,but much of it involved Democratic Socialist politics

• I never returned from the US to pursue those dreams. But I stayed in touch.

• I have been a Labour Party member for over 50 years.

• I am part of the demogragraphic most saddened by current   events in my party.

Last Week Anti- Semites Really Hit The Fan.

NAZ   SHAH

An 18 month old facebook post by Bradford MP Ms. Naz[i] Shah included a graphic showing Israel superimposed on a map of the US. The headline read "Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict - Relocate Israel into United States" followed by” problem solved”.    

                                                                                                                             “The transportation costs will be less than 3 years of defence spending”.

In the immediate afternath of this revelation of innovative foreign policy,Corbyn did not want to suspend her and his spin masters assured “We’re not suggesting she’s anti-Semitic”. “W e’re saying she’s made remarks that she doesn’t agree with.” Parse that sentence! 
  

Cue: UPROAR.

Followed a day later by this statement :

“Jeremy Corbyn and Naz Shah have mutually agreed that she is administratively suspended from the Labour Party by the general secretary.” .… suspended by the General Secretary not by The Leader?

     oops! this better?                                                                SORRY  

Ms .Shah spoke in the House of Commons saying she “wholeheartedly apologises”. Any way the posting was before she became an MP. A full nine months before. Well that’s alright then.

What an end [surely!] to such a bright career. She was elected just shy of one year ago. The election was a Labour disaster but her colleagues were at least buoyed by her defeat of Georg Galloway, the despised, narcissisti ,traitor and reality TV buffoon. But oddly, a friend of Jezza lo these 40 years.        
                                                                                                                            


She was taken  under the wing of Ken Livingstone Labour elder[ly] statesman and another 40+ year friend of the leader Corbyn .She had already become the parliamentary aid to the shadow chancellor John McDonnell. She had to resign but could her apology to parliament and a period of contemplation, resurrect this trusted friend of the inner circle?   

HERE COMES KEN

 Avanti Ken!  Twenty four hours after her apology, mentor Livingstone to the rescue. Ken [“I’d take a bullet for Jeremy”] is probably Jezza’s closest personal friend and his mentor .Batman to Jeremy’s Robin.  Dubbed, by Neil Kinnock “a founding father of the loonie left”. He has been an MP and Mayor of London. He has been at the centre of Labour politics in London for 50 years .He is a member of the party’s National Executive. He is not some junior putz.

He initiated a tour of radio and TV studios. He gave four interviews in the day. You can read the transcripts here.

The first, on BBC London sparked the controversy. He said, inter alia, “when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism” .Nothing offensive there. Please listen to that first interview for yourself.   

In a second interview aired at noon he claimed he was not racist because “a real anti-Semite doesn’t just hate the Jews in Israel, they hate their Jewish neighbours in Golders Green or Stoke Newington, it’s a physical loathing.” Just the ones in Israel – well that’s alright then.  He went on “I’m not making any link between the current Israeli policy and Hitler” no of course not.

CUE MORE UPROAR

                                          “Nazi apologist' and 'f****** disgrace”

                       
                                   MP John Mann screams at Livingstone

                                                                

                                   This is shot of Ken not apologizing.
                                       
                                  
                                                               

That night on TV he refused to apologise and kept digging. “I’ve not said that Hitler was a Zionist, what I said was his policy in ‘32 was to deport Germany’s Jews to Israel.”  Let’s not quibble that Israel did not exist or that Hitler may not have an independent Jewish homeland in mind or that plan A was somewhat different.

At a far left meeting that evening he was quoted “‘it’s absurd to call me an anti-Semite, as two of my ex-girlfriends are Jewish"  “it would have been absurd for them to be lying in bed with someone who was an anti-semite“.  The man is a cad. The MEDJA will now hunt down these two poor ladies and get quotes from their mothers and daughters. Still it’s good to know some of his best friends are Jewish.

CORBYN “ACTS”

The reaction by Corbyn was to dither. Nothing unusual about that.Anyway he and Ken have been in the trenches together for a very long time. Fighting the good fight against every labour leadership and government since they left puberty. They have appeared on many platforms together defending Jeremy’s “good friends” in Hamas and Hezbollah, justifying the terrorism of the Provisional IRA or defending that nice Mr.Putin from Western provocations and media slurs.

                            

            

Finally faced with uproar from MPs ,the broader party and threats of resignations from his Shadow Cabinet, THE LEADER  suspended him  and he will face  a “formal  party disciplinary sub-committee”. This time the press release noted the leader did the suspending, not the General Secretary as was the case with Naz Shah 48 hours earlier. He also announced a full enquiry into anti Semitism within the party.  His acolytes have now suggested that the problem may reside with the party rules which do not explicitly proscribe anti-semitism. We need a rule for that?

Abbott et al.

On the Sunday morning talk shows Diane Abbott petulantly claimed it is a "smear against ordinary party members" to suggest "that the Labour Party has a problem with anti-semitism”.  Sliding over the fact that Livingstone and Naz Shah are hardly “ordinary” members. 

In fact. it is ordinary members who are enraged by what they are seeing and hearing; and by the in ability of the leadership to control the situation.

                                      This second image is innapropriate                      I could not resist,                                                                       

                                                 

Abbott, an ex Corbyn lover, was promoted to the shadow cabinet and is part of the inner circle. I knew Livingstone was a Lenin wannabe but had no idea that Jezza was going to emulate Nicolas Sarkozy.

Livingstone far from apologising has claimed that the whole issue has been blown up by Blairites looking for an excuse to overthrow Jeremy. Others mutter that it’s all ‘a cynical attempt by people   to manipulate anti-Semitism for political aims ’. An unidentified shadow front bencher has briefed ‘There are people who want to use this to smash and bash the Corbyn project”. It is not clear who these ”people” are but let’s hope they do not mean those who control the media and the banks.  

CORBYN  ANTI-SEMITIC?

 I knew Jeremy well in the mid 1970s. It was the era of Vietnam and Watergate and the Heath government. He had simplistic ,sloganised ,anti capitalist, anti US, pro Soviet world view. Very much like now in fact.

We agreed on very little politically. I was the Hornsey candidate ,he was the party organizer. In personality,I was direct and occasionally confrontational. He was passive aggressive. We were not friend, we worked together and tolerated each other. His disapproval of me and my views was just that. It was not anti semitic or racist in any way.

 I never got elected to parliament. He did in 1983. He remained on the back benches for 30+ years, opposing the policies and actions of every Labour government and prime minister. Nobody much cared.

He courted most controversy for an insistence in inviting terrorists for tea in a parliament. He regularly refers to Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends and appears at their rallies.They are both listed by the USA,UK and the EU as terrorist groups and kept at arms lengths by most Arab and Muslim governments.  They are both anti-semitic ,no dog whistle distinctions between Jews and Zionism for them-“kill jews wherever you find them”. They are also homophobic and keep women subservient. He has appeared on platforms with extreme Muslim clerics who have adopted the Jewish blood libel and denied the holocaust.
                       
                                   And now he is accused of consorting with holocaust deniers.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3187428/Jeremy-Corbyn-s-links-notorious-Holocaust-denier-revealed.htm

                 Does this make Corbyn anti-semitic , just a fellow traveler or a “useful fool”?

Clearly some do believe him anti-semitic. Others say “He is not anti-Semitic but his leadership has been crucial in the deteriorating situation within Labour”.  Generally, there is great reluctance to make this accusation against the leader of the Labour Party. The judgement is subjective and there is no agreed definition.

King Cyclops follows the heralded Anglo Jewish philosopher Dr. Chaim Oyzer ben Lazar Rosenberg. This great sage graduated in 1960 from London”s Yeshiva etz Chayim, Thrawl Street, Whitechapel . After  much post graduate study and many years of introspection; and drawing on the inspiration of his Yeshiva Malamud  Reb Yossel Yoselovitz of Stamford Hill, he refined a robust working definition of Anti Semitism. One he deemed particularly apposite for the empirical philosophical tradition of the Anglo Saxon Cannon.

Anti -Semitism is the despising, blaming, criticizing ,or denigrating of Jews more than is necessary.

Even by this definition, some of Corbyn’s  closest and oldest friends are anti-semitic—Ken Livingstone, George Galloway et al. Other members of his inner circle,Seamus Milne, are also long time Hamas apologists or long time acolytes of Ken Livingstone. 

                  

Does this sound like “guilt by association”? Sure but there is a reason we are judged by the company we keep, by the friends we choose and the advisers we selec  
               
“Show me who a man's friends are and I will tell you who he is"                                                                               

--Ralph Waldo Emerson
         
                         
                                          

But is the Corbyn Cabal anti-semitic or merely disdainful of this irritating,erudite,over educated, pushy, opinionated ,subversive clan of  rootless Cosmopolitans?

  
 If they look like ducks ……

  Corbyn himself?

I was going to plead the fifth .Whatever I conclude I will offend friends of many years. If one more Labour friend tells me  “You may be too sensitive to this because you are Jewish” I will take my Uzi out of storage. Same goes for those who remind me “that you never did think Jeremy should be leader”. Nor will, I condemn him for the sake of some kind of obligation to Jewish Solidarity.

Friends/Chaverim/Comrades ….If Jeremy was the leader of any other party, we would all be on the streets together. Led by the Labour Party.  By their deeds shall ye know them.  Ken, George and Jeremy: we know it when  we see it. You almost destroyed my party a generation ago. We will stop you this time too.

        
 All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing

                                    
                 zey zoln nit forn    --  they shall not pass

         

.     

DON'T CRY FOR THE BOND MARKET

              

  ARGENTINA BONDS

With much fanfare and financial press commentary, Argentina has returned to the International Bond Markets.

·         It raised $17 billion mixture of 3/510and 30year bonds at a yield of 7.5%
·         Orders were $70 billion, 4 times over subscribed
·         It is largest one-day issuance by a developing nation in history
·         Argentina has a dreadful track record as a borrower
·         It has defaulted on government debt nine times since independence.
·         In 1890,global credit markets panicked when Barings almost collapsed due 

      to a hefty Argentine default.
·         It was rescued by arch enemies Rothschild for the second time that century;Not so lucky in 1995 when it collapsed and was bought by the Dutch bank ING       

 In 2001, unemployment in Argentina reached more than 20%, causing riots,looting and political instability

       

·         The country saw five presidents in two weeks,

·         It  defaulted on ≥ $100 billion in debt – the world’s largest ever sovereign default

·         It even defaulted on $10 billion of debt to the IMF, a problem not resolved until 2006 

·         By the end of the crisis the country’s economy had shrunk by a fifth

• In 2001,U.S.hedge funds -“the vultures”  bought deeply discounted bonds and blocked  restructuring by the Kirchner[Peronist]governments   
•         
• This despite the fact that the other 93% of bondholders had agreed a severe restructuring  and had begun to be repaid

• The newly elected Mauricio Macri government has now settled with all past bond holders; allowing for Argentinas spectacular return to the credit market
•  Argentina raised enough to pay back existing creditors and still have some left over

                                                                       

                

•  Macri have been given the red carpet treatment by global leaders and the bond markets
•   Maybe this time the nation won’t default.

This week’s news gives me an excuse to write of my affection for this benighted,abundant, mismanaged, infuriating country ,its people and Futbol .I have been Argie-phile since childhood. Readers of this blog may have picked up a few clues.The reasons are peculiar to my family.

   

Der Oncle-Der Yiddisher Arbeiter Bund

As a little boy I heard tales of the Argentine “oncle’. My father’s uncle was his only surviving relative. He had been his favourite uncle in “der heim”-Poland before WWII. The story goes that he, like my father subsequently, had been a member of the Jewish Workers Party. Formed in the late 1880’s to protect Jews from the Tzar and to promote International Socialism. Der Yiddisher Arbeiter Bund was a major political movement in the revolutionary era from the 1880s until the Jewish genocide of WW II. His uncle had been a body guard to the leadership at meetings and rallies.

  

My dad told me his mother’s brother had “escaped” to Buenos Aires in the 1920's after a rally had been violently attacked by the authorities. A policeman had been killed and “der Oncle” left for Argentina. Presumably he did not have enough cash for the man at the US consulate.

I must have been about 9 years old when I heard this story for the first time. I was sworn to secrecy in case my dad could be deported by association .It never occurred to me to ask: to where, by whom and for what—it was several years before I became an obnoxious inquisitor. I was not to speak of the Oncle’s past with my mum or my two sisters; they were 6 and 2 at the time and already revolutionary enough. Needless to say I never met my uncle when I was a child, nor do I recall knowing his first name –he was “der Oncle Kukiolka”.

   We finally met when I was twenty seven. His wife and he came to my sister’s wedding in London. They were in their eighties , the first time out of Argentina  since he immigrated  50 years  earlier .They were undertaking  a world tour to see relatives “before we die”, the Auntie had a cousin in Canada, there was a rediscovered cousin in Germany and there was Leon’s daughter’s wedding to attend in London. The uncle was in his eighties; about four feet eight inches tall and the same wide. This was a body guard for the Bund? Why not, his nephew, my dad, had had a similar role and he only grew to five feet five. Young, uneducated, idealistic,angry boys of the Jewish Proletariat; they could not write political tracts or make powerful speeches but they could try to protect those who did. Awful times.

   

    Anyway, the couple was the guests of honour and stayed with my parents. They spoke no English and my parents no Spanish. The Yiddish flowed, many tears and remembrances.My own indelible memory is of a family dinner before the nuptials .My father kept nagging the bride to be, a fluent Spanish speaker, to “speak to the Oncle in Spanish”. Finally she told dad that she could not understand a word his uncle said “Dad he speaks a weirder Spanish with a stronger accent than you speak English" The nagging stopped. 

    

    Thus began a fondness for Argentina. England had provided one old bodyguard with a refuge and Argentina another to his Oncle .The body guards survived, had families and grand children. Henryk Ehrlich, Victor Alter and other Bundist leaders escaped the Nazis to seek refuge in the Soviet Union. They were shot or sent to the gulag. Rootless Cosmopolitans no doubt. No soft spot for NKVD/KGB for me. Sorry Jeremy.        

     

Abandoned Opus

     The next sections of this opus were to be about Argentine culture;political history; and dysfunctional populist economics.Finally about my first trip in 1990 and my experience doing business there --an oil deal for the IFC[World Bank] in 1991 which is still on the books and paying dividends; and on the board of a small bank between 1993-99 I think.By that time the Oncle and auntie had died but I did meet distant cousin Boris and his family.We went with his young son to a Boca Juniors game.I was going to duck a commentary on the Malvinas[British diplomat that I am] but not on the Generals Dirty War or the "Disappeared".

Any readers still with me will be relieved that all this has now been abandoned. A treatise on the Argentine -English football rivalry will be in a future blog. 

    I will finish today with the following  

Key things to know about The Argentine Self Image

 An ethnic survey of Argentines 45 million people revealed that 60% believed they were Spanish, 60% Italian, 35% other European and the rest Jews, Arabs or Welsh. Most also believed that the population was 4^th in the International Maths Rankings. They all despised the government.

It is well known that other Latin Americans believe Argentines are arrogant and narcissistic. Argentines proudly accept this and believe the rest of the region is envious.

 The country is dominated by Buenos Aires,supported by an extraordinarily abundant and productive agricultural sector .

Portenos, those living in Buenos Aires, have a unique self image. They say about themselves : that they are Italians, who speak Spanish, live like the French and wish they were English.When not dancing the Tango,they are watching futbol,romancing  and eating Parilla- Barbecue .  

                                                   

One begins to guess that Portenos arrogance,fine living and love of style may be  a protective veneer against the desperate state of Argentine politics,history and generations long mismanagement of the economy.                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                            

                                                   

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Oops sorry wrong cartoon --but Argentines would recognise this style of political leadership.

One of the richest nations on earth at the turn of the 20th century.The enormous potential of its sophisticated population and abundant resource base wasted by a succession of populist,Peronist  governments  interspersed with fascistic military Juntas.

Perhaps no coincidence,Argentina has more psychologists per capita than any other nation.WHO estimates it has 145 per 100,000 residents far more than second place Denmark, with 85,or ninth place US with 31. Many analysts in Buenos Aires, cluster in the neighborhood Villa Freud. 

 It is estimated that almost half of Portenos have had Freudian analysis. There is no estimate of the percentage that benefitted. Psychoanalysis is a very important part of the culture, almost as significant as Futbol. In 2008 the newsweekly,Noticias asked a panel of 10 psychoanalysts to explain why ex-president Néstor Kirchner was stealing the policy making spotlight from his wife, President Cristina Kirchner. Another asked: What to make of Mrs. Kirchner's statement that her husband sleeps in the fetal position.

Much of the above has been researched so that I can justify writing the following joke.

How does an Argentine commit suicide? 

By climbing his own ego and jumping !