Where We Are This Week
Thanksgiving, Argentina goes rogue, and hostages get released.
Thanksgiving, the most religious of all secular holidays. Every year we gather around the dinner table, and feast on the sacrificial turkey and sacramental stuffing commemorating the first peoples, native and European, of our nation.
It’s common to treat the holiday as a day of general gratitude - and that’s great - but at its core, it’s a holiday reserved for appreciating the Americanness of it all; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I'm thankful for the pilgrims those insane few who took wooden boats across the Atlantic the indians who traded manhattan for a few beads and the trade got worse as the years wore on John Smith and Squanto the myth and the legend the founders who locked themselves inside in the dead of summer to write a declaration for the slaves who'd only heard of America for their descendants who finally saw it for the union soldiers who killed their brothers for the confederates who had to lose for Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea for the French who loved our revolution and sold us the West for Teddy and the bull-moose party for manifest destiny and the panama canal for the poor dodo and the slightly more fortunate buffalo for all the turkeys in the factories and forests for the boys and men who fought in the second world war for the government who brought us nazis who then brought us rockets and nasa for fire and brimstone for transcendentalism for Vietnam who showed us our mistakes and for Afghanistan who showed us we hadn't learned for the idea we can get better for the idea that gratitude is integral to that process for America not good, not great, not bad, not uniquely cruel but priceless, irreplaceable, unflappable hopeful America
Make Argentina Great Again
On Sunday, Argentina, the land of Manu Ginobili and Lionel Messi, elected Javier Milei to the office of president. If you haven’t heard any of the buzz of this guy from the last few months, he seems like a wild dude.
He campaigned with a chainsaw - cool! - in an effort to demonstrate his slash-and-burn intentions when it comes to the bloated bureaucracy of the South American nation. He has also professed his hatred for the left, ‘collectivists of any kind’, and the litany of public departments of transportation, culture, and sport, etc. that he’ll with which he’ll have to contend now that he’s el jefe.
I’ve never been to Argentina, but in my most Hemingway-tinged daydreams of my adolescence, I imagined myself disappearing into the shadow of the Andes with a pack of dogs, dirt roads, and a six-pack of Coke. This anecdote has nothing to do with the current political situation in South America’s second-largest country, but suffice to say my interest has been piqued yet again.
Argentina, like America, is an experimental country by its very nature. A nation largely formed by immigrants, predominately from Spain and Italy, it is regularly described by its inhabitants as a crisol de razas - or in other words, a melting pot. In the early 20th century, it saw swathes of European immigrants make their way across the ocean and into its embrace. Infamously, disgraced Nazis used ratlines to escape the fallen Third Reich to live under the warm auspices of the Argentine ruler Juan Perón.
Given the United States’ participation in the sheltering and recruitment of former prominent Nazis after WWII, it's another unfortunate parallel between the two American nations.
Now, Argentina is home to a few million Arab Argentines, one of the largest Jewish communities this side of the Atlantic, and the most Italian-sounding Spanish you’ve ever heard.
Okay, back to Perón for a moment. For decades, Argentinian politics has been long been colored by the left-leaning pseudo-fascism established by his leadership in the 1940s and 1950s. After a couple of military coups, one re-election, and his death in 1974, Peronism has become a dominant force in Argentine political thought. Today, despite the overwhelming referendum displayed by the election of Javier Milei, Peronists represent the majority in the legislature.
Milei is a libertarian economist with no political experience of which to speak, a self-described anarcho-capitalist, and now, the dog that caught the car. If Milei is truly the outsider and governmental antagonist that he purports himself to be, it remains to be seen whether or not he possesses the efficiency and savvy required to pull the levers of an intertwined bureaucracy. Milei defeated his opposition candidate, Sergio Massa the country’s minister of economy, 56% to 44%.
The establishment left of America and Western media have reacted in panic to the surprising result. Though it was a sound victory - Massa conceded defeat well before the ballots were counted in their entirety, the margins of Milei’s success could hardly be described as a populist uprising - much less an outcry from the ‘far-right’. As we noted before, Argentina has been dominated by Peronism for the last century, and over the last several years, its economy has seen incredible levels of inflation.
The Argentinian peso is in the doldrums and was devalued by 18% by the incumbent administration during the election. Inflation has been on the rise since 2021; current rates are at 143% and it’s poised to continue its climb before the end of the year. Yes, a libertarian was elected as President - name a better oxymoron - but a piece of stale, unbuttered toast could have beaten the man who was in charge of that economy.
Still, pundits who are sympathetic to the progressively cultured Peronism of the 21st century are panicking over Milei’s election; resorting to making countless comparisons to the American Donald Trump. In the formulation of modern times, if you’re not FDR, then you must be Hitler. And if you’re not Hitler, then you must be Donald Trump. What’s the difference between those two anyway?
As a brief aside, in a recent speech, Donald Trump referred to the ‘Marxists, communists, fascists and radical leftists’ living in America as ‘vermin’ - so, that’s not exactly great. As far as Hitlerian comparisons go, this one is earned. Milei only called them ‘shit.’ Fellow travelers in the same dark ideological alleyway, apparently. ‘¡Porque son mierda!’
But what were the Argentinian people supposed to do? Any alternative to the threat of 200% inflation and the status quo ought to be on the table no matter how much may look like 1960s George Best holding a toaster in a bathtub.
As the United States becomes more homogenous and centralized - with a flagging economy of our own - we ought to welcome every experiment possible. That’s what federalism had to offer. Tennessee could look across the nation to ask how far left we could go before becoming California and vice versa.
That’s why, in 2020, I didn’t understand why those on the right were so angered by Oregon’s decision to decriminalize controlled substances such as heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, and fentanyl. I applauded the measure not because I considered moving to Portland to fill my pockets with smack, but out of a desire to see if the experiment would work! It didn’t! Overdoses are up, public drug use has been outlawed by the Portland City Council, and the piece of legislation that allowed it all will likely be repealed in 2024.
It doesn’t matter if you’re shocked by the results or not, now, we know what mistakes to avoid. Let’s be honest, as a country, we’re not batting one thousand over the last couple of decades - it might be time to adopt a new stance.
As for Argentina, who knows? No-holds-barred libertarianism sounds like a sinister multi-national corporation’s idea of a good time. Like any ideology that is contingent upon the cooperation and good nature of its people, it’s an uphill battle for success. I have no clue what sort of changes to government Milei will be able to implement, but I’m fascinated by the experiment itself.
Change is difficult, and it’s even more difficult to get a whole nation on board with enduring the growing pains that accompany any major alteration to the status quo. If there were any time to exploit the eagerness and goodwill of the people to try something new, it’d be now.
Of course, Peronism did produce World Cup wins with both Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona. How much time will Milei be afforded until Argentinians across the nation begin to recollect the summer-long fiesta in the streets of 2022, and wonder to themselves, “Was it really all that bad?”
Some Good News
Since October 7th, the Israel / Hamas war has been a constant conversation in my household. Every couple of days, my wife would turn to me with reluctant optimism to ask if any of the hostages had been released. Each time she asked the question, I would respond in the negative.
Fortunately, that begins to change on Friday.
After 48 days, Hamas and Israel have come to an agreement for a hostage release/prisoner exchange. For 48 days, innocent men, women, and children have been held captive by the terrorist organization inside Gaza. As bombs and airstrikes undoubtedly fell around them, the fate of the 200-plus hostages was held in the tender mercies of the barbarians who abducted them, and the necessary offensive that was being conducted by Israel.
The hostage deal has not been negotiated with Hamas directly. Instead, the United States and Israel have been mainly communicating with Qatari officials who then relayed the terms of the agreement to Hamas leadership. The tentative agreement goes like this: a temporary ceasefire of four days has been agreed upon while Hamas will release 50 hostages; all of which are either women or children. In return, Israel will comply with the ceasefire and release 150 Palestinian prisoners.
Additionally, Israeli air surveillance will be paused in Northern Gaza - while Hamas scrambles to fortify its position no doubt - and Hamas has committed to finding the rest of the hostages held within Gaza. What makes the hostage release effort especially difficult is the same thing that makes the entire conflict so incredibly barbed. There are a large number of Israeli citizens being held as hostages by distinct civilian groups within the Gaza Strip. These hostages were taken during the massacre of October 7th by mere citizens of Gaza who were participating in the raid.
This isn’t exactly a surprise. In a recent poll conducted in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by the Arab World for Research and Development, Palestinian citizens overwhelmingly support the massacre of October 7th. Only 11% of respondents indicated they opposed the attacks on Israel, while 65% expressed some or extreme support for the operation. Additionally, when asked about their opinions of those involved in the region and the war specifically, it was the most militant groups that received the highest levels of support. Hamas received a 76% overall favorable rating from Palestinian citizens while Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Qassam, and the Al Aqsa Brigade all scored above 80%.
This is not to say that all citizens of Palestine are culpable or responsible for the actions carried out by their government - or that citizens, themselves, are justifiable military targets. However, it does indicate the near-impossible task with which Israel has been confronted. There’s not enough anti-Hamas or anti-terror sentiment for Israel to nurture into a predominant movement; there’s no real hope of the citizenry having the willingness - much less the ability - to oust Hamas as the leadership of Gaza.
So, when you see reports that the prisoner exchange is a like-for-like trade, know that these claims are disingenuous. First, the ratios are clearly disparate. 50 for 150 is hardly even. And despite many, if not all, of the prisoners held by Israel being women and minors - we’re talking ages 16 and 17 - they’re not exactly innocent; some were convicted of stabbings and other attacks, and some for plots to commit acts of terror.
Nevertheless, the exchange has the support of the IDF and Mossad. A handful of American citizens are expected to be in the first round of hostages released by Hamas. Hamas has not been cooperative with the ICRC (Red Cross) and has not allowed, as per the agreement, the international organization to evaluate the health of any of the hostages.
It remains unclear how many of the hostages remain alive in Gaza or the condition in which they will be returned. The first 13 will be able to return home starting on Friday afternoon to the relief and joy of their families and relatives. One of whom is Avigail Idan, a three-year-old girl whose parents were murdered in front of her on October 7th. If the release goes as planned, she’ll be able to celebrate her fourth birthday with her family on Friday.
“I find myself barely breathing through the last 24 hours,” her aunt, Tal Idan, said once the agreement was announced. “Every hour that goes by feels like forever.”
Israel still has a long way to go in achieving safety then peace in the region, and a daunting challenge to rescue all 240 captives held by Hamas. While 50 isn’t the hostages in their entirety, it’s a start, and their homecoming is worth celebrating.
To a better next week,
Cheers,
~FDA