MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Cristina Fernandez blasts Judges and independent media on Democracy Day
In a major speech on Sunday before the iconic Plaza de Mayo celebrating ‘Democracy Day’ and ‘Human Rights Day’ , Argentine President Cristina Fernandez kept pressure on Judges and independent media calling for a “deep democratization of the three branches of government” and a “greater independence from economic power and corporations”. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesThe headline should read:
Dec 10th, 2012 - 06:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0“Cristina blasts democracy on democracy day!”
How dare the judges and press try to keep seperate from government influence?
Someone really needs to explain to the Argentinean president the definition of democracy.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 06:20 am - Link - Report abuse 0Courts are not there to serve the people, they are there to interpret and serve the law. If they were serving the people then they are nothing more than an extension of the government and there goes your whole checks and balances and separation of powers..... and then you're pretty much an autocracy.
Quite funny that this needs to be explained on “Democracy Day”. Who did the courts serve 29 years ago?
Jeezz, Argentina, “ just give the people bread and circuses”...
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:08 am - Link - Report abuse 0and now they're running out of bread. Uh oh. :-(
“However while Cristina Fernandez was addressing the crowd in Plaza de Mayo followed by a festival of music and singing with different groups playing, a horde of thugs attacked the offices and studios of Channel 13 and TN, which belong to the Clarin Group”
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:10 am - Link - Report abuse 0More evidence of KFC's “democracy in action”
YET again I bet there were no police on hand to stop them and YET again I'll bet there are no suspects..........
Let me see if I got that right; the Crazy queen that get murders and rapists out of prison to use as her “storm troops” complained abut criminals getting let out? While her criminal henchmen attacked the offices and studios of those that do not agree with her!
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:16 am - Link - Report abuse 0And restricting freedom off the press is democracy!
And she that has hundreds of thousands of people and big unions demonstrating against her insane policy is talking for the people???
Yep, makes perfectly sense, jejejeje
People are tired all right, tired of her!
TLV
5 The Last Viking
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:35 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yup. You hit that nail right on the head!!!
couldn't make this one up. Hits out at free press on democracy day jajajajajaja
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0@3. Troy
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0They maybe running out of bread, but they have more than enough clowns! LOL
@8 LEP
Dec 10th, 2012 - 08:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0LOL, you couldn't resist, could you!!
Utterly surreal, that is madness on a epic scale.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 08:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0If I were an Argentine I'd be even more worried after reading/seeing that, it looks like the mask hasn't slipped but has come entirely off now.
“I have the strength you are giving me; I will yield only if you yield, that is why I will continue playing in the whole field and stopping penalty kicks as I do every day”.
Someone tell her they want her substituted.......
Red card coming up !!
Dec 10th, 2012 - 08:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0The judiciary serve the law, it's the law that is supposed to serve the people. Laws are made by politicians, so if they don't get it right, they can hardly blame the judiciary
Dec 10th, 2012 - 09:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0She said
Dec 10th, 2012 - 09:34 am - Link - Report abuse 0“but also because sometimes the population sees judges who release people who once again commit crimes, rape or kill....many of whom then go on to play the drums at my political rallies”
always the same bullsh..
Dec 10th, 2012 - 10:18 am - Link - Report abuse 0“please help me to overlive and to save my money! I work so hard for you!”
The other day the judiciary ruled against the wishes of the british government in an important extradition case. A junior minister cams out afterwaards and siad: “it is a shame as we were hoping that the outcome would have been different. however, that is the decision and there is nothing we can do about it”. It is me or does Argentina not seem to understand the concept of separation? Is it taught in schools? Are there any Argentinean lawyers on these boards? What are you taught regarding separation of powers and your moral and professional obligations as lawyers?
Dec 10th, 2012 - 10:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0I just love this little bit: ““It was common in the past to say that with four front pages they could knock a government out of office” ”
Dec 10th, 2012 - 10:44 am - Link - Report abuse 0But only if they were corrupt, thought that the people were deserving of the dog crap and days old rubbish on the streets, the strikes, the deaths on the U/G, and all the other things this despicable government have done: in the name of democracy of course.
“It was common in the past to say that with four front pages they could knock a government out of office”
Dec 10th, 2012 - 10:46 am - Link - Report abuse 0By saying that this USED to be the case she is asserting that it is no longer the case thus undermining her argument about how powerful they are. Not a very strong argument and not very well put
Time to pack up the botox and leave.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 11:06 am - Link - Report abuse 0And argentines will blindly follow their dear leader further into the humiliating abyss,
Dec 10th, 2012 - 11:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0play on i say :)))
“I demand respect for the people’s will and vote” because “if respect is lost towards the Chambers that respect the people’s will, if laws drafted at the Legislative are not respected, where is the essence of democracy?”, underlined the Argentine leader.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 11:34 am - Link - Report abuse 0You don't “demand” respect, dearie. You have to EARN it. Where is the “respect” in letting inflation get to 25% and lying about it? Where is the “respect” in demanding that people give up their money in exchange for worthless currency? Where is the “respect” in breaching one's own constitution? Where is the “respect” in lying about how much money you've stolen from the argentine people? Where is the “respect” in defrauding thousands of people of their life savings and pensions?
What more can be said? Here,...on a lighter note, Cristina cuts the rug with her crew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vZWLoO17aWo
Dec 10th, 2012 - 11:40 am - Link - Report abuse 0LOL and the joke goes on
Dec 10th, 2012 - 12:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Today's headlines from Argentina would not be unfamiliar in Nazi Germany.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 12:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It is amazing to me that the Rgs sit by passively and let this lunatic dictator run their country into the ground.
I think the majority of them are stupid and or too scared to stand up to her.
It makes me ill
A free press criticising their government? Unheard of!!!!!!
Dec 10th, 2012 - 12:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What the F....k does she think a free press is for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Both the media and the judiciary have the absolute right to blast the President right back.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 12:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0This is, after all, a democracy.
You don't have to transgress the law of the land - or the conventions of good taste and polite speech - to blast a target person.
The power of the argument defines the megatonnage of the blast.
Only some form of dictatorship can resist a constant blast of TRUTHFUL argument well and publically deployed ... and then, rarely by acceptible democratic means.
Yes, the tools of democracy can be used undemocratically, and, in some countries like contemporary Russia, a powerful yet undemocratic 'leader' is preferred by the people to a weaker snow-white-dove (some Russians even hanker publically for a new Stalin).
My guess is that countries that aggregate the majority of major political parties into the ruling coalition suffer greatly from having a poor official Opposition (a necessary pre-requisite of a democracy).
Where it happens, the judiciary and the media have to take a mantle of Opposition, simply to hold the nation's politicians to account.
The structural solution is to avoid at all costs the creation of a coalition that contains 'everybody'..... because, if it fails, there is nowhere else to go.
”...because sometimes the population sees judges who release people who once again commit crimes, rape or kill...”
Dec 10th, 2012 - 01:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0But Cristina, that's a huge portion of your demographic. Without the rapists, murderers and child molesters, who will vote for you?
She's so pathetically retarded. I wouldn't be surprised if her own party members don't throw her in a special jacket with padded walls everytime she opens her mouth. On that note, that's probably the source of her party's loyalty to her, because it doesn't require speaking.
21 ptolemy
Dec 10th, 2012 - 01:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Brilliant, I thought I was going to pee myself, thanks.
@24 “What the F....k does she think a free press is for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Dec 10th, 2012 - 01:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0nothing wrong with a free press as long as they are re-educated to her satisfaction :)
free press as long as you write what i tell you, time to rise up rgenweener and kick this woman into touch before it's to late
Dec 10th, 2012 - 03:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Definition of Argentine Free Press:
Dec 10th, 2012 - 03:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The papers print what she tells them to and she gives them away!
you
Dec 10th, 2012 - 03:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0couldnt
make
it
up
Let's have a look at the Theory of Clarín's Incredible Power to Knock Out the Government with Four Front Pages:
Dec 10th, 2012 - 04:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 01) Clarín was as powerful in 2011 as it is right now.
2) The elections in October 2011 resulted in a landslide victory for CFK, in spit of Clarín's opposition.
3) Where the hell is Clarín's power to knock over a government if it cannot even stop it being electedf in the first place!!!!!
CFK is as usual talking out of her considerable fundament. What the people want is exactly what they got from the Judiciary; JUSTICE!!!!
Hadn't noticed it before, but does anyone think the two guys near to TMBOA dressed in the white coats are the MEN IN THE WHITE COATS!
Dec 10th, 2012 - 04:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Ha, ha, ha.
He is Federico Luppi, an actor very famous here.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 05:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I wonder exactly why CFKC made Clarin her target enemy?
Dec 10th, 2012 - 06:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Was is because they were cosy with Nestor? She appears to have dispensed with anyone associated with her late husband.
Was it simply her humiliating back-tracking over the farmers?
Was it something more personal?
I remember Cherie Blair had a long running war with The Mirror (a Labour supporting rag) that became ridiculously vitriolic and personal. When eventually she cleared the air with the editor Piers Morgan it all came down to one photograph and a a comment from some minor reporter suggesting she might have cellulite.
12#
Dec 10th, 2012 - 07:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Both the media and the judiciary have the absolute right to blast the President right back.
This is, after all, a democracy.
Do you recognise the source of the above.Do you recognise what the leader of the UK gvt is doing to avoid falling out with his media bosses.
Is this the way to apply democracy,or the fear of a powerful opinion former of which he is scared.Shall we keep pussyfooting about the media's role as an upholder of democracy rather than an upholder of capitalist interests.
36. Spoken like e true communist. Too bad the USA didn't find you in the 70s.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 08:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0So you don't believe in freedom of speech then Yuleno?
Dec 10th, 2012 - 08:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Once you lose your freedom of speech it will all be downhill from there.
Oh and this has zero to do with capitalists interests.....
@35 ElaineB
Dec 10th, 2012 - 09:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes, but didn't the true 'queen' of England aka Cherie have similar traits when her husband was in office as TMBOA?
Ego the size of a gas giant, as personal and approachable as as grizzly bear, the list goes on, oh, and she did have cellulite or fat to give the thing the correct name.
Something most of us get as we advance in years but there is no need to duck the issue.
38#
Dec 10th, 2012 - 09:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have no freedom of speech because I am limited in what I can say.I can go to prison in some countries if I say the wrong things on Facebook or twitter.I can be blocked on the Internet and I don't have enough money to print a paper.So I might as well defend my interests as closely as possible.
Do you have freedom of speech and do you enjoy it?
@39. She ran for office and did not get elected. They had a pact that the first to be elected would take the lead and the other would play the supporting role.
Dec 10th, 2012 - 09:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0She over-stepped the role of Prime Minister's wife throughout his time in power and she made many enemies. If she had been elected I have no doubt she would have displayed some of the tendencies of CFKC, though Cherie actually got a law degree, practised law and is not bi-polar.
@36
Dec 10th, 2012 - 10:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I'm not sure where you are going with your comments. Perhaps you should summarize. I find this statement interesting: “...Shall we keep pussyfooting about the media's role as an upholder of democracy rather than an upholder of capitalist interests.” So, you are saying media's role is only an upholder of capitalist interests?
@ Yuleno, that appears to be a very contrived response.
Dec 11th, 2012 - 08:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0Why talk about other countries, when you should be talking about your own?
You are not defending your own interests if you are talking about eroding press freedom, in that position you can only be attacking your own interests in the long term even if you don't support Clarin's views.
Yulendo #36, etc.
Dec 11th, 2012 - 11:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yes, I recognise the conflicts of best-practice and philosophy facing the British Government over the Tomlinson recommendations. The PM is acting like a Conservative national leader rather than a middle of the road politician. His issue is how to handle the press's abuse of their freedoms and their acting beyond the laws of the land.
He has another thorny issue on the horizon - in draft bill - the give certain arms of Government, *etc*, the right to view people's communications - email, twitter, tweets, Facebook, etc. The rationale is anti-terrorism and anti-paediphile, but the scope is able to trap everybody for whatever reason.
No, I don't like it, and yes, I am shouting about it.
As long as she has her indoctrinated supporters rallying around her, [see picture]
Dec 11th, 2012 - 11:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0Why should she care?
She is invincible, unstoppable ,and soon to be unavailable.
Still
The country is going up in the world,
[According to ??? ]
44# Geoff
Dec 11th, 2012 - 02:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Quite right what you say.The defense is that law should not be resorted to.One feels that it is on this occasion as this is the eighth failure.And also that a law would be something that shouldn't be used as it would be something which would be resorted to at every juncture.
It's a difficult conundrum.
But the use of law is quickly called upon for some forms of media.As you say twitter Facebook ect.What this points to is that the media which doesn't require law has common interests with the status quo.Thats fine,its always been that way,but you get stupid people,well indoctrinated in their hegemonic outlook,and comfortable with it even today,who believe the media is imparcial and not a part of the indoctrination process.
Newspapers in capitalist countries must aim for profit and growth but we all know,don't we,that the capitalist state facilitates in these goals and that before a balanced press.
8 will become 9 and just as the underground press was instrumental in Eastern Europe it is not,some seem to think,in Argentina,south America or the UK.
That is pussyfooting about the role of the media
@46
Dec 11th, 2012 - 05:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You are wrong implying that there no underground papers. Look around. And if the “ capitalist” press aims for profit for growth, it is because it is NOT substidised by the state,..a far more geater evil.
The roll of the media is to make money, as simple as that. If it doesn't make money it disappears, whether it is a newspaper, webpage, or television show.
Dec 11th, 2012 - 05:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0How does the media make its money? By providing what its audience want. When it stops providing that, it disappears!!!!
So the media tries to make itself attractive to its potencial audience, if it succedes it makes money if it doesn't it disappears!!!!
So the arguments about the “media's” ability to move the masses for or against a government are pretty ridiculous, because any media that actually did such a thing would force itself out of business, UNLESS its audience wanted the government kicked out, and represented a huge majority of the electorate!!!!!
47#
Dec 11th, 2012 - 07:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I didn't say the underground press had no role.
48#
The measure of the press is profitability you say.
So can you explain why there was an enquiry into it in the UK? And if the media does not influence the masses what's wrong with the state controlling it.It doesn't matter in your view.
@48 Simon68
Dec 11th, 2012 - 07:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Hi Simon,
As an atheist: Dear God, you are wasting your time with stupid bastards like 49, aren't you?
What chance have people with a brain while dead heads like him spout rubbish like that, especially the penultimate sentance.
You are all doomed, doomed I say!! ;o)
If somebody wonders, where is clarin's power, the events of the last three years, show perfectly where is the true power. If the clarin group could get since 2009 all the injuctions that it wanted, in order to not to cumply with the new broadcast law, it shows how weak are sometimes the governments when they want to make front the powerfull corporations like clarin. I will always repeat that justice must be independent not just from the government, but also from the corporations. However there are some people who still don't understand it, and claim for an independent justice, taking into account that it must independet just from the government, and don't say absolutly anything about the lack of independence of it from the corporations. Respecting last sunday, i have been in plaza de mayo, with all my partners from movimiento evita, in fact since two months ago, i started being an activist from movimiento evita, there were a lot of activists, but there were also so many people who weren't activists, and went to plaza de mayo with their children. It was one of the best nights of my life, i could see cristina, beside i wanted to be there, because i wanted to honour a great man like raul alfonsin, who was also a very brave man, who had the politic will, in order to judge the criminal junta, his legacy of bravery is the same legacy that cristina will leave to all of us when she leaves office, tha's why, despite some controversies of her government, i'm sure that she will be remembered by planty of us as a great woman. Regarding the atacks against the canal 13 studios and tn, they were as despisable and repudiable as the attacks against giornalists from different media corporations in the last 4 cacerolasos, unfortunatelly in our society we still have sectors of people who are very reactionary, and who haven't learnt yet how to live in democracy.
Dec 12th, 2012 - 01:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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