- "… The results show that Milei not only managed to keep the votes from the first round, but also could sum up the majority of Patricia Bullrich's votes from the opposition party alliance Juntos por el Cambio and possibly other smaller parties. (…) Now the question arises as to what he will actually implement of his extreme program, since he has contradicted himself very often lately. His most important promises were to abolish the central bank and replace his own currency, the peso, with the US dollar as a legal means of payment, as Ecuador did in 2000. In addition, he announced a massive downsizing of the state apparatus, including the abolition of several ministries, the cancellation of numerous aid and social programs, the privatization of state-owned companies, the health care system, and even education …" Contribution by Miguel Arndt on November 20, 2023 in amerika21 – see analyses, backgrounds and perspectives:
- [Law on "Inviolability of Private Property"] Freedom for Tech Fascism in Argentina – and the resistance against Peter Thiel
- The sale of Argentina is proceeding somewhat slowed down with the support of tear gas and water cannons (and again an injured photographer)
- Argentina: Test lab for Palantir. The US data analytics company wants to establish a foothold in Argentina and has found a willing partner in President Milei
"It could be an agreement with serious consequences for the rights of Argentines: In early February, Argentina and the USA signed an agreement on mutual trade and investment. Official goals: increase beef exports, abolition of tariffs and investment incentives. Through the agreement, a legal framework should be created that gives US companies unhindered access to the country. This would also apply to the US data analytics company Palantir. (…)
Thiel was in Buenos Aires last April. He bought a house worth twelve million US dollars and met with Argentina's ultra-right president Javier Milei. What goals does Palantir pursue in Argentina? "Palantir is not here to create Excel spreadsheets. It comes to gain power over the data of this society," warned Argentine scientist Ariel Garbarz to jW.
But the details are still vague: Nothing is known about a concrete agreement. Should the company create a database of migrants, as it does for the US immigration authority ICE? Should it intensify population surveillance? Or even manipulate the elections next year in Milei's favor? Whether with a formal agreement or not, according to Garbarz, it already seems that the Milei government "opens the door to a foreign private company to penetrate the information technology heart of the Argentine state." Palantir sees the country as a test lab.
For this reason, the scientist calls for parliamentary oversight of the company in the jW interview. There need to be "data protection regulations, an explicit ban on use for election purposes and the obligation to explain which databases are matched with which algorithms for which purposes and under which authority. No agreement with Palantir must be advanced as a secret initiative of the executive," Garbarz said.
A group of opposition lawmakers has already submitted two inquiries to Congress this year, in which they demand information from the government about what was decided at the meeting between Milei and Thiel. So far, they have not received any answers…" Article by Florencia Beloso in junge Welt on May 20, 2026
"It is Saturday morning, a cold wind blows. Nevertheless, around one hundred people have gathered at the subway station »Entre Ríos – Rodolfo Walsh« in Buenos Aires for a demonstration. Young and old, men and women. They demand the renaming of the station to »Victims of Terrorism«. In 1976, a member of the urban guerrilla Montoneros carried out a bomb attack on a police cabin nearby. 23 people were killed, 110 injured. The homemade bomb was placed by the young José María Salgado. However, the demonstrators are convinced: The head behind the attack was the writer Rodolfo Walsh. This theory is far from proven. A young man introduces himself to me as a »neighbor«. (…)
While signs are being distributed around us and music booms from the speakers of a truck parked at the corner, the man begins to show more and more interest in me. Where I come from, he wants to know. Who I work for. What I think of Milei. What about women's and gay rights, the »mass migration« to Europe. Whether I am not perhaps a leftist, perhaps even one of those leftists who pose as journalists but actually pursue a political agenda. (…)
The Milei government has declared journalists, photographers, and other media professionals its enemies. The president himself repeatedly says: »We do not hate journalists enough.« He has even created his own acronym for this: NOLSALP. With this, he posts on social media, in which he further defames journalists as »shit«, »human scum«, »prostitutes of politicians« or »bought«. The daily newspaper La Nación counted only 410 attacks directly from the head of state on the press during the first year of the government. More than 60 journalists were named by Milei in this regard. Martina Noailles is a journalist and active in Sipreba, the press union of Buenos Aires. She says that the president is making violence against journalists acceptable. (…)
Milei has made cruelty the basis of his government program. The ultraright relies on the normalization of brutality. In doing so, he seems even to want to give the impression that he enjoys it. The brutality is discursive on the one hand, such as when he insults, defames, and mocks those who think differently, marginalized people, and the oppressed. On the other hand, discursive violence materializes in the form of police repression, hollowing out state institutions, the dismantling of rights, the cancellation of aid, economic precariousness, or physical violence. (…)
The sociologist Ezequiel Ipar researches among others in the »Laboratorio de Estudios sobre Democracia y Autoritarismos« (LEDA) at the National University of San Martín on this topic. (…) It is about making suffering and distress socially acceptable, which in other times were considered irrational or politically untenable. »Cruelty plays an important role here,« says Ipar. (…)
Milei and the international ultraright, of which he is a part, are not working towards abolishing the bourgeois-democratic system. Rather, it is being hollowed out. (…) Marcela Perelman, who heads the research department at the human rights organization CELS, observes that the topic of remembrance of the military dictatorship plays a greater role in the Milei government than in previous governments. The memory politics is under fire. (…)
A worrying development, especially in view of the way the Milei government deals with opposition and protest. Perelman speaks of a »combat strategy« in this regard: »The extent of repression with which mobilizations and demonstrations are covered is characteristic,« she says. Human rights organizations such as Abuelas are also victims of stigmatization and reputation-damaging campaigns. The accusation: They enriched themselves in a fraudulent way…" Article by Frederic Schnatterer in junge Welt on April 14, 2026
as a preview from the book "Freedom for whom? Milei's Argentina as an experimental laboratory of the ultraright" published by Papyrossa Verlag, Cologne 2026, 190 pages, 16.90 Euro)
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