Photographer in coma after Argentina police hit pensioner protest hard

[Judi Lynn]

Photographer in coma and scores injured as police use teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon against retirees

Harriet Barber in Buenos Aires
Thu 13 Mar 2025 11.21 EDT

Argentina’s hardline security minister is facing calls to resign after the violent police response to a protest by pensioners left a photographer in a coma and scores of other people injured.

More than 1,000 riot police used teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse demonstrators late on Wednesday.

Retirees gather every week in front of Congress to demand an increase in pensions and the restoration of certain free medications, which have been hit by President Javier Milei’s austerity programme.

This week the number of protesters swelled after fans from some of the country’s biggest football clubs, including Boca Juniors and River Plate, joined the rally.

To the sound of trumpets and drums, elderly marchers waved walking sticks and signs reading: “Don’t hit us, we are your parents,” and “Help me fight – you’ll be the next elderly person.”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/13/argentina-pensioner-protest-police-violence

[Irish_Dem]

1. Soon to come to the US?

[DAngelo136]

3. This Is Exactly What's Coming to the US

Folks, this isn't a new strategy. In fact it's rather old. All you have to do is reference Andrew Mellon (1855-1937) and his ideology in order to understand these supply side conservatives and tech bro libertarians: "He argued cutting tax rates on top earners would generate more tax revenue for the government, but otherwise left in place a progressive income tax. Some of Mellon's proposals were enacted by the Revenue Act of 1921 and the Revenue Act of 1924, but it was not until the passage of the Revenue Act of 1926 that the "Mellon plan" was fully realized. He also presided over a reduction in the national debt, which dropped substantially in the 1920s. Mellon's influence in state and national politics reached its zenith during Coolidge's presidency. Journalist William Allen White noted that "so completely did Andrew Mellon dominate the White House in the days when the Coolidge administration was at its zenith that it would be fair to call the administration the reign of Coolidge and Mellon." Sound familiar?

"Mellon agreed to accept appointment as Secretary of the Treasury in February 1921, and his nomination was quickly confirmed by the United States Senate. Though Mellon's supporters believed that he was highly qualified to address the economic issues facing the country, critics of the Harding administration saw the Mellon appointment as a sign that Harding would "reseat the power of special privileged interests, the powers of avarice and greed, the powers that seek self-aggrandizement at the expense of the general public" Getting any feelings of deja vu?

Everything he did, is basically the same playbook Republicans have been following for the past 100 years. And when it goes south, as it ultimately does, their remedy is the same: Mellon supported the idea of asset liquidation to balance budgets, even if it meant shutting down entire industries.

By mid-1930, many, including Mellon, believed that the economy had already experienced the worst effects of the stock market crash. He did not object to the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariff rates to one of the highest levels in U.S. history.[89] Despite the optimism of Hoover and Mellon, in late 1930 the economy went into a deep slump, as gross national product declined dramatically, and numerous workers lost their jobs. While numerous banks failed, Democrats won control of Congress in the 1930 mid-term elections. As the economy declined, so did Mellon's popularity, which was further damaged by his opposition to another bonus bill for veterans. Mellon believed that economic recessions, such as those that had occurred in 1873 and 1907, were a necessary part of the business cycle because they purged the economy. In his memoirs, Hoover wrote that Mellon advised him to "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. ... enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."

Republicans will never change because they can't change. They will always go back to the same failed policies as before.

[Irish_Dem]

4. It is a not a failed policy for the rich.

They keep getting richer.
That is why they keep doing it.

[róisín_dubh]

2. Fuck Milei and his cabal...

Argentina has had such a long and ugly history of being led by "hard men" like him.