La Nación, February 24th, 2002.-
If the accused confess, the
accuser needs no evidence
Altamira and the PO want
to liquidate the direct democracy of the masses and to subordinate them to the
parties to save the infamous regime
“The Analysis
Agitation, but without
bosses
By Daniel Gallo. From the
staff of La Nación
“(...) Jorge Altamira,
Buenos Aires’ legislator and referent leader of the Partido Obrero, said to La
Nación that it is “necessary a social transformation, but that for this it is
necessary to have a program that can only be provided by the parties.”
“The leader of the PO,
that looks over the assemblies in the neighborhoods, considers that it can not
be invented anything in two months, but that those meetings should not stop in
a discursive experience and nothing else. “The middle class feels comfortable
taking part with a method that fits to it” he says. He foresees that at any
moment this militancy will go into ebb, and he hopes that the parties will
canalize it.
To widen the ranks
There are many the
political groups that look over the assemblies, as the ARI, amongst the biggest
ones. Earlier they got close to the picketers’ meetings. Nobody will admit
that, but it is an ideal moment to widen the parties’ ranks.
Something must be clear:
even if in the Government they like to talk about the “pre-anarchical
situation”, it cannot be said that there is a state of permanent assembly in
the city. They are not seen even between those politicians that are trying to
capture the interest of the neighbors’ positions that can lead to a dangerous
direct democracy.
The reductionism of voting
for simple majority, for yes or for no, is a little what can contribute in
complex societies, just allowing to hook the capacity to object a measure that
affects the meeting citizens. In that they come close to the picketers again.
Their way to take
decisions is through an assembly too. The same happens with the producers and
shopkeepers in the rest of the country; middle class without any doubt, who is
a not minor part of who blockade the roads. There have been popular assemblies
in Argentina for several years, and new leaders do not appear.
It is probable that those
whose image rose in inflamed speeches on the side of a road continued with
their militancy in a party. The question today is who will keep with the
precocious neighborhood leader.
Translated into English by
Marcos Smith