@Sunny it was chilly in the shade, but no wind and really nice in the sun. first time for me trying the local
Locro soup. pork knuckle/
patitas,
mondongo, beans, hominy? quite strange. not very sweet, not really flavorful, but interesting.
i don't really like being in crowds, especially when my Spanish isn't perfect and i'm new to this province...so when people started surrounding me, i stayed on the outskirts. there was a drone in the air, but not sure if it was police or news, or if there will be footage. the main news channels had good footage of the event/plaza.
i walked around the cathedral a couple months ago, and so i didn't get very close. the building on the left has a really cool iron gate that i was close to (less people by one of the bands, camera-left). some people asked me things like if Milei was there yet, where he was, etc. but not really; i talked to a nearby restaurant manager and they were very nice and let me try their grub, and only 15,500 Pesos ($13.75 USD) for 2 big bowls of
Locro, 5 empanadas, and 1 glass of tasty red wine on a Saturday holiday.
i like to leave events early so i get a good Uber price and don't have to fight crowds (i'm the werido in the USA that leaves concerts during the last song, so i can get out of the parking lot, ahahaha, i'm mentally 95 years old), so i didn't see how long they were there. but i imagine many people brought food, ate street food, or ate at the many restaurants nearby. was a nice day, and even the socialists/"Workers" seemed uninterested in being across the street. the police/nat'l guard/etc. were very organized and it seemed as smooth as possible (but a 2pm start time means the speech will happen at like 2:30pm i found out).
felt good to see the Inauguration and now this pseudo-
Pacto-de-Mayo but i'm interested to see how the governors will respond, since i think only the Cordoba Province governor was there. and of course, i was thinking when there were crowds shouting for
LIBERTAD! about how IrishLad might be thinking, 'jeez, why are these
argentinos so obsessed with politics?'
😉
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if anyone can find the speech transcript, please share! this is a very bad version that Grok AI gave me, from a YouTube transcript:
"Good afternoon to everyone. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you to the national government authorities, the general secretary of the presidency, the vice president, and the cabinet ministers. Thank you also to the authorities of the National Congress, the presidents of the legislative blocks, the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the provincial authorities, and all of you who have come to celebrate the 214th anniversary of the May Revolution. May 25 is a historic date for Argentines, but it is especially important for us. For us, May is much more than a date on the calendar; it is a doctrine, a set of ideas and principles that represent the best of the Argentine tradition. May is a concept, an idea that summarizes two principles: freedom and democracy.
Freedom is an idea that emerged from the will of a small group of men who, 214 years ago, decided to break the chains of tyranny and declare that the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata would begin the arduous path to building a free and sovereign nation. Because those men and women who gave their lives for the homeland in that revolutionary feat knew that to be free, we first had to be independent. This tradition had great achievements throughout our two centuries of history, from the revolution itself to the sanction of our sacred Constitution of 1853, inspired by the principles of Alberdi and Gorostiaga, two of the great exponents of the generation of 1837, perhaps the most representative of the ideas of May. That generation that poured the principles of May into our founding document was the one that marked the north of the country model that our founding fathers imagined.
Cordoba materializes the vision of those great men. From the revolution itself to the sanction of our Argentine Constitution, we saw the incorporation of the province of Buenos Aires to the confederation of Argentina in 1860, which allowed us to establish the bases and principles envisioned by our heroes of May. What happened after the incorporation of Buenos Aires to the nation and the adoption of the principles of May, as reflected in our Constitution, is one of the most spectacular stories of progress in Western history, in the history of humanity. Argentina, which until 1860 was a country of barbarians, became a world power in 35 years.
It is the base of the base. It was a nation impoverished and illiterate, divided by sterile disputes between small men who aspired to be monarchs in their land. Argentina became the darling of the West, the explosion of wealth, growth, and progress that the adoption of the principles of May generated had no parallel in history, perhaps only comparable to the American Revolution and the progress of the United States as a nation. A whole generation of leaders understood that beyond personal ambitions, our founding fathers had marked a course for our nation, and that course was embodied in a Constitution designed essentially to secure life, liberty, and private property for Argentines. That generation, which put into motion the principles of May and built a world power from a land of barbarians, was the generation of the 1880s, a generation that today has given us some of the best exponents of the principles of May, such as Mitre, Sarmiento, Avellaneda, Roca, and also Pellegrini, the great pilot of storms. The sacred principle of our preamble, which sought to constitute the national union, consolidate justice, consolidate peace, provide for common defense, promote the general welfare, and fundamentally secure the benefits of freedom for ourselves, for our posterity, and for all men who want to inhabit the Argentine soil, and indeed, they did it.
Unfortunately, at a certain point in our history, we decided to abandon the principles that had brought so much prosperity and progress to our lands, and we let ourselves be deceived by the siren songs of those who buried Argentina in the deepest darkness for decades. I will not go into the reasons for our failure here. Our only ambition is to lay the foundations for a different future for our children. Because in essence, we are nothing more than direct descendants of the tradition of the revolutionaries of May. We defend no other principles than those established by the great heroes of the Revolution, the generation of 1837, the generation of 1880, and all those men and women in our history who have fought to defend the ideas of freedom on our lands. As Esteban Echeverría, one of the great thinkers of our homeland, said, the thought of May is ours. Our ambition is to see it fully realized, whatever the success of our efforts and hopes, whatever the destiny that awaits us.
For that reason, on March 1, in the opening speech of the honorable Congress of the nation, we stood before the political leadership of Argentina and offered to sit down at a table and reaffirm once again the principles that made our nation great. I am not here under the sun of May in the learned Cordoba, the productive heart of our nation, to reiterate that call. I want to announce here in Cordoba that not only will we continue to work to make the May Pact a reality in Argentina, but also once the base law and the fiscal package are approved, the national executive will create the May Council to complete this sacred task. This council will be composed of a representative of the national government, a representative of the Argentine provinces, a representative of the Chamber of Deputies, a representative of the Senate, a representative of the trade unions, and a representative of the Argentine business community, and it will be responsible for working on the bills that will materialize the principles adopted in the May Pact.
I also want to take this opportunity to announce that once the base law and the fiscal package are approved, the national government will move forward with a significant reduction in taxes. We know that this decision will be difficult for the national treasury, but we have made a commitment to the Argentine people, and we will start to return the taxes to them through a reduction in tax rates because there is no possible destiny for our nation if we do not remove the weight of the state from the shoulders of the Argentines of good will. We have to give thanks to the daughter who allowed us to come because she had a very important holiday and allowed us to be here with all of you.
We have inherited a bomb that combines the worst of the three worst crises in Argentine history: the Rodrigazo, the hyperinflation of Alfonsín, and the 2001 crisis. The fact is that we are doing the greatest adjustment not only in the history of Argentina but also in the history of humanity. We received an annual inflation rate of 17000 in December, and this giant that we have as a minister of the economy is taming it. In fact, we are subverting a cycle in our political history that, beyond intentions, has been a resounding failure. But that cycle is over.
I want to start finishing these words with a brief reflection. These first five months have been difficult, not only because we inherited the worst economic and social crisis in our history, but also because a political cycle has closed that, despite good intentions, has been a resounding failure. But that cycle is over. I understand that for many protagonists of that cycle, it is difficult to accept the fall of that old regime, and I understand that it is difficult for them to imagine their place in this new Argentina. But I want to reiterate something I have said before, and that is that we are far from pursuing personal vendettas or petty revenge. We have only one interest before us, the interest of the majority of Argentines who chose to live in freedom.
Because, as Mariano Moreno said, we prefer a dangerous freedom to a peaceful servitude. Today, we stand before a new turning point in our history, and I invite you to join us in a new dream for Argentina, a dream that is to pick up the glove of the heroes of May, to put aside personal and political ambitions, and to become a generation of patriots who dare to rebuild the greatness of our nation, a new generation of May that makes the noise of broken chains and inaugurates a new era of glory for our beloved nation.
In the name of the May Revolution of 1810, in the name of the generation of 1837 that imagined a country that secured the benefits of freedom for all those who wanted to inhabit our soil, and in the name of the generation of 1880 that poured the ideas of the May Revolution into our land, I invite you to inaugurate a new era of gold for Argentina. May God bless the Argentines and may the strength of heaven accompany us. Long live freedom, long live freedom, long live freedom. Thank you very much."
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