The following is an experiment in time. The year is 2045. The location: an old persons’ home in Central Florida. Jair Bolsonaro and Javier Milei are sharing some tea and reminiscing in Portuñol, that happy mix of Spanish and Portuguese that passes for a lingua Franca in South America and in Florida.
The senior couple reminisce about the last few decades, the mess they left behind in what was then called Mercosur, and, of course, the fortunes they made conning simple voters into privatising their essential services like the state health systems as well as oil and gas companies like YPF ( the Argentine state oil company ) now owned by ExxonMobilBPShellChevron (XMBSC). XMBSC are still fracking vast oil and gas reserves in Vaca Muerta the last great land-based oil reserve in the Americas. Of course all this oil is now destined for essential plastics production since burning oil was banned when the planet reached 500ppm CO2 wiping out 1/3 of the human population. Neither Climate nor biodivrrsity were ever things these old boys cared about, their ignorance of climate change was legend, which is maybe why they both own property in Florida.
Javi and Jair love to tell the stories of those privatisations and the lavish gratitude of the purchasers who for just 1/50th of the discounted purchase price made Milei richer than he ever thought possible with his chainsaw pantomine – certainly paid the fees for the retirement home and then some! Back in the early 2020’s Brazil and Argentina had been hugely important but Bolsonaro an Milei soon fucked that up.
In Brazil it took years to recover from Jair Bolsonaro’s perverse shenanigans. Milei managed to cause so much damage in the first few months of his presidency that he is now Yeta in Argentina as was the (now largely forgotten) Menem was back in the early 2000’s.
“Nurse”, calls Javi Milei, Jair shall need a spare diaper! I’m going to tell the story about when I tried to close Radio Nacional privatising it to my mate Macri. Jair always shits himself when I tell that one!
Epilogue: As luck would have it neither of the J’s believed in climate change. Now their denentia helps blur their terror as the waters enter the senior home on flood days occasionally making the furniture float and delaying mealtimes. To the old boys from South America it is just one big fun swimming pool diapers and all.
Prologue: On the 10th. of December way back in 2023 Bolsonaro was already part way to the retirement home. He had absconded from Brazil to the hick US state of Florida but even facing charges he still managed to make it (with his son) to Milei’s inauguration party.
Milei, like most Argentines with oligarch pretensions, but without the vast extensions of land their ancestors killed all those Indians for, already had an apartment in the sunshine state. His plans for an ultraliberal Argentina have already been stymied partially by his pact with former president Macri. Mauricio Macri was having none of it as he had learned earlu from his own father how much money can be made from trash collection, corruption in public construction contracts and monopoly concessions renewed by, well, him when he was president like the Argentine port concessions he had renovated till 2045 for his own personal gain.
Jair like Fujimori also organized a late stage presidency trip to Japan then decided not to return for a while. Fujimori’s vile presidency had, in fact, always been illegal as he had forged his birth certificate to indicate he was born in Peru. Luckily for him the Japanese keep better birth records and since he was, in fact born in Japan, he had a right to a passport.
Jair Bolsonaro however had no claim to US citizenship so he will have to spend some money on immigration lawyer’s but he’s done a few favours for Washington with the whole Lava Yato thing so all will be well at his immigration hearing.
Unlike Jair, Javi has no kids to maintain his interests in Argentina but his sister will surely help. Bolsonaro has his little Eddy, the one with the gun fetish. Gun strapping Eddy is not the brightest of souls but blood is thicker than water. While Eddy was hanging out with Milei during the 2023 campaign in Buenos Aires he wore a tie-pin in the form of a hand gun which some thought a tad gauche especially since Little Eddy’s daddy was linked, via some dirty cops in Rio de Janeiro, to the hit on Marielle Franco.
All told these were fast and furious times for the idiots from the ultra right, fun for so very few and horrendous for those frustrated enough to seek salvation from such clowns and so many others who voted against Javi an Jair.
Days never to be repeated.
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