If he didn't then we can't say with certainty that the adoption was not responsible. Perhaps he would now be a werewolf if she hadn't intervened.

...mind-boggling!

Can't anybody READ any more?!

The fear of this werewolf-child was so pronounced that many seventh sons were killed after they were born, which started the practice in 1907 of Argentine leaders taking these children symbolically under their wing. --end of paragraph 2 under the Washington Puss's slanderous headline

Last edited Tue Dec 30, 2014, 09:41 PM - Edit history (1)

To be fair though, the source of this particular schoolyard taunt was probably Argentina's own right-wing elite.

The economy has doubled in size since her party (the FpV) was first elected in May 2003, and both the elites and Argentina's mostly right-wing upper-middle class make more money than ever; but for the first time in the country's sad history they now pay their fair share in taxes, they've had to learn to work within (not above) the law, and worst of all, the president is a smart, working-class woman who looks like their maids and nannies. Inconceivable!

Not unlike the irrational - mostly race-based - hatred Obama puts up with here at home.

I checked.

I can't think of exactly the right new name for them--like the New York Slimes or the Associated Pukes (so apt, so perfect). I've used Washington Psst (--CIA orders pssted to the Post in DC back alleys)--and I've thought of using the Washington Pissed, the Washington Past, the Washington Pest, and others, but the Puss--as that disgusting stuff that oozes out of the Washington DC press corpses--will do for now.

Of course, they both get their dirt from LatAm fascists, and suggest lines of dirt TO LatAm fascists (among other suggestions). It is a regular commuter train of filthy ideas between here and there. But it doesn't matter whether the Puss picked it up from Argentine fascists or their "man in Buenos Aires" happened by the podium on adoption day and they thought 'what a cute slander!' They ran with it. They made it a headline in their utterly disreputable newsrag.

I was thinking, of course, of the Wikileaks about the U.S. State Dept. looking into Cristina's meds. Our benighted overlords were already looking into ways to make her look unstable and loony. This is just MORE OF THE SAME, in my view.

I greatly appreciate your comments, here and below. Very, very informative! Thank you!

And for your insights. It is what it is, I suppose.

Happy New Year, Peace Patriot. All the best to you and yours.

Apparently they must feel they are irreproachable forever because of that one big story, and can afford to dabble in the lowest forms of propaganda as long as any of them live.

This one is truly ugly pandering to the dumbest, and most obnoxious right-wingers among us, and there's nothing true about it.

Absolutely disgusting, isn't it?

(Just remembered that the former owner, Katherine's husband, was, himself, connected to the CIA at one time. Recalled it after seeing your Pssst comment.)

Just looked up the connection, in Wikipedia:

Operation Mockingbird was a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. Begun in the 1950s, it was initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, and was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA. The organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA's views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA.

In addition to earlier exposés of CIA activities in foreign affairs, in 1966 Ramparts magazine published an article revealing that the National Student Association was funded by the CIA. The United States Congress investigated, and published its report in 1976. Other accounts were also published. The media operation was first called Mockingbird in Deborah Davis's 1979 book, Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and her Washington Post Empire.[citation needed]

~ snip ~

History[edit]

In 1948, Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects (OSP). Soon afterwards OSP was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the covert action branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."[1] Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence foreign media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham from The Washington Post to run the project within the industry. According to Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great; "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."[2]

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

...Cristina Kirchner is to the Argentine right ("gorillas," as they're known down there). The days of guns and torture behind them, you see, gossip and name-calling have become the weapons of choice for Argentina's small but very well-financed reich-wingers - and yes, the fact that the Godson is Jewish has A LOT to do with it. Even so, compared to their traditional fare of insults, innuendo, and incitement (sound familiar?), this one's actually pretty cute.

Hi. I wanted to begin by mentioning that I'm an Argentine-American, and while I did not grow up in Argentina I am familiar with the culture and political dynamics down there. Lots of drama, let me tell you.

I've also been following Democratic Underground off and on since the 2010 debacle, so it's nice to be here.

What can I contribute? What most of you already seem to know: that fascism has proven to be a tempting - even addictive - tonic to angry, low-information voters, and that it's a slippery slope indeed. I should know: my parents' lives were upended, and they left Argentina 30 years ago - but not because political persecution as you might have imagined, rather because Argentina went through the same banking and economic pillage during the '76-'83 dictatorship, that the U.S. went through under Bush. It was just more intense, and above all without the cushion of a hard currency to paper over the effects after the fact.

This brings me to President Obama. He and Cristina Kirchner may look very different to the untrained eye, but to me the similarities are striking. Bear with me, please.

Both have humble backgrounds, both are disdained and hated by right-wingers in their respective countries for their race (Mrs. Kirchner - née Fernández - is considered a "morocha" in Argentina not unlike most maids that work for upscale voters there, much like Obama reminds many Republicans of a waiter or less).

Both took office after calamities left by their laissez-faire predecessors (although in Mrs. Kirchner's case it was her husband, Néstor, who did so; he thought of his wife as a co-captain, and nominated her as his successor when his health began to fail).

Both focused their recovery effort on the struggling, though I should note that since the Kirchners had Congress on their side for all but two of the last 11 years, they were able to accomplish much more of their relief and reform agenda than Obama.

This includes revitalizing unions, the public sector, social security, science, and the arts (all given up for dead 12 years ago); a wage council with teeth (real wages had fallen by half from 1975 to 2002); myriad benefits for the poor (typically thought of as "undeserving dirty blacks" by right-wingers); legislation separating the church and state and bolstering LGBT and civil rights generally (Argentina was more or less advertised as "all-white, all-straight, all-Catholic" by previous administrations); prosecuting and convicting 600 dictatorship-era torturers, in sharp contrast to the impunity - even privilege - enjoyed by torturers in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and most other Third-World countries with a history of abuses; refinancing the crushing debt burden inherited from "market-savvy" administrations, from the 1976 dictatorship to Wall Street Journal darlings Menem and Cavallo; restricting media monopolies (cited as a model by everyone from the UN, to the Carter Center, to the IFJ, to FOPEA - the Argentine Journalists' Association); renationalizing -with compensation- and turning around failing pensions and companies that were being stripped bare by the Robmeys of the world.

And of course, both Obama and Mrs. Kirchner have been the unforgiven target of right-wing "news" by way of every kind of slander and libel you can think of and all manner of other schoolyard tactics (which in politics, need I remind, are the most effective). Even allowing for the chance that some of it may actually be true (the most serious allegations revolve around suspected kickbacks on government contracts by the Kirchners and their family friends), if there is one stone NO lawmaker or faction that has held high office in Argentina over the years CAN'T throw, it's that of corruption

There is of course inflation (hardly new to Argentina) and the legacy of massive urban poverty visible to anyone driving from the airport (and all its attendant problems, albeit mild by Latin American standards); but because a strong social policy was pursued while taking care to boost private lending and investment to record levels, median wages have jumped by 72% even using private inflation estimates (many of which are paid for by other political parties) and the economy has doubled in just 11 years. This defied business press expectations to the point that the neocons are now using Cayman drug money laundries (vulture funds) and bribed Wall Street judges to rewrite bondholder laws and hold Argentina's bondholders hostage. Keep an eye on these vulture funds, because when the next debt ceiling showdown in Washington takes place, they now have the legal precedent to try the same here in the U.S.

But I digress. The Argentine right, after all, now has a NEW scandal to add to their collection: the b*tch just Godmothered a JEW!

GOTTA BE werewolf.

"GOTTA BE werewolf."

Of course that killjoy, atheist, left–wing rag, The Guardian, would not believe it! What else would you expect?

"Part of the Judeo-Masonic-Syndicalist-and (of course) Communist conspiracy!"

And yes, they'd kill Cristina Kirchner if they could and still wave Nazi flags at rallies (which they can't get anyone to attend any more, thank goodness).

Welcome to D.U.

Thank you for adding your comments.

Happy New Year, Judi, and a prosperous 2015 to you and yours.

No, Argentina's president did not adopt a Jewish child to stop him turning into a werewolf

The chance meeting of a Latin American president with a colourful myth too good to fact-check proved irresistible for many

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Monday 29 December 2014 14.30 EST


[font size=1]
The articles were based on a grain of truth: by tradition, the seventh son (or daughter) born to an Argentine family is
eligible to become the godson (or daughter) of the president. Photograph: Alejandro Pagni/Getty Images
[/font]

Nope. Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has not become godmother of a Jewish baby to stop him from becoming a werewolf – despite what you may have read in multiple news reports.

Over the past few days, the story has been reported and unquestioningly re-reported across the echo chamber of the internet, picked up by news organisations around the world including Haaretz, Buzzfeed, The Independent and The Huffington Post.

Like all good urban myths, the articles were based on a grain of truth: by tradition, the seventh son (or daughter) born to an Argentine family is eligible to become the godson (or daughter) of the president. Until this month, the honour had only been bestowed on Christian babies, but on Wednesday, Iair Tawil – not a baby, but the strapping 21-year old son of a rabbi – became the country’s first Jewish presidential godson.

In her Twitter account, Kirchner described Tawil, 21, as “completely sweet” and lit Hanukkah candles with his family.





But somehow, the story became entangled with the ancient legend of the lobizón (Argentina’s equivalent to the European werewolf). According to some versions of the myth, the seventh son of the seventh son is particularly prone to fall victim to the curse.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/29/argentina-kirchner-adopt-child-werewolf

More information:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110835959