The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood, the culturally

appropriate two guests today. We'll hear from the Argentine political scientist

Jacqueline Barron on that country's libertarian

new president, Javier Malay. And then Ben Fong will talk to us about the complicated

American relationship with psychoactive drugs. I feel like I should apologize for having no Gaza content this week.

What's been happening there is utterly horrifying, but for the moment I've run out of things to say

about it. What Israel has been doing for the last three months with the unquestioning support of our government

as appalling and criminal, an expressive of deep pathologies in both societies, rooted in an imperial

paranoia that manifests itself in regular outbreaks of unspeakable violence.

I'll turn back to the topic next week.

A few weeks ago in this show, Forrest Hilton, or de facto South American correspondent,

talked about the historical and

theoretical background that brought about the election of the

eccentric and unhinged Javier Malay as president of Argentina.

Malay calls himself a Libertarian but like libertarians, he's also an authoritarian.

Lacking a majority in the Argentine Congress by a long way.

Malay looks to be ruling by decree or at least trying to, and facing early opposition to his radical policy package, which includes

comprehensive deregulation of almost all economic life and a 50% devaluation of the peso,

his response has been to try to suppress complaint. The combination of devaluation the

response has been to try to suppress complaint. The combination of devaluation and deregulation is

intensified inflation, which is already running at 200% a year.

Estimates of December's inflation run around 30% for the month, that is, not the year.

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