A few more brief and early notes from a returning ex-pat

• The look of the city of Buenos Aires: The city looks more worn than last time I visited it in Dec. 2000, exactly one year before the socio-economic meltdown of Dec. 19/20, 2001. There’s much more graffiti, much more garbage on the streets, many more homeless people, but also a more intense political fervour in the air. Of course the graffiti is also an inspiring testimony to the passionate political times Argentina is ensconced within. The graffiti is also an aesthetic reclamation of public spaces by the marginalized, the dispossessed, and the politically aware - a creative expression of the politics of the streets and an aesthetics of resistance using Buenos Aires itself as its canvass.
  
• Piqueteros, I: Protests marches are a daily occurrence. They are also contradictory: Piqueteros continue to block major arterial routes in and out of the Capital Federal. To many, if not most, middle and working class porteños they are mere obstacles on their daily commute to and from work and shopping. Morning traffic reports here always also include where local protests are to be held. It´s interesting to note that this probably means that the mainstream media is monitoring the alternative Argentinean press, such as IndyMedia Argentina, where these protests are often announced. (A related note: I must look into how these protests are organized and communicated.) Piqueteros, themselves made up of unemployed workers in the MTD movement, are also being accused of preventing other Argentineans from getting to work, especially if they live in the "Cono Urbano" that surrounds the Capital Federal. Have the piqueteros lost their political force? Has theeir method of direct action to block the veins of the economic trade routes of Argentina lost its resonance? I must look into this over the next few weeks.
  
• Piqueteros, II: On my trip from the airport to my cousin’s house on July 8 when I arrived, a piquete on the highway from Ezeiza International Airport and the Capital makes the remisero (hired car driver) take an alternative route, which takes us into a paralyzing and crawling traffic jam. Again, is the piquetero strategy backfiring? Are Argentineans turning against the piqueteros because of the nuisance they cause the middle class? What other options do the unemployed have for raising awareness of their plight?