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Brazil isn't House of Cards, it's Veep.
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May 16, 2016 19:01
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joepinetree posted:Of course, no one freaks out over this. But people freak the gently caress out over bolsa familia, which pays less than R$200 reais to low income families. I'm pretty sure most of the brazilian right fancy themselves as libertarians (at least in spirit) and if you bring this up they'd be universally against spending so much with the judiciary. But sure, they're also against spending with bolsa família! I know I'm sounding pedantic and I agree with the general sentiment that people who oppose bolsa família have no empathy at all. But you gotta be careful to not mischaracterize and risk sounding like you're conjuring strawmen to support your point.
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May 16, 2016 19:52
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Symbolic Butt posted:I'm pretty sure most of the brazilian right fancy themselves as libertarians (at least in spirit) and if you bring this up they'd be universally against spending so much with the judiciary. But sure, they're also against spending with bolsa família! Besides the fact that a significant chunk of them will be studying for "concursos" in the judiciary, the difference is, of course, one of intensity. People may pay lip service to being against auxilio-moradia, but will go loving nuts over bolsa familia. But I am not just talking about randos on the street. I am talking about people like Ricardo Barros, the new minister of health, who last year was defending a cut of 10 billion to bolsa familia, even as his party and his own daughter voted in favor of auxilio moradia for state judges. And none of this is new, or anecdotal. Raymundo Faoro was already writing about this chunk of the Brazilian elite that sees the state as their own personal fiefdom over 50 years ago. Edit: and as I was typing this, another of Cunha's defense attorneys got a job in the Temer government.
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May 16, 2016 20:23
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From reading this thread I get the impression that Brazil has a very strong presidency and a comparatively weak legislature, is that right? American executives don't get to go stomping around like this in their first week on the job.
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May 16, 2016 20:25
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Jack of Hearts posted:From reading this thread I get the impression that Brazil has a very strong presidency and a comparatively weak legislature, is that right? American executives don't get to go stomping around like this in their first week on the job. Pretty much. The legislature can stall or interfere to a degree, but with so many parties that have pretty much no ideology and will fall in line with the promise of a few cabinets, it rarely sticks. Of course, with the legislature being almost uniformly horrible, that may be a blessing in disguise. I'd be in favor of a parliamentary system, but the idea of hucksters of the stripe of Antonio Carlos Magalhaes, José Sarney, Eduardo Cunha and other vultures wielding even more power makes me ill.
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May 16, 2016 20:46
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Jack of Hearts posted:From reading this thread I get the impression that Brazil has a very strong presidency and a comparatively weak legislature, is that right? American executives don't get to go stomping around like this in their first week on the job. The presidency is much weaker than it used to be, but it is still pretty powerful. But the thing is that what happens is that there is a huge amount of party fractionalization in Brazil. No party holds more than 15% of congress. Since congress can essentially stop the presidency (through the mess of how provisional decrees work), what happens is that there is this weird presidential coalition system. Other than Dilma in the last few months, Brazil has never had a president with a nominal minority in congress (like Obama in the US does). What happens is that all presidents essentially give away some cabinet positions in exchange for support in congress. So the executive has a lot of power, but a lot of that power is given to allies in congress in the form of head of ministry positions. This fractional system can create a great bit of instability, because parties have a built in incentive to be disloyal. The more disloyal, the more you can ask for in terms of positions for support. For most of the PT presidency, they were popular enough that anyone trying to be too disloyal could be kicked to the curb. But once the crisis began to hit, it created this death spiral. A member of Dilma's coalition would start to stray, asking for more positions in exchange of support, they'd get it, and the next one would do the same asking for even more. That is why corruption is so ingrained in that level of Brazilian politics. Congress is elected through purely proportional elections. So you can get a minor celebrity to run for congress under their own tiny party, and some people will pay to be in the same coalition. So someone like Eneas or Tiririca ends up getting 4 or 5% of the vote for congress, which means they are elegible for 4 or 5% of the seats from a given state, which means that some times people with just a few hundred votes gets elected. So it creates several small parties with few seats. None of them care any bit about policy, and the whole thing operates based on straight clientelism. PT made several political mistakes, and while corruption continued to be rampant as always, PT at least gave investigators a great degree of independence. Now, to the extent that is possible, Temer is starting to curtail the investigations.
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May 16, 2016 22:32
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The presidential position being ever powerful is sort of a thing across all of latin america. I've often wished we'd have parliamentary democracies to have somewhat more controlled governments instead of rubberbanding all over the place to fullfill the whims of the president du jour and their cronies. I know we'd find a way to ruin it either way.
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May 16, 2016 22:43
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Basically, we're getting nowhere without a complete political reform, which is not happening because there's no interest on the part of Congress to change the system. Mainstream media also would rather keep the status quo, so no help there either, and uttering the words "political reform" near regular crowds makes people either fall asleep or mark you as a Red. You'd have to make our current party and electoral system a boogiemonster on the level of Kraken Lula to get popular support, and pffft did you read what I just said about the mainstream media? We're hosed. I mean, we were already hosed but now we're getting DPed. Markovnikov posted:The presidential position being ever powerful is sort of a thing across all of latin america. I've often wished we'd have parliamentary democracies to have somewhat more controlled governments instead of rubberbanding all over the place to fullfill the whims of the president du jour and their cronies. I know we'd find a way to ruin it either way. I mean, have you SEEN Brazil's Congress? We're definitely not ready for a parliamentary government. Matter of fact that's basically what we've been enjoying during 2016.
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May 16, 2016 22:49
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Randarkman posted:Yeah applied to the people calling for using said guillotine. spirals of violence, chaos and societal breakdown are caused by violent, undemocratic governments who run the country to the ground to give money to the oligarchs and international backers. gently caress you if you think brazillians should just lay down and die while their country is falling over into a military dictatorship again just because you might get your feelings hurt by seeing poor military pigs shooting unarmed civilians. do you think temer and the military police will back own if you just paradrop an Obama into Brazil? He'd just get beaten to death by cops. and you'd point your finger at any angry protesters if they acted rowdy. gently caress the pigs and gently caress these fascists. democratic reforms means you're bribed, threatened or beaten until you give in to the status quo. It happened with PT and it will happened with every single other center-left phoenix that tries to rise from it's ashes.
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May 16, 2016 23:22
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Markovnikov posted:The presidential position being ever powerful is sort of a thing across all of latin america. I've often wished we'd have parliamentary democracies to have somewhat more controlled governments instead of rubberbanding all over the place to fullfill the whims of the president du jour and their cronies. I know we'd find a way to ruin it either way. Well, just to be clear: In Brazil, congress has a lot of power. It just doesn't use it, most of the time. You can see the power of congress right now through the impeachment with such flimsy justification. In fact, congress can override vetos in Brazil with simple majorities. But most of the time, party fractionalization (which is pretty specific to Brazil, within the region) means that there is no organized group pushing for things one way or the other. For about 70% of the Brazilian congress, you would be unable to assign a particular ideology or view. You have PT on the center left with some 12% of congress, DEM/PSDB on the center right with some 14%, fringe left wing parties have some 4%. All the rest have essentially been aligned with whoever is in power, essentially exchanging votes in congress for cushy jobs and appointments. So a parliamentary democracy would not fix anything at all in Brazil. In fact, parliamentarism in Brazil would only make things worse, because it would entrench these spurious coalitions even more, since under parliamentarism these small parties would play kingmaker more often.
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May 16, 2016 23:54
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Has party fragmentation gotten worse over time, or was it just as bad in 1985?
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May 16, 2016 23:59
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Mans posted:spirals of violence, chaos and societal breakdown are caused by violent, undemocratic governments who run the country to the ground to give money to the oligarchs and international backers. Ofcourse the government being cleptocratic, oligarchic and sliding into authoritarianism does not provide the environment to engender responsible government, measures against corruption and reform (labor reform, welfare reform, tax reform, land reform, social reform, all kinds of reform), and I'm not at all saying that people should lay down and die and not protest and resist such a thing. What I'm saying is that revolution might very well be justified and necessary, but extremists crying for guillotines and glorifying revolutionary political violence (and here I am more thinking of people in this thread than anyone else) are gonna end up doing just as much good for their country in the end as the oligarchs and kleptocrats, delivering nothing but poverty, violence and repression.
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May 17, 2016 00:20
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Randarkman posted:Ofcourse the government being cleptocratic, oligarchic and sliding into authoritarianism does not provide the environment to engender responsible government, measures against corruption and reform (labor reform, welfare reform, tax reform, land reform, social reform, all kinds of reform), and I'm not at all saying that people should lay down and die and not protest and resist such a thing. this is the internet, not a real life political meeting. i've been accused in real life of being a liberal which is the complete opposite of what i believe and how i post in here because this is, again, a forum. but either way, there's no irony, jokes or even exageration in saying that Brazil would be better off if 80% of the military police had a visit to a guillotine.
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May 17, 2016 00:30
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Badger of Basra posted:Has party fragmentation gotten worse over time, or was it just as bad in 1985? Congress passed a barrier clause back in 1995 (to be applied in 2006) but it was struck down by the Supreme Federal Court.
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May 17, 2016 00:58
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I mean, I'm against violent revolution because it just tends to switch a problem for another, but if 90% on Congress died in a freak accident involving poisoned sake caipifrutas I'd not shed many tears. Maybe a synchronized stroke amongst the big PMDB and PSDB names and all their successors...
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May 17, 2016 01:03
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Badger of Basra posted:Has party fragmentation gotten worse over time, or was it just as bad in 1985? In 1985 PMDB had 259 seats in congress because of the restrictions by the dictatorship. 1990 was the first election where multiple parties could run. PMDB ended up the biggest once again, but this time with 109 seats out of 487. Since then, no other party has been able to achieve a similar number. Right now the biggest party is PMDB with 66 seats out of 513 (though that number changes all the time). Now, I am not suggesting that this fragmentation is the cause of all corruption in Brazil. But it is certainly the cause of the current form of corruption in Brazil, and also the cause for why the party that was defeated last elections can be in power right now. On an unrelated note, here's Brazilian media for you:  it reads: "Feminists Temer came under heavy criticism for not having women as ministers. By itself, the beauty of his wife is enough to represent the charm and elegance of Brazilian women well"
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May 17, 2016 01:40
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Holy poo poo Temer has 40 years on his wife.
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May 17, 2016 01:45
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She was 20 and he was 62 when they married. On another note: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/boycott-rio-olympics-to-defend-brazils-democracy-2016-05-16 joepinetree fucked around with this message at 03:57 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 03:49
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joepinetree posted:She was 20 and he was 62 when they married 
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May 17, 2016 21:13
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yup We really need a :brazil: emoticon at this point. Space Kablooey fucked around with this message at 21:43 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 21:38
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The only real conclusion I've managed to draw from years of following debates on how to fix parliamentary democracies is how much I want to get off this bloody planet.
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May 17, 2016 21:48
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German-style MMP is the superior electoral system, pure proportionality gets you Brazil
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May 18, 2016 00:02
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Friendly Humour posted:The only real conclusion I've managed to draw from years of following debates on how to fix parliamentary democracies is how much I want to get off this bloody planet. I hope this doesn't sound like an arrogant American, but I think the US system with a separate executive and legislature works really well. Its a very modular system, where each part of the government has its own role. Its kind of a delicate system though, because it depends on sharing powers and a tacit understanding of how far the dynamic can be pushed. In other countries, it might be turned into either gridlock or a dictatorial presidency.
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May 18, 2016 02:26
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glowing-fish posted:I hope this doesn't sound like an arrogant American, but I think the US system with a separate executive and legislature works really well. Its a very modular system, where each part of the government has its own role. Its kind of a delicate system though, because it depends on sharing powers and a tacit understanding of how far the dynamic can be pushed. In other countries, it might be turned into either gridlock or a dictatorial presidency. Didn't you guys get gridlocked a lot during the Obama years anyway, with Republicans refusing to vote Obamacare and a lot of other BS? Compared to Brazil, it's quite similar, you just have better safeguards to avoid these types of power plays and a less fragmented (waaaay less fragmented) party system, so the other party only has to deal with one group of people when they get into power. Basically, all government systems suck, let's be anarchists. I'll get the molotovs.
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May 18, 2016 02:37
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glowing-fish posted:I hope this doesn't sound like an arrogant American, but I think the US system with a separate executive and legislature works really well. Its a very modular system, where each part of the government has its own role. Its kind of a delicate system though, because it depends on sharing powers and a tacit understanding of how far the dynamic can be pushed. In other countries, it might be turned into either gridlock or a dictatorial presidency. It's turned into gridlock in the US right now. And I believe somewhat similar systems have, in fact, turned into a dictatorial presidency in Latin American countries.
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May 18, 2016 02:41
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glowing-fish posted:I hope this doesn't sound like an arrogant American, but I think the US system with a separate executive and legislature works really well. Its a very modular system, where each part of the government has its own role. Its kind of a delicate system though, because it depends on sharing powers and a tacit understanding of how far the dynamic can be pushed. In other countries, it might be turned into either gridlock or a dictatorial presidency. It's dysfunctional in the US and worse than dysfunctional in every other country it's implemented in (basically Latin America). I think the real lesson is that no system can really withstand being full of people who don't play by the rules
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May 18, 2016 02:56
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glowing-fish posted:I hope this doesn't sound like an arrogant American, but I think the US system with a separate executive and legislature works really well. Its a very modular system, where each part of the government has its own role. Its kind of a delicate system though, because it depends on sharing powers and a tacit understanding of how far the dynamic can be pushed. In other countries, it might be turned into either gridlock or a dictatorial presidency. It is garbage and facilitates the way you obsess over the Presidential election as being "the important one" meanwhile your legislative election, the thing that actually puts in a government, is completely ignored. Y'all behave like the president is an absolute monarch.
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May 18, 2016 10:45
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Meanwhile, Temer has selected the guy who has been coordinating Cunha's defense as the new government leader in congress. Just so people keep track of it at home: Cunha, who has at least some 40 million dollars in foreign accounts that we know of, who has led the impeachment process, has been able to get Temer to nominate one of his defense attorneys as Minister of Justice, another defense attorney as the coordinator of judicial affairs for the "Casa Civil," and now the guy who was organizing his defense in the ethics commission is the main government representative in congress. Edit: as a special bonus, among the legal cases that are ongoing against the new government leader, one is for homicide attempt. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 17:48 on May 18, 2016 |
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May 18, 2016 16:57
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Israel had this tiny-party-problem because of generous Proportional Representation electoral systems. They bumped their entry threshold from 1% to 3.25% and really cut down a lot of single-issue campaigns by random rabbis. Which parties Israelis vote for, on the other hand, is another matter India is currently going through the same thing as Brazil. Over the last fifty years the Congress party has been deteriorating by bleeding seats to regionalist parties.
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May 18, 2016 17:49
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Brazil had something called "clausula de barreira" but it was found to be unconstitutional. There is an attempt to recreate it, but it has been slow going. Meanwhile, the process to start the Partido Nacional Corinthiano has been approved. Its the Corinthians National Party. Not corinthians as in the book of the bible, but corinthians as in the soccer club.
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May 18, 2016 18:09
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Lol its the timão party. Are they running Tite for president? Edit:im sure if this happened in Portugal and Benfica formed a political party it would automatically be the 3rd biggest party in the country. It would easily get a million votes.
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May 18, 2016 18:19
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joepinetree posted:Brazil had something called "clausula de barreira" but it was found to be unconstitutional. There is an attempt to recreate it, but it has been slow going. Yessssssssss. I mean if it's all going to be poo poo then you may as well run it into the ground at full speed. I've always said that Maradona would make a wonderful electoral candidate
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May 18, 2016 19:13
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joepinetree posted:Brazil had something called "clausula de barreira" but it was found to be unconstitutional. There is an attempt to recreate it, but it has been slow going. Shame Sócrates is dead, because he'd probably have something to say about the Corinthians Party.
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May 18, 2016 22:55
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Unconfirmed reports that the military has surrounded Dilma's residence and is denying press and most people access. Guess her recent interviews have stung.
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May 20, 2016 05:32
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How accurate is this?
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May 20, 2016 16:43
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Well, we can get into all sorts of pedantry trying to discuss if it really is a coup or not. But the basic facts are that the official reason for her impeachment (using accounting tricks to hide budget deficits) is something that every president has done, and most of our current governors have done as well. The unofficial reason for the impeachment, which is corruption, is also bs. Pretty much all of the most corrupt figures in the PT government not only have remained free, but are more powerful than ever. Cunha being the big name, and while the supreme court has suspended his term pending trial, he has become powerful enough to nominate people to key positions, including two of his former defense attorneys and the new government leader in congress (who is facing many, many charges, including attempted murder). The new government is also trying to weaken a lot of the institutions that have made the corruption investigations possible. In terms of real policy changes, the main things have been the elimination or merging of a number of key cabinet positions, like the ministry of education, of culture, of science and technology, etc (but not, obviously, the ministry of sports or ministry of tourism), and the suspension of a popular program to help low income people finance their homes. The government is also trying to cut down on Bolsa Familia and reform social security. So while it is impossible to talk about whether it is a coup without having to go all pedantic definitions of coup, it is pretty clear that the stated reasons for the impeachment are not the actual things that the new government wants to change. I would consider it a soft coup, but I think it is less important than the discussion over the fact that even if there was an impeachment, the new government is doing all the things that the opposition promised and was defeated last elections, and none of the things that would actually address corruption. As an aside, I've found the following to be incredibly accurate:  For non Portuguese speaking goons: "we got rid of the bandits" "Brazil again in the hands of true Brazilians" "how about this new government leader, accused of attempted murder?" "Accused isn't convicted" "attempted murder isn't murder" "we shouldn't rush to judgement" "better a murderer than a member of PT" "why are you running away from a debate, petralha (negative slang for members of PT)"
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May 20, 2016 17:06
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So the São Paulo MP is trying to prosecute the mayor because there are too many traffic violation tickets being given, and people are being fined in "inappropriate places", whatever that means. Also they're saying he committed a crime for using the tickets money to build bus stations and bike lanes and investing on the traffic engineering department. We really do live in a poo poo country, don't we?
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May 21, 2016 08:29
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"In the Brazillian Criminal Justice System the people are represented by there separate, yet equally awful groups. The civil police who fails to investigate crime, the District Attorneys who prosecute whomever they think the offenders are, because for some reason they also investigaste crime, and the military police, who extrajudicially prosecutes poor people. These are their stories."
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May 21, 2016 15:44
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And Brazilian media keeps being a poo poo show. The new government asked congress to run a R$170 billion deficit this year. The media has picked up the news as "government accounts in worse shape than previously thought." But if you really go into details for why the increased deficit projection, the two main reasons is that the new government wants to reduce by half Dilma's proposed budget cuts, and the new government has given up on certain new taxes that were proposed, such as a tax on large inheritances. So you end up in a situation where Dilma is both responsible for cutting expenditures too much and not enough. Of course, that is not the only example of the double standard:  First is the cover of IstoE when Dilma proposed certain tax increases and spending cuts. It reads, in ominous tone, "Dilma wants you to foot the bill." The second is when Temer proposed a similar thing. It reads "Temer is counting on you." It also includes Temer's quote of "don't talk about crisis, work."  This is from globo. The first reads "Expensive dollar* reduces Brazilian purchasing power and makes Brazilians avoid going abroad." It is from when Dilma was in power. Well, dollar started to go up again with Temer, but globo's headline now was "dollar high makes Brazil affordable for foreigners and attracts tourists." Now, before you think I am a conspiracy theorist, the new president of the state run Brazilian Communications Corporation (EBC) thanked Globo from preventing Brazil from becoming Venezuela by helping get rid of PT. * the actual term used is a bit more hyperbolic but hard to accurately translate. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 18:30 on May 21, 2016 |
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May 21, 2016 18:27
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It's more "sky high dollar", so yeah, it's hyperbolic and kinda telling.
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May 21, 2016 18:31
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