Symbolic Butt posted:

I'll say that even if I'm probably one of the "subhuman smug liberals on the internet" at least I respect TheLovablePlutonis venting their frustrations.

Bro Dad posted:

You mean his frustrations at being called out as an armchair revolutionary? I find it hard to have sympathy for anyone who supports Pol Pot and his democidal policies.

Remember that this whole conversation started because he was mad that the FARC aren't proudly fighting to the death, unlike him

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

I realise that this is the Latin America thread and anything Latin America related will eventually devolve to a shitshow but what do you people possibly gain in this asinine argument.

Non Serviam posted:

Ready for another meltdown?
How are the mmorpgs and the anime wars going?

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SZdj2B1JQ8

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

I realise that this is the Latin America thread and anything Latin America related will eventually devolve to a shitshow but what do you people possibly gain in this asinine argument.

Brainiac Five posted:

Angering aging rightists, putting them closer to stroking out or having a heart attack or developing an aneurysm. This, in turn, will make the world better for the people who currently suffer their presence.

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

D&D is full of the worst subhuman smug liberals on the Internet, people who mock the right wing, who keep whining and gnashing their teeth whenever they do something horrid on massive megathreads, but also who denounce and turn on every left wing movement that tries to challenge them on any way that isn't by trying to use the very system that has been used by the oligarchy to perpetuate itself in power for centuries. Sure, call someone a keyboard warrior and post the same arguments the American estabilishment use to keep their chokehold on Cuban imports and do the same thing you always did to protest against poor peasants, women, children and the LGBT being massacred every day by doing sympathetic tweets and voting for any cretin who looks electable but has a single progressive policy mixed with his program of selling campesino hearts to American companies.

Pol Pot was loving right about city people and intellectuals.

Friendly Humour posted:

Moderately curious as to why effectronica doesn't post on his main account nowadays.

Friendly Humour posted:

Speaking of mass murder, the BBC article on the murdered Mexican students said their families blamed the complicity of actual army troops from some nearby garrison. Is that actually possible? Because holy gently caress, that would be pretty major poo poo.

Also lmao at effectronica buying Non Serviam a redtext av telling him commit suicide. Just wow

Friendly Humour posted:

Speaking of mass murder, the BBC article on the murdered Mexican students said their families blamed the complicity of actual army troops from some nearby garrison. Is that actually possible? Because holy gently caress, that would be pretty major poo poo.

Also lmao at effectronica buying Non Serviam a redtext av telling him commit suicide. Just wow

Crowsbeak posted:

Something I noticed about Brazil but almost all of your parties use vaguely socialist sounding names I assume that's cooption right?

Crowsbeak posted:

Something I noticed about Brazil but almost all of your parties use vaguely socialist sounding names I assume that's cooption right?

Friendly Humour posted:

Speaking of mass murder, the BBC article on the murdered Mexican students said their families blamed the complicity of actual army troops from some nearby garrison. Is that actually possible?

Brainiac Five posted:

Don't spread lies, or invent them.

Magrov posted:

The dictatorship banned all political parties. When the ban was repealed, all the parties (except for the commies) wanted some cool adjectives in their names, like "social", "labor" or "democratic". In some instances, the party ideology was kinda related to the name.



















Then another dictatorship came, and the process started from scratch

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Redtext is a despicable act still

Dias posted:

Also Brazil just needs someone with enough balls to look into our public debt and reform our taxation system. However. We Cannot Defeat PMDB, and whatever passes as political discourse here is more akin to soccer cheerleading. I get people that work PUBLIC SERVICE JOBS and make 20k a year defending the PEC 241 and austerity measures because "it's PT's fault". No one seems to have any interest in actual reform, anyone upper-middle class thinks they're oil barons and get hives when you say "tax the rich", and there's a concerning amount of Libertarians popping up amongst youth nowadays. I blame Reddit. Actually, you know what, maybe having THE INTERNET isn't that good of a thing after all and Cuba was right all along.

punk rebel ecks posted:

They don't need to do much of anything. There is no such thing as "public debt".

Brainiac Five posted:

Redtexting is an unforgivable crime.

Dias posted:

It exists as much as anything in the magical world of economics exists, let's be fair. We have no idea what and who we actually owe and yet we use half of our budget to pay this poo poo. Might as well do a decent auditing and see what comes out.

Ardennes posted:

Admittedly, Brazil is in pretty bad shape as far as its finances go, but a lot of that depends on commodity markets it has no control of. Soybeans took a giant hit since 2014 and there isn't that much Brazil can do about it. Also, Brazil has a pretty dire credit rating which makes it difficult to reliably borrow while it has run up one of the highest deficits in the world. Of course the problem is once you cut start cutting it is going to have a negative effect on the economy and the general welfare of your population.

The same thing would be to reform Brazil's tax system so it isn't so amazingly regressive but I have about 0% hope of that. Seriously. Brazil's top bracket is 50,000 reals, which is 14-15 thousand USD. Then you have some of the highest consumption taxes on top of that. Poverty and inequality in Brazil isn't a mystery.

Ultimately, I don't think there is a easy fix to Brazil especially since so much of its economy growth was based on a commodity bubble that may never reach the levels it once did and taxes are about as bad as you are going to get. I could seee Brazil fall into a self-inflicted Greece like trap though where the government just keeps on cutting and has to cut to cover even greater amounts to address the deficits from those cuts. If anything Brazil is especially in danger of this because so much of its revenue comes from consumption taxes so any public layoffs or wage cuts are going to come directly from its bottom line.

Oh yeah and the "20 year" amendment is going to mean budgets are going to be cut 7-10% a year anyway because of inflation which will probably put public services in a crisis in 3-4 years even if everything else worked out.

Dias posted:

Yeah, we're on agreement on that, but you gotta start SOMEWHERE, and as you pointed out austerity policies usually cause more harm than good. There's better ways to at least alleviate our finances, but what Temer is proposing will probably just gently caress us over in the long term. We need to revamp our taxation system, stop letting banks get away with the LUDICROUS interest rates they get here and look into our public debt as a start.

As for the amendment, someone wrote a long-rear end text on Facebook that pointed out how much of a dick move it really is. Since the freezing is conditioned to the inflation rates, in terms of brute investment, the departments will actually get MORE money - just not enough to even cover inflation. Pretty easy way for people to drive the "public services are naturally bad" agenda that precedes privatization, because you can say even though you INCREASED the budget, everything keeps getting worse!

Ardennes posted:

Well Brazilian bank interest ranks are that high, because well the Brazilian prime rate is 14%...yet again one of the highest in the world. I think it is absolutely loving brutal if not completely unsustainable when people are paying 20% on their mortgages but I think the core issue is that the Real is a pretty weak currency. If you are still getting 6-7% inflation with a 14% prime rate then there is a problem with your currency. As for public debt, I think it is probably going to explode over the next couple years as revenue continues to fall and Brazil will be trapped in an austerity spiral.

Okay, I didn't know they tried to address inflation but government agencies usually need several percentage points above inflation to keep doing their job at the same level. The cuts from the amendment may be more in the 5-3% range but that is still going to be disastrous when added over a couple years.

I think the only easy answer for Brazil is its change its tax structure, but I think that is probably the element that is least likely to be meaningfully reformed. Also, Brazil's trade is dominated by mineral/agricultural commodities which all took a big hit and it is going to take years for them to come around. I think they will slowly but Brazil will be in a real crunch before that happens.

SexyBlindfold posted:

In less exciting news, municipal elections in Chile. Kathy Barriga as mayor of Maipú, René de la Vega as mayor of Conchalí (hopefully???), DJ Méndez narrowly losing Valparaíso. These elections were a gift

wateroverfire posted:

DJ Méndez was getting crushed as of late last night. Evelyn Matthei as mayor of Providencia, too.

Chile Vamos (rightist coalition) won 144 mayorships to the Nueva Mayoria's 142. Does not bode well for NM in the national elections.

Nueva Mayoria - proving that while leftism sells, gross incompetence generates many returns.

Friendly Humour posted:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37735267

What is the government's version of events?

According to the official report, the students were seized by corrupt municipal police officers who handed them over to members of a local drugs gang. The drugs gang mistook the students for members of a rival gang, killed them and burned their bodies at the dump before throwing their ashes into a nearby stream.

Why do the families not believe the official report?

They think officials have failed to investigate the role soldiers from a nearby barracks may have played in the students' disappearance. The government has refused to let the soldiers, who were in the area at the time of the disappearance, be questioned by anyone but government prosecutors. The families also point to the report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which said that there was no evidence the bodies of the 43 were burned at the dump

El Chingon posted:

I'm of the unpopular believe that the government's version is the one closest to the truth. The students were hijacking buses to take them to Mexico City for the October 2nd rallies, and rumor has it, they chose the wrong bus, as it was loaded with weapon/drugs or something important to one of the local drug gangs. That is why they mistook them as members of the rival gang.

Nothing is certain and it has already been 2 years since that day, so it is very difficult to continue gathering evidence for a new investigation after the parents reject the last one provided to them.

Regarding the parents, I do believe they are being misguided by people from the left with political motives, as they gain popular appeal with this cause, and keep the government in constant pressure and low popularity numbers.

One thing I believe all parties agree, is that the remains of at least 17 people are there in the burned dump. This is a very politicized issue in Mexico, it is no longer just a criminal investigation, which is very sad, as everyone is profiting politically from the parent's pain for their lost sons.

All of this (Except the tragedy itself) could've been avoided if the federal government wasn't so dumb at the time to ignore this incident (they did nothing the first 3 days) and handled the situation poorly thinking this would go away as another mass murder/execution between rival gangs. It gave the hard left time to turn this around and blame the federal government for everything that happened there and gain the support of the population.