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joepinetree posted:In Brazil, there is a fine line between normal corporation and corrupt clientelism machines. I know someone who became a millionaire after he got into the parts acquisition branch of fiat. This. My father deals with plenty of acquition managers in the (private) graphic business here in Brazil and the amount of kickbacks they take in is grotesque. A journalist friend of mine used to work in the Minas Gerais branch of a local news portal and said that Aecio Neves is basically untouchable there. Trying to pursue any story regarding him that is not 100% fawning is the easiest way to lose your career. I fully expect the next election to be a Neves/someone from PMDB slam dunk, impeachment or not.
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Mar 12, 2015 03:29
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That trigger-happy senator was the grandfather of one of our presidents. Political dynaties are very much a thing here. Still about Aecio, his popularity is a mix of factors. He's young, and relatively unknown by most people outside of his home state, which means that they tend to go with their positive first impression. He's also not from the crusty, older generation of PSDB politicians that A) borked the country something fierce in the 90s, and B) failed again and again to sway the elections back to their side. He's not particularly charismatic, but also not a stick in the mud lie, say, SP governor Geraldo Alckmin. And his last name, Neves, is due to him being the grandson of legendary brazilian politician Tancredo Neves, a bigshot across several governments from the1940s and onward, the guy who negotiated the end of the dictatorship in the 1980s with himself as the transition president, then promptly keeled over dead and left the country with his insanely corrupt vice-president Jose Sarney in one of the biggest anticlimaxes in the history of ever. So he's fresh, has the right political pedigree, the media backing and the cash to be the great white hope.
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Mar 13, 2015 01:27
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Badger of Basra posted:I still can't believe Alckmin got reelected with like 60%. To be fair, the field of candidates was dismal. And the whole water-crisis thing was kept under wraps until after the elections. Not to mention his own little scandal, where a foreign Siemens exec basically confessed that he took part in shady stuff in the hundreds of millions with the Sao Paulo government, and yet there was little to no repercussion in the media and the investigation basically stopped at the small fry. Alckmin doesn't have the same teflon coating as Aecio, but the state is PSDB's last real stronghold and it will set the world on fire before it lets go of it.
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Mar 13, 2015 01:45
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Indeed, it cannot be overstated how much class divisions (and race divisions) play a part in or political landscape. The middle class -hates- the PT due to programs like the Bolsa Famimila, a basic income initiative that offers some aid to poor families provided they keep their kids in school and such. It is derided as bribing the underclass for votes or creating a dependent lazy population, not unlike the whole 'welfare queen' myth in the US. The facts that it is an expansion of a earlier program started by the PSDB program is immaterial to them, as if the fact that this money returns to the economy with amazing speed via increased consumption of food items, appliances and such. It basically upgrades a whole segment of the population from subsistence mode to actual consumers, and had plenty of people leaving its rosters because of gains in income. I feel that animosity particularly close. My father works in packaging and graphic machinery, mostly with food packaging and labeling. in the mid-200s, his business grew almost exponentially due to so many manufacturers needing more machinery and instllations to service the 'C' class, or new lower middle class, that suddenly had money to consume that kind of product: cookies, yogurts, pasta and other such 'luxuries'. Rather than being happy at such a big new field of potential income, he was mortified at such people 'living the good life' on their 'inflated wages'. My brother is an airline pilot. Ten years ago, going to a brazilian airport was pretty much a guarantee of seeing only rich people (or rather, wholesome "middle class" people like you and me!). With the jump in lower middle class income, suddenly tons of people could affordto pay for a trip somewhere in fixed installments, leading to a boom in people who had barely even seen an airplane buying trips to touristy places, even to (gasp!) Florida, the traditional refuge of "middle class" brazilian tourists. Again, there was no joy for a new market opening or a whole field getting a boost. Just the outrage of their pretty airports clogged with "ugly, brown people speaking in weird accents", and bumping into hairdressers and elevator repaimen while shopping in Miami City. He basically lost all pride in his profession, despite making far more money now there is much more demand for pilots (They promoted him from co-pilot in record time to help meet the demand for active flight personnel). His job was supposed to be transporting his 'equals' to important business or fancy trips, not ferrying hordes of lessers to frolic overseas! Politically, that whole divide is the most important dog whistle in the country. Much like the GOP and things like race/class, almost no politician dares to voice such prejudices openly, but resort to code words instead, as well as defining their support base as 'real' working brazilians in Palinesque ways. Personally, I was glad when PT came to power in 2002 (I didn't vote for them because I always cast a null ballot as a petty protest over being mandated to vote), but my elation faded really fast when they promptly expelled the left wing of their party as a way of mollyfying the political structure into accepting them. I felt it was both useless, as the establishment would -never- welcome them, no matter how moderate they became, because no one welcomes a rival or relinquishes a political cudgel to bash them with, and because once you boot out the people who care, you give the operators and corrupt dealers a lot more room to steer things. Even when the economy started picking up and other good reslts showed, I stayed worried because, in my view, bringing that development to sectors of the population without also spreading a political culture of how and why it was happening would lead to a future conservative swing like in the US, where people who benefited hugely from the New Deal suddenly went all-in reactionary when the time came to pay for a new segment of the population to get a hand up in the 60s. Sephyr fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Mar 13, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 13:49
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Having worked in brazilian financial newspapers and magazines, I can second joepinetree's point. Whenever we had to get a quote from an economist on a subject, we could choose between neoclassics and neoclassics. The editors and higher-ups didn't even pretend. Some really wore the shirt of free-market-will-redeem-us culture, while others just knew that it was what played well with the owners/backers and went along without incident. Never thought I'd be saying this, but I'll feel relieved when I return to the stability and fair play of Argentina's status quo this sunday.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:11
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Sick_Boy posted:Was there ever a direct pushback if you or someone else tacked an issue from a non-neoclassical perspective, or used language implying a framework other than the neoclassical one? Nope. True to brazilian form, the best way to deny conflict is to behave as if it's never existed. You send in an article citing three sources, and the one edited out is the one spousing unorthodox/annoying viewpoints. Is asked, you'd be told it was done to make the piece fit a certain space, because that guy "already gets too much of a soapbox" (my personal favorite excuse, because of how selective a peeve it was), or because the piece was too quote-heavy and one needed to go. Over time, you just stop trying. It's literally adding fruitless legwork/typing to your daily workload. The newspaper I worked for was big on hospitng events and symposiums, and then they'd sometimes invite some opposing viewpoints. Dalmo Dallari, a moderately progressive old intellectual, was a fixture in those, to bring in some credibility to the whole thing. He often gave nice speeches/lectures, but when it was time to write about the event, his participation was usually condensed to "Dalmo Dallari was also there" or something laughably generic and neutral like "Dallari reminded the audience of the importance of economic growth".
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Mar 18, 2015 17:16
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As a former Sao Paulo resident ( Now in Buenos Aires), Plutonis, could I ask for for a review of recent (year 2000 and on) review of Cearense politics? We get such little and filtered news from the Northeast, I rarely know what to believe. I remember when Roseane Sarney (daughter of one of Brazil's most enduring political robber lords) was the Great White Hope, since Fernando Henrique was completing his two terms ad could not run again, so her state (Maranhao) was suddenly hyped on TV and magazines as te economic powerhouse of the North and how much she had improved it. Even in soap operas characters suddenly began taking vacations there to gawk at the state's wonders. The suddenly a federal police raid happened in her hubby's business and leaked about a billion pictures of unsourced cash in their safes to the press, sinking her candidacy just as it gathered steam. Nothing happened, of course, because this was grotesquely illegal. But it's a good example of how low the olitics here go; the PSDB was all too happy to kneecap its main ally, even abusing the fedPol to do so, the moment it started getting too ambitious.
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Mar 23, 2015 23:57
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Carvalho's list if insane beliefs is literally too long to list here, or anywhere. This is the guy who right after the 9/11 attacks published an op-ed piece on a big weekly magazine (Época) saying that we were all fools and the attacks were OBVIOUSLY a russian communist assault. He was dropped shortly after that, but media always kept finding reasons to give him space and money. He also had a string of pieces detailing how the country's biggest Tv network, Globo, who was built up by the military dictatorship and exherts humungous power over brazilian society, was compromised by communists because one of their soap Operas, "Kubanacan", featured cuban immigrants, and therefore was pro Fidel Castro.
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Apr 2, 2015 18:50
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Brazilians (the middle-class-and-above variety, at least) also have a weird reluctance to be associated with the rest of Latin America in general, seeing them as either annoying rivals (Argentina), lovely backwaters (mostly everywhere else) or the USA's crappy back yard (Mexico). I was always interest in diplomacy (tried for the Itamaraty diplomat corps, even), and whenever I brought any ongoing trade deal/initiative to foster ties with other local countries everyone would just groan, while any bits about dealing with even smaller European countries would be enthusiastically approved. "You mean we may get a favored status with Monaco to sell them banana jam? Hell yeah, it's all coming up Bazil now!" It feels to me like a national version of the petit-burgoise syndrome. You don't want to identify with your neighbors, you want the landlord to give you big wet smile and call you by your first name when he comes to collect rent!
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Apr 4, 2015 00:12
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nerdz posted:Also over 25% of the GDP. You might be on to something here... We'd need that GDP to pay through the nose for energy, oil, steel and all the other stuff the state lacks if it ever separated from the rest of the country. São Paulo separatism is often just badly disguised prejudice against immigrants from the brazilian northeast, delusions that we are somehow more moral and creative people brought down by the archaic, corrupt lesser states, or the last gambit at self-esteem by people whose only virtue was being born in a wealthier part of the country.
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Aug 3, 2015 02:44
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I worked at a big brazilian financial newspaper in its death throes for 5 years, and the common knowledge among the owners/moneyed bigshots was that aecio was a big-time cokehead, an opportunistic empty vessel (think Scott Walker minus the charm), and that his sister and some other guy whose name I forget called all the real shots in the backstage. Not sure how much of it is true, as I only spoke with him once back in the 2006 campaign, and he just seemed bland and slippery in the usual political way.
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Aug 28, 2015 17:04
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Kopijeger posted:Why is there a tag on the nanny's shirt? Any special significance to that? It's implying that it was just bought recently, specifically for the protests now that they are trendy.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:49
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punk rebel ecks posted:The Ted Cruz of Brazil? That's now a hotly-contested title. ... I know what I just said.
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Mar 21, 2016 15:18
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Back in Sao Paulo, catholic Carninal Dom Odilo was assaulted during Mass by an old lady accusinghim of being a communist and of sheltering bolsheviks in his church. I used to say that for all of its issues, Brazil at least had no history of enduring religious/ethnic strife. Seems that the expiration date on that is approaching fast.
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Mar 25, 2016 01:25
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Uhhhh there was definitely religious strife. Remember that shitstorm when an evangelical pastor kicked a Catholic icon of Mary on TV? Ohh, there's been tension, just like there has been class and racial tension, but never actual knives coming out. Or segregated neighborhoods, people being asked if they are catholic or protestant and beaten, etc. In fact, you could argue that our systems are oppression are effective precisely because they tend to be subtle and frictionless most of the time. When they become overt, they tend to fail.
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Mar 25, 2016 05:37
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:There are people who are literally pelted with stones because of their religion. They are the umbanda followers. Yes. And a black kid in my class at a very upscale Sao Paulo high school was spat upon by parents during the school celebration day. The poor guy was so used to it he didn't even get mad, just shrugged and went to the bathroom to try and wash his uniform. I'm not saying the prejudice and hostility aren't there. Just that we never had institutionalized, overt divisions. We didn't have laws mandating separate schools and water fountains; just owners telling security guards that certain people are 'not welcome', not members, potentially dangerous, etc. The last time a separate minority was ofically crushed by the majority institutions instead of being ignored and quietly sidelined was the Canudos village. Throwing rocks at umbanda practicioners, middle-class kids breaking fluorescent lightbulbs on gay people along my dear Paulista Avenue are just the natural, organic hiccups of privilege being its spacious self. Perhaps the closest thing we have to institutional aggression that is harnessed and divisive on purpose is prejudice against northeastern migrants, which echoes pretty much all of the Us tirades against immigrants: they come to take our jerbs, they are ignorant, dirty and diseased, they are outbreeding us and all on welfare, etc.
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Mar 25, 2016 21:26
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Slavery was abolished before Canudos. In fact, many of the town's people were abandoned former slaves with no prospects or hope, those too old or weak to sell their labor for peanuts.
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Mar 26, 2016 04:27
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nerdz posted:A sorta similar event to canudos and even more directly related to slavery was Quilombo dos Palmares, a community of tens of thousands of escaped slaves that lived freely and resisted for almost a century before being conquered by the portuguese. They even did business with nearby settlers. It was probably one of the biggest examples of slave resistance in all of the new world history. Yup, and the usual suspects here are hell bent on rewriting the books and say that Palmares and other Quilombos were havens for rapists and criminals, that they themselves had slaves, etc. Now, some people did idealize life in the escaped slave communities a bit too much, but the vile glee the reactionaries have making GBS threads on anything that doesn't fit their Just World delusions is...troubling.
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Mar 26, 2016 19:46
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My Imaginary GF posted:Why not just look at what emerged in Congo during the 40's, 50's, and 60's with mass male migration from a hodgepodge of tribal groups to urban areas as a result of escape from forced labor camps? Because we were talking about Quilombos, which came into the conversation due to your earlier attempt to be a wiseass by dropping slavery into the topic of societal divisions and vendettas without knowing jack about South American history/culture??
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Mar 27, 2016 03:05
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A little tidbit about the Lyra family I got to personally witness. I was in Alagoas in 2005 for work reasons, and when I came down for breakfast at the hotel there was an odd buzz going on with the staff/people. I asked a local friend, and he told me that a friend of the Lyra family was drunk and riving and basically climbed onto the curb with his car and ran over a small group of people. He was taken into custody, but everyone was a little jumpy as to what would happen next. That afternoon, a posse of armed Lyra goons literally went over to the police district. The head honcho went inside, made it clear that they were getting the guy out, and they got the guy out. That as the end of that. And this is when their power was waning, mind.
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Apr 4, 2016 23:19
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Years ago, I remember reading an old piece about the aftermath of the senate shooting incident. Basically, the family of the senator that took the bullet was utterly ruined. His sons had a hard time finding jobs, his widow was reduced to doing laundry for neighbors, all for fear that helping;hiring them would bring reprisals. And he was not even the intended target!
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Apr 15, 2016 22:55
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My personal doomsaying predictions: Temer and pals scuttle investigations and pass tons of crappy, vile stuff. Non-PSDB people get furious, but not enough to demonstrate or switch sides to progressives. They just abandon politics for another generation. Hardcore PSDB/Aecistas don't give a crap, gear up for elections and make bank like crazy under relaxed funding rules. Have a hard time finding a candidate that isn't soiled to the gills, and infighting also grows as every opportunist feels this is the time to hog the spotlight. Bolsonaro and the evangelical block becomes the cornerstone of the Right. Worker's party and satellites coalesce around Lula as their last shot, which only makes the other side all the more rabid. 2018 election comes down between him and some compromise christian fetish figure, likely Bolsonaro or Moro, or some empty suit with one of them as VP. If Lula wins? Coup. A naked one this time. If the conservatives win, big-time financial and elite rollback of the few advances of the last decade will be enshrined. No one will give a toss about corruption or growth, as long as the 20% of the people that -matters- still make bank. Everyne who disagrees can expect a nightstick to the mouth and tear gas bombs, and no one will care.
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Apr 18, 2016 17:23
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My father hates Lula, Dilma and the Pt with the blazing fury of a thousand sons. He'd disown me if he knew I actually think PT is way too moderate. So he's been salivating for the impeachment for months now. After the vote yesterday? His joy is gone. "It was like the worst aspects of a soccer game riot and an evangelical faith-healing cult. I felt ill." He told me on skype just now. I guess it finally dawned on him what 'his' side stands for, and he doesn't know where to go. He can't go left because he's been conditioned for a lifetime to despise the commies, and can't join the wave because he's an educated, agnostic person. so he's just spent, frustrated, and worried.
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Apr 19, 2016 04:01
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Grouchio posted:I...had been looking at this the wrong way the entire time. Things just got worse for Brazil, and all this time (since the World Cup) I had been rooting for Dilma to get kicked out. I need to read more Latin American history. If it helps, you are not alone. So many of my friends who were marching wearing yellow and green (because if you are against corruption, the CBF's logo is just the thing you want to wear over your patriotic heart!) are getting a bit freaked out.
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Apr 19, 2016 04:34
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Politicians and parties fall fr their mistakes, not their sins, Elias. Calling PT's level of corruption abnormal is remarkably blinkered, especially since the main reason the president is being ousted is because she refused to play ball with one of the vilest politicians in Congress. Crooked campaign financing is something that has been with us since the new regime started; local magnate Mario Garnero, owner of Brasilinvest, describes running Caixa 2 (illegal financing) for Tancredo Neves' presidential run right out of the military regime's twilight in his book Jogo Sujo ("Dirty Game") and the only repercussion he got came not from the law, but rival politicians who wanted the cash instead, and started blocking his projects on flimsy excuses. Right after Tancredo died, his successor Jose Sarney started a 'massive' railroad project to connect the north and south of the country ("Ferrovia Norte-Sul') that barely laid any track but was instrumental is creating a war chest for PMDB's candidates that no one else could match, and securing their grip on the Legislative Houses early on. Fernando Henrique's entire government was predicated on the alliance with figures like Antonio Carlos Magalhães, former appointed (not elected) governor during the dictatorship and up to his eyeballs in graft with the OAS company, which was headed by his son-in-law. ACM actually bugged the results panel of the Senate in order to learn how everyone was voting during secret meetings, so he could tell who was voting as bribed and who had taken the money and voted against him anyway. Two guesses as to whether he lost his mandate, and the first one doesn't count. Let's not forget the whole rush for approving the Re-election ammendment, a naked crooked deal in which everyone suddenly changed their minds after Fernando Henrique's heir apparent, Luis Eduardo Magalhaes (ACM's oldest son) fell dead while getting in shape to run for president. Given the short deadline, they had to buy every petty soiled congressperson under the sun, including infamous un-punishable huckster Paulo Maluf. Just look at what happened to the old PFL party the moment it was removed from the government's udder. It went from being the core technocratic vote-herding party besides PMDB to a minor presence, its numbers poached by the nascent evangelical block. Let's be clear here: PT is crooked. It would be so even if it had not ejected every last 'radical' back in 2002 to pacify the media (fat lot good it did). But if it had played footsie with Eduardo Cunha and saved his corrupt henchmen as he required, Dilma would still be in power, with the same congressmen who invoked God and family to oust her singing her praises instead. If it had a figure like former Attorney General Geraldo Brindeiro, who killed hundreds of corruption probes in the 90s while the media looked the other way, it would still be in power. (No hyperbole here. Of all 626 probes that came his way during his tenure, only 60 were investigated. That's 9% for you.) Dilma fell because her government was weakened by the economic shitshow and the opposition saw an opportunity. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone leveling the same charges at a PSDB government would be laughed out congress and tarred and feathered in the media. Hell, Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) was being hailed as a bold leader for his water rationing program last time i was there...after his mismanagement of the drought caused said rationing in the first place. Golden boy Aecio Neves' name poppped up in seven separate accounts by interrogated crooks cutting deals with the investigation, and nothing is going to happen to him. And that's not even mentioning Temer and Cunha. If corruption is the motivator here, there are sure a ton of slam-dunk cases being tossed aside. I don't see anyone seriously defending campaign reforms, or a larger constitutional congress. The other side has just been away from the teat for too long, and there are a lot of things to loot: the Pre-Sal fields, access to new international vultures like Goldman Sachs (whose local dealer is already being tapped for a ministry), you name it.
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Apr 19, 2016 14:21
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Billmon has a good general internationalist overview on his storify. https://storify.com/billmon1/the-dilemma-of-democratic-socialism Don't know how to embed tweets, so pardon my formatting. quote:9) And of course, if Brazil (or any country) impeached every political leader for trying to avoid austerity ahead of an election...
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Apr 19, 2016 15:02
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Now, now, Whiteyfats. The USA certainly doesn't help, but leave us some agency. There are a lot of reasons Brazil is what it is, and most of them have nothing to do with the USA. You can argue that american influence served to calcify its worst aspects from the early 20th century forward, and there would be merit to that. You can point to the place being founded upon the short-term ambition of foreign elites early on (Who would come in, reap what they could for a few years, then skedaddle back to Portugal to live high on the hog; "Wealth from boldness rather than enterprise", as put by Sergio Buarque). You can point to the iron grip of aristocracies flowing into each other almost seamlessly, making real change or revolution impossible. Even the country's Independence and Republic were both declared top-down via court intrigue, with no popular friction or input. We've been way too good at 'changing things do things stay the same', for way, way too long. Or the personalist culture that cares more about having powerful, popular leaders rather than actual movements to defend a set of causes, making every achievement unstable and temporary. You can even blame the 'friendly' nature of our prejudices, which makes them so easy to conceal. We have no ethnic guerillas, no religious wars, no separatism worth the name, and yet racial, religious and economic hatreds are ingrained bone-deep even in our most progressive people and institutions, and will rear up to scuttle chances for improvement at a moment's notice.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:11
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It's not really a -bad- letter, but the fact that it got tossed along with comments has to be scraping the Marinhos raw. Their family has been richer than Croesus for over a hundred years, and being equated to the plebs is not something they deal with gracefully.
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Apr 24, 2016 04:30
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Morality golem Cunha set vote for salary increases for the whole Judiciary branch...-after- the Senate vote for Impeachment. no impeachment vote, no raise. Said raise increases the current deficit by at leas $1 billion more, but what the hell.
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Apr 29, 2016 21:53
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Symbolic Butt posted:tangent: it bothers me how folha's site is always pushing books like "why the left is wrong Their publisher is now going big on both school books and literature in general. Hence the need to convince everyone that marxists are brainwashing your kids via evil books (so buy theirs instead!), to elects friendly governors that will pick their works for public school sillaby, and such.
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May 2, 2016 20:01
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" and von mises
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At this point, I'm half expecting Temer to appoint an openly trans person to the ministry of Defense and to declare Shia islam the national religion. might as well make sure that ALL institutions of the country are convulsing together. I doubt this latest gambit will amount to much, but it's darkly amusing to see that if the media/political elite thinks it can just empower, use and discard the petty small fry of congress to get its way, it will not be able to do so cleanly or neatly. I'm as to the left as it gets, but at this point even I am in favor of the government throwing in the towel and making some sort of stabilizing . But who on the other side would even take a deal? They want the whole cake, yesterday. Can't offer to have Lula not run in 2018 because they are already working on making him unable to run on the side. Can't offer ministerial/cabinet positions because they're close to getting them all.
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May 9, 2016 19:53
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Now Temer is going over his minister's head and saying he won't discard the internal picks. I gotta laugh at how crass and clumsy these so-called masterminds are. They couldn't even wait for some scandal or even goo news to cover up their play. Just stomp ahead like a drunken elephant. I guess having the monolithic support of the media and the courts does make one overconfident.
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May 16, 2016 17:48
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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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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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As if the interim government's moral standing wasn't low enough already, new phone recording leaks have appeared showing Romero Jucá, Minister of Planning and one of the movers and shakers behind the impeachment, articulating with others to stop the investigation of corruption under operation Lava Jato. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1774018-em-dialogos-gravados-juca-fala-em-pacto-para-deter-avanco-da-lava-jato.shtml The conversation itself is almost funny in its lame overtness. Veiled threats about how their necks are on the line unless 'something *wink wink cough* is done, concerns about how this imperils "all of he country's political class" and even signals some wllingness to let Lula slide (!!!) if all comes to a close. And of course, national Golden Boy Aecio Neves is mentioned yet AGAIN, with both crooks reminiscing about "what we've done together, back then, electing congressmen so he could finally be Speaker" .
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May 23, 2016 15:09
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Friendly Humour posted:So basically, the only thing overthrowing Dilma is going to accomplished is saving a bunch of old kleptocrats from corruption charges? I really do wonder what those thousands of protestors think of this all. I wonder if they're satisfied with how things've turned out. Plenty of them are completely fine with it. They wanted to kick PT off the government and purge even milquetoast left people from all positions of power, and they got their wish. A guy who used to be one of my best friends before libertarianism/racism ate his brain in the past 3 years basically went from "This country needs to be scoured clean of leftism and corruption!!" to "We need stability now! Anyone flinging mud at the new government should be arrested and beaten!" over the course of this weekend. There's no hyperbole in the 'arrested and beaten' part, either. It's a common feeling in dealing with protests and anyone who doesn't...know their place. There are people who were earnest in fighting corruption, of course. But they were never the real engine of the movement, and most of them now just feel baffled and discouraged. My father hates PT and Dilma beyond all reason, but even he felt ashamed during the Congress Vote to impeach her.
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May 23, 2016 15:59
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Stage 2 of the new leaks brings how the Supreme Court stonewalled Dilma, responding to all of her overtures and talks with demands for increased pay. Suprise of surprises, days after her impeachment, Congress voted a pay raise for the whole Judiciary. Because austerity is for chumps. Also of note is the mention of Otavio Frias, owner of Brazil's biggest newspaper, as someone who was on board the plot but also "thinking things were going too far" in chasing corrupt politicians. Ironically, it was Frias' paper that published the new round of leaks, so either he found some integrity, a reporter/editor went over his head, or they were afraid someone else also had the recording and would release them first.
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May 25, 2016 15:24
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Badger of Basra posted:Are the supreme court justices that Dilma/Lula appointed part of this? Brazil's recent events really have proved, in my understanding, that there really is such a thing as an established, entrenched elite, and you can win as many elections as you want, appoint ministers and judges, and still never have the actual -power-. The people you appointed will choose their nepotistic/class peers over you, your legitimacy will be sabotaged the moment the status quo ceases to be a straight win-win, and your projects sold off by pennies on the dollar to make a quick buck for the 'reformers'.
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May 25, 2016 16:36
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Yeah. The level of support/cover-up the media is running for the new government is almost baffling. It makes me feel like I'm about to turn into a conspiracy theory nut. Other than the leaking of the phone talks (which can be attributed to manipulation within the new government, boosting Serra's faction), it's quite clear that the mood is 'let's not rock the boat'.
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May 27, 2016 16:40
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The borderline monolithic power of the concentrated media. Four families hold close to 80% of the consumed media in the country, and have for a century or so. Marinho, Frias, Mesquita, etc. Smaller media usually stays boxed in inside definite groups that are easily marginalized, or just bought out if they start growing. I remember the first biggest protests in São Paulo last year and how Globo was just going insane with attendance numbers. "Seems like we have a million people here in Paulista Avenue protesting the government." "A million and eight hundred thousand people here in the manifestation!" "Two million people and a half protesting Dilma! Biggest manifestation in history!!" "Four BILLION protesters here sending their message! The planet is hunched to the side, there are so many people here!" The the police (which hates PT's guts, mind) released that there were 200k people tops and everyone just went 'well whatever it was really big'.
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May 27, 2016 18:15
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