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What is Happening in Brazil

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Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#21

Post by jonmc12 »

This article left me thinking about how big of a mess the 2014 world cup could be - a whirlwind of political protest, drunken fans and violence. Brazilian leadership really has their work cut out of them. However, in China, where oppression and corruption also exist, the 2008 Olympics was an event of unifying nationalism.

Then, as the article portrays, Arab countries can oust their leaders, but Brazilians choose to re-elect corrupt politicians.

Why does it seem like communist countries can inspire nationalism and pride, and the people of dictatorships can change leadership. Yet, Brazil, as a democratic country, is depicted as imagining disgrace (in world cup / Olympics) and unable to instigate political change?

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#22

Post by arturhoo »

mtgx wrote: post #14

Politicians tend to become worse and worse thinking and seeing from experience that they can "get away with it". But in reality all this time, the population gets more and more frustrated, and it's only a matter of time before the population revolts. So far the Brazilian politicians have been lucky that all these 1 million people haven't become violent and ask for their blood. Because to be honest, I think at least s…

As a fellow brazilian, I totally agree with you. I believe we should not allow party flags to be raised right now. The truth is that politicians from all parties (supportive or not to the present government) were involved in some sort of corruption across Brazil.

As violent and absurd this may sound, I believe those who live in Brasília should go to undoubtedly corrupt politician's homes (like Renan Calheiros') and destroy it, the same way people have been doing with banks, telecom, and media companies (entities that literally have raped and manipulated us for decades) in several capitals.

Although I believe this may not prevent corrupt politicians from being in power in the future (only a properly educated population can ensure that), we need to act now. Our political system is broken and there is no way change will come from those in power - their own interest is holding control.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#23

Post by icebraining »

angersock wrote: post #10
Uperte wrote: post #3

Quote from prosecutor's FB according to this blog post: “I’m trying to get home for the past two hours, but I can’t because there’s some protesters blocking off traffic […] please, somebody tell the police that this area is under the jurisdiction of my court and, if any of them kill a protester, I’ll just archive the case”. Scary!

Yep. I understand this as a humorous remark, no doubt, but there are certain positions of power from which I do not appreciate joking.

It's a little more than just an humorous remark (EDIT: not that I'm assuming he would actually archive the cases); the original text seems much more hateful. The last part of the post is roughly:

Shitty petistas¹. Motherfuckers. (...) I miss the time when this kind of thing was resolved with rubber (sticks) on the backs of the cowards...

¹ Supporters of the Partido Trabalhista, as far as I can tell.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#24

Post by kandu »

throwaway395748 wrote: post #7

This has been a very depressing week. Regardless of the many fair causes being taken by the protesters to the street, as a Brazilian living in São Paulo, I was worried since the beginning that the whole thing would turn into the mess we can see now. And while I sympathize what many of these causes, the lack of a proper, unified list of demands makes the whole thing completely worthless in the best case, and quite dan…

It is mind blowing to me that in a world where the internet makes it so easy to aggregate democratically the wishes of the masses, corrupt politicians that neglect the people they represent still thrive. If everybody would spent 10% of the time they spend on Facebook in order to express on a website the problems that they would like to be solved by the state and the solution to these problems that they support, the world we live in would be a much better one. I would guess that the value corruption takes away from the global economy is much higher than the value created by all of the startups that pretend to disrupt economies. Do you want to solve a global problem? Please solve corruption.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#25

Post by fiatjaf »

I'm brazilian and this article is a lie. nobody has heard about anybody saying this, and the visions the author of the article atributes to all the manifesters are just his visions.

also, the author is an idiot.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#26

Post by Fargren »

mtgx wrote: post #14

Politicians tend to become worse and worse thinking and seeing from experience that they can "get away with it". But in reality all this time, the population gets more and more frustrated, and it's only a matter of time before the population revolts. So far the Brazilian politicians have been lucky that all these 1 million people haven't become violent and ask for their blood. Because to be honest, I think at least s…

But the any constitution may have(read, HAS) things that are wrong. Constitutions were written by people too. People are fallible, and the possibility exists that going against what they wrote ten-score years ago is just plain wrong, and going against it is the correct thing to do. I don't think leaders should fear correcting the wrongs in the building blocks of their countries; it should be their utmost responsibility.

Now, this is not what is happening here. Not at all. But taking the constitution as sacrosanct and making going against it punishable by death is not a good idea. Is dogmatic and wrong. The responsibility of politicians is towards the people, not towards the constitution.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#27

Post by petegrif »

fiatjaf wrote: post #25

I'm brazilian and this article is a lie. nobody has heard about anybody saying this, and the visions the author of the article atributes to all the manifesters are just his visions. also, the author is an idiot.

Thanks for the detailed rebuttal. Your considered response opened my eyes to the reality of the situation. Many thanks.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#28

Post by blueprint »

Fargren wrote: post #26
mtgx wrote: post #14

Politicians tend to become worse and worse thinking and seeing from experience that they can "get away with it". But in reality all this time, the population gets more and more frustrated, and it's only a matter of time before the population revolts. So far the Brazilian politicians have been lucky that all these 1 million people haven't become violent and ask for their blood. Because to be honest, I think at least s…

But the any constitution may have(read, HAS) things that are wrong. Constitutions were written by people too. People are fallible, and the possibility exists that going against what they wrote ten-score years ago is just plain wrong, and going against it is the correct thing to do. I don't think leaders should fear correcting the wrongs in the building blocks of their countries; it should be their utmost responsibili…

Before denying something as wrong, you should point out the concrete problems.

I agree that laws are made by men. But the US constitution was written for the living people. Corrupt leaders are corrupted because they in fact don't serve the living. Over time, the man-made laws have changed as well.

However, just like in math, it's possible to prove whether something is right or wrong by verifying on a fixed principle. All the answers are determined by the questions. So we can only tell if laws are right or wrong by evaluating them case-by-case.

If the equation in math changes, we will get many answers from a single question. That's why to evaluate truth and justice we need one principle, not many.

Re: What is Happening in Brazil

#30

Post by justin66 »

throwaway395748 wrote: post #7

This has been a very depressing week. Regardless of the many fair causes being taken by the protesters to the street, as a Brazilian living in São Paulo, I was worried since the beginning that the whole thing would turn into the mess we can see now. And while I sympathize what many of these causes, the lack of a proper, unified list of demands makes the whole thing completely worthless in the best case, and quite dan…

> And while I sympathize what many of these causes, the lack of a proper, unified list of demands makes the whole thing completely worthless in the best case, and quite dangerous in the worst.

"Represent us, not yourselves" is the message delivered by these sorts of protests. It's more effective than an itemized list.

> And then my own friends and coworkers who supported the whole thing trying to explain what they thought it was about (each one with a different explanation).

This makes perfect sense amongst people who aren't being represented at all well by their government - the government isn't just doing one thing badly, so of course there isn't agreement over what they're doing wrong. It says something kind of ugly about you that you think it's "funny."

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