Brazil - have you been there?

this is one of the most frightening angles imho

Brazil has been a world leader in climate change mitigation but this is about to change. Fascism is an immediate threat to nature. Bolsonaro wants to cut down protection of the Amazon rainforest- the lungs of the planet and the most biodiverse place in the world.

— tina⚔️ (@babyvietcong) October 29, 2018

Looks like we’ll broach the era of geoengineering “solutions” even more quickly than I thought.

Bolsonaro is not the "Brazilian Trump". He also has little in common with European right-populists.

Bolsonaro will curb democracy like Putin & Erdogan and unleash the violence of Duterte.

But he is still worse than all of these. Here's why:https://t.co/CFh6TzcjAw

— Alex Hochuli (@Alex__1789) October 28, 2018

Militant activities (think of the FARC in Colombia or Maoist squads in parts of India) will have to be organised. It's pretty much the only thing left. No time to fuck about with a rigged democracy.

Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso who was once jailed by the then military government and later put into exile, wrote an op-ed for the NY Times before the election entitled "Dark Times Are Coming for my Country"

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8481690/caetano-veloso-new-york-times-op-ed

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/opinion/caetano-veloso-brazil-bolsonaro.html

I've followed this pretty casually, but why would a country that was ruled by a military dictatorship for decades democratically elect by a large margin someone who even hinted at a return to that era? Is it mostly an extreme reaction to "corruption" (which, to be fair, was afaict itself pretty extreme in Brazil)?

Sometimes I think that the American political system is even more corrupt than what was going on in Brazil -- we've basically legalized the scheme of corporate campaign contributions and kickbacks that they had to do illicitly.

Sometimes I wonder if our problem isn't corruption so much as being supremely wasteful and inefficient.

Isn't a hunk of Brazil's previous administration literally in jail right now?

Militant activities (think of the FARC in Colombia or Maoist squads in parts of India) will have to be organised. It's pretty much the only thing left. No time to fuck about with a rigged democracy.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, October 29, 2018 4:35 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Brazilians have much more experience with this than Americans do. Only recently the country was led by an ex-guerilla fighter against the prior military dictatorship.

C. Veloso in NY Times: The major news outlets have tended to minimize the dangers, working in fact for Mr. Bolsonaro by describing the situation as a confrontation between two extremes: the Workers’ Party potentially leading us to a Communist authoritarian regime, while Mr. Bolsonaro would fight corruption and make the economy market friendly

I haven't seen it discussed a lot but I'm guessing the collapse of Venezuela, their neighbor, played a role in all of this?

brazilian urban guerrillas were very small, ineffective and easily crushed. the mid-late 20th century has shown it to be an extremely bad tactic. even in countries where the radical leftist movements were substantial and guerrilla cells had thousands of members, like in argentina and chile, they didnt accomplish much and were brutally murdered/disappeared. people thought it would work because guerrillas were a success in cuba, but that only happened due to contingent reasons and their success wasnt replicated anywhere else in latin america.

yes there is a lot of hysteria about !!!bolivarian communists!!!

I understand that except the left can't go anywhere except exile...or the Amazon.

Racist, sexist and homophobic or a refreshing break from political correctness? Jair #Bolsonaro's history of controversial statements. #BrazilElection https://t.co/yX0JP2GUG0

— BBC Monitoring (@BBCMonitoring) October 26, 2018

"essential media insight" from the classy BBC, who think talking up torture and death squads might be a "refreshing change" from that PC gone madness.

I think you'll find there were very fine people on both sides...

Classic example of media-fuelled, mercantile false equivalencies right there.

xp

Facts or a refreshing break from facts.

Heh, that's a little too otm for comfort.

For BBC Monitoring it seems the austerity has never been over.

@BBCMonitoring
After much speculation Turkish President Erdogan has announced that the new airport in Istanbul will be called "Istanbul Airport"

Infuriating BBC tweet. Bolsonaro isn’t doing an HBO standup special

I've followed this pretty casually, but why would a country that was ruled by a military dictatorship for decades democratically elect by a large margin someone who even hinted at a return to that era? Is it mostly an extreme reaction to "corruption" (which, to be fair, was afaict itself pretty extreme in Brazil)?

Because a lot of people did pretty well out of the dictatorship and do well out of fascism - I think you can guess who.

I just don't even know. I would hope other SA countries will take up the slack and move towards more progressive agendas, international companies will move their offices out of Sao Paulo, but none of this will help the Brazilian people.

Precedent for international companies disliking fascism?

I just don't even know. I would hope other SA countries will take up the slack and move towards more progressive agendas

Latin America’s Right-Wing Turn

Another excellent tweet, this one from Canada:

Brazil's new president elect, Jair Bolsonaro, is a right-winger who leans towards more open markets. This could mean fresh opportunities for Canadian companies looking to invest in the resource-rich country. https://t.co/g00QUOeutt

— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) October 28, 2018

googling a bit I found some UBS presentation on why a Bolsonaro win would be good for markets

as much as the bolsonaro is going to cause horrific human death and destruction, the idea that he will raze a good section the amazon rainforest is hitting me the hardest here.

Humans are really too stupid to manage themselves aren't they. And it's the "smartest" humans in particular who seem to fit that description.

I mean, I am a temporary resident of Chile (soon to become permanent) I can see it opening up opportunities for other countries whose currency and current social landscape aren't are volatile. I just forbade my spouse from traveling to Brazil for work anymore.

And hopefully other countries will welcome any LGBTQ/allied Brazilians who want to leave.

He won't cause much death and destruction if he is dead and destroyed first. I can't see him lasting the year

BBC tweet really lays bare that "political correctness" now mostly means "the taboo against openly endorsing authoritarianism, fascism, or genocide"

political correctness

You know the old expression, when a few well meaning college protesters seem to lose a bit of perspective in their rhetoric, it’s time to overthrow basic concepts of democracy and human rights

Also international companies tend to dislike fascism more and more these days since they have more women and poc working for them. I am trying to find optimism because it is all bad.

A beautiful song from another bad time in Brazilian history
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ellis+regina+la+y+la

sorry I mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g_p4Xcn5CE

He won't cause much death and destruction if he is dead and destroyed first. I can't see him lasting the year

― imago, Monday, October 29, 2018 12:18 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

even if this happens, which it won't, it'll just set up his VP/successor, General Antonio Hamilton Mourão, to use military power to seize the government, as he threatened to do earlier this year.

I know the pt has had rough times recently, but they were originally an extremely successful popular movement, so brazil has a strong and recent history of progressive activism. I hope that re-asserts itself—only hope i see. Braxil won’t be isolated by the business world because of human rights abuses and besides that will hurt ordinary brazilians more than the regime

is there a scenario where foreign intervention on environmental or genocidal grounds might occur

even if this happens, which it won't, it'll just set up his VP/successor, General Antonio Hamilton Mourão, to use military power to seize the government, as he threatened to do earlier this year.

― fred-a van vleet (voodoo chili), Monday, October 29, 2018 10:24 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, i think that if he caught a bullet it would make things dramatically worse, much faster

xp lol no what are you on about

beautiful vision of corbyn and gillibrand unleashing the cruise missiles on brasilia

no but seriously, back in the real world, this is horrendous and I can't see a positive way out

Can we just give a country to all these men who want to wrestle and clean their guns all day? They can build whatever wall they want, sing their anthem, and their insipid wives can go with them.

It would never be enough, knowing we're still out there.

yeah but if we gave them an island we could just nuke it

sorry for overheated hate speech about actual fucking fascists

Just pick one at current sea level

i met a brazilian guy a few months ago and we became good acquaintances

i'm very uninformed of the details of brazil's current politics but from a cultural perspective, it's interesting that this brazilian guy voted for him and knows all the nasty things the english speaking world says about him, but he still voted for him and doesn't believe bolsonaro will actually kill anyone or will have anyone killed

he is studying business in canada, so i'm not sure how informed his opinions are on politics but i get a sense that he is definitely into US neoliberalism -- he seemed happy that bolsonaro wants to appoint guedes as financial advisor, at least

whether they're mutually exclusive or not, he enjoys getting high a couple times a day and is socially very progressive, with that tinge of homophobia and sexism that pervades most of south america

i did bring up a possible coup, but he believes it won't happen, since it's been a long time, since the 60s, that brazil has had one

bolsonaro's approach and social values are similar to trump's, but other than that, he sounds worse

the brazilian business student was trying to get me to understand how there's huge desperation in brazil, with a gdp comparable to canada's, yet a population 5 times bigger, and feels that brazil needs to be closed off, grow local businesses/companies, and provide/protect people's interests first, rather than big global companies. kinda typical, and in fact, lots of people have this mentality in vancouver/canada too though

fun dude