Brazil - have you been there?

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

Doesn’t sound like a fun dude

he's baked most of the time we talk

that must be why he forgot the dictatorship didn't end until 1985

kinda sounds like all the people who voted for Trump because all the horrible stuff was just bluster..."seriously not literally"

He probably wouldn’t have been as casual about the possibility of bolsonaro killing people if he was part of a targeted group

Trump didn’t directly say he wanted to abolish democracy and kill democrats

It’s hard to think of a politician more indefensible than trump but this guy is it. He praises a military dictatorship that is not at all hypothetical. It existed recently, up until he was 30 or something

The stoner on the plane is a fascist

curious to know if some of the blase reactions to bolsonaro's (at least among the younger set) is that they all grew up in democracy, don't remember the bad old days, and only know of him as a punchline politician from years ago

xp treesh there's at least a dozen more indefensible politicians in line before trump, cmon guy

Yeah thats true. I just think the comparisons to trump in this case are facile. This guy is advocating authoritarianism and he knows what it means. He lived it

Lazy machismo can not die soon enough.

Also authoritarian nationalism and racism

And violent homophobia and misogyny and defense of torture

really starting to believe that humans weren't meant to live this long.

Facile Trump comparisons are also frustrating because they place the US at the center of the universe and the present moment at the center of history.

i have a kind of tangential question -- were the charges against lula legit or a bullshit soft coup by the nation's oligarchs?

Like people who call him the “Brazilian Trump” are implying, incorrectly, not only that Trump is a dictator but that Trump invented dictatorship.

xp with respect to Lula it seems like a bit of both. The corruption was real but it was pervasive and not limited to the PT, it was basically the way politics was done across the board. So it was used as a soft coup inasmuch as it specifically targeted Lula but it was also real. As for Dilma, her charges were bullshit, she did basically nothing wrong.

curious to know if some of the blase reactions to bolsonaro's (at least among the younger set) is that they all grew up in democracy, don't remember the bad old days

Pretty much every member of the selecao seems to support this guy, regardless of background.

Juninho Pernambucano has spoken strongly against but that seems to be about it

the real villain here is mesut ozil for not making it 8-0

That CBC article is vile btw.