The Great Brazil Topic

[Simfan34]

Serra is in lead. I corrected. It's PR which will endorse Serra.
Camata served five terms in Congress from 1987 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2011. She went to PSDB because her friendship with Serra and after her husband, Gerson Camata (PMDB) was going to retire (or denied renomination) from the Senate. In FHC government, she had a very anti-government vote, but was nominated for VP.
Brazilian press is a sh**t, but PT voters are poor people who don't link to media and don't have money to buy Veja.

But isn't Gerson still a senator and PMBD? If Serra had won, could Camata have run for President in 2010?

[RodPresident]

Gerson retired in 2010. PSDB is very hegemonist and would deny presidential nomination to a non-tucano, unless Serra suported Rita Camata.
News from election:
In Rio de Janeiro, state legislator Marcelo Freixo (PSOL) will be candidate for mayor with former drummer Marcelo Yuka (PSOL). Freixo became famous for fighting against paramilitary milices who take control in some former drug-trafficking communities. He suffers death threats until today. Yuka was drummer of "O Rappa" until he was shot in an robbery and paralized waist down.
PSDB candidate in Rio will be Federal Deputy Otavio Leite (PSDB). He was Cesar Maia's deputy mayor in his last term.
ACM Neto (DEM) surprised everybody and announced that his running-mate will be Celia Sacramento (PV). It's first time that Greens align with Carlists in Salvador.
In my home city, running-mate to José Ronaldo (DEM) will be former state legislator Luciano Ribeiro (PMDB) that goes back to politics after 20 years. It will be first time that Colbert Filho endorses a DEM candidate.
In Sao Paulo, biggest news is that Luiza Erundina (PSB) accepted to be Fernando Haddad's running-mate. A strong ticket for PT.

[RodPresident]

Big News:
Lula and Haddad made an agreement with Interpol's Wanted Paulo Maluf (PP). Erundina said that she can drop out as running-mate.

[Simfan34]

Big News:
Lula and Haddad made an agreement with Interpol's Wanted Paulo Maluf (PP). Erundina said that she can drop out as running-mate.

What sort of agreement? I was thinking the other day, is Malufe going to ever hold political office again? You've got to almost feel sorry for him. Almost became president, but pissed too many people off....

[RodPresident]

Erundina dropped out as running-mate. PC do B will endorse Haddad.
Maluf will support Haddad. He got a position in Ministry of Cities. Maluf is chairman of PP in São Paulo and Federal Deputy. He isn't devil of 15 years ago, but a caricature. He's more nice parliamentary to humorists in Brazillian TV.
In Curitiba, Rafael Grecca (PMDB) will attempt to get back Curitiba's mayoral job, now with Roberto Requião's patronage.
In Recife, Eduardo Campos' candidate Geraldo Julio (PSB) got endorsement of Campos' then biggest rival, Jarbas Vasconcelos (PMDB). Julio will get mayoral spot.

[batmacumba]

Rehabilitating this thread.

Actually, It seems that the Supreme Court ruling about SS couples in Brazil effectively legalized SSM. I'll give a check and post about It.

That's the actual situation:

There's a 1996 law that makes the facilitation of upgrading 'stable relationships' (a legally recognized situation, defined in the 1988 constitution) to marriages mandatory for courts and registration offices (cartórios).
With the 2011 resolution, allowing SS couples the right to form 'stable relationships', SSM rights are automatically granted, thus. The main difference is that, while a straight couple may apply directly for marriage, a SS one must, first, get a stable relationship registered. Since may 2011, many SS couples managed to get legally married, and, once this is a matter of constitutional interpretation, not of lawmaking, the only thing that could be changed would be creating full equal treatment, scrapping the 'stable relationship' phase.

The bad news is that a completely imbecilic bigot, a racist and homophobic evangelic priest managed to be selected for the Human Rights Commission in the congress!!!!!!

[batmacumba]

Well,

I'm trying to write this since last week, but I took my computer to the office (where the connection sucks) and have only my Methuselahmic laptop at home, so sorry for the delay.

Basically the country is on fire in a way it didn't happen since Collor's impeachment (and with a institutional response that wasn't seen since the dictatorship). And all because a mere 20 cents. Or they were only the grain that started the landslide.

Here is a text in English:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/world/americas/thousands-gather-for-protests-in-brazils-largest-cities.html
[quote ]
Sharing a parallel with the antigovernment protests in Turkey, the demonstrations in Brazil intensified after a harsh police crackdown last week stunned many citizens. In images shared widely on social media, the police here were seen beating unarmed protesters with batons and dispersing crowds by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into their midst.
[/quote]

There are some prequels, sure.
The liberal middle class is scared of the religious congressmen actions and their law proposals, one of them restricting abortion in the case of rape, plus giving the father (!!!) the right to share (or even to solely have, if the mother rejects) the guard of the child. Also, the director of the AIDS prevention program was forced to resign because of a advertise where prostitution wasn't put in a moralistic view.

Two weeks ago, an action of the Federal Police (our equivalent to the FBI), to settle a dispute between indigenous peoples and farmers resulted in the death of a native. President Dilma Roussef send the national Guard and stated: 'We've followed the law'.

Then, last week, a protest against the raise in bus tariffs was dealt with extreme brutality by the the police (in the case, controlled by the state government). Governor Alckmin simply didn't comment anything. The media (Veja, Folha de São Paulo, Rede Globo) called the protesters 'vandals' and 'rascals', deploring their 'radicalism' and stuff. Mayor Haddad said he wouldn't hear 'vandals'.
The next day, lots of citizens went out on the street. The police reaction was... unspeakable.
They started to persecute protesters and newspeople who were covering the situation. A reporter from the same Folha, who was standing away from the main area of conflicts was shot intentionally by a policeman, on the eye, with a rubber bullet. Tear gas bombs were thrown at anyone who dared be on the streets around. Beatings were happening everywere.





The media deplored the protesters.



What the owners of information still didn't realize is that they don't own it anymore. On Thursday night, everyone with a facebook account was posting and replicating lots of photos and videos showing nonviolent protesters being beat to the ground, teargas everywere and the police aggressively attacking anyone, without any motive, just to hurt.





The weekend was one of tension. Other protests against bus tariffs started to pop. The media, suddenly, changed it's discourse: that weren't 'vandals' or 'rascals' anymore; now they were activists; they were protesting against 'the country's awful situation', 'the corruption of those politicians'.

No word on Alckmin's police brutality.
A lot of analysis on "How this is bad for Dilma's Government".
No word about the legal piece, produced by my state justice court, under the state government sponsorship, that forbid any demonstration on the Confederation Cup, around the stadium or anywhere, and which could be punished with prisons and high fees.

The most visible thing happening in the country these days is the Confederation Cup. So, for people in my city, it became an obvious target.



Today, people gathered on the most busy part of the city at 13:00, to protest. It was a very generic protest.
There were the original anti-tariff people, local environmental groups, the strong young opposition to the mayor, lots of punks and trotskyists, but also, anti-Dilma people and a lot of folks questioning the meaning of expending with stadiums when health and education are still in a long way to be even mediocre. 'Round 25.000 to 35.000 people.
It was more of a protest for the right to protest (and against police brutality). Apart of this, you could find practically everything.
The march aimed to walk the 8 km, uphill and downhill, and uphill, and downhill again (this is a very hilly city) to the stadium. But, near the main entrance of the university campus, the policeforce, which until then was being very polite, simply mocked their colleagues from SP and started to attack cowardly the protesters, while they chanted "no violence".




I accompanied the march on its first 4 or 5 Km, and got back to work, once I've found that everything was OK.
I'm still deciding if I should have been solidary and go all the way, or If I was lucky and escaped a very bad situation.

The traffic cameras which monitor the avenue were turn off a little earlier.
People who were working gathered at 18:00, 19:00, in the same monument, again, to protest against the police action. No one cared, but the folks who searched for sanctuary in the campus were being chased by the police until around 21:00. It seems that the whole problem, here, was the tentative to taint the sacrosanct happening of the Cup.





Each city seems to have its own demands, brought to the surface by the monstrous action of SP's police. In Rio, more than 100.000 citizen went to the streets. Things were a little more complicated. Some idiots vandalized a ancient building, but, on average, it was much less problematic than one would expect of a demonstration, that big, which lacked leadership.






And in Brasília, people danced on the congress ceiling.



And occupied it.



So, it's been a very cathartic thing, but completely unfocused. I fear our disgusting media may be able to control it, but few people I know agree with me.
Nevertheless, the amount of people I've saw falling on the narrative that this was against "this awful government" and the imbeciles asking for "Dilma's impeachment now!" who are popping all over Facialbook, is not little, but the reaction against "those reactionaries trying to control the movement" is also high.
Another one is scheduled this week, I hope I can follow it to see the reality, not the narratives.

[batmacumba]

Nop. The main discussion is if the anti-Dilma right will be able to take it.
While the original protesters were leftists (partially governist, partially trotsy opposition), targeting SP's government (and this is the main reason why the media was aggressively against them), from the moment a bigger share of the population started supporting them, the same media changed completely its narrative and transformed their reports in some piece of fiction. Now, what was clearly against a municipal management ultracorporatist model (one of the best business there are, is to own a urban bus company), suddenly changed in 'the youth protesting against this awful government and all this awful state of things!'.

So, the indignation with SP's police brought lots of people who weren't concerned with the transportation model, while the media Machiavellian turncoating brought the opposition, who were trying to start protests since José Dirceu's fall - but always met a laughable failure.
Yesterday, I was behind a big group of PSTU (which is some trotskyist version of KKE) rank-and-file, plus their union people and, between them and me, a guy was standing with a poster asking for 'more free market'.
One of my very reactionary acquaintaces (the kind of guy who buy American and European hard-right speech, coupled with a neo-ultra-catholic vision of state, opposing any anticonformism) was praising the manifestation, only concerned with 'those vandals who may pervert it'. The same guy who, a year ago, was asking for some beating on a group who was being very vocal in a municipal issue.

My father, and everyone I know from his generation, is concerned with the lack of leadership, amazed about how such a thing can happen and fearing a 'fatherland saviour' may use the movements to break with institutional normality.

But, basically, here in Belo Horizonte, the march was composed by the old middle-class and high-middle-class children, plus the usual suspects, plus some older folks, like me, who are disgruntled with what we're perceiving as a restriction on our democratic rights. So, It's a too much diverse group to be conducted to an aim. And in each city there is a different grouping.

Let's see how the various groups, internet communities and media narratives will struggle between themselves.

Thanks for the educated question.

[JulioMadrid]

And then there's my family saying this is all happening because people are tired of PT. There are many ways of distorting things, unfortunately... And many people believe what newspapers say...

[batmacumba]

And then there's my family saying this is all happening because people are tired of PT. There are many ways of distorting things, unfortunately... And many people believe what newspapers say...

Not to mention the manipulative analysis on El País. That guy is a PSDB hack, I didn't see one 'new middle-class' youngster who wasn't a leftist militant. The unorganized youth was a thousand percent from the 'old one', which is, in practice, part of the white elite.

According to a friend in Salvador, the movement for public transportation reform was conspicuous there, and responsible for the great majority of the protest.

[Lіef]

Apparently a lot of the Brazilian national team players have voiced their support for the protests: Neymar, Lucas, Hulk, David Luiz, and Fred among others.

From what I've read, this seems to be similar to the Turkey protests, in that it's mostly made up of middle-class people. Is that true? What are working class/poor Brazilians views on all this?

[WillipsBrighton]

The Brazilian middle class is very different from the Turkish middle class. In fact they're almost exactly the opposite politically.

In Turkey, they're left-wing, in Brazil they're right wing.

Although the people protesting in Brazil may actually be the children of the middle class who are themselves poorer and more leftist.

[Senator Snowstalker]

Message from a former Atlasite:

For the whole of this year I have read article after article and listened to lecture after lecture on Brazil's mediocre economic performance (I'm surprised I haven't seen you at them, they're very informative), and have wondered, if, or really when, a movement like this would ever emerge, and lo and behold it has.

Now, the interesting thing is what this movement means. I recall looking at the first headlines and stories from Veja, Folha, et al, and they were calling the first protesters in SP "vandals", "rascals" and the like, but when they started to gain an anti-establishment tinge all of a sudden the media was talking up how the "activists" had valid concerns (which of course they do). Now, I'm openly right wing and probably more fond of the PSDB than is healthy for a foreigner, but it reeks of opportunism and an attempt to undermine the government... but perhaps it deserves to be undermined.

Now the big question is what happens next? The games will go ahead, that it certain, for it not to happen would be a major embarrassment for Brazil. These may be the biggest protests since Collor was impeached, but I don't think that's going to happen with this government (but hey, you never know). So it really comes down to the election next year, unless things really heat up.

The real question whether voters will recognize Marina, Aecio, or Eduardo Campos as representing real change or just "more of the same". Now I happen to think FHC was more transformative than Lula, and really what is happening is that the PT is no longer able to coast on the reforms made in the 90s- and they don't know what to do. But clearly I hold a minority position; if you look at both of Serra's campaigns he made a ham-handed attempt to "out-left" Lula and Dilma, which shows how uncommon it is.

These next 14 months will be huge for Dilma. She knows that cheap populism isn't enough anymore. We more or less have a middle class society now who now want quality education, healthcare and infrastructure. Serious attempts of reform is needed. The big one now is the concession of airports, roads and railways that will happen in the next 6 months. If that goes through, and construction starts next year with a great increase in investment that will give her some breathing room. She will also need to push and sign an anti corruption bill that most likely will be passed. Brazil's congress currently has many criminals "serving" the public, they need to be tried and go to jail. However at the moment the most pressing matter is happening at municipal level where mayors are suspending increases in transportation fares and even reducing prices. That will be the first thing, followed by the corruption bill. But we definitely need some legislation on tax reform, desperately needed.

What I'd like to see is someone who again challenges the high-tax, big government policies that we see today, which is what is holding back growth. I recall reading that many poor people were paying more in tax than they were getting from the Bolsa Familia. So it isn't even helping the poor. I could go on and on about structural problems, the electoral system, corruption, but then this would be too long to read.

But hey, FHC is "only" 82 years old... whaddya think?

[Peter the Lefty]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22961874
Dilma pretends to sympathize with the protesters.  And so it goes.  Lol

[batmacumba]

Well, let me put it this way:

everyone is projecting themselves on their analysis. The facts are:

- a traditional popular movement was putting their demands (the MPL - Movimento Passe Livre / Free [bus] Pass Movement, basically a movement led by students) - every year they do protests; while inflation was around 370% between 94-13, the bus tariffs raised 700% (in Belo Horizonte, can't tell about São Paulo) and a ever growing group defends that abolishing tariffs will, in the end, be more economic to the government;
- the traditional media systematically called them vandals (vândalos) and rascals (baderneiros), because, as traditional as the protests, were their conflicts with the police (a couple of years ago it was made obvious that the protesters were less to blame than the police force);
- this year, there were some precedents that were making many groups pissed off, and there is a spread perception that politics obey only rich pressure groups, with every sphere of government controlled by corporations, evangelicals and machine controllers, independently of party lines, usually in siamese twinning;
- also, this year, the police brutality went out of control; it was so grotesque that it made lots of people act in the way they could: sharing on social media;
- this made the traditional media look bad, but they, initially, didn't care; only after journalists got hurt by the police's coward actions, the fingerpointing to the 'rascals' stopped;
- once indignation was spread and people started getting out to the streets, to support the original protesters, a lot of narratives started:
    1 - finally 'the people' was showing the "spread dissatisfaction with 'the government'", that MSM always talked about, but had never put more than a dozen rich brats in the street;
    2 - it was against corruption;
    3 - it was the middle class demanding better services;
- a couple of demonstration days after, some of these groups really started showing themselves at the rallies, among other groups; neither of them is the 'new middle class'; anyone who repeat this narrative is ill-intentioned and had not even got to any of the demonstrations;
- basically, the groups that are showing there are:
    1 - the radical left;
    2 - groups advocating non-corporatist urban solutions, sustainable and focused on the citizen, not on constructors profits (these groups are, generally, twinned with those on item 1, or with the PT);
    3 - people showing unfocused indignation with police brutality, corporatist government control, authoritarian state government actions and an absolute lack of accountability by politicians of all parties;
    4 - elite kids, who adhered to the protests following the MSM narrative (they're each day more conspicuous, but far from majority, yet), complaining about anything the federal government does, including the programs for the poor; this ones tried to beggin anti-Lula or anti-Dilma demonstrations before, but were ridiculously unsuccessful;
    5 - people complaining that the spending with the World Cup is misdirected and should be going to healthcare and education (these are a mix of number 1 and 4, but - its my evaluation, sure - these last ones are doing it in a opportunistic way, once they were for welfare privatization, before);
- it's a very diverse group with very diverse demands, started by indignation and fulled by so many different (and sometimes opposite) dissatisfactions.

Anything else is a projection of the analyst.

So, let me project my analysis and concerns.

- Poor people are watching it with some amusement.
- The 'new middle class' only exists because this government's programs. They may share, now, some concerns with the old one, but they're still grateful enough to Lula and still see the PSDB as the guys who didn't want the kind of economy structure that put them forward.
- The intellectual part of the 'old middle class' is kinda confused, and could support the PT, the left opposition or someone who could convince them that the corporatist status can be broken.
- The traditionalist part of the 'old middle class' hates the PT government, once they've been told how bad it is for the last 11 years and they believe that the whole movement is what they were expecting from 'the people'.
- The actual elite is playing puppets and waiting to see what happens.
- Anything can happen with the protests.

- I remember very well FHC's government: nothing to do, nothing to work on, bare stagflation, a privatization program which put everything in the hands of PSDB's financial supporters, making awful deals for the State (many of them made the State pay to PSDB's guys get the companies); a general prosecutor who stopped any investigation against government staff; a quite decadence from Itamar Franco's and Ciro Gomes' Plano Real; so: no, thanks; anything that resemble it (a.k.a. neoliberalism or any name you give it) will gain my combat;
- the great problem the country is facing is the preponderance of business interests over public ones; and a myopic approach on infrastructure, following constructor's orientation, not planners;
- Cities are being utterly destroyed by over-construction, infrastructural works aimed at expanding car use, destruction of built cultural heritage to build skyscrapers where the extant infrastructure is unable to bear, brutal eviction of poor...

These two last concerns are (clearly for me) behind the diffuse dissatisfaction of one part of the original protests, the other part is more tricky, but I'll try to make a call.

The raise on living standards for the poor impacted greatly the middle class. Many of my somewhat conservative friends are complaining they aren't able to pay for the house servants anymore.
Yeah, that's what you've read. Housemaids, gardeners, handymen to change your lights. That's what the Brazilian middle-class was used. Working hands were so cheap, you lived like a rich. And then, one day, you can't pay them that crap you used to pay, anymore. They have options. But the problem is that you pay a somewhat expensive school for your children, a somewhat expensive healthcare plan, and the free, public option is crap.
So, first, you stop being a slot and start doing some home improvement yourself. But you work 44 hours a week, your wife too and your culture (and climate, and dust everywhere) asks for your house to be cleaned everyday; someone have to watch the children after school; poor are getting life-standard improvement, rich are getting richer, you have neither; you see a lot of things going in a wrong direction, you are a well informed person, but the political class seemed to have married entrepreneurs and forget about you. You pay the taxes for it all.
So, lots of my middle class friends started summing 2+2. And I was surprised, last weekend, to hear a bunch of people who had ever voted for the right saying: "our parents had free, good quality education and health care, affordable housing; they were convinced to change it, got what they were promised, but now our children will have neither".

Well, maybe this can be a too little and biased microcosmos, a bunch of thirty-many and forty-something years old professionals who were well educated in top-ranking universities, in a city where local politics were always dominated by left-social-christian politicians. But it is pretty telly for me.

[batmacumba]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22961874
Dilma pretends to sympathize with the protesters.  And so it goes.  Lol

I don't doubt she sympathize, deep in the most unreachable part of her soul. But she compromised too much with too much crooks to do anything. The only thing the PT wants, is to preserve their social programs and neokeynesian model, at any cost.

[batmacumba]

A glimpse on Monday's march, before the police attacked.