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[Tomasoares]

I would like to have seen the "green-and-yellow" folk being actively against any meddling with Lava-Jato and showing that they're not about assassinating a single political party.

What I did see was Temer being declared "superior" to Dilma while doing the same thing she's being condemned of doing in the same paragraph.

I also learned that while hiring politicians that are being investigated for corruption, the fact that they still have their political privileges can be an attenuating factor, apparently...

1. That "green-and-yellow" people would've come to the streets if Jucá stayed on the government, the pressure on Temer is still here.

2. Tiops alreadly explained to you about differences between Temer and Dilma, but you conveniently ignored him.

3. What?

I'll ask: It's the people here who's having double standards or you?

 

[Road of Ease]

Tiops alreadly explained to you about differences between Temer and Dilma, but you conveniently ignored him.

I'll quote myself: "while hiring politicians that are being investigated for corruption, the fact that they still have their political privileges can be an attenuating factor".

I don't think this sentence misrepresented what he said. Do You think it did? If so, why?

Also, if you think I have a double standard, please be straight-forward in why you think that, like I was to you.

 

[Massa]

Of course Greenwald chimed in, he's been fucking crazy about this for ages.

Some wisdom from him, from a month ago:

 

[sinxtanx]

And how are we having The Olympics there in 2 months?

Olympic commitee wants to bring in more viewers with added drama is all

 

[Tiops]

I would like to have seen the "green-and-yellow" folk being actively against any meddling with Lava-Jato and showing that they're not about assassinating a single political party.

What I did see was Temer being declared "superior" to Dilma while doing the same thing she's being condemned of doing in the same paragraph.

I also learned that while hiring politicians that are being investigated for corruption, the fact that they still have their political privileges can be an attenuating factor, apparently...

The green-and-yellow folk didn't go to the streets when Delcidio, leader of Dilma's government in the senate, was caught and arrested for meddling with Lava Jato. The green and yellow folk didn't go to the streets when Mercadante also got caught in recordings, trying to meddle with Lava Jato too. They didn't go to the streets every day that something happened. If they did, no one would work here, as everyday there's shit happening. The only major protest that happened without previous organization was when Lula was added by Dilma to the government as an obvious obstruction of justice. Every other major protest where organized with fixed dates, months ahead.

Temer was declared "superior" by tomasoares here for reasons he and I already explained and you continue to ignore. And not superior as a whole, just saying that he acted better than the previous government in this specific action.

And who said that it's and attenuating factor? Seriously, who? I said that it's a different situation than Lula, that had no privilege and was added to the government on the verge of his arrest, and that was a bigger reason for an uproar.

 

[Typhares]

From a European perspective the Brazilian situation is hard to follow and seems kinda crazy.
Everyone seems guilty just to varying degree and there is no winning move.

I have a friend that lives in Salvador so we talk about it from time to time, I find it quite fascinating to see and try to understand something happening on the other side of the world.

 

[Tiops]

From a European perspective the Brazilian situation is hard to follow and seems kinda crazy.
Everyone seems guilty just to varying degree and there is no winning move.

I have a friend that lives in Salvador so we talk about it from time to time, I find it quite fascinating to see and try to understand something happening on the other side of the world.

It really, really sucks. And unfortunately, everything is polarized and we have lots of people defending these corrupt fuckers, instead of majority of the population uniting and try to make things work.

And you're right, there's guilty people in all the major parties, so the investigations are always threatened by politicians that are trying to save themselves. I believe we'll take many years to get out of this situation.

 

[Road of Ease]

The green-and-yellow folk didn't go to the streets when Delcidio, leader of Dilma's government in the senate, was caught and arrested for meddling with Lava Jato. The green and yellow folk didn't go to the streets when Mercadante also got caught in recordings, trying to meddle with Lava Jato too. They didn't go to the streets every day that something happened. If they did, no one would work here, as everyday there's shit happening. The only major protest that happened without previous organization was when Lula was added by Dilma to the government as an obvious obstruction of justice. Every other major protest where organized with fixed dates, months ahead.

Temer was declared "superior" by tomasoares here for reasons he and I already explained and you continue to ignore. And not superior as a whole, just saying that he acted better than the previous government in this specific action.

And who said that it's and attenuating factor? Seriously, who? I said that it's a different situation than Lula, that had no privilege and was added to the government on the verge of his arrest, and that was a bigger reason for an uproar.

I know it's unrealistic to expect people to go to the streets spontaneously over this, but since we're in the mood of comparing things, simply expressing indignation while not trying to claim Temer is superior to Dilma in any way would have been... a "superior" stance in my opinion. It wouldn't feel like he's petting Temer in the head for doing the least while he still has other 6 or 7 ministers (even after Jucá left) that are being investigated by Lava Jato.

 

[Tomasoares]

It might be "superior" in your point of view, but regardless, this has no relation with having double-standards when comparing Temer and Dilma.

 

[Tiops]

I know it's unrealistic to expect people to go to the streets spontaneously over this, but since we're in the mood of comparing things, simply expressing indignation while not trying to claim Temer is superior to Dilma in any way would have been... a "superior" stance in my opinion. It wouldn't feel like he's petting Temer in the head for doing the least while he still has other 6 or 7 ministers (even after Jucá left) that are being investigated by Lava Jato.

Fair enough. I do agree that we shouldn't compare Temer to Dilma and give him a free pass only because he did something possibly better than Dilma. We have to stay informed and keep protesting about every bad decision they make (while also supporting good decisions).

But I think tomasoares said that in a relieved way, to see that at least Jucá is not a minister anymore, that something changed to "better" at least a bit (even if they did that only to prevent more damage to the government's image), and not in a way to support Temer. At least that's what I get from his posts.

 

[Road of Ease]

It might be "superior" in your point of view, but regardless, this has no relation with having double-standards when comparing Temer and Dilma.

You really feel that way?

I mean, think about it: Dilma's fall has been irreversible for weeks if not months before it actually happened, Temer had all this time to listen to the "voice of the Street", to plan a "merit-based", corruption-free government... and he STILL picked as many as 7 people that are being investigated for as many crimes as they are?

It just doesn't sit well with me. Sorry.

 

[Typhares]

It really, really sucks. And unfortunately, everything is polarized and we have lots of people defending these corrupt fuckers, instead of majority of the population uniting and try to make things work.

And you're right, there's guilty people in all the major parties, so the investigations are always threatened by politicians that are trying to save themselves. I believe we'll take many years to get out of this situation.

Well some of it is no different from politics everywhere else. Put the blame on easy targets be it immigrants, poor people in order to polarize the political debate and get away with things. Divide and conquer I guess.

The perspective I get from my friend sometimes leaves me speechless. Admittedly she is young and started studying in a public university so I get most anecdotes about the education system and how messed up it seems to be. She always seems scared about strikes or funding being pulled in fact it seems a variety of government funded programs have been cancelled already. And she is concerned about societal issues such as LGBT rights etc so I know she is not happy about Dilma being out as she was seeing her as the lesser of two evils. I think I can understand that, if the 'clean up' stops there then I don't see how Brazil is better off.

 

[Sulik2]

And how are we having The Olympics there in 2 months?

If the IOC wasn't even more corrupt then Brazil's government they would have asked London to host it again two years ago when it became evident Brazil wasn't going to be ready.

 

[Tiops]

Well some of it is no different from politics everywhere else. Put the blame on easy targets be it immigrants, poor people in order to polarize the political debate and get away with things. Divide and conquer I guess.

The perspective I get from my friend sometimes leaves me speechless. Admittedly she is young and started studying in a public university so I get most anecdotes about the education system and how messed up it seems to be. She always seems scared about strikes or funding being pulled in fact it seems a variety of government funded programs have been cancelled already. And she is concerned about societal issues such as LGBT rights etc so I know she is not happy about Dilma being out as she was seeing her as the lesser of two evils. I think I can understand that, if the 'clean up' stops there then I don't see how Brazil is better off.

Government programs where already getting cuts during Dilma's government. Last year, there was a R$10.00 billion cut to Education (around $4.00 billion with current's exchange rates), and sadly no one from the left protested. Public schools are already in a pretty bad situation, I have a friend that teaches physics in a federal university and he says that they're pretty much broke at the moment. What people fail to see is that it's impossible to keep social programs without money, and what the current economic team is doing is to get the real situation of our economy and try to balance things up. If they're actually going to do anything, it's hard to tell, but the current economic minister is pretty competent, and he was actually an economic leader during Lula's government, so he's not a right wing devil that will fuck over all the poor people or anything.

Thing is, Temer's is not a right wing politician that will implement all the conservative measures during his stay. He was Dilma's vice-president since her first election in 2010. We had center-left governments since forever, and it's because of the failures of these governments that we can see the raise of the right wing in the recent years. The risks that exist for minorities here (e.g. LGBT community) is more related to the already existing lower house, with the increase of ever increasing evangelical group. I don't think any of the current rights are going to be stripped from any group. But yes, we'll probably see cuts in some stuff, as we have no money. And yes, unfortunately, there won't be cuts to the politicians' already absurdly high salaries.

 

[Gbraga]

Shocking =P

I'll have to agree with you on this one. PMDB being PMDB.

I know she is not happy about Dilma being out as she was seeing her as the lesser of two evils. I think I can understand that, if the 'clean up' stops there then I don't see how Brazil is better off.

The problem with that reasoning is that "the bigger evil" isn't the current president. She made her choice about the two evils, and the one she considered worse, lost. And was even hostilized among protesters. Temer is the vice-president she voted for. You can't say you made a choice between two evils when you voted for both.

She's mixing two completely different discussions.

 

[Typhares]

The problem with that reasoning is that "the bigger evil" isn't the current president. She made her choice about the two evils, and the one she considered worse, lost. And was even hostilized among protesters. Temer is the vice-president she voted for. You can't say you made a choice between two evils when you voted for both.

She's mixing two completely different discussions.

Actually I don't think she voted for Dilma, at least not at first for sure, I think she wanted Marina Silva to win. But against Neves then yes probably.
As I said it's quite hard to follow and understand from the outside especially since information is usually quite loaded one side or the other.

Government programs where already getting cuts during Dilma's government. Last year, there was a R$10.00 billion cut to Education (around $4.00 billion with current's exchange rates), and sadly no one from the left protested. Public schools are already in a pretty bad situation, I have a friend that teaches physics in a federal university and he says that they're pretty much broke at the moment. What people fail to see is that it's impossible to keep social programs without money, and what the current economic team is doing is to get the real situation of our economy and try to balance things up. If they're actually going to do anything, it's hard to tell, but the current economic minister is pretty competent, and he was actually an economic leader during Lula's government, so he's not a right wing devil that will fuck over all the poor people or anything.

Thing is, Temer's is not a right wing politician that will implement all the conservative measures during his stay. He was Dilma's vice-president since her first election in 2010. We had center-left governments since forever, and it's because of the failures of these governments that we can see the raise of the right wing in the recent years. The risks that exist for minorities here (e.g. LGBT community) is more related to the already existing lower house, with the increase of ever increasing evangelical group. I don't think any of the current rights are going to be stripped from any group. But yes, we'll probably see cuts in some stuff, as we have no money. And yes, unfortunately, there won't be cuts to the politicians' already absurdly high salaries.

Oh yes I could see the situation at her federal university was already terrible way before all this and as you said if there is no money no one can make any miracles.
About Temer I'll admit I no next to nothing about him, I could just see some negative posts about him coming to office but I couldn't really understand why. The only one I understood (if accurate) was a post outlining the lack of diversity in the newly formed government.

 

[FreedomFighter]

It's not a coup. Corrupt people threw a corrupt colleague to the dogs to try and "stem the flow". The procedure was perfectly valid, the motivation not so much.

It is definitely a coup.

How else would anyone PMDB have gotten into office? Via the vote? Please.

Greenwald, such an impartial person!

It's not a coup.

Who will you find impartial on this? Someone who has the same opinion as you do? Greenwald didn't leak the transcripts at all, he only reported on them. I would expect him to have strong feelings about this topic given he lives in Brazil. He is human after all.

 

[Jackpot]

It is definitely a coup.

How else would anyone PMDB have gotten into office? Via the vote? Please.

Do you deny Dilma is up to her neck in corruption warranting an impeachment?

Hint: an impeachment is expressly created as a way to legally remove a sitting president. A coup is the exact opposite.

Who will you find impartial on this? Someone who has the same opinion as you do? Greenwald didn't leak the transcripts at all, he only reported on them. I would expect him to have strong feelings about this topic given he lives in Brazil. He is human after all.

Greenwald's previous articles show he's completely detached from reality on this. There's a multitude of good outlets covering this.

 

[Tiops]

It is definitely a coup.

Except that it's not. Come on. You can say that lots of politicians there had shitty reasons to support the impeachment, but it's not a coup. Dilma is there will all her privileges, being judged by the supreme court, having the opportunity to return in 6 months, exactly like in our constitution. It's not a coup.

Who will you find impartial on this? Someone who has the same opinion as you do? Greenwald didn't leak the transcripts at all, he only reported on them. I would expect him to have strong feelings about this topic given he lives in Brazil. He is human after all.

There's a lot of sources that at least try to stay with the facts. Greenwald is defending Dilma since the beginning, he's not just reporting the script. Saying "LOOK AT THIS OBVIOUS COUP" is not only reporting.

 

[Platy]

Discussion if it is not a coup or not is like discussions about abortion.
Like how in abortion you are actualy discussing when "life" starts, you need to discuss what you consider a coup.

While it was perfectly legal, the REASONS BEHIND IT were "coupistic" so I call it a coup because for me, the REASONS for making an impeachment were not what was used for such.

Other people say it is not a coup because to be a coup it needs to be some illegal way to trow a president out, not an illegal idea behind with a legal reason up front.

I like Chomsk's "Soft Coup" idea since it is like a "pseudo golpe" because the reasons are theoricaly legal

 

[M3d10n]

Schrödinger's coup.

Do you deny Dilma is up to her neck in corruption warranting an impeachment?

She's not being impeached for corruption, you know that right? Not saying she doesn't have her own share of shady, but they haven't found it yet or else it would be stamped everywhere. She broke a fiscal responsibility law, which is grounds for impeachment, but isn't the same thing bribery.

 

[forknknife]

I don't care if this is a coup or not. What's clear for me are the following:

The politicians who wanted the impeachment saw this as a soft coup and a way of getting rid of Dilma. Nothing else. Telling yourself it was still worth it because there should be tolerance zero against financial mismanagement would be OK if you lived in a country with a healthy democracy and low corruption levels. Here however you have just created a bigger issue.

The people who were protesting on the streets demanding the impeachment obviously did not have the fight against corruption as their main goal because otherwise they would have stayed on the street protesting the second Temer government was formed. Instead now all those people are all oh so conveniently quiet. Maybe there will be some exceptions but here it's also clear that this was an anti PT movement all along.

So yeah, call it what you want, but this was all a political strategy by the Brazilian right wing to "fix" the bad results from the previous elections. You've been played and you're all eating crow now, so face it.

 

[Massa]

It is definitely a coup.

How else would anyone PMDB have gotten into office? Via the vote? Please.

A coup implies illegality. What part of the process was illegal? None. As you will note in this thread even people saying it's a coup agree with it and instead change the definition of the word to fit their agenda.

Via the vote is exactly how PMDB got into office. Of course if you would argue that Dilma and Temer's campaign was illegal I would completely agree with you. Not only because of the lies and immoral campaign attacks but the illegal funds they used to finance it as well.

The 70% of Congress who voted to have her on trial were also voted into their offices to represent the people. It's one thing to be opposed to a process, it's another to ignore the Law and proceed to say it's illegal.

 

[Tiops]

So yeah, call it what you want, but this was all a political strategy by the Brazilian right wing to "fix" the bad results from the previous elections. You've been played and you're all eating crow now, so face it.

What right wing?

Oh well, I believe there's no point in arguing. You think it's a coup, I don't think it's a coup, someone else will disagree with you, other will disagree with me. It's pretty pointless. I'll just stay here hoping that the country improves it's situation somehow in the future.

 

[linsivvi]

I don't care if this is a coup or not. What's clear for me are the following:

The politicians who wanted the impeachment saw this as a soft coup and a way of getting rid of Dilma. Nothing else. Telling yourself it was still worth it because there should be tolerance zero against financial mismanagement would be OK if you lived in a country with a healthy democracy and low corruption levels. Here however you have just created a bigger issue.

The people who were protesting on the streets demanding the impeachment obviously did not have the fight against corruption as their main goal because otherwise they would have stayed on the street protesting the second Temer government was formed. Instead now all those people are all oh so conveniently quiet. Maybe there will be some exceptions but here it's also clear that this was an anti PT movement all along.

So yeah, call it what you want, but this was all a political strategy by the Brazilian right wing to "fix" the bad results from the previous elections. You've been played and you're all eating crow now, so face it.

Yep, and I would take Noam Chomsky's opinion over almost anyone else. He called it a "soft coup" and that "she's impeached by a gang of thieves". That's good enough for me.

 

[allansm]

Via the vote is exactly how PMDB got into office. Of course if you would argue that Dilma and Temer's campaign was illegal I would completely agree with you. Not only because of the lies and immoral campaign attacks but the illegal funds they used to finance it as well.

Temer was elected to be Vice-President, not President. Also, it was expected that if he became president, he would continue Dilma's policies and government program, not adopt the oppositions government program and policies. Besides, he actively plotted to have the president removed from office. There is no way you can say his government is legitimate and that he got into office via the vote.

It really, really sucks. And unfortunately, everything is polarized and we have lots of people defending these corrupt fuckers, instead of majority of the population uniting and try to make things work.

I assume you are a right wing person and you are implying that left wing people are defending corrupts. As a left wing supporter, I can assure you that is not the case, exempt from a tiny majority of workers party defenders. Most left wingers didn't support impeachment because we feared right wing politicians wanted to impeach Dilma to stop corruptions investigations (and we were right) and we also thought that budgetary tricks were not an infraction worth of impeachment. Also, left wingers are deeply disappointing with PT due to corruption and many broken promises, there is even some discussion going on for a few years regarding an alternative to the PT, but unfortunately there is none yet.

We hate corruption as much as the "green and yellow people", we just weren't protesting with them because the protests and rightful indignation were being used as an excuse by right wing politicians to overthrow the government and implement ring wing policies which we don't support.

I also think it is important to say that many left wingers weren't happy with Dilma's government in 2014, I thought it was a bad government, but when your other options are Aécio Neves (corrupt right wing politician) and Marina Silva (not corrupt as far as we know, but her economical program was 100% neoliberalism), there were no other options besides abstaining or voting for Dilma.

 

[mantidor]

in Game of Thrones terms, is the High Sparrow running the government now?

Outside of having the people's support this is not that inaccurate.

 

[Tiops]

Temer was elected to be Vice-President, not President. Also, it was expected that if he became president, he would continue Dilma's policies and government program, not adopt the oppositions government program and policies. Besides, he actively plotted to have the president removed from office. There is no way you can say his government is legitimate and that he got into office via the vote.

She's being impeached for breaking fiscal responsibility laws, why the hell would the new government continue to work in the same way that caused the impeachment in the first place?

 

[FreedomFighter]

Yep, and I would take Noam Chomsky's opinion over almost anyone else. He called it a "soft coup" and that "she's impeached by a gang of thieves". That's good enough for me.

Exactly.

A coup implies illegality. What part of the process was illegal? None. *snip*

Damn that, I don't accept that at all.

And you have to know I'm not talking about Congress when I say that PMDB has no chance of being elected. I'm talking about the people in the streets, not some corrupt leadership. They've only lost the last four elections and 2018 would more than likely make five.

Knowing this, what better way than to just undermine and circumvent the democratic process all together and pull this stunt here. It's so blatantly a coup. If you have the collusion of corrupt politicians, the military, and key justices all in league, I'm not sure what else to call it. So we're just gonna have to disagree here.

 

[allansm]

She's being impeached for breaking fiscal responsibility laws, why the hell would the new government continue to work in the same way that caused the impeachment in the first place?

There is a huge difference between stop breaking budgetary laws and adopting a right wing neoliberal economical program. Breaking budget laws is not a left wing proposition, left wing economical policies also propose fiscal responsibility.

Right wingers might not know, but "pedalas fiscais", tax breaks for big companies ("bolsa empresário") are not left wing policies. Left wingers never supported these kind of things. Left wing economists were even angry with Dilma because they feared left wing economical policies might get a bad reputation in Brazil because of her poor handling of the economy (which was not based on left wing propositions!).

 

[Massa]

Temer was elected to be Vice-President, not President. Also, it was expected that if he became president, he would continue Dilma's policies and government program, not adopt the oppositions government program and policies. Besides, he actively plotted to have the president removed from office. There is no way you can say his government is legitimate and that he got into office via the vote.

Dilma's policies lead to the biggest recession in 80 years! Of course she denied that during the campaign, and immediately after taking office tried to implement an austerity program to fix the mess that she made. Of course, not even her own party supported her doing that, they still believed the lies. R$170 billion says they were wrong though.

I assume you are a right wing person and you are implying that left wing people are defending corrupts. As a left wing supporter, I can assure you that is not the case, exempt from a tiny majority of workers party defenders. Most left wingers didn't support impeachment because we feared right wing politicians wanted to impeach Dilma to stop corruptions investigations (and we were right) and we also thought that budgetary tricks were not an infraction worth of impeachment. Also, left wingers are deeply disappointing with PT due to corruption and many broken promises, there is even some discussion going on for a few years regarding an alternative to the PT, but unfortunately there is none yet.

We hate corruption as much as the "green and yellow people", we just weren't protesting with them because the protests and rightful indignation were being used as an excuse by right wing politicians to overthrow the government and implement ring wing policies which we don't support.

I also think it is important to say that many left wingers weren't happy with Dilma's government in 2014, I thought it was a bad government, but when your other options are Aécio Neves (corrupt right wing politician) and Marina Silva (not corrupt as far as we know, but her economical program was 100% neoliberalism), there were no other options besides abstaining or voting for Dilma.

Marina's economical program is pretty close to Aecio's, Levy's and now Meirelles. It's what nearly every single economist says the country needs to do right now. Dilma was the only one denying there was a problem, but again, she changed her tune right after the elections.

It's silly to think of right and left wings in a country dominated by cronies. Dilma was terrible for the economy, she was a terrible politician and she reached single digits approval ratings after the mess she made was unveiled to the public. And her government and party actively and publicly worked to block the corruption investigations.

Oh, and note: unlike Dilma's Justice Minister, Temer hasn't done anything against Lavajato yet. I don't like Temer, I actively dislike him, but I didn't vote for him anyway. You did.

 

[arevin01]

When this is all over, I bet it will be made into a movie, as it stands I can't really follow anymore who's corrupt and who's not.

 

[Road of Ease]

The politicians who wanted the impeachment saw this as a soft coup and a way of getting rid of Dilma. Nothing else. Telling yourself it was still worth it because there should be tolerance zero against financial mismanagement would be OK if you lived in a country with a healthy democracy and low corruption levels. Here however you have just created a bigger issue.

The people who were protesting on the streets demanding the impeachment obviously did not have the fight against corruption as their main goal because otherwise they would have stayed on the street protesting the second Temer government was formed. Instead now all those people are all oh so conveniently quiet. Maybe there will be some exceptions but here it's also clear that this was an anti PT movement all along.

Well said. This is how I see it as well.

The grim future of Brazil for the next few years is:

The left will keep protesting and keeping the coup "narrative" alive;

The right will keep blaming PT for everything while (hopelessly) asking for peace now that they got what they wanted;

Actual peace will remain nowhere in sight unless a serious political reform is made

 

[allansm]

Marina's economical program is pretty close to Aecio's, Levy's and now Meirelles. It's what nearly every single economist says the country needs to do right now. Dilma was the only one denying there was a problem, but again, she changed her tune right after the elections.

It's what nearly every single right wing economist says the country needs to do right now. There are alternatives to what Dilma did and to what right wing people are suggesting. Like I said before, Dilma was not following left wing economic policies, she was being criticized by left wing economists since 2012 at least. It was a consensus that she understood poorly the economy and instead of letting Mantega's do the work, she would interfere and force him to adopt her suggestions (and he would just say "yes ma'am" instead of challenging her on her bad decisions). There was hope among left wingers that she would change the handling of the economy after the 2014 election, but unfortunately instead of a course correction she took a right turn, and still kept interfering on the handling of the economy.

It's silly to think of right and left wings in a country dominated by cronies.

It's not. There are huge differences between a PT and PSDB government, for example.

Dilma was terrible for the economy, she was a terrible politician.

That we all agree.

She reached single digits approval ratings after the mess she made was unveiled to the public.

No. What tanked her approval was the poor handling of the economy, a right wing turn in the economical department and broken electoral promises.


And her government and party actively and publicly worked to block the corruption investigations.

Oh, and note: unlike Dilma's Justice Minister, Temer hasn't done anything against Lavajato yet.

You know that José Eduardo Cardozo was criticized by the PT and sympathizers from early 2015 until he left the ministry because he was not doing anything to interfere with the investigations? PT and Petistas hate Cardozo because they think he was a weak minister and did nothing to stop the operation Car Wash.

There are reports that early last year PT politicians had a meeting with Dilma and they asked her to do something to stop the investigations and her answer was: "I have nothing to fear and the investigations will continue".

if you think that Temer did nothing to stop corruption investigations, do a little research on what his changes to the CGU means for the fight against corruption and how it makes it more difficult to catch corrupt mayors and other less important politicians.

 

[mantidor]

When this is all over, I bet it will be made into a movie, as it stands I can't really follow anymore who's corrupt and who's not.

Well that part is easy, they all are.

 

[Tiops]

I assume you are a right wing person and you are implying that left wing people are defending corrupts. As a left wing supporter, I can assure you that is not the case, exempt from a tiny majority of workers party defenders. Most left wingers didn't support impeachment because we feared right wing politicians wanted to impeach Dilma to stop corruptions investigations (and we were right) and we also thought that budgetary tricks were not an infraction worth of impeachment. Also, left wingers are deeply disappointing with PT due to corruption and many broken promises, there is even some discussion going on for a few years regarding an alternative to the PT, but unfortunately there is none yet.

We hate corruption as much as the "green and yellow people", we just weren't protesting with them because the protests and rightful indignation were being used as an excuse by right wing politicians to overthrow the government and implement ring wing policies which we don't support.

I also think it is important to say that many left wingers weren't happy with Dilma's government in 2014, I thought it was a bad government, but when your other options are Aécio Neves (corrupt right wing politician) and Marina Silva (not corrupt as far as we know, but her economical program was 100% neoliberalism), there were no other options besides abstaining or voting for Dilma.

I consider myself a centrist person in terms of south american politics. I'm not saying that every left-leaning person is defending corrupts, I'm saying that there are a lot of people that do, and that's unfortunate. When Lula's recordings where turned to public, all I could see from the leftists was that they were illegal recordings and that the investigations where focused on the worker's party, but not a single person showed that they where indignant with the audio's contents. So, yes, I think there a lot of people that defend corrupt people to try to defend their political positions, even though these politicians do not give a fuck about what leftists defend.

Yes, many of them wanted to remove Dilma for their personal reasons, and people that are pro-impeachment know this. We've been saying this in this thread. But my reasoning in this situation is that we shouldn't just stay watching the country turning into shit, with an even bigger debt and unemployment rising every day, just because there are some ill intentions from some parties. My support for the impeachment is primarely because of the fiscal laws that were broken during Dilma's government, and it's a perfectly valid point and the legal basis for the current impeachment.

I know that most of the left wing despises corruption, but unfortunately many of them gave a free pass to PT because of this fear of the "right wing" assuming the control of the country. But I believe you should be more worried with the right wing rising because of the worker's party failures. All this situation is just causing crazy people like Bolsonaro to get more support. We have PT and PSOL defending fucking Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, even when the country is in a complete disaster. And what you hear from Maduro is that it's all a coup from United States and the opposition, while he continue to pretend everything is fine while people are dying there. All this shit is way more relevant to bring a rise of the right wing to the country than anything else.

What's the left solution for this? Continue to ignore that we don't have money to continue the social programs in the way they are and wait for an economical collapse? I'm asking this in an honestly curious way, and would like to see a purely leftist way of handle our current economy. If you could share some link for this, please do so as I'm really interested.

And please, I'm not saying that we should cut every social program and implement "right wing neoliberal economic policies" (that honestly I'm not seeing Temer implementing too), but at least some kind of responsible spending. At least assuming that we have huge issues and we need to change. We're on a pretty big recession right now and every day there are thousands of new unemployed people in the country, and that just leads to a multitude of other issues, and I honestly do not think that waiting Dilma to do her job (that she's been doing for the last 6 years) is the way to go, so I still support the impeachment.

 

[Massa]

It's what nearly every single right wing economist says the country needs to do right now. There are alternatives to what Dilma did and to what right wing people are suggesting. Like I said before, Dilma was not following left wing economic policies, she was being criticized by left wing economists since 2012 at least. It was a consensus that she understood poorly the economy and instead of letting Mantega's do the work, she would interfere and force him to adopt her suggestions (and he would just say "yes ma'am" instead of challenging her on her bad decisions). There was hope among left wingers that she would change the handling of the economy after the 2014 election, but unfortunately instead of a course correction she took a right turn, and still kept interfering on the handling of the economy.

Lula wanted Henrique Meirelles to run the economy, is Lula right wing? I don't think fixing a deficit of 170 billion is possible any other way.

It's not. There are huge differences between a PT and PSDB government, for example.

Lula seems to think PSDB is left-wing. Aécio denied being right wing during the last election. I think the terms are meaningless at this point, specially given the inconsistency in our country (for example, we have worker union leaders who are extremely conservative on issues like abortion and LGBT rights). The only thing that's always true in our system is cronyism. It's what kept PMDB and PT happily together for the past decade, and they will continue together in this years elections as well.

You know that José Eduardo Cardozo was criticized by the PT and sympathizers from early 2015 until he left the ministry because he was not doing anything to interfere with the investigations? PT and Petistas hate Cardozo because they think he was a weak minister and did nothing to stop the operation Car Wash.

There are reports that early last year PT politicians had a meeting with Dilma and they asked her to do something to stop the investigations and her answer was: "I have nothing to fear and the investigations will continue".

if you think that Temer did nothing to stop corruption investigations, do a little research on what his changes to the CGU means for the fight against corruption and how it makes it more difficult to catch corrupt mayors and other less important politicians.

Cardozo was fired and we had Aragão in his place, who was openly against Lavajato, threatening to kill the operation if there were any more leaks (like the one that started this topic). PT has constantly attacked Lavajato as a mere operation to remove them from power, despite the overwhelming evidence and convictions.

 

[Cipherr]

Having a hard time following. I thought that the lady that was President was corrupt, and that they had found some evidence of her corruption, and she wasn't going quietly saying it was all a setup.

Are you now saying that more evidence has come out AFTER her impeachment and it actually WAS a setup?

 

[Platy]

Having a hard time following. I thought that the lady that was President was corrupt, and that they had found some evidence of her corruption, and she wasn't going quietly saying it was all a setup.

Are you now saying that more evidence has come out AFTER her impeachment and it actually WAS a setup?

Yes... and she was ALWAYS the less corrupt high level politician ... she was NEVER mentioned on Lava Jato.
Her impeachment was because of budget problems and the protests was because she sucked, not because she was corrupt

 

[Massa]

Exactly.

Damn that, I don't accept that at all.

And you have to know I'm not talking about Congress when I say that PMDB has no chance of being elected. I'm talking about the people in the streets, not some corrupt leadership. They've only lost the last four elections and 2018 would more than likely make five.

Knowing this, what better way than to just undermine and circumvent the democratic process all together and pull this stunt here. It's so blatantly a coup. If you have the collusion of corrupt politicians, the military, and key justices all in league, I'm not sure what else to call it. So we're just gonna have to disagree here.

PMDB is actually the party with the most governors, senators and congress members. Their alliance with PT meant that Dilma had three times more ad time on TV than the closest candidate (candidates get 50 minutes of free TV time each day during elections). And PT already said they will continue their alliance on this years city elections! Have you seen a coup like that before, were the two parties form new political alliances just a few days after?

The military didn't participate at all in the impeachment process (perhaps except for a PT leader using the intelligence agency to bug the phones of PMDB leaders and members of the Supreme Court) and 8 of the 11 members of the Supreme Court were nominated by Lula/Dilma and they followed the Constitution to the letter. According to me, you say? Nope, Dilma admitted that our "democracy is solid" and the institutions are stronger than ever. That was 5 days ago.

 

[allansm]

When Lula's recordings where turned to public, all I could see from the leftists was that they were illegal recordings and that the investigations where focused on the worker's party, but not a single person showed that they where indignant with the audio's contents.

Can you tell me what is so offensive in these dialogues to you? When I read the transcripts at the time I didn't saw anything special in them. It was pure wishful thinking on Lula's part as he has no power to influence anyone. Left wing people know this. The Brazilian elite is right wing, they might help a right wing politician (Gilmar Mendes, a PSDB militant on the supreme court, stopping investigations about Aécio Neves) but they will never help a left wing politician. If the PT had any power over the judiciary José Dirceu would be free right now.

What's the left solution for this? Continue to ignore that we don't have money to continue the social programs in the way they are and wait for an economical collapse? I'm asking this in an honestly curious way, and would like to see a purely leftist way of handle our current economy. If you could share some link for this, please do so as I'm really interested.

The leftist solution is to temporarily recreate the CPMF and raise income taxes on the rich and upper middle class while lowering interest rates. Also, as Brasil's GDP to debt ratio is not that high, while the country is in recession the government should borrow money to invest on infrastructure, sanitation (poor areas and most of the country side lack sewage infrastructure), housing for the poor (Minha Casa Minha Vida) and keep the social programs going. This way the public sector eases the effects of the recession while the private sector is contracting. Once the private sector recovers from the recession and starts growing again, the government should cut the spending and implement austerity policies to pay the debt that was created to counter the recession.
Just to clarify, infrastructure investment should only be in something useful: highways, ports and railways to cheapen goods transportation across the country for example; or investments on public transportation. Things like infrastructure for the Olympics are poor investments.

Also, money giving to poor families through "Bolsa Familia" goes back to the economy and helps the commerce in poor areas.

And please, I'm not saying that we should cut every social program and implement "right wing neoliberal economic policies" (that honestly I'm not seeing Temer implementing too), but at least some kind of responsible spending.

Left wingers support responsible spending. We just think that during a recession, the government should spend more while saving during good times and, if some one has to pay, it should be those better off not the poor.

At least assuming that we have huge issues and we need to change. We're on a pretty big recession right now and every day there are thousands of new unemployed people in the country, and that just leads to a multitude of other issues, and I honestly do not think that waiting Dilma to do her job (that she's been doing for the last 6 years) is the way to go, so I still support the impeachment.

And I think that putting Temer on her place is not the solution. If you say "Impeachment" I'm 100% against, if you say new elections for president I'm 100% on your side.

I know that most of the left wing despises corruption, but unfortunately many of them gave a free pass to PT because of this fear of the "right wing" assuming the control of the country. But I believe you should be more worried with the right wing rising because of the worker's party failures.

Believe me, the worker's party failures are a matter of discussion since the "mensalão scandal", and discussion on this topic has increased a lot since the 2013 protests. PSOL is not an alternative to the PT as they are considered too radical and their economical proposals are unrealistic, and there isn't any other left wing party for people to vote for. What many people wish is something like Podemos, a left wing party connected to the people and who listen to its voters instead of the PT, which is closed and where only the party elite has a voice. Dilma, for example, is considered an outsider by the PT and the party never really liked her. She only became the candidate because Lula wanted. No one at the time knew that she was so stubborn and refused to listen to anyone, even her closest advisors.

All this situation is just causing crazy people like Bolsonaro to get more support. We have PT and PSOL defending fucking Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, even when the country is in a complete disaster. And what you hear from Maduro is that it's all a coup from United States and the opposition, while he continue to pretend everything is fine while people are dying there. All this shit is way more relevant to bring a rise of the right wing to the country than anything else.

Many leftists I know do not defend Maduro, they even think Venezuela is becoming a dictatorship right now. The support that Chavez got (and Maduro was getting until a few months ago) was in regards to the respect of the will of the people. Leftists think that it is up to the people to decide the fate of a president, not to other politicians. In this sense, if people voted for Maduro, he should be the president until the next election (unless his actions are an affront to democracy as Maduro's recent actions are) .

 

[Jackpot]

Having a hard time following. I thought that the lady that was President was corrupt, and that they had found some evidence of her corruption, and she wasn't going quietly saying it was all a setup.

Are you now saying that more evidence has come out AFTER her impeachment and it actually WAS a setup?

No she was corrupt. She just got thrown to the dogs by her corrupt colleagues to try and save their own skins.

Can you tell me what is so offensive in these dialogues to you? When I read the transcripts at the time I didn't saw anything special in them.

You are talking about the recordings where Dilma and Lula confirm he's being made a cabinet minister for immunity purposes? They were as damning as the latest ones and to pretend otherwise is blatent partisanship.

 

[M3d10n]

There is no viable self-proclaimed "right wing" party in Brazil because a party that openly declares itself and its agenda as right-wing automatically becomes unelectable in a country where the vast majority of the voting population is dirty poor. It's quite hard to sell the benefits of privatizing healthcare, education and scaling back workers' rights until they become competitive with China's to such audience.

As a result, right-wingers dress up their parties as centrist or partially leftist in order to get votes and pursue their agendas under the sheets.

 

[Cipherr]

No she was corrupt. She just got thrown to the dogs by her corrupt colleagues to try and save their own skins.

Ohh okay I see.

 

[Elchele]

lol
because right-wing politics are always the cleanest ones. Of course they did it all for the good of people and to stop the devil Dilma! You just purchased the shit the media was saying. Like most latin americans always do, that's why our region never manages to go forward, all those century rich corrupt people never want to let some of the cake go to the rest of the population.

 

[Jackpot]

Of course they did it all for the good of people and to stop the devil Dilma! You just purchased the shit the media was saying.

Who is saying this? I can see some posters saying the opposite extreme that Dilma was the innocent victim of a coup whilst desperately avoiding all the corruption she was involved in.

 

[Fuu]

When this is all over, I bet it will be made into a movie, as it stands I can't really follow anymore who's corrupt and who's not.

There's already a Netflix series in the works about Lava Jato, directed by Padilha.

https://media.netflix.com/en/press-...on-current-brazilian-corruption-investigation

With the way things are going they'll need more than 1 season for sure...

 

[NSESN]

I just find sad people trying to protect politicians now, after yesterday i am really pessimistic about the situation, i just can't see the situation getting better.

 

[Sblargh]

One thing I keep seeing on this thread is how PMDB would never have gotten power through elections and that's kind of a misinterpretation of the criticism the party is going through right now.

They are trying to pass policies that would make a politician instantly unelectable in case he or she campaigned on that, but, the party itself, by all measures, is the most successful political party in the country right now. They have the most mayors, the most senate seats, most house seats and they were in the ticket that got into the presidency. It's a part of the debate I feel it is being overlooked on this thread: most of the actors on this shit-show had no problem getting elected at all; they are popular in their particular state (which is a lot harder than being popular in an american district, for example, since we don't divide stuff in homogenous districts like the US apparently does) and a very good argument could be made that PT (the workers' party) would never get elected to the presidency (and to a lot of other positions) if PMDB wasn't with them.

Right now, I would say, PMDB would have less trouble re-electing themselves legitimately (especially if they keep this alliance with the PSDB) than PT would. Even with all the corruption sorrounding them.
And municipal elections are coming soon, PT even said that will allow mayors to share the ticket with the PMDB (the party who they still declare did a coup against them). Think about the insanity of this last bit for a moment.
You say "this party did a coup d'etat to throw us out of power, they are ilegitimate, criminals and should be in jail, BUT we are ok with still being allied with them, you know, depending on how likely this would make for you to hold power in your city". They do that because if they don't, a bunch of mayors will jump out of ship because they need PMDB to get elected on their hometowns; the same happens in reverse, too.

Brazil lives a crisis of excess of realpolitik in a way and so it is jarring to see a thread like this devolve into idealistic left vs right.

 

[Platy]

Right now, I would say, PMDB would have less trouble re-electing themselves legitimately (especially if they keep this alliance with the PSDB) than PT would. Even with all the corruption sorrounding them.

PMDB ? Maybe

Temer ? NEVER
Temer has ZERO charisma. And he is legally forbidden to run for an election for a long time =P