The Latin America thread (VE, BR, AR, CU, MX...)

Trump is not a dictator like Putin and Pinochet but your typical populist latin america know rather well, in fact every he did give me a sent of deja vu after is movement come and blunder every damn time, I kind use US right now and compared to Maduro to see how populist face in a devopt country against a underdevopt one.

True, true.

My professor spent a lot of time talking about the Nicaraguan revolution - she was a journalist prior to becoming a historian, she saw the revolution unfold and the fighting. Very interesting, too, especially in how the Sandinistas became successful.

edited 11th Apr '18 10:00:29 AM by TheWildWestPyro

I'm thinking about how much racism is related on things like Ollanta Humala, a andean Peruvian President is in jail while Alan Garcia, who have a even biggest rapsheet is free.

I mean, both are suspected of corruption but well, Alan is white, and Ollanta is Andean with a Andean name. Also, another Andean president (Alejandro Toledo) is being chased for corruption too.

Of course, they all are likely guilty and Alan is a better manipulator but, still.

edited 13th Apr '18 10:31:54 AM by KazuyaProta

While I’ll admt that there’s still racism to be addressed here, I think skin colour is not the reason why Alan is still free.

The reason why he’s not in jail is because the APRA still wields a lot of power in the Judical power, we saw that in his second term when many members of the party got away with slaps on the wrist.

That's why I said that Alan is the better manipulator.

Albeit damn, it feels akward.

So, my class covered the Brazilian oil crisis of the 1980s.

Any Brazilian tropers like to weigh in on Brazil's current state today?

Things are....well, honestly they're fucking terrible.

What you have to understand is that Brazil has an incredibly weak democratic tradition. We fall into a dictatorship every 30 years or so, interspersed by maybe the same period of democracy if we're lucky. The period you went over was preceded by an incredibly cruel and repressive military dictatorship that did incredible damage to this country, morally, intellectually, civically, etc.

In the past two years the far right has gotten an enormous amount of ground; the religious right is scoring victory after victory, our own version of Trump is a strong contender to win and a number of military leaders are spoiled thugs who think they deserve to run the country because they do and have threatened to stage a coup if Lula isn't taken to prison and prevented from running because he's beating Bolsonaro in the polls. And since they've done it before not even that long ago, they could probably do so and there's numbers to indicate they'd have the support for it.

Our country never properly dealt with the fallout of the dictatorship. The people responsible never got punished and way too many people are too spoiled, privileged and ignorant to think that because they didn't get to know what was going on back then, that means nothing bad was happening, even though their government was just as corrupt, inefficient and bureaucratic as any we've ever had. But people don't want to accept that their experience isn't everyone's experience and how nothing will be better if the right takes charge. They think that just because Bolsonaro hasn't been charged with anything that he must be clean, ignoring how every fascist is always corrupt and even beyond that he's so awful that putting him into power would literally make this country a nightmare to live in.

There's three possible scenarios for the elections this year:

a) A left-wing candidate wins (most likely Ciro Gomes), and for whatever reason the army and the far right let us have a semblance of a democracy for another few years at least. I find this terribly unlikely.

b) A left-wing candidate wins, but the right refuses to accept it and throws a coup to take control of the country.

c) Bolsonaro wins, the right takes power and this country is fucked for the next two-three decades (and possibly more).

The only silver lining is that unlike the days of the military dicatorship back in the 60's, they can't have the absolute control they did before because the internet exists and the world as a whole is far more interconnected. They will surely try to censor the internet but nothing in this country works like it should. Even China and Russia's firewalls aren't absolute and no matter how much they want to they can't stop people from reaching out and telling the rest of the world what's going on.

edited 20th Apr '18 7:49:51 PM by Draghinazzo

30 years of democracy? Wow that's a long time, buddy.

(I'm Peruvian, our democracy have only 20 years)

And yeah, it seems fucked up. Sorry for you, why the Left vs Right conflicts are almost always White And Black Morality unless they're Evil Versus Evil?

edited 20th Apr '18 8:00:13 PM by KazuyaProta

Obviously that depends entirely on how you (or they) define "white" and "black."

Now, you may be concerned with the actual material consequences of right-wing policies that increase human suffering and misery, in your worldview. But if they fundamentally believe left-wing policies are the work of the literal Devil, for example, that doesn't leave them much of choice, in their worldview.

edited 20th Apr '18 8:13:22 PM by Eschaton

You just sounded smug, I obviously talk about the actual consequences and honestly, even their intentions aren't good.

Obviously what causes human misery is the black here. Not pure evil but still black

Moral relativism is a scam

My question remains here, Humans Are Bastards and that's why the Right Wing still exist (Token Good Teammate don't mean anything, they're the token good) or is just that the Right Wing have being playing a bad card for a while (unlikely, given their historial)

edited 20th Apr '18 8:40:11 PM by KazuyaProta

We did look at the military dictatorship too, and Argentina's, and Chile's September 11th.

We also looked at Lula, how he's doing, and my professor talked a little about how much of a dick Bolsanaro is.

The Brazilian student at my college jokes his country will either get the murderous psychopath or the 'communist.'

edited 20th Apr '18 9:11:37 PM by TheWildWestPyro

Tell him it could be worse. At least they don't have a murderous asshole Communist, like Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao and...etc.

He's joking about the communist bit. Lula da Silva's a socialist. Lula is also still in jail, but he's still leading, it seems.

Lula is still very popular and has plenty of supporters.

edited 20th Apr '18 10:18:46 PM by TheWildWestPyro

Which is now being a problem because there doesn’t seem to be any desire of finding a political heir to Lula that could stand up to Bolsonaro instead of focusing on Lula only.

I used to find that stupid but I've heard a few political analysts speculate the Worker's Party (and likely Lula himself) is running one final gambit: pushing Lula's candidature forward up until the last possible moment to unite and rally the left around his cause, have the lion's share of the election campaign be carried by Lula himself behind bars as a "justice for Lula" sort of banner to gather as much momentum as possible. But when his candidacy is inevitably blocked, they'll switch to his vice-presidential candidate (probably Ciro Gomes or whoever) at the last possible minute under a banner of "The establishment has blocked Lula, all we can do is elect the vice president he appointed in his honor", now already having packed the momentum of Lula throughout the bulk of the campaign, giving the replacement a boost on Lula's ashes.

It's kind of a insane plan but if they can delay the system long enough, it'd be actually pretty brilliant because it'd give Lula one last use of his popularity behind bars and it'd draw all eyes to him, keeping his vice relatively unscathed by political warfare when he takes over Lula's place in the candidacy.

In our current political climate, it's exactly the sort of plan that's Crazy Enough to Work.

Why Politics are so Black and White? I thought that they must be morally grey, not a choice between good and evil.

Because it is easier to decide in a black and white situation. And you don't have to ask yourself uncomfortable questions.

They are grey, it's just a matter of perception.

Guys like Bolsonaro and Trump are firmly black in terms of ethics, there no grey about them overall.

I mean, almost all Left vs Right conflicts are basically "wellmeaning persons vs white rich elites", it started with Democracy vs Monarchism for God's sake.

edited 21st Apr '18 2:31:55 PM by KazuyaProta

You know, Kenji Fujimori, son of Alberto Fujimori, the man who forced sterilizations into Andean woman got into a massive trouble thanks to a Congressman named Mamani, the most stereotypical andean name ever.

Oh the Ironic Justice

...Im from PARAGUAY! YAY!

...I'll be there in the corner.

Well what's gone on in Paraguay?

The Worker's Party isn't really behind Ciro Gomes though, Ciro slip with the Worker's Party over them essentially being Lula first, Lula now and Lula for ever when it came to political support.

The Worker's Party will support Ciro, but if and only if, they can't launch Lula's presidency, which might be too late.

Same

edited 21st Apr '18 9:30:40 PM by KazuyaProta

Good Question Adric. Elections! Elections are happening tomorrow in Paraguay.

I kinda misunderstood the point of this thead. I thought it was about discussing life in Latin America rather than politics. But Im glad Elections are indeed tomorrow or otherwise I would have looked like an idiot...hahahaha...aww....