The Brazilian Politics Thread

(Pardon first post, delete it if you wish as I've tried that myself and failed.)

Is there any hope for Brazil to escape the downward spiral it is currently in as of now?

Edited by TitanJump on Aug 24th 2019 at 4:06:33 PM

When are the next elections?

The last one was 7 October, 2018.

Next one is 2 October, 2022.

Did that help any?

Edited by TitanJump on Aug 24th 2019 at 5:58:45 PM

At least Brazil actually replaces its top leadership, unlike say Russia.

But will it be enough time to keep the Amazon from burning down to the ground until then?

Yes.

Please elaborate on "why" that would be the case.

Edited by TitanJump on Aug 24th 2019 at 6:53:35 PM

The Amazon is immense. They won't destroy all of it because it is nearly impossible to do so in four years unless you deploy nuclear weaponry.

It is probably being damaged in a way that might be beyond repair, though. The only hope we have is that external pressure can convince Bolsonaro to back down on that. Perhaps if the world truly comes together on some sanctions, and in that topic the elections in America next year will be fundamental, as the US is one of Brazil's closest allies and financial markets and could truly exert some pressure.

You could also hope for some sort of double impeachment to remove both Bolsonaro and Mourão, but that ain't happening.

We're not gonna have any sort of double-impeachment. I can see Bolsonaro getting kicked out by his own allies, but that's it. I honestly don't see that being reversed in less than 8 years or so: the left is very politically weakened and Novo is on the rise. I see only two options for Bolsonaro getting out via electoral means, which involve facing Ciro or another right-wing, but more liberal candidate. However, the most probable scenario would probably be him facing someone from PT or PSOL - and I don't think they stand much of a chance right now...

About the forest fires: it should be stressed that no government in Brazil, be it left or right-wing, was ever fully committed to solve the whole deforestation problem. We have had some effort to reduce that in the past decade, as the country was aiming to position itself as an ecological power when the global warming discussion boomed. However, the more profound issues, like indigenous rights and powerful, illegal landowners oppressing small farmers, were not really addressed.

envriomental issues seen like gun rights in US: a position taht is always being there and yet brazil goverment(and to some extent is culture) dosent reaaaaaally want to tackle in any way posible.

All damage, however slight, is always "irreversable"—that which has been lost cannot be brought back. That has always been true. We are only worried now because the changes to the global ecosystem that we are now causing are of such a magnitude that we can no longer ignore them. Given that the economic path we are following is unsustainable, the damage we are doing to the Earth's ecosystem will be corrected one day. The only question is whether we will correct it ourselves, or let nature do it to us. The latter path will cause human beings more suffering than the former. The sooner we act effectively, the less we will suffer. The longer we wait, the more suffering there will be. Unfortunately, the people of Brazil will likely end up bearing the brunt of this. I dont worry about the Amazon so much as I worry about Brazilians.

There is a Brazilian documentary called "Martírio" ("Martyrdom") that explores just how exactly the Indigenous populaces live under the throes of the large landowners, and one of the central points said documentary makes is that Brazilian politics are deeply entrenched in the pockets of agricultural lobbies. Ciro Gomes, the center-left candidate so often praised as the left's hope, had as his vice a lady known as "Madam Chainsaw" in some circles that was basically a political legbreaker of the agricultural lobbies.

It is a very bleak and hopeless film, but enlightening all the same.

... This is sounding more and more like Brazil is in desperate need of forcible regime change coupled with severe crackdowns on these highly undemocratic, terribly powerful cliques, both of which logically require an outside party with extensive political, economic and military resources.

Nope, let’s not state support for this sort of thing here. Again.

Reform in Brazil has to start inside Brazil.

Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2019 at 12:25:45 AM

I'm just saying that this is the picture that's being painted to me right now by the preceding posts describing the state of affairs within the country. I would certainly prefer the possibility that I simply misunderstood something or that some of the information I based that picture on is exaggerated.

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 24th 2019 at 7:25:57 PM

Seems a bit much. America suffers from very similar problems and nobody is gunning for toppling them by force of arms.

Some sort of "let's force a regime change" on Brazil would almost certainly only make the situations worse. "Foreign intervention" doesn't exactly have a shining record in Brazil, as seen by the Dictatorship during the Cold War. What I do think would help would be international pressure and perhaps sanctions (given how much Brazil relies on exporting goods).

The Worker's Party years made some solid, if extremely insufficient, gains on that front (while obviously trying to dodge a direct confrontation with the agricultural lobbies) and a Haddad government would have undoubtedly in my mind gone even further. It's not a unsolvable situation.

The problem is more that there's been basically a long conspiracy of events since 2014 built to negate all those gains we had during the Worker's Party years, but the fact all of that vast, years-long spiral of madness was required to stall the advance of the left only tells me how the left has actually hope. If Brazil rides out the storm of Bolsonaro, I have no doubt we can go somewhere. The one possible upside of this horrible government is galvanizing the left into a stronger shape, perhaps with fresher leadership (Lula and Dilma, for their good intentions, are the old guard of the Brazilian left straight out of the dictatorship days).

Yeah I think you'll find a lot of brazilians are going to side-eye any proposition of "forcible regime change" because of what happened with the military coup in the 60's.

Well, how can Lula get back into elections without an army backing him up? The people want him back in power, apparently, but the courts don't.

It doesn't need to be Lula.

He's just another politician, at the end of the day, not the messiah.

But he would definitely win. That's why they jailed him.

While what happened to Lula is totally wrong and he should have been allowed to run for president, the real issue going forward is that Lula is the only leftist politician with any real popularity. In addition to that, his party is very weak right now in terms of PR because of the perception of corruption and the economic crisis that people associate with them.

What we really need right now is a new leftist party and candidate without PT's stigma so that the left can capitalize on Bolsonaro's failure. The issue is we kind of don't have one. I used to like Ciro Gomes alright but he's said a number of things since that have really soured me on the guy and so my respect for him has basically vanished, so he isn't it.

Was Lula’s conviction actually wrongful, though? From my understanding, his corruption was quite real, Moro and the prosecutors were just selective about targeting him.

I won't get into details about Lula's culpability in it (evidence seems to be wonky, but him being culpable is not implausible at all). The whole process was a complete legal shitshow though, as The Intercept has been showing.

Not that Moro accepting to helm the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (after having said that we wouldn't get involved with politics) wasn't an indication of that already, though.

The basic gist is that Lula might be guilty of corruption, but the entire thing was very clearly a politically-organized attack based on sketchy evidence. The Intercept leaks even show the prosecutors of the case commenting they think the evidence is as shallow as can be and were basically thanking Christ when the media decided to convict Lula by public opinion.

From the current crops of politicians, I feel like Manuela D'avila has the best chance of organizing something.