The Brazilian Politics Thread

Brazil rejects an offer of $22m dollars from the G7 to fight forest fires. Because, y'know, that's what the best countries do, they act like cartoon villains.

Meanwhile, some of our politicians have defended that money from Lava Jato be sent towards the Amazon instead, thus putting forward the idea of taking money from a (supposed) anti-corruption act to help the Amazon, since no one else in the world has offered their help as of yet.

Oh, and it turns out the public ministry actually warned the government about the fires three days in advance, but were summarily ignored. Workers from Ibama (The Brazilian Institute Of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) have also gone on record saying they currently have no protection from the police regarding attacks from woodcutters and burners.

Oh, and French president Emmanuel Macron, reacting to Bolsonaro's disrespectful comments about his wife, has remarked that Brazil deserves to have a president who behaves properly for his position. He also added that he hopes that happens soon, which I personally like to interpret as him hoping Bolsonaro will leave office.

So, y'know, busy weekend.

Well, that's a pagetopper.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Aug 27th 2019 at 8:36:34 AM

I gotta admit, if I were in Macron's position I probably wouldn't have responded quite so gracefully.

I guess that's why I'm not in politics.

Edited by M84 on Aug 27th 2019 at 7:52:44 PM

Diplomacy, as someone once said, is the art of saying "Fuck You" in such a way that your opponent agrees that indeed, they should do so.

Even if faked, the sympathy from France's president towards the Brazilian populace for having such a goddamn clown as their representative is appreciated.

As the Amazon burns, Bolsonaro puts out a tweet boasting about the price reduction of the Playstation 4.

Which means nothing because it's still expensive as shit and also most people buy their consoles from Paraguay/grey market sellers to avoid the tariffs.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Aug 27th 2019 at 2:55:54 PM

Discredited trope, but this is a shining example of Nero fiddling as Rome burns.

This is more like Nero dumping gasoline in the fire, I'd say.

This is also one of the main differences between Trump and Bolsonaro: Trump is I think mostly oblivious to (or at least doesn't focus on) the younger alt-right part of his base, but Bolsonaro tries to pander to them repeatedly.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Aug 27th 2019 at 4:27:23 AM

Trump is certainly oblivious to the idea that any of his fans like video games, if his reaction to the El Paso shooting is any indication.

Or his tariffs on videogame products from China (which is most of them).

Also, Switch > PS4.

Edited by CookingCat on Aug 27th 2019 at 4:02:44 AM

So how bad is the smoke from the Amazon in Sao Paulo right now? I've tried looking around online for details about it, but they're all from a week ago, and I can only imagine that it's gotten worse as the fires have raged on. And from what I've heard and seen from Bolsonaro the past couple weeks, it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if his administration is suppressing information from getting out of the country. Between that and how most of the world (and the US in particular) doesn't really care unless they're directly involved, that means details can be rather scant.

Edited by ironballs16 on Aug 28th 2019 at 1:29:07 PM

It's thinned out here in the south, at least as far as I can attest for. I haven't heard anything from São Paulo either, so presumably the smoke has gone down to levels where it can just blend in to the natural cloudiness of winter.

Question: Does anyone measure the air quality index in Brazil?

Bolsonaro says he’ll take Amazon fire aid if Brazil can decide how to spend it.

Yeah, right. He can just fuck off, no way anyone will let him touch that money.

... Wouldn't be ironic if he somehow runs afoul of the fires' smoke and chokes on it to the point of being rendered incapacitated with respect to serving as a president? Does Brazil have anything equivalent to the 25th amendment of the US Constitution?

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 29th 2019 at 6:04:24 PM

@Dr Dougsh: The evidence is inconclusive. He may have, may have not, but the trial was a political hatchet job.

Personally, I don't think it should matter whether he was engaged in corruption or not. The people of Brazil largely wouldn't give a fuck if he was videotaped in the Treasury vault stuffing his pockets and cackling madly, because he was able to bring home the goods^note presiding over a decade of prosperity while simultaneously yanking millions out of poverty and taking Brazil to a net debt surplus, and É a economia, estúpido.

Edited by Ramidel on Aug 29th 2019 at 10:39:24 AM

They'd probably be impressed at the sheer chutzpah of it. Most of us think our career politicians are crooked anyway (though we really shouldn't) — some of us might actually appreciate one who is openly and brazenly a crook.

Edited by M84 on Aug 30th 2019 at 2:39:42 AM

Minha Nossa Senhora do Céu!

One. Week.

Can you stop shtting through your mouth...FOR ONE GODDAMN WEEK!?

How!? How can someone, anyone, be so fucking unprofessional, so fucking stupid, so embarassing, so cruel, all at the same time!? Just, graaaaaaaah!

Headdesk

Sigh. I am so, so scared about his scheduled speech on the UN. Thus far it has just been phrases, imagine what this cunting arsehead can do with a whole speech!?

He was barely prompted about it either, he just bleated it out for free.

I mean, this is totally normal for him.

This is especially aggravating though, and honestly he can like triply fuck off because Bachelet is 150% right. If we had treated the aftermath of the dictatorship properly then maybe we could have avoided this whole mess to begin with.

Also, he's still acting like Cuba is some kind of communist soviet hellhole these days. Nothing like some more Red Scare, even if there's Venezuela right around the corner to use as an example.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Sep 4th 2019 at 7:35:18 AM

Cuba is something of a non-entity nowadays.

Mostly because Venezuela took its place as the Communist Boogeyman, and now Cuba is just...another poor, South American country, really.

Cuba is literally part of the reason why Venezuela is the failed narco-state that it's today. With their current issues being because their golden cow Venezuela is too hungry to keep giving them milk.

Please, we can't kept Sugarcoating Cuba, they are guilty of a lot of bad things both inside their country and outside

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 4th 2019 at 5:42:26 AM

This is the same man who taunted a member of the Comission of Truth (the Brazilian arg charged with unearthing the many crimes of the Dictatorship) by saying he is probably a member of a terrorist organization and saying his father's kidnapping and murder was well-deserved.

Bolsonaro is the event horizon of human depravity. He'll set fire to anything he can get his hands on, often literally (see the still-on-fire Amazonian rainforest).