What's Happening in Brazil? Exactly What the Coup Leaders Said Would Happen

[L. Coyote]

Link to tweet

[ronnie624]

1. "Temer's economic plan

featured cuts to health, education and welfare spending, as well as increased emphasis on privatization and deregulation."

Of course. A transfer of public wealth and resources, and the facilitation of profit at the expense of the people, is always the goal of predatory capitalism.

[lambchopp59]

2. RW "coups", soft or murdersome seem to be happening everywhere.

I've never known what it is attracts me to go to Brazil, possibly permanently. I know if major social RW crap starts effecting even us out here in "liberal" California, and another round of unemployment numbers like at the end of GWB's term happens, I'll do all I can to jump idiot Trump's fucking wall for Sao Paulo and hope for the best I can do there. I'd rather be in the favelas with a leaky roof than homeless in the "land of the free".

[DemocraticSocialist8]

3. Honestly, liberal democracies seem to be failing globally

Corruption dominates many, many countries and you can't have a truly free and fair democracy with rampant, legalized corruption. It's like trying to mix oil and water. You also have to take into account globalization and how a tiny, global minority are sucking up all the wealth around the globe. You're bound to get RW governments eventually simply to protect their interests.

[peacebuzzard]

4. I did exactly that after the Iraq offensive and the Bush/Gore tragedy

I repeated the trip last month after the womens march. Present day social issues in Brazil are starkly difficult and it amazes me how the general mindset of the lower rung workers (if they even have a job) is a shrug, and an acceptance of the inability to respond to the onslaught of government corruption. Maybe because of the tropical climate and resorting to turn everything over to the higher spiritual Powers saves individual energies for their daily grind. State governments have delayed wages to workers as was broadcast at the Rio de Janeiro airport during the Olympics with unpaid first responders handheld signs declaring "welcome to hell". They have since been paid some, although still due for back payments. The military coup in the 60s ravaged the left wing movement and beat down or exiled the leftists and censorship was enforced. All this was quite dramatic. I still go there often though, and I know of better places than the favelas of São Paulo I can recommend. In this US insane asylum government deterioration we are going through, it does help to have a paradigm shift and join the masses of sweaty gyrating bodies in rhythm with the drum beats of a street carnival. It gives me a rest to reflect and resolve and help with the resistance.