Nearly A Million Brazilians March To Demand President’s Ouster
Source: REUTERS
Latest update : 2015-03-15
Close to a million demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Brazil Sunday to protest a sluggish economy, rising prices and corruption - and to call for the impeachment of leftist President Dilma Rousseff.
The marches across the continent-sized country come as Brazil struggles to overcome economic and political malaise and pick up the pieces of a boom that crumbled once Rousseff took office in 2012.
Now in the third month of her second four-year term, Rousseff is unlikely to resign or face the impeachment proceedings called for by many opponents angry about a fifth year of economic stagnation and a multibillion dollar corruption scandal at state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.
For a president that was narrowly re-elected just five months ago, the protests are a sign of a polarized country increasingly unhappy with its leadership. Rousseff has recently been jeered at public appearances and Brazilians in some cities banged pots during a televised speech she made earlier this month.
Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20150315-brazil-million-protest-president-rousseff/
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)if people wanted someone else, they had the opportunity to vote for that person
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)forest444
(5,902 posts)These are the same people who, when the neocon-friendly regimes (many, unelected) of the '70s, '80s, and '90s perpetrated record-level, nation-busting financial collapse, called for patience or actually cheered them on outright, telling themselves and every business rag that would listen that "recovery is just around the corner."
Where, as Americans, have we heard that before?
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)in regards to Latin America political history and American aggression?
The throngs of other educated American folks who do not know history are also the same folks who insist they DO SO!, because their always Truth-sayer "leaders", even the black surgeons and Harvard Law graduates who always appear on Chief Truthsayer Fox told them all they need to know, other than the Holy Book.
And if you disagree with them, or Fox, you are the scum of the earth, the demon, and the real liar, obviously.
Ain't that the truth?
forest444
(5,902 posts)And False News has the illegally-obtained FCC licenses and tailor-made court rulings to prove it.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)forest444
(5,902 posts)And like in all Latin American countries that were governed by right-wing juntas during the Cold War, the dictatorship you referred to still has a lot of supporters and apologists in Brazil - very influential apologists.
You'll find them most often among the business elite, the landowners, and much of the middle and upper-middle class, many of whom feel nostalgia for those days because they perceive military dictatorships to be "tough on crime" - and sometimes just out of sheer racism (these dictatorships were invariably run by inveterate racists themselves, and thus appealed to those of the same persuasion).
While high crime rates motivated some of that, these sentiments were actively cultivated and encouraged by Big Media in Brazil (http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/sep/09/brazil-newspapers). More often that not, no censorship was required where Big Media was concerned; they were enthusiastic participants then, and remain more or less protective of the long-gone junta even now. The same, of course, can be said for media conglomerates in Chile, Argentina, and elsewhere.
Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)Huge surprise they confessed their grotesque support for Brazil's brutal military dictatorship. Also interesting in the article:
It also named several other media outlets as being complicit, such as O Estado de Sao Paulo, Folha de Sao Paulo, Jornal do Brasil and Correio da Manha.
A DU poster from Brazil who informed us tremendously, graciously, for a very long, fascinating time, told us, before the trolls ganged up on her, attacked her, then got her banned for trying to protect herself, said the major papers there are all still right-wing extremists, but there are small sources which are springing up which are trying hard to get the truth out.
Thank you for your welcome information.
forest444
(5,902 posts)People often think of censorship as something imposed from the top (government) down; but in post-dictatorship Latin America, most of it happens from the bottom (the media) up. The same, course, can be said to a considerable extent about the U.S. - what with the extreme media consolidation we've been seeing since St. Ronnie exempted the media from anti-trust laws (as you know, we had 85 major media firms in 1983; we have 6 now).
Worst of all, the corporatist right has learned how to use the media to radicalize bigots with divide-and-conquer tactics and shape a nation's discourse more than ever before - in many ways inflicting more censorship than any ham-handed government ever could.
The most effective fighter we've had against consolidation in the media in recent years was probably Frank LaRue, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom Expression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_William_La_Rue). I believe he was the first UN Rapporteur to publicly express that media consolidation - rather than crass censorship - has become the great threat to freedom of the press in Latin America (I would have added the U.S.). He was certainly the first Rapporteur to make that a cause, and Latin American Big Media was none too pleased. LaRue was especially vocal in the dispute around Argentina's 2009 Media Law - the first in the region to apply anti-trust law to prevent media consolidation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_between_Kirchnerism_and_the_media).
He retired last August from the post, but hopefully not from the cause; his successor, Prof. David Kaye of UCI, seems promising (http://www.law.uci.edu/news/press-releases/08-01-14.html).
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)that would be pretty much every one on the planet!
Of course, he's a dumb ass
so
there's always that.
forest444
(5,902 posts)Bush was of the belief (based on personal projection, no doubt) that Brazil intended to invade Paraguay. Accordingly, he surrounded the South American giant with military bases - doubling the number of these to around 20 despite pressing obligations in Iraq and elsewhere. Why?
Because the Bush family, in 2006, became the largest landowners there. Owning 100,000 of acres in a small, landlocked, and relatively impoverished country may not make much sense until you realize they're now sitting on a prime section of the Guaraní Aquifer - one of the largest, most accessible, and purest fresh water aquifers in the world.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips
hack89
(39,171 posts)the Cubans started a rumor that a few people fell for.
forest444
(5,902 posts)There may not be hard evidence to the effect; but considering the people and place involved, that hardly proves anything, does it? (remember: means, motive, and disposition) - but then, they wouldn't exactly leave a paper trail, would they? Not with a family history like this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar .
It so happens that the purchase is, 8 years later, discussed as fact in the Paraguayan press itself: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.hoy.com.py/nacionales/lucha-mundial-por-tierras-de-cultivo-bush-y-su-rancho-millonario-en-paragua&prev=search
As with all matters - be they Nazi finance, Miami business associations, the 'October Surprise' and other international intrigue, Air America, Iran-Contra, the Iraq War, or other controversies - the benefit of the doubt typically ends up being nothing more than naiveté when it comes to people like the Bushes.
hack89
(39,171 posts)forest444
(5,902 posts)Right.
hack89
(39,171 posts)it was an Internet myth.
forest444
(5,902 posts)He (and the rest of them) certainly never entertained any such second-guessing during the run-up to and early months of the Iraq War - even after it had become clear that his stooges were fabricating evidence to justify their disastrous invasion.
Why start with something of personal interest like this?
But belaboring the subject is useless. I'm sure you can find plenty of fluff articles explaining why Jenna Bush was in Paraguay.
hack89
(39,171 posts)because I enjoy the conversations with fellow Dems. I also enjoy debunking CTs - I spent a lot of time in the old 911 forum. I don't think CTs have any place in a reality based party like ours.
forest444
(5,902 posts)(Paraguay, if you didn't know, makes Colombia look like Sweden as far as contraband activities and corruption are concerned)
Neither of us has hard evidence to support our opinions, true. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - and definitely not when it comes to the Bushes, given their very sordid history.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)eggplant
(3,913 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)I know some folks will get the joke...........
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Last edited Mon Mar 16, 2015, 01:39 AM - Edit history (1)
doesn't give a shit about Brazil, the Brazilian government or the Brazilian people unless it's the NSA or some other issue he can blame on Obama...Of course just like Ukraine, Glennie boy will only start to write about this once he can concoct his 'Washington connection'...
What a "fearless" journalist who doesn't have the sack to expose corruption and human rights abuses he can see from his mansion window...I guess he just moved down there for the sunshine and easy sex (which is the *only* thing I can't fault him for)
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)around to see if glenn had written anything about this. I should have guessed that would be a waste of time. He can't blame the US President so he has no interest.