Politician discussion of the week: Jair Bolsonaro

It's his first time running for president (he has been a congressist for almost 30 years because our politics are insane). He's the first in the polls right now, as this year there is an exceptionally high number of candidates, with at least other four having a real chance to go to the second turn. But here's the thing: he has an insanely high rejection rate, so, in a second turn, practically everyone who votes on the other candidates tends to vote on whoever is going against him.

By the way, who was actually the highest in the polls was ex-president Lula (from the center-left workers' party), who was condemned in an obviously kafkaesque proccess and forbidden to be a candidate - to the point that the human rights commitee in the UN demanded that he was allowed to run, or Brazil would be going against international treaties that were signed and agreed upon. The UN demand was ignored by the supreme court, which is mostly allied to right wing interests right now.

Christ.

Cervantes spidershinobi You guys have my sympathy. God speed to the amazon rainforest and Brazil's black population.

My god. For the life of me I can't understand the mindset of brazilians as a whole. Every day I see more and more evidence of racism among brazil's white population, and the fact that Brazil is so obsessed with physical beauty is really unsettling for me personally. This is the kind of crap that spoiled first world upper class narcissists like Elliot Rodger obsessed about, and look what he ended up doing.

I feel like America is partially responsible for the state of developing countries like Brazil. The entertainment industry in America has such a huge impact on global society (and especially our society), and by glamorizing fame and good looks while ignoring real problems like global warming and such we're undoubtedly having a negative influence on your country. I mean, Brazil seems to be the only country that largely worships America; American politics are almost universally condemned in countries like Australia, Japan, and all of Europe, as well as just about every developing country that I can think of.

www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46327634


"Amazon rainforest deforestation is worse now than in the last ten years"

Words can't describe how depressing this is to me. Why do I feel like Jair Bolsonaro has something to do with this?

It's both, really. Bolsonaro was the big farmers'/cattle ranchers' candidate, so as soon as he got elected those people immediatelly understood that they have a lot of symbolic power to push forward some of their most terrible policies. On the other hand, through November-December we have a "transitional government", which means that, while Bolsonaro hasn't assumed yet, he and his team are already working with the current government (they have no authority to make decisions, but can already influence them). They took this opportunity to indicate who are going to be their ministers and how ministries will be divided; he made a few announcements in that area that already had an impact:

1. We have a Ministry of Environment that he promised will be extinguished and put under the responsibilities of the Ministry of Agriculture (so cattle ranchers and farmers will have decisions over environmental issues, which, as you all can guess, is a fearsome decision);

2. The minister of agriculture will be a congressist known for pushing a law project popularly called "The Poison Package", which is meant to lessen regulations over pesticides (and Brazil has already terrible regulation in that area) and even let farmers use pesticides that are known to be carcinogenic. The indication of that minister had a symbolic effect of pushing forward other controversial projects;

3. Since his campaign, one of his main promises is that the government won't establish a single meter of land as protected area, be it for natives, quilombolas (communities formed by people who ran away and hid from slavery in the 19th century) or just for environmental protection. He is keeping that promise.

4. Another promise is to pass a law that transforms protests organized by social movements in acts of terrorism; Bolsonaro has said repeatedly that, under his government, any activists are considered terrorists. Now think about how environmentalists are supposed to protest against anything.

So, while he is a symbol and symptom of policies that were already there, he is also a cause, as his announcements have an impact in some current policies. For example, there is an insane law project in the congress to censor classes and textbooks in schools (it literaly forbids teachers to even speak the word "gender", forbids any kind of sexual education, creates an obligation for teaching creacionism and changes the name "dictatorship" in History books to "military government" or "military revolution"). This project had lost strenght through the year, but as soon as Bolsonaro was elected, after talking about it through his entire campaign, it started being discussed again and now has a real chance to be approved. The supreme court can (and should) veto it, in case it passes, as it's obviously unconstitutional, but the truth is that the current court, as most of our judicial system, is alligned with the government. Fun fact: in portuguese, the words for gender and genre are the same (gênero), so I'm having a lot of fun in my classes trying to speak about literary genres and telling my students that I'll soon be arrested if I do it...

www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/five-dead-in-brazil-cathedral-shooting/news-story/f887258c1daaac91bf7407775a6723a7

"Mass shooting at brazilian catholic church leaves five dead, including the shooter"

Now that Jair is in power more civilians will have access to guns to prevent mass shootings.

In all seriousness this is pretty messed up. Perhaps a sign of things to come in Brazil...