VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 12:29:08 10/04/06 Wed
Author: Bernardo Chacur
Subject: Brazilian Elections
In reply to: Julia Onodera 's message, "Brazilian Elections by Julia Onodera" on 12:05:16 10/04/06 Wed

Letter to the Editor of The New York Times concerning the article "Embattled Brazil Incumbent Fails to Win First-Round Ballot"

It is sad to realize that people all around the world are willing to buy into shallow rhetorics. Voters not only in Brazil but in another countries as well (I'm sure that must ring a bell or two), look pretty contented on taking things for their face value and ignoring the main picture. I'm bringing all that up because it is just what's happening regarding Brazilian's elections.

Two major threads consistently pop up whenever discussing Lula's government. The first one is ethics, or better said, the sore absence of ethics on every corner of Brazilian's top brass. And the shocking thing about it is that people both inside and outside Brazil do not seem to find it a problem. That all goes to say the following: ethics don't matter, honesty doesn't matter, a consistently lying and corrupt government is not necessarily bad. Such a train of thought is nothing but disastrous, it goes against the very fundamentals of democracy. Brazil never had a real tradition of democracy and therefore it is no wonder many don't quite get how much moral standards mean to a political system and how fragile can be institutions established without the aid of principles.

The second thread is just how much president Lula has done for the unprivileged in this country. There is simply no denying that. The miserable people in Brazil obviously needed the emergency aid they are now getting. But the insidious thing about it is that the government is not doing anything else. Twenty years from now these people will be just as poor and just as reliant on government's help. They are not getting better opportunities nor better education, so how come they will ever get better lives? Education in Brazil is terrible, and not getting any better. In a near future every aspect of economical production will depend even more heavily on technology. And since a great part of Brazilian's workers will barely be able to read, the natural outcome is that the country will be progressively sidelined from the global economy, generating thus more poverty. Apart from that there is the unbelievable tax burden, preventing any real wealth distribution, and rising organized crime, as powerful as the government in places like São Paulo. To simply ignore such mounting problems until it is too late to deal with them is already a fault of the highest order.

But even after all this bashing of the current administration, a word must be said about Geraldo Alckmin. The hard fact about him is that his party (PSDB) already spent nearly a decade running Brazil and did not improve a thing as well. The political tradition he represents is responsible for the the current state of our Nation. I brought up all of this just to illustrate how bleak the scenario is.

I am perfectly aware that I might be the subject of some deal of criticism for attacking all and offering no solution. But I strongly feel that we are heading into a wrong direction and think it is a matter of honesty to portray things as I perceive them. Whoever wins, it will be our duty to question and criticize the next government whenever necessary, as strongly as necessary. We are not bound to any sort of allegiance toward government: it is the government that owns allegiance to us.

Sincerely
Bernardo Chacur

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Post a message:
This forum requires an account to post.
[ Create Account ]
[ Login ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.