<$begin context>

Yeda Crusius, the current governor of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil’s southernmost state, where I live) was elected a couple of years ago beating all odds. To this day, no one can really explain what happened, but the favored explanation is that, in the attempt to keep Olívio Dutra, the Worker’s Party candidate, out of the second round race, enough voters switched from Germano Rigotto (PMDB) to her to end up kicking the then governor and favorite for reelection from the race.

Whatever happened, the absolute reality is that not even Yeda expected to be elected, to the point where she had to fire her publicity manager in the middle of the race because she couldn’t pay him anymore. Her coalition was a hodgepodge of parties, and the veep, Paulo Feijó (DEM) was a conservative technocrat who had never held any political office, and who had radically different opinions from hers on the economy.

When what was supposed to be a move to guarantee some power for PSDB on Rigotto’s administration ended up seating Yeda at Palácio Piratini, they had to scramble and build an actual government plan in a hurry. The typical result, a mix of tax hikes and pay cuts, was promptly voted down by the Legislative Assembly, and she had her first defeat even before taking office. The cherry on top: the main voice in the opposition was the vice-governor, Paulo Feijó.

Things haven’t really improved from then till now, and Feijó has always been a voice of dissent inside the administration, to the point where the governor wouldn’t make any trips outside the state, so as to not having to hand the state’s helm to him. Her worst days began some months ago, when a scheme was uncovered where money from the Transit Department (from tickets - especially those from speed cameras - and fees for ordering driver licenses) was being used to finance campaigns, mainly for PP and PMDB.

Then this last friday, the shit hit the proverbial fan, when Feijó released a tape of a conversation he had with César Busatto (PPS), in which Yeda’s chief-of-staff acknowledged the financing scheme, said it had been going on for decades, and asked what he could offer the vice-governor for him to stop being such a strong opposition voice during these hard times. So far, this has cost the job of four top-level officials: Busatto, secretary-general Delson Martini, the ambassador in Brasilia Marcelo Cavalcanti, and the Military Police’s commander Nilson Bueno.

<$end context>

In different times, this would be more than enough for the press to be rightfully screaming for Yeda’s head. But, as Träsel points out, what we’re seeing is an echo chamber of factoids coming from Palácio Piratini, questioning Feijó’s character.

Thing is, this is how the press has been treating political scandals for quite some time, now. Ricardo Noblat, Brazil’s most widely read blogger, yesterday linked to an op-ed by Ruy Fabiano (.br) addressing precisely this problem:

An emblematic aspect of the current crisis - the selling of Varig - is that the question being asked, both in and outside Congress, doesn’t address the innocence or lack thereof of the accused. What is asked is only whether it will come to something or not. We don’t argue the content anymore, only the result. So far has come the so called moral relativism of the country.

Note that he was talking about charges that president Lula’s chief-of-staff, and likely presidential candidate, Dilma Roussef had a hand in allowing a foreign fund to buy Brazilian airline Varig, which is strictly forbidden under Brazilian law. But he might as well be talking about the kerfuffle down here in the South.

Truth of the matter is that, right now, Brazilians are anesthetized to political crisis and scandals. Just look at how president Lula has breezed through so many scandals involving top officials and close friends by just saying “I didn’t know about it”. Thus, it is no wonder the press would prefer to discuss whether what Feijó did was morally and ethically reprehensible, instead of addressing the terrible implications of Busatto’s statements. They’re only a reflection of the society we’re currenty living in.

P.S.: I wanted to put up a picture Zero Hora’s photographer Daniel Marenco took during the congressional comission investigating the fraud in the Transit Department. But Proverbial is undergoing server changes and I’m having trouble uploading images. Meanwhile, go check his blog and work.

P.S. 2: Talking about blogs, vice-governor Feijó keeps one himself (.br). For the Portuguese-speaking audience, it might be an interesting read.

A group of state congressmen and representatives from the Brazilian Press Association, the National Newspaper Association and the National Students’ Union, gathered today at downtown Rio de Janeiro to rally in favor of freedom of speech (.br). According to the president of the Lawyers’ Order of Brazil, Wadih Damuz, it was an act “in defense of the Constitution”.

This time, the problem was this year’s Global Marijuana March, which was to take place in 10 Brazilian cities, on May 4th. One day before that, the state Public Ministry got the event forbidden in 9 of the cities, based on our old friend, the “apology to crime” law. Needless to say, people rallied just the same and were met by policemen on horses, wearing riot gear and in not the best of moods. A young fellow in Rio de Janeiro, whose Labrador was carrying a sign which read “stupidity is the essence of prejudice, legalize cannabis” was arrested, thus proving the dog’s point.

It should be evident that a law which considers it a crime - punishable by up to 6 months incarceration - to defend something which is itself a crime has only one use, and that is to crush dissenting speech. It is not by chance that such an abomination dates back to 1940, in the heydays of Getulio Vargas’ fascist New State.

But, once again, the protesters missed the point entirely. You see those fellows up there, holding a banner in front of the Cathedral of Brasília? It reads: “No to censorship. The march is not apology”.

Mr. Damuz, instead of decrying such a stupid piece of legislation, said he would not say anything regarding the legalization of drugs, but that he defended “the right to debate”. According to him, today’s rally was an “act more of awareness, of warning the Brazilian society that we can’t recede, for democracy was a hard conquest of the Brazilian people”.

In short, according to the protesters the problem is not with the legislation used to censor their speech, but that this wasn’t apology to an illegal drug and thus there was no crime. Which is to say that I hope judges throughout the country keep judging according to the law, and prohibiting things such as the Marijuana March, until people finally realize that they’re not supposed to argue on the merits of their speech, but on the merits of a law devised exclusively to prevent free speech.

By the way, isn’t apology to apology to crime supposed to be a crime as well?

The bulk of Brazil’s military history involves skirmishes with its southern neighbors, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (not to mention its own population). By the start of this century, though, the majority of the armed forces was steadily transferred to the Northwest, to patrol the Amazon border, especially the 1,000+ miles of forest separating it from Colombia, its guerrillas and drug traffic.

For the same reasons, it’s really not unusual for Colombia to venture into the forest and end up trespassing into neighboring countries. In 1998, its troops had to invade a Brazilian military base in the region when maneuvering around a FARC camp. Sometimes, as in that case, governments will act as though nothing happened, other times they’ll yell and take their ambassadors out of Bogota, in order to save face. After all the commotion dies down, everything returns to normal.

Which is why the current “crisis”, ignited after the killing of a high-level FARC leader by Colombian forces on the Ecuadorian border, should usually be taken lightly. The difference, this time, is that goon Hugo Chávez trying to turn this into something about him.

The current resurgence of FARC’s presence in the media can easily be explained by its ever more declining popularity among the Colombian people. While president Uribe has an approval rate of 81% (.br), making him the most popular leader in South America, the guerrilla has suffered several military drawbacks in recent years, not to mention the large number of defections from its ranks.

With an aging leadership - Manuel Marulanda is bordering on 80 years of age, and allegedly dying of prostate cancer -, increasing international pressure for the release of high-profile hostages such as Ingrid Betancourt, and showing signs of internal disorganization - like promising to release a hostage’s son, only for the press to find out he had been in an orphanage for two years -, it’s been getting harder and harder for the guerrilla to garner popular support for its kidnappings and ties to the drug trafficking.

For the same reason, it should be hard for Ecuador’s president to complain too much about Colombia’s foray into its territory to kill Reyes and other 16 rebels. Sending troops to the border is, at the same time, a move that’s sure to look good with the country’s population, and inoccuous enough for president Uribe to think he still got a good deal out of it. But when Mr. Hugo Chávez decides to also send troops to Venezuela’s border (a helpful map can be found here) and withdraw its ambassador from Bogota, while saying that the Colombian military and their US-backed troops may “trigger war in South America“, things look a little more complicated.

Suddenly, you have Colombia filing a UN complaint against Ecuador and Venezuela for shielding rebels, saying the guerrilla had plans to build a dirty bomb and that it has documents showing the Venezuelan government gave over U$ 300 million to the guerrilla. Brazil, after condemning the attack, was quick to show up as a mediator in the conflict, but already you have the usual suspects accusing the country of secretly sending guns to FARC rebels.

After all this bragging and shaking of fists, though, everyone in their right minds seems to agree that nothing will come out of it. President Uribe already said he won’t return his neighbors’ kindness, and will keep the troops where they are, while the country’s leftist groups already are calling for calm from everyone involved. Mr. Chávez, as many have said, is anything but an idiot, and is most likely only doing this as another stunt to keep on the good side of the military. And Ecuador is sure to regret in due time the decision to offer safe haven for rebels fleeing from Colombia.

In the end, it’s just business as usual in South America.

P.S.: just to make it clear, I don’t condone Uribe’s actions in any way. Even if all the accusations of involvement between the governments of Venezuela and Ecuador with the FARC are true, Colombia should still have exhausted all diplomatic options before performing some sort of military attack on another nation. Just as diplomacy is the only way for the crisis to be properly solved.

I still don’t know what to make of it, and curse myself for not having a video-capable cellphone at hand. Last monday night, walking away from Via Funchal in search of a cab after the My Chemical Romance concert, in São Paulo, I passed by various street vendors selling water, soda and other liquids. All of them with the usual “água, refri, cerveja bem barato” yells.

One of them, though, caught my attention as he would intersperse these yells with their equivalent in a surprisingly comprehensible English, something like “water, soda, beer, very cheap”. Unusual, but unremarkable, this being São Paulo - and a very wealthy neighborhood of it. But what he said next made me stop, and make sure I was listening correctly:

“Barack Obama, man, ‘Yes, we can’”.

If I were to honor my journalism degree, I should have stopped right there, turned around and asked the guy’s name, cultural background, and how the hell did he come up with that line. But I didn’t. So if someone sees him after some other gig at Via Funchal, please ask him these things and share it us.

So that whole thing about Gisele Bündchen running naked around Manhattan was just a joke. But I still think she could use this moment to make a nice gesture: why not find out how much the tabloids would’ve paid for a picture of her paying said bet, and then donate that sum for some charity of her choice? She might even get her boyfriend to split the bill.

A couple of weeks ago, PROCON (the country’s national consumer protection agency) started to enforce a ruling from October last year, banning any form of commerce involving the games Counter-Strike and EverQuest (which is not even sold in Brazil). Which means that you can’t sell the games, nor make money off them by renting computers to play them at a lan house and such.

Last friday, a journalist from the country’s largest newspaper tipped off the federal government about a planned CS competition, to take place during this year’s Campus Party. Being this a sponsored event, the organization was warned not to promote the game in any way (people may still play it, if they have it on their computers), otherwise undercover government officials camped at the site would shut the whole thing off.

About the same time, a Carnival float depicting the Holocaust was banned from this year’s parade in Rio, after a lawsuit from that state’s Jewish Federation claiming it was a celebration of racism. Viradouro - the group responsible for the float - tried to argue it was a respectful reminder of the horrors of Nazism, and that everything was done with the approval of rabbis and the Jewish community, to no avail.

Apparently, though, they were already expecting something like this, as they quickly transformed the float into one defending freedom of expression, decrying the court’s decision. Even better, they used a slogan from the banner of Minas Gerais state (Freedom, even if late) and also remembered the famous case where a float depicting a hobo Jesus Christ was banned from 1989’s parade, only to be covered in garbage bags and sent to the sambódromo, with a ribbon reading “Even forbidden, look over us”.

While watching parts of the parade with friends, last night, someone mentioned that if it were something considered a work of art, people would have understood and turned a blind eye to the religious and political implications.

Which is precisely why I hope these laws keep being heavily enforced, on every possible occasion. Until people realize the problem is not in judges’ eventual double standards, but in the ridiculous legislation which allow for this sort of nonsense in the first place, this sort of thing must keep happening.

Brazil will trim outlays by 20 billion reais, Mantega said. At the same time, a tax on financial operations, mainly bank lending, will be increased by 0.38 percentage point, and a tax on profits by financial institutions will rise to 15 percent from 9 percent, he said.

“It would be more appropriate to carry out a larger reduction to government expenses, but the increase in taxes is a tradition in Brazil,” said Joel Bogdanski, a senior economist at Banco Itau Holding Financeira SA. “It’s also relatively small, and it will not slow the economy.”

More appropriate indeed, but with Justice Ministry Tarso Genro saying that his budget won’t get any cuts (.br), even the R$ 20 billion in cuts that have already been promised seem kinda hard to believe.

Also, we get a new “covert” tax in the form of a requirement for diesel oil to have 2% of biodiesel, with plans of increasing it to 5% by 2013. With that, the government should save up to R$ 750 million (~U$ 437 mil) from foreign oil, and soy farmers get really happy with the federal incentive (not to mention continued investment in biodiesel plants).

On the other side, diesel gets 1 or 2 cents more expensive (.br) at the pump, which in a country where the vast majority of cargo is transported by trucks (reason why diesel is partly subsidized by the government, and only utility vehicles are allowed to use it) means shipment costs should, in turn, get more expensive, and so products in general.

According to a TV reporter, “it’s the price we pay for saving the environment”. More like the price we pay for farming subsidies. As for the environment…

Lured by the possibility of profits and quick-fixes to a complicated problem, the world moves into action. The European Union sets targets for biofuel production, Brazil sees a way of cashing in on its years of research into sugar cane-based fuel, North American farmers look to an exciting new global market, various African leaders envisage an agricultural revolution.

Only afterwards do the voices of caution sound. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen warns that switching from fossil fuels to biofuels might do more harm than good because the nitrogen in fertiliser is converted into nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, describes biofuels as a “crime against humanity” because of the way they will probably push up food prices. Another scientist raises the issue of water: will the millions of people who lack access to clean water be joined by millions of others in the wake of a massive switch to thirsty agrofuels?

Not to mention the problem of deforestation in both the Amazon and Pantanal. Yeah, the year is off to a great start.

The administration will send to Congress a project that ratifies a decision by the ILO (International Labour Organization) which makes it harder to fire workers without just cause. The proposal’s idea is to establish clear rules — which must be followed by employers - for dismissal.
(…)
Representatives from union centrals celebrated the sending of the proposal. According to them, it will be a step forward for the country and the workers. “The proposal creates an obstacle because before firing, employers will have to verify whether they can fire”, said CUT’s (Unified Workers’ Central) president, Artur Henrique.

If approved, it will establish such great rules as making it possible for businesses to fire employees when in financial problems only AFTER a settlement with unions. Or if relocating, and having to change employees due to geographical considerations.

One can only hope the proposal will not pass Congress, but considering how easily the “unions tax” - a law establishing every worker is obligated to pay the equivalent of one work day’s payment to his class’s union, regardless of being unionized - was extended in a recent voting, I wouldn’t count on it.

Now, the comments are open for anyone who wants to try and convince me that allowing women to stay half a year off work when they have a children (and have children they will) won’t be a major incentive for employers to give preference to men.