Brazzil

If this guy (Chico de Oliveira) is so fond of radical, comunist ideas, let' s send him to North Korea ... Pseudo-intelectuals who live by sucking public money like him are one of the causes of brazilian under-development ...

It really is crazy, because the Brazilian political system is set up so that the president is weak and can't do anything without forming alliances with other parties. That means once someone gets into the office, he has to work with the opposition and everyone in-between. To then call Lula a fraud in that situation is crazy or just plain stupid.

I do not need a revolution. If I have my AR-15. Let me sell my white powder and live my life. Here in the slum, we do not need government. We have our own laws.

to the post above the one that says "From the slum". It is very true that the presidency is very weak but that just goes to show that political reform is the key. Look, the PT swept millions of votes in 2002, because people blamed Cardoso for their economic problems. The thing is, that in the House of Deputies with 512 total members, 91 were PT members. In the Senate the PT has around 16. Now remember to make simple laws you need some 257 votes(Lower House), but in Brazil to make deeper Constitutional reforms you need 308 votes in the Lower House and 49 seats in the Senate! Now, you clearly make a very good point and thus I think many leftwing parties, like PPS, PDT and PV are already talking about bring in a parliamentary system. I know Ciro Gomes mentioned it in 2002. Let me say, that in that system the political party would be very strong and the Prime Ministery gets to make the necessary reforms if the people give a party a majority in the Lower House! Dont forget though that the opposition gets to form a shadow government to counter crazy proposals that the govt makes (like when Lula tried to regulate the media,movies etc).

Exactly! So how is a president supposed to be as striedent as is Mr. Merlino and try to get something done at the same time? I'd like to see Mr. Merlino do it. He'll learn as fast as Lula did that it cannot be done with the system Brazil has.

It would seem that some reform as outlined in the post above would be good. I don't believe, as that idiot Hayes in the other recent article, that Lula wants to create a "totalitarian govenment." Indeed, those are the words of a crank and a crackpot. But some reform that would allow a leader to accomplish some of the goals that he or she is elected on would be favarable, it seems to me.

If you're from the slum, I'm from the Land of Oz. YOU are the fraud. Probably been buying "white powder" and putting it up your nose, rich boy.

So you have just stolen the computer you've just used right now? What a joke! Go back to your video games!

Pseudo-intellectuals such as the writer of this article talk in couched terms from the 1950s...and maybe they should go back there.

"Lula's public approval rating, however, has been largely unaffected by the crisis and even edged up slightly, according to last week's poll by the Sensus Institute." http://today.reuters.com/busin...nN18645222

If you follow Chico, he would have us living as Castro's Cubans in eternal poverty while he sucks the blood of the people in his taxpayer funded position

Those guys are dinosaurs that belong into Stalin’s Soviet Union. By reading carefully the article, one notes that what Chico preaches is socialist revolution in Brazil. And now he is upset because he (Lula) was smart enough to realize this is a complete non-sense.

you smell