Brazzil

The corruption in Brazil is much older than Lula himself. We need to understand that the media exposure of our political life that is happening in Brazil now is the result of a free and powerful media which is revealing things in a hallucinating rate. We do have a free press. We proved it.

Therefore, all the contemporary Brazilian political corruption that has been exposed openly to the world is, in fact, a very good sign. Only this way we could have the public awareness of how politicians work in Brazil. We have the tendency to forget how things are in Brasilia as long our favorite soccer team is winning. This serious scandal is making Brazilians to think about, ponder and analyze our political system. It may take some more scandals to make the people say “enough” but sooner or latter it will happen.

Any serious analyst of the current Brazilian situation would reach the conclusion that what is going on now is a needed pain we must to go through in order to change the Brazilian mentality, otherwise this would perpetuate, forever. Even if we have to face all the international humiliation we are now suffering.

Non Brazilians are looking at the situation as a great sign that Brazil is now decaying; however, I see it as a necessary step for a better Brazil.

All the exposure of the political scandals that we are watching is a strong sign that we are contemplating a radical change in our political system. There is no other way. If we were really all corrupted, for example, then we would simply hide all this from the media and from the rest of the world. If someone can blow a whistle and cause such a huge convulsion then we are living in a democratic country. In a non democratic system Roberto Jefferson would be dead by now and the media would be silent as a tomb.

However, we do have one major problem, that we are facing and it is very disturbing. Our judiciary system is outdated and inefficient. Our laws are soft and discriminatory. We need to change that if we want to practice real justice in Brazil. We need to start sentencing politicians to jail time not only to mere public humiliation because Brazilians have a short political memory and most Brazilians are politically uneducated, at least.

I am not impressed that Olavo de Carvalho is to be quoted in such an extreme right oriented magazine like this one. However, the man is a big joke inside the country. There are several communities created just to laugh at his paranoid obssession with communists and profound admiration for the Bush Doctrine. He praised the military dictatorship regime. Also, he is involved with the Globo organization, wich owns the hegemonic TV channels in Brazil as well as newspapers and magazines and supported the military dictatorship for decades and also was a huge defender of Fernando Collor de Mello (mentioned in the article), a right wing politician that was made president and then impeached because of the unbelieavable corruption.

....I totally agree with your analysis and I have been commenting again and again in the same directions !!!!

The problem is that those who have the power, economically or politcally, will do everything to keep it !!!

Brazil being a new hesitant democracy....you should not be governed by old generations of politicians who simply have old ideologies...to protect them....not the society !

You should vote and elect new generations of politicians who have commitments and visions for the future and the well being of your society....contrary to the actual one that just want to preserve their own wealth and power...at whatever cost to the people who elected them !

Nobody in this world has ever been able to transform and old black/white TV to a flat panel TV with high resolution colors !!!!

To do that you need new thinkings, visions, new tools and new plants !!!

So you should simply throw away (early retirements) those old ideology politicians. If they dont want to retire...fire them or put them in jail as you have enough evidences of their wrongdoings !!!

Another way of looking at this is that Lula is keeping his promise to root out corruption. He just didn't know it would with his own party. :-)

"So you should simply throw away (early retirements) those old ideology politicians."

Things are not that simple and you have to consider also that it is not so easy to get everyone to agree upon any issue. Isn’t that the darn thing about democracy that makes it so difficult to manage? Americans know that pretty well. Republicans, democrats and liberals; who is right and who is wrong?

Sorry, no matter what you think of the author, the story is accurate. Once again a left leaning South American political figure gives more gas to the right to pour on the fire. Lula and his cronies have now given the right elite exactly what they wished for...failure. After building hope among the middle class and poor, they have once again been disappointed by idle promises and cruel hope. Really, it revolves around Lula's lack of education, his inability to lead Brasil is a direct result of his lack of administrative skills. Like all really good politicans he is a master at flashy photo ops and firey retoric, but in the end he lacks the brains to lead Brazil into a better future.

Lula is actually a smart fellow. He is not well educated but he is definitely not that dumb. However, he is regrettably not the qualified individual that we need to lead Brazil to a better future, actually at the moment nobody in Brazil is.

There is a big difference between clever and intellectual. Your President has proven to be ill suited, under educated, and improperly trained. The only place he can lead your people is exactly where your leaders have lead you for the past 100 years...no where. What a shame, so much unrealized potential. For such a nationalistic country, your pride is amusing.

I think brazilians have a lot to be proud of. Sure, their political system is a mess - but have you noticed the bushies? It's not as if the US is doing too terribly well in corruption (Sen. Frist's 20/20 vision into his "blind trust"), the neo-con delusion of bringing democracy to the middle east, the iraq debacle, the "voodoo economics" of W. I think the US too has a lot to be humble about ...

As always Vargas Llosa gets half of his analysis spot on and then spoils it with an incoherent rant against the left and strong government.

Bureaucratic degeneration is part of Latin America’s problem. It is the consequence of monopoly capitalism and weak government not of strong leftwing states.

Vargas Llosa is obviously right that Lula failed to change the corrupt way politics is conducted in Brazil. His failure was due to a lack of state power and his timidity in challenging vested interest and the status quo. He wasn’t sufficiently conflictive.

The statement “This labyrinth has one positive aspect it makes centralized decisions difficult to implement” highlights Vargas Llosa’s contradictorily logic. Fragmenting power - vertically; between federal, state and local levels, and horizontally; between legislature, judiciary and executive- has produced corruption and pork barrel politics in all presidential federal states including the USA. The solution is the concentration of power. Even Fukuyama has arrived at this conclusion.

Chile isn’t a federation and has a strong centralized state. It is the least corrupt country in Latin America.

Under Chavez Venezuela has become increasingly centralized. Corruption has fallen and state intervention has broken up private monopolies thus giving small entrepreneurs a chance. Furthermore Chavez has cut red tape and provided credit for micro businesses.

Vargas Llosa is right that private enterprise is vital for Latin American development. However his anachronistic red-baiting blinds him to the fact that a strong centralized state is vital to true entrepreneurial capitalism, and the fight against corruption. Furthermore only the left has the independence and determination to confront monopoly capital. Lula abandoned his leftwing agenda when he became president of Brazil. The result speaks for itself.

Sure, I concede, Brazil has a lot to be proud of, all countries have their accomplishments. Dumont was the first in flight, Ronaldo is remarkable, Embraer makes the worlds finest regional aircraft...but so what. Is Brazil proud of its immoral class sytem where the elite continue their rape upon the poor and middle class Brazilian people? Are you proud of your favelas and the drug dealers who run them. Do you think you would see that in the developed world! Are you proud that everyone from the corner policeman to the country's president have their hands out for bribes? Are you proud of the fact that your public schools are a joke and that poverty abounds everywhere? The problem with Brazil has always been her pride. Brazilians continue to think they are European even though for most, the standard of living is US$300 a month...legal slavery. Brazil is a country of corrupt morality, poor leadership and even though Brazilians talk up the pride game pretty good...the bottom line is that in Brazil it's eveyone for themselves. Their sense of nationalism is a complete joke.

We do know that our country has problems and some serious social issues. Few Brazilians will deny those things. Why should that change the way we feel about our country? I believe that many Brazilians love the land, nature, colors and the people even when we despise our politicians. Why that amuses you?

We also know that some Brazilians destroy nature, burn the forest for profit, accept corruption money from other Brazilians and foreigners, and have drug issues. We also have bad politicians. Those are bad Brazilians. Don’t you have bad people in your country? If you don’t please tell me what country is yours and I will apply for a visa there, must be the Christian Heaven.

However, there are many web sites on the Internet discussing corruption in the US, for example, and some other web sites about serious problems in Europe. Are you concerned about those issues as well?

When I was in the US I had my favorite radio (AM) talk show attacking the American social issues which would bring back my memories of Brazil. LOL

Brazil needs more patriotism and even if you think that we started with the wrong foot we need that sense of nationality and pride.

Your view of Brazil shows resentment of some sort against Brazilians. One thing is puzzling, why are you so concerned about our country? Why should you care?

I would like to add more people to your list of great Brazilians of whom we are proud of: Olavo Bilac, Machado de Assis, Vital Brasil, Carlos Chagas, Oscar Niemeyer, Burle Marx, Cesar Lattes, Portinari, Carlos Gomes, Villas Lobos, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Assis Chateaubriand, Bartholomeu de Gusmao, etc.

We also have institutions of which we are also proud of: IMPA, INPE, Butantan Institute, etc.

'very well written. Just as I am not accountable for all of my government's policies and blunders (USA), Brasileiros cannot all be blamed for their huge and corrupt political system. It is easy to say that they should not stand for it - that they should change it. However, I doubt that many would want a revolution or a (perhaps further) destabilized economy. I too am a believer in a free press - it is the one thing that has saved the USA for as long as it has, for corrupt people will be found wherever there is power and money. It is one of the many unfortunate issues that I see in the USA today - the press is less free (owned by fewer people (conglomerates) who can control what the masses hear. Allowing this consolidation is one of the many stupid things that I never thought I'd see here.

The seemingly endless corruption scandals plaguing Lula's governing party are symptomatic of any developing country's path to higher levels of development. The thing is that the public has full access to all the twists and turns in this saga. I think this openness is very healthy and other developing nations should learn from the Brazilian example because in many a developing country, leaders surreptitiously loot their nations with ruthless abandon and their crimes go unreported; case in point: Abacha in Nigeria and Mobutu Sese-Seko in Zaire.These two f**kers were dictators so while they stole, they had the press in a vice, unable to publish the true nature of their regimes.Openness is one essential ingredient for any country to move forward so also is the freedom of the press.Word!