So far the Brazilian politicians have been lucky that all these 1 million people haven't become violent and ask for their blood. Because to be honest, I think at least some of the corrupt leaders need to be punished severely, possibly even with the death penalty (like Ceausescu was in Romania).
It's really the only way they'll learn their lesson, and more importantly, future generations of politicians will know now to upset the population to the point where they'll revolt and ask for their execution. I'm not usually pro-death penalty, but if there's anyone deserving it, it's the oppressive/corrupt leaders that make millions of people suffer through their ruling.
I definitely think the leaders intentionally abusing their own Constitution deserve the death penalty, because if they don't get that, then it's just an invitation for future leaders to abuse it. They swore to protect it and obey it, and there needs to be a way to force them to do just that. Otherwise what's the point? Imagine how different things would be in US, if politicians would fear death penalty if they abuse the Constitution, and keep passing unconstitutional laws.
I feel almost the same way about bankers who get away with their crimes. How are they supposed to learn their lesson if they aren't even threatened by prison time, even though they lost the pensions and deposits of millions of people? If they think they have the potential to earn tens of billions of hundreds of billions from risking the money of those people, they'll be much more inclined to do it if they only risk a couple of billion in penalty, and that's it.
The population is supposed to rectify these sort of abuses by the elite in a society. It's up to the population to ultimately decide how much of a punishment these people get, and if their "representatives" aren't up for it, then they need to change them, or at least scare them into applying their will.
Now, this is not what is happening here. Not at all. But taking the constitution as sacrosanct and making going against it punishable by death is not a good idea. Is dogmatic and wrong. The responsibility of politicians is towards the people, not towards the constitution.
Personally, I don't think the death penalty should be used for anything less than willfully causing the death of of an innocent victim.
I agree that laws are made by men. But the US constitution was written for the living people. Corrupt leaders are corrupted because they in fact don't serve the living. Over time, the man-made laws have changed as well.
However, just like in math, it's possible to prove whether something is right or wrong by verifying on a fixed principle. All the answers are determined by the questions. So we can only tell if laws are right or wrong by evaluating them case-by-case.
If the equation in math changes, we will get many answers from a single question. That's why to evaluate truth and justice we need one principle, not many.
Do you mean to the current people? and/or the future generations? and/or the past ones?
As violent and absurd this may sound, I believe those who live in Brasília should go to undoubtedly corrupt politician's homes (like Renan Calheiros') and destroy it, the same way people have been doing with banks, telecom, and media companies (entities that literally have raped and manipulated us for decades) in several capitals.
Although I believe this may not prevent corrupt politicians from being in power in the future (only a properly educated population can ensure that), we need to act now. Our political system is broken and there is no way change will come from those in power - their own interest is holding control.
Your notion of "party" is even inaccurate. A party don't need to participate in elections (there are lots of not electoral parties). And between parties who act in elections, there are those who do it not to be elected (in fact, they are almost never elected), but to spread their message in the TV during elections. Just trying to use the system against the system. Even there are parties (PT, PSOL), that are in fact a huge aggregation of different groups (like sub-parties), and those groups can be very diverse, some of them not wishing to concentrate in government, but acting with social movements.
The current acts against political parties in Brazil is a huge ignorance spread by right wing groups. Is indeed a very fascist thing.
Not all parties were involved in some sort of corruption. And those who didn't are the ones having their flags burnt by protesters.
Lot's of activists from PSTU died protesting against big farmers violence against the indigenous. Activists from PSOL, PSTU, and other left wing parties have a LONG history of protesting. Just search google: Pinheirinhos, Belo Monte, União Homoafetiva, Marcha das Vadias, Marcha da Maconha. They were always there, fighting for what they believed was right.
I agree with your post, except for this. If history has shown us anything, it's that they never learn.
http://frombrazil.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2013/06/21/sao-paulo-...
I hadn't seen until I read that that the original organizers of the protest, the MPL, have actually pulled out and denounced some of the current protestors due to them being coopted by right-wing groups.
The blog post linked here makes a curious comment about "corruption... especially after the fall of the military regime". I'm not 100% sure if this is intended as a dog-whistle comment to the right, but it's a common sort of discourse among the right-wing, to excuse the dictatorship or even call for a new one by using corruption as the opening, since allegedly the dictatorship, for all its faults, was clean and got the trains running on time etc.
You chose one line out of context from the original article to highlight a "dog whistle to the right" in support of a dictatorship while the rest of the article is an impassioned plea for human rights.
Any time there's a mass movement, many different people will try to co-opt it. It doesn't mean that you should avoid supporting the movement. It means that it is very important to vocally support the parts of it that you do agree with, so that the parts you don't remain on the fringes.
Acting like the whole movement is suspect because of a few strikes me as very counter-productive.
Keep in mind that it's common for governments and other political organizations to insert agitators for the purposes of attempting to discredit or change the message of a protest. Happens very frequently.
Also there is a large contingent of people that just like rioting. IE: "Now could be your only chance to torch a police car"
http://web.archive.org/liveweb/frombrazil.blogfolha.uol.com....
I understand this as a humorous remark, no doubt, but there are certain positions of power from which I do not appreciate joking.
Shitty petistas¹. Motherfuckers. (...) I miss the time when this kind of thing was resolved with rubber (sticks) on the backs of the cowards...
¹ Supporters of the Partido Trabalhista, as far as I can tell.
Exactly how I feel.
And no way it was a joke, since he used bad words in the original post I haven't translated, which indicates he was really pissed off and writing fluently.
On the bright side, it was funny the watch the national and foreign media trying to understand what was going on. And then my own friends and coworkers who supported the whole thing trying to explain what they thought it was about (each one with a different explanation).
"Represent us, not yourselves" is the message delivered by these sorts of protests. It's more effective than an itemized list.
> And then my own friends and coworkers who supported the whole thing trying to explain what they thought it was about (each one with a different explanation).
This makes perfect sense amongst people who aren't being represented at all well by their government - the government isn't just doing one thing badly, so of course there isn't agreement over what they're doing wrong. It says something kind of ugly about you that you think it's "funny."
Article 2 – Right to life
:
2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this
article when it results from the use of force which is no more than
absolutely necessary:
:
c. in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.
Vis-a-vis riots, read in the context of "insurrection" you might interpret it as referring to the kind of riots you see in say Bangladesh: labor strikes where people bomb things.
Then, as the article portrays, Arab countries can oust their leaders, but Brazilians choose to re-elect corrupt politicians.
Why does it seem like communist countries can inspire nationalism and pride, and the people of dictatorships can change leadership. Yet, Brazil, as a democratic country, is depicted as imagining disgrace (in world cup / Olympics) and unable to instigate political change?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/21/the_tyranny...
which hand is stealing? If it is 'center' is both...
As the protest backfired agains the left and the president (left too) they are trying to get over the protest..
But it is a long way to put all sardines back in the can.
Nobody protested because of 20cents. Those were yearly protests by movement free pass (passe livre). Their goal is free public transportation and they do demonstrations for at least 10yrs.
It's just for effect that they time the demonstrations to the fare raises.
And now, the media giving voice to that kind of people is what made the govt get away with 20c less on the fare for this issue. It totally undermined the movement and alienated newcomers.
Those people eager to appear in the media effectively destroyed the leadership and turned the protest into a headless occupy wallstreet kind of thing.
Yesterday there were talks of the military taking opportunity and throwing A COUPE... Highly improbable but since now nobody has any direction, even within the gov, it was a real fear for some in the workers party that heads govmnt currently.
- http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/2013/06/apos-sugerir-m...
EDIT: You can see this in english here: http://frombrazil.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2013/06/14/fear-and-l... (search for "prosecutor")
also, the author is an idiot.