[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Username17]

Certainly looks like a coup from our vantage point in the Northern Hemisphere. The headline on cnn was "It's a Coup."

-Username17

[nockermensch]

O nockermensch, where art thou?

Since he didn't say: president Rousseff was suspended for investigation. The vice-president, leader of PMDB (biggest cancer on Brazilian politics, remember), is now president.

Even if this coup is obviously something for silva to explain (because it's bears, all the way down) I'll try to write something: For starters, despite all the cries about CORRUPTION!!!1, the actual, on-the-paper reason for this impeachment are accounting tricks, of a kind that 2/3 of our state governors and Temer also resorted to. So you could ask: "Why is that Dilma (who curiously is not indicted in any corruption scandal) was singled out for punishment because them?". Once you make this very reasonable question, you may find that everybody that's for this travesty of democracy will just start to blabber and accuse you of "Defending the most corrupt government of Earth!!!1". Because they have no actual answer for this, but they know what TV Globo has been feeding them daily for the last 8 years.

Follow this with the absolutely disgraceful votes that confirmed this shame, with the MPs and Senators gave their best to pretend that we're running a Circus Parliamentary System, where the head of the Executive can be deposed by a motion of no-confidence. (protip: This is not the case here).

Follow this with the absolutely cowardly complicit way the Supreme Court has been behaving during this whole mess. They, that should be the guardians of our Constitution, ignored/voted down something like 3 or 4 appeals to stop this ridiculous process (the TL;DR; of all these appeals being: "OPEN THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION AND READ IT!") by saying that "this is a matter for the Congress to decide."

And you have the curious situation where Two of Brazil's Three Powers just got away with murder. Montesquieu never imagined what would happen when a majority of a majority of a country's governing powers were made of corrupt and/or coward people.

---

So now here we are, at the first day of this new Government and with the following things already passed into Law:

[*] The most conservative, reactionary Cabinet we had since Geisel (the most hardcore of our Military rulers): it's 100% old white men, 7 9 of them indicted at that Car-Wash investigation. If you have been trying to follow this mess, you may remember that Lula was barred from becoming a Dilma Minister because he "was indicted at that Car-Wash investigation". So you could ask "f that was the reason, how can Temer do the same thing seven times, with impunity?" and the answer, of course, is "Fuck you."

[*] 8 Ministries or Ministry-tier Secretaries extinct: among them a formerly independent auditing and accounting organ, to be substituted by the Orwellian-named "Ministry of Transparency and Combat against Corruption", directly subject to the President. The same President that can't run for office for 8 years because he was found guilty of electoral shenanigans and is accused of receiving grafts. Because Fuck You again, that's why.

For the next weeks/months we can count on the following happening:

[*] Actions will be made to sell our [still] lucrative state oil company, which is the holder of huge deep sea oil reserves, something we already have the technology to explore (said tech becomes lucrative only when the oil barrel is above $50 or so, IIRC). So Petrobras will probably be sold for bananas now, at which points the Saudis diminish their production again and we see billions of oil revenue leaving Brazil for good.

[*] Access to our feeble social welfare programs will be restricted. Even if Temer said that these won't be touched, I could bet that before 2018 new rules will make access to all these programs more difficult.

[*] Austerity, Austerity, Austerity. The new Minister of Economy firmly believes on this.

---

The funny bit is that these news are... good for me. I'm a 40 years old white male (inb4 /pol/'s >Brazilian >White) and (full disclaimer) a company owner. I have some money invested. I can reasonably expect less taxes for my company and investments, and since they're so hellbent on destroying unions and workers' rights, it should become cheaper for me to employ people (bask in the horror as you realize that nockermensch is a job creator). Moreover, housing should become cheaper, since a lot of people who can afford cheap housing now will eventually need to move out (to the streets) and this should reverse the chain reaction that made prices to spike here. It's just that... I don't want to live in a society that will just erase the social and economic progress that was made on the last 13 years. Our GINI index was moving nicely towards a more equal society, but I can just count that these fuck-ups will revert that. This sucks for everybody, but the people running the show now are too greedy to see that.

I should write some Phonelobster length posts trying to explain how this travesty could come to pass, but a decent first pass TL;DR is: "Globo did it".

More news to follow.

EDIT: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/opini ... worse.html

EDIT2: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/bra ... installed/ - I don't particularly like Greenwald, because I remember his treatment of the Snowden leaks, namely, sitting over it. In this case, however, he's telling it how it is.

[Ancient History]

http://time.com/4336396/lithuania-mural ... utin-kiss/

[ckafrica]

Hey, Maj, how much jellyfish have you eaten? Could you tell the difference between the real and the fake?

It really doesn't taste like much of anything. The closest analogy I can imagine is unflavored gummy bears that someone has sucked on so they are kind of slick.

[name_here]

So I went looking for other articles about Brazil's Congress and realized that it's more insane than nockermensch has told us. He didn't mention the outstanding international murder/kidnapping arrest warrants or the clown.

[Leress]

Hey, Maj, how much jellyfish have you eaten? Could you tell the difference between the real and the fake?

It really doesn't taste like much of anything. The closest analogy I can imagine is unflavored gummy bears that someone has sucked on so they are kind of slick.

The point I was getting at was that it could be hard to tell the difference even if you are in a place that has it as a staple. There would a lot of reason why someone may not know the difference.

[Username17]

So I went looking for other articles about Brazil's Congress and realized that it's more insane than nockermensch has told us. He didn't mention the outstanding international murder/kidnapping arrest warrants or the clown.

As I understand it, the clown is one of the more reasonable members of congress. He's basically the Brazilian Al Franken.

[name_here]

Yes, that is the best part.

[nockermensch]

So I went looking for other articles about Brazil's Congress and realized that it's more insane than nockermensch has told us. He didn't mention the outstanding international murder/kidnapping arrest warrants or the clown.

As I understand it, the clown is one of the more reasonable members of congress. He's basically the Brazilian Al Franken.

Voting is compulsory in Brazil. This, coupled with the popular perception fact that the politicians are a bunch of crooks, means that protest voting can get very popular. Tiririca (the clown) ran with slogans like "Do you know what a MP does? Me neither! Vote in me so I can discover it!" or "Vote Tiririca! Things can't get worse!" (this one rhymes).

So Tiririca became a MP and ... did pretty much alright, for Congressional standards. He goes to work (in itself awesome on a Congress plagued by absentee MPs) and tends to take his job seriously. However, he voted to oust Dilma, something which, at least in my book, kind of ruined his reputation.

[Koumei]

So, PL, care to give an update on how NSW remains the worst state in Australia?

(A country which, I remind you, has fucking Western Australia in it)

[PhoneLobster]

That article is just some of it.

Those anti protest and detain without detention laws are the tip of the ice berg.

You know ALL the REST of those crazy anti-terrorist secret courts, no evidence standards cops can just declare gut feelings and do crazy shit to you because they think you smell terroristy?

Well those now apply to ANYONE for basically ANYTHING, oh and via basically any cop at any level. The crazy shit? Stuff up to and including just ordering you to NOT GATHER IN PUBLIC or ABANDON YOUR CAREER or NEVER GO ON THE INTERNET AGAIN. Challenge only allowed if they give such an order "long term" and then in a secret court the plaintiff and their lawyers cannot attend where the evidence standard required is... none the police just have to say the feel it is justified.

And the council amalgamations? Again the tip of a gigantic gerrymandering iceberg state wide described by experts as unseen in Australia since the days of the infamous Sir Joh. You know, the guy who's infamously corrupt banana republic required a royal commission to dismantle.

Westconnex? That's just one god damn thing.

[Koumei]

Yeah, they've well and truly reached "If Coalition don't win this federal election, he could actually go to jail". Which is just one reason to put them last.

[hyzmarca]

Clashes at Anti-Violence Rally.

The headline pretty much says it all.

[MGuy]

Since the Pug Video = Hate Crime thing I've been looking into these anti-Hate Crime Laws and doing that lead me back to a name I hadn't looked into since the gamer gate thing was going on. One Sargon of Akkad has made a video about a Brexit. I remember Greece talking about getting off the euro but what's up with Britain? Weren't they one of the main places pushing for the Euro in the first place?

[hyzmarca]

Since the Pug Video = Hate Crime thing I've been looking into these anti-Hate Crime Laws and doing that lead me back to a name I hadn't looked into since the gamer gate thing was going on. One Sargon of Akkad has made a video about a Brexit. I remember Greece talking about getting off the euro but what's up with Britain? Weren't they one of the main places pushing for the Euro in the first place?

Britain isn't on the Euro at all. It's still using the Pound Sterling. Britain has no plans to go on the Euro.

A Brexit would not be a withdrawl from the Eurozone, which they are not in, it would be a full withdrawal from the EU.

And I don't know enough about Britain, but I understand that withdrawl from the EU is part of the British National Party's platform. The BNP are basically British Nazis. Though, due to dwindling membership and much stigma associated with Antisemitism, they did a 180 on the issue in 2009 and decided that they actually loved Jews. They still hate Muslims, though.

[Koumei]

The BNP are the old guard of the Nazis in a country that actually fought the actual Nazis and historically has really hated the Nazis. They were in a position where, when one of them actually got a seat in parliament, the police asked the BBC not to do any interviews or screen-time (because of the legitimate risk of causing violence).

These days, all the hip young Nazi kids vote UKIP, which wants the UK to be free, and no longer enslaved as just one of the colonies... of... wait, sorry, the UK is the one that still owns weird bits of other countries and is in no way some kind of underdog fighting for independence. But UKIP has a huge cross-over with regular conservatives, which is awkward for conservative MPs who want to just be regular heartless tories and not racists, so they're kind of like the Donald Trump compared to the regular Republican Party. Give or take.

Except weirdly, UKIP and that rancid pile of weasel shit Gert Wiilders are kind of helping: not just by vaguely muddying the conservative base, and by showing their own ideas to be as toxic as they are (heaven forbid they get competent, charismatic leaders), but by opposing big EU things that are ultimately harmful.

Because yes, going back to a previous point, the leadership of Britain is big on the "EU as a block, as long as we get a certain amount of authority and can ignore stuff we don't like and bully other countries around. We'll still price stuff by the pound and not the kilo, and will use our own money (turns out that was a good idea), but we get to boss Greece around." And Britain has been all for "Let us rally in support of The Western Crimea, that country that used to be The Ukraine, and build a giant statue of a middle finger pointed at Russia." Just by having these "Anti-whatever-the-EU-says" elements (not just in the UK, but in a few other countries as well), there's actually enough opposition to at least slow that one down.

[DSMatticus]

Since the Pug Video = Hate Crime thing I've been looking into these anti-Hate Crime Laws and doing that lead me back to a name I hadn't looked into since the gamer gate thing was going on. One Sargon of Akkad has made a video about a Brexit. I remember Greece talking about getting off the euro but what's up with Britain? Weren't they one of the main places pushing for the Euro in the first place?

The UK was able to get into the European Union without adopting the euro as their currency. Brexit would not be abandoning the euro (which they are already not using), only leaving the EU. I am generally in support of Brexit, even if most of the people who support Brexit are the biggest shitstains in the UK. It's an important step towards delegitimizing the EU, which is in turn an important step towards dissolving the EU, which needs to fucking happen. The system was tested, it failed miserably, and there is no clear path to improve it because of its wildly undemocratic nature. Burning it to the ground is pretty much the only way to save the next Greece from being deliberately inflicted with unconscionable levels of human suffering, and so if a who's-who of the UK's worst assholes wants to accidentally help us protect the impoverished and suffering I'm not going to refuse them out of spite.

[Schleiermacher]

I want to agree with you, DSM -but if you tear down the EU, what do you replace it with? Having a structure to facilitate international cooperation, trade and freedom of movement across Europe is a very good thing, even though the EU turned into a monster.

[DSMatticus]

That is a weaksauce argument. The entire world does very well negotiating trade pacts without ceding critical parts of their nation's sovereignty. Too well, in fact, since as of late most of our trade pacts boil down to "how can we kill people for fun and profit by crushing medical generics with IP provisions?" And even before that our "good" trade pacts, while definitely increasing global and national GDP, also started the race to the bottom that has tanked our wages and crippled our unions. Expanding trade without simultaneously strengthening the protection of domestic workers isn't actually a noble goal. It's plutocratic cock-suckery.

Until Europe is ready for genuine political union (i.e. not anytime soon), nothing is better than something. By miles. It's not even worth debating. There is simply no current way to "unify" Europe without eventually causing... this.

[maglag]

Until Europe is ready for genuine political union (i.e. not anytime soon), nothing is better than something. By miles. It's not even worth debating. There is simply no current way to "unify" Europe without eventually causing... this.

In case you forgot, pre-EU the continent had been eternal war in the continent since anybody remembers.

Armies murderizing each other between France/England/Germany/Italy/whatever had boiled down to be considered a sport pre-WW I. Being a mercenary was considered a valid life-long profession and there was never lack of work anywhere you cared to look for in Europe. The term "turncoat" was because soldiers literally had coats with one different color in each side because today's ally was gonna be tommorrow's enemy and then back in the next day and it just saved you a lot of money on the long run having your uniform being able to quickly swap between two teams.

But thanks to the EU, the French haven't been making massed bayonet charges and artillery, germans haven't been putting their neighbours in concentration camps, and England hasn't been pillaging my native country's coasts for 50+ years, which is nothing short of a fucking miracle considering that that was considered the norm over the previous 2000+ years.

There's still plenty of hate around yes, but at least european countries are now attacking in each other in the markets instead of stabbing/gunning each other down by the thousands every other year. Baby steps.

[PhoneLobster]

So anyway. The big news of the (going to be a long one) federal election week here in Australia is...

... oh for fucks sake playing the racist refugee bashing card again...

... and oh for DOUBLE fucks sake Peter "TOTAL FUCKING DUMB ASS" Dutton putting his apparently very tastey feet in his mouth AGAIN.

Now it's unclear whats really going on or how this will play out.

Results wise the Australian public is very racist, or at least key parts of key marginal seats are. But they like to pretend they AREN'T so when the dog whistle comments become too obvious... well... it plays poorly.

But method wise it's actually a very old Coalition strategy to get some dumb ass to say something obviously racist and then sort of half heartedly deny it without dissavowing it or punishing the mouthpiece so as to "have it both ways" and nudge and wink the racist vote their way.

But... Dutton has a history of saying stupid shit entirely off script it probably was not intended for him to say, well THAT. This week was CLEARLY scripted by an already desperate liberal party to be nothing but screaming "We Stopped The Boats!!!!" (note, they didn't). And now Dutton's comment has been seen apparently as going "over the line" by a rather large contingent of the public AND in fact by the looks of things a few parts of the media. Suddenly the narrative isn't "Fuck you we compassionately tortured people until the boats stopped and thats ALL THAT MATTERS" its instead a narrative of... "wait... is our immigration minister ACTUALLY that racist?". And if there is one narrative Aussies hate it's the for some reason commonly recurring "wait, is Australia racist, I mean, we can't be right? RIGHT? RIGHT!?!".

Now what did he say? Well basically that all refugees are illiterate and innumerate even in their own languages, and despite that somehow will steal "Australian" jobs and somehow despite THAT will also "languish on the dole".

Aside from how that's all wildly factually incorrect on, wow, basically all fronts, it is also and more importantly really fucking racist sounding. And it was THE MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION saying this, I mean fuck his own departments official information contradicts his (self contradictory) claims.

And hey look, we even have mainstream commercial conservative media lame breakfast news personalities taking the time to condemn the remarks on air and demand an apology on behalf of basically all of Australia's migrants through history.

Even the labor opposition suddenly has some teeth attacking it as xenophobic and insulting and demanding apologies and resignations and what not.

Where this goes is unclear. Nowhere is likely if you've read some of the comments I've read you'd know that an ALARMING number of rabid "Ozzie" fuckwits actually believe every word Dutton said is a harsh provable truth (you know, even despite being clearly contradictory and pretty much prototypical xenophobia).

But we have to remember. The DUTTON FACTOR. Last time this idiot said something offensive and racist IT WAS THE LAST SCANDAL STRAW THAT TOOK DOWN THE PRIOR PRIME MINISTER. The dude has talent, only ONE talent and a remarkable non-talent in all other fields, but talent all the same, he somehow says exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. He MAY Have just done the deed that kills Malcolm Turnbull's reign.

THIS might be moment we point back to as the moment these nazi fuckers finally jumped the shark and lost the election.

Or you know. Maybe not. I mean fuck, no one gave a fucking bleat a few weeks ago when the same potato head said that refugees in his torture gulags keep burning themselves to death because REFUGEE ADVOCATES MAKE THEM DO IT. Because Australia. Ozzie Ozzie, fucketty fuck.

PS : HOW IS THIS MAN A MINISTER IN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? HOW WAS HE EVER? HOW DOES HE KEEP MANAGING TO KEEP THE FUCKING JOB? WHO HAS HE GOT DIRT ON? GOD?

[DSMatticus]

In case you forgot, pre-EU the continent had been eternal war in the continent since anybody remembers.

In case you forgot, the EU didn't come into existence until 1993. The gap between WW2 and the formation of the EU is literally more than twice as long as the gap between WW1 and WW2. Take the dick out of your mouth and stop pretending that the EU - instead of nuclear proliferation and a multitude of improvements to the way we handle diplomatic relations - has anything to do with the stability of western Europe.

In fact, the truth is the exact fucking opposite of what you think it is. A mere 26 years (i.e. only a little more than the gap between WW1 and WW2) after adopting the EU we have recreated the economic conditions which ultimately brought Hitler into power, and sure enough the popularity of fascist and neo-nazi movements is on the rise throughout Europe. The EU is right now trying to figure out what to do about the fact that Poland's right-wing party has essentially staged a fucking coup by arbitrarily removing the previous government's justices' from office, replacing them with their own, and then passing an unconstitutional law crippling the judicial branch's authority so that it can't stop them from doing whatever the fuck they want (which is rig the electoral system so they never ever ever leave power). And the reason the EU is having such a hard time figuring out what to do is because any meaningful action would require a unanimous vote, and Hungary isn't going to vote against Poland because Hungary is doing the exact same fucking thing.

That's the EU's track record. Two fascist coups, widespread unemployment, and the resurgence of radicalism in the very same countries who brought us the first World Wars. If history is any lesson, we are closer to another massive European war than we ever were at any point during the period between WW2 and the formation of the EU. The entire project is a giant fucking failure on every front and it needs to go.

[Koumei]

The attacks that you might see if you're a Left Wing Australian on Social Media have been pretty good for this one.

-The Paradox of Schroedinger's Refugee, who both steals jobs AND does no work, sucking up dole money
-The whole "If they are in fact illiterate, innumerate and unable to speak English, and steal your job on day one, how shit are you at your job?"
-"This is the Governor of South Australia. I guess he's one of those Illiterate Refugees Dutton keeps worrying about." (He's a refugee)
-The Shovel* with "Well clearly he's partially right, because an illiterate, innumerate moron has landed one top job. That would be Immigration Minister. Now he's not an immigrant, but he's shown how stupid you can be and still get that job."
-Another one saying "More people hoping illiterate refugees will steal Dutton's job"

So there has been a lot of noise. If it does turn into him sinking his leader (again) and this time the whole party, then people will realise how toxic he is and he'll be untouchable. Him ever having any kind of job again now hinges on the Coalition winning. Yet another reason why we mustn't let that happen.

Or it could just remain noise: people being angry on social media. People shouting "Dickhead" at him from cars. And no actual effect on the election (and his job).

*One of our versions of the Onion. We have a lot of sattire sites, the government basically provides enough material for it. This is an industry they have helped support.

[Kaelik]

In case you forgot, pre-EU the continent had been eternal war in the continent since anybody remembers.

As DSM has already done a decent job addressing it, but I really want to emphasize that you are dumb as fucking shit, since, again, the cessation of wars in Europe is almost certainly more related to all the things that made it basically crazy for approximately equal powers to wage war, and nothing at all to do with a 1993 unified currency.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Take the dick out of your mouth and stop pretending that the EU - instead of nuclear proliferation and a multitude of improvements to the way we handle diplomatic relations - has anything to do with the stability of western Europe.

Well, the EU is merely the latest in a progression of post-WW2 economic agreements to help make sure that the European powers (especially Germany, natch) have more to gain from peace than war, and those agreements have definitely been partly responsible for the long peacetime.

But yes, the EU in its current form is an undemocratic mess that is basically run as a protection racket by German banks and in need of a do-over before the countries being looted are fully convinced that a war cannot be worse than this peace.