to be replaced by different rats once they taste the power/money. Someone once said the fact you want to be a politician should immediately disqualify you from being a politician"
I get the exact opposite impression from this. If Bolsonaro were actually guilty of any wrongdoing, as opposed to fleeing phony charges by a corrupt government, wouldn't he have picked somewhere more friendly to crime than the US to flee to?
But he was guilty, was he not? His conviction was later annulled because the Supreme Court sided with his lawyers' appeal that Lula should have been tried in Brasilia, not the state court in Parana[1]
No court has ever declared him quote-unquote "innocent". I'm not saying he should be in jail because I believe in due process, but I am also not saying "he wasn't guilty" from the perspective of the electorate
Said differently, "In a democratic country, why would the electorate vote to reelect someone who was objectively guilty of corruption but is currently free due to lousy due process?" is arguably the better question to ask
Preemptive dis-disclaimer: I voted for neither candidate and have no skin in the game, so to speak
Judged guilty by multiple judges. Sentences annuled by the supreme court judge who'd go on to censor and persecute Bolsonaro supporters. Lula thanked him for his help in getting him elected during his speech today.
Forgot to mention that said judges got prominent roles in Bolsonaro goverment, literally months after ruling in favour of Lula to be arrested.
Apart from all that is always surprising to see folks that work in scientific fields to support Bolsonaro who was completely agains any form of science and education, basically being happy that Brazil would be just a commodities exporter ftw.
Forgot to mention the piles of evidence and testimony pointing at him, all thrown out and rendered inadmissible by the supreme court judge in his pocket based on some bullshit technicality.
> Apart from all that is always surprising to see folks that work in scientific fields to support Bolsonaro who was completely agains any form of science and education
Are you a software developer in Brazil? I wonder if you're going to enjoy the regulation of the software developer profession. It's coming.
> Are you a software developer in Brazil? I wonder if you're going to enjoy the regulation of the software developer profession. It's coming.
I think this is yet another pointless fearmongering anecdote, that shouldn’t be on this site. Anyway, I am a software developer that is in the market long enough to see that this sort of regulation thing is never going to materialise.
I know for a fact that investiment in scientific fields was reduced to near zero during Bolsonaro years and that for me is inadmissible.
> No court has ever declared him quote-unquote "innocent".
No, because he is innocent until proven guilty. Which he was not, since as yourself has said, due process was not followed - which annuls the validity of the entire thing. There are good reasons why nearly all justice systems in the world follow that principle, and you seem to not only be aware of it but also in favour.
There are very few concrete pieces of evidence against him. Unsigned contracts; a lot of declarations from lenience accords (either accuse him or serve tens of years in jail), some were even retracted later; literally the opinion of judges (who had been leading the prosecution - check Geoffrey Robertson's opinions on the matter for an expert analysis); the list of vices, illegalities and other problems with all the processes against him go on.
He was politically persecuted because otherwise he would have won the elections against Bolsonaro, and some of the judges in those processes were due for political advantages.
You seemed to have misread my comment, and I'd wager it's due to your own bias.
> Not according to justice.
I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
I didn't say he should be in jail. In fact, I said the opposite -- he should be free. But I also said why vote for someone who's implicated in so many corruption scandals? The pile of evidence is astounding.
I can understand "I voted for him because Bolsonaro is terrible", but I can't understand "I voted for Lula because he's great".
I don't think any court in Brazil is "impartial". Corruption is absolutely rampant. The decision over who gets prosecuted and convicted hinges more on the ides of march than on actual merit or graveness of crimes committed. So every politician is, by definition, "politically persecuted".
Someone else had asked on this very thread in a now-deleted comment:
> Do you believe the judge was impartial in finding him guilty nonetheless? Or are you saying you've seen the evidence itself and would believe he was obviously guilty even if the court had ruled otherwise?
The latter. From the perspective of public opinion and objective facts, he was implicated in a variety of corruption scandals. The courts were able to prove wrongdoing. They did so by using illegal means, hence the conviction was annulled. But his wrongdoing wasn't magically undone. From the perspective of the electorate, there's no reason to vote for him if you believe these crimes should bar someone from office.
Oh I understood your comment perfectly. Sorry if mine didn't reflect that.
> I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
And I argue that it's a good thing that _common sense_ is not a criterion for convicting someone - in theory. Which clearly you agree with.
> But I also said why vote for someone who's implicated in so many corruption scandals? The pile of evidence is astounding.
Is it really? Evidence that implicates him as a person, showing that he used his political influence for personal gain? Evidence other than people who had already been convicted themselves and were facing an option of either saying what the courts wanted to hear and get lenience, or facing life or near-life sentences? (Not in the technical sense, since Brazil doesn't have life sentences, but for all practical purposes yes)
Evidence other than unsigned contracts? A visit to a flat that was actually sold to a third party, not involved in any of this? Evidence other than a paddleboat in a country house of a friend of his family? Evidence other than words like "I don't have proof but I have the conviction" from the judge who condemned him?
Real evidence that would justify putting him in prison?
Note that I'm not saying he hasn't committed any crimes but what I do know is that other than through a lot of undue process and fabrications they managed to condemn him.
I believe in fair justice, and the only logical conclusion from these processes is that he is innocent. They turned his life around for years and still had to resort to a process fraught with illegalities and wrongdoing to condemn him. That's not fair, and in fact it's downright criminal, so he's not guilty. Since he's innocent until proven guilty, which he wasn't, the only possible conclusion is his innocence.
In any case, according to _common sense_ he should be in office. That's what elections are for. Which he now is and, in my opinion, both Brazil and the rest of the world are better off for it. You're very welcome to disagree, of course.
Are you seriously claiming the entire corruption case against him is fabrication? If that's true, why would they throw out the case based on some "jurisdiction" nonsense?
It is absolute nonsense compared to everything you're claiming. You're saying that the judges who sentenced him are corrupt and biased, that every piece of evidence and testimony incriminating him was fabricated or produced under duress. That's a much better reason to throw out a case compared to "he should have been tried in Brasília". It's hilarious to watch a supreme court judge who's just a lawyer appointed by politicial connections say that actual judges aren't "competent" to try Lula's case.
You seem to be confused about a couple things, so...
> That's a much better reason to throw out a case compared to "he should have been tried in Brasília".
I agree.
That said, the matter of jurisdiction comes first. The justice acted correctly and fixed the overarching vice in the process by sending it to Brasília. It should never have been tried in Curitiba, and if you think he's guilty of all those crimes, you should have joined the chorus of the crowd who just wanted justice to run its course in the right way and pushed for his case to be sent to Brasília in the first place.
He was politically tried in Curitiba against due process, on top of all the other vices.
Brasília should have been where they would then review everything else, but alas now it's too late.
Ironically, Lula, his lawyers and his supporters have been all along the ones pushing for him to actually face justice.
> It's hilarious to watch a supreme court judge (...) say that actual judges aren't "competent" to try Lula's case.
You also seem to be confused about what _competence_ means in this context.
What they said is not that Moro is an incompetent judge. This has nothing to do with his ability to do his job.
_Competence_, in this case, means that his court was not the correct jurisdiction for the trial. Nothing more, nothing less.
> Thinking Lula is a great or even serviceable candidate is unfathomable to me.
Agreed. That this man was not only allowed to run for presidency but actually won is probably the greatest humiliation ever imposed on the people of Brazil. I barely have words to describe how it felt to watch this guy be sworn into power yesterday.
> is probably the greatest humiliation ever imposed on the people of Brazil
I find having a science denier with fascist overtones to be worse, but alas I'm not trying to say how I feel is how all the people of Brazil feel.
> I barely have words to describe how it felt to watch this guy be sworn into power yesterday.
Me neither, but probably for the opposite reason.
I do have Bolsonaro and Mourão to thank for the beautiful ceremony where populars representing all background passed the Presidential sash to Lula though. Had they not been so cowardly and vindicative, one of them might have been there in place of all those beautiful people. That was a ceremony which is going to appear in history books for decades or centuries to come!
I'll end this pointless argument by agreeing with you on this. Those bastards are cowards. Seeing Bolsonaro run away like a rat was just as humiliating to the people who supported him and the brazilian right in general.
I didn't. I merely said that _common sense_ doesn't say that Lula should be in prison, and it never should - as you rightfully said, the bar for putting someone in prison is higher than popular vote.
I then proceeded to say that common sense does say he should be in office. He was, after all, voted in.
> I didn't. I merely said that _common sense_ doesn't say that Lula should be in prison, and it never should - as you rightfully said, the bar for putting someone in prison is higher than popular vote.
So you're just restating what I said?
> I then proceeded to say that common sense does say he should be in office. He was, after all, voted in.
I didn't say he shouldn't be in office today given he was voted in. I'm saying people generally shouldn't have voted for him because it's illogical to support such a bad candidate. I also said I understand that people voted for him because the only other alternative was Bolsonaro -- hell, I started my comment with that. The corollary to that being that we shouldn't celebrate Lula's victory. It's the lesser of two evils, but a tragedy nonetheless. That's the crux of my point. Everything else you're arguing is tangential, arguably irrelevant and feels like you have an agenda to convince others (me?) that Lula is great because he's "innocent" (for some value of "innocent").
> I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
That's what I was disagreeing with.
> I'm saying people generally shouldn't have voted for him because it's illogical to support such a bad candidate.
That's fair. It's also a personal opinion which seems to go against common sense, given that he was in fact voted in.
> I also said I understand that people voted for him because the only other alternative was Bolsonaro
Yep, a lot of people did that. In fact, I suspect a lot of people did the opposite as well - voted for Bolsonaro thinking he was the least bad of 2 bad choices.
> The corollary to that being that we shouldn't celebrate Lula's victory.
Again, an opinion. In my personal opinion, one of the greater tragedies is having Alckmin for vice-president. Having Temer with Dilma was a grave mistake. I just hope this time around they've learned something.
> feels like you have an agenda to convince others (me?) that Lula is great because he's "innocent" (for some value of "innocent").
Not at all, I was arguing about his innocence. Everything else are personal opinions on how good or bad a candidate he is and I'm not in any way trying to convince you to change yours.
In fact, I do think we mostly agree with regards to the facts. We do seem to disagree with regards to his actual innocence (as opposed to technical) but I'm not quite arguing about that either.
In any case, I do see your point-of-view clearly (I think) and I absolutely respect it, even where I might disagree. Or perhaps even more so, as it enriches the debate.
In that case, it's also possible for Bolsonaro to be imprisoned for multiple years on phony charges and therefore rational for him to leave, is it not?
Exaggerated? Do you want me to post the video of him saying his objective is the installation of socialism in Brazil? The one they said was fake news? Are you going to claim the decades old video is fabricated?
Genuine question: is it possible he changed his mind? Lots of people said things decades ago that they felt was true or good at the time, but over time people are allowed to change their opinions and learn, right?
I have relatively recent videos of him talking with his communist guru about his own age and his desire for a last revolution before he dies. In the same video, he talks about how the government should confiscate people's inheritance so they can't accumulate money. "The state should determine what people need to survive", he said. "If you need shoes, the state will give you shoes; if you need a rural property, the state will give you one".
I think these videos are not even a couple years old. While it is theoretically possible that he changed his mind, I wouldn't bet on it.
I mean, what he says isn't untrue. Past a certain point the accumulation of wealth is negative, a point that most people will never reach. And many countries have inheritance tax that's not a communist thing... After all, you wouldn't need it in a communist system.
What he says is literal communist ideology. This is clear the second he starts defining his theory of what people "need" to survive and implying the state should provide them no more and no less than that. This is compounded by his idea that families working hard to accumulate wealth over generations is "parasitism". In other public appearances, he also said things like the middle class is "ostentatious" for having a better life than what's strictly necessary to survive.
> This distinction can be observed in Marx's communism, where the distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his needs"
> As the productive forces continued to advance, the communist society, i.e. a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership, follows the maxim "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
> Nothing in society will belong to anyone, either as a personal possession or as capital goods, except the things for which the person has immediate use, for either his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work.
So perhaps he is personally communist but his policies are social democratic? I'm not communist but I do agree with the part about inheritance tax to combat wealth accumulating more and more wealth and power. It just doesn't work that well because of the wealth power thing going on there.
> So perhaps he is personally communist but his policies are social democratic?
Certainly seems to be the case everyone who voted for him was hoping for but I don't think so. He's already tried this communist stuff in previous mandates. Check out this "human rights" plan his party tried to push in 2009-2010:
Relativization of private property: you own land, someone invades your land and settles on it and you're forced to "mediate" with the invaders before being afforded access to the justice system. Regulation of all media and communications, censorship in case of "abuse" and even a government ranking of media channels based on how much they conform to "human rights". Prohibition of religious symbols in public. Taxation of fortunes because entrepreneurship in Brazil apparently wasn't difficult enough.
Even the media that supported him now used to criticize him harshly for this, to the point he backed down. I think they were all hoping he'd be the "moderate, reasonable" Lula who backs down once again but why would he back down now? He's old, cancerous and with pretty much nothing to lose. I saw prominent figures regret supporting him before he even took power.
He's gonna do the same thing again. It's probably his last chance to create the socialist Brazil he always wanted. He was already developing this agenda even before he took power and this time he's gonna succeed because he's got supreme court judges backing him. Congress and senate are powerless, the supreme court can just determine anything it wants and it becomes de facto law. I saw those judges talk about relativization of private property during the election, they even used that exact word.
After leaving jail, Lula talked many times about how much he regretted not regulating the media when he had the chance and how it's one of the very first things he's gonna do once in power. It was hilarious to see the press support a president that says stuff like this.
Is this all there is? Because this sounds more or less reasonable, if a bit naive, and a far cry from "the government will decide whether you need shoes."
It's so anodyne, you could have titled it with "CNN interviews Pope Francis," and people would have believed it.
> a far cry from "the government will decide whether you need shoes."
Are you sure? This is a president that decades ago openly stated his objective was the slow installation of socialism in Brazil. Then the possiblity that he had changed his mind since then was raised. I presented to you a two year old video of him defending basic communist ideology. He hasn't changed his mind.
Do you have any doubt at all that this guy wants a communist government that decides such things for its citizens?
Yes, but more importantly, many in Brazil are not really aware of their privileges and the biggest challenge of this presidency will be trying to reduce inequalities, despite being a cause that many - as seen in this commenting thread - don’t support and simply label as “communism”.
I’m not saying you’re dealing in conspiracy theories, as I think that’s aggressive and irrelevant, but:
That’s not quite true; Germany censors tons of speech, and nobody would ever call them a dictatorship. Same is true for the UK and plenty of other countries, where the press is definitely “managed” and people can get thrown in jail for the things they say.
Censorship is one aspect of dictatorship, but not all censorship implies dictatorship.
He was judged guilty by lower court judges. Supreme court judges who support Lula essentially erased his crimes. They went on to implement literal censorship before, during and after the elections, making a mockery of our constitution.
So the Supreme Court judges are corrupt because they pointed to problems in the process that warranted a mistrial, ultimately favoring the candidate you don’t like. But the lower court judges are guaranteed to be neutral because they convicted Lula. Right.
The judges who trashed years of serious investigations because of some bullshit jurisdiction technicality, allowed the corrupt leader of the most scandalous party in the country to run for president and did everything in their power to get him elected? Yeah, just looking out for proper due process. Absolutely.
Bias? I don't give a shit, "kid". Do you have any idea what it feels like to have a president you know is a criminal rule over you? It's one thing to suspect, it's another thing to know. And he will rule over us, regardless of elected congress or senate, because the supreme court judges will force whatever law he wants into effect. Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch videos of prisoners cheering and drug traffickers celebrating with gunfire after his victory?
Bolsonaro did concede. He immediately gave his greenlight to an orderly transition of power pursuant to the Constitution, which amounts to conceding wrt. the result.
I agree. I was referring to the US, as the parent was asking if anyone had experience living under a president they knew were a criminal, even if it hadn’t been officially proven, and my assumption was they meant “outside Brazil.”
Not really sure which videos are those. The only thing I see is a desperate attemp to argue in favour of Bolsonaro’s disastrous goverment with all the “far-right whatsapp” playbook.
No, the censorship came way before that. Way before the election. I saw them censor a documentary preventively. Somehow, they "knew" it was "fake news" before it was even released.
But the documentary was from a left-wing source and claimed that Bolsanaro faked his own stabbing in 2018 in order to bolster public support. It hardly seems that the decision to censor that "documentary" was made to favor Lula.
I have no idea what's in that documentary to be honest. Not sure if it's pro-Lula or pro-Bolsonaro. All I know is they preventively censored it. Not even the military dictatorship of decades past preventively censored material. Censorship is unconstitutional but it's not like these judges care.
If you have no idea what the documentary was about then how do you know preventing its release was unconstitutional? Countries all over the world "censor" material they deem to be libellous.
Because he's concerned he'll be charged with corruption now he's no longer immune from prosecution. He might be guilty of corruption or he might not. Either way, 'democracy' isn't a magical state of affairs that eliminates malicious prosecution and politically motivated miscarriages of justice.
It's worth noting that Bolsonaro has conceded wrt. the election results, and does not maintain that "a landslide election" was "stolen from him". And where illegal protests have happened he has deplored them with no delay, advocating for peaceful involvement in the political process instead. Most importantly, he has not tried to shift the blame for violence coming from his would-be supporters onto "the other side".
also, he did a live where he did almost nothing at all to diffuse *his supporters* ( not would-be as you say, you'reclearly biased and down playing these criminals), it was a very weak speech that made zero effect.
Why concede? He has every right to question the election results if he believes they can't be trusted. I don't fault him for doing that after this insane election. Instead of pulling out all the stops to prove the voting machines weren't tampered with, they doubled down on it, declared the results "unquestionable" and started fining and censoring everyone who questioned. That was before the armed forces report showed the potential for a compromised supply chain attack. I see news about attacks like that posted here frequently, I think the newest post was from yesterday.
In a serious country like Germany, voting machines are unconstitutional due to lack of process transparency and concerns over election integrity resulted in a new election. That's how things are supposed to work. None of this "unquestionable" nonsense.
The only thing insane about this election was how he blatantly disrespected the law by increasing government spending in the months prior to the election.
Multiple institutions verified the results of the election system. The "armed forces report" says only that they cannot prove that no fraud happened, but they failed to find a single evidence of fraud. It's important to contextualize this properly, the armed forces were fully willing to support Bolsonaro in a coup, and only gave up because he screwed up every possible internal and external support for this.
After this all attempts to "question" the electoral results were an attempt to inflame Bolsonaro supporters that were demanding a coup.
I don't even like Lula btw. But your descriptions of what is happening in Brazil are just plain wrong.
So you have nothing to say about the blatant disproportional censorship that goes on to this day? Electoral justice court judges that openly favored Lula? Who even admitted to it and were proud of their partiality?
> The "armed forces report" says only
Did you read it? The Makefile that builds the voting machine software downloads and links unaudited closed source third party libraries from the internet.
You actually trust this? I can deal with the fact laymen on social media didn't understand the problem but I sure as hell didn't expect to see Hacker News users defending this crap. Literally days ago there was news here about some compromised Python library.
Besides, they don't have to prove fraud. The mere possibility of fraud is more than enough to cast doubt on any results produced by that process. It's up to the authorities to demonstrate that it's immune to fraud. Why should a people cede power to any politician if they aren't absolutely sure the election was legit?
> the armed forces were fully willing to support Bolsonaro in a coup, and only gave up because he screwed up every possible internal and external support for this
Can you elaborate on this? Because what I saw was huge masses of people begging them to do something and being ignored. All that's left is for Lula to order the armed forces to remove the protesters like he said he would.
What support did he screw up? Because it looks like he had none to begin with. Not surprising really, Bolsonaro put his foot in his mouth on a daily basis for all 4 years of his mandate. He isolated himself from everyone.
> But your descriptions of what is happening in Brazil are just plain wrong.
Would you trust US election results if it was produced by some random amalgamation of javascript libraries downloaded straight from npm? I don't think the report mentioned if they even used HTTPS to download the code.
Surely the bar for the process that determines the future of the nation ought to be a lot higher than that. Surely this is not controversial.
That is incredibly generous.
His 'concession' was an admission that Lula will be the next president, nothing more. His calls for peace are in the context of saying the military will decide in a purposely vague way. He won't participate in the transition ceremony. His party has been fined for making frivolous claims of electoral fraud.
Brazil's politics continue to be a mess. Lula, the newly elect president, was formerly convicted for corruption and then had the supreme court set aside his conviction. Bolsonaro has also committed multiple crimes and tried to the Trump election denial-ism tactics.
You are implying that the decision to free Lula was politically motivated. How can you then be sure that the decision to charge Lula was not politically motivated?
So what? No matter what "side" happens to be in charge at any given time, sane people would never want to live in a country where serious concerns of due process could be dismissed as a "mere technicality". That's just a recipe for show trials.
So what? I didn't say he should go to jail or that the verdict should have been vacated... but I wouldn't have a lot of faith in the political process if a major political figure most likely only survived a criminal trial because of a due process issue.
> I feel for the folks who live under these people.
Last year, 50% of my country literally begged the armed forces for a military dictatorship so they wouldn't have to live under these corrupt politicians again. They spent over two months protesting. Today is an extremely sad day for them.
You really need to review your maths here. 50% here would mean 112 million people, which is nowhere near the few thousands of old-folks protesting in front of army sites.
Wow you really are arrogant. Going around engaging in and instigating arguments and then telling people to “leave you alone” when you get caught with your pants down like some defeated child.
Instigating arguments? I was merely expressing empathy towards the sentiment expressed in the post I quoted: "I feel for the folks who live under these people." Then the same guy who's replying to all of my posts on this thread showed up, and then you.
Frankly I don't want to argue with you either. Don't reply to me again.
Lula's latest electoral win is a greatest testament to Bolsonaro's inaptitude to lead Brazil than Lula's particular merit -- not unlike Biden's victory over Trump
The fact that Lula and Bolsonaro were the anointed the two best candidates out of the 214 million Brazilians alive today is the sadder, bigger-picture story here -- again not unlike the US experience
But the Brazilian political system has perhaps a single advantage over its American counterpart: a plurality of political parties (ok, perhaps too many).
I'm hopeful that newer parties with fresher perspectives have the prerequisite wit and werewithal to insert themselves in a more prominent position for the next electoral cycle. "NOVO" comes to mind -- a modern party with modern views on paper, but which has yet to produce a viable candidate
I think this is a common theme all over the world where there is a steady increase in corruption with time. But really, this should be expected. Political systems across the world are now many decades old. No system can be perfect and with passing time, more and more vulnerabilities are only discovered. Players exploit these to gain power within the system. The one who manages to exploit most vulnerabilities will tend to be at the top, which means in this day and age, you need to be extremely corrupt in order to reach the top of a system. It's impossible otherwise.
It's really insane reading some of these comments. Specially those you know were written by a Brazilian right wing extremist.
Lula's prison was illegal. Is he innocent? Of course not. I don't know a single Brazilian who I could consider "innocent". We learn from a very young age to "dar nosso jeitinho" ("make our own way"). Most that criticize Lula wouldn't even survive a simple "tax evasion" investigation.
Corruption in Brazil began with the first "capitanias". The first colonies. There isn't a single "non-corrupt" government in Brazilian history. Period. If you think there was one, you haven't been reading enough.
Lula was imprisoned after collusion from Judge and Prosecution. There's even a conversation from the judge suggesting prosecutors to forge evidence. Judge that went to be a minister for Bolsonaro after illegally helping him defeat Lula.
All that said, Bolsonaro was one of the worst and most corrupt mandates in BR history. He could have easily been re-elected was not for the fact that he and his supporters are just DUMB. The pandemic was a huge opportunity for him that he blew because that's how stupid they are.
All he need to do was show some empathy. We are Brazilians. Most of us are catholics. We believe in solidarity, in the martyrdom of christ and that the poor and the destitute shall inherit the kingdom of god.
If he only visited some hospitals, cried together with some families, showed his empathy and that he cared for the people, anything could happen economy wise and he would be re-elected.
But he not only didn't show any empathy, but to the contrary, he mocked people suffocating. He did everything in his power to obstruct and disrupt lockdowns. He did everything to postpone vaccine purchases. He said, I kid you not, "What can I do? I'm not a gravedigger." When confronted with the raising number of deaths.
Now contrast that to Lula's speech yesterday. He cried in his FIRST speech when comparing the many long queues to buy luxury cars and private airplanes to the many people in the streets with nothing but discarded BONES to eat.
Bolsonaro is a vile character. But he's only as vile as his supporters. Most of them racists, elitists and deeply uneducated people. The old Brazil that would cherish slavery. That fought against an agrarian reform that hasn't happened to this day. Can you imagine this? A continental country, whose land rights go back to 500 years ago. The same elite, the same freeloaders. For over 5 centuries. Controlling and dictating the future of the country to appease their lazy aristocrat asses.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadNo court has ever declared him quote-unquote "innocent". I'm not saying he should be in jail because I believe in due process, but I am also not saying "he wasn't guilty" from the perspective of the electorate
Said differently, "In a democratic country, why would the electorate vote to reelect someone who was objectively guilty of corruption but is currently free due to lousy due process?" is arguably the better question to ask
Preemptive dis-disclaimer: I voted for neither candidate and have no skin in the game, so to speak
__________
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56326389
Apart from all that is always surprising to see folks that work in scientific fields to support Bolsonaro who was completely agains any form of science and education, basically being happy that Brazil would be just a commodities exporter ftw.
> Apart from all that is always surprising to see folks that work in scientific fields to support Bolsonaro who was completely agains any form of science and education
Are you a software developer in Brazil? I wonder if you're going to enjoy the regulation of the software developer profession. It's coming.
I think this is yet another pointless fearmongering anecdote, that shouldn’t be on this site. Anyway, I am a software developer that is in the market long enough to see that this sort of regulation thing is never going to materialise.
I know for a fact that investiment in scientific fields was reduced to near zero during Bolsonaro years and that for me is inadmissible.
No. Lula and the other authorities congratulated him and thanked him for helping conduct fair elections. Those in turn got Lula elected.
Not according to justice.
> No court has ever declared him quote-unquote "innocent".
No, because he is innocent until proven guilty. Which he was not, since as yourself has said, due process was not followed - which annuls the validity of the entire thing. There are good reasons why nearly all justice systems in the world follow that principle, and you seem to not only be aware of it but also in favour.
There are very few concrete pieces of evidence against him. Unsigned contracts; a lot of declarations from lenience accords (either accuse him or serve tens of years in jail), some were even retracted later; literally the opinion of judges (who had been leading the prosecution - check Geoffrey Robertson's opinions on the matter for an expert analysis); the list of vices, illegalities and other problems with all the processes against him go on.
He was politically persecuted because otherwise he would have won the elections against Bolsonaro, and some of the judges in those processes were due for political advantages.
> Not according to justice.
I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
I didn't say he should be in jail. In fact, I said the opposite -- he should be free. But I also said why vote for someone who's implicated in so many corruption scandals? The pile of evidence is astounding.
I can understand "I voted for him because Bolsonaro is terrible", but I can't understand "I voted for Lula because he's great".
I don't think any court in Brazil is "impartial". Corruption is absolutely rampant. The decision over who gets prosecuted and convicted hinges more on the ides of march than on actual merit or graveness of crimes committed. So every politician is, by definition, "politically persecuted".
Someone else had asked on this very thread in a now-deleted comment:
> Do you believe the judge was impartial in finding him guilty nonetheless? Or are you saying you've seen the evidence itself and would believe he was obviously guilty even if the court had ruled otherwise?
The latter. From the perspective of public opinion and objective facts, he was implicated in a variety of corruption scandals. The courts were able to prove wrongdoing. They did so by using illegal means, hence the conviction was annulled. But his wrongdoing wasn't magically undone. From the perspective of the electorate, there's no reason to vote for him if you believe these crimes should bar someone from office.
> I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
And I argue that it's a good thing that _common sense_ is not a criterion for convicting someone - in theory. Which clearly you agree with.
> But I also said why vote for someone who's implicated in so many corruption scandals? The pile of evidence is astounding.
Is it really? Evidence that implicates him as a person, showing that he used his political influence for personal gain? Evidence other than people who had already been convicted themselves and were facing an option of either saying what the courts wanted to hear and get lenience, or facing life or near-life sentences? (Not in the technical sense, since Brazil doesn't have life sentences, but for all practical purposes yes)
Evidence other than unsigned contracts? A visit to a flat that was actually sold to a third party, not involved in any of this? Evidence other than a paddleboat in a country house of a friend of his family? Evidence other than words like "I don't have proof but I have the conviction" from the judge who condemned him?
Real evidence that would justify putting him in prison?
Note that I'm not saying he hasn't committed any crimes but what I do know is that other than through a lot of undue process and fabrications they managed to condemn him.
I believe in fair justice, and the only logical conclusion from these processes is that he is innocent. They turned his life around for years and still had to resort to a process fraught with illegalities and wrongdoing to condemn him. That's not fair, and in fact it's downright criminal, so he's not guilty. Since he's innocent until proven guilty, which he wasn't, the only possible conclusion is his innocence.
In any case, according to _common sense_ he should be in office. That's what elections are for. Which he now is and, in my opinion, both Brazil and the rest of the world are better off for it. You're very welcome to disagree, of course.
> That's a much better reason to throw out a case compared to "he should have been tried in Brasília".
I agree.
That said, the matter of jurisdiction comes first. The justice acted correctly and fixed the overarching vice in the process by sending it to Brasília. It should never have been tried in Curitiba, and if you think he's guilty of all those crimes, you should have joined the chorus of the crowd who just wanted justice to run its course in the right way and pushed for his case to be sent to Brasília in the first place.
He was politically tried in Curitiba against due process, on top of all the other vices.
Brasília should have been where they would then review everything else, but alas now it's too late.
Ironically, Lula, his lawyers and his supporters have been all along the ones pushing for him to actually face justice.
> It's hilarious to watch a supreme court judge (...) say that actual judges aren't "competent" to try Lula's case.
You also seem to be confused about what _competence_ means in this context.
What they said is not that Moro is an incompetent judge. This has nothing to do with his ability to do his job.
_Competence_, in this case, means that his court was not the correct jurisdiction for the trial. Nothing more, nothing less.
The bar for putting someone in prison is higher than the one for not voting in that person. Not sure why you keep conflating the two.
Thinking Lula is a great or even serviceable candidate is unfathomable to me.
Agreed. That this man was not only allowed to run for presidency but actually won is probably the greatest humiliation ever imposed on the people of Brazil. I barely have words to describe how it felt to watch this guy be sworn into power yesterday.
I find having a science denier with fascist overtones to be worse, but alas I'm not trying to say how I feel is how all the people of Brazil feel.
> I barely have words to describe how it felt to watch this guy be sworn into power yesterday.
Me neither, but probably for the opposite reason.
I do have Bolsonaro and Mourão to thank for the beautiful ceremony where populars representing all background passed the Presidential sash to Lula though. Had they not been so cowardly and vindicative, one of them might have been there in place of all those beautiful people. That was a ceremony which is going to appear in history books for decades or centuries to come!
I'll end this pointless argument by agreeing with you on this. Those bastards are cowards. Seeing Bolsonaro run away like a rat was just as humiliating to the people who supported him and the brazilian right in general.
I didn't. I merely said that _common sense_ doesn't say that Lula should be in prison, and it never should - as you rightfully said, the bar for putting someone in prison is higher than popular vote.
I then proceeded to say that common sense does say he should be in office. He was, after all, voted in.
So you're just restating what I said?
> I then proceeded to say that common sense does say he should be in office. He was, after all, voted in.
I didn't say he shouldn't be in office today given he was voted in. I'm saying people generally shouldn't have voted for him because it's illogical to support such a bad candidate. I also said I understand that people voted for him because the only other alternative was Bolsonaro -- hell, I started my comment with that. The corollary to that being that we shouldn't celebrate Lula's victory. It's the lesser of two evils, but a tragedy nonetheless. That's the crux of my point. Everything else you're arguing is tangential, arguably irrelevant and feels like you have an agenda to convince others (me?) that Lula is great because he's "innocent" (for some value of "innocent").
No, you literally said:
> I'm arguing that according to common sense, he is guilty of corruption.
That's what I was disagreeing with.
> I'm saying people generally shouldn't have voted for him because it's illogical to support such a bad candidate.
That's fair. It's also a personal opinion which seems to go against common sense, given that he was in fact voted in.
> I also said I understand that people voted for him because the only other alternative was Bolsonaro
Yep, a lot of people did that. In fact, I suspect a lot of people did the opposite as well - voted for Bolsonaro thinking he was the least bad of 2 bad choices.
> The corollary to that being that we shouldn't celebrate Lula's victory.
Again, an opinion. In my personal opinion, one of the greater tragedies is having Alckmin for vice-president. Having Temer with Dilma was a grave mistake. I just hope this time around they've learned something.
> feels like you have an agenda to convince others (me?) that Lula is great because he's "innocent" (for some value of "innocent").
Not at all, I was arguing about his innocence. Everything else are personal opinions on how good or bad a candidate he is and I'm not in any way trying to convince you to change yours.
In fact, I do think we mostly agree with regards to the facts. We do seem to disagree with regards to his actual innocence (as opposed to technical) but I'm not quite arguing about that either.
In any case, I do see your point-of-view clearly (I think) and I absolutely respect it, even where I might disagree. Or perhaps even more so, as it enriches the debate.
No surprise that the most vocal judge prosecuting these charges was later named as minister by Bolsonaro.
Lula had his time, when the world was a lot different.
Anyway, I hope he doesn’t tank the beautiful country and full of potential Brasil is.
Tamos juntos!
I agree with you. I don't really support Bolsonaro, I wish we had better candidates. I'm just so sad to see this communist become president again.
Sorry, this is just the kind of exaggerated rhetoric that made the situation to become polarised like this.
I really encourage you to stop propagating this kind of nonsense.
I really encourage you not to reply to me again.
What is to say that hasn’t happened to Lula?
I think these videos are not even a couple years old. While it is theoretically possible that he changed his mind, I wouldn't bet on it.
https://youtu.be/HzAr4WpYAow?t=2884
> Human beings must understand that they have limitations.
> We have to define what each of us needs.
> Let's write a theory on what human beings need to survive.
> Does he need a car? Okay, he'll have a car.
> Does he need a beach house? Okay, he'll have a beach house.
> Does he need a rural home? Okay, he'll have a rural home.
> Three pairs of shoes? Okay.
> It gets to a point where he no longer has needs, so he shouldn't accumulate money.
> What is someone going to store 130 billions of dollars for?
> What is he going to do? When he dies?
> Let some parasites who never worked keep the money?
> While the people are hungry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
> This distinction can be observed in Marx's communism, where the distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his needs"
> As the productive forces continued to advance, the communist society, i.e. a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership, follows the maxim "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...
> Nothing in society will belong to anyone, either as a personal possession or as capital goods, except the things for which the person has immediate use, for either his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work.
Certainly seems to be the case everyone who voted for him was hoping for but I don't think so. He's already tried this communist stuff in previous mandates. Check out this "human rights" plan his party tried to push in 2009-2010:
https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2010/05/presidente-alt...
Relativization of private property: you own land, someone invades your land and settles on it and you're forced to "mediate" with the invaders before being afforded access to the justice system. Regulation of all media and communications, censorship in case of "abuse" and even a government ranking of media channels based on how much they conform to "human rights". Prohibition of religious symbols in public. Taxation of fortunes because entrepreneurship in Brazil apparently wasn't difficult enough.
Even the media that supported him now used to criticize him harshly for this, to the point he backed down. I think they were all hoping he'd be the "moderate, reasonable" Lula who backs down once again but why would he back down now? He's old, cancerous and with pretty much nothing to lose. I saw prominent figures regret supporting him before he even took power.
He's gonna do the same thing again. It's probably his last chance to create the socialist Brazil he always wanted. He was already developing this agenda even before he took power and this time he's gonna succeed because he's got supreme court judges backing him. Congress and senate are powerless, the supreme court can just determine anything it wants and it becomes de facto law. I saw those judges talk about relativization of private property during the election, they even used that exact word.
After leaving jail, Lula talked many times about how much he regretted not regulating the media when he had the chance and how it's one of the very first things he's gonna do once in power. It was hilarious to see the press support a president that says stuff like this.
It's so anodyne, you could have titled it with "CNN interviews Pope Francis," and people would have believed it.
"All there is?" This is communist speech and ideology. Don't minimize it. See my other reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214909
> a far cry from "the government will decide whether you need shoes."
Are you sure? This is a president that decades ago openly stated his objective was the slow installation of socialism in Brazil. Then the possiblity that he had changed his mind since then was raised. I presented to you a two year old video of him defending basic communist ideology. He hasn't changed his mind.
Do you have any doubt at all that this guy wants a communist government that decides such things for its citizens?
Seriously, dude?
Yes, but more importantly, many in Brazil are not really aware of their privileges and the biggest challenge of this presidency will be trying to reduce inequalities, despite being a cause that many - as seen in this commenting thread - don’t support and simply label as “communism”.
That’s not quite true; Germany censors tons of speech, and nobody would ever call them a dictatorship. Same is true for the UK and plenty of other countries, where the press is definitely “managed” and people can get thrown in jail for the things they say.
Censorship is one aspect of dictatorship, but not all censorship implies dictatorship.
I expect the persecution to get worse.
You don’t realize, but your bias is showing, kid.
Bias? I don't give a shit, "kid". Do you have any idea what it feels like to have a president you know is a criminal rule over you? It's one thing to suspect, it's another thing to know. And he will rule over us, regardless of elected congress or senate, because the supreme court judges will force whatever law he wants into effect. Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch videos of prisoners cheering and drug traffickers celebrating with gunfire after his victory?
Yes, actually, we had 4 years of it from 2016-2020, and it came very close to not ending when he lost the 2020 election but never conceded.
Of course not. You want me to post them or something? I had links, they were all taken down but I saved them.
> The only thing I see is a desperate attemp to argue in favour of Bolsonaro’s disastrous goverment with all the “far-right whatsapp” playbook.
I don't even support Bolsonaro. I just don't support your president either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/americas/brazil-onl...
https://noticias.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2022/10/30/em-silencio-...
also, he did a live where he did almost nothing at all to diffuse *his supporters* ( not would-be as you say, you'reclearly biased and down playing these criminals), it was a very weak speech that made zero effect.
In a serious country like Germany, voting machines are unconstitutional due to lack of process transparency and concerns over election integrity resulted in a new election. That's how things are supposed to work. None of this "unquestionable" nonsense.
Multiple institutions verified the results of the election system. The "armed forces report" says only that they cannot prove that no fraud happened, but they failed to find a single evidence of fraud. It's important to contextualize this properly, the armed forces were fully willing to support Bolsonaro in a coup, and only gave up because he screwed up every possible internal and external support for this.
After this all attempts to "question" the electoral results were an attempt to inflame Bolsonaro supporters that were demanding a coup.
I don't even like Lula btw. But your descriptions of what is happening in Brazil are just plain wrong.
So you have nothing to say about the blatant disproportional censorship that goes on to this day? Electoral justice court judges that openly favored Lula? Who even admitted to it and were proud of their partiality?
> The "armed forces report" says only
Did you read it? The Makefile that builds the voting machine software downloads and links unaudited closed source third party libraries from the internet.
You actually trust this? I can deal with the fact laymen on social media didn't understand the problem but I sure as hell didn't expect to see Hacker News users defending this crap. Literally days ago there was news here about some compromised Python library.
Besides, they don't have to prove fraud. The mere possibility of fraud is more than enough to cast doubt on any results produced by that process. It's up to the authorities to demonstrate that it's immune to fraud. Why should a people cede power to any politician if they aren't absolutely sure the election was legit?
> the armed forces were fully willing to support Bolsonaro in a coup, and only gave up because he screwed up every possible internal and external support for this
Can you elaborate on this? Because what I saw was huge masses of people begging them to do something and being ignored. All that's left is for Lula to order the armed forces to remove the protesters like he said he would.
What support did he screw up? Because it looks like he had none to begin with. Not surprising really, Bolsonaro put his foot in his mouth on a daily basis for all 4 years of his mandate. He isolated himself from everyone.
> But your descriptions of what is happening in Brazil are just plain wrong.
And I suppose yours is better?
So you're saying that it's just your average npm project. Boring stuff.
Surely the bar for the process that determines the future of the nation ought to be a lot higher than that. Surely this is not controversial.
I feel for the folks who live under these people.
Last year, 50% of my country literally begged the armed forces for a military dictatorship so they wouldn't have to live under these corrupt politicians again. They spent over two months protesting. Today is an extremely sad day for them.
Frankly I don't want to argue with you either. Don't reply to me again.
The fact that Lula and Bolsonaro were the anointed the two best candidates out of the 214 million Brazilians alive today is the sadder, bigger-picture story here -- again not unlike the US experience
But the Brazilian political system has perhaps a single advantage over its American counterpart: a plurality of political parties (ok, perhaps too many).
I'm hopeful that newer parties with fresher perspectives have the prerequisite wit and werewithal to insert themselves in a more prominent position for the next electoral cycle. "NOVO" comes to mind -- a modern party with modern views on paper, but which has yet to produce a viable candidate
Lula's prison was illegal. Is he innocent? Of course not. I don't know a single Brazilian who I could consider "innocent". We learn from a very young age to "dar nosso jeitinho" ("make our own way"). Most that criticize Lula wouldn't even survive a simple "tax evasion" investigation.
Corruption in Brazil began with the first "capitanias". The first colonies. There isn't a single "non-corrupt" government in Brazilian history. Period. If you think there was one, you haven't been reading enough.
Lula was imprisoned after collusion from Judge and Prosecution. There's even a conversation from the judge suggesting prosecutors to forge evidence. Judge that went to be a minister for Bolsonaro after illegally helping him defeat Lula.
All that said, Bolsonaro was one of the worst and most corrupt mandates in BR history. He could have easily been re-elected was not for the fact that he and his supporters are just DUMB. The pandemic was a huge opportunity for him that he blew because that's how stupid they are.
All he need to do was show some empathy. We are Brazilians. Most of us are catholics. We believe in solidarity, in the martyrdom of christ and that the poor and the destitute shall inherit the kingdom of god.
If he only visited some hospitals, cried together with some families, showed his empathy and that he cared for the people, anything could happen economy wise and he would be re-elected.
But he not only didn't show any empathy, but to the contrary, he mocked people suffocating. He did everything in his power to obstruct and disrupt lockdowns. He did everything to postpone vaccine purchases. He said, I kid you not, "What can I do? I'm not a gravedigger." When confronted with the raising number of deaths.
Now contrast that to Lula's speech yesterday. He cried in his FIRST speech when comparing the many long queues to buy luxury cars and private airplanes to the many people in the streets with nothing but discarded BONES to eat.
Bolsonaro is a vile character. But he's only as vile as his supporters. Most of them racists, elitists and deeply uneducated people. The old Brazil that would cherish slavery. That fought against an agrarian reform that hasn't happened to this day. Can you imagine this? A continental country, whose land rights go back to 500 years ago. The same elite, the same freeloaders. For over 5 centuries. Controlling and dictating the future of the country to appease their lazy aristocrat asses.