The Next Election, Political News, and Other Forms of Comedy (US, UK, & Intl)

Pimpernel Smith said:
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Instead of attacking me using innuendo from a 1950’s song like a 12 year old schoolgirl, why don’t you just man up and recognize that your understanding of Brazilian (and for that matter Latin American) politics is rooted in oversimplified preconceptions from the 80s and 90s you picked up from the same biased sources that inform a lot of the nonsensical trolling you throw around here? We could be having a much better conversation.

I for once have actually studied Latin American politics (since as you know I was born there - a fact you’ve used before for ad-hominem attacks). Lula’s government was indeed corrupt, but it is undeniable that his social policies lifted a good chunk of the population out of poverty, and the upward mobility momentum he created has lasted over 2 decades, creating, for all it’s woes and volatility, Brazil’s current economic boom.

Bolsonaro, on the other hand, is a populist product of the Trump era, with outdated right wing ideas that not only have not helped Brazil’s economy, but have created (same as Trump) deep societal divisions. Troubled with similar corruption issues, as his governing time wanes, he has gotten more and more dictatorial, undermining the fragile political ecosystem of the region.

So yes, if I have to choose between Lula and Bolsonaro, I choose Lula any day of the week, as I mentioned. As the famous contemporary British philosopher Sir Mick Jagger once said - you can’t always get what you want, but if you try real hard, sometimes, you might get what you need. And we need to get rid of Bolsonaro.
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
Spluttering in my Brazilian coffee...

Brazil needs a viable middle class and clean politics. Lula doesn't fit in with that.
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of course the greatest economic expansion in brazilian history came under his watch. you know that whole BRIC business? that was Lula. but continue on with your deep knowledge of brazil.

Pimpernel Smith said:
But you already knew that, and that's why you picked Lula as a binary choice between corruption and corruption. There should be another choice, but not it seems in South America.
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you prefer military rule?
 
Gentlemen, I happen to have worked and lived in Brazil. I have some interest and skin in the game business wise too.

I know quite a bit about the car wash and Petrobras scandal and a certain French organisation - one of my competitors - that bribed all of their business to the top and that was in the government of Lula. They use the same grafting tactics elsewhere in the world on the weak and highly corruptible organisations and governments.

Much of Lula's reforms were raising third world people to the level of having running water, as was the case in the Sertao. The reality of Brazil or South America cannot be grasped by Europeans without having experienced it, for it is a separate reality. When it's stated Lula lifted tens of millions into the middle classes, that's not as we know and perceive it.

The violence didn't get any better under Lula either. That civil war level of numbers of killed each year.

I don't see it as a binary choice between a right work paramilitary hard man and some dodgy bent left wingers. It's Animal Farm stuff the pigs become two legged and it's impossible to tell the difference between the new rulers. You see that too in the USA with the progressive Dems. It's all toxic.

As for ad hominem attacks, it works two ways, if you call me a dickhead, I'm not likely to be gracious back to you, am I? Maybe I should, but unlikely.
 
40 million people went from having no electricty, water, access to health, education, sustainable income and access to credit/banking services to having all of those. And not as part of populist gimmicks, like in Argentina. Structural and sustainable, since them and through now. It look like it is you who is failing to grasp the magnitude and significance of this achievement - definitely unheard of in the region, and considering the size of Brazil’s population and structural poverty issues.

And I started saying he had a corrupt government, so your point about having lived in Brazil and understanding it better than anyone is just moot - I am sure you had a great view and understanding from your comfortable expat bubble, with all your European (or shall I say British? You exited Europe after all) intellectual mighty, looking down on the uncultured masses from your current hideout in one of Europe’s largest welfare states.

I dont mind your ad-hominen attacks - they are cute and harmless, except of course when you imply, based on your pervasive understanding of Latin American politics, that my family supported dictatorial and murderous governments in my country. And I don’t remember calling you a dickhead, but maybe I should?

Back to the issue at hand: between Bolsonaro and Lula - the latter, no question.
 
belinmad said:
40 million people went from having no electricty, water, access to health, education, sustainable income and access to credit/banking services to having all of those. And not as part of populist gimmicks, like in Argentina. Structural and sustainable, since them and through now. It look like it is you who is failing to grasp the magnitude and significance of this achievement - definitely unheard of in the region, and considering the size of Brazil’s population and structural poverty issues.

And I started saying he had a corrupt government, so your point about having lived in Brazil and understanding it better than anyone is just moot - I am sure you had a great view and understanding from your comfortable expat bubble, with all your European (or shall I say British? You exited Europe after all) intellectual mighty, looking down on the uncultured masses from your current hideout in one of Europe’s largest welfare states.

I dont mind your ad-hominen attacks - they are cute and harmless, except of course when you imply, based on your pervasive understanding of Latin American politics, that my family supported dictatorial and murderous governments in my country. And I don’t remember calling you a dickhead, but maybe I should?

Back to the issue at hand: between Bolsonaro and Lula - the latter, no question.
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I lived, worked and had experiences in Brazil that give me some level of insight into the culture, business practices, extreme poverty and violence, plus Candomble and other esoteric practices and the grotty reality for the majority of Brazilians outside of the Carioca zones and really, only Ipanema and Leblon in Rio. I've travelled extensively in-country too and elsewhere, Venezeula and Ecuador, but not sadly, Argentina.

You and I know the reality of Latin America is beyond the conception of nice middle class people from Europe, the UK and even the USA. You can't deny that.

I was winding you up on your connections, but as you know, you can't be a 100% self-made man in your country or Brazil. Unless you're a footballer, or MPB singer.
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
I lived, worked and had experiences in Brazil that give me some level of insight into the culture, business practices, extreme poverty and violence, plus Candomble and other esoteric practices and the grotty reality for the majority of Brazilians outside of the Carioca zones and really, only Ipanema and Leblon in Rio. I've travelled extensively in-country too and elsewhere, Venezeula and Ecuador, but not sadly, Argentina.
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Good for you. Perhaps you should articulate that knowledge into actual insights instead of resorting to dumb generalizations and stereotypes.

Pimpernel Smith said:
You and I know the reality of Latin America is beyond the conception of nice middle class people from Europe, the UK and even the USA. You can't deny that.
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I never did. That doesn’t negate the herculean achievement Lula’s social policies unlocked.

Pimpernel Smith said:
I was winding you up on your connections, but as you know, you can't be a 100% self-made man in your country or Brazil. Unless you're a footballer, or MPB singer.
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Back to your usual bullshit.
Because, as you know, no one living in a third rate city in a second rate country in Europe and coming from an English inner city, driving a vw polo and stuck in some middle management job in a second rate energy company can actually 100% grasp world politics.
 
belinmad said:
Back to your usual bullshit.
Because, as you know, no one living in a third rate city in a second rate country in Europe and coming from an English inner city, driving a vw polo and stuck in some middle management job in a second rate energy company can actually 100% grasp world politics.
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That's your ad hominem unleashed again...with some assumptions made from one so keen to cite source and get the facts right...

The Hague for the seat of government is not that great a city, that's why I choose to live outside the city in a select affluent suburb, close enough to get to the centre of the city in 12-15 minutes, with plenty of greenery, cycle lanes, woods and lakes to make it suitable for me. It's not third rate by any measure.

I'm not from a grimy inner city, or sink estate, but I wish I was as it makes better copy as a self-made man. Wager you're not from villa miseria either. I'm from the Wirral, has some good parts and not so nice parts, as is so common the UK. Including London, which I consider unliveable. Good for a weekend, but like Rome, not a nice city to work and live in, but great to visit.

Nor am I working in an energy company, nor am I middle management. I happen to hold directorships in a global group. It's true I have energy companies that utilize my technical services, including renewables and fossil fuels, amongst a wide and diverse client portfolio that covers several sectors from the maritime to mining.

I chose to drive a VW Polo. I've already done the better cars with the Daimler Double Six and a Range Rover HSE 4.6. Not interested in cars as a status symbol, not interesting in high performance cars certainly on these roads, not interested in paying tax on a company car and I'm certainly not going to be seen driving a Ferrari or Porsche, as great as they are, it would be utterly embarrassing. Plus I'm not paying two grand month to keep a car on the road.

When you get to my age, you just rock your own way and the rest be damned mate.
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
That's your ad hominem unleashed again...with some assumptions made from one so keen to cite source and get the facts right...

The Hague for the seat of government is not that great a city, that's why I choose to live outside the city in a select affluent suburb, close enough to get to the centre of the city in 12-15 minutes, with plenty of greenery, cycle lanes, woods and lakes to make it suitable for me. It's not third rate by any measure.

I'm not from a grimy inner city, or sink estate, but I wish I was as it makes better copy as a self-made man. Wager you're not from villa miseria either. I'm from the Wirral, has some good parts and not so nice parts, as is so common the UK. Including London, which I consider unliveable. Good for a weekend, but like Rome, not a nice city to work and live in, but great to visit.

Nor am I working in an energy company, nor am I middle management. I happen to hold directorships in a global group. It's true I have energy companies that utilize my technical services, including renewables and fossil fuels, amongst a wide and diverse client portfolio that covers several sectors from the maritime to mining.

I chose to drive a VW Polo. I've already done the better cars with the Daimler Double Six and a Range Rover HSE 4.6. Not interested in cars as a status symbol, not interesting in high performance cars certainly on these roads, not interested in paying tax on a company car and I'm certainly not going to be seen driving a Ferrari or Porsche, as great as they are, it would be utterly embarrassing. Plus I'm not paying two grand month to keep a car on the road.

When you get to my age, you just rock your own way and the rest be damned mate.
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Nice justification of overall mediocrity, mate. I’m glad it works for you. As soon as you stop with the assumptions and attacks about being a self-made man (or family) in Latin America, I’ll stop with mine. It goes both ways, you see.
 
belinmad said:
Nice justification of overall mediocrity, mate. I’m glad it works for you. As soon as you stop with the assumptions and attacks about being a self-made man (or family) in Latin America, I’ll stop with mine. It goes both ways, you see.
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Do you have a chip on both shoulders or just the one?
 
alright fellas. everyone sucks and we're all going to die in a firey hellscape shortly. lets get back to talking about how all politicians suck.
 
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I take the view that being an MP is the greatest honour you could have, but a general practitioner in politics ought to be paid roughly the same as a general practitioner in medicine.
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I take the view that about 94.47% of MPs are losers who can’t hack it in the real world and hence should at most be paid around median wage, so they have an incentive to raise it.
 
Fwiffo said:
Nicely done.

My high school teacher rates Edinburgh after that. But then again his surname is Miller.
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The tweet misses Atlee after Churchill for some reason, who also went to Oxford. The last Cambridge-educated Prime Minster was Stanley Baldwin IIRC.
 
Based on that list Keir Starmer is eminently more qualified than Jeremy Corbyn.
 
Fwiffo said:
Based on that list Keir Starmer is eminently more qualified than Jeremy Corbyn.
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Keir Starmer is a strange cat, for a high flyer, he's completely without any charisma.

One wonders was it talent, sheer chance at running the rat race, or by Blair's design when he elevated being a human rights lawyer in an attempt to raise his wife's status and remuneration above the herd of her profession?

Rambo said:
The only good ones out of the bunch. Should tell you something.
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I wouldn't say Major was any good. Came across as bland, boring and ineffectual. He also has the unique position of being unemployed in the early 60s and rejected from being taken on as a bus conductor. Which is a phenomenal accolade.

He did have one of those purely vocational qualifications in banking, which was allegedly very difficult to get.
 
Major seemed like a very decent chap. I sorta think of Biden as America’s Major.
 
formby002 said:
Churchill, Callaghan, and Major never went to University.
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Given Churchill is the greatest Briton ever....He switched parties. Ran the country and empire during the finest hour. Left it for his successor and then came back from exile to take over from his successor and guide the new monarch. Hard to say any form of uni would have prepared a man for that.
 
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Rambo said:
What drugs are you smoking today?
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The last few events have been held at the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, across from the executive mansion itself.

AKA: “Fake White House”
 
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