"They were so much 'many' then; they're 'fewer' than that now."
Hey Folks,
More from the “free” press!!
Now, I don’t have enough information to determine the motive behind this article being screwed up (ignorance? stupidity? politics? self-censorship? fear? collaboration?), but it clearly IS screwed up, and another example of how we are brainwashed to see things the way we are “supposed” to see them.
My comments are in red.
- Uke Man
Brazil president readies for runoff vote
By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Facing a surprisingly rough campaign, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has revived the populist rhetoric he had largely shed since taking office. Apparently, Silva was elected by appealing to the majority in his country - the regular people, but was losing support as a result of reneging on his campaign stance.
Fiery speeches contrasting the lives of Brazil's poor with the wealthy elite have left many Brazilians wondering whether he would push the country to the left if he wins a second four-year term in Sunday's runoff election. The "elite" are a small group; the "poor" are a large group. What (who?) is meant here by "many"? Obviously, the poor would "hope" for rather than "wonder" about a turn to the left - as in Venezuela; are the poor or the wealthy "wondering"? From whose perspective is this story being told?
Silva, a former union firebrand [ not a union "organizer," a "firebrand" - hmmm ... fire is destructive, isn't it! hmmmm ...] and Brazil's first working-class president, faced similar fears four years ago [ there's the answer as to perspective; it IS the "elite," the minority, who are "wondering" - the story is from THEIR perspective] but calmed them by adhering to market-friendly, pro-business policies that won praise even from conservatives. Oh, I see. He got elected by promising to aid the powerless majority, but then behaved well by actually serving the small, conservative, wealthy minority - who now fear he might - to get elected - actually serve the majority of people who voted for him in the first place and desperately NEED his attention.
But with his administration engulfed in corruption scandals, Silva has returned to his traditional base — the poor — rallying them with claims that his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin, would sell off cherished state assets and eliminate popular programs such as Family Allowance, which gives needy families monthly subsidies. OK, sounds familiar: make promises to the people / get elected / screw the people / lose support / make promises to the people and/or scare them ...
"The rich don't need the Brazilian state. The ones who need it are the poor people of this country," Silva said at rally on Sao Paulo's poor east side. "The poor are the ones who need public universities because the rich can pay — or even study in Paris."
While few believe [ here we go again: "few"!! Well the elite are already the "few." So, we are given a report on the view of a few of the few - THEIR perspective - as if THAT is what matters in a so-called "democracy."] Silva would adopt the radical populism of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez [How could he! Helping the mass of people rather than the few would be ass-backwards!] , they worry that he could entrench divisions in Brazil, which has one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor. This is the wackiest sentence in the piece! These vultures don't worry that outrageous divisions exist; but ONLY that the victims of "one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor" might think about it too much and stay angry about it.
"It's very easy to mobilize the poor. What's hard is to demobilize them after the election," said Bolivar Lamounier, director of the Augurium political consulting firm. "I'm afraid if he wins a second term, which looks likely, he will be tempted to take an authoritarian turn." So, according to the political consultant, the problem isn't the situation of the poor; and exploiting the poor to get elected is OK; the problem is puting the poor back in their cages after the election - democracy at work again!! (Notice how his tone reflects that of one on high explaining to another of the anointed the fine points of manipulating lesser beings, farm animals, or characters in a video game).
According to a poll released Thursday, Silva was leading Alckmin 63 percent to 37 percent — even better than his 2002 victory of 61 percent to 39 percent over Jose Serra. The poll interviewed 2,000 voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Hmmmm ... it seems weird that 63% of those polled on the election support a turn to the left, but "many" of those the reporters polled fear it.
In the first round on Oct. 1, Silva fell just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Polls had predicted he would win outright but then news media ran photos of $770,000 in cash that members of his party allegedly planned to spend on purchasing an incriminating file about Alckmin and his allies. Well, Silva's guys are crooks, but crooks trying to get the goods that prove Alckmin is a crook. Doesn't it seem strange that this stuff is seen as indicting only one of the crooks? - sounds like Foxxx News (and what happened to Dan Rather) to me.
Although Silva was never personally implicated, the expose reinforced suspicions of government corruption — suspicions driven home by Alckmin in his campaign speeches. Silva most likely IS corrupt - and Alckmin probably is too - but neither side really cares about that; the scary possibility is that one crook - in order to get elected - will chum up the masses and then not be able to calm them back into submission.
It was then that Silva stepped up the class-driven rhetoric.
He called Alckmin a tool of the rich and out of touch with the common man, while his allies painted a corruption scandal enveloping Silva's party as an elitist-driven conspiracy.
"The raw and naked truth is that, in the elite's political program ... the poor have not been included," Silva said at a Sao Paulo rally. "During elections the poor are worth more than bankers, but after the elections the poor are not even invited in for coffee."
The first-round vote split the nation along geographic lines, with Silva winning handily in Brazil's poor north while Alckmin took the industrialized south, including Sao Paulo, the state he served as governor.
In the second round, Silva counterattacked with an appeal to national pride, claiming that Alckmin would privatize government-run companies that are sacred cows to many Brazilians — oil giant Petrobras, Banco do Brasil, the national post office.
Alckmin called the president a "liar" to his face during their first debate — but Silva hammered away at the theme, and analysts say many of Brazil's 125 million voters believed him. Now the "many" really IS the "many."
"It's not very difficult with the low level of education in Brazil to motivate this prejudice," Lamounier said [Yeah, they're so stupid that when you screw them , they think you screwed 'em!]. "It was very hard to carry out privatization in Brazil, and while it made good business sense, when poor people got their phone bills or light bills they just saw that things cost a lot." There are plenty of people with more education than Mr. Lamounier who would call him a flunky of the elite (check out economist/author Greg Palast).
Alckmin has played on fears that Silva, like Chavez, could rewrite the constitution to give the poor more power. Silva has denied any attempt to split the country along class lines. Two shitheads at work: one wants to make sure the majority has minimal political power; the other vows not to split a country that is already split by "one of the world's widest gaps."
His socialist fire has already inflamed prejudices among upper-class Brazilians. Well, at least the PREJUDICE is admitted - notice, again, that helping the masses as opposed to the elite few is characterised as "fire" and "inflaming."
"If he's elected I hope he gets impeached during his first days in office," said Remo Dalla Zanna, a 67-year-old economist. "He's not the kind of person I want governing my country [ notice "my country" - John Jay, I believe, said of the USA that it "should be run by the people who own it."] . I don't want a crude and ignorant union leader. No one I know is going to vote for him." Well, I guess that means he'll surely win - how many voters does a member of a small elite group "know"?.
The poor majority [ the reason he'll win ], in large part, remains Silva's devout power base.
"With Lula, things have gotten much better for the poor," said Celsinha Coqueiro de Sousa, a 52-year-old maid, "and I hope they will get even better." Well!! isn't that just what you'd expect from some crude, ignorant, working-class peasant ?!! - - - - Uke Man
Associated Press writer Hellen Berger contributed to this report from Sao Paulo.
More from the “free” press!!
Now, I don’t have enough information to determine the motive behind this article being screwed up (ignorance? stupidity? politics? self-censorship? fear? collaboration?), but it clearly IS screwed up, and another example of how we are brainwashed to see things the way we are “supposed” to see them.
My comments are in red.
- Uke Man
Brazil president readies for runoff vote
By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Facing a surprisingly rough campaign, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has revived the populist rhetoric he had largely shed since taking office. Apparently, Silva was elected by appealing to the majority in his country - the regular people, but was losing support as a result of reneging on his campaign stance.
Fiery speeches contrasting the lives of Brazil's poor with the wealthy elite have left many Brazilians wondering whether he would push the country to the left if he wins a second four-year term in Sunday's runoff election. The "elite" are a small group; the "poor" are a large group. What (who?) is meant here by "many"? Obviously, the poor would "hope" for rather than "wonder" about a turn to the left - as in Venezuela; are the poor or the wealthy "wondering"? From whose perspective is this story being told?
Silva, a former union firebrand [ not a union "organizer," a "firebrand" - hmmm ... fire is destructive, isn't it! hmmmm ...] and Brazil's first working-class president, faced similar fears four years ago [ there's the answer as to perspective; it IS the "elite," the minority, who are "wondering" - the story is from THEIR perspective] but calmed them by adhering to market-friendly, pro-business policies that won praise even from conservatives. Oh, I see. He got elected by promising to aid the powerless majority, but then behaved well by actually serving the small, conservative, wealthy minority - who now fear he might - to get elected - actually serve the majority of people who voted for him in the first place and desperately NEED his attention.
But with his administration engulfed in corruption scandals, Silva has returned to his traditional base — the poor — rallying them with claims that his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin, would sell off cherished state assets and eliminate popular programs such as Family Allowance, which gives needy families monthly subsidies. OK, sounds familiar: make promises to the people / get elected / screw the people / lose support / make promises to the people and/or scare them ...
"The rich don't need the Brazilian state. The ones who need it are the poor people of this country," Silva said at rally on Sao Paulo's poor east side. "The poor are the ones who need public universities because the rich can pay — or even study in Paris."
While few believe [ here we go again: "few"!! Well the elite are already the "few." So, we are given a report on the view of a few of the few - THEIR perspective - as if THAT is what matters in a so-called "democracy."] Silva would adopt the radical populism of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez [How could he! Helping the mass of people rather than the few would be ass-backwards!] , they worry that he could entrench divisions in Brazil, which has one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor. This is the wackiest sentence in the piece! These vultures don't worry that outrageous divisions exist; but ONLY that the victims of "one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor" might think about it too much and stay angry about it.
"It's very easy to mobilize the poor. What's hard is to demobilize them after the election," said Bolivar Lamounier, director of the Augurium political consulting firm. "I'm afraid if he wins a second term, which looks likely, he will be tempted to take an authoritarian turn." So, according to the political consultant, the problem isn't the situation of the poor; and exploiting the poor to get elected is OK; the problem is puting the poor back in their cages after the election - democracy at work again!! (Notice how his tone reflects that of one on high explaining to another of the anointed the fine points of manipulating lesser beings, farm animals, or characters in a video game).
According to a poll released Thursday, Silva was leading Alckmin 63 percent to 37 percent — even better than his 2002 victory of 61 percent to 39 percent over Jose Serra. The poll interviewed 2,000 voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Hmmmm ... it seems weird that 63% of those polled on the election support a turn to the left, but "many" of those the reporters polled fear it.
In the first round on Oct. 1, Silva fell just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Polls had predicted he would win outright but then news media ran photos of $770,000 in cash that members of his party allegedly planned to spend on purchasing an incriminating file about Alckmin and his allies. Well, Silva's guys are crooks, but crooks trying to get the goods that prove Alckmin is a crook. Doesn't it seem strange that this stuff is seen as indicting only one of the crooks? - sounds like Foxxx News (and what happened to Dan Rather) to me.
Although Silva was never personally implicated, the expose reinforced suspicions of government corruption — suspicions driven home by Alckmin in his campaign speeches. Silva most likely IS corrupt - and Alckmin probably is too - but neither side really cares about that; the scary possibility is that one crook - in order to get elected - will chum up the masses and then not be able to calm them back into submission.
It was then that Silva stepped up the class-driven rhetoric.
He called Alckmin a tool of the rich and out of touch with the common man, while his allies painted a corruption scandal enveloping Silva's party as an elitist-driven conspiracy.
"The raw and naked truth is that, in the elite's political program ... the poor have not been included," Silva said at a Sao Paulo rally. "During elections the poor are worth more than bankers, but after the elections the poor are not even invited in for coffee."
The first-round vote split the nation along geographic lines, with Silva winning handily in Brazil's poor north while Alckmin took the industrialized south, including Sao Paulo, the state he served as governor.
In the second round, Silva counterattacked with an appeal to national pride, claiming that Alckmin would privatize government-run companies that are sacred cows to many Brazilians — oil giant Petrobras, Banco do Brasil, the national post office.
Alckmin called the president a "liar" to his face during their first debate — but Silva hammered away at the theme, and analysts say many of Brazil's 125 million voters believed him. Now the "many" really IS the "many."
"It's not very difficult with the low level of education in Brazil to motivate this prejudice," Lamounier said [Yeah, they're so stupid that when you screw them , they think you screwed 'em!]. "It was very hard to carry out privatization in Brazil, and while it made good business sense, when poor people got their phone bills or light bills they just saw that things cost a lot." There are plenty of people with more education than Mr. Lamounier who would call him a flunky of the elite (check out economist/author Greg Palast).
Alckmin has played on fears that Silva, like Chavez, could rewrite the constitution to give the poor more power. Silva has denied any attempt to split the country along class lines. Two shitheads at work: one wants to make sure the majority has minimal political power; the other vows not to split a country that is already split by "one of the world's widest gaps."
His socialist fire has already inflamed prejudices among upper-class Brazilians. Well, at least the PREJUDICE is admitted - notice, again, that helping the masses as opposed to the elite few is characterised as "fire" and "inflaming."
"If he's elected I hope he gets impeached during his first days in office," said Remo Dalla Zanna, a 67-year-old economist. "He's not the kind of person I want governing my country [ notice "my country" - John Jay, I believe, said of the USA that it "should be run by the people who own it."] . I don't want a crude and ignorant union leader. No one I know is going to vote for him." Well, I guess that means he'll surely win - how many voters does a member of a small elite group "know"?.
The poor majority [ the reason he'll win ], in large part, remains Silva's devout power base.
"With Lula, things have gotten much better for the poor," said Celsinha Coqueiro de Sousa, a 52-year-old maid, "and I hope they will get even better." Well!! isn't that just what you'd expect from some crude, ignorant, working-class peasant ?!! - - - - Uke Man
Associated Press writer Hellen Berger contributed to this report from Sao Paulo.
1 Comments:
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your excellent analysis. It really helps when you add your points in red. You do a superb job. Sondra
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