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[Teneb]

Can't we rebrand it as LOLMeripol, under new LW management?

Only when the UK own British Guyana again.

[redwallzyl]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/22/553050477/soldiers-descend-on-rio-favela-as-shootouts-erupt

Brazil's army says it's dispatching nearly 1,000 troops to the country's largest shanty-town – or "favela" – in the hope of ending a wave of deadly violence that began nearly one week ago.

This afternoon military trucks carrying soldiers brandishing assault weapons began rumbling up to the edge of Rocinha, a sprawl of tumble-down hillside homes, shops, narrow streets and tiny alleys in the south of Rio de Janeiro.

Trouble erupted within the favela early last Sunday, with a five-hour firefight during which residents say they were forced to dive for cover on the floors of their homes as several hundred well-armed gangsters roamed the streets.

[Teneb]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/22/553050477/soldiers-descend-on-rio-favela-as-shootouts-erupt

Brazil's army says it's dispatching nearly 1,000 troops to the country's largest shanty-town – or "favela" – in the hope of ending a wave of deadly violence that began nearly one week ago.

This afternoon military trucks carrying soldiers brandishing assault weapons began rumbling up to the edge of Rocinha, a sprawl of tumble-down hillside homes, shops, narrow streets and tiny alleys in the south of Rio de Janeiro.

Trouble erupted within the favela early last Sunday, with a five-hour firefight during which residents say they were forced to dive for cover on the floors of their homes as several hundred well-armed gangsters roamed the streets.

Yeah, been seeing it in the news. State is broken because the previous governor was extremely corrupt and the previous mayor trying to use the Olympics to propel himself further in his political ambitions. No money means no money for security. Which means an increase in crime. And the extremely unpopular president is using the army to secure the region to improve his abysmal popularity.

I am absolutely biased, by the way.

[Reelya]

It's kind of interesting to look at popularity polls of different leaders. Venezuela's Maduro is widely noted to be unpopular, with only 22% saying he's doing a good job (after several months of the protests). However ... that's higher than the president of Mexico, almost as popular as the leaders of Chile and Uraguay, and twice as popular as the president of Brazil. Meanwhile, Colombia's Santos, who got a popularity spike after signing the FARC peace deal has since dropped to about 24% popularity.

It would seem nobody is popular in South America, but then I remembered to check Bolivia's Evo Morales, and he's sitting at 75%. Which considering that he's managed to grow the economy at a steady 5% the entire 12 years he's been president is understandable. He's also one of those filthy socialists however, so cognitive dissonance there. If merely being a socialist tanks economies then they need to explain Bolivia.

[Sheb]

I must admit I sometime find popularity polls puzzling. Like, I get that Hollande wasn't great, but he wasn't terrible either. And his approval rating was what, 4% at the end of his term?

[smjjames]

I got a laugh out of this, the three southernmost Brazillian states are chest beating over secession threat. From the article, it sounds like it's taken as seriously as secession threats are here in the US (that is, not seriously. Though for a bit it looked like California might actually go through with it.) since it's forbidden by the constitution and those southern states have made noise about it many times before. Kind of seems to be a method of venting as it is here in the US since it obviously isn't going to happen. Then again, the government in Brazil is in a pretty bad shape right now.

Going into speculative mode, if those three states actually were to secede (and assumingly form into one state), I wonder how much danger they'd be in from being invaded (or otherwise bullied around by) Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Obviously, this assumes Brazil doesn't get to them first.

[Teneb]

I got a laugh out of this, the three southernmost Brazillian states are chest beating over secession threat. From the article, it sounds like it's taken as seriously as secession threats are here in the US (that is, not seriously. Though for a bit it looked like California might actually go through with it.) since it's forbidden by the constitution and those southern states have made noise about it many times before. Kind of seems to be a method of venting as it is here in the US since it obviously isn't going to happen. Then again, the government in Brazil is in a pretty bad shape right now.

Going into speculative mode, if those three states actually were to secede (and assumingly form into one state), I wonder how much danger they'd be in from being invaded (or otherwise bullied around by) Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Obviously, this assumes Brazil doesn't get to them first.

It's kind of weird because only the southernmost one, Rio Grande do Sul, had actually tried to secede before, leading to a civil war in the region. Paraná and Santa Catarina have always been kind of quiet on that front. I expect secessionist movement to be practically nil in those two. It's not a new thing for the Gaúchos (Natives of RS) to try to vote themselves into independence. It just gets ignored and that is that.

The only country I can even see recognizing this theoretical independence is Paraguay, and purely out of spite.

As for you question of being invaded, Paraguay doesn't have the means to actually pull it off, Uruguay hasn't got the means or the will, and Argentina just won't because it may not like Brazil, but a cordial relationship is useful for both.

The tax angle... those states have it pretty good when it comes to living conditions. Logically, federal taxes should go to places where things are not that good. I just can't sympathize with that argument because it pretty much sounds like "our taxes are going to the poor!".

I'll actually be surprised if anything comes out of it.

[Reelya]

Paraguay and Uruguay aren't big enough to bully anyone. Gotta keep in mind the colossal difference in scale between those other states and Brazil. The south region of Brazil is like 30 million people.

[smjjames]

Sounds like it's akin to California or Texas making noise and venting about secession then since that's typically all it is over here, making noise and venting.

[redwallzyl]

the last time Paraguay tried to attack them like half the country was killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War

[smjjames]

the last time Paraguay tried to attack them like half the country was killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War

Well, they DID pick a fight with the two biggest countries in South America.

[Teneb]

Did some more digging and even the group organizing the vote are saying it won't be legally binding. It's just a way to protest against Temer plus some old-fashioned nationalism from the gaúchos.

And since I mentioned a civil war earlier one, have the obligatory wikipedia[/ulr]. Featuring special guest Garibaldi.

[redwallzyl]

speaking of odd events in south American history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_MacGregor

history is full of oddities.

[Reelya]

Here's a report put together by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (Washington based liberal thinktank) about New York Times coverage of south-american politics. The big note is that nytimes seems to selective report "bad stuff" done by anyone left-of-center while seeming to have a blanket-ban on reporting anything bad done by anyone right-of-center. The main data looked at is Venezuelan news coverage, however there's evidence it extends to other nations and topics.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13412

The dataset is all the incidents of violence in 1 year in Venezuela, divided by responsible side of violence and intensity. While the right-wing dominate the "high" intensity violence incidents (31 high-intensity acts) and medium (14 acts) and the left were involved in 12 high-intensity acts, and 9 medium acts, the nytimes reported on violence in venezuela 33 times during the time period, yet 31 times they 100% blamed the left, and 2 times they didn't clearly attribute either side.

This definitely backs up my idea that people are fooling themselves if they think that Corporation #A's corporate media is the "left" of America and Corporation #B's corporate media is the "right" of America. Both are on the right, it's just about how far to the right you are. nytimes doesn't like actual Nazis.That's low-hanging fruit. Unless they're Latino Nazis, in which case they literally shit gold.

“The Post’s views,” such as post-critics director Larry Birns, Mills, Pineo counter-editorial observe, “appear to have been formed by uncritically accepting all of the propaganda offered up by the right-wing opposition press in Venezuela.”

Basically, what this is saying is that the New York Times and Washington Post uncritically reprint news articles from the South American equivalents of FOX News, instead of doing their own research.

e.g. another point of data is what nytimes thinks of Colombia's previous leader Uribe

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/opinion/the-man-blocking-peace-in-colombia.html

You wouldn't know about any of his family's death squad and drug lord links and the links between his government's army's widespread mass-murders of peasants. From this, all they say is that peace is Uribe's legacy, and that he needs to get on board with the FARC peace process to protect that legacy. It's like doing a write-up on Hitler and only mentioning the VW Beetle and the Autobahn or something.

https://nacla.org/news/colombia%E2%80%99s-magic-laptops

Meanwhile, the very day after the Interpol report received so much news coverage  .. the website of the Colombian magazine Semana reported that hard drives and mobile-phone SIM cards belonging to high-level paramilitary leaders extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges, had been lost. Hardware belonging to three paramilitary leaders disappeared and was never recovered. Information taken from the laptop of one of the paramilitary bosses, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo a.k.a. Jorge 40, sparked the so-called paramilitary-political scandal in spring 2006, eventually leading to the jailing of more than 30 of Uribe’s parliamentary allies, including Mario Uribe, his cousin, on charges of colluding with narco-paramilitaries.

So ... 30+ of Uribe's party's congressmen including his cousin ended up being convicted as allies to drug-dealing death squads, because of evidence of one drug lord extradited to the USA. Half his government was literally working hand in hand with a secret army of psycho chainsaw-murdering cocaine addicts, who eliminated anyone who dares question the ruling party. And we're only talking like 10 years ago. His niece is also a drug-lord ally, and his brother is one of the narco-death squad leaders. Then, in 2008 his government conveniently lost all the evidence against a numer of other drug lords, and which was conveniently announced a few days after they Bombed Ecuador and was lost in the shitstorm of whether there would be a war. Meanwhile the Bush administration decided to let the drug evidence thing slide and criticize Ecuador instead for not being ok with being bombed (Ecuador had recently refused to renew the lease on the US airbase before this happened).

Plus I haven't even got into the scale of the death squad and army atrocities going on during Uribe's regime. Not of their secret police activities against independent journalists and the like. And New York times would have you believe that Uribe's only legacy is "peace".

[smjjames]

South America getting little, and selective at that, coverage in the US isn't news.