International Events IX: I feel like a mushroom

[Winterfell is Burning]

Just now, DMC said:

I mean..Saddam did have a big part of the blame in the US invasion -- even though the US was primarily to blame.  Hell, that comparison sounds like he's primarily blaming Russia.  Anyway, your dislike towards Lula is rather apparent.

You're making excuses. He's comparing Zelensky to Saddam freakin' Hussein. If Bolsonaro did that, there would be riots among the left worldwide.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

If Bolsonaro did that, there would be riots among the left worldwide.

And there it is.  The riots "among the left."  You have antipathy towards the left.  Which is fine!  I do too, but not nearly as much as I do towards the right.  Either way, your intent to malign Lula because of comparisons he made among international figures and events is not going to work with me, sorry.

[The Anti-Targ]

If Lula has said that Zelensky is as much to blame as Hussein was for the US invasion of Iraq then by my estimation that equals not that much to blame at all, as the US was looking for a reason. That specific comparison does not read as Russian apologia to me.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Just now, The Anti-Targ said:

If Lula has said that Zelensky is as much to blame as Hussein was for the US invasion of Iraq then by my estimation that equals not that much to blame at all, as the US was looking for a reason. That specific comparison does not read as Russian apologia to me.

  Saddam Hussein was a mass murdering dictator who invaded another country before and used chemical weapons on his own people.

Lula also specifically said both sides are equally to blame for the war.

1 minute ago, DMC said:

And there it is.  The riots "among the left."  You have antipathy towards the left.  Which is fine!  I do too, but not nearly as much as I do towards the right.  Either way, your intent to malign Lula because of comparisons he made among international figures and events is not going to work with me, sorry.

You're making excuses again.

I'm merely telling what are facts.: A) He's a Putin apologist; b) Because he's from the left, some people from the left excuse his actions and stupid shit he says, when they wouldn't from a right-wing figure who did the same thing. And there's the problem- conservatives excuse whatever bullshit the Trumps, Bolsonaros, De Santis' of the world do, and are rightly criticized for it. But many sectors of the left also make apologies for people like Lula, Maduro, or even worse people- even Pol Pot has people making apologia.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Anyway, with 2/3 of the votes counted, Lula is closing in, with less than 1% difference, but it's still clear polls underestimated Bolsonaro and overestimated him, though not by as much as the initial tallies seemed to indicate.

Of course, whoever wins there, Brazil loses.

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

I'm merely telling what are facts.: A) He's a Putin apologist;

Blaming BOTH sides, which is clearly what he was doing in both statements you're alluding - and even clearly blaming Putin more so in the Hussein statement you think is so damning - is not the same as being a "Putin apologist."  Or at least, it's not dissimilar to a lot of world leaders' statements on the war.  Including the statements of leaders the US/west counts as allies.  This is clearly your bias, through and through.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

  Saddam Hussein was a mass murdering dictator who invaded another country before and used chemical weapons on his own people.

Lula also specifically said both sides are equally to blame for the war.

I don't know what any of those things had to do with the US invasion of Iraq by Bush II, except in the minds of Bush II and his hawkish companions, and I wonder how much Lula would say is was of a mind with Bush II, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co; I suspect he would not ally his thinking with them. They were historical events well and truly in the rear view by the time Bush II and Blair started talking about regime change, and in the case of having invaded Kuwait that was fully addressed to the satisfaction of the international community by Iraq War I. Hussein of 2002 had done nothing, really, to encourage a US invasion, and by the account of the IAEA had pretty much met the most critical conditions regarding its WMD disarmament requirements. Surely you are not suggesting Lula has accused Zelensky of invading a neighbour or using chemical weapons on Ukrainian people. 

If mass murdering dictator was a pretext for the US to go to war the US would be at war with a few other countries right now.

If Lula said both sides are equally to blame, then this does not jibe with also saying Zelensky is as much to blame as Hussein was for Iraq War II. So the context suggests to me Lula is playing to his base and trying to thread the needle between not appearing to support US foreign policy and not totally swinging in behind Russia.

[Winterfell is Burning]

8 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If Lula said both sides are equally to blame, then this does not jibe with also saying Zelensky is as much to blame as Hussein was for Iraq War II. So the context suggests to me Lula is playing to his base and trying to thread the needle between not appearing to support US foreign policy and not totally swinging in behind Russia.

He also said Zelensky was more worried about appearing on TV than to reach a deal, and should have compromised with Putin- you know, the guy that already invaded a part of his country already.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Anyway, now there's a mathematical definition of a 2nd round between Lula vs Bolsonaro.

For the country, it's of course a disaster, since for both of them it's an existential fight, and will be out for blood. There will be even more fake news and dirty attacks, and since the more moderate and smarter candidates are out of the debates, there will be even less discussion of actual policy.

Every poll before this predicted Lula would win a 2nd round easily, but they also underestimated Bolsonaro in this election.

On one hand, the voters of the candidate that finished 4th, Ciro Gomes, are much more likely to vote for Lula; I'm not sure about about the 3rd place, Simone Tebet (who got my vote)- perhaps it depends on who she'll support, but I find hard to imagine she supporting Bolsonaro after she's been heavily critical of him, maybe she'll stay neutral or support Lula- the former would be better for her in the long-term, the latter in the short one.

In Bolsonaro's favor is that most of the candidates already elected for governor, specially in the largest states, support him, and most of the ones leading the polls going in to the 2nd round support him as well. Most of the elected senators were supporting him or at least closer to him in the ideological spectrum as well.

The potential kingmaker here is the governor of Brazil's 2nd largest state, Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, the only candidate to win (and easily) without support from either Lula or Bolsonaro. His state is also the one that usually reflects the election results more than any other (kind of like Florida or the Rust Belt in the US).

The problem is that since he took office replacing a disastrous Workers Party governor, he was opposed by them at every turn, even when they were reasonable, and I can't see him supporting Lula when his party will continue to undermine him.

As for me, for the first time in a presidential election, I'm voting on nobody (well, in 2018, in the 2nd round I was way from my city, so I couldn't vote on anyone). Just can't bring myself to vote on this trash knowing they'll destroy the country either way, and nobody that I ever voted on got elected anyway.

 

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

For the country, it's of course a disaster

What's the mood on the ground, from your perspective? 

[Winterfell is Burning]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What's the mood on the ground, from your perspective? 

Hard to say now, probably will be easier in the coming days- haven't met anyone after the result was officially announced. But everyone was assuming there would be a lot worse, in terms of conflict and violence.

 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

He also said Zelensky was more worried about appearing on TV than to reach a deal, and should have compromised with Putin- you know, the guy that already invaded a part of his country already.

I don't know what Lula's position on war in general is, but if you want to have some pacifist cred then you would be encouraging negotiations and an end to hostilities at the earliest opportunity, without necessarily taking a position on what the outcome of the negotiations should be. But if Lula was suggesting Zelensky should simply accept annexation of parts of Ukraine in order to end the war, that is, at best, an incredibly naive position. If Zelensky took that position he wouldn't be president of Ukraine for long enough to sign such an agreement. Being in any way supportive of annexation via invasion and military conflict is wholly irresponsible for any would-be leader, not least the would-be leader of the largest country in South America, and one of the largest in the world. Even if one somehow recognises Russia's claim on those territories the re-drawing of international boundaries must be via peaceful negotiated arrangements, not unilaterally imposed down the barrel of a gun.

[DireWolfSpirit]

6 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

- even Pol Pot has people making apologia.

Good heavens who is doing this? Can't say I've ever ran into such a strange position.

Anywho duly noted you dont care for either, I can only hope Lula would be better for slowing the deforestration and for indigenous peoples protections.

Bolsonaro leaves the impression that the rain forest should have maximum exploitation and thats its only purpose.

[Padraig]

10 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

And there's the problem- conservatives excuse whatever bullshit the Trumps, Bolsonaros, De Santis' of the world do, and are rightly criticized for it. But many sectors of the left also make apologies for people like Lula, Maduro, or even worse people

I don't know.  When the choice is Lula v Bolsonaro, I can understand why people don't get very aggressive against Lula.  If nothing else, the rest of the world should want Lula to win just because of the environment (and then you throw in all the other baggage that Bolsonaro carries).  But yes, corruption stalks Lula too.

And yes, you will always find some crazy people on social media but I wouldn't say Maduro or Ortega are generally condoned (but there are some extreme politicians on the left that do).

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Good heavens who is doing this? Can't say I've ever ran into such a strange position.

Anywho duly noted you dont care for either, I can only hope Lula would be better for slowing the deforestration and for indigenous peoples protections.

Bolsonaro leaves the impression that the rain forest should have maximum exploitation and thats its only purpose.

Read what Chomsky had to say about the Khemer Rouge in the 70s and 80s.  He long maintained the Killing Fields were being exaggerated by Western Media.

[Winterfell is Burning]

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

 

And yes, you will always find some crazy people on social media but I wouldn't say Maduro or Ortega are generally condoned (but there are some extreme politicians on the left that do).

Maybe, but Lula is one of those guys that condones them (as well as his party), a fact that Bolsonaro exploited in the last two elections endlessly and well. It's harder to deny you plan to turn Brazil into a new Venezuela if you keep refusing to condemn Maduro and defend him at every opportunity, or keep expressing your admiration for the Cuban dictatorship.

Anyway, one point that I see Bolsonaro's supporters exploiting is that they kept claiming the polls were wrong and rigged against them, and at least in the first point, they were right. In state and senate elections that is most notable- that can partially be explained by people deciding at the last minute who they'll vote (since there's virtually no party loyalty in Brazil, and people don't automatically vote Labor/Democrat or Conservative/Republican), but it doesn't really explain why they always tend to overrate left-wing candidates, or the most left wing of the two if there's two of them running.

Also, Lula's campaign tried to make a play for "useful vote", and for supporters of other candidates to support him in the first round to end the election already, but if anything, those voters seemingly ended up migrating to Bolsonaro instead, even though most were closer to Lula in the ideological spectrum. Probably an indication polls also underestimated Lula's rejection rate.

 

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Maybe, but Lula is one of those guys that condones them (as well as his party), a fact that Bolsonaro exploited in the last two elections endlessly and well. It's harder to deny you plan to turn Brazil into a new Venezuela if you keep refusing to condemn Maduro and defend him at every opportunity, or keep expressing your admiration for the Cuban dictatorship.

And Bolsonaro says he admired Trump and Putin.  That is politics.  If people don't like those positions, they will vote against them.  Given Lula got more votes than Bolsonaro (so far), it hasn't worked against him.  But Bolsonaro's position didn't kill off his hopes either.

You can certainly be worried about Lula's democratic credentials but Bolsonaro seems to be worse on that score.  From this external position anyhow.

Given people didn't expect Lula to win via the first round, it sounds like the polls got Lula's percent reasonably well but underestimated how well Bolsonaro would do.  But when you have 2 unpopular candidates, its certainly possible that a lot of the "undecided's" ended up swinging to one candidate.  Bolsonaro in this case (I think that is what happened in the US in 2016).  Thus the polls seem off.

You'd know better who does polls.  But deliberately exaggerating a lead in a poll may work against you.

https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-brazils-2022-presidential-election

The above links suggests a 8% point lead before the election.  Ended up 5% points.  Not wildly out.  But makes sense for Bolsonaro to make a big deal out of it I suppose.

Edited: When I contrasted this with the 2020 US election, it wasn't based on political positions.  Instead, both are course correction elections but Biden brought a certain amount of desired normality back to politics in the US.  Lula doesn't.  He is just different from Bolsonaro.

[DMC]

So, with Lula winning 48 to 43 in the first round, have a really hard time seeing Bolsonaro actually winning the runoff.  Seems now the worry is almost entirely him Trumping it.

[DireWolfSpirit]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Read what Chomsky had to say about the Khemer Rouge in the 70s and 80s.  He long maintained the Killing Fields were being exaggerated by Western Media.

My take was that the he fealt the NYT's buried the genocide in East Timor and he was questioning why the unequal coverage of the atrocities?

It seemed more of a case of exaggeration than apoligism.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

My take was that the he fealt the NYT's buried the genocide in East Timor and he was questioning why the unequal coverage of the atrocities?

It seemed more of a case of exaggeration than apoligism.

So Chomsky using the Tu Quoque fallacy?