Friday, April 22, 2016

I forgot to blog about Brasil...

Last Sunday, after a weekend of upheaval in the Brazilian Congress -- speeches ALL NIGHT from Friday to Saturday and all day Saturday, arguing pro and against impeaching the current president Dilma Rousseff -- they voted to begin impeachment proceedings.

I watched/listened to the voting live while I pulled weeds from my backyard for hours! It was very entertaining and very depressing, all at the same time. 

(Since I'm writing this on my phone, I was going to insert various sadness and frustration emoticons here, and then thought that those aren't really part of blog writing... Sigh! Texting and social media commenting are ruining our writing, no?) :-( 

It was depressing, almost alarming to watch the vote, because it was a true snapshot of the population of the country. Many uneducated folks, making errors while speaking, invoking the most disparate reasons for voting "Yes" and "dedicating" their votes to every member or their family in shameless family and self promotion (a very Brazilian thing BTW).  An analysis of their "speeches" would enable a researcher to find out the most popular baby names in the country for the past 10-20 years (Sophia is wildly popular).

The representatives against the impeachment, many from the president's party (the Worker's Party), and every single member of the Communist Party, were in the minority's and were, for the most part, very articulate, unlike the riotous majority. Oh, and it was a circus, the voting was!! Booing, screaming, crowding around the microphone, insulting the president of the Congress/Speaker of the House (also being indicted for corruption), not to mention the crazy "celebrity" representatives-- this guy who won the Big Brother Brazil competition who spat (yes, spat!!) on another guy who dared praise a horrid torturer from the military dictatorship years (the man who tortured Dilma Rousseff). 

Sigh... It was interesting to see the reaction of all my friends on Facebook, ashamed of the spectacle, of our country. I had friends who were very happy with the results (367 in favor of the impeachment, 137 against) and had actually gone to watch with the crowds in the center of the city of São Paulo. 

Now the Senate will decide whether to impeach her or not, but it's pretty much a fait accompli, it's a given that she'll be impeached. And nobody knows what is going to happen because the vice-president is also implicated in the corruption scandal as well as the "speaker of the house," Eduardo Cunha who was insulted countless times on Sunday, but still maintained a "Cheshire Cat-like" grin most of the time. 

Sigh... What will happen to our country? :-(

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