3 November 2010

day 480- England nil x 10 Brazil
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A short entry to celebrate the victory of Dilma Rousseff, candidate for the Workers Party (PT), now elected: 1st President and guerreira do Brasil.
Lula, the ex-factory worker, union leader, mistrusted and snubbed by the elite, has proved that it is possible to combine economic growth with a social agenda: during his 2 presidential terms, through a number of programs, over 20 million people has been lifted out of poverty.
What a record.
You could mention the party-politics, the odd corruption scandal, which, let's face it, no political party in Latin America, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, is ever immune from, but no discord can overshadow the indisputable fact that the standard of living for the majority of its people has increased dramatically.
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At the same time, while we read heart-warming tales of social and economic development in Brazil, it is very disheartening to see the British Conservative government doing precisely the opposite, as they, under the guise of 'deficit busters', shamelessly dismantle its social welfare program and drag Britain back into darkness.
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This nomad budget champagne socialist is very proud that, alas, it is not the 1st World who is setting the standard and example, but south of the Tropics, a vast and chaotic nation of scantily-clad amazons and barefooted kids kicking ball on the sand, are showing the rest of the world how to do it.
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1 comment:

isabel monteiro said...

ouch - got a couple of biting emails from a couple of ppl from the other side.
I hear you all - but my heart cant help but feel uplifted by the thought that some of our poorest are better off. Thats goodnews for everyone.
I know it's complicated, the middle-east, the northeast, the west of the east and so forth - god only knows how tangled up the web of economics and power in this world truly is.
let's no go there, Im just pleased to see some tangible progress.
x