Pages

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

An Email To My Son About Ex-President Lula and Brasilian Politics


Dear Pedro:

     You talked about the complexity of the Lula situation in particular and Brasilian politics in general.

       Today I had lunch with a man from Goiania. He started life in a favela. He now has an MBA from San Jose State University. On the face of things, you would see him as a Lula supporter.

        Here is a recap of what he told me over lunch as follows:

1) Judge Moro has six more criminal cases against Lula including one where he got a luxury fazenda as a gift from a constituent.

2) As Lula made cosmetic efforts to uplift the poor, he was helping the rich lavishly.

3) Lula played "a shell game" to make it appear that Brasil was experiencing an unprecedented economic boom. International investors believed this and poured massive sums of money into Brasil.

4) He briefed me on the political parties and the political structure. It would appear that the only president in recent history with honesty was Cardoso.

    In the US, there is a saying about lawyers as follows: "A law license is a license to steal." In Brasil, one could say: "Election to public office is a license to steal."

    Most sad is that very little is being done to help the truly poor.

With kindest regards,

No comments:

Post a Comment