Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Feeling Powerless/Powerful

Author:Vitor Conceicao
Posted:12/16/1998; 9:09:29 AM
Topic:DaveNet comments
Msg #:1341 (In response to 1333)
Prev/Next:1340 / 1342

No! I don't believe handing over power would help.

Actually most of our problems date back to the military revolution that the US government sponsored back in the 60's. We went thru more than 20 years of military rule with all oposition forbiden and no democratic elections. Right now we are in the 30th anniversary of what we call the AI5 (Institutional Act 5) which allowed the military to arrest, torture and kill whoever oposed their rule.

Lot's of brazilians had to leave for the exile, even our present president Fernando Henrique Cardoso lived in exile in Chile and England. We had censorship in all culture, music, movies, books, newspapers and TV. Our most important musicians and writers also had to live in exile also.

After that we finally got the congress to elect a president from the oposition (not really oposition actually) in 1984. Tancredo Neves. But he died in strange circunstances right after the election. Then his vice-president (not from the oposition) José Sarney became president.

Then we finally got to vote for president and unfortunattelly the biggest crook won, Fernando Collor (that was in 87/88 if I'm not wrong), but he stole so much that he got impeached. His vice-president became president (Itamar Franco), and old guy without the political strenght needed for the job.

Then Fernando Henrique won the election, a good name finally, but the forces behind him are not the best ones. This year he got re-elected (I voted for him actually). So things are slowly going back to normal, but the debt and legacy this 30 years left are really not good. So we do have a lot of cleaning up to do. I hope that in more ten years things start to be a lot better. Let's see.

As for the globalization I really think it's a great thing. We finally got over physical boundaries and we're starting something that I hope will be really wonderfull for mankind. But we'll only know what this thing is some 30 years down the road.

Greetings, Vitor.

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:46:39 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.