Comment by tarruda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tarruda | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why this article doesn't mention PT (Worker's Party) once, even though it was during PT's government JBS had its meteoric rise. Here's a quote from Joesley's:

"Foi no governo do PT para frente. O Lula e o PT institucionalizaram a corrupção. Houve essa criação de núcleos, com divisão de tarefas entre os integrantes, em estados, ministérios, fundos de pensão, bancos, BNDES. O resultado é que hoje o Estado brasileiro está dominado por organizações criminosas. O modelo do PT foi reproduzido por outros partidos"

translation:

"Lula and PT institutionalized corruption. There was this creation of nuclei, with division of tasks among the members, in states, ministries, pension funds, banks, BNDES. The result is that today the Brazilian state is dominated by criminal organizations. The PT model was reproduced by other parties"

(source: https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-institucionalizaram-...)

While PT certainly didn't create corruption in Brazil, it was brought to whole new levels during its government.

To anyone interested in why brazilians elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, it was mostly due to fear of PT returning to power. This was fear was greatly strengthened by the fact that PT has strong ties to Venezuela's current government (people were afraid that Brazil would become the next Venezuela). Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo

While there were better alternatives, Jair Bolsonaro was the only candidate that stood a chance of winning, so most of his votes were anti-PT instead of pro-Bolsonaro.

The PT did not bring anything new to the Brazilian corruption. Dirty corruption schemes have existed in Brazil for centuries. The media threw the spotlight on corruption in the PT government because it was a convenient time for those who wanted a right-wing government. Great schemes were discovered that were previously covered up. Most of the blame was attributed to the PT, but these are criminal practices that have happened in all governments and, arguably in the name of governability (to be able to approve projects), Lula continued that.

Joesley would seem to be very interested in blaming the PT in his statements: in addition to getting out of jail, he would help pull a leftist party out of power. From January 2nd to August 2019, the value of JBS shares almost tripled, breaking consecutive records. Coincidence?

And in the last presidential elections, the favorite in the polls was Lula, unbeatably. He was soon convicted without substantial evidence, based only on testimony from people who had personal interests in the conviction. The lawsuit had a trial in record time. The judge who convicted Lula was named Jair Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice. Chats and voice messages began to leak shortly thereafter, initially through reporter Gleen Greenwald. Conversations between Judge Moro and the prosecutors, showing their partiality, collaboration and mutual interest in the conviction of Lula.

It seems very difficult to believe that it is PT's fault. And looking at the history of JBS stock value, it seems to me that JBS's meteoric growth is happening during the Bolsonaro government, and at the expense of the Amazon rainforest.

The whole JBS scandal helped the Batista family to get richer. They bought 100M dollars and sold JBS' stock just before the plea bargain deal went public. Joesley was temporarily imprisoned by this move, but soon was set free.

Yes, PT brought new aspects for Brazilian corruption: the size, the proportion. They fed private big companies with a lot of "opportunities" and dirty money (JBS is an example of a private corrupted company the grewn up with PT) . Also, they abused of state companies like Petrobras. Their corruption reached other countries in South America, Europe and Africa. PT gave steroids for Brazilian corruption.

This is the lie created to overthrow the PT that eventually elected Jair Bolsonaro. There is evidence on the internet (leaked audios from authorities) that there was a major national agreement to take down the PT. These companies are much older than the PT government. JBS was founded in 1953. The large building contractors were truly enriched during the military dictatorship (1964 - 1985). It does not take much in-depth research to realize this.

Probably the "greatest" achievement of the PT government is that many Brazilians now take the word of criminals in plea bargain deals as true narratives for their country. Very sad.

There are multiple evidences of how PT institutionalized corruption. Joesley's quote was only brought up due to the article's context.

To say that PT 'institutionalized' corruption is to deny the history of how Brazil (and pretty much every country) came to be ever since the first european set foot on its shores. Corruption is institutionalized, trying to account it as individual efforts is merely accepting a poor media-driven narrative.

In 13 years of PT government, Brazil became nowhere near "becoming the next Venezuela".

Most of the anti-PT sentiment was fueled by the media, which wanted a right-wing government back. It spectacularly backfired since Bolsonaro is anti-media.

> In 13 years of PT government, Brazil became nowhere near "becoming the next Venezuela".

Brazil has a a more diverse economy. Even though PT left Brazil in economic crisis, it surely wouldn't fall as much is Venezuela (which had an oil dependent economy when oil prices dropped dramatically).

I'm merely explaining the sentiment that took over the country and resulted in Bolsonaro being elected.

> Most of the anti-PT sentiment was fueled by the media, which wanted a right-wing government back

It seems to me that mainstream media was constantly attacking Bolsonaro during the election, so may I ask what is your evidence for claiming media wanted a far-right government?

Yes, and my point is that the "fear of becoming the next Venezuela" is purely paranoid and has no basis in reality.

> t seems to me that mainstream media was constantly attacking Bolsonaro during the election, so may I ask what is your evidence for claiming media wanted a far-right government?

It wanted a right-wing, not far-right.

You would just need to read what the media published at the time. There was non-stop attacks on the PT government and talking about the "crisis" which wasn't nowhere as bad as they painted. This distorted people's view of the economic situation, which fueled the anti-PT sentiment: https://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/economia/2015/06/pesquisa...

See also how the media kept talking about the crisis even when talking about stuff going well: https://www.pragmatismopolitico.com.br/2015/07/apesar-da-cri...

Also, you only need to study a bit of Brazil history to understand that Brazilian media has always been right-wing.

The fact that the media attacked Bolsonaro does not contradict this fact. When you have someone who does so many stupid things you can't help reporting them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com