Askuse
3mo ago
On the 6th of October, Brazil will hold elections for the mayors and councillors of its 5570 municipalities. Of these, São Paulo, as the largest city in the country (and of the largest in the world) is the most important one, with 9 candidates of varying odds currently on the running, with a run-off being almost certain. Current leftist president Lula is supporting the federal deputy Guilherme Boulos, the runner up of the 2020 mayoral election, and Bolsonaro is supporting current mayor Ricardo Nunes, after his predecessor left office and died of cancer. Neither of these candidates, however, are relevant to this story today.
José Luiz Datena, known as Datena, is a TV presenter, of the sensationalist variety. He used to be popular in right-wing circles (though he was for 23 affiliated with Lula's PT), especially for his "a good thief is a dead thief" takes and evangelical background, even being a Bolsonaro supporter. However, he shifted to a more left-wing position, having supported Lula in the 2022 election and criticizing several right wing politicians since then. He is running for mayor as part of PSDB (with low support on the polls), which used to be one of the largest parties of the nation, being the main opposition to Lula and Dilma (and the previous governing party) before being replaced by Bolsonaro, only still having sucess in the state of São Paulo (a good enough prize, as the largest state of the country), with Bruno Covas, the mayor that Nunes replaced, being from the party (with its multi-party system, it is very common for the deputy mayor, governor or president in Brazil to belong to another party). The current front-runner (though with a long way to gain the run-off) is Pablo Marçal, a influencer coach that manages to outshine Bolsonaro in controversy and criminal accusations, from scams and fake news to money laundering and almost getting people killed on a mountain hiking expedition, besides his right-wing takes, running for the also controversial PRTB, attacking everyone else in the running (including their supporters like Lula and Bolsonaro) and being also attacked in turn.
Yesterday, TV Cultura held a debate with the various candidates. During one of its turns, Marçal accused Datena of being part of a communist plot, and demanded he stopped clowning around. Datena responded that Marçal was a criminal and a slanderer. In his reply, Marçal accused Datena of being a chicken, mentioned a previous debate on which the presenter came to his face and almost slapped him, to which Datena responded by running up to him and hitting him with a chair, as all hell broke lose (link here https://youtube.com/watch?v=nv3jXHWEUWg). Datena was removed from the debate, and Marçal went to the hospital. Most people online had their usual reaction depending on their political spectrum, and the other candidates criticized both Datena and Marçal. Personally, I'm torn, as this showcases just how far my country has deteriorated and Datena should be on jail already, however, it's not like this deterioration hasn't been a long time coming and, despite this not being rdrama.net, this was also hilarious.
Askuse
4mo ago
China is probably still the weakest in pop culture influnce compared to South Korea and Japan, especially when you account for their much larger size, but they are having more sucess on certain niches.
On mobile gaming, they pretty much took the anime aesthetic niche from Japan, the most anticipated gacha games are all chinese, and they dominate the current revenue, especially Mihoyo's big three games (Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero), which have a surprisingly large production value, backed by the tens of millions each game gets per month. And they are also pretty big in the web novel genre, though more due to their larger size and still not having expanded much outside of the mainland+Taiwan.
Askuse
5mo ago
I would completely agree on Messi being the best footballer of the 21st century, and even the best athlete of the period. But as a Brazillian, I must defend Pelé's claim to the GOAT. He was far more successful on the national team compared to Messi, took Santos from a small team that nobody knew to one of the most acclaimed clubs ever, and became an international sensation. He may never have played in Europe outside of exhibition, but back then, the leveling field was much more even.
Askuse
5mo ago
Where have these ex/motte posters moved to? Twitter, rdrama.net, or somewhere else?
Askuse
1yr ago
The EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), a party founded by Julius Malema, who was expelled from the ANC for being far to radical.
Askuse
1yr ago
As someone who was planning to get into 1632 but never got the time, does anybody know the future of the series after Flint's death? Will they just finish the books that were already being made and end it early or will it continue?
Askuse
1yr ago
Hopefully nothing bigger happens, however, more incidents are likely to happen. Lula declared an intervention in the federal district, which shall probably lead to orders to remove the protesters's camps that were there since the election. However, that would still leave many willing to take action, and unless the government sucessfully destroys their organization capacity (mainly done in Telegram and Whatsapp), they will still have power to do this again, and I don't believe the state has enough power to do so, even if it resorted to authoritarian means.
Askuse
1yr ago
The police are already trying to clear the protestors, though there have been accusations that they were lenient with protestors early, allowing the situation to devolve. The army is a mystery, they did nothing even when there were people calling for their intervention at millitary barracks (There is a common joke in Brazil that the only function of the army is to cut the grass and paint the sidewalk). By and large, the security forces are pro-Bolsonaro, but that does not mean they would disobey orders, and resistance from protestors may make then ill-disponed to help.
Askuse
1yr ago
For those who remember the brazillian election last year, today pro-bolsonaro supporters have invaded the supreme court, congress and presidential palace (easier here since all are close to each other). I don't expect any politician to die, since they all leave on the weekend, but there will be probably more deaths than in january 6th.
For those interested in shenanigans like the shaman QAnon shaman, one particularly disliked judge (Alexandre de Moraes) had his door stolen.
Askuse
2yr ago
I believe some sort of unrest would be inevitable after the loss, given the animosity the right wing had acquired to the judiciary and the media, viewing then as having rigged the elections. They even started well before Bolsonaro or his sons made any sort of announcement (they went quiet for two days, and they were very prolific on social media). Bolsonaro's declarations, in any case, were weak enough that his most zealous followers either ignored it or took it as some 4d chess move. Alongside that, Bolsonaro was supported by some in the right (me included) only as a way to stop Lula and PT from returning to power, and for this group the protests are less for a second Bolsonaro term than stopping Lula's third term.
Askuse
2yr ago
Lula is pretty much the only politician with nationwide expression for PT (his party), their previous candidate for the 2018 elections, Fernando Haddad, just lost a race for the governorship of São Paulo to a man who wasn't even from the state, and the former president, Dilma Rouseff, didn't even run this year. Since PT has a stranglehold on the left, acquired though fierce attacks on rival leftists like Marina Silva and Ciro Gomes, that means for a leftist, it was Lula or bust in the end.
Giving a perspective from Brazil, I think you are overrating Bolsonaro. He never said anything about conceding or accepting defeat during his very short speech, he only thanked his votes, said that the current protests come from indignation and that the left's tactics should not be copied.
More importantly, most of his supporters were not dissuaded by such a thing, and there remains a lot of unrest, as seen by the trucker's blockades. Many of his more radical allies, like congresswoman Carla Zambelli, outright encourage such movements.
I think I somewhat agree with the arguments written by The Brothers Krynn, though I don't have such a negative reaction to GRRM and ASOIAF, just a mild dislike.
Martin may have said that the ending will be a bittersweet one, and the finishing moments of the last two books + the chapters he already revealed of Winds may also setup that, minus the whole Euron plot that just got started, but since he will probably die before finishing it, that leaves what has already been written, which is mostly good guys lose, bad guys win, which ends up defining the books. I also don't agree with your point on religion, sure they are involved in politics, but GRRM's secularism leaves them mostly bereft of spirituality, most characters feel like cultural christians who go to church and pray sometimes, but don't really believe in the tenets of their faith like Transubstantiation, the Bible's less liberal parts, the Trinity or such (it doesn't help that most spiritual beliefs aren't really touched at all, we know how the Westeros religions operate, but not what the content of their beliefs). This essay by Bret Devereaux, even if it mostly focuses on the show, does a good job of showing that, https://acoup.blog/2019/06/04/new-acquisitions-how-it-wasnt-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-ii/, and the other two parts of the series also shows other problems with the supposed realism of the series.
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