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26 minutes ago, Maxim Fastovsky said:

 

Again the difference is that there are no Gas Chambers in Mexico, if there was a genocide going on in Guatemala, sure, but there isn't. So stay there and apply for asylum. Luckily the wall is going up rapidly and pretty soon we will have a proper border

This is probably the worst thing I've read in a while. I feel ashamed for such lack of tact. How clueless and selfish can one be to completely disregard problems faced in Mexico and even play the victim and mention gas chambers?

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Anyone watching the Miss Universe contest?

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1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

Obviously nobody can win political elections without leaks, illegal wirings and hacked email accounts anymore. Man, Watergate seems like kindergarten amateur hour compared to modern tactics

 

Truly a consequence of a post-modern world. The latest scoop or scandal about celebrities is more important than discussing politics for some people, so politics now is about creating scandals for celeb-politicians. It's funny that sociologist Anthony Giddens spent years defending a new form of making politics, and now we have a truly new form but I'm pretty sure this is exactly the opposite of what Giddens wanted.

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7 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

To be fair, he also pointed out the other side: it seems as though the other 'side' as well would be perfectly happy with a dictator, as long as they're not a white guy. From an outside point of view the whole thing seems like an even stronger 'extremization' of the already sort of extreme 'two sides' thing we have in many things here (as in, you can't be in the middle or have any sort of nuance, because if you do, both sides accuse you of being on the wrong side).

In Bolivia's case, the white guys were the ones who accused the non-white person to be a dictator (even when the person was elected in a democratic process). It's very clear to me that this is more about racism and far right politicians taking the control by force than it is about "restoring democracy".

And I agree that political polarization is in vogue these days. I believe it's the result of: 1) new people (mostly young folks) becoming interested in politics (and they usually adhere to a side as if their lives depended on it); and 2) since most people are not too patient to read and discuss politics, they just go with the flow. I'm a leftist and I have strong opinions about what an ideal form of (democratic) government should be, but I'm also open to read about new (and even opposing) ideas. 

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6 hours ago, LDOG said:

From a legal point of view, what happened in Bolivia is a coup, can't be called anything else. Even if you think that Morales can't run for another term, his current term was supposed to end in january and he's been forcefully ousted before that term ended.

 

I think what lies in the background of this conflict is the big racial/class fracture of Bolivia, between the white bolivians and the amerindians. With varying degrees and local differences, the same class fracture is present in many countries of the continent.  As usual in latin america, "defending democracy" is just an excuse to act. Both sides would be happy to have a dictatorship in place as long as it represents their class interests.

I totally agree. Besides ethnic and racial tensions, we also have internal conflicts when it comes to income, gender, religion, sexuality and so on. When I visited Bolivia, before reaching La Paz I went through the city of El Alto, and I was shocked at how poor they were. I was not able to see any white people around El Alto, only Amerindians and native Bolivians. Then I reached La Paz and I needed to eat something, so I asked around the hotel for a nice place to eat and they pointed me to an Italian restaurant. When I reached the place, there were only white customers. No native people there. I was told the place was considered too expensive for most Bolivians, so poor people never went there (but it still cost me around only 50% of what I would pay in Rio for the same type of food, for example). 

I'm not a supporter of Morales, but it baffles me that any leftist politician with strong opinions about how income should be shared with the poor is immediately seen as a communist threat, or how he/she will turn the country into a bloody and ruthless dictatorship. And it's usually the poor (who need state-funded services the most) who go around throwing these kind of rants. Democracy in Chile, Bolivia and Brazil is very vulnerable right now, but it seems to me that a big number of people, as you said it, would be happy to live in a dictatorship now as long as it is commanded by white, dominant people, or white personnel from the military. I mean, they accuse people like Morales to be a dictator, but they would be okay to live in a dictatorship if the dictator was white. It's almost hopeless.

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by thiago_simoes

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6 hours ago, mrv86 said:

 

And I'm totally disgusted by it... wishing the military leaders had some pants and throw out the current shitty government in power in Mexico.

 

I'll call my country will be the next Venezuela in less than 6 years from now, if no one raise against Lopez and his henchpeople.

I'm very disappointed by this (your comment, I mean). 

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16 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Wait, what's that about a coup in Brazil? For a military coup to take place, someone not backed by the military would have to be the current leader...but isn't Bolsonaro - who you here say is backed by the military forces - the current leader? Or are you expecting for Lula to commit a coup first? 

 

Or, the more likely option, am I totally missing a recent development and has a coup already taken place (not counting Bolsonaro winning the elections of course)?

 

The coup happened when Dilma was removed from office. She faced accusations of using money from the federal bank to cover expenses for social security programs. The government was supposed to give money back to the bank soon afterwards, but for one year they could not return all of the money, so the federal bank sued the government and soon she also faced an impeachment process because this. Some people say this process occurred through what is prescribed by law, but literally the following day after she was impeached the law was changed so that the next president could do exactly the same thing she did without facing accusations of crime.

Last year, after extensive trials, she was declared innocent of any crime because what she did did not break the law. But it was too late: Temer was already out of office and Bolsonaro, who was elected democratically (in theory) was in office. However, many people see Bolsonaro as the direct result of this coup: the coup weakened the reputation of Dilma's party (PT) to the point no one from the party was seen as honest anymore. Lula, however, enjoys huge prestige, and he could realistically become the next president. Then, the Federal Court of Justice discussed an alteration in the constitutional law to jail Lula for an unfinished process of buying a plot of land for personal reasons (with his own money, and in the end he did not even buy the plot of land). Even though nothing was proved against him, he was jailed anyway so he could not run for president.
 
Then, Bolsonaro was elected, but the irony is that Bolsonaro was not part of the right wing party that promoted the impeachment process. Bolsonaro is part of a far right party which had very few followers before Dilma was impeached. 

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1 hour ago, Olympian1010 said:

South American politics have always been...interesting...to say the least.

80% of the time the countries responsible for completely destabilizing the politics in South America are the United States and England (mostly in past centuries). Of course things are a lot more complex than simply stating "they started it", but in one way or another these nations are always meddling with politics here, either because they want money (the British in the past), oil (the US) or simply destabilize SA so that the region gets discredited (and loses economic prestige and investments). 

I'm aware of the complexity of a military coup d'etat, and I know it takes more than influence of a foreign nation to start it. Democracy in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay is fragile and democratic ideals are somewhat recent. Venezuela spent 14 years under Chavez's orders, and Bolivia spent 13 years under Morales' control, but theoretically they were elected in democratic elections. It's very suspicious that the (far right) politicians in these nations had to seek for foreign intervention so they could forcefully depose the presidents of the nations.

As I said, I fear for the region. I'm convinced a military coup d'etat will take place in Brazil soon (maybe next year) if Lula keeps getting stronger, since Bolsonaro and the military forces would not be happy with Lula's popularity. Chile is in complete chaos right now, but at least the population is fighting back. Argentina chose a left wing president, so they are (in theory) not in danger of a coup d'etat, but as unlikely as it may seem, I'm afraid that the far right there could simply invoke foreign help to cancel the elections and cause turmoil in the nation. South America is a mess right now. 

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There has been a coup d'etat in Brazil, now we have one in Bolivia and I'm not so sure about Chile's future. South America is in danger.

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42 minutes ago, VolleyRuller96 said:

Playstation 5 has a confirmed release date of Holidays 2020.

With Final Fantasy VII as a PS4 exclusive in early 2020, the PS5 had better have backwards compatibility. 

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3 hours ago, Griff88 said:

 

I believe you are not a guy who carries megaphone everywhere and scream "I'm gay, please don't hurt me".... So I think you should be pretty much alright anywhere, why so afraid?

Things are not so simple.

I am a lot of different things: male, Brazilian, overweight, mixed race, agnostic, professor/teacher... being gay is one of these things. It's not the most important thing in my life, but it is something I'm very comfortable about being.

Let's suppose we engage in a conversation and I decide to tell you about something my students did, or about one specific subject from a class I've taught. You'll immediately understand I am a teacher, and hopefully the conversation will go on without me explaining that I am a teacher; you will understand from the context and hopefully will not be pissed off by this specific information. Now, let's suppose you tell me about something your wife did, and then I tell you "my boyfriend did the same thing". You will probably understand at this point that I am a gay man, and if you live in a muslim nation, this will probably trigger someone who is eavesdropping (or maybe even you). However, since there's nothing wrong about me being a teacher, why must it be wrong when I say (or imply) that I am gay? Why should I suppress this information in a conversation when I would never omit from a conversation the fact that I am a teacher, if I believe this is relevant.

It's brutal, but in order to be safe, I have to take extra care, especially when I am in a foreign country. When you are gay, you learn to be afraid of even the most trivial conversations in unknown territories whenever you feel threatened. You either have to 1) omit any information about your significant other, or your sexuality; or 2) be vigilant and completely rephrase your sentences on your mind before you speak them, if your sentence somehow refers to your (or one's sexuality or significant other). It sucks to speak about my former relationships by saying "person" or "significant other". I'm sure straight people would never be afraid to openly speak about their wives and husbands, but gay people always feel threatened whenever they have to speak up.

There's another thing: not being "effeminate" doesn't make me any less gay. And I 100% support effeminate men, or butch women. Anybody lives however they want to live, and if this is how they chose to present themselves to the world, so be it. They should never ever be afraid of even walking outside on the sidewalk, and unfortunately these people are the number one targets, especially in ultra conservative societies.

As a final point, why would I ever spend my hard earned money in a country full of conservative people who have specific laws against gay people and clearly do not like people like me? I would never.

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12 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

All I know is that me nor @thiago_simoes should ever ever holiday there. I’ll stick to Mammoth personally 

With all due respect, I'm never ever going to visit a muslim nation. Not a chance. I know many muslims are nice people, but all it takes is one conservative muslim to make my life a nightmare once they discover I'm gay, and I fear for my life, so nope. Nope, nope, nope. I have my fair share of shitty protestants to deal with in Brazil. (PS: not all protestants are bad towards gay people, but in Brazil 90% of them are, and dealing with them is unbearable.)

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On 08/08/2019 at 01:57, heywoodu said:

Israel brought life somewhere for a change.

This is pure gold. You deserve money for this comment alone. Let's begin a fundraiser.

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On 17/05/2019 at 15:37, NearPup said:

Just went through the whole Phoenix Wright trilogy (big fan of that series and Danganronpa), so that was like 60 hours of my time.

 

Over the last year I’ve mostly played Hitman 2, Rocket League, Steep, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XV, TT The Walking Dead, Life is Strange BTS / 2, The Council, Chrono Trigger and KOTOR. Also Smash Ultimate on Switch.

 

Oh, what a disappointment Danganronpa was. I love narrative-driven games, but Danganronpa is just too stereotypical to the point the characters actually make me angry. I will start Steins;Gate soon and I hope this does not turn into disappointment too.

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23 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

Well it’s not all bad @thiago_simoes:

https://twitter.com/i/events/1139309399334256641

Yes, but as far as I know, religious temples are still allowed not to accept LGBT practitioners. Somewhat disappointing. 

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5 minutes ago, Quasit said:

You don't appreciate simplicity.

 

Well, take 3D Dot Game Heroes: that is simplicity. Minecraft is just plain ugly. 

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4 hours ago, Wanderer said:

Almost nothing makes sense except for Sansa getting independence for the North. Dialogues are comical. That meeting of the remaining high lords is laughable. Really disappointed with the way story is closed. I hope GRRM really finishes the books before he, you know... 

Exactly! The meeting is laughable and this is the final nail in the coffin of this series. It's like they had no other options: Jon was back to the Nightwatch, Arya decided to go away (maybe because they want to create a spin-off show about her, so of course she could not be the queen), Sansa ended up as the queen of the North, Robb is long dead, so... only Bran remains and they gave him the most important position in the end even though he did nothing the whole show. 

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3 hours ago, LDOG said:

Game of thrones finale coming in a few hours.  

My final predictions (let's see how much I can get right): 

 

 

Great job! Congratulations!

I didn't watch the TV series, but I've read some of the books and I decided to get all of the spoilers now. The conclusion is far from what I was expecting and my favorite character in the book series is now the character I hate the most. I'm not sure I'll be able to read the remaining books now, unless major changes are made to the conclusion of the plot.

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1 minute ago, Vojthas said:

As I don't see the place for it in ESC, I don't see it in sports, especially Olympic forum as well.

One of the users here is from the United States and had two flags, one from Israel and one from the US, as his profile picture.

I support Palestine, I'm a fan of Iceland, Palestine is part of the Olympics, so this is just me showing support.

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2 hours ago, Vojthas said:

Example of Polish voting - jury gives 12 to a talent and singing skill of an Australian, public to some degenarates from Iceland... I'm not very close to tradition and conservatism, but still this is not the place for BDSM or political provocations.

I guess you will LOVE my new profile picture.

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1 minute ago, Skijumpingmaster said:

Lol no

Just look at how many people bought Justin Bieber's first album. 

[thiago_simoes 1,359]

2 minutes ago, Skijumpingmaster said:

Millions of europeans vs some so called " professionals" ? Pretty obvious to me who's to blame 

Millions of voters, of course.

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2 minutes ago, Agger said:

 

Or the televoters are

Agreed. It's still a fair result in the end, but I have to say I liked the result of the jury more. Spain not finishing last is just so weird. 

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Great result for the Netherlands! Congratulations on winning!

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Major respect for Iceland.