The Brazilian Free Market policies so villified and criticized by some "hermanos" have helped millions of brazilian families to left poverty and enter into the middle class last decade. The gains for the poor are significant here and for this reason Lula has approval greater than 80% of the public, better than any other leader in LATAM.
Moreover, the government is increasing its tax earnings arising out of new business and exports and this new money is fueling a gigantic social program paid by the Government that does not exist in our neighbours.
Even so, some idiotic "latinoamericano" still thinks Brazil is a little more than"Washington Parrot", that we are killers and exploiters of the poor (including our neighbours), and the only way foward in development is through a ridiculous "bolivarian revolution" invented by a clown somewhere.
These guys are completely hilarious....good luck for them.
Brazil should detach itself from LATAM and let those guys sink in the garbage that they are creating for themselves.
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Cutting Things Down To Size
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Yet for all its clout, Brazil seems almost penitential before its undersized neighbors, who increasingly play the Lilliputians to Brazil's Gulliver. While the Lula government has been quick to stand up to the rich countries—suing the United States and the Europeans before the World Trade Organization over trade barriers on ethanol, cotton and sugar—offending hermanos in the hemisphere get little more than a scolding. Rather than firing off a rebuke and invoking international law against Morales's attempts to seize Petrobras assets, Brasília basically turned the other cheek. Morales is only exercising his country's "sovereign right," officials said at the time. "What do you want us to do, invade Bolivia?" Lula asked rhetorically, in answer to critics. Big nations like Brazil, he argued, "must show solidarity with the poorer countries." Many Brazilians are now clamoring for Lula to assert himself, with sterner diplomatic protests or by filing suits in international courts over the confiscated property and broken contracts. "We're getting our butts kicked by mice," says Brazilian political analyst and foreign-policy expert Amaury de Souza.
Brazilian tolerance may finally be ending. In October, the national Defense Ministry, which has not always seen eye to eye with the olive-branch-wielding Brazilian diplomats, drafted a bold plan to regulate a new National Mobilization Strategy. Signed by Lula, the decree beefs up the country's rules of engagement with rogue nations and bluntly warns of a more energetic response to "actions that damage national sovereignty." No target countries were named, nor were possible actions spelled out. But as Brazil's military engaged in exercises along the border of Paraguay last month, the message was hard to miss. Don't expect a tropical version of pre-emptive war. But it may be a sign that the Latin Gulliver is no longer willing to take things lying down.
© 2008
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