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Rede Sustentabilidade, assinaturas e a luta pelo poder

Semana passada vimos a tentativa de registro do partido da Marina Silva ser barrada pela justiça eleitoral. O resumo da história é que 95 mil assinaturas foram invalidadas pelos cartórios eleitorais sem justificativa, e essa quantidade seria mais do que suficiente para atingir o número exigido pela lei. Enfim, a rede Sustentabilidade entrou na justiça para tentar validar essas assinaturas ou obter as justificativas dos cartórios (que aparentemente também não fizeram o dever de casa a tempo), e perdeu.

Ok, vamos dizer que as assinaturas eram de fato inválidas… O que ficou estranho é que nesse meio tempo, dois outros partidos conseguiram seu registro. Só que eu nunca tinha ouvido falar destes outros partidos… de onde é que eles conseguiram 500 mil assinaturas?? Existem indícios de que essas assinaturas também foram (grossamente) falsificadas. Por que a lei se aplica tão direitinho ao partido da Marina Silva e faz vista grossa a esses outros partidos? Ninguém diz com todas as palavras, mas todo mundo sabe que a Rede Sustentabilidade seria a competição mais forte contra o PT nas próximas eleições. Então eles ficam nessa preocupação toda e sendo super cuidadosos no processo de criação desse partido em especial, até encontrar alguma coisa que deixem eles fora das eleições ano que vem.

Se você for pensar bem, isso tudo é meio non-sense. Olha só, o PT tá no governo, certo? Tudo que seus adversários da próxima eleição podem fazer nesse momento é promessas, o PT pode de fato *fazer* as coisas!! Já pensou nisso? Se eles estão no poder e fizerem seu trabalho direitinho…. fizerem as coisas que tudo mundo sabe que tem que fazer… porque não votar neles de novo? A campanha pra reeleição vira justamente o que foi conseguido durante o governo, uma coisa muito mais concreta do que qualquer promessa (que todo brasileiro já olha com descrença mesmo). Eu sei que são coisas difíceis, como a reforma política e a reforma tributária, mas o governo que der o primeiro passo pra isso já vai ser um super governo nos olhos dos brasileiros. E daí a reeleição vem de graça. Mas parece que esse pessoal que tá no poder não pensa nisso… eles se preocupam em estar no poder, sejá lá o que isso signifique, e ameaças são cortadas a todo custo. E todo mundo se esquece que é possível permanecer no poder por mérito próprio. E os interesses sociais ficam aí, jogados as traças…

Meio triste né?

Changing the world

So here’s my list of stuff I think we can all do to make a change. Feel free to disagree, warn me about something that I am doing wrong and specially add things there!

– Smile to people. (Harder than it seems unfortunately. Specially when you are a girl and many men think that you’re flirting just for smiling).
– Be nice just for the sake of being nice.
– Recycle as much as possible. I recently found out a place near where I live where I can give old broken electronics and kitchen oil. Inform yourself.
– Don’t use plastic bags.
– Save water by turning off the tap when washing the dishes.
– Save water by turning off the tap when brushing your teeth.
– Save water by turning off the shower while scrubbing (this is extra hard, I’ll admit, specially in winter).
– Save water everywhere, not only at your house because you pay the bills.
– Don’t be petty.
– Don’t spend on unnecessary things. When you want to buy something, breathe and let the idea of buying sink in for 30 minutes. Only get it if you really want. Most of the times you’ll realize that the will goes away.
– Be vegetarian once or twice a week (maybe 5 times!). And by vegetarian I don’t mean people that eat fish! I mean real vegetarian.
– Don’t buy pets. There are plenty homeless pets ready for adoption at the local kennel.
– Don’t litter. If you need to throw something away and there’s no garbage bin nearby, just keep it in your pocket or hold it if it’s something disgusting to put in the pocket. You’ll eventually find a place to throw this away.
– Use only one paper towel to dry your hands, or use no paper at all.
– Reuse the back side of papers.
– Print two sided documents. Staple them not to mix the order.
– Turn off your screen or put your laptop to sleep if you’re not using it.
– Turn off the lights. Again, not only in your house because you pay the bills.

The Wall and the message

Last weekend I went to Roger Waters’ concert “The Wall”. For those that don’t know (and I explain this because an American colleague didn’t know Roger Waters and “have heard somewhere” about Pink Floyd), Roger Waters was part of a very cool rock band called Pink Floyd. “The Wall” is the title of one of their albums, from 1979. It includes the very famous song “We don’t need no education… Hey, teacher, leave the kids alone!”. Anyway, the whole album is pretty good, although I don’t have the habit of listening to this kind of music. It is so good that, 30 years after its release, this guy decides to do a world tour on it and the concerts were almost sold out everywhere.

I read that at the time it was an album that told the story of a character, called Pink, and his psychological problems, relationship difficulties and isolation. There is even a (quite disturbing) movie about it. But this more recent tour focuses mostly on other issues, such as war and capitalism. And it really makes an impression. It was interesting the stream of feelings I had during the show, how overwhelming it was. I don’t think I had ever felt this before during a concert. So here’s me trying to explain to myself why it was so exciting and disturbing at the same time.

First of all I should note what happened before the concert. One of my friends from Brazil was visiting Vienna for a few days and we met to catch up. It was very nice. I was very happy to see how well he’s doing. At some point he mentioned how I was in Brazil in April and hadn’t told anyone, which is true… I don’t know for sure why I did this. In any case, it was wrong. This made me a bit sad and disappointed at myself.
I was also reasonably stressed because after the concert I had to help my sister with a test and pack my bags to leave to Istanbul for a conference the next day. But I was willing to go to the concert and have a good time.

From the first 30 seconds we knew it was going to be amazing, with fireworks, props and visual effects (just take a look at the opening). It was super cool.

At some point, the huge round screen in the middle of the stage started showing faces of people followed by their information. They were all people that had died in wars and conflicts around the world. I started noticing that the deaths were all more or less recent, all in the years 2000 and something. This touched me. You see, I think I am a pacifist, and every time I see these conflicts on TV (Syria, Libya, Egypt, Palestine/Israel, etc.), I think: “Why are these people fighting? Don’t they realize that there are people dying?”. For me, the suffering of losing loved ones and destroying your home should be stronger that any political fight. So seeing those pictures made me very sad. My eyes even watered.

One of the people showed, and for whom Roger Waters made a special tribute, was a brazilian called Jean Charles. This guy died in 2005 in one of London’s underground stations, shot by police officers. I remember the news at the time, but I never fully understood what had happened. At the concert, Waters mentioned how he was cowardly killed, shot in the head even after the cops had caught him and put him on the ground. I didn’t know about this, and if you think about it, it was complete non-sense. This made me… angry? Disappointed? Frustrated? I cannot find a word actually…

Then there was intermission and I calmed down.

On the second part there was strong criticism to capitalism and this whole culture of profit and exploitation. At this point I started thinking how things could have turned out like this. How can people seem so heartless? How can they not see the damage of their decisions? And I thought about this and I saw images of soldiers reuniting with their kids and injured people in the concert and this made me cry. I think it’s very disturbing to realize how people can cause so much damage without noticing it. And I am afraid of being/becoming such people. And every time I think about this, I just want to do something that would change the world and make a big difference. But I am more and more convinced that a big difference requires lots of people doing the right thing. So I’ll do my part and do the right thing (as I gradually find out what the right things are… people that know should make a list).
Let’s just hope I don’t become comfortably numb.

I think in the end it was confusing because it was a concert. And I should watch it, sing the songs and feel good, like it was in Paul McCartney’s. Except it was not like this. I watched it, thought about life, got sad and disappointed in the world and wanted to change it. Well, I guess if half of the people there had the same feeling and are willing to do something about this, it was the most successful concert of all times.

Summer time in Vienna

And there I was coming back from a run around the ring with two friends when we noticed this in the middle of the artificial little lake at Karlsplatz:

Yes, there was a piano there!! And it’s just sitting there for whoever wants to risk crossing the lake and playing a few notes. Actually, there was someone playing both times I passed through (in this picture you can see the shy pianist leaving on the right). This morning there were kids swimming there and a japanese guy trying out some tunes. Really really nice… Who are the people that come up with these ideas and actually execute them?? Whoever you are, thank you for making our lives happier 🙂

Now the swimming pool!
Two years ago I was running around Grinzing, in the north of Vienna, and after going up a very very long hill (which I did not manage to run all the way) I found this nice public swimming pool hidden in the woods. Since I was running and it was a sunny day and it was not expensive to get in, I decided to have a look, even though I did not have any swimming suit with me. As I entered this place I could not believe my eyes… This was public, really? Super super cool swimming pools, with a nice view of Vienna and lots of green area around. I just wanted to jump in with clothes and all. But I didn’t.
Two years later I finally managed to take Joao there. This time I took the swimming suit, towels, snacks… the whole day-at-the-club-kit. Even though we got there at 2 in the afternoon, we could enjoy a lot. By the way, the pools are made of some kind of metal, not tiles. It sounds weird, but it feels very good! They have a sport swimming pool of 25m, a relaxing swimming pool (picture below) with the Jacuzzi jets to massage our backs, a kids swimming pool with a cool slide in the shape of an elephant and a lot of other things.

Vienna is so much nicer in the summer… but I am afraid I find that just because there are 3 months of winter to remind us every year 🙂

Ladybug and stuff

This weekend a visitor came to my plant. I call her Jo Ann. She left yesterday sometime at night… I think she’s cute, isn’t she? Just like those ladybugs we see in cartoons.

Other than that… We are all melting in Vienna. It’s been a few weeks now that we have temperatures over 30, and this week has been over 35. And it’s summer vacation. And I am working. Damn.
But work later. Nice things first.
Last weekend I went swimming, just because being at home or anywhere else was unbearable. And where did I go? To the Danube! Yep, I swam in the famous river of the song. It was nice. We got there at 10 in the morning, which I thought was late and it would be crowded because we are in Austria, and you know how these Austrians are all organized with their schedules and such. And we all know that it is better to get the early sun of the morning, although we are always too lazy to wake up at 8 on weekends. Anyway, it was not crowded, we got a nice place under a tree, played games and swam with the fish and swans. Yes, there were swans there, lots of them!! And they were really close to us, like 2 meters. The fish I don’t like to mention, since they would be a reason for me not to go in, but the heat beat the fish, and I swam anyway. It was a nice Saturday 🙂

Still not about work.
A few weeks ago a saw a movie in youtube, actually, more like a documentary, about animals. It shocked me, really. If you like your meat, don’t watch it. Since then I have been trying to avoid eating meat whenever possible, and you know what? Not so hard as you’d expect! Of course you need to be careful and get those proteins somewhere else, like in eggs (but not too much! I’ve heard they have lots of cholesterol…). In any case, I recommend the movie. If you don’t want to become vegetarian, that’s ok, you can cut meat a few days a week, it’s not so bad and it might be actually healthier. We do eat a lot of meat…

Time for the afternoon snack now. No time to write about work, for your sake (and mine)  🙂

A plea for information

Socrates said once that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. At the present moment I say that the unexamined opinion is not worth giving. I will explain why.

A few weeks ago something interesting happened in Brazil. Something unexpected and that I never thought I would see: people protesting. They were protesting initially against raises in transportation costs, then against the world cup costs, then against corruption, then against the low quality of life, then against… well, against everything you could protest. Initially I thought that this was good. Finally people were noticing the absurdity in Brazil’s politics, how much is left undone for stupid reasons, how many problems could have been solved so far and how corruption and private interests get in the way of social development. I thought people had noticed that things could be much much better, so they went to the streets to protest, and as a way of relieving all the frustration. So far so good. I think this is ok, it is a legitimate way of showing the government that we are not happy with the way things are, for a long time now.

But (there’s always a but)…
People in general like very much to “go with the flow”, and with social networks now this is easier than ever. I have four examples.

A few posts ago I mentioned a problem that happened in Brazil with the financial assistance for the poor. A rumor was spread that this assistance would be over and in one weekend thousands of people went desperate to the bank in hope to get their last payment. As soon as a person gets such information, they don’t even think it can be fake, they don’t suspect it and don’t search a reliable source. Instead, they share with all their friends… who do the same. And before you know there are thousands of people desperate for a fake reason. This is very very serious.

For a long time I have been puzzled why public education is so bad in Brazil. I decided to send an e-mail to a few people I know that are teachers in public schools. I thought they were the best people to tell me what was indeed the problem. Well… only one of them replied, and she told me what I did not expect. She said that infra-structure is not really a problem. That the city hall had enough money for materials and such. Teachers just needed to present a project stating that they needed these or those books, games, etc. and the city hall would provide it to them. She didn’t even mention the teachers’ salary. But she could not pin point the problem for me. So in April I went to Brazil and I spent a day in a public school. My conclusion was the the problem was *not* infra-structure, or the teachers’ salary, but it was much harder and serious. (Maybe I’ll write a post explaining my point of view in the future…). The point is: there are many many people that think the problem of public education is lack of investment, either for paying personal or for buying material for the kids. Why do they think that? Because that’s what everybody thinks! And everybody cannot be wrong, right? Wrong.

In the midst of frustration and protests, there are many people worried that a law project, called PEC37, will be approved. They say it’s the “impunity PEC”, that it is very bad for us and we should also protest against its approval. I have even received e-mails asking for my signature against this thing, so I decided to find out what the hell it is. I read a quick explanation on a news paper (it seemed unbiased), then I read the article that would be changed on the constitution and I read the proposal, that states how this article is changed and why. Honestly? I don’t think I understood 20% of it. And I am wondering now how many people can be such experts that they really understand and strongly oppose this change. How did this come to be?? Well, somebody decided they were against it, maybe this person actually know about it and this is their opinion. And then they shared, it came to the media, and more people shared, and now everybody is fighting against this that they don’t really understand.

Remember those e-mail chains you got saying that you’d get a penny for each reply or that somebody was missing? Have you ever wondered how many of those were true?? I looked for more information on some of them, and I never got a single one that was real.

My brother in law argues that the same is happening with the protests. If you go in Facebook now, it is almost annoying the amount of messages of people giving their opinions on PEC37, on the health system, on the protests, on the police… etc. But are these really their opinion? Or are they sharing things because all their friends say the same? I think it’s time to stop sharing and start thinking. We are people with lives and jobs and families, it is not likely that within a few hours we can decide what we think on such difficult subjects. Opinions require information, a lot of information, and time.

I leave my plea for people in Brazil to reflect and find out why they are so unhappy. Then, use this energy to study and propose solutions. Then you protest for this, and not against everything else.

About us and the technology

This week something very interesting (and also maybe sad) happened in Brazil. The government has this program of giving financial aid for poorer families, and every month these people go to the bank to withdraw their money. Last weekend there was a rumor in social networks that this benefit would end, and that people had only until Saturday to get their money. Although this was officially denied by the government on the same day, it was not as strong as the terrible rumor, and thousands of people filled the banks on Saturday, in several states of Brazil. It is said that around 900.000 people were able to withdraw their benefits.

This immediately reminded me of a very very good series I have been watching. It’s called Black Mirror and it’s exactly about how technology is becoming more and more present in our lives, and what are the consequences of that if we don’t pay attention. It is not a series per se, since each episode is independent of the other (different plot and characters). But all of them have this characteristic of teasing us about how we react (or not react) to the technological advances. There are only two seasons, each with three episodes, and they are all worth it 🙂

Sobre a Marina Silva e Marco Feliciano

Ok… Eu andei defendendo a Marina Silva por aí, e não é a toa que essa notícia veio parar na minha mão. Mas como uma boa brasileira, eu já aprendi a desconfiar de repórteres e jornalistas, e procurar informações de fontes mais confiáveis.

Já haviam me falado a respeito do fato dela ter “virado” evangélica, e quando eu pesquisei direito descobri que na verdade ela é evangélica desde 1997. Ou seja, quando concorreu às eleições em 2010 já tinha sua religião, e isso nunca foi motivo pra ela ter posições polêmicas e extremistas a respeito de assuntos complicados como aborto e casamento gay. Aliás, ela tem uma posição incrivelmente sensata, e a fonte dessa informação é essa entrevista aqui. Portanto, a crítica da notícia do Estado de Minas, parágrafo 4, não procede.

Quanto à chamada da notícia, sobre o fato dela ter “defendido” Marco Feliciano, não poderia ter sido mais sensacionalista. Eu desconfiei porque já tinha visto a opinião dela sobre o Marco Feliciano aqui. Tudo que ela disse era que o Marco Feliciano deveria ser criticado sobre suas posições e afirmações, e não pelo fato dele ser evangélico. Afinal de contas, existem muitos evangélicos (e católicos, e ateus, e budistas, e etc) capacitados para exercer essa função. A opinião dela sobre o assunto pode ser vista aqui, e também foi postado um esclarecimento na página do Facebook deles:

“Marina Silva sempre foi contra os posicionamentos de Marco Feliciano e sua presença na comissão de direitos humanos http://ow.ly/l3FUZ 

Veja também o vídeo em que ela comenta sobre escolha de Feliciano para presidir a CDHM http://ow.ly/l3GSv 

Além disso, a Rede Sustentabilidade também já se posicionou sobre o tema: http://ow.ly/l3IoD“

Ela está no momento dando uma entrevista a CBN Recife sobre o fato. Colocarei o link aqui quando estiver disponível.
Ou seja, a crítica da notícia não procede. Espero que vocês também consigam ver isso.

EDIT: O vídeo com o que ela realmente disse.