Filed under: IDS Class Blog | Tags: Brazil, corruption, drugs, history, IDS
I have been doing a little bit of research for this particular entry. We were told to take a look at the country of Brazil, and the current political situation of the country.
From the investigations I have conducted, Brazil is currently in a very interesting situation. The President’s advisor is being accused of buying votes, drug cartels are murdering hundreds to thousands of people a year while immigrants from northern parts of the country migrate to the favelas which surround many of the prosperous districts of the largest cities.
Looking back to post World War 2 Brazil, one might see why the situation is as such. After the second World War, the Unite States and Russia launched into an arms race which was followed by proxy war campaigns around the world. The United States was seeking to combat the spread of the Soviet Union’s influence of communism throughout the world while avoiding another all out world war. Having originally been governed by civilian rule, Brazil was overthrown by its own military in 1964, launching the country into oppression under a strict military dictatorship. This regime suspended the constitution of the country and used illegal Death Squads to reign terror across its lands. It then launched an industrial campaign with the country’s economy, cutting back on necessary established economy to attempt to boost appeal to foreign investors. This set of policies became a “Brazilian Solution” so to speak and other, similar programs, were then instituted across the rest of Latin America to help fight the approach of communism. Unfortunately, the dilemma that followed was that of the establishment of socialism under heavily military regimes.
Recovery from such events can take a country many years, those years made even longer if a country is ruled by an unjust or corrupt government. Will Brazil ever recover? Only time will tell.
Till Next Time,
-God Bless-
Acrid
Our first blog assignment related to the news. We were to take a look, over the course of a week, at the headline news stories featured on three of the top news sources in the world. The three sources specifically are the following: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and FOX News.
After watching a couple stories progress over the course of a week, I decided to focus primarily the stories involving Israel’s blockade against Hamas in Gaza, as well as snippets mentioning the United States to get an idea of how we were viewed in each news source. I gained the following results about each news organization.
Al Jazeera – US shown in biased manner, however it was very subtle, and the negative bias seemed only to be concerned with our relationship to Iraq and Israel and current situations in both regions of the Middle East. Israel seems to be represented in a fair sense however most of the stories are focusing more on its actions being negative. The country of Iran, as well as regimes such as Hezbollah and Hamas, seemed to have been given more of a voice than other organizations. Most news not centered in Middle East revolved around regional events. Any mention of other nations seemed to be kept fairly neutral. Overall, Al Jazeera seemed to have an unbiased opinion of events.
The Guardian – A story on Iraq was written showing that the US was not to blame for the insurgency problems being faced, that even the British Prime Minister underestimated what would happen. The US was displayed in a neutral manner in this instance. In another story related to the Gaza situation, Israel is being presented neutrally as well, the article pointing out both what is being said and what fact shows backing up Israel’s responses to Hamas’ accusations. Out of the articles I read in depth, the viewpoint seemed to be kept fairly neutral. Many other stories on The Guardian had to do with US politics and different stories relating to Caucus/Primary results and candidates.
FOX News – Sticking mainly to the same story on the Gaza situation leads to different views on the whole situation. Much more of the situation is presented with a positive reflection on Israel, with the group Hamas being displayed in a negative light. The article on FOX also highlighted much of the bias towards Israel that is prevalent throughout the Middle Eastern region.
Till next time,
-God Bless-
Acrid
