Elections 2010

One of the subjects that I have been watching in the media helps me to American understand politics, because the American people went to the ballot box as the Brazilian people did in the same week.

For months, the media has been reporting on the crisis which Obama is having in his party. The result of this crisis was felt after midterm elections.

To understand better, the USA has two parties. Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberals. Obama is a democrat. Most of the USA people are Republicans.

When Obama slated to be President, the economic crisis was just in the beginning and after two years, the economic crisis is still in the headlines. The American people are not happy because they did not feel big differences in their lives and they want more great jobs, the most of the jobs that was lost.

One of the Obama´s objectives is health care plan. In the USA, health insurance is private and Obama wants all people to have health insurance and for employers to have plans for the employees. But how can they pay for the health care plan if the country is reviving from a crisis? American people showed the worth of votes.

Tuesday (11/02) the election happened to choose governors, representatives, senators and judges.

So, Obama was “shellacked” and the Republicans took the Congress. President Obama was sad, but during an interview the following day, he said that he will hear better the republicans and he will continue with his program and he hopes to create more jobs, but he does not know how. The specialists have been debating how taxes can be reduced to stimulate consumption. It is a complicated crisis. In the Congress now, 239 representatives represent the Republican Party and 196 represent the Democrat Party.

I have also compared some differences between Brazil and the USA because the cities are kept clean during campaign and the election coverage is not required on the media.

But I think the fact that the election is debated from afternoon until night on TV is important for understanding politics so one can choose better, instead of airing during daybreak as in Brazil. Also, there are some official times when the candidates talk on the media.

Now I will tell about Brazilian elections which happened in the same week. I do not know very well about this year, but I will comment on a report that I read.

When Dilma Rousseff was elected, I found a report: “Dilma Rousseff: from fugitive guerrilla to Brazil´s new President”.

The report gives a biography of Dilma as a fighter for Brazil's left-wing guerrilla movement in 1969; she went underground, taking on names such as Luiza, Wanda and Estela to avoid the authorities.

With her pixie-short hair style and thick glasses, she became one of Brazil's most wanted fugitives, called a "subversive Joan of Arc."

Charged with subversion by the right-wing military government, she suffered through the disappearance and torture of her Marxist companions, when some of them died.

When the military finally caught her in 1970, Rousseff, 62 years old, said she was severely tortured to tell secrets.

The guerrilla organizations, in which she was involved, such as the National Liberation Command, wanted to take control of the government by force. They took inspiration from the Cuban revolution and other Latin American insurgent groups such as Colombia's FARC. But Rousseff dismisses stories that she knows how to handle an AK-47 and says that she did not commit any violent crimes as the “myths” say.