The solution is really quite simple, invasion and regime change in Brazil. It will only take a few U.S. troops. They will be greeted by throngs of grateful Brazilians as liberators and heralds of a "Democratic Brazil." If all else fails, Rumsfeld (in contrast that peacenick appeaser Colin Powell...boo hiss) has assured us that we can easily fight three....er two...wars at one time. We can allow a place in our own backyard to have WMD, after all. <P Let's teach those rain-forest jockies as lesson! Lock and Load and if necessary make Brazil glow!
Went with some friends. We had to cut through it to cross over a mountain so we could go surfing on a hidden beach on the other side. Had a drink in some delapidated shack they called a "bar". Two of us were white and the other eight were the rest of the rainbow. They people were wonderful to us, but so poor compared to what we think of as poor it was pathetic. I was in the areas between Praia Grande and Santos when I went, not Rio.
One of the girls I met was railing on Americans to me until she saw the look on my face and asked slowly "Are you an American?" My primary thought was "Yes, but you're cute so I'll cut you some slack". I went on to explain something along the lines of "If you've never really met that many Americans you're probably misinformed about what we think and feel". Anyway she was hot, I forgave her and we got along well enough after that.
My point is, it would take a lot to get the kind of enthusiastic support in Brasil for America interevention. These people really believe in the promises Lula makes. We think we have ignorant sheeple in the rat's constinuency, they're either dumb as rock or evil. The poverty stricken Brasilians are just desperate and those who voted for Lula are truly hopeful he'll deliver. Enough to give him lots of time so long and he keeps promising.
Yes, we're talking ignorant and so on, but they would be loyal to him before they'd embrace an external component promising "liberation".
That's just from what I saw, and continue to hear. Man, let me tell it a few years ago it would have brought me to tears, but now it's just a crushing sadness.
It would be better for us to assist in his demise a la "Che Guevara".