Politics and civil discourse

Mauro and I like to talk politics, perhaps made more easy by the fact that we cannot really debate directly, except by aid of translation, he rants about his favorite dufus, Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) and I try to out rant him with my favorite dufus idiot President George W. Bush.

On some level our sentiments agree as long as we remain loyal to our countries and criticizing the incompetence, with great patriotism, of our leaders.

The other evening, while eating Oxtail, Mauro began explaining how Lula, as he is both affectionately and contemptuously called, wanted to make a temporary tax permanent. Mauro alleged that Lula was trying to claim his administrations economic policies were working as evidence the strength of the Brazil Real against the American dollar.

I told Mauro that America dollar is worthless everywhere, that even children begging on the streets of India refuse to accept American currency [see International Herald Tribune , Dec 15-16, 2007] because even they know it is worthless.

"Exactly" Mauro exclaimed, "Lula can't claim credit!"

"Bush must take the blame!" I passionately proclaim.

The reason, I say, is because the war in Iraq is costing Americans a billion dollars a day and Bush refuses to even count our debts against the revenues raised each year in taxes. Consequently, America must borrow these billions from China, Saudi Arabia, and other Asian and European countries.

"There is no confidence in the American dollar." I retorted and in this kind of parallel debate, it all works out for both of us.

And then we just grin at each other because what can we say? Not enough to offend.