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October 2, 2009 - The news today about Chicago losing the bid for the
2016 Olympics was disappointing. We're used to
disappointments in sports in Chicago. The old joke about Brazil is
that it is the country of the future - and always will be. There's
a similar attitude in Chicago sports. There is always next year.
It could happen. There always seems to be a dark cloud behind
every silver lining. No good season can't be reversed.
There's still a seemingly irrational sense of incurable optimism in the
face of relentless adversity. |
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Rio deserved to win the 2016 Olympics today. They are to be
congratulated. Lula and the bid team from Rio had a strong hand to
play, but this was a tough competition, as always. They rose to the
challenge, and won. Rio de Janeiro will
certainly host a fantastic Olympics, just as they will be wildly
enthusiastic as the hosts of the 2014 World Cup. This is great
news for Brazilians. Chicagoans may be very disappointed, but the
bid team did an extremely good job, and the work to plan for
improvements in Chicago is not wasted.
There should be partying on 46th Street in New York today ("Little
Brazil"), and in other Brazilian expatriate communities around the USA
and the world. Go see how exceptionally happy Brazilians will be
with this news. Celebrate their success. Share their joy at
this achievement.
There were many Chicago residents who had sincere
misgivings about hosting the Olympics, despite the strong enthusiasm of
others. In Brazil, there will be great joy and unity in the lively
celebrations of this success - despite the challenges and high costs
they will face to prepare for the 2016 Olympics. |
Although I obviously detest Obama, there is no schadenfreude -
joy at the sorrow of others - in this news today. It is not his
fault. It was not a personal rebuff. It wasn't ever about
him. It was about Chicago.
Obama just had to go to Copenhagen to avoid being blamed for this
potential loss in Chicago - especially after some of his friends and
senior advisors had been so closely involved in the bid process over
recent years, and had so much at stake in the proposal. Obama can
already take credit for many failures, but not this one. |
| I
have lived in Chicago for most of my life, but I also lived for a few
years in Brazil soon after the return to democracy in the hyperinflation
years of the late 1980s, including six months working in Rio on a
business project right next to one of the worst favelas (slums) in Rio,
"Jacarezinho". I lived near an apartment building in a nicer
neighborhood where a gang with automatic weapons took over the entire
building and systematically robbed every apartment while the police
would not risk intervention or pursue the criminals involved. The
beaches were famed for the sweeps by gangs of youths who would rob
people with impunity. Most of Brazil was a wonderful place to
visit, with extremely friendly people, even in places where the people
faced worse hardships than in Rio. Rio was a huge disappointment.
As bad as crime is today in some parts of Chicago, there
is no doubt that it was far worse in some parts of Rio, although much of
the crime was not as violent, such as widespread pick-pocketing or
purse-snatching. The general rule for victims of such incidents
was to not resist, because that was when the knife or gun would appear,
or the accomplice in the crowd would intervene.
Such crime had become as accepted as street beggars in
India, just as government corruption was regarded as pervasive and
largely inevitable. Of the many cities in Brazil which I visited
during my years there, Rio was not even on my list of favorites.
Despite the scenic beauty for which it is famed, Rio was basically a
failed state politically and economically. There are far better
places to go in Brazil. Rio was reminiscent of San Francisco, in
which one could easily organize left-wing demonstrations on short
notice, including massive crowds to support Lula and his party long
before he was elected President. This "marvelous city" (nickname
in Brazil) had become so bad that even the government had moved out,
leaving behind many "ghost workers" who remained on the federal payroll
even though they did no work. It was the city of leftist radicals,
while Brasilia became the hiding place for all the politicians and
bureaucrats. |
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is no doubt that Rio will prove to be a good choice despite the many
social problems there. They will also be wildly enthusiastic about
making it work, no matter what the eventual cost to their government may
prove to be. It should be very good for Rio, Brazil, and all of
South America - just as Rio hosting the World Cup will be in 2014.
Perhaps some of the many problems in Rio will finally get addressed in
this process. It would have been nice for Chicago to win, but this is
a huge boost for Rio and Brazil. Congratulations for their remarkable
success today. They earned it. The joyful celebrations in Rio
today are not a surprise. |
| In
Brazil, there's a wonderful word which describes how Brazilians deal
with challenges, including all of the problems which their government
bureaucracy has created for them over the decades. It's "jeitinho",
pronounced jay-chee'-nyo, which doesn't translate easily. It
basically means that you always expect to figure out some way to make
things work out OK in spite of the seemingly insurmountable challenges
you face.
It's an individual sense of, "OK, I didn't expect this, but I'll just
have to figure out how to deal with it." |
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some cases that may involve corruption, but more often it just involves
being very clever, determined, creative, and resourceful at overcoming
all of the frustrating difficulties or surprises one may face in life.
It's like the concept here of rising to meet a challenge
- and being expected to do so, rather than expecting others to solve all
of your problems for you. Instead of blaming others for all of
your problems and acting like a victim who has no personal
responsibility, the assumption is that you have to deal with it
yourself.
In the context of government, it often refers to
figuring out a way to get around constraints without necessarily doing
anything criminal in the process. It's more like relentlessly
finding new loopholes faster than the bureaucrats can impose new
restrictions. Working around the red tape becomes a way of life.
Instead of just blaming excessive government and complaining about it,
they learn how to deal with it. |
Their
government bureaucracy has been a huge, inefficient, ineffective,
corrupt and costly burden on Brazil for decades, but individuals figure
out their own way to deal with it and pursue happiness despite such
hardships. They have largely lost the illusion of government being the
solution to all their problems. They mainly want government to stop
creating a seemingly endless flow of new and worse problems for them.
That isn't a philosophical commitment to the concept of limited
government, but rather grudging recognition of the evidence of
persistent harm that excessive government power has caused, and simply
wanting to limit that harmful influence over their lives. It's like
Reagan Democrats who finally figured out after Carter that more
government isn't the solution, even if hard-line leftists still believe
in it as a matter of faith. |
The
reality is that Lula was an extreme hard-line leftist. People used to
joke in the 1980s about him being so far to the left of Castro that he
would regard Mao as a right-winger. When I lived in Brazil, many people
were literally very fearful of what would happen to Brazil if Lula were
ever elected president. The doom and gloom predictions, including the
risk of a coup and return to military rule, were everywhere. He was most
popular among the radical leftists in Rio who seemed to have nothing
better to do than to demonstrate against the government all the time.
In reality, despite problems during his tenure, including some
corruption among his friends which tarnished his reputation, Lula has
actually done surprisingly well by comparison to some of the corrupt
leaders who he replaced. He carried out some parts of his liberal
agenda, but he also was pragmatic about how to achieve better results
through cooperation with his opponents and how he worked with other
world leaders, rather than by simply ramming through a radical agenda of
his own.
Lula actually listened and moderated his actions to
govern effectively, instead of becoming another egotistical Chavez-style
populist despot. He turned out to be more interested in results than in
blindly pushing his own ideology at any cost, and that seems to have
caused him to govern in a more moderate way than his radical leftist
credentials would ever have suggested to be possible.
Like the Brazilian spirit of "jeitinho", Lula focused
on figuring out what would work to get past the problems, rather than
arrogantly and stubbornly making them even worse by ignoring the facts
or his critics and simply pushing forward a radical transformation of
Brazil as an ego trip. He learned quickly on the job. |
| So,
don't bash the Chicago bid or Obama about this. Celebrate that in
Brazil, they have made remarkable progress in recent years through that
spirit of "jeitinho", in which they find a way to work things out no
matter how bad things may seem to be at the time, instead of descending
into political chaos and angry confrontation.
Despite all of their enormous social problems, they are finding a way
forward other than class warfare and hatred. It's a great success for
proud Brazilians today which should help them down that path to further
development over the years ahead. It should unify Brazilians to
work toward the 2016 Olympics.
It's not all about Obama. We should be glad that a radical leftist won
who has actually learned to be more moderate and rational once in power
(Lula) by trying to govern wisely for the benefit of all Brazilians,
rather than just trying to pay back the groups which facilitated his
rise to power in order to perpetuate his own power. Contrary to
expectations that Lula would be a total disaster as President, he has
done surprisingly well. Obama, by contrast, is quickly proving to
be even worse than feared.
Chicago had a great bid, but like the Cubs fans, there is always next
time. Please, congratulate Rio rather than criticize Chicago's bid
effort or Obama about this outcome. As much as I detest Obama,
this was never about him. |
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There's a very relevant story in Brazil - about a leftist radical who
actually learned to govern in cooperation with his opponents in order to
build up their country together, instead of simply attacking and tearing
it apart to burnish his own narcissistic image, expand the power of his
supporters over other interest groups, and push his own radical ideas.
Despite his faults, Lula has tried to govern responsibly as President of
Brazil - not as the patronage king of the far left. Lula certainly has
his faults, but at least he has tried to govern more responsibly than
was expected of him. Brazil in general, and Rio
in particular, still has lots of social problems as a developing
country. The old joke about Brazil is that it is the country of the
future - and always will be. One reason for that has always been that
their government has been such a huge burden on Brazilians, but the
Brazilian people have learned to pursue happiness in spite of their
lousy government, rather than through their lousy government.
That offers hope. This is a huge win for Brazilians, and the
enthusiastic, fun-loving "cariocas" of Rio in particular. The Brazilian
government helped to make this success happen, but the Brazilian people
will make the 2016 Olympics successful in spite of all the obvious
challenges. |
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