Three Brazilians quoted in the "Book of All-Time Stupidest"

[ocpagu]

Declarations by three Brazilian politicians were quoted in the "Book of All-Time Stupidest: Top 10 Lists", by Ross brothers e Kathryn Petras.

Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002), from current oppositionist party PSDB, was quoted in the top 10 of "most annoying things said by rich people". It's one of his comments made in 1998 to dwellers of a favela in Rio de Janeiro, during the reelection campaign.

"We won't promisse what can't be done. We won't make everybody rich. I don't even know if it's worthy, because the life of the rich, in general, is very boring."

Another president, João Figueiredo (1979-1985) was quoted in the top 10 of "most stupid ideological repetitions". Figueiredo was the last president of Brazil's military dictactorship (1964-1985) and the declaration is a response to the increasing pressure by public opinion towards democratization since 1979.

"I will make this country become a democracy, and if someone is against it, I'll arrest him and beat him up".

Federal legislator João Alves was quoted in the top 10 of "most implausible explanations", due to his declaration given after he was accused of illicit enrichment.

"It's easy . I won everything in the lottery. I won the lottery 125 times in the last two yars. I'm a lucky man".

Of course, it was discovered he was doing money laundering.

Source:
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/1016210-politicos-brasileiros-aparecem-em-lista-de-maiores-bobagens.shtml

[ocpagu]

1. The authors probably had a lot of work...

... to chose one single sentence by João Figueiredo. He's quite famous for saying unbelievable things and he probably deserved a quotation in every top 10 of this book. On the other hand, he was probably the most "open-faced" of all military junta's presidents about his true opinions. Some examples:

"I prefer the smell of my horses than the smell of the people".

"If I depended on minimum wage to survive, I would shoot myself in the head."

"The solution to the favelas is throwing an atomic bomb".

"I arrived and the baianas came to hug me. They left an unbearable smell. I arrived in the hotel, tooke 3, 5, 7 showers and couldn't get rid of that smell of "nig**r". (Baianas is the gentilic of the women from Bahia, a state in Brazil heavily populated by afro-descendents.)

More, in Portuguese:
http://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Baptista_de_Oliveira_Figueiredo