Of Politics and Twitter stalking

This week I heard about an absolutely pathetic event regarding so called "celebrities" on Twitter. I'll briefly narrate it here. On one side, North-American actor Ashton Kutcher became a sort of celebrity in Brazil through Twitter, after the last football match between the USA and Brazil. On the other side, the Brazilian Senate is going through a very turbulent period, and its president is under pressure to leave his position. So, a group of "celebrities" started a campaign to get Kutcher to join the Twitter campaign against the president; the most notorious being a "humourist" (*snicker*), a "musician" (*pfft!*) and an "actor" (*choke*), here dubbed the Three Stooges. Yes, in case you didn't notice, those folks -- among others -- started bugging Mr. Kutcher PERSONALLY, on Twitter, to join a "campaign" against a politician he never heard about from a country that isn't his. I'll let you digest that for a while before I discuss it. But, suffice to say, after about half a dozen Twitter messages, Kutcher finally replies with an epic knock-out:

quote
Only U have the power 2 impeach your senator. It's YOUR country U have 2 stand 4 what you believe.
unquote

Fortunately the "campaign" died after that.

Now, I'm one who thinks the president of the Senate, José Sarney, is the kind of politician that needs to disappear from this country, and he definitely needs to take a hike. The important thing to notice is, as much as it's important for people to make their voice heard about these issues, it's NOT my impeaching that guy that all our problems will be solved; that is nothing but a single tiny piece of a huge, monstrous machine of corruption. However, this whole "campaign" -- contrary to what you may be thinking -- does NOT leave the realms of Twitter and invade real life. No: that "campaign" consists of a handful of "celebrities" and a load of people who can't bother to get their asses off their seats and go out to the streets, and merely want the Internet to magically solve their problems. I know the Internet has been changing the whole social and political scenery of the world dramatically, but it's still NOT able to singlehandedly heal our problems; and those people either can't see that, or willingly DON'T see it. I think it's the latter, honestly.

And to make matters worse, those people were trying to enlist the help of a foreigner. We're not even talking about an influential leader or an outspoken personality; no, we're talking about an actor who happened to get into a -- massive, yes, but still -- harmless football joke on Twitter. It's sad to see our country is in the hands of corrupt leaders, yes, but it's even sadder to see the "personalities" opposing corruption are brainless slugs engulfed by the comfortable numbness of their luxurious apartments. And as great as Kutcher's response was, it will NOT help change their minds; it's easy to misread "only YOU have the power" as "you can't depend on me, so just give up".

Click here to see the story in further details -- the text is in Portuguese, but most of the original messages are in English.

Side note:
Review of Pure Guava may take a little longer to come out. This term isn't over yet...