Re: Good news from Brazil.

I've always thought that if there were ever liberalisation it would be in Latin America first. Although the case involves a girl, this amounts to a partial legalisation of pederasty, since there is equality in the age of consent as between hetero- and homosexual sex. Actually, the UN (but not Brazil) defines an Adolescent as 10-19 years, a Youth as 15-24 and a Young Person as 10-24, so if Brazil were to adopt the UN definition of an Adolescent as well as of a Youth, as it really ought to, then this would allow the younger partner to be as young as 10 - though I shall settle for 12 for the time being. Of course, it's no use for any man over 24, but still, for small mercies we should be grateful, and it is the direction of travel that is significant. I agree with Bromios that this is a result of America's declining status. The Anglosphere is the Evil Empire, and America is the absolute lunchpin of the Anglosphere; without it, Britain, for example, drifts into the European sphere where it belongs anyway. Here, in my opinion, is our source of hope, and right now I feel, uncharacteristically, like permitting myself a degree of optimism, which makes me feel very naughty. The capitalist fetishisation of exchange value over use-value must result in capitalism coming up against the ecological and resource limits of a finite planet. In 'the long term' (when we're all dead) capitalism is finished. However, this does not mean that we shall all live in an ecosocialist utopia (worst luck). No, the first effect of the crisis will be for countries to turn to fascist leaders and internecine warfare as the elites attempt to protect their unjust privilege.* If the biosphere survives this phase - and it's a big 'if' - then humanity will one day truly find the Cities of Gold. And the ethics of that time will have nothing whatever to do with the faux morality and puritanism that prevails now. It will be too late for the likes of us. But then why should be so selfish as to think always about ourselves? Let us take comfort from Shelley, 'O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?' Let us steel ourselves to the oncoming darkness, but with the knowledge that humanity, if not ourselves as individuals, will either make it through the night, or, if we go down to extinction, then we have the consolation of knowing that the period of the greatest persecution was not, in any case, a very long segment of the entirety of human history. *This doesn't mean that we should not try to push things in a better direction. Although the future is already determined, our own actions and choices are themselves part of the matrix that will causally determine what is to be, and if we fail to act then the future that is determined for us might be worse. Fascism might still be avoided, at least here and there.