Πραξικόπημα στη Βραζιλία; Μια ακόμα ανάλυση του πλαισίου της αντιπαράθεσης στη Βραζιλία
English follows
Brazil
Οι εξελίξεις στη Βραζιλία
είναι σημαντικές για δυο λόγους: γεωπολιτικά καταγράφουν τις αντιπαραθέσεις σε
μια περιοχή που διεκδίκησε την αυτονομία της τις τελευταίες δυο δεκαετίες, και
η οποία είναι σήμερα στόχος μια αντεπίθεσης του τοπικού κατεστημένου σε
συνδυασμό με τους ιστορικούς εξωτερικούς βόρειους «προστάτες»/κηδεμόνες.. Από
την άλλη το όλο σκηνικό είναι σημαντικό και για ιστορικούς συγκριτικούς λόγους:
αυτά που γίνονται στη Βραζιλία θυμίζουν [με διαφορετικές αφορμές και
δικαιολογίες] σκηνικά σε άλλες χώρες, όπως η Κύπρος το 2011, η Ελλάδα το 2015,
κοκ – και εκφράζουν μια τάση στα πλαίσια των ιστορικών ταξικών και πολιτισμικών
αντιπαραθέσεων τόσο σε σχέση με τις τοπικές δυναμικές σε διαφορετικούς χώρους,
όσο και σε σχέση με την παγκόσμια διασύνδεση μορφών αντίστασης ή επιβολής..
Η υστερία ενάντια στα «παιδιά
της πλύστρας» σε λατινοαμερικάνικη εκδοχή…
[αποσπάσματα
από το κείμενο που ακολουθεί]
«..μεγάλες μερίδες του
κεφαλαίου θέλουν να επαναφέρουν την ηγεμονία του νεοφιλελευθερισμου..τα ΜΜΕ
ουρλιάζουν τόσο δυνατά που καταντά αδύνατο να σκεφτεί κανείς καθαρά και
ψύχραιμα, και το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ανώτερης μεσαίας τάξης έχει υποβιβάσει
τον εαυτό του σε φασιστικές κραυγές για το Κόμμα των Εργατών, για την Αριστερά,
για τους φτωχούς, για τους μαύρους..
Και όμως παρά τις
συνεχείς επιθέσεις, η Αριστερά παραμένει συγκριτικά δυνατη..Η Δεξιά και η ελίτ
είναι πανίσχυροι και αδίσταχτοι – αλλα φοβούνται επίσης τις συνέπειες της
προσπάθειας τους [για πραξικόπημα]..
Δεν υπάρχει εύκολη
λύση στην πολιτική οικονομική και κοινωνική κρίση στη Βραζιλία… Παρά τη στήριξη
ενός ενδεχόμενου πραξικοπήματος από την συντριπτική πλειοψηφία των ΜΜΕ, το
Κόμμα των Εργατών, αλλά αριστερά κόμματα, και πολλά ριζοσπαστικά κοινωνικά
κινήματα παραμένουν δυνατά..
«Οι αλλαγές από την
διακυβέρνηση της αριστεράς, έστω και με την μορφή του κεντροαριστερού
συμβιβασμού] ήταν σαφείς και αισθητές: π.χ. ο πραγματικός κατώτατος μισθός
ανέβηκε κατά 70% και δημιουργήθηκαν 21 εκατομμύρια [έστω και χαμηλά
αμειβόμενες] θέσεις εργασίας.. H κοινωνική προστασία αναβαθμίστηκε σημαντικά... και η κυβέρνηση στήριξε
μια μαζική επέκταση της Ανώτερης εκπαίδευσης με ειδικές ποσοστώσεις για μαύρους
φοιτητές/φοιτήτριες.. Για πρώτη φορά, οι φτωχοί είχαν πρόσβαση στην εκπαίδευση,
όπως και πραγματικό εισόδημα και τραπεζιτικά δάνεια.. Άρχισαν να σπουδάζουν, να
κερδίζουν εισοδήματα,, να δανείζονται, κυριολεκτικά να καταλαμβάνουν χώρους, οι
οποίοι ήταν προηγουμένως κρατημένοι για την ανώτερη μεσαία τάξης: αεροδρόμια,
πολυκαταστήματα, τράπεζες, ιδιωτική παροχή υγείας, δρόμους – με τους
τελευταίους να γεμίζουν από φτηνά αυτοκίνητα τα οποία μπορούσε να αγοράσει η
πλειοψηφία με ένα πρόγραμμα δανειοδότησης…»
«..μεγάλες
μερίδες του κεφαλαίου θέλουν να επαναφέρουν την ηγεμονία του
νεοφιλελευθερισμου..τα ΜΜΕ ουρλιάζουν τόσο δυνατά που καταντά αδύνατο να
σκεφτεί κανείς καθαρά και ψύχραιμα, και το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ανώτερης
μεσαίας τάξης έχει υποβιβάσει τον εαυτό του σε φασιστικές κραυγές για το Κόμμα
των Εργατών, για την Αριστερά, για τους φτωχούς, για τους μαύρους..
Και όμως παρά τις
συνεχείς επιθέσεις, η Αριστερά παραμένει συγκριτικά δυνατη..Η Δεξιά και η ελίτ
είναι πανίσχυροι και αδίσταχτοι – αλλα φοβούνται επίσης τις συνέπειες της
προσπάθειας τους [για πραξικόπημα]..
A Coup in Brazil?
A major
trade union protest against Dilma Rousseff's potential impeachment in São Paulo
Every
so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of the
state jams; the veils of consent are torn asunder; and the tools of power
appear disturbingly naked. Brazil
Dilma Rousseff was elected president in 2010, with a
56-44 percent majority against the right-wing, neoliberal Brazilian Social
Democratic Party (PSDB) opposition candidate. She was reelected four years
later with a diminished yet convincing majority of 52-48 percent, or a
difference of 3.5 million votes.
Dilma’s second victory sparked a heated panic among
the neoliberal and US-aligned opposition. The fourth consecutive election of a
president affiliated to the center-left Workers’ Party (PT) was bad news for
the opposition, among other reasons because it suggested that PT founder Luís Inácio Lula da Silva could return in 2018. Lula had been president between
2003 and 2010 and, when he left office, his approval ratings hit 90 percent,
making him the most popular leader in Brazilian history.
This threat of continuity suggested that the
opposition could be out of federal office for a generation. They immediately
rejected the outcome of the vote. No credible complaints could be made, but no
matter; it was resolved that Dilma Rousseff would be overthrown by any means
necessary. To understand what happened next, we must return to 2011.
Dilma inherited a booming economy from Lula. Alongside
China Brazil
For example, the real minimum wage rose by 70 percent
and 21 million (mostly low-paid) jobs were created in the 2000s. Social
provision increased significantly, including the world-famous Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer program, and the government
supported a dramatic expansion of higher education, including quotas for blacks and state school pupils.
For the first time, the poor could access education as
well as income and bank loans. They proceeded to study, earn, and borrow, and
to occupy spaces, literally, previously the preserve of the upper-middle class:
airports, shopping malls, banks, private health facilities, and roads, with the
latter clogged up by cheap cars purchased on seventy-two easy payments. The
government enjoyed a comfortable majority in a highly fragmented Congress, and
Lula’s legendary political skills managed to keep most of the political elite
on his side.
Then everything started to go wrong. Dilma Rousseff
was chosen by Lula as his successor. She was a steady pair of hands and a
competent manager and enforcer. She was also the most left-wing president of Brazil
Once elected, Dilma shifted economic policies further
away from neoliberalism. The government intervened in several sectors seeking
to promote investment and output, and put intense pressure on the financial
system to reduce interest rates, which lowered credit costs and the
government’s debt service, releasing funds for consumption and investment. A
virtuous circle of growth and distribution seemed possible.
Unfortunately, the government miscalculated the
lasting impact of the global crisis. The US and European economies stagnated, China Brazil
Even worse, the US UK Japan Brazil
The government doubled its interventionism through
public investment, subsidized loans, and tax rebates, which ravaged the public
accounts. Their frantic and seemingly random interventionism scared away the
internal bourgeoisie: local magnates were content to run government through the
Workers’ Party, but would not be managed by a former
political prisoner who
overtly despised them.
And her antipathy was not only reserved for the
capitalists: the president had little inclination to speak to social movements,
left organizations, lobbies, allied parties, elected politicians, or her own
ministers. The economy stalled and Dilma’s political alliances shrank, in a
fast-moving dance of destruction. The neoliberal opposition scented blood.
For years, the opposition to the PT had been
rudderless. The PSDB had nothing appealing to offer while, as is traditional in
Brazil
The confluence of dissatisfactions became an
irresistible force in 2013. The mainstream media in Brazil US
Upper-middle class jobs were declining, with 4.3
million posts vanishing in the 2000s. In the meantime, the bourgeoisie was
doing well, and the poor advanced fast: even domestic servants got labor
rights. The upper-middle class felt squeezed economically, and excluded from
their privileged spaces. It was also dislocated from the state.
Since Lula’s election, the state bureaucracy had been
populated by thousands of cadres appointed by the PT and the Left, to the
detriment of “better-educated,” whiter, and, presumably, more deserving
upper-middle class competitors. Mass demonstrations erupted for the first time
in June 2013, triggered by left-wing opposition against a bus fare increase in São Paulo
Those demonstrations were fanned by the media and
captured by the upper-middle class and the Right, and they shook the government
— but, clearly, not enough to motivate it to save itself. The demonstrations
returned two years later. And then in 2016.
After the decimation of the state apparatus by the
pre-Lula neoliberal administrations, the PT sought to rebuild selected areas of
the bureaucracy. Among them, for reasons that Lula may soon have plenty of time
to review and to regret, the Federal Police and the Federal Prosecution Office
(FPO). In addition, for overtly “democratic” reasons, but more likely related
to corporatism and capacity to make media-friendly noises, the Federal Police
and the FPO were granted inordinate autonomy; the former through mismanagement,
while the latter has become the fourth power in the republic, separate from —
and checking — the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary.
The abundance of qualified job seekers led to the
colonization of these well-paying jobs by upper-middle class cadres. They were
now in a constitutionally secure position, and could bite the hand that had fed
them, while loudly demanding, through the media, additional resources to maul
the rest of the PT’s body.
Corruption was the ideal pretext. Since it lost the
first democratic presidential elections, in 1989, the PT moved steadily towards
the political center. In order to lure the upper-middle class and the internal
bourgeoisie, the PT neutralized or expelled the party’s left wing, disarmed the
trade unions and social movements, signed up to the neoliberal economic policies pursued by the previous administration, and imposed a
dour conformity that killed off any alternative leadership.
Only Lula’s sun could shine in the party; everything
else was incinerated. This strategy was eventually successful and, in 2002,
“Little Lula Peace and Love” was elected president. (This was an actual
campaign slogan.)
For years the PT had thrived in opposition as the only
honest political party in Brazil
We only need one more element, and our mixture is
ready to combust. Petrobras is Brazil US
In 2014, Sergio Moro, a previously unknown judge in Curitiba
His “Lava Jato” (car wash) operation unveiled an
extraordinary tale of large-scale bribery, plunder of public assets, and
funding for all major political parties, centered on the relationship between
Petrobras and some of its main suppliers — precisely the stalwarts of the PT in
the oil, shipbuilding, and construction industries.
It was the perfect combination, at the right time.
Judge Moro’s cause was picked up by the media, and he obligingly steered it to
inflict maximum damage on the PT, while shielding the other parties.
Politicians connected to the PT and some of Brazil
The operation is now in its twenty-sixth phase; many
have already collaborated, and those who refused to do so have received long
prison sentences, to coerce them back into line while their appeals are
pending. The media turned Judge Moro into a hero; he can do no wrong, and
attempts to contest his sprawling powers are met with derision or worse.
He is now the most powerful person in the country,
above Dilma, Lula, the speakers of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate (both
sinking in corruption and other scandals), and even the Supreme Court justices,
who have either been silenced or are quietly supportive of Moro’s crusade.
Petrobras has been paralyzed by the scandal, bringing
down the entire oil chain. Private investment has collapsed because of
political uncertainty and the politically driven investment strike against
Dilma’s government. Congress has turned against the government, and the
judiciary is overwhelmingly hostile.
After years of sniping, the media has been delighted
to see Lula fall under the Lava Jato juggernaut, even if the allegations are
often far-fetched: does he actually own a beachside apartment that his family
does not use, is that small farm really his, who paid for the lake and the
mobile phone masts nearby, and how about those pedalos? No matter: in a display
of bravado and power, Moro even detained Lula for questioning on March 4. He was taken to the São Paulo Curitiba
In order to shore up her crumbling administration and
protect Lula from prosecution, Dilma Rousseff appointed Lula her chief of staff
(the president’s chief of staff has ministerial status and can be prosecuted
only by the Supreme Court). The right-wing conspiracy went into overdrive. Moro
(illegally) released the (illegal) recording of a conversation between
President Dilma and Lula, pertaining to his investiture. Once suitably
misinterpreted, their dialogue was presented as proof of a conspiracy to
protect Lula from Moro’s determination to jail him.
Large right-wing upper-middle class masses poured into
the streets,
furiously, on March 13. Five days later, the Left responded with
not-quite-as-large demonstrations of its own against the unfolding coup. In the
meantime, Lula’s appointment was suspended by a judicial measure, then
restored, then suspended again. The case is now in the Supreme Court. At the
moment, he is not a minister, and his head is posed above the block. Moro can
arrest him at short notice.
Why is this a coup? Because despite aggressive
scrutiny, no presidential crime warranting impeachment proceedings has emerged.
Nevertheless, the political right has thrown the kitchen sink at Dilma
Rousseff. They rejected the outcome of the 2014 elections and appealed against
her alleged campaign finance violations, which would remove from power both
Dilma and vice president Michel Temer, now the effective leader of the
impeachment.
The Right simultaneously started impeachment
procedures in Congress. The media has attacked the government viciously,
neoliberal economists “impartially” beg for a new administration “to restore
market confidence,” and the Right will resort to street violence as necessary.
Finally, the judicial charade against the PT has broken all the rules of legality,
yet it is cheered on by the media, the Right, and even by the Supreme Court
justices.
Yet the coup de grâce is taking a long time coming. In
the olden days, the military would have already moved in. Today, the Brazilian
military are defined more by their nationalism (a danger to the neoliberal
onslaught) than by their right-wing faith and, anyway, the Soviet
Union is no more. Under neoliberalism, coups d’état must follow
legal niceties, as was shown in Honduras, in 2009, and in Paraguay, in 2012.
Brazil is likely to join their company, but not just
now: large sections of capital want to restore the hegemony of neoliberalism;
those who once supported the PT’s national development strategy have fallen
into line; the media is howling so loudly it has become impossible to think
clearly; and most of the upper-middle class has descended into a fascist odium
for the PT, the Left, the poor, and blacks.
Their disorderly hatred has become so intense that
even PSDB politicians are booed in anti-government demonstrations. And, despite
the relentless attack, the Left remains reasonably strong, as was demonstrated
on March 18. The Right and the elite are powerful and ruthless — but they are
also afraid of the consequences of their own daring.
There is no simple resolution to the political,
economic, and social crises in Brazil
Despite strong media support for the impending coup,
the PT, other left parties, and many radical social movements remain strong. Further
escalation is inevitable. Watch this space.
Αυτό το σχόλιο αφαιρέθηκε από έναν διαχειριστή ιστολογίου.
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