A troubling new era has begun in Brazil with the election on Sunday of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president, writes Pepe Escobar.
By Pepe Escobar
Special to Consortium News
It’s darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon.
Jean Baudrillard once defined Brazil as “the chlorophyll of our planet”. And yet a land vastly associated worldwide with the soft power of creative joie de vivre has elected a fascist for president.
Brazil is a land torn apart. Former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro was elected with 55.63 percent of votes. Yet a record 31 million votes were ruled absent or null and void. No less than 46 million Brazilians voted for the Workers’ Party’s candidate, Fernando Haddad; a professor and former mayor of Sao Paulo, one of the crucial megalopolises of the Global South. The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro.
His first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age.
French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as “pathological politics on a large scale”.
His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers’ Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a “justice” system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded “training” of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes.
That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a “free market” agenda, all his sins are forgiven.
Bolsonaro: Leader of trashy jihad.
The Reign of BBBB
It’s impossible to understand the rise of Bolsonarism without the background of the extremely sophisticated Hybrid War unleashed on Brazil by the usual suspects. NSA spying – ranging from the Petrobras energy giant all the way to then President Dilma Rousseff’s mobile phone – was known since mid-2013 after Edward Snowden showed how Brazil was the most spied upon Latin American nation in the 2000’s.
The Pentagon-supplicant Superior War College in Rio has always been in favor of a gradual – but surefire – militarization of Brazilian politics aligned with U.S. national security interests. The curriculum of top U.S. military academies was uncritically adopted by the Superior War College.
The managers of Brazil’s industrial-military-technological complex largely survived the 1964-1985 dictatorship. They learned everything about psyops from the French in Algeria and the Americans in Vietnam. Over the years they evolved their conception of the enemy within; not only the proverbial “communists”, but also the Left as a whole as well as the vast masses of dispossessed Brazilians.
This led to the recent situation of generals threatening judges if they ever set Lula free. Bolsonaro’s running mate, the crude Generalito Hamilton Mourao, even threatened a military coup if the ticket did not win. Bolsonaro himself said he would never “accept” defeat.
This evolving militarization of politics perfectly meshed with the cartoonish BBBB (Bullet, Beef, Bible, Bank) Brazilian Congress.
Congress is virtually controlled by military, police and paramilitary forces; the powerful agribusiness and mining lobby, with their supreme goal of totally plundering the Amazon rainforest; evangelical factions; and banking/financial capital. Compare it with the fact that more than half of senators and one third of Congress are facing criminal investigations.
The Bolsonaro campaign used every trick in the book to flee any possibility of a TV debate, faithful to the notion that political dialogue is for suckers, especially when there’s nothing to debate.
After all, Bolsonaro’s top economic advisor, Chicago Boy Paulo Guedes – currently under investigation for securities fraud – had already promised to “cure” Brazil by bearing the usual gifts: privatize everything; destroy social spending; get rid of all labor laws as well as the minimum wage; let the beef lobby plunder the Amazon; and increase the weaponizing of all citizens to uber-NRA levels.
No wonder The Wall Street Journal normalized Bolsonaro as a “conservative populist” and the “Brazilian swamp-drainer”; this fact-free endorsement ignores that Bolsonaro is a lowly politico who has only passed two pieces of legislation in his 27 lackluster years in Congress.
WhatsApp Me to the Promised Land
Even as large misinformed masses progressively became aware of the massive Bolsonaro campaign manipulative scams on WhatsApp – a tropical post-Cambridge Analytica saga; and even as Bolsonaro pledged, on the record, that opponents would have only two options after Sunday’s elections, jail or exile, that was still not enough to arrest Brazil from inexorably slouching towards a dystopian, militarized BET (Banana Evangelical Theocracy).
In any mature democracy a bunch of businessmen – via black accounting – financing a multi-tentacle fake news campaign on WhatsApp against the Workers’ Party and Lula’s candidate Haddad would qualify as a major scandal.
WhatsApp is wildly popular in Brazil, much more than Facebook; so it had to be properly instrumentalized in this Brazilian remix of Cambridge Analytica-style Hybrid War.
The tactics were absolutely illegal because they qualified as undeclared campaign donations as well as corporate donations (forbidden by the Brazilian Supreme Court since 2015). The Brazilian Federal Police started an investigation that now is bound to head the same way of the Saudis investigating themselves on the Pulp Fiction fiasco in Istanbul.
The fake news tsunami was managed by the so-called Bolsominions. They are a hyper-loyal volunteer army, which purges anyone who dares to question the “Myth” (as the leader is referred to), while manipulating content 24/7 into memes, viral fake videos and assorted displays of “Bolso-swarm” ire.
Consider Washington’s outrage at Russians that may have interfered in U.S. elections allegedly using the same tactics the U.S. and its comprador elites used in Brazil.
Smashing the BRICS
Crushing the BRICS (Russian presidency)
On foreign policy, as far as Washington is concerned, Reichskommissar Bolsonaro may be very useful on three fronts.
The first one is geo-economic: to get the lion’s share of the vast pre-salt reserves for U.S. energy giants.
That would be the requisite follow-up to the coup de grace against Dilma Rousseff in 2013, when she approved a law orienting 75 percent of oil wealth royalties towards education and 25 percent to health care; a significant U.S.$ 122 billion over 10 years.
The other two fronts are geopolitical: blowing up the BRICS from the inside, and getting Brazil to do the dirty work in a Venezuela regime change ops, thus fulfilling the Beltway obsession on smashing the Venezuela-Cuba axis.
Using the pretext of mass immigration from Venezuela to the Brazilian stretch of the Amazon, Colombia – elevated to the status of key NATO partner, and egged on by Washington – is bound to count on Brazilian military support for regime change.
And then there’s the crucial China story.
China and Brazil are close BRICS partners. BRICS by now essentially means RC (Russia and China), much to the disgust of Moscow and Beijing, which counted on Haddad following in the footsteps of Lula, who was instrumental in enhancing BRICS geopolitical clout.
That brings us to a key point of inflexion in the rolling Hybrid War coup, when the Brazilian military became convinced that Rousseff’s cabinet was infiltrated by agents of Chinese intel.
Still, China remains Brazil’s top trade partner – ahead of the U.S., with bilateral trade reaching $75 billion last year. In parallel to being an avid consumer of Brazilian commodities, Beijing has already invested $124 billion in Brazilian companies and infrastructure projects since 2003.
Chicago Boy Guedes has recently met with Chinese diplomats. Bolsonaro is bound to receive a top Chinese delegation right at the start of his mandate. On the campaign trail, he hammered that “China is not buying in Brazil, China is buying Brazil”. Bolsonaro might attempt to pull a mini-Trump sanction overdrive on China. Yet he must be aware that the powerful agribusiness lobby has been profiting immensely from the U.S.-China trade war.
A mighty cliffhanger is guaranteed to come at the 2019 BRICS summit, which will take place in Brazil: picture tough guy Bolsonaro face to face with the real boss, Xi Jinping.
So what is the Brazilian military really up to? Answer: the Brazilian “Dependency Doctrine” – which is a true neocolonial mongrel.
On one level, the Brazilian military leadership is developmentalist, geared towards territorial integration, well-patrolled borders and fully disciplined, internal, social and economic “order.” At the same time they believe this should all be carried out under the supervision of the “indispensable nation.”
The military leaders reason that their own country is not knowledgeable enough to fight organized crime, cyber-security, bio-security, and, on the economy, to fully master a minimal state coupled with fiscal reform and austerity. For the bulk of the military elite, private foreign capital is always benign.
An inevitable consequence is to see Latin American and African nations as untermenschen; a reaction against Lula’s and Dilma’s emphasis on the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and closer energy and logistical integration with Africa.
Can’t Rule Out Military Coup
Despite this there is internal military dissent – which could even open a possible way towards the removal of Bolsonaro, a mere puppet, to the benefit of the real thing: a general.
When the Workers’ Party was in power, the Navy and the Air Force were quite pleased by strategic projects such as a nuclear submarine, a supersonic fighter jet and satellites launched by Made in Brazil rockets. Their reaction remains to be seen in the event Bolsonaro ditches these techno-breakthroughs for good.
The key question may be whether there is a direct connection between the cream of the crop of Brazilian military academies; the “dependency generals” and their psyops techniques; different evangelical factions; and the post-Cambridge Analytica tactics deployed by the Bolsonaro campaign. Would it be a nebula congregating all these cells, or is it a loose network?
Arguably the best answer is provided by war anthropologist Piero Leirner, who conducted deep research in the Brazilian Armed Forces and told me, “there’s no previous connection. Bolsonaro is a post-fact. The only possible connection is between certain campaign traits and psyops.” Leirner stresses, “Cambridge Analytica and Bannon represent the infrastructure, but the quality of information, to send contradictory signals and then an order resolution coming as a third way, this is military strategy from CIA psyop manuals.”
Brazilian Military: Keeping an eye on Bolsonaro. (Wikimedia Commons)
There are cracks though. Leirner sees the arch of disparate forces supporting Bolsonaro as a “bricolage” which sooner or later will disintegrate. What next? A sub-Pinochet General?
Why Bolsonaro is not Trump
In The Road to Somewhere; The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, David Goodhart shows that the driving force behind populism is not the fascist love of an ultra-nation. It’s anomie – that feeling of a vague existential threat posed by modernity. That applies to all forms of Right populism in the West.
Thus we have the opposition between “Somewheres” and “Anywheres”. We have “Somewheres” that want their nations’ democracy to be enjoyed only by the “home” ethnicity, with the national culture not contaminated by “foreign” influences.
And we have “Anywheres” who inhabit the roootless postmodern vortex of multiculturalism and foreign travel for business. These are a demographic minority – but a majority within political, economic, educational and professional elites.
This leads Goodhart to make a crucial distinction between populism and fascism – ideologically and psychologically.
The standard legal distinction can be found in German constitutional law. Right populism is “radical” – thus legal. Fascism is “extreme,” thus illegal.
Trump being labeled a “fascist” is false. Bolsonaro in the West has been labeled “The Tropical Trump.” The fact is Trump is a Right populist – who happens to deploy a few policies that could even be characterized as Old Left.
The record reveals Bolsonaro as a racist, misogynist, homophobic, weaponizing thug, favoring a white, patriarchal, hierarchical, hetero-normative and “homogenous” Brazil; an absurdity in a deeply unequal society still ravaged by the effects of slavery and where the majority of the population is mixed race. Besides, historically, fascism is a radical bourgeois Final Solution about total annihilation of the working class. That makes Bolsonaro an outright fascist.
Trump is even mode moderate than Bolsonaro. He does not incite supporters to literally exterminate his opponents. After all, Trump has to respect the framework of a republic with long-standing, even if flawed, democratic institutions.
That was never the case in the young Brazilian democracy – where a president may now behave as if human rights are a communist, and UN, plot. The Brazilian working classes, intellectual elites, social movements and all minorities have plenty of reasons to fear the New Order; in Bolsonaro’s own words, “they will be banned from our motherland.” The criminalization/dehumanization of any opposition means, literally, that tens of millions of Brazilians are worthless.
Talk to Nietzsche
The sophisticated Hybrid War rolling coup in Brazil that started in 2014, had a point of inflexion in 2016 and culminating in 2018 with impeaching a president; jailing another; smashing the Right and the Center-Right; and in a post-politics-on-steroids manner, opening the path to neo-fascism.
Bolsonaro though is a – mediocre – black void cipher. He does not have the political structure, the knowledge, not to mention the intelligence to have come so far, our of the blue, without a hyper-complex, state of the art, cross-border intel support system. No wonder he’s a Steve Bannon darling.
In contrast, the Left – as in Europe – once again was stuck in analog mode. No way any progressive front, especially in this case as it was constituted at the eleventh hour, could possibly combat the toxic tsunami of cultural war, identity politics and micro-targeted fake news.
They lost a major battle. At least they now know this is hardcore, all-out war. To destroy Lula – the world’s foremost political prisoner – the Brazilian elites had to destroy Brazil. Still, Nietzsche always prevails; whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The vanguard of global resistance against neo-fascism as the higher stage of neoliberalism has now moved south of the Equator. No pasarán.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is 2030. Follow him on Facebook.
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Bolsonaro is just another right-wing demagogue in a long list of far-right dictators supported by the US government and their media propaganda distribution centers.
https://opensociet.org/2018/10/31/bolsonaro-a-monster-engineered-by-our-corporate-media/
As all others are left-wing corrupt-to-the-bone socialist demagogs who destroyed the country for 20 years! You should not only publish what suits your agenda, but all of it, please. Too easy… Smartass…
CIA operations follow the same recurring script:
American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader.
First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: “We’ll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us.” The Agency then hires, trains, and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy).
These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator.
The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture, and murder. The victims are said to be “communists,” but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents, and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious “School of the Americas.”
The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA.
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II
Being a smartass is better than being a dumbass, methinks…
“CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition.
First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal:
“We’ll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us.” The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator.
The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be “communists,” but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious “School of the Americas.” (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the “School of the Dictators” and “School of the Assassins.” Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.
The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.”
The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War.
The ironic thing about all this intervention is that it frequently fails to achieve American objectives. Often the newly installed dictator grows comfortable with the security apparatus the CIA has built for him. He becomes an expert at running a police state. And because the dictator knows he cannot be overthrown, he becomes independent and defiant of Washington’s will. The CIA then finds it cannot overthrow him, because the police and military are under the dictator’s control, afraid to cooperate with American spies for fear of torture and execution.
The only two options for the U.S at this point are impotence or war. Examples of this “boomerang effect” include the Shah of Iran, General Noriega and Saddam Hussein. The boomerang effect also explains why the CIA has proven highly successful at overthrowing democracies, but a wretched failure at overthrowing dictatorships.
The following timeline should confirm that the CIA as we know it should be abolished and replaced by a true information-gathering and analysis organization. The CIA cannot be reformed — it is institutionally and culturally corrupt.”
examples, examples, examples…
https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/5348804
Redundant post above – apologies. These things bounce in and out of the void.
Where’d cc the smartass go?
I think you ran him off- good job.
Trump was asked to run… Of course a dumb commie sympathizer like you wouldnt have a clue about that or anything else now would you..
It was well overdue time to take down the communists who have infiltrated the USA since the late 40’s & have unleashed their decadent agenda on this once great country.. You know swifty, like the ones who write the crap on this site..
The clintons (extreme commie Saul Alinski who they cavorted with in the late 60’s was her idol) & the communist obozo (extreme commies ayers & axlerod were his handlers in chicago – you know, those charming members of the 70’s weather underground that killed police in NY in the 70’s)
“Workers’ Party” – Hmmmm… Sounds a lot like the same terminology spewed by low life bolshvik/communist lunatics trotsky, marx, & all the rest of em…
No pasarán?!
I would hesitate in using “fascism” as broadly as Pepe. The original fascism had some socialist DNA, so it did reserve some pieces of the pie to the down trotten and the state was somewhat active in economic development, e.g. through large projects like autobahn system, perhaps the inspiration for Interstate System in USA etc. Trains were supposed to run on time — in that sense, NYC transit is as far from fascism as one can get.
In that sense, Bolsonaro is an authoritarian reactionary rather than a fascist, something than in practice can be actually worse. By the way of contrast, Erdogan is closer to a Mussolini type, grand visions, grand projects — and grand repressions. Great leader restoring tradition of a great empire (Roman, Ottoman). Economically, fascist types seem to be more flexible and between some modicum of competence and repressions, rule quite stably. Would Bolsonaro be as reactionary as promised, he has a chance to wreck the economy and leave it to the military to save the nation. But the military will be busy estimating what scale of repressions is feasible, and they may prefer to keep him with some helpful advise that he, of all people, will not ignore — he is not against the generals.
This article is going against the reputation of your blog.
I am very disappointed to read so much globalist left communist disinformation in this article. Some few people were chosen to try to give an intelectual comment based on pure distortion of facts and disrespect of the brazilian democracy. The content found here you can find in any MSM fake newns CNN article as well. Now I will unfortunately not trust any other article about foreign countries posted here. It is indeed a very difficult task to have enough expertise to cover the news about all countries in the world, so better write only about things we really understand.
I do not know Portuguese, and that allows Pepe to disinform you. He surely wrote too briefly, Counterpunch style, so some may be puzzled by some statements like Car Wash investigation being a mockery. However, I followed that issue to some degree, and indeed it was a mockery, the only politicians that lost jobs and liberty were perhaps the cleanest in a dirty heap but despised by the ruling class. That said, I got impression that the leading prosecutor has some deniability, Laundry Wash was committed by the Congress and the impostor president. This is one of several places where a paragraph of explanation would make a better article.
But you Pedro did not explain ANYTHING! And please, “respect for the Brazilian democracy”? Even you cannot capitalize it (sorry, an unworthy jest). Democracy deserves utmost respect as an institution, but not the people who get elected or nominated — they have to be judged on their merits, however small those merits may be.
GAHAHHAAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!! You wrote: “Democracy deserves utmost respect as an institution, but not the people who get elected or nominated — they have to be judged on their merits, however small those merits may be.” but continue to CONTRADICT what you write… priceless… WHO are you to tell Brazilians how to vote and WHO are you to tell what Bolsonaro is gonna do? That’s how DUMBED down people get… Pay more attention, please… ;-)
Dear cc, democracy deserves respect because alternatives are less reliable, plus respect for the democracy fosters, or at least it may foster, some values of that are inherently useful. What democracy does not do is assuring any type of competence, wisdom or lack of sociopathy among people who get power through democratic mechanisms, elections controlled by judiciary etc. For example, leaving such selections to pure plays of guns and money, or climbing in a bureaucracy may from time to time promote good leaders, but infrequently, and it is even harder to replace bad leadership with a better one.
Concerning the wisdom of the voters, if I look back whom I would hypothetically support, even intelligent people can be “dangerously naive”. And the same applies to the rest of the voters. Sociology of inferior choices is actually a scientific discipline.
Democracy is not merely voting, but also political rights and other rights that make it meaningful. The right to debate is crucial, how we can meaningfully choose if we do not evaluate, reason etc. It is not particularly salient if we “tell it to Brazilians” or not.
In short, “respect for democracy” is not a valid argument against derision directed at an elected persons and various aspects of the political process and the political scene. It is a valid argument against armed insurrection etc.
Democracy deserves respect because it is the political system that is in place in your nation. You have a Constitution. Some guy named PLATO wrote about the importance of Rule of Law over 2000 years ago. Granted it may not exist in ideal terms but since it is the system that you/we live under and raise your/our families under, it is of absolute importance that it ( Democracy) should be respected. I know that it is really great to be a corrupt hypocrite in any corrupt system, if that corrupt system enriches you. Question: Why not be a drug dealer on the side or an assassin while on vacation, why not pimp your wife and get even richer. You are an idiot, You cannot have your cake and eat it too then still be skinny unless you are a pathetic bulimic fool looking at a pile of vomit and seeing PROGRESS. Brazil has gone to hell . It was headed in a much better direction under Lula and when he left office . Now it is going to shit. Wallow in it. Peace.
“I am very disappointed to read so much globalist left communist disinformation in this article. Some few people were chosen to try to give an intelectual comment based on pure distortion of facts and disrespect of the brazilian democracy.”
Sorry to tell you, but Pepe Escobar has been read by millions ’round the world for some time. His article here is precisely what well informed Europeans totally agree with or with informed US citizens, even though there aren’t that many within the adult population.
“Brazilian democracy??” There is no such thing. Brazil is run and operated by the extremely wealthy in Brazil and by the US corporate/banking class.
Try reading Glen Greenwald’s latest article about this Brazilian fascist. He pretty much mirrors what Escobar says.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll tackle it again. There was, for lack of a better term, a “liberal” wing of the Nazi party whose main protagonists were Gregor and Otto Strasser, founders of the left-wing newspaper, Berliner Arbeiter Zeitung. They advocated for “worldwide revolution” along the lines of the somewhat Trotskyist idea of “permanent revolution”. They were at the same time committed anti-Semites and militant German Nationalists. The joke at the time was that they represented “beefsteak Nazis – brown on the outside, but red on the inside”.
Major biographies by Toland, Kershaw and Fest as well as memoirs by notable “insiders” Speer, Dietrich, Ludecke, Hanfstaengl and others all indicate that Hitler despised socialism. He even mocked in private conversation that he was able to dupe a sizable contingent of voters by referring to “our socialism” in his speeches, which of course had nothing at all to do with socialism. Interestingly, he also referred to “our democracy”, a ruse which right wing illiterate lunatics in the United States have apparently failed to notice. Yep, Hitler also claimed that his movement was “democratic”.
The “Encyclopedia of American Loons” lists notorious right-wing zealots, and “Dr.” Jerome Corsi is mentioned prominently. He has been on the “Q” bandwagon for some time, a delusional pop-culture construct which recently claims JFK Jr. is actually alive and working with the Trump administration to “drain the swamp”. They claim that Vincent Fusca, the itinerant Trump T-shirt salesman, is actually JFK Jr. In case they haven’t noticed, Fusca doesn’t look like a typical Irish Catholic. Some might say he has, “the map of Italy stamped right on his face”.
While Corsi claims to be an expert historian, he seems to be unaware of the fact that Hitler murdered Gregor Strasser during the so-called “Night of the Long Knives” along with most of his prominent “socialist” followers. Brother Otto fled to the United States and Canada, where he served as one of the prominent sources for psychiatrist Walter C. Langer’s book, The Mind of Adolf Hitler.
Claiming that Nazis were “socialists” is a cheap, tawdry political trick which serves to dupe only the most naive and delusional right wing acolytes. It is more likely that Chelsea Clinton is behind the “Q” movement, as it would clearly demonstrate the stupidity of its followers. In case nobody has noticed, the swamp is getting deeper. JFK Jr. aligned with John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Kay Bailely Huchison, Gina Haspel, Steve Mnuchin and “Mad Dog” Mattis? You gotta be kiddin’ me.
One correction. The world’s foremost political prisoner is not Lula but Julian Assange.
Fascists & Neoliberals go together like peas & carrots!
http://opensociet.org/2018/10/31/neoliberalism-and-fascism-the-stealth-connection/
The ‘die’ was cast by Wilma Rousseff when she bought into the “Car Wash” Investigation and said they needed to complete their work when her head was already in the noose. . She was the dummy, an unwilling shill. This happened after Chavez died so quickly from whatever happened to him in Venezuela and throughout South America the left became weaker. In Equador, in Hondoras , etc. the earth moved. Naturally USA intelligence was involved and the goals of our Government were pursued relentlessly. Lula waited on the sidelines way too long. By the time Rousseff tried to appoint him to save her the corruption of the Judiciary was Institutional and his own appointees would not act in the interests on the Workers Party. . BY THE WAY, What were the circumstances of the plane accident that allowed Moro to take over Car Wash anyway? Basically Pepe is crying alligator tears here for Brazil. The Military dictatorship is already in place. Now, so, Why would it be in Brazil’s interest to Nationalize it’s oil, this is obviously on the US wishlist. Let’s see if this actually happens. A couple things I will add. Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. The Generals will put their own necks in a noose soon enough. Brazil has an export driven economy and it is not competitive,. They absolutely need BRICS. While the USA would like to cut Brics legs off, the Brazillian Government already knows that this would not be in Brazil’s interests. They need China buying their goods more than they need us. Sad but true. They may be corrupt and Fascistic but the aren’t stupid. The USA has it’s own problems. We cannot micromanage South America any more than Saudi Arabia can micromanage Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. WE will probably find ourselves wishing that we had Lula as a scapegoat in less than 5 years when a caravan of 500,000 Brazilians head for our borders in search of… the kind of freedom and prosperity that Balsahead can never deliver. PS > They won’t get in.
thanks to pepe, as always, and as for this:
“The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro.”
equally if not more startling should be the fact that in 2016 more than 165 million americans did not vote for her highness of social democratic capitalism, hillary clinton..democracy? in either nation? or for that matter, anywhere? pepe clarifies the big difference between trump and the brazilian and the definition of populism he provides by david goodhart is certainly far closer to reality than the shrieking idiocy here about trump’s alleged fascism, but with capitalism being the major problem not just for america but for the world and the planet itself, the labels we apply to its various stages may be useful at moments but can get in the way when trying to confront the system of minority dominated private profit market capitalism and not just its various phases. whether we believe fascism is coming or it just left, here’s a definition from a foremost theoretician made back early in the 20th century about a term tossed around by far too many in the present whose knowledge of it seems to come from watching spielberg movies or reading comic books:
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
Benito Mussolini
seem familiar?
thanks to pepe, as always…but..
“The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro.”
more startling is the fact that in 2016 more than 165 million americans did not vote for her highness of social democratic capitalism, hillary clinton…our population is greater than brazil’s but the percentages are similar..
and given that capitalism is america and the globe’s most serious problem, the labeling of forms of it as liberal-conservative-fascist can be important at a specific moment but can tend towards being muddled when trying to confront and deal with the overall system. though the david goodhart definitions offered by pepe fit the present far better than the local screeching about trump’s alleged fascism, those suffering tragic slaughters on a global scale might deem the mass murdering and poverty and despair being inflicted on greater numbers each day as warranting the label given by a supposed fascist theoretician early in the 20th century:
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
Benito Mussolini
Please stop using that “Mussolini quote” about fascism and corporate power because
a) there is no proof of Mussolini having said or written this “definition of fascism” and
b) the “corporations” that it refers to as in “corporate power” is a completely different thing than today’s American “corporations” like Wal-mart, Citigroup or Ford Motor Company
A quick google-search will do better than me explaining it in detail.
Of course, the real question is did the CIA interfere with the Brazilian election to get the neoliberal fascist demagogue they wanted…
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/06/01/a-us-hand-in-brazils-coup/
The CIA interfered in 1964 to topple the president of Brazil so why not now? The CIA has always done this since its very inception.
Wait, I thought the CIA and the “intelligence community” were going to save us from the fascist Trump?
Rachel Maddow told me so.
The stuff we do abroad always comes home, to bite us.
Is that even a question? The CIA protects the 0.1% of Americans who have global business interests (and in ways that are hundreds of times more effective than meddling by the Russians). It’s not a new phenomenon but has escalated in depth and control globally. And has the stick of military covert actions to keep non-believers in line.
The collapse of neoliberalism, the global harvesting of resources and treasures from peoples in all countries continues unabated, replacing productivity with debt to the un-jailable Big Financial Institutions. People are so tired of austerity and hopelessness from the pablum of corrupt Global Elite enablers they have turned to fascism as a way out. They are desperate for change, whereas the Global Elites keep saying things are wonderful exactly as they are.
It would be surprising if the US did *not* do their best to rig the Brazilian election.
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/25/brazil-election-jair-bolsonaro-us-investors/
Let me echo the comments that thank you for a clear picture of the Brazilian election. We can’t follow Brazilian politics as well as an informed Brazilian. Keep us posted.
What exactly is an “absent” ballot?
Given the vote totals you cite, I doubt if the people of Brazil are going to dance the Bolero with a clumsy fascist for long. Brazilians will not be satisfied being nothing more than a prize to be won by Washington or China/Russia. It has the resources and population to be independent. It may take more nationalism than some people are comfortable with to become independent of global plutocracy. Western Europe is now taking a step in that direction.
Who ruled 31 million votes “absent or null and void.” Election officials or judges?
Will it become necessary to project every ballot on a wall or screen so TV viewers can count the ballots along with the official counters?
Modernity is all we have first hand experience with. The anomie is more likely against overt global plutocracy.
George Orwell on using the F-word: What is Fascism?
https://opensociet.org/2018/06/27/what-is-fascism/
Great link-thank you! No wonder people are confused by the term!
We up north in the States may get to see what regime change looks like… Russian\Chinese style…
A very important subject, indeed! Thank you.
I wonder about this group of votes: “a record 31 million votes were ruled absent or null and void.”
If 31 million votes were declared non-valid, a very good explanation to rule out fraud is required! It sounded so incredible and alarming, I needed to return to the article to see if I misinterpreted. Can you help straighten this out: what are these 31 million votes? (It seems to me “null and void” means cast and non-valid, but is there another category behind “ruled absent”?) And in the end, is there cause to suspect fraud on a major scale?
Read any of the articles or books by Greg Palast to find out how common this is in the USA and has been since at least the year 2000. “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” explains much of it, and he present outrageous example is in the US state of Georgia, where the candidate Brian Kemp is also in charge of the voting conditions and removal of hundreds of thousands of names from the lists of eligible voters for spurious reasons.
In Brazil unfortunately voting is obligatory, but many people, like me, just don’t show up on Election Day. The 31 million nulled votes that Escobar refers to are exactly those cases, 31 million people didn’t show up to vote for president, out of a total of 147 million people registered to vote, or around 21% of the electorate.
Thank you! That explains it.
“Power comes out of the muzzle of a gun”, Mao’s words sound truer than ever. There’s no other way. The reversion to a Victorian slave labor society by the world’s elites, it’s a blessing in disguise.So be it.
Only till robots replace workers conpletely.
“Trump is even mo[r]e moderate than Bolsonaro. He does not incite supporters to literally exterminate his opponents. After all, Trump has to respect the framework of a republic with long-standing, even if flawed, democratic institutions. ”
Awesome! When did Trump start moderating his behavior, 15 minutes ago?
I am not sure what Pepe is referring to when he says that Trump has advocated old left policies. He may not have heard Trump say something 180 degrees opposite the following day, or minute. Trump is too incoherent to be categorized by what he says. Pepe is correct to state that Brazil has arrived at fascist dystopia. The US remains on the back stretch of its journey to the same basic place. All that needs doing now is the making of peace between the inverted fascism of the deep state and the more traditional strongman style fascist movement that Trump now leads, and we will have arrived. If Trump ever figures that out….
During the presidential campaign, Trump was pretty consistent in attacking neoliberal trade deals, military adventurism in the Middle East, and renewed Cold War against Russia. Those can validly be thought of as Old Left positions, even if we know Trump had no little or no intention of pursuing them
Trump doesn’t have to figure it out. He is surrounded by people who will …
Trump is a sociopath. All of his relationships are transactional. Which means, he’ll tell you the moon is made of green cheese if that’s what he thinks you want to hear so you’ll buy the moon.
This is clear from his book Art of the Deal.
He calls it “truthful hyperbole” which is a fancy way of saying bullshit. It’s all antisocial manipulation.
There is no point in trying to fact check Trump. Truth is not relevant. Only getting what he wants is relevant
https://www.axios.com/how-9-art-of-the-deal-quotes-explain-the-trump-presidency-1513300122-183eaed4-4c48-4527-a7ed-c57dd143865a.html
Ha Ha Ha
Obviously another commie site – Sure go ahead & delete all the posts that dont go along with your fair left bolshevik/communist agenda you decadent low lifes…!!!
What Pepe meant was that the United States is a nation whose governing institutions are functional, efficient, democratic and serve their national interests. On the contrary, braZil has returned to the status of banana republic, in fact institutions only serve a predatory, anti-national, anti-ecological, anti-popular, anti-civilization caste. Here we make a joke: they are “in favor of cancer and against penicillin”.
You’re joking, right? US government institutions function efficiently for oligarchic interests, not democratic ones. US institutions are also anti-ecological and anti-popular.
Earlier this morning I thought the “disappearing comments” problem was finally solved. Now I see it is back. Is it possible that the spam filter is being put on automatic “moderation” mode for all comments, and only allowing them to be posted permanently after they are vetted by the moderator?
I noticed a few days ago that THIS ARTICLE by Pepe disappeared and has now returned. In between , I found it at informationclearinghouse. I am glad to see it back in place where it belongs in CN. Pepe is well worth reading.
So the worship of things, power, selfishness, and violence – the religion of most of humanity – goes on and on. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The masses are trapped in their ignorance and unwitting addictions.
The way out of this nightmare is long and difficult – but time is short – quel domage. (And by the way, the masses include all levels of society. Only a few, unfortunately, escape the general delusions of humankind.)
Hillsides made of cardboard walls and corrugated tin,
Sprawling human surplus fettered to the wealth below,
Unemployed and unemployable continuing to grow,
Finance planners gaze in wait, and blame infernal sin.
Alleys made of mud compacted garbage in the rain,
Some chicken feathers and the bones, a feral cat laments.
What little cause for hope remains, what petty theft or luck presents,
Below the affluent deplore with loathing most urbane.
Those petty thieves by day descend to eke a meager life,
By night they are a faceless horde that melts into the hills.
Human ghosts that beg and steal with hunger-honed deceptive skills,
In darkness hillside alley trenches hide them from the strife.
Cosmopolitan elite are guided to the polls by rage,
No jaundiced eye can but despise the brothels in those stalls.
Nightmares they created hide above, behind those cardboard walls,
Jealous wives and angry men condemn the hillside cage.
Unspoken words they recognize, a campaign to repress.
Those glory days when Barbie’s methods stifled much dissent,
The glamorous who live below cast votes to squelch their discontent,
The human surplus also votes, deceived by faithfulness.
The neofascist paradox beguiles every stripe.
A disenfranchised polity will rally to the cause,
Strongmen promise sweeping change, the mindless greet them with applause,
The franchised class with greed imbued embrace the archetype.
Rio’s sprawling favelas inspire both illusions.
Impoverished humanity is desperate for change.
Eliminating surplus need is what the bargain will arrange,
The poor cast votes against themselves with pride in their delusions.
Bravo F.G.! Wonderful poem woven of truths that liars hate for us to see.
Thank you Pepe Escobar. I can’t help but wonder if you and Glenn Greenwald would be wise to “get out of Dodge” while the gettin’ is good. Maybe you both could share an apartment with Ed Snowden.
Right Skip. Truth tellers are at risk in the kingdom of liars. A risk that many however choose to accept. I salute their courage!
Greenwald is a target, especially being married to a black guy.
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/29/the-lessons-for-western-democracies-from-the-stunning-victory-of-brazils-jair-bolsonaro/
So, Communist Socialism didn’t work(again) and the people are fed up.
Unfortunately that’s the forgotten lesson…that extreme left breeds extreme right. But am afraid that this swinging of the pendulum is much overkill.
Didn’t work? Or wasn’t allowed to work, as usual, by the predatory capital super predators in the US? Did you read the article at all, or just drop your comment?
Did you even read the article our did you just drop a knee jerk “socialism!” comment? Socialism didn’t fail in Brazil, it was knifed in the back by the Imperial deep state. By the way, socialism *ALWAYS* fails when opposed by a hegemonic capitalist super predator like the US. Way to root for the bad guys.
“Communist Socialism”? What the hell are you talking about?
You obviously don’t know what these words you condemn even mean.
Sorry Winston but what the Workers Party (PT) had going on was not remotely close to any comunism or socialism. It was simply neoliberal economics with the party sharing the goods. Yes, Brazil was the target of the Washington elites in this election, but The Workers Party missed a genuine chance of establishing a true social-democracy during their 13 years of ruling.
Brilliant piece, admire your pen. But fascism historically isn’t pro-capitalism/conservatism. This incorrect assumption also limits the scope of your conclusions,
“historically, fascism is a radical bourgeois Final Solution about total annihilation of the working class. That makes Bolsonaro an outright fascist”
Historically both the Spanish Falanges and and German Nazional Socialistische Partei (N.A.Z.I) were socialist (anti-capitalist) movements. Both seemed organised with collectivism as societal objective, ideologically anti-capitalist (but inherrent nationalistic and pro-Christian).
Seemingly irellevant and maybe hard to grasp for many today, collectivism was a force to come out of the Drepression in most parts of the world post 1929. But post-war mostly seemed to have been needs of men to unleash chaos.
Eventually ideological party fascists were removed from actual power by military/corporate/landowner interest. Spanish falagists seem to have been dissolutioned after the war when no results emerged and landowner interest prevailed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falangism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Integralism
Todays Roman-neo-fascism-Bolsano-mafioso-style- is a different animal. It bears little assemblence whatsoever to this post-Depression colletivism idea spurt. It’s actually pro-corporatism (plutocracy, elitism) disguised as everyman “conservatism” (plastic-ideology). Probably superficially nationalism but in reality probably just representing the paid organisation of the über-rich and their legions trying to have a candidate elected on paper in a completely manipulated voting procedure on all levels. Trump is a reality star going big league whereas the South American version is military plutocracism going Full Monty.
It’s probably the same current in the planetary universe as 30ies fascism, but it seems way more Elysium/Children of Men 2.0 than The Victory of Faith to use cinematic metaphors and cut a long story short. Bolsano seems infintely much worse than the “humanity” loving, anti-capitalist fascists of the 30ies.
This is revisionist history. The Nazis were not socialists. Read Mein Kamf. Hitler clearly blames all his problems and all the problems of Germany on two groups: Communists and Jews.
The Nazis were not Socialists; they exterminated Socialists and Communists. These people were made to wear red triangles as political prisoners and numbered in the millions.You can name your dog C-A-T but it is still a dog.
Fair warning, many of my family members are Jews so I do not tolerate this kind of trolling.
I don’t much care what Rush Limbaugh’s bloviation did to your brain.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge
Absolutely, and only serious ignorance would claim the Nazis were socialists.
But we get a lot of that in today’s America. Loud-mouthed, bragging ignorance like Trumps’s. It’s almost become a political fashion statement.
Hitler tacked the word “socialist” into the party name, Nazi, to pick up some votes in the German political turmoil of Weimar.
I’ve read the major biographies, and I know my subject.
“Jair Bolsonaro is a member of the Social Liberal Party (PSL).”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jair_Bolsonaro
At this very moment, millions of trolls and idiots are saying “Bolsonaro is a socialist, a liberal, and a fascist all at the same time.”
There are obviouisly so many people in the world, who would eat shit over and over again, as long as someone puts it into a paper and writes “chocolate” on it.
Ah, hell, why do I write “would”. They do…
You are right, and perhaps the commenter should read your previous link to the meaning of fascism.
Communists, socialists, homosexuals, workers-plenty of enemies for the Nazis-National “Socialists” is like calling US Republicans “workers’ friends” or calling the Democratic Party democrats!!!
Maybe names like ‘fascism’ are not as important as the ugly realities they imperfectly point to.
Hitler and the Nazis were not Socialists. That is revisionist history.
This is the first historical account of Adolph Hitler published in the US. It is from the 1922 New York Times.
It clearly states Hitler and his jackboots are beating up the real Socialists and Communists in Bavaria and that these fascists are not real socialists. The Nazis later exterminated millions of Socialists in their concentration camps.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A0CE0D91E3EEE3ABC4951DFB7678389639EDE
Thank you for your clarification. Some people on the right figure they can score points for their side by turning Hitler and other fascists into socialists.
It is difficult to tell whether these people intentionally play stupid. Troll the “libitards.” Make people angry by rejecting objective truth itself.
Or do they really believe their own nonsense.
I have learned usually it is the former.
If all of this is a team sport, then true and false do not matter. What matters is scoring points and WINNING!!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zeMZGGQ0ERk
You may benefit from Yuri’s humor about bananas, at 1:25. Then again maybe not. Maybe you will be in line at 6:55.
Socialists were Sozis, not Nazis. The world is round, not flat, too.
Best analysis I’ve seen English about what’s happening in Brazil.
The fact is, Bolsonaro is an ad hoc fascist leader, and the coalition of forces that got him in power has no organic integration with each other and plenty of differences. And he’s totally unprepared to be on the public limelight 24/7; unintelligent, narrow minded, lacking in self-reflexivity, politically and historically ignorant, it’s going to be only a matter of time before he self-destructs, and be replaced by his general vice-president with the support of the army. And, as Pepe says, the military may not be as unified around Bolsonaro’s agenda as people may think.
Another point to bear in mind is that the economic programme by Paulo Guedes, the Chicago Boy who was with Milton Friedman’s crew in Santiago de Chile in the 70s, is going to sink the Brazilian economy a lot further than it is now, and this is going to lead to a moral and political backlash (that is, if Brazilian people have not lost completely at least a modicum of it’s political senses). Guedes is so extreme that even other economists representative of neoliberal thinking in Brazil think that he is too radical.
Fascist, neoliberal, ignorant….. This left bubble is so annoying……
No more so than the righty bubble. I’m neither, by the way, but off the wall.
Much to consider….attracts many trolls. As afraid, well armed and secretly funded anti democratic players are puppeted across the deep shift to the right…Few ask about election fraud….just a tip to who is who.
Great Pepe Escobar. Incredible analysis. I would enforce two points. We all known that this election was a fraud in the first place when President Lula was illegaly arrested and prevented to run for another term. Such movement was crucial for the CIA+brazilian comprador elites to clear the way to the crazy/ignorant captain. Secondly, of course in the core of your arguments is the mafia like behaviour of ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse MSM’ in Brazil which destroyed the Truth since 2013. (Those well known families – a tv conglomerate with headquarters in Rio de Janeiro; two major newspapers established in Sao Paulo as well as a magazine there – now bankrupted).
So once you get through all the fancy theories and big words the authors appears to be saying the new president sucks more than trump and he is unhappy with the election results.
Helps if you read his last article
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/09/future-of-western-democracy-being-played-out-in-brazil/
Democracy in the plague years of endstage neoliberal capitalism “They never knew what hit them” …. so few predictors that Trump, for example, would morph so far right, quite so fast …Throw in some bright and ambitious boys like Steve Bannon and appeal to the lowest common denominators.
Trump’s always been “awful” but, no, I don’t think his trajectory has been “predictable” or incoherent and he doesn’t care.
JC, por acaso apenas simpatiza e com o fascismo ou já és fascista desde criança?
;lkh
Dear Pepe Escobar;
Thank you so much for this clear, comprehensive illumination of what’s happening in Brazil. I’ve wondered, and had no idea. Another shocking story in the global slide to psychopathy, It’s good to know the global connections; the possible permutations. And really good that you see this as a stage of development in the ongoing struggle against out-of-control politicians and military.
I’m working on another shocking story: weather warfare, which has ignited the extreme forest fires in BC this summer–and causes floods, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis to order,all over the world, by way of ionospheric heaters. There’s good news here too: the same technology can be used to ameliorate the impact of climate change. A united appeal to the UN can bring this well-kept secret to the public. I wonder whether Brazil has suffered extreme weather anomalies.
With kind regards
and active hope,
Hildegard
Whew …. The BRICS fallout makes this so much worse than I imagined. already (and that was grim)
Thanks for your efforts Pepe … even if it’s a hard slog to incorporate on top of all the rest …
Brilliant reporting of this absurd (and dangerous) pantomime…Is there a Portuguese version to post??
It seems that those Brazilians who voted for Mr. Bolsonaro do not have a clue as to what he represents.All they had to do before casting their vote was to read a little bit of what fascism did to Brazil in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. This reminds me the old adage that says ” fool me once your fault, fool me twice my fault” I guess that human stupidity never ceases to amaze me. May be they deserve what is coming to them.
This latest Dictator, Bolsonaro has “Americagate” stamped all over his Election win? CIA Election meddling that is, to put another South American Tyrant in power with the goal of sabotaging the “BRICS” alliance & to ensure American interests & Neoliberalism, this bankrupt, race to the bottom, Economic terrorism is imposed on the Brazilian people! How the Washington neocons must be celebrating this Election win. Divide & rule by deception? The classic strategy of Satan & the Satanic! Death, Destruction & full spectrum dominance!
You are correct. It seems like a broken record being played over and over in order to deceive the Brazilian voters. The sad part is that they have been handed a lie and fell for it. I think they are doomed.
OK, so what was it really? The US sowing hate and discontent, the old wealth that has ruled Brazil since colonial times, social discontent brought on by a failure in governance by the left, or what?
Falo de cadeira: todas as três causas citadas, mais a ignorância herdada do império colonial português e o obscurantismo religioso importado dos USA
Excellent article; thanks for posting.
The real issue is that so many Brazilians have lost confidence in the Workers Party (PT). Like the one time dominant social democratic parties in Europe these rightward moving, bureaucrat controlled Identity Politics dominated have so often and so deeply betrayed their promises, sold out, abandoned their contituencies. Like Syriza in Greece, this behaviour inspires contempt. Who believes these rats anymore? Until new organizations with better leadership are built then Bolsonaro gets the nod from too many people. Why not? Give this guy a shot. The last crowd lied to us, it is thought.
There is a big difference between the population discrediting and being discredited by fraudulent means. Left governments are not perfect, to some extent for their own reasons, but also because we live in a world whose rules are dictated by big capital. Breaking them is no easy task. Comparatively, considering these limitations, seeing closely and being honest, PT governments have more positive than negative factors. Those of others do not have much to celebrate, in order to justify the violent institutional rupture that occurred. Bolsonaro, with 30 years of poor political performance can not be considered a renewal, but is part of an archaic and conservative political system that has maneuvered to take back what it has as its property.
Exactly, Bolsonaro does not represent something new. He represents reactionary forces that seek to undo any gains for the masses attained under PT governments.
You don’t know how the Brazilian media operate. Someone elsewhere said the following: “Imagine if all TV channels, radio stations, weeklies and newspapers belonged to Fox News. There! That’s how the mainstream media operate in Brazil.”
Shouldn’t the Democratic Party in the US (never actually a social-democratic party, granted) also be cited?
The above was in response to McMaster…
Yes indeed!
That’s how I feel about the Democrats. I will not vote for either party in the US.
Excellent piece, Pepe! Spot on!