Brazil: a country under constraint

For the past four years, the Bolsonaro government has been allowed everything: genocide of indigenous peoples, putting Brazil back on the hunger map, increasing structural unemployment, increasing job insecurity, destroying the country's productive capacity, reducing economic and energy sovereignty, promoting the ecocide of forests and rivers, poisoning the population through the release of hundreds of pesticides banned in almost every country in the world, promoting a policy of death that led to 700,000 victims during the COVID-19 pandemic; all without the corporate media, that is, the talking arm of the banking sector, reflecting its journalistic indignation on the front pages. Congress also endorsed and approved all kinds of proposals that maximized the profits of large national and international corporations, always against the interests of the Brazilian people. Furthermore, the judiciary failed to ensure vigilance regarding the constitutional aspects that sanction the minimum social standard for a dignified life for people. The country, famous for not being for amateurs, was, in the last term, for amateurs: vaccine dealers, militiamen, doctors who attack science, military personnel incapable of managing state structures like the SUS (Unified Health System); without the... check & balance if the structural elements of liberal democracies worked.

It would therefore be expected that after the debacle of the Bolsonaro government and in the face of the atrocities that are beginning to become public, the period of grace with Lula (which any newly elected government normally has) would be extended. A naive mistake.

In the first month of 2023, a period that is generally calm before Congress and the judiciary resumed their activities, the Lula government already had to deal with an attempted coup d'état and an accusation of genocide against indigenous peoples. The market also reacts nervously to every statement Lula makes on any economic issue, such as the Central Bank or tax reform, and the corporate media returns to its discourse of pressure on public finances and the promotion of the private sector, without cases like that of Americanas making them doubt the slightest about the type of economy they are defending. This is because this discourse, which hasn't won elections in twenty years and only finds an echo in Faria Lima and its surrounding areas, has never ceased to be defended daily by the corporate media.

Between coup plotters of various kinds (from military to institutional coups), economic sabotage, a 75% neoliberal congress, and the end of the honeymoon with the banking sector's vocal arm, the Lula government is trying to escape this early-term pressure by bringing the economic agenda to the center of political discussion. This is a necessary and urgent strategy for a people who continue to suffer from hunger and to re-establish a new balance of power in society that will allow for the dismantling of the immense privileges of Brazil's financial elites.

We see the forces and institutions emerging from the hibernation they have been in for the last four years to pressure the new government and try to prevent the implementation of the program elected in the last elections.

The Bolsonaro octopus

My apologies to those passionate (like myself) about cephalopod mollusks, but I found it irresistible to compare this admirable animal to the current strategy of Bolsonaro's supporters. 

Even though actions like those of Senator Marcos do Val or the reckless threats of Roberto Jefferson and Daniel Silveira might suggest a lack of deliberate coordination, Bolsonarism is reacting to this new political phase with a sense of preserving the head of the project, Jair Bolsonaro. Even though defeated and facing legal trouble, the far right has not yet managed to replace its leader. All pronouncements by neo-fascist leaders questioning the former militia president are met with disapproval from the Bolsonarist masses, leading their authors first to ostracism and, ultimately, to political anonymity. Joice Hassemann is just one example. 

The former president's three sons are the driving forces behind the political maneuvering and discourse. While Flávio focuses on institutional activities, acting as the negotiator in Brasília, Eduardo brings the latest argumentative tools from the international neo-fascist movement, serving as the main link between the movement and Brazilian neo-fascism, taking a more ideological approach. Carlos is responsible for fueling the extremist frenzy, serving as both the source and the reproductive agent of all fake news and reactionary approaches that might shape the political agenda.

As justice draws closer to the minds and consequently to the hearts, figures begin to emerge who, by challenging the Supreme Court and judicial decisions (in a seemingly suicidal act), appear to have a disposable position but with an important function: to delay justice and defocus the political agenda. In doing so, they attempt to buy time to reorganize the political balance of power and thwart the ongoing legal proceedings against the Bolsonaro family. These dispensable tentacles (after all, they were only elected in Bolsonaro's wake and are easily replaced by other political actors) are pressuring the system even at the risk of being removed from the social scene, to protect the minds and hearts of the project. The National Congress is full of these extremities willing to be amputated as long as their activity pressures the new government towards failure and protects the fundamental aspects of the neo-fascist project that, for the moment, still resonates with Jair.

Setting the political agenda is a crucial tool for the far right. In the absence of an alternative proposal to the predatory economy that has befallen Brazil, Bolsonarism attempts to permanently set the political agenda to prevent Brazil from having the space and time to reflect on itself and on the serious real problems plaguing the population, for which Bolsonarism bears a large responsibility. Setting the agenda, creating constant pressure on the media and preventing the new government from asserting its policies, is a vital resource for keeping the neo-fascist project alive. 

It is clear that in a broader context of analysis, leaders like Bolsonaro, Orbán, or even Trump are nothing more than expendable tentacles of neoliberal capitalist imperialism. Neofascism is a resource of capitalism whenever the heart and head of the system are in crisis.

They want a coup? Admit it.

It would be negligent to discuss the neo-fascist project in Brazil without addressing the need to confront the coup-mongering that has taken root within the public security forces and the armed forces.

January 8th brought to light the coup-plotting role historically played by the Brazilian armed forces. With thousands of government positions, the armed forces were the most important support for Bolsonarism. Whether out of conviction or convenience, military leaders saw in Bolsonaro the recovery of the social and economic project begun during the military dictatorship in 1964. The discourse of the internal enemy of the left and ideological and social repression returned in Twitter format to the discourse of military leaders who once again placed themselves at the center of politics. The appropriation of public and natural resources and the takeover of state institutions were the natural rewards for the coup-plotting behavior of the military institutions. 

Information regarding the role of the military in the attempted coup of January 8th, as well as in Bolsonaro's governance, is becoming more visible as investigations progress and the new government lifts the veil of secrecy imposed on Brazilian society. Complicity in indigenous genocide, corrupt schemes in vaccine purchases, the treatment of the poor and Black population as enemies of the state, and other governmental atrocities are already more than enough reasons for society to question the role of the armed forces and their constitutional mission. At the heart of this questioning is Article 142 of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, which, with its ambiguous wording, lends impetus to the most eclectic interpretations and is constantly used to give a constitutional veneer to coup attempts that seek to reinstate the military dictatorship in Brazil. The fight to amend this article must be considered central to the struggle against neo-fascist coup attempts.

It is also necessary to expose the coup plotters through the creation of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) that would make clear to Brazil and the world who the military coup leaders are and who in Congress defends the coup. While not an effective judicial or political solution to the neo-fascist coup, the CPI would be a good political instrument to show who is who regarding the disrespect for the popular will expressed in the vote. In an international context highly unfavorable to a military coup, this exposure would be important for the coup leaders to "lower their tone," putting them on the defensive instead of constantly attacking through their voices in Congress and outside of it.

A billionaire's doubt is a political tool.

Over the past seven years, Brazil has executed one of the largest transfers of wealth from labor to capital in human history, perhaps second only to the injections of money made by states into the global financial system during the 2008 crisis and the subsequent speculation on European public debt in the years following that crisis, which continues to this day. For so much money to be shifted from the poor, workers, and retirees to the pockets of billionaires, it was necessary to remove President Dilma and the PT (Workers' Party) from government through a clear institutional coup in 2016. This clarity became even more evident with the approval of Dilma's government accounts by the Federal Court of Accounts! Even with this approval, the corporate media, representing the interests of its owners, the billionaires, continues to criticize those who call the coup a coup and refuses to acknowledge its own role in the process. 

This obvious state of denial is not innocent. More than shamefully trying to hide a past mistake, the billionaires, with their corporate media and overwhelming majority representation in Congress, are sending an unequivocal warning: whoever refuses to acknowledge the 2016 coup as a coup, even after the TCU (Federal Court of Accounts) approved the accounts, is willing to use this coup tactic again. This maintains further pressure on the new government regarding another possible institutional coup should it dare to remove any of the wealth and privileges that the billionaires have accumulated over the last seven years. If Lula dares to deviate from neoliberal policies, we will once again have newspapers and TV channels filled with market rhetoric, preparing public opinion for yet another impeachment without a crime of responsibility.

Time must belong to the people.

This agent of social determination does not operate equally for everyone. 

Bolsonaro wants the pace of investigations and politics to slow down so he can evade judicial accountability for his actions as much as possible and regain political momentum. Meanwhile, this dictates the political agenda daily and prevents the government's economic agenda from moving forward.

Capital has an interest in delaying the defeat of neofascism, hoping that while Lula and the left are engaged in the fight against neofascism, they will not be able to impose a positive agenda for the Brazilian population. The longer it takes for economic solutions to appear for the population, the more endangered Lula's government will be.

Lula and the left want the investigations to proceed quickly in order to remove this obstacle from the political discussion, placing the problems facing the Brazilian people at the center. They also understand the urgency of the economy returning to rapid growth in order to motivate the people towards a project of building a Brazil that includes the poorest and the working class in general.

And the people are in a hurry to get out of this predicament that is killing them. They are in a great hurry to be able to buy meat again, to see their children in school and healthy. 

Lula is squeezed between the capitalist wall and history. If he manages to overcome all the challenges and obstacles that capital is placing in front of the government, Lula will once again be consecrated on the side of the people, and will rise to the status of the greatest current popular leader in the world. Lula has been the most left-leaning voice in the government. In every speech he has repeated his commitment to social justice, to the fight against inequality. We know the need for popular involvement in governance to confront a capital that is full of coup-plotting resources to defend its class. This dynamic must be reinforced daily, placing the people as Lula's real and only ally in his aim to put the poor in the budget and the rich in taxes. 

Lula: This time belongs to the left, it belongs to the people! And you know it.