One Year From the Bridge to Misery

On August 31, 2016, the most recent coup d'état imposed on Brazil was consolidated, in less than 30 years since the reestablishment of democracy after the civil-military dictatorship. It involved parts of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, as described in the dialogue between Senator Romero Jucá and former Senator Sérgio Machado, part of the press, and the most subservient and truculent elite in the Americas: the Brazilian elite.

Under the protection of the hegemonic media, Temer's ministry of notable liberals adopted, as its first measure, the suffocation of the State in its capacity to exercise its function as an inducer of development. Constitutional Amendment 95 dismantles the public service in general, handing it over to financial capital at more modest prices, as befits a people who delight in groping at the beckoning of foreign demands.

After the Constitution and democracy were suppressed, anything goes. In favor of the financial market and under the protection of part of the press, Temer convinces the population that Social Security is in deficit and must be reformed. Among the proposals, there is none that collects from the 73 deputies and 13 senators linked to companies that owe R$ 372 million to the National Institute of Social Security (INSS). On the contrary, they have debt refinancing with discounts of up to 90%.

More than 200 parliamentarians are linked to business groups in both rural and urban areas that owe billions to the institute. The order is given, and the unspeakable one wields his overseer's whip on the backs of the poorest, on those who suffer in hospital wards, in dilapidated schools, in dismantled public defender's offices, in closed polling stations, in emptied educational and scientific programs. Under the programmed alienation of society, this has been happening since May 2016, still during the coup-installed interim period.

The program adopted by the clique that misgoverns Brazil reveals a sinister plan to return it to two dark pasts. One of them, not so distant, when a cynical liberalism disguised as "neo" imposed on Brazil the condition of pariah in the world, subjecting it to the conditions of the power centers. At the end of an eight-year period, the unemployment rate was 12% and 300 people died of hunger every day.

And to a time a little further back, before 1917, the year of the first strike in Brazil. It happened only 59 years after the end of one of the most cruel monoculture production systems, whose basis was the enslaved labor brought in shackles from Africa, and which lasted at least 350 years. There, at the beginning of the 20th century, the first seeds of the Consolidation of Labor Laws of 1943 germinated, which in turn was demanded by the creation of the Labor Court in 1939.

The federal governments of the Workers' Party (PT) are among those that have contributed most to the nation's development, under democratic conditions of access to its wealth, from potential to produced. The 20 million jobs created during the 13 years of the PT's program were achieved with the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws), which is only 76 years old and has already been reformed several times. The current reform has distorted 96 provisions of the Law, establishing the most radical and inhumane deregulation of the labor market.

And the clique is voracious and destructive. While suppressing democracy, rights, and minimum working conditions, it hands over, at a price befitting the character of those who sell out the country, its wealth and companies. Petrobras was not privatized in the 1990s because it was defended by institutions like the PT (Workers' Party). One of Temer's first measures was to remove Petrobras's status as the exclusive operator of the pre-salt reserves and open this gigantic wealth to the interests of international oil companies. Temer is handing over our state-owned companies to state-owned companies from countries that do not intend to privatize their strategic companies.

Temer surpasses another notable sellout of sovereignty, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In 1998, he gave away Vale do Rio Doce for R$ 3 billion, when it was worth almost R$ 100 billion. The coup leader, with the most cynical and shameless support of a press that is detrimental to the country, intends to sell, for R$ 20 billion, the Eletrobras System, whose estimated investment since its creation in 1953 was R$ 400 billion.

This amount doesn't even pay for one of the 230 power plants in the system, including hydroelectric, thermoelectric, and wind farms. The traitors of the nation are surrendering Brazil's self-determination in conducting its energy distribution policy, according to the interests of a sovereign and proud nation, to countries at the center of power. A criminally third-world mentality of the Brazilian elite. To extract the maximum from the nation for their own benefit.

With this strategic tool in the hands of private enterprise, regions may be left without a guaranteed energy supply because it is not in the investors' profit-making interest. All scientific and technological development, the patrimony of Brazilians, will be subjected to the private market. Tariffs will increase and the service will become precarious. Without this system, built with the sweat and blood of Brazilians, Brazil is doomed to be an eternal colony of international interests.

The press doesn't report that the liquidation of national sovereignty is to pay interest to bankers and rentiers, who live off the appreciation of securities on the stock exchange that don't produce a single screw. It's volatile capital that moves from one country to another in a matter of hours, leaving a trail of destruction and misery in countries with great social disparity and where governments are unable to control the banks.

The blatant support shown by some of the press should be denounced by the public, who should stop consuming certain media outlets. They defend the financial market, either as partners or because they are owned by some bank. They act as a sounding board for the measures taken by Temer and his cronies against workers, social security, and strategic Brazilian wealth and companies such as Petrobras, Eletrobras, and the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).

Everything under a desperate silence.