The holy spirit of the coup is Brazil's hell.

By Saul Leblon, in Major Card

The holy spirit of the coup is Brazil's hell.

It foreshadows the brutal spectacle of a society exposed to the raw expression of its conflicts, under the aegis of a minimal state.

The population of Espírito Santo, especially that of the capital and metropolitan region, was dragged into a journey through time that anticipated, by twenty years, the country's austerity measures implemented by the 2016 coup. 

For days and nights, the brutal spectacle of a society subjected to the brutal expression of its conflicting interests, under the aegis of a minimal state, is foreshadowed there.

The catalyst for this event was the eclipse of one of the central pillars of state power in modern society: the monopoly on violence.

He was abducted in the state of Espírito Santo by a police strike that caused the rule of law to retreat with frightening speed.

In its place emerged a ghostly film.

Deserted streets, paralysis of the public transportation system, closed shops, and empty schools.

In this zombie-like environment, crime is the ubiquitous master of life and death in society. Its jailer, its judge, and its executioner.

The result of, let it be repeated, the speed with which the order supposedly based on shared values ​​dissolved, is comparable to that of regions subjected to the suffering of conventional wars.

More than a hundred murders – almost one per hour, about two hundred vehicle thefts per day, assaults, looting, shortages.

This total does not account for the octane of terror and insecurity experienced by the passengers of this adventure: the two million inhabitants of Greater Vitória.

It can always be argued in defense of conservatism that essential services, such as public security, are not included in the creed of miniaturizing the State that it advocates.

In practice, theory is different.

And in this respect, the accelerated pace of life in Espírito Santo is also rich in warnings for Brazil.

The barbarity that throbs within the draconian fiscal adjustments, exemplified by what the coup has prescribed for the next twenty years in the country, has revealed its undivided blindness in Espírito Santo.

Economist Marcos Lisboa, one of the most respected practitioners of neoliberal therapies and a former member of ex-minister Antônio Palocci's team, accuses striking police officers of being "blackmailers," given that their base salary—R$ 2.643—has not seen a real increase in 7 years and has not been adjusted for inflation in 4 years.

The information comes from the Association of Military Officers of Espírito Santo.

The list of demands from the Lisbon 'blackmailers' includes items that are disconcerting because of their absence from the routine of those who are responsible for the security of society.

Food allowance, for example. But also night shift pay and health insurance, in addition to ornamental perks such as bulletproof vests and vehicle maintenance.

Lisbon's angry reaction, unfortunately, is not an isolated case.

It is embraced by the constellation of so-called market economists, with whom the government of Espírito Santo has surrounded itself, receiving in return regular praise from its media stars.

Armínio Fraga, Samuel Pessoa, Mansueto Almeida, among others, even venture to name Paulo Hartung, 'the ruler good at adjustments', as a potential candidate for the presidency of the Republic for the 'market' party in 2018.

Indeed, Hartung, a member of the PMDB party and in his third term as governor, is known for his determination to fulfill what collegial neoliberalism calls 'homework'.

A diligent student, the governor scrutinized his predecessor's budget even before taking office in 2015, deeming it overestimated in the revenue column.

Leading the fiscal liposuction was a titan of the orthodox constellation: economist Ana Paula Vescovi, whose skill in wielding the scissors earned her an award after the coup of August 2016.

Sponsored by the Lisbon group, Manuseto, Armíno, etc., she was elevated to the strategic position of Secretary of the National Treasury in Brasília, carrying with her the necessary tools to replicate on a national level one of the toughest fiscal adjustment processes ever undertaken in a Brazilian state.

Vescovi is part of the order celebrated by the market for 'delivering the service' with faith, without mercy.

Squeezing the state as much as necessary to honor the debt to creditors is the hallmark of this austerity machine.

His efficiency became a celebrated 'case study' in the mouths and articles of the great jugglers who advocate cutting the country's legs off to make it move faster with less. 

In his third term, Hartung inherited a deficit of R$ 1,4 billion in 2014.

Vescovi's scissors worked diligently. 

In 2015, the PMDB governor may announce a surplus of R$ 176 million: essentially a sharp turn in spending, without any increase in revenue.

A private consulting firm – that of the orthodox – was coupled with the public machine.

Goal: 'reduce waste' in seemingly trivial areas such as Education, Health, Security, etc.

In 2016, another surplus. 

Small, it is reported, somewhat awkward, especially these days when the local police are demanding bulletproof vests. But illustrative, insofar as revenues have dwindled with the recession of the last two years and have dug the bottom of the well in an economy already battered by its peculiarities.

The Samarco disaster in Mariana (MG) paralyzed four of the company's pelletizing plants in Espírito Santo, overlapping with the effects of the drop in oil prices, whose exploration on the Espírito Santo coast has a significant weight in revenue, as is the case in Rio de Janeiro.

Both states, incidentally—and this is worth noting—are financially devastated.

But it's no coincidence that they receive different treatment in the media.

The crisis in Rio de Janeiro is demonized by the rhetoric of market economists. 

The superlative ease with which former governor Sergio Cabral amassed his personal fortune, anchored in public works, lubricates the hammer of orthodox opportunism.

The Rio de Janeiro situation reported by conservative analysts is a terminal case of 'mismanagement and wasteful spending'.

A prediction is invariably added to the diagnosis.

Brazil will follow the same path if 'Lulopopulism' is not eradicated, that is, if the anti-social and anti-national measures advocated by the coup are not implemented.

The police strike in Espírito Santo is a stumbling block in this narrative.

After all, how can an exemplary fiscal case, which propelled its leader to the helm of the National Treasury, result in a crisis equal to or worse than that of Rio de Janeiro's wasteful spending?

Like this.

I) The success of the fiscal austerity measures in Espírito Santo was achieved primarily through a drastic cut in public investments; the forecast for this year allocates only R$ 200 million to this item;

II) The savings of approximately R$ 1,6 billion obtained in 2015 corresponded 80% to cuts in this item, which explains the disconcerting list of demands from Marcos Lisboa's 'blackmailers';

III) The feat required the suspension of the readjustment of public servants' salaries – which was not foreseen in the 2016 budget, a measure celebrated as evidence of a courageous commitment to the fiscal target by the pro-cyclical rhetoric.

The one who doesn't hesitate to throw lead buoys to drowning people.

In fact, the abrupt reversal in oil revenues, made explosive by the destruction of Petrobras, the paralysis of its projects, the dismantling of shipyards and the supply chain—thanks to the worldview of the judge from Curitiba—would require preventive federal action to mitigate losses and damages in the two poles most affected by the storm, Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo.

However, those who believe that bankruptcy punishes the 'filth of undue interventions' in the formation and distribution of national wealth prefer 'purge'.

That's what Franklin Roosevelt's predecessors were saying too, during the height of the 1929 financial crisis in the US. 

As is the case in Brazil today, dismal figures dominated the economy without a legitimate force or plan emerging to control them. 

The monologue of 'inevitable purges in difficult times' was imposing its unified order on the front lines of production, finance, employment, and politics.

The perception that the reins were slipping from the hands that should be controlling them, as is happening here, provided the daily ration of skepticism that thickens the waist of major national collapses. 

The "every man for himself" mentality of each production unit provided the fuel for collective self-immolation. 

For context: we are talking about 1929 in the northern hemisphere.

The liberal Herbert Hoover, then the American president, watched everything impassively.

Or rather, pro-cyclical.

His faith in the self-regulation of markets enveloped society in a cloud of unprecedented social and productive collapse.

In the week that Roosevelt assumed the presidency, the country had proportionally the largest number of unemployed people in the world. 

Added to their respective families, this amounted to a population larger than that of England at the time.

The loss of confidence in the future acted like a demolition company; millions of anonymous sledgehammers worked day and night to dismantle what remained of the social and economic foundation.

Elected to the first of four consecutive terms in 1933, Roosevelt did not wait for what remained of the ship's hull to sink above water.

He adopted a program based on strong state intervention in the economy, the New Deal.

A robust public works plan stood out in his body of work.

But it wasn't the backbone.

Roosevelt tamed his own fear and harshly regulated the financial system, the true epicenter of the crisis.

Bank speculation using depositors' money was curbed, and the dollar was devalued to favor exports. 

Furthermore, a social security system was created to protect workers, whose mass unionization was encouraged, which earned the Democratic president accusations of being a communist. 

The 'communist' was saving capitalism from itself.

Roosevelt thus sowed the seeds of key players for the negotiating tables of prices, wages, and production targets between companies, unions, and the government, who would provide the leverage to turn discouragement into hope—an inspiring experience for a Brazil unable to see the door to the future.

Roosevelt did it – and it's good not to forget – thanks to a balance of power decided in the streets, which gave him the power to influence the nation.

Thus anchored, it gained room to maneuver to heavily tax financial profits and dividends and to induce productive investment.

With the same legitimacy, he reduced working hours to generate new shifts in factories; he renegotiated company debts and renegotiated credit, conditioning it on production and employment targets. 

The prefiguration of what it means to live in a society governed by the opposite spiral—without a state, or with a minimal state—currently traps the population of Espírito Santo on the border of social anomie.

The uprising of its armed wing transformed the panacea of ​​'adjustment' into a war of all against all.

It's not an outlier. 

It's the curve of conservative insanity.

This is the mission that was given to her, without scrutiny, to completely overturn Brazilian democracy and the economy, throwing large segments of society, broad spheres of production, and the sovereign will of 54 million voters to the ground.

It could happen again in other vulnerable links of a federation fractured by debt, deficits, declining revenues, collapsing services, and social demands exacerbated by unemployment.

The silent popular despair in other major centers does not mean that the risk in Espírito Santo has been stemmed.

The snake continues to scatter its eggs.

In one of the scenes from the film "Blindness," Fernando Meirelles' adaptation of Saramago's novel, the blind character asks his wife, whose vision persists in the solitude of a world that has lost the ability to see and manage itself:

Are there any signs of a government?

The answer is given by the harrowing camera journey through the streets of a metropolis reminiscent of the startled nights of Vitória. 

What the lens documents are ragged and starving gangs wandering aimlessly. Predictable forms of barbarity fill a void where the State has collapsed and the values ​​of human coexistence have been eclipsed. 

Market self-regulation does not fill the void, it amplifies it.

Anyone watching the film during these days of domestic upheaval will find it hard to resist drawing an analogy with a horizon of national disorder that extends as far as the shield of conservative journalism allows one to see.

Sometimes it explodes in unemployment figures; sometimes in the actions of a judge who behaves like a predatory entity; sometimes it is the ungovernable visit of tragedy; sometimes it is the untimely decisions of a parliament that behaves like the gas chamber of the national future, as if there were no tomorrow.

More unsettling, however, is the invisibility of alternatives that offer society a new vision of the economy and its development.

For a segment of the left that has already thrown in the towel, there are no redeeming forces to resist the new coup-driven normal.

Their spokespeople may not know it, but the conformism that swells the ranks at the slaughterhouse greases the teeth of the machine with which they intend to negotiate.

Today's blindness is the ideological cage erected over decades of setbacks and adaptation of democracy to the impositions of markets and their dogmas.

One question haunts the Brazilian imagination, fueled by a mixture of progressive anxiety and conservative apprehension.

Where does Lula stand at this crossroads, after swearing at Dona Marisa's coffin to continue the fight for the Brazil that inspired their lives?

Lula is not a Bolshevik.

But he never tires of repeating that it is the result of the struggles of the Brazilian people.

"Her guiding principle is 'never forget where she came from'," the assertive voice of the 'Galician' woman told her, a voice that will forever echo in her head.

Inside, he knows that there is nothing to negotiate in the economy without first restoring the freedom of suffrage and putting the majority will of the Brazilian population back on the table.

The 113 deaths in Espírito Santo are not merely a consequence of the 'blackmailers'. 

They are the tip of an iceberg made up of 12 million unemployed, R$ 50 billion in stalled public works, the handover of the pre-salt oil reserves, the destruction of national engineering, the dismantling of Petrobras, the threat to salaried workers, the penalization of poor retirees and pensioners, the scum erected in authority, and the plunder packaged as virtue.

Changing this implies reversing the balance of power. The one that allowed Roosevelt to be who he was and prevented Obama from repeating it.

The majority of the Brazilian population needs to know that today's holy spirit foreshadows Brazil's hell in the next stage of its history.

That sounds louder in Lula's hoarse voice than a blow.

Let's see.