{"id":73613,"date":"2016-05-16T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73613"},"modified":"2016-05-15T15:39:07","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T14:39:07","slug":"dilma-out-brazilian-plutocracy-sets-54-million-votes-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/dilma-out-brazilian-plutocracy-sets-54-million-votes-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Dilma Out: Brazilian Plutocracy Sets 54 Million Votes on Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pepeescobar\"<\/a>13 May 2016 – <\/em>Never in modern political history has it been so easy to \u201cabolish the people\u201d and simply erase 54 million votes cast in a free and fair presidential election.\u00a0Forget about hanging chads, as in Florida 2000. This is a day that will live in infamy all across the Global South \u2013 when what was one of its most dynamic democracies veered into a plutocratic regime, under a flimsy parliamentary\/judicial veneer, with legal and constitutional guarantees now at the mercy of lowly comprador elites.<\/p>\n

After the proverbial marathon, the Brazilian Senate voted 55-22 to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial for \u201ccrimes of responsibility\u201d<\/em> \u2013 related to alleged window dressing of the government\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

This is the culmination of a drawn-out process that started even before Rousseff won re-election in late 2014 with over 54 million votes. I have described the bunch of perpetrators of what Brazilian creativity has\u00a0termed<\/a> \u2018golpeachment\u2019 (a mix of coup \u2013 \u201cgolpe\u201d<\/em> in Portuguese \u2013 and impeachment) as Hybrid War hyenas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sophisticated golpeachment \u2013 supported by what amounts to an Electoral Inquisition College \u2013 has propelled Hybrid War to whole new levels.<\/p>\n

\"dilma<\/a><\/p>\n

Hybrid War as applied to Brazil exhibited classic elements of a color revolution. Of course there was no need for no-fly zones or humanitarian imperialism to \u201cprotect human rights<\/em>\u201d \u2013 not to mention provoking a civil war. But considering the high resistance level of the victim state, where civil society is very dynamic, Hybrid War designers in this case bet on a mix of capitulation \u2013 and betrayal \u2013 of local elites, mixed with \u201cpeaceful protests\u201d<\/em> and a relentless mainstream media campaign. Call it \u2018Civil War Light.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

That carried with it a fabulous cost-benefit ratio. Now the (immensely corrupt) Brazilian political system and the current executive\/legislative\/judiciary\/mainstream media alignment can be used by the usual suspects for their geopolitical agenda.<\/p>\n

Welcome to regime change light \u2013 politics, in a nutshell \u2013 as war by other means on the BRICS. A new software, a new operating system. Carrying a pathetic corollary; if the US is the Empire of Chaos, Brazil has now gloriously reached the status of Sub-Empire of Scoundrels.<\/p>\n

Scoundrels Galore<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rousseff may be accused of serious economic mismanagement, and of being incapable of political articulation among the shark pool that is (immensely corrupt) Brazilian politics. But she is not corrupt. She made a serious mistake in fighting inflation, allowing interest rates to rise to an unsustainable level; so demand in Brazil dramatically dropped, and recession became the norm. She is the (convenient) scapegoat for Brazil\u2019s recession.<\/p>\n

She certainly may be blamed for not having a Plan B to fight the global recession. Brazil essentially works on two pillars; commodity exports and local companies relying on the teats of the state. Infrastructure in general is dismal \u2013 adding to what is\u00a0described<\/a> as the \u201cBrazilian cost\u201d of doing business. With the commodity slump, state funds dwindled and everything was paralyzed \u2013 credit, investment, consumption.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0pretext<\/a> for Rousseff\u2019s impeachment \u2013 allegedly transferring loans from public banks to the Treasury in order to disguise the size of Brazil\u2019s fiscal deficit \u2013 is flimsy at best. Every administration in the West does it \u2013 and that includes Clinton\u2019s, Bush\u2019s and Obama\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Operation Car Wash<\/a>\u00a0investigation, dragging on for two years now, was supposed to uncover corruption in the Brazilian political system \u2013 as in the collusion of oil giant Petrobras executives, Brazilian construction companies, and political campaign financing. Car Wash has nothing to do with the golpeachment drive. Yet these have been two parallel highways converging to one destination: the criminalization of the Workers\u2019 Party, and the definitive \u2013 if possible \u2013 political assassination of Rousseff and her mentor, former President Lula.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/RT_com\/status\/730694482627317760\/photo\/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw<\/p>\n

When golpeachment reached the lower house of Congress \u2013 an appalling spectacle \u2013 Rousseff was eviscerated by Hybrid War hyenas of the BBC variety; \u201cBBC,\u201d<\/em> in English, stands for \u201cbullet,\u201d\u201cbible\u201d<\/em> and \u201ccattle,\u201d<\/em> where \u201cbullet\u201d<\/em> refers to the weapons and private security industry, \u201cbible\u201d<\/em> to pastors and evangelical fanatics, and \u201ccattle\u201d<\/em> to the powerful agribusiness lobby.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBBC\u201d<\/em> hyenas are members of almost all Brazilian political parties, paperboys for major corporations, and \u2013 last but not least \u2013 corruption stalwarts. They all benefited from millionaire political campaigning. The whole Car Wash investigation ultimately revolves around campaign financing, which in Brazil, unlike the US with its legalized lobbies, is a Tarantino-worthy Wild West.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian Senate is not exactly an \u201cupper\u201d<\/em> \u2013 as in more polished \u2013 house. Eighty percent of members are white men \u2013 in a country where miscegenation rules. A staggering 58 percent is under criminal investigation \u2013 linked to Car Wash. Sixty percent hail from political dynasties. And 13 percent \u2013 as alternates \u2013 were not elected at all. Among those favoring impeachment, 30 out of 49 are in trouble with the law. Charges include mostly money laundering, financial crimes and outright corruption. Renan Calheiros, the president of the Senate \u2013 who oversaw today\u2019s impeachment vote \u2013 is the target of no fewer than nine<\/a>\u00a0separate money laundering\/corruption Car Wash lines of investigation, plus another two criminal probes.<\/p>\n

Meet the Three Banana Republic Amigos<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rousseff is now suspended for a maximum 180 days while a Senate committee decides whether to impeach her for good. Enter President-in-Waiting Michel Temer \u2013 a dodgy, shady operator \u2013 who has been branded a \u201cusurper\u201d<\/em> by Rousseff. And usurper this provincial Brutus certainly is \u2013 according to his own words. On March 30 last year, he was tweeting that,\u201cImpeachment is unthinkable, it would create an institutional crisis. There is no judicial or political basis for it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

His administration is born with the original sin of being illegal and massively unpopular; his approval rating floats between an epic 1 percent and 2 percent. He was already fined last week for violating campaign finance limits. And, predictably, he\u2019s drowning in a corruption swamp \u2013 named in two Car Wash plea bargains and accused of being part of an illegal scheme of ethanol buying; he may become ineligible for the next eight years. Almost 60 percent of Brazilians also want him\u00a0impeached<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 on the same charges leveled against Rousseff.<\/p>\n

\"Members<\/a>

Members of Brazil\u2019s Senate react after a vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff for breaking budget laws in Brasilia, Brazil, May 12, 2016. \u00a9 Ueslei Marcelino \/ Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

Brutus 1 (Temer) would not bask in the glow of his 15 minutes of fame without the shenanigans of Brutus 2 (Brazil\u2019s number one crook, former speaker of the lower house Eduardo Cunha, facing charges of bribery and perjury, holder of illegal Swiss accounts, and now finally sidelined by the Supreme Court). It was Brutus 2 who fast-tracked impeachment as pure vengeance; the Workers\u2019 Party did not cover his back as he was facing a tsunami of corruption charges. Brutus 2 used all his vast powers \u2013 he runs a campaign financing scam inside Congress \u2013 to obstruct the Car Wash investigation. His replacement, the interim speaker, is also under investigation for bribery.<\/p>\n

So meet Temer, Cunha, Calheiros; these three amigos are the true stars of the Banana Republic of Scoundrels\/Crooks.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As if the Supreme Court would be rascal-free. Judge Gilmar Mendes, for instance, is a lowly plutocrat vassal. When an attorney for the government entered a motion to suspend impeachment, he quipped, \u201cAh, they can go to heaven, to the Pope, or to hell.\u201d<\/em> Another pompous judge received a request to sideline Cunha as early as December 2015. He only examined the request over four months later, when the whole golpeachment scam was in its decisive phase. And still he argued, \u201cthere\u2019s no proof Cunha contaminated the impeachment process.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, complementing the whole scam, we find Brazilian mainstream media, with the toxic Globo media empire \u2013 which lavishly profited from the 1964 military coup \u2013 at the forefront.<\/p>\n

All Hail the Neoliberal Restoration<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wall Street \u2013 as well as the City of London \u2013 could not hide its excitement with golpeachment, believing Brutus 1 Temer will be an economic upgrade. Arguably, he might dare to tweak Brazil\u2019s Kafkaesque tax code and do something about the enormous hole in the pension system. But what that mythical entity \u2013 the \u201cmarkets\u201d<\/em> \u2013 and myriad \u201cinvestors\u201d<\/em> are salivating about is the prospect of fabulous rates of return in a reopened-for-speculation Brazil. The Brutus 1 game will be a\u00a0neoliberal<\/a>\u00a0feast, actually a restoration, with no popular representation whatsoever.<\/p>\n

The golpeachment gang gets really incensed when they are identified as coup plotters. Still, they could not give a damn about the OAS, Mercosur, Unasur \u2013 all of them condemned the coup \u2013 not to mention the Holy Grail: the BRICS. Under Brutus 1, the Foreign Ministry, to be led by a sore loser senator, is bound to sink Brazil\u2019s key role in BRICS cooperation, to the benefit of Exceptionalistan.<\/p>\n

All one needs to know is that neither Nobel Peace Prize-winner Barack \u201ckill list\u201d<\/em> Obama nor Queen of Chaos Hillary \u201cWe came, we saw, he died\u201d<\/em> Clinton condemned the ongoing regime change light\/golpeachment. That\u2019s predictable, considering Exceptionalistan\u2019sNSA<\/a>\u00a0spied on Petrobras and Dilma Rousseff personally \u2013 the genesis of what would develop as the Car Wash investigation.<\/p>\n

White House spokesman Josh Earnest limited himself to the proverbial platitudes: \u201cchallenging moment\u201d<\/em>; \u201ctrust in Brazilian democratic institutions\u201d<\/em>; or even \u201cmature democracy.\u201d<\/em> Yet he added, significantly, that Brazil is \u201cunder scrutiny.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, the current stage of a very sophisticated Hybrid War strategy has been accomplished. But there are countless cliffhangers ahead. The Car Wash investigation \u2013 currently in slow motion \u2013 will pick up speed as a rash of dodgy plea bargains is already in store to create the conditions to criminalize for good not only Dilma Rousseff but the key piece in the chessboard: Lula.<\/p>\n

Game over? Not\u00a0so fast<\/a>. The anti-golpeachment front does have a strategy: to imprint especially in \u201cdeep Brazil,\u201d<\/em> the vast masses of the working poor, the notion of illegality; to rebuild Rousseff\u2019s image as the victim of a profound injustice; to re-energize the progressive political front; to make sure the Brutus 1 government will fail; and to create the conditions for the man who will come in from the cold to win the 2018 presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Brazilian House of Cards? Bets could be made this may even end up as Anaconda, with Lula immobilizing the Hybrid War hyenas in a cobra clutch.<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of \u201cGlobalistan<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cRed Zone Blues<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cObama does Globalistan<\/a>\u201d (2009) and \u201cEmpire of Chaos<\/a>\u201d (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is \u201c2030<\/a>\u201c, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theinternationalreporter.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 May 2016 – Never in modern political history has it been so easy to \u201cabolish the people\u201d and simply erase 54 million votes cast in a free and fair presidential election. This is a day that will live in infamy all across the Global South \u2013 when what was one of its most dynamic democracies veered into a plutocratic regime, under a flimsy parliamentary\/judicial veneer, with legal and constitutional guarantees now at the mercy of lowly comprador elites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}