Brazil Political Crisis

sepheronx wrote:Over 500,000 Brazilians Protest Against President Rousseff’s Government

At least 500,000 people took to the streets of Brazil on Sunday to protest against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s government.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Sputnik) — In Sao Paolo, 240,000 people blocked the Paulista Avenue shouting “Go away Dilma,” according to the data provided by the Brazilian Military Police.

Crazy.  But I need official numbers.

Hopefully things are OK and our friend Kyo is doing well.

Hannibal Barca wrote:But nobody tried to orchestrate this in USA. This pure people need to get liberated from the two party tyranny.

But nobody tried to orchestrate this in USA. This pure people need to get liberated from the two party tyranny.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in as chief of staff to his successor Dilma Rousseff on Thursday as a judge sought to block his appointment and Congress began proceedings to impeach her in a deepening political crisis.

Calls for Rousseff's impeachment have centered on allegations, unrelated to Petrobras, that she broke budget rules to boost spending as she campaigned for re-election in 2014. A 65-member impeachment committee in the lower house of Congress will now study if there are grounds to try her in the Senate.

Rousseff and Lula have both denied any wrongdoing.

Rousseff appointed her mentor, who remains one of Brazil's most influential politicians six years after leaving office, in an effort to fight impeachment and win back working-class supporters amid the worst economic recession in decades.

The corruption probe, however, has weakened Lula's sway in Congress and there are growing signs that Rousseff's main coalition partner is ready to abandon the unpopular government.

As Rousseff swore Lula into office, she strongly criticized the release on Wednesday of a taped telephone conversation between them that was made public by Sergio Moro, the crusading federal judge overseeing the Petrobras investigation.

Moro, the public face of the biggest graft probe in Brazilian history, said the tape showed they had discussed influencing prosecutors and courts to protect Lula, who leaves Moro's jurisdiction by joining the government.

"Convulsing Brazilian society with lies, with reprehensible practices violates constitutional rights and as well as the rights of citizens," said Rousseff, who called the recording illegal and anti-democratic.

The widening bribery scandal has divided Rousseff's fractious coalition and moved the PMDB party, the largest in Congress, closer to breaking with her government.

George1 wrote:Brazil’s Government Driven to Verge of Collapse by Elites, US Intervention

‘Carwashing’ investigation, alleging corruption by leading officials within Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party, traced to NSA surveillance of President Dilma Rouseff.

​Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down Friday with journalists Pepe Escobar and Priscilla Chandretti to discuss the reasons behind street protests demanding the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff on charges of corruption.

This week, Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff installed former Brazilian President and party founder Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as chief of staff, in response to the so-called carwashing investigation, in which corruption by members of the ruling Brazilian Workers’ Party is alleged, including that of Lula da Silva.

Opponents criticize President Rouseff’s decision as a blatant attempt to obstruct the investigation by immunizing Lula da Silva from prosecution. Supporters, meanwhile, contest that the investigation is a politically motivated attempt by elites and the US to overthrow the government.

What is happening on the ground?

"We have had many protests in the last few days with the protesters decrying corruption, but there is also a lot of misreporting and attempts to inflate these protests," said Chandretti. "In my opinion, the facts of the case are fabricated to create this situation, the protests are mostly by the wealthy elites, and even though the workers are not happy, they are not joining the protests."

Escobar agrees, suggesting that there is rampant corruption in Brazilian politics, but that the investigation should be looking at opposition leaders instead. "Yes, it is a corruption scandal because a corollary of the historic exploitation of Brazil is that the elites are extremely corrupt and practically the whole Brazilian Congress is corrupt and it goes across political parties."

What is the political climate in Brazil?

"Everything in Brazilian politics traces back to slavery," explained Escobar. "Remember Brazil was the last country in the Western hemisphere to abolish slavery."

Escobar believes that, due to Brazil’s long history of slavery and the subsequent exploitation of its political process and resources by foreigners, there is an ingrained mentality among elites who see workers as inferior.

"You had 50 or 60 families that controlled all the wealth, and today you have a little more, about 200 families, but it is the same mentality, it is like the mindset of plantation owners if you were in the United States in the Deep South in the 19th century," Escobar said.

While oppression has historically been of poor, mixed-race, or black people, Escobar notes that those formerly disenfranchised groups are the majority of Brazil and, under the Workers’ Party, they’ve taken back control. "What Lulu did during his eight years in power is that he reversed that situation, creating a tremendous backlash from the elites."

Is the US media and government behind efforts to overthrow the government?

"There is a direct interference from abroad by our usual suspects," said Escobar. "It started with the NSA spying on PetroBras and President Dilma herself and most of the information from this surveillance was delivered to the 'carwashing investigation.' That was the genesis of this."

Becker suggests that it may not just be the US government interfering with Brazilian politics, but a concerted effort by corporate media to frame the story in opposition to the current leadership.

"I read the New York Times," said Becker, "and all the articles are about the corruption of Dilma, the corruption of Lula, and how she made him chief of staff to stop justice."

Escobar explained that there is an effort to "reverse the pink decades," and that it extends beyond the US government and the media. "Lula had a close relationship with the Cuban government, he was against Western business exploitation which influenced all of Latin America, and the US found this unbearable, but it is Big Oil that has the grudge against Lula."

He explained that state-owned PetroBras discovered and took sole claim to the "pre-salt" oil field, the largest oil deposit discovered in the 21st century, under Lula’s leadership. "US companies like Exxon-Mobil tried to swoop in to claim the oil, but Lula repelled them and now it is a gold mine of Brazilian wealth."

However, there is a renewed effort by Western interests to pillage Brazil’s oil wealth from the pre-salt discovery. "Now you see the Brazilian senate trying to change the law to open up the oil field to foreign companies and this is something that the Workers Party has always refuted so that is the very big reason for foreign intervention."

Is the government in danger of failing?

"We are in a very dangerous situation," said Chandretti. “There were a lot of illegalities in how the carwashing investigation was conducted from the very beginning, so you have the judiciary trying to take a place within the political process, trying to influence it.”

Escobar agreed, suggesting that the timing of the entire investigation is curious. "They seized on Dilma when she took office because Dilma is not a statesperson like Lula was. Lula is a statesman, a candid negotiator, and a first class politician, whatever his faults, and whether or not the corruption allegations against him are proven, but Dilma is more like a low level manager."

Escobar, holds out hope that the Brazilian government will be able to fend off the latest flurry of foreign sabotage. "If Lula goes back to the government now, and if he runs again in 2018, he will win, that is a fact, he is the most popular president in Brazil. This means the Workers’ Party will be in power for the next 10 years which the Brazilian elites and the US see as unbearable."

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/latam/20160318/1036553182/brazil-government-driven-to-verge-of-collapse-by-US.html#ixzz43iBLROqL

Svyatoslavich wrote:There is a lot of talk about US attacking leftists governments in South America, which can be true, but what is undeniable and much more important is that these leftist regimes which have been in power for 10-15 years in most countries in the region have been a failure. Not only a high level of corruption, they also generated a lot of inflation and recession which is harming more than anyone else the poor classes. Their ideology prevent them from making any correction to their policies, so all they can do is try to find internal and external enemies to blame for their failures. And now they are starting to lose power, Argentina was the first one, Brazil will probably be next, and Maduro in Venezuela who is resisting the most even with dictatorial measures will probably end up with a civil war in his country.
I am no fan of the US, but if a country wants to resist and be sovereign, then clever, efficient and pragmatic policies have to be applied. The only one who is doing this is Putin. Leftists regimes in South America, despite their rhetoric, only play into US interests because of their botched ideologies and policies.

kvs wrote:

Svyatoslavich wrote:There is a lot of talk about US attacking leftists governments in South America, which can be true, but what is undeniable and much more important is that these leftist regimes which have been in power for 10-15 years in most countries in the region have been a failure. Not only a high level of corruption, they also generated a lot of inflation and recession which is harming more than anyone else the poor classes. Their ideology prevent them from making any correction to their policies, so all they can do is try to find internal and external enemies to blame for their failures. And now they are starting to lose power, Argentina was the first one, Brazil will probably be next, and Maduro in Venezuela who is resisting the most even with dictatorial measures will probably end up with a civil war in his country.
I am no fan of the US, but if a country wants to resist and be sovereign, then clever, efficient and pragmatic policies have to be applied. The only one who is doing this is Putin. Leftists regimes in South America, despite their rhetoric, only play into US interests because of their botched ideologies and policies.

I can hear your ideology speaking and not an accurate description of reality.   Take for example Venezuela.   In spite of the CIA-induced mess with black market disruption run
out of US vassal state Columbia, the poor masses who were swirling the toilet bowl before the arrival of Chavez are still way ahead of where they were in 1990.    That is over
70% of the population.   Chavez dared to spend oil money on "socialism" aka social programs instead of letting corrupt banana republic oligarchs run transfer pricing rackets.  
Citgo was literally siphoning Venezuela's oil revenues to the USA.   The same racket run by Khodorkovsky, the "dissident saint".  

I recall this bitching about inflation in Venezuela about 10 years ago.   Well, inflation was higher before Chavez arrived and he managed to actually get it under control.  
Unfortunately Chavez died of cancer and Maduro just does not have the leadership skills to carry on the reforms.   The word corruption is to lead suckers around by the nose.  
There is actually more corruption under right wing US backed regimes than under "socialist" failures such as that of Chavez.   It's all about how much yapping of the word
"corruption" there is.   When oligarchs ass rape their countries to benefit Uncle Scam, the word is never used.   But when leaders like Chavez provide basic welfare
(schooling, infrastructure, food) to the poor there is incessant bleating about "corruption".   Even if this corruption is perpetrated by US loyalists doing their 5th column diversion
duty.    

Russia is a perfect example of the corruption propaganda I am talking about.   The 1990s gangster's paradise under Yeltsin which was basically lawless and where the Russian
leadership was blowing Uncle Scam's schlong is put on a pedestal and the house cleaning under Putin is smeared as "corruption".   Even the fact that bribe prices skyrocketed
because of risk (of being jailed) is used as "proof" of "increased corruption".   Back in the heady days of Yeltsin's "freedom", Khodorkovsky's goons could shoot apartment owners
whose property their kingpin boss wanted to steal and the police would look the other way.   Under Putin "the corrupt tyrant" kingpin Khodorkovsky did jail time and his rackets
were shut down.

Where are these marvelous right wing, US-aligned regimes in Latin America that are stellar successes?   Chile?  Don't make me laugh.

Brazil's revolution starting to reveal its true colors

As we approach High Noon in the savage Brazilian politico-economic western, here’s what is at stake following my previous piece on RT.

For the past five days, all hell has broken loose. It started with judge Sergio Moro, the tropical Elliott Ness at the head of the two-year-old, 24-phase Car Wash corruption investigation, crudely manipulating an – illegal – phone tapping of a Lula-Dilma Rousseff conversation, which he duly leaked to corporate media and was instantly used as “proof” that Lula may be back in power as Chief of Staff because he’s “afraid” of Elliott Ness.

As a crucial instance of the total information war currently at play in Brazil – with the hegemonic Globo media empire and the major newspapers salivating for a white coup/regime change more than ever – the shaky “proof” turbocharged the Rousseff impeachment drive to a whole new level.

The conversation
The appalling politicization of the Brazilian Judiciary is now a fait accompli, with many a judge moved by opportunism and/or corporate interest/shady political agendas. That implies a “normalization” of illegal procedures such as phone tapping of defense lawyers and even the President (Edward Snowden, in a lightweight aside, commented that Rousseff is still not using cryptography in her communications).

Supreme Court ministers – at least so far – have not punished Elliott Ness for his illegal tapping of the President’s phone and for his illegal leaking of the Lula-Rousseff conversation (there’s nothing in it to implicate them in any wrongdoing, as Elliott Ness himself admitted).

The next cliffhanger was Supreme Court minister Gilmar Mendes – a notorious opposition puppet – using the illegal phone tapping to suspend Lula’s new role; that was “required” from him by two opposition parties. Lula back in government means two anathemas for the white coup/regime change crowd; political articulation – which may end up by defeating the impeachment drive against Rousseff; and fundamental help for the Rousseff administration to start at least taming the economic crisis.

It’s crucial to note that Mendes’s unilateral decision was taken only a day and a half after he had a long lunch with two opposition heavyweights, one of them Wall Street darling banker and former Soros protégé Arminio Fraga.

Mendes not only pushed the administration into a corner; he went further, handing back to Elliott Ness the competence to investigate Lula under Car Wash, and this after Moro himself had already been forced, by law, to transfer the jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, as Lula was to become a minister.

Mendes was not competent to do it – as even other Supreme Court judges stressed; he took it away from the minister-speaker of Car Wash in the Supreme Court, Teori Zavascki. So now it’s up to Zavascki to “affirm his competence” in the matter.

Essentially the phone tapping leak is crammed with serious illegalities, as a smatter of jurists has pointed out; from the tapping taking place after Moro himself determined they should be discontinued, to the leak of a Presidential communication, which could only be authorized by the Supreme Court. Which leads us to the hidden political agenda behind the leak: to expose Lula to public execration and pit him against politicians and the Judiciary.

Lula has presented a habeas corpus request to the Supreme Court, signed by some of Brazil’s top jurists, while the government is about to present its own appeal against the blocking of Lula’s nomination. The ball is with the Supreme Court – and all bets are off.

What “rule of law”?
The Brazilian Supreme Court in fact has ceased to act as a Supreme Arbiter as some of its members refuse to admit all the current trappings of a police state. This is happening while a rash of prosecutors and a gaggle of investigators at the Brazilian Federal Police – the equivalent of the FBI - now can be identified as mere pawns of the ultra-politicized Car Wash investigation.

In a nutshell: “Justice” in Brazil is now totally politicized. And Car Wash’s mandate is now revealed to clearly consist in the outright criminalization of absolutely anything related to the coalition governments led by the Workers’ Party since the beginning of the first Lula term in 2003.

Car Wash is not about the cleansing of corruption in Brazilian politics; if that really was the target, top opposition politicians would be under investigation, and many behind bars already. Moreover, the appalling corruption scheme in the development of Sao Paulo’s metro lines would not have been treated only as the working of a cartel of companies, with no politicians involved; the Sao Paulo metro racket follows the same logic of the corruption scheme discovered – by the NSA - inside Petrobras.

“Rule of law” in Brazil has now been debased to Turkey’s Sultan Erdogan levels – featuring business leaders with the “wrong” political connections arrested for months without trial, which translates as blatant manipulation of public opinion, the preferred tactic of Mani Pulite fan Moro and his team.

The road map ahead is grim. The Brazilian Constitution is being torn to shreds, submitted to a white coup logic to be enforced by all means necessary. The politicization of the Judiciary runs in parallel to the mainstream media spectacularization of everything that the process touches, criminalizing politics but only selected politicians.

Brazil’s hugely concentrated economic interests are willing to support any deal that would mean an endgame to the political/judicial war, as politico-economically the country remains totally paralyzed – and polarized. Inside the – immensely corrupt – Brazilian Congress, a special commission to deliberate over Rousseff’s impeachment has been appointed, including 36 dodgy members of Parliament who are facing myriad judicial problems; Kafka or the Dadaists would not come up with anything as absurd.

So the road map ahead now depends on how this dodgy impeachment commission will progress – or not. One of the possible scenarios is Rousseff’s ouster as early as late April, even if she has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing; the usual Empire of Chaos suspects and the local comprador elites barely contain their glee as they “inform” Bloomberg or the Wall Street Journal. But then there’s the Lula factor.

How sweet was my coup
Assuming Lula may be back in action in the next few days, extensive political articulation – which the opposition wants to kill by all means - will need 171 votes to smash the impeachment drive in the lower house; only then may the administration defuse the political crisis to seriously tackle the economic crisis.

In a cliffhanger-heavy, extremely fluid scenario, there would be only two possible negotiated solutions: a sort of legal ersatz Parliamentarism, with Rousseff still as President, and Lula as a de facto Prime Minister; and an all-out ersatz Parliamentarism, with Lula in charge of all the government’s political articulations.

A pact – forged during “secret” dinners in Brasilia - between the PSDB (the former social democrats turned neoliberal enforcers) and the PMDB party (the other major cog in the Workers’ Party ruling coalition) has been sealed to kill both options. The PMDB, incidentally, is notorious for – what else – corrupt politicians, not as a governing entity.

All eyes are now on the Supreme Court and the – wallowing in corruption – Brazilian Congress. Lula, in the eye of the hurricane itself, is in the most unenviable position. He will need to use all his political capital and all his decades as a master negotiator to find a (political compromise) way out.

The Brazilian street remains totally radicalized; the logic (?) of blind hate prevails while virtually all instances of juridical or political mediation, not to mention plain, civilized common sense, have been frozen. Brazilian democracy – one of the healthiest in the world – is now being strangled by the warped python logic of a police state.

Which brings us to the tawdry scenario that might as well play out before summer. A cowardly, very conservative Congress expels Roussef from power; the Vice-President, PMDB’s Temer, steps in, the country is “pacified” and the proverbial foreign investors, Wall Street, the Koch brothers in the US, hail the white coup; the Car Wash hysteria slowly – and magically – fades out because no way former opposition mandarins should be indicted or go to jail (that’s only for the Workers’ Party).

Kafka and the Dadaists to the rescue, again; this is exactly the “soft” regime change deal that has been clinched in Brasilia by a nasty combo; selected (corrupt) politicians bought and paid for by the Brazilian comprador elites; selected businessmen; a large part of a co-opted Judiciary; and corporate media (ruled by four families).

Call it white coup. Call it regime change. Call it the Brazilian color revolution. Without NATO. Without “humanitarian” imperialism. Without blood and zillions of US dollars lost, like in Iraq, Libya or Syria. So “clean”. So “lawful”. How come Empire of Chaos’s theoreticians never thought about this before?

“Humanitarian” imperialism is so old Hillary; at least the Masters of the Universe will have a new template to apply all over the developing world. Happy – regime change – days are here again.

And forget about reading any of this on Western corporate media.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/336440-brazils-revolution-color-escobar/