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id="reader-domain" class="domain"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/13/dilma-out-brazilian-plutocracy-sets-54mn-votes-on-fire/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/13/dilma-out-brazilian-plutocracy-sets-54mn-votes-on-fire/</a></a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Dilma Out: Brazilian Plutocracy Sets 54
Million Votes on Fire</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/pepe-escobar/"
rel="nofollow">Pepe Escobar</a> - May 13, 2016<br>
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<p>Never in modern political history has it been so easy
to “abolish the people” and simply erase 54 million
votes cast in a free and fair presidential election.</p>
<p>Forget about hanging chads, as in Florida 2000. This is
a day that will live in infamy all across the Global
South – 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>
<p>After the proverbial marathon, the Brazilian Senate
voted 55-22 to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial for
<em>“crimes of responsibility”</em> – related to alleged
window dressing of the government’s budget.</p>
<p>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 <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/30/brazils-i-golpeachment-i-the-1-solution.html">termed</a>
‘golpeachment’ (a mix of coup – <em>“golpe”</em> in
Portuguese – and impeachment) as <a
href="https://www.rt.com/op-edge/340207-rousseff-brazil-impeachment-regime/">Hybrid
War hyenas</a>.</p>
<p>Sophisticated golpeachment – supported by what amounts
to an Electoral Inquisition College – has propelled
Hybrid War to whole new levels.</p>
<p>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 “<em>protect
human rights</em>” – 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 – and betrayal – of local elites, mixed
with <em>“peaceful protests”</em> and a relentless
mainstream media campaign. Call it <em>‘Civil War
Light.’</em></p>
<p>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>
<p>Welcome to regime change light – politics, in a
nutshell – 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>
<p><strong>Scoundrels galore<br>
</strong><br>
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’s recession.</p>
<p>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 – adding to what is <a target="_blank"
href="http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-business/brazilian-companies-need-15-times-more-to-pay-taxes-with-bureaucracy/">described</a>
as the “Brazilian cost” of doing business. With the
commodity slump, state funds dwindled and everything was
paralyzed – credit, investment, consumption.</p>
<p>The <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/5-Bizarre-Reasons-Brazil-Lawmakers-Want-to-Impeach-Dilma-20160418-0022.html">pretext</a>
for Rousseff’s impeachment – allegedly transferring
loans from public banks to the Treasury in order to
disguise the size of Brazil’s fiscal deficit – is flimsy
at best. Every administration in the West does it – and
that includes Clinton’s, Bush’s and Obama’s.</p>
<p><a target="_blank"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash">The
Operation Car Wash</a> investigation, dragging on for
two years now, was supposed to uncover corruption in the
Brazilian political system – 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’ Party,
and the definitive – if possible – political
assassination of Rousseff and her mentor, former
President Lula.</p>
<p>When golpeachment reached the lower house of Congress –
an appalling spectacle – Rousseff was eviscerated by
Hybrid War hyenas of the BBC variety; <em>“BBC,”</em>
in English, stands for <em>“bullet,”</em><em>“bible”</em>
and <em>“cattle,”</em> where <em>“bullet”</em> refers
to the weapons and private security industry, <em>“bible”</em>
to pastors and evangelical fanatics, and <em>“cattle”</em>
to the powerful agribusiness lobby.</p>
<p>The <em>“BBC”</em> hyenas are members of almost all
Brazilian political parties, paperboys for major
corporations, and – last but not least – 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>
<p>The Brazilian Senate is not exactly an <em>“upper”</em>
– as in more polished – house. Eighty percent of members
are white men – in a country where miscegenation rules.
A staggering 58 percent is under criminal investigation
– linked to Car Wash. Sixty percent hail from political
dynasties. And 13 percent – as alternates – 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
– who oversaw today’s impeachment vote – is the target
of no fewer than <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.brasilpost.com.br/2016/05/02/renan-impeachment-lava-jato_n_9774686.html">nine</a> separate
money laundering/corruption Car Wash lines of
investigation, plus another two criminal probes.</p>
<p><strong>Meet the three Banana Republic amigos</strong></p>
<p>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 – a dodgy,
shady operator – who has been branded a <em>“usurper”</em>
by Rousseff. And usurper this provincial Brutus
certainly is – according to his own words. On March 30
last year, he was tweeting that,<em>“Impeachment is
unthinkable, it would create an institutional crisis.
There is no judicial or political basis for it.”</em></p>
<p>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’s drowning in a
corruption swamp – 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 <a target="_blank"
href="http://brasileiros.com.br/2016/04/datafolha-manifestantes-pelo-impeachment-tambem-querem-saida-de-temer/">impeached</a> –
on the same charges leveled against Rousseff.</p>
<p>Brutus 1 (Temer) would not bask in the glow of his 15
minutes of fame without the shenanigans of Brutus 2
(Brazil’s 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’ Party did not cover his back as he was facing a
tsunami of corruption charges. Brutus 2 used all his
vast powers – he runs a campaign financing scam inside
Congress – to obstruct the Car Wash investigation. His
replacement, the interim speaker, is also under
investigation for bribery.</p>
<p>So meet Temer, Cunha, Calheiros; these three amigos are
the true stars of the Banana Republic of
Scoundrels/Crooks.</p>
<p>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, <em>“Ah,
they can go to heaven, to the Pope, or to hell.”</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, <em>“there’s no proof Cunha contaminated the
impeachment process.”</em></p>
<p>Finally, complementing the whole scam, we find
Brazilian mainstream media, with the toxic Globo media
empire – which lavishly profited from the 1964 military
coup – at the forefront.</p>
<p><strong>All hail the neoliberal restoration</strong></p>
<p>Wall Street – as well as the City of London – could not
hide its excitement with golpeachment, believing Brutus
1 Temer will be an economic upgrade. Arguably, he might
dare to tweak Brazil’s Kafkaesque tax code and do
something about the enormous hole in the pension system.
But what that mythical entity – the <em>“markets”</em>
– and myriad <em>“investors”</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 <a target="_blank"
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/brazils-democracy-to-suffer-grievous-blow-today-as-unelectable-corrupt-neoliberal-is-installed/">neoliberal</a> feast,
actually a restoration, with no popular representation
whatsoever.</p>
<div class="article__text text ">
<p>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 – all of
them condemned the coup – 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’s key role in BRICS cooperation, to the
benefit of Exceptionalistan.</p>
<p>All one needs to know is that neither Nobel Peace
Prize-winner Barack <em>“kill list”</em> Obama nor
Queen of Chaos Hillary <em>“We came, we saw, he died”</em>
Clinton condemned the ongoing regime change
light/golpeachment. That’s predictable, considering
Exceptionalistan’s<a
href="https://theintercept.com/2015/07/04/nsa-top-brazilian-political-and-financial-targets-wikileaks/">NSA</a> spied
on Petrobras and Dilma Rousseff personally – the
genesis of what would develop as the Car Wash
investigation.</p>
<p>White House spokesman Josh Earnest limited himself to
the proverbial platitudes: <em>“challenging moment”</em>;
<em>“trust in Brazilian democratic institutions”</em>;
or even <em>“mature democracy.”</em> Yet he added,
significantly, that Brazil is <em>“under scrutiny.”</em></p>
<p>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 – currently in slow motion – 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>
<p>Game over? <a
href="http://jornalggn.com.br/noticia/o-xadrez-do-presidente-interino">Not so
fast</a>. The anti-golpeachment front does have a
strategy: to imprint especially in <em>“deep Brazil,”</em>
the vast masses of the working poor, the notion of
illegality; to rebuild Rousseff’s 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>
<p>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>
<p><em>This piece first appeared at <a target="_blank"
href="https://www.rt.com/op-edge/342821-brazil-dilma-rousseff-impeachment/">RT</a>.</em></p>
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