What Is Going On In Brazil — Episode 2 — Impeachment. Why?

In the first episode we talked about the basics of what is going on in Brazil now: the honest President — which supports actions against corruption — is being casted out by the corrupt politicians themselves, united.

How is it possible for such injustice to happen?

We briefly mentioned the role of the mainstream media on supporting a false perspective and pushing it into a considerable slice of the people.

By completely ignoring the bigger and serious issues, while focusing and targeting heavily on minor issues, the mainstream media pretends that the true reasons for the impeachment do not exist or are not important.

Tripping a country up

Dilma’s impeachment is a big tragedy of huge proportions. It is very important to be aware of what is really at stake.

It is not only a coup in a person. It is not only a coup in the Workers Party. It is even more than a coup in the whole left wing. It is not only a coup in the democracy. It is a coup in Brazil.

And it is more than a coup in Brazil. It is a coup in BRICS itself — the promising union between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is also a coup in all popular governments in South America.

It is the meltdown of a nation’s bright future.

Let’s understand this better.

1. Fight against corruption

Dilma’s support to the undertaking of investigations against corruption is not mere discourse or hypocrisy. It translates into actions and numbers.

The operations and prisons related to corruption are at historical heights. Several laws have been created to properly detect and punish illicit usage of public money. The Police is not blocked or censored by the government in the accomplishment of their investigative tasks.

With this positioning and a strong hold on making justice, Dilma has attracted the bad will of a giant and powerful country-wide network of illicit fortune making.

Corruption in Brazil is a real and big issue. Truly standing against it is a courageous act by itself.

Nevertheless, 100% of all citizens and politicians agree on this point. Everybody speaks “against corruption”, including those who practice it.

It is easy for me and for you to be against corruption. Dilma suffers the consequences of being President and really being against corruption. Not only in words, but also in thoughts and actions.

2. Political Reform

In 2013, we had several manifestations in Brazil, when a considerable number of people went to streets to protest for change.

Political Reform was Dilma’s answer to the clamour coming from the streets.

The meaning of the message was: with the current political system, chances for meaningful and significant transformation are very restricted.

The proposed political reform represents a series of changes on how the representatives of the people are chosen, as well as how the policies to be implemented are elaborated and decided.

The core idea is to make public policies more influenced by the public. Increase popular participation in decisions. A movement towards opening and participation. Towards transparency and collaboration.

At that time, the role of the mainstream media was either ignore or discredit the political reform as suggested by Dilma, focusing on minor aspects of it. In social networks, it has been accused as a periculous communist attack.

In September 2014, around 500 organizations in the whole country promoted a plebiscite to acknowledge people’s support for a political reform in Brazil. From a total of 7,754,436 votes, 97% declared to be favourable for a political reform. Around 7.5 million voted “yes”.

This is a very expressive achievement. But silence is one of the mainstream media weapons.

Just like effectively acting against corruption, in the same manner, seriously supporting the idea of giving more power to the people through a political reform is a solid path to attract a handful of powerful enemies.

It should be easy to understand that those who reap benefits from the current corrupt political system do not want true changes on it.

In the Brazilian Federal Constitution, article 220, 5thparagraph, it is explicitly expressed:

• privately owned communication channels in the country cannot be object of monopoly or oligopoly

To bring this single statement into reality in Brazil would imply dramatical changes in the country’s communications.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg: articles 220, 221, 222 and 223 paint a picture where the media should translate the plurality of voices that this rich country has.

Unfortunately, what we really have now here is a powerful monolithic conglomerate which tends to transform any dissonant voice into ridicule — even if this voice is from the Pope itself.

Raising the flag of bringing democracy to communications resulted in unprecedent joint of forces by the mainstream media against Dilma’s government.

Furthermore, the mainstream media depicts the democratization initiative as censorship. It is fairly the opposite: the democratization aims to give voice to the unheard.

4. Oil and Education

Each one of these can be seen as enough reason for a government overthrow:

• true action against corruption,
• political reform support,
• media democratization.

There is also another cause of concern for the plutocracy who is driving the current coup in Brazil. In one word: Education.

Ignorance is their strongest support. Awareness is their true enemy.

Dilma’s motto for her second mandate is: “Brazil, Homeland of Education”

It is well-known in Brazil that due to Workers Party governments, the country ended up removed from the Hunger Map (which is a report made by the United Nations).

After the successful accomplishment of this basic first step — feeding the estomach — a new goal was set: to feed people with knowledge and culture.

This is a very expensive enterprise.

And this is where the oil factor comes in.

You may have heard about “pre-salt”. The “pre-salt” is an area of oil deposits found in deep saline rock layer, which forms one of the various rock layers in the seabed.

Ex-President Lula considered its discovery in Brazil a God’s blessing. The source of money for the expensive enterprise of Education in a continental-sized nation.

The value of pre-salt petroleum found in Brazilian coast is estimated to be trillions of dollars.

Those interested in impeachment can easily buy lots of Brazilian Congressmen with a tiny fraction of this amount.

The intention of cheap selling this national treasure for overseas companies has been explicitly expressed. This intention is clearly stated by Brazilian politicians in e-mail communications. A few messages have been leaked in the internet and, as usual, ignored by the mainstream media.

Brazil’s strongest public company, the oil giant Petrobrás, suffers a massive campaign to burden its reputation. The goal is to transfer it to private hands for the cheapest price possible.

Again, the mainstream media plays a central role. Citizens should be defending their treasure, but they end up joining the media choir. They promote the cheap sell as if the company had been already stolen by the Workers Party.

While the fooled people is proud of “standing against corruption”, they are literally and mercilessly killing the golden goose.

It is a shame that those elected and paid by the people and for the people are making themselves the destroyers of the education and the resources of the own country.

5. BRICS

The single-handled and unchallenged financial power behind the banks is geared towards one thing: profit. This has been the sacred principle, above all others.

When the creation of BRICS bank was announced, it has been received as great news by many. It has been perceived as if we would finally begin to have some balance, by having a new significant financial power geared towards development.

BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The national Brazilian mainstream media has not given more than minimal attention to it.

Sincerely speaking, in Brazil, if you do not have other reliable sources of information, you are left in the dark. Even though you consume news, you are left uninformed.

A coup in Brazil is also a coup in BRICS — weakening this powerful coalition which has potential to be effectively a global game changer.

The Sacrifice of a Bright Future

In 2008, a global economical crisis was hitting the world, but Brazil under the Workers Party government didn’t suffer a recession.

Similarly, in 2015, despite the catastrophic tone of the media, Brazil was again going through a severe global crisis with a reduced impact and a positive perspective.

The government has not denied the existence of a crisis and the necessity of adjustments, which were done in 2015 and impacted negatively the economy.

The perspective is to overcome it and start growing again.

While the media focus exclusively in the crisis, there are very positive and concrete aspects of the current scenario: No hunger anymore. Social inclusion. Steady increase of minimum wage. World Cup. Olympics. Several new Federal Universities. Big buildings — such as San Francisco river transposition, Belo Monte dam, railroads. And a bright Educational plan.

This and much much more is what is being thrown away. We shall have an episode only to list the good things going on, which are absolutely “forgotten” by mainstream media.

It is also true that there is an economical crisis going on right now. Despite all the real issues the country still have to address, none justify an impeachment.

Instead of help to fight it, impeachment supporters take advantage of it: the worst is the situation, the better, because government’s popularity decreases.

We should join forces in favour of the best for the country’s people.

Congress should foster solutions. It blocks them, instead. (We shall see more details about it in future episodes.)

Too Good To Be True

Dilma has not committed any crime. The impeachment is being forged by many reasons, and has many coordinated actions and actors.

As we saw, the reasons include:

• true action against corruption
• support for a political reform
• end of media oligopoly
• trillions of pre-salt petroleoum
• Homeland of Education plan
• BRICS bank
• huge infra-structure investments

As a consequence, this brings the opposition of:

• real corrupts and criminals
• career politicians
• mainstream media
• overseas oil companies
• all which profits on ignorance
• NATO, IMF, World Bank
• imperialist powers

As we can see, the amount of goodness is proportional to the amount of powers and forces that joined and acted against Workers Party’s government, supporting the current fraud of Dilma’s impeachment.

We are currently hostages of a criminal interim government. We just want our legitimate government back.

There is an ongoing assault to the country. An attempt to usurp power, attending to foreign and private interests.

This is what is going on in Brazil.

Thank you for listening

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Originally published at whatisgoingoninbrazil.com on June 25, 2016.