by Pepe Escobar, in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, special for The Saker Blog
I’m up and down the Karakoram highway in Gilgit-Baltistan, juggling between the Great Game – the original, pitting imperial Britain and Russia – and the New Great Game pitting the Exceptionalists against Eurasia integration.
But then, trespassing the mighty peaks caressed by the sun, The Saker sends a thunderbolt in the form of a RT report on some lowly thugs in Brazil posing as Zionists, and suggests a comment.
A Saker wish for me is always an irrefutable command; so for a moment I’ll abstract from meditating under the sublime rarified air – my daily remix of Hiking with Nietzsche in the Karakoram – and briefly wallow in the tropical swamp.
Oh, that (political) river is dark and muddy, to quote recently deceased swamp master Tony Joe White. Especially when you look at the lowly thugs, who are actually Little Bolsonaro Thugs (LBTs) on vacation in Israel sporting Mossad and IDF shirts.
The pic went totally viral in Brazil. At first glance that might suggest yet another instance of inconsequent tourism. Context is essential. Vast sectors of the Brazilian middle class love to snap the proverbial T-shirt abroad as if they were trophies. Favorites are Harvard and Columbia tees when they visit their consumer dream Gotha, New York City. It goes without saying they don’t have the slightest clue of what is taught or what really happens at Harvard or Columbia.
Yet in this case the LBT’s Mossad and IDF tees go one step beyond. The “trophies” should be put in the context of the LBT comment that Israel is “a First World country”. That’s trademark white middle-class dog-whistle – with heavy comprador elite sub-imperialist overtones – implying nations in Latin America and Africa, in contrast, are nothing but rabble.
Politically, that already translates into incoming, already telegraphed Bolsonaro policy distancing Brazil from Mercosur and African integration and configuring the foreign policy of a banana US neo-colony full of bananas.
As for Asia, it does not even register because these people largely have no clue where “Asia” is – apart from the beef lobby that depends on crucial exports to China which Bolsonaro won’t be allowed to jeopardize.
What the LBT are aiming at is in fact a near future of total integration into the Christian-Zionist lobby; and that explains their frantic, enthusiastic welcome to the global arena by the usual Exceptionalistan suspects. Psycho killer John Bolton almost had an orgasm praising Bolsonaro. A Trump-aping transfer of the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was also announced just for Bolsonaro, facing massive Arab world boycott, to back off in undiluted Marx Brothers fashion.
The heart of the LBT embrace of Mossad/IDF points to something even more sinister; apartheid regime tactics to be employed in full force in Brazil, from drones raiding favelas to multiple variations of militarized urban environment operations already conceptualized in the past decade by the RAND corporation in Santa Monica.
Criminalizing tens of millions of Brazilians – the poor, the downtrodden, landless peasants, every single minority, the Left as a whole, teachers, independent media – is the way to go. Eventually, this would all point to vast areas of Brazil being converted into tropical Gaza-style Bantustans.
The resistance better get their act together. A lesson from urban ghetto hardcore America, back in the 90s, may serve as the starting point: “The Man control the day. We will…control the night.”
An honor that Pepe and Saker converse and share the output with the Vineyard.
One day we can hope for Podcast or Skype video.
Brazil–as bad as it appears due to get worse. For those of us who recall the horrors of the past repression, we can only relate that dread. Imagine the worse tortures and you can call that a beginning.
https://www.amazon.com/Torture-Brazil-Governments-Archiodese-Publication/dp/0292704844
A. J. Langguth, a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon, claimed that Dan Mitrione was among the U.S. advisers teaching Brazilian police how much electric shock to apply to prisoners without killing them.
From 1960 to 1967, Mitrione worked with the Brazilian police, first in Belo Horizonte then in Rio de Janeiro. He returned to the U.S. in 1967 to share his experiences and expertise on “counterguerrilla warfare” at the Agency for International Development (USAID), in Washington D.C. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under USAID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety (OPS).
Read Langguth book, Hidden Terrors. It is focused on Mitrione.
https://amazon.com/Hidden-Terrors-Operations-Forbidden-Bookshelf-ebook/dp/B07CYRGM9H/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1541824769&sr=8-8&keywords=Langguth
Brazil has had a long, bad history of military terror and repression. That is not lost because it just had a decade of Worker Party leading the nation.
It is likely the darkness will return to such a beautiful and bountiful country.
Many Brazilians were taught torture at the School of the Americas back in those days, based at Fort Bragg, and so notorious it had to be moved to Fort Benning Georgia and got a name change to hide the shame.
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) is the new name.
I second the call for a podcast. Pepe has a great voice! I very much enjoyed listening to his interviews on the Scott Horton show (on Antiwar.com).
I just read that China is doing a currency swap with Argentina, which will be a massive boost to Macri. I remember thinking why is China helping Macri but is not helping Imran Khan? After all, Pakistan is a country which is on the Silk Road… Answer: China needs Argentina’s soybean due to the trade war with Trump. China also needs resources from Brazil (Pepe mentions beef)
For the moment, Bolsonaro can have pro -US politics with pro-China economic trade. This dichotomy can exist in the short term. Long term, Brazil and Argentina will have to choose. Either break away from the US and join the prosperity of the Eurasians or follow the path of the EU which has opted for blind obedience over economic well-being.
1. China already has 6 billion currency swap before this announcement, far before soybean is in play. As long as a coutry is friendly, China can help if there is need.
2. Pakistan’s immediate balance of payments crisis is over: finance minister: https://www.dawn.com/news/1443976
“Finance Minister Asad Umar on Tuesday claimed that Pakistan’s “balance of payments crisis is over” and assured that China is committed to providing short-term relief to Pakistan as well — the modalities of which, he said, will be discussed in a new round of discussions in Beijing on Friday.” And they are in Beijin now just for that.
3. China already give Pakistan $2 billion for foreign reserve crisis this year.
4. Chinese government said it can not take care of its own people for Pakistan, it is Pakistni government’s job. I personally think Imran Khan really care, and in right direction. I hope he succeed.
5. It is important to help Pakistan ability to finid products to trade, and skill and ability to make products, so it will not get into same situation in future. Pakistan people are very sensitive (at least showing up in some of its news print) to chinese loan.
Left and right are just label, playing identify politica gets one to no where. They are both can be just as bias, and uninformed.
South America had a long ruling of governments from left. It is natural to revert to right and over correct. Hopefully one day Left, right and religion are not divide for taking care of their own people.
Quando se fala em direita, se fala em capital.
Quando se fala em esquerda, se fala em trabalho.
O poder que se estabeleceu no Estado Brasileiro, está recriando o apartheid quando decide que o trabalhador é inimigo do capital. O governo assim, já nasceu morto.
Translation-
When you speak right, you talk about capital.
When we talk about the left, we talk about work.
The power that established itself in the Brazilian state is recreating apartheid when it decides that the worker is the enemy of capital. The government like that, was born dead.
Probably you haven’t lived in Brazil for many years Pepe because your analysis is so….Weak
Bolsonaro won because Criminality is rampant in Brazil and the leftist notion of human rights protects the criminals instead of the law-abiding citizens
Bolsonaro won because Corruption is HUGE in Brazil and Bolsonaro was one of the fewest politicians who didn’t accept corruption and didn’t accept money from big corporation
Bolsonaro won because we saw many starving venezuelans fleeing the regime of Maduro and coming to Brazil desesparte for food, do you guys still believe Socialism works? If Russian Empire existed today, Russia would be much bigger and powerful, maybe a real Hegemony, but it was destroyed by the useless and failed URSS policies and ideology
Bolsonaro won because the LEFT despises Christianity and the original concept of Family, Workers Party allowed and nurtured the teaching of Gender Ideology at schools and all sort of abnormal behaviours
I may agree with you Bolsonaro, his external policies are insane, but I partially blame Russia and China, they keep supporting regimes that are against Washington even though they are horrible regimes, when the population replaces them, they will feel a certain grudge against Russia and China, they should change their strategy ASAP
OBS: Why I should be against Israel? I live in Turkey and I am shocked by how many churches they destroyed or changed to mosques… I believe Israel is a little bit of a taste of what muslims did to christians for centuries
The “Left”? I read “Left” I read Marxism. And when I read Marxism I see attacks on the people and their families; their religion; their nationalism. Society is turned upside down by such “Leftism”. Which means, of course, that “the Left” is really just another tool of the Oligarchs to shape a culture into passing more power and wealth into their hands. Marx let the financiers and industrialists go given his hands were full in attacking ordinary people and workers. The heirs of Marx, “Liberals” and “Cultural Marxists”, are now busily telling us there is no such thing as gender; no such thing as nations; motherhood is a prison…so no different from the Trotskyites of yore.
Socialism I dig. I love socialism but I have no time for fake Left v Right politics in which both are arms of the same oligarchic body. Socialism is common sense but when Pepe resurrects the Left with that big fake Lambda, well I don’t trust it one jot. He suggests revolution when in fact all modern revolutions have been fake Oligarchic wheezes; bankster-run conflicts like the major wars. I have no time for the “there are no forms, no categories” pseudo-intellectual internationalism of fake revolutionaries.
“Bolsonaro won because corruption is huge in Brazil.”
Thanks for confirming that the election was as crooked as it seemed to be. Daley used to win because corruption was huge in Chicago. Same song now in Brazil.
Surely you are not claiming that a nation where corruption is huge would somehow manage to stage an honest election?
Bolsonaro won because of the idiot evangelicals. You have to question his stabbing which main stream press opined would boost his candidacy. See photos of him carried Christ-like through the crowds.
@Christian-Zionist lobby
I’m not sure Zionists need Christians in theirs lobby?
Foi na terra prometida que brotou a pior árvore: a cruz.
Translation-
It was in the promised land that the worst tree sprouted: the cross.
FYI:
https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2018/11/01/vineyard-brazilians-praise-outcome-homeland-election
Says something about that community.
Of course, those who disagree might not have been asked their views, or might have decided to say nothing.
Oddity of RT and some other sites (or, is it my browser?)
When RT is linked, and I open the RT link, I can’t go “back” to a previous site from RT.
Katherine
Katherine
Brazilians are voting with their feet. Over the last year more and more Brazilian Portuguese is heard on the streets and on the subways of Toronto. This is a new thing for this city. And the Brazilians coming here are not the rich or the poor, they are the middle class Brazilians.
There is a very large Brazilian community on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. No one knows just how large—out of a small year-round population, there may be up to 5,000 uncounted. Consequently, no one knows how large the year-round population actually is. The schools have to install second language learning, there are now Brazilian sections of the local paper, they use a lot of local services and send a lot of stuff back to families in Brazil. They have been coming for a long time—at least fifteen years. Many if not all are evangelicals. They have started a few churches.
Here is the Boston fed breakdown of immigrant populations. There has been a vibrant Brazilian community in my neck of the MA woods for a couple decades. Hard workers, friendly.
https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/cb/PDF/Immigrants.pdf
Somerville MA and Framingham MA have the highest brazilian population after Brazil. All employees in Dunkin Donuts stores are of Brazilian origin (and they are terrific with service)
Surprise, surprise.
The article in Russia Today that you linked to no longer has a picture of the Bolsonaro sons and their pro-Israel shirts.
Now the picture is back.
What is going on?
Things easily disappear on the internet. Anything you want to document, save or store for posterity, you need to download it to your computer or print it out.
Hi, Pepe!
Thanks for yet another great article. I believe there’s a small typo here: ” Favorites are Harvard and Columbia tees when they visit their consumer dream *Gotha*, New York City.”
An M seems to be missing from Gotham.
Um abraço,
Yorkshire Tea (Duplo Expresso)