by Quantum Bird for the Saker blog

The gossip, moronic jokes and idiotic memes that now constitute the preferred method of communication of Brazil’s native corporate media – BTW, adopted also in good extent by the alternative one – provided the necessary camouflage to cover up the opening of yet another chapter in the book of Brazil’s hybrid re/neo/colonization war. It concerns the swearing-in ceremony of Alexandre de Moraes to the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) recently held in Brasília.

The presence of Alexandre de Moraes in the STF (Superior Federal Court, the Brazilian Supreme Court) is by itself an attestation of the recrudescence of the imperial hybrid war against Brazil. This minister was appointed by Michel Temer, Dilma Roussef’s vice-president from 2014, and one of the main conspirators and protagonists in the political crisis that led to her impeachment – basically a illegal and illegitimate process, as some ministers in the STF itself have already admitted. Temer, who governed for about two years, was implicated in many of the alleged acts that justified Roussef’s deposition, not to mention a myriad of controversies related to his corruption records, yet he was still appointed a minister of the STF, a lifetime position at the top of the hierarchy of the Brazilian judiciary. In short, one could easily conclude that Moraes’ very presence on the court is illegitimate.

Inauguration of Alexandre de Moraes as president of the TSE. Dilma and Temer were separated by former presidents Lula and Sarney – PHOTO: TSE

The presidency of the TSE is, in principle, occupied by rotation among the ministers of the STF, a procedure that constitutes a merely protocolar and administrative act. Or, at least, that is how it should be. In the case of Moraes’ inauguration, we saw a ceremony comparable to the coronation of a king. The current president of the Republic and almost all the former presidents since the redemocratization were present, as well as military high rank personnel, senators, etc. Not to mention the live broadcast, with commentator and everything else. Pompous and empty speeches about the importance of democracy in Brazil were held in the place…

But, be aware, democracy in Brazil is not especially threatened.

Or rather, our democracy is no more threatened than it has always been. At least since we adopted electronic ballot boxes – duly encrypted and unauditable – and allowed the native media corporations – all close collaborators with our former military dictatorship – to operate outside the most basic regulatory mechanisms, always spreading the worst in terms of “culture and entertainment,” executing an explicit anti-national political agenda. Not to mention the such things as an autonomous Central Bank and the independent Public Ministry – read it as “free to coordinate efforts and make agreements with foreign intelligence agencies, to act against interests, and sequester the assets, of Brazilian institutions and enterprises – and the many other chimeras that make up our tortured democratic order.

The irony of the situation quickly turns to scorn when one realizes that the current super-guardian of democracy will be none other than Moraes, who learned quickly enough from (Gilmar) Mendes to become the most avid and shameless anti-democrat of recent years. This is the same Moraes who has been engaged in persecuting the PCO (Party of Worker Cause), aiming at its complete suppression from the communication space. He, who recently rehearsed – and then backtracked – blocking Telegram in Brazil. Moraes decides what is truth or lie in the Brazilian media, obviously suing the “liars”.

Alexandre de Moraes on the top.

If anything, the deliberately pompous – and let’s be honest, rather corny – act that marked the rotation of the TSE president, resembles more a celebration of a collective handshake, or as a friend would say, a collective tug of tails between rats, operated between different sectors of the Brazilian political and ruling class. And this has nothing to do with democracy. In fact, it never could, not with the actors in question.

Just to name the presidents of the Republic, there was the colonel and landowner from Maranhão. Along with the one who for eight years refused to regulate the corporate media while letting the Federal Police seize and destroy equipment from community radios. Along with the one who let Moro’s /CIA Lava-jato Operation run wild and still passed a ludicrous anti-terrorism law that made it impossible for its own supporters to defend her and grounded the arbitrary expulsion of a federal university professor scientist from Brazil – Adlène Hiqueur Affair– on suspicion of terrorism, without any right to defense, let alone evidence or proof. And the conspirator and traitor, who while in office, wasted no time in appointing a military minister of Defense and pushed down the throat of Brazilian society a labour reform that threw the mass of workers in the most abject precariousness. And what about the most recent president, it is not even necessary to comment on. And what about the Brazilian military who in every election threaten the population with a coup d’état if they vote for certain candidates?

It could never be about democracy after Victoria Nuland’s visit – who had come to talk about… “democracy”.

So, what was that pompous and grotesque pantomime about?

What would be the “guarantees” that the puppet masters who stretch the strings of the Brazilian political class have obtained to chancel Brazilian democracy with such enthusiasm? We can only wonder,

1- Consolidation of the national “juristocracy”, with the STF as the spearhead and main guarantor of the neo-colonial regime, in summary the liaison of the imperial elites. Note that in the letter-manifesto devoted to the defense of democracy, there is talk about popular sovereignty – which surmounts to a great and flexible fantasy– and it is not about national sovereignty.

2 – The irreversibility of the criminal privatizations of the past and the continuation of the liquidation of the assets – population included, of course – of the Brazilian state. Here enters the internationalization of Amazonia and the privatization of the water resources that were sold, without actually being advertised, together with the Eletrobras hydroelectric plants.

3- Maintaining Brazil as a geopolitical dwarf, submissive and subservient to the Western empire and far from an assertive role and approachment to the BRICS partners. Let alone some articulation of national interests and insertion in the new multipolar order.

These are the main axes around which Brazil’s domestic and foreign policy has been running a downward orbit in recent years. And, of course, there is the total marginalization of the population in the political and decision-making process of the country. With such an anomic, confused and headless dismayed population, and such morally and ethically bankrupt political parties/leaderships – and its deluded and naïve militancy – no coup d’état (anymore) is really necessary. The broad agreement against the people and the country, being the best cost-benefit choice for the local “comprador elites”, can be celebrated with all pomp, under the spotlight and cameras. That is what happened at the TSE inauguration ceremony.

Portuguese version available at Saker Latinoamérica: https://sakerlatam.org/a-festa-da-democracia-brasileira-no-tse/