by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with Consortium News by special agreement with the author)
A troubling new era has begun in Brazil with the election on Sunday of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president, writes Pepe Escobar.
It’s darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon.
Jean Baudrillard once defined Brazil as “the chlorophyll of our planet”. And yet a land vastly associated worldwide with the soft power of creative joie de vivre has elected a fascist for president.
Brazil is a land torn apart. Former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro was elected with 55.63 percent of votes. Yet a record 31 million votes were ruled absent or null and void. No less than 46 million Brazilians voted for the Workers’ Party’s candidate, Fernando Haddad; a professor and former mayor of Sao Paulo, one of the crucial megalopolises of the Global South. The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro.
His first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age.
French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as “pathological politics on a large scale”.
His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers’ Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a “justice” system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded “training” of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes.
That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a “free market” agenda, all his sins are forgiven.
Bolsonaro: Leader of trashy jihad.
The Reign of BBBB
It’s impossible to understand the rise of Bolsonarism without the background of the extremely sophisticated Hybrid War unleashed on Brazil by the usual suspects. NSA spying – ranging from the Petrobras energy giant all the way to then President Dilma Rousseff’s mobile phone – was known since mid-2013 after Edward Snowden showed how Brazil was the most spied upon Latin American nation in the 2000’s.
The Pentagon-supplicant Superior War College in Rio has always been in favor of a gradual – but surefire – militarization of Brazilian politics aligned with U.S. national security interests. The curriculum of top U.S. military academies was uncritically adopted by the Superior War College.
The managers of Brazil’s industrial-military-technological complex largely survived the 1964-1985 dictatorship. They learned everything about psyops from the French in Algeria and the Americans in Vietnam. Over the years they evolved their conception of the enemy within; not only the proverbial “communists”, but also the Left as a whole as well as the vast masses of dispossessed Brazilians.
This led to the recent situation of generals threatening judges if they ever set Lula free. Bolsonaro’s running mate, the crude Generalito Hamilton Mourao, even threatened a military coup if the ticket did not win. Bolsonaro himself said he would never “accept” defeat.
This evolving militarization of politics perfectly meshed with the cartoonish BBBB (Bullet, Beef, Bible, Bank) Brazilian Congress.
Congress is virtually controlled by military, police and paramilitary forces; the powerful agribusiness and mining lobby, with their supreme goal of totally plundering the Amazon rainforest; evangelical factions; and banking/financial capital. Compare it with the fact that more than half of senators and one third of Congress are facing criminal investigations.
The Bolsonaro campaign used every trick in the book to flee any possibility of a TV debate, faithful to the notion that political dialogue is for suckers, especially when there’s nothing to debate.
After all, Bolsonaro’s top economic advisor, Chicago Boy Paulo Guedes – currently under investigation for securities fraud – had already promised to “cure” Brazil by bearing the usual gifts: privatize everything; destroy social spending; get rid of all labor laws as well as the minimum wage; let the beef lobby plunder the Amazon; and increase the weaponizing of all citizens to uber-NRA levels.
No wonder The Wall Street Journal normalized Bolsonaro as a “conservative populist” and the “Brazilian swamp-drainer”; this fact-free endorsement ignores that Bolsonaro is a lowly politico who has only passed two pieces of legislation in his 27 lackluster years in Congress.
WhatsApp Me to the Promised Land
Even as large misinformed masses progressively became aware of the massive Bolsonaro campaign manipulative scams on WhatsApp – a tropical post-Cambridge Analytica saga; and even as Bolsonaro pledged, on the record, that opponents would have only two options after Sunday’s elections, jail or exile, that was still not enough to arrest Brazil from inexorably slouching towards a dystopian, militarized BET (Banana Evangelical Theocracy).
In any mature democracy a bunch of businessmen – via black accounting – financing a multi-tentacle fake news campaign on WhatsApp against the Workers’ Party and Lula’s candidate Haddad would qualify as a major scandal.
WhatsApp is wildly popular in Brazil, much more than Facebook; so it had to be properly instrumentalized in this Brazilian remix of Cambridge Analytica-style Hybrid War.
The tactics were absolutely illegal because they qualified as undeclared campaign donations as well as corporate donations (forbidden by the Brazilian Supreme Court since 2015). The Brazilian Federal Police started an investigation that now is bound to head the same way of the Saudis investigating themselves on the Pulp Fiction fiasco in Istanbul.
The fake news tsunami was managed by the so-called Bolsominions. They are a hyper-loyal volunteer army, which purges anyone who dares to question the “Myth” (as the leader is referred to), while manipulating content 24/7 into memes, viral fake videos and assorted displays of “Bolso-swarm” ire.
Consider Washington’s outrage at Russians that may have interfered in U.S. elections allegedly using the same tactics the U.S. and its comprador elites used in Brazil.
Smashing the BRICS
Crushing the BRICS (Russian presidency)
On foreign policy, as far as Washington is concerned, Reichskommissar Bolsonaro may be very useful on three fronts.
The first one is geo-economic: to get the lion’s share of the vast pre-salt reserves for U.S. energy giants.
That would be the requisite follow-up to the coup de grace against Dilma Rousseff in 2013, when she approved a law orienting 75 percent of oil wealth royalties towards education and 25 percent to health care; a significant U.S.$ 122 billion over 10 years.
The other two fronts are geopolitical: blowing up the BRICS from the inside, and getting Brazil to do the dirty work in a Venezuela regime change ops, thus fulfilling the Beltway obsession on smashing the Venezuela-Cuba axis.
Using the pretext of mass immigration from Venezuela to the Brazilian stretch of the Amazon, Colombia – elevated to the status of key NATO partner, and egged on by Washington – is bound to count on Brazilian military support for regime change.
And then there’s the crucial China story.
China and Brazil are close BRICS partners. BRICS by now essentially means RC (Russia and China), much to the disgust of Moscow and Beijing, which counted on Haddad following in the footsteps of Lula, who was instrumental in enhancing BRICS geopolitical clout.
That brings us to a key point of inflexion in the rolling Hybrid War coup, when the Brazilian military became convinced that Rousseff’s cabinet was infiltrated by agents of Chinese intel.
Still, China remains Brazil’s top trade partner – ahead of the U.S., with bilateral trade reaching $75 billion last year. In parallel to being an avid consumer of Brazilian commodities, Beijing has already invested $124 billion in Brazilian companies and infrastructure projects since 2003.
Chicago Boy Guedes has recently met with Chinese diplomats. Bolsonaro is bound to receive a top Chinese delegation right at the start of his mandate. On the campaign trail, he hammered that “China is not buying in Brazil, China is buying Brazil”. Bolsonaro might attempt to pull a mini-Trump sanction overdrive on China. Yet he must be aware that the powerful agribusiness lobby has been profiting immensely from the U.S.-China trade war.
A mighty cliffhanger is guaranteed to come at the 2019 BRICS summit, which will take place in Brazil: picture tough guy Bolsonaro face to face with the real boss, Xi Jinping.
So what is the Brazilian military really up to? Answer: the Brazilian “Dependency Doctrine” – which is a true neocolonial mongrel.
On one level, the Brazilian military leadership is developmentalist, geared towards territorial integration, well-patrolled borders and fully disciplined, internal, social and economic “order.” At the same time they believe this should all be carried out under the supervision of the “indispensable nation.”
The military leaders reason that their own country is not knowledgeable enough to fight organized crime, cyber-security, bio-security, and, on the economy, to fully master a minimal state coupled with fiscal reform and austerity. For the bulk of the military elite, private foreign capital is always benign.
An inevitable consequence is to see Latin American and African nations as untermenschen; a reaction against Lula’s and Dilma’s emphasis on the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and closer energy and logistical integration with Africa.
Can’t Rule Out Military Coup
Despite this there is internal military dissent – which could even open a possible way towards the removal of Bolsonaro, a mere puppet, to the benefit of the real thing: a general.
When the Workers’ Party was in power, the Navy and the Air Force were quite pleased by strategic projects such as a nuclear submarine, a supersonic fighter jet and satellites launched by Made in Brazil rockets. Their reaction remains to be seen in the event Bolsonaro ditches these techno-breakthroughs for good.
The key question may be whether there is a direct connection between the cream of the crop of Brazilian military academies; the “dependency generals” and their psyops techniques; different evangelical factions; and the post-Cambridge Analytica tactics deployed by the Bolsonaro campaign. Would it be a nebula congregating all these cells, or is it a loose network?
Arguably the best answer is provided by war anthropologist Piero Leirner, who conducted deep research in the Brazilian Armed Forces and told me, “there’s no previous connection. Bolsonaro is a post-fact. The only possible connection is between certain campaign traits and psyops.” Leirner stresses, “Cambridge Analytica and Bannon represent the infrastructure, but the quality of information, to send contradictory signals and then an order resolution coming as a third way, this is military strategy from CIA psyop manuals.”
Brazilian Military: Keeping an eye on Bolsonaro. (Wikimedia Commons)
There are cracks though. Leirner sees the arch of disparate forces supporting Bolsonaro as a “bricolage” which sooner or later will disintegrate. What next? A sub-Pinochet General?
Why Bolsonaro is not Trump
In The Road to Somewhere; The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, David Goodhart shows that the driving force behind populism is not the fascist love of an ultra-nation. It’s anomie – that feeling of a vague existential threat posed by modernity. That applies to all forms of Right populism in the West.
Thus we have the opposition between “Somewheres” and “Anywheres”. We have “Somewheres” that want their nations’ democracy to be enjoyed only by the “home” ethnicity, with the national culture not contaminated by “foreign” influences.
And we have “Anywheres” who inhabit the roootless postmodern vortex of multiculturalism and foreign travel for business. These are a demographic minority – but a majority within political, economic, educational and professional elites.
This leads Goodhart to make a crucial distinction between populism and fascism – ideologically and psychologically.
The standard legal distinction can be found in German constitutional law. Right populism is “radical” – thus legal. Fascism is “extreme,” thus illegal.
Trump being labeled a “fascist” is false. Bolsonaro in the West has been labeled “The Tropical Trump.” The fact is Trump is a Right populist – who happens to deploy a few policies that could even be characterized as Old Left.
The record reveals Bolsonaro as a racist, misogynist, homophobic, weaponizing thug, favoring a white, patriarchal, hierarchical, hetero-normative and “homogenous” Brazil; an absurdity in a deeply unequal society still ravaged by the effects of slavery and where the majority of the population is mixed race. Besides, historically, fascism is a radical bourgeois Final Solution about total annihilation of the working class. That makes Bolsonaro an outright fascist.
Trump is even mode moderate than Bolsonaro. He does not incite supporters to literally exterminate his opponents. After all, Trump has to respect the framework of a republic with long-standing, even if flawed, democratic institutions.
That was never the case in the young Brazilian democracy – where a president may now behave as if human rights are a communist, and UN, plot. The Brazilian working classes, intellectual elites, social movements and all minorities have plenty of reasons to fear the New Order; in Bolsonaro’s own words, “they will be banned from our motherland.” The criminalization/dehumanization of any opposition means, literally, that tens of millions of Brazilians are worthless.
Talk to Nietzsche
The sophisticated Hybrid War rolling coup in Brazil that started in 2014, had a point of inflexion in 2016 and culminating in 2018 with impeaching a president; jailing another; smashing the Right and the Center-Right; and in a post-politics-on-steroids manner, opening the path to neo-fascism.
Bolsonaro though is a – mediocre – black void cipher. He does not have the political structure, the knowledge, not to mention the intelligence to have come so far, our of the blue, without a hyper-complex, state of the art, cross-border intel support system. No wonder he’s a Steve Bannon darling.
In contrast, the Left – as in Europe – once again was stuck in analog mode. No way any progressive front, especially in this case as it was constituted at the eleventh hour, could possibly combat the toxic tsunami of cultural war, identity politics and micro-targeted fake news.
They lost a major battle. At least they now know this is hardcore, all-out war. To destroy Lula – the world’s foremost political prisoner – the Brazilian elites had to destroy Brazil. Still, Nietzsche always prevails; whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The vanguard of global resistance against neo-fascism as the higher stage of neoliberalism has now moved south of the Equator. No pasarán.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is 2030. Follow him on Facebook.
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“The fake news tsunami was managed by the so-called Bolsominions. They are a hyper-loyal volunteer army, which purges anyone who dares to question the “Myth” (as the leader is referred to), while manipulating content 24/7 into memes, viral fake videos and assorted displays of “Bolso-swarm” ire.”
And who managed the Bolsominions? It was Bannon ( supposedly fired from “offcie” ), who is the hand behind this operation. The described script above, on the supposed “alfa-male” leader who will fix all the problems, along with the unending broadcasting of memes and fake news, and even that “swarm ire” is exactly the play book which was followed in the US to rise Trump to power.
I wonder why Pepe does not mention this, when he is so accurately disecting this operation….
Another coincidence with US election is the strange obsesion ( and most probably funding too…) this guy has with Israel, whom he has promised moving asap the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem….
Here in Austfailia our own Pentecostal lunatic PM, Morriscum, is also threatening to move the Embassy to Jerusalem. Ludicrously and mendaciously, he says that it will aid the mythical ‘peace process’. The increasing triumph of moronic religious extremists seems to me proof that we are rushing to their highly desired ‘End Times’. They’d actually welcome thermo-nuclear war or ecological collapse, so much do they hate this world, and imagine that another exists.
The “peace” process! Seriously!
The us embassy is build on palestinian land according to the oslo agreement! The peace process never was anything but a sham and even if it wasnt the zios burned it to ashes 70 years ago.
The peace process brokered by the us, a country that actually managed to exterminate a whole continent and annihilate them and get away with it. What a sham…
“After all, Trump has to respect the framework of a republic with long-standing, even if flawed, democratic institutions.”
And that is the reason why Trump has not yet crossed the line from far-right populism to fascism, but that do not make him less fascist than Bolsonaro. He is also racist, misoginist, and he has also a military junta ruling the US right now.
And this Bolsonaro is his creature, since a creature of the CIA, whose director, was appointed by Trump.
If you promote fascist to power at other countries, you are a fascist.
There is no point in denouncing all the fascist traits of Bolsonaro, if you do not denounce the hand who rocks the craddle and its fascist chronic inner nature.
Unfortunate bringing in Nietzsche. Are we still stuck in the ‘no passaran’ ideology? Are we still fighting ‘Franco’? The ‘Inquisition?
Of course we are, and always will be. William Faulker would recognize many familiar character traits in Bolsonaro, and he has an answer to your question: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
“where a president may now behave as if human rights are a communist, and UN, plot”
Point of Information — identity politics and mass migration are indeed being weaponised by globalists.
The “globalist” bumper sticker looks good on Bubba’s truck, but it’s not relevant.
In the US, identity politics is used to induce once marginalized people into endorsing neoliberal criminality, ranging from massive bank fraud to war crimes. It makes many ethically challenged Americans feel like they are part of the gang. Brazil’s situation is very different, and it is hard to make the case identity politics was cynically used by the PT to win approval for making war on its neighbors, or several hundred million people living on other side of the world. Of course, Brazil’s political and business cultures enforce compliance with corrupt habits on all of its members, no matter their ethnic background, but that has nothing to do with identity politics.
The migrations many fascists fear are a direct result of US stupidity. Neoliberals and fascists in the USG, the US military included, insist on waging perpetual, unprovoked and offensive wars in the Middle East, and now Venezuela and Cuba are being directly threatened. (The hybrid warriors Mr. Escobar often writes about are a big part of Tio Sam’s wrecking crew, but I am talking about “kinetic” war refugees now.) The people migrating to Europe, and the Hondurans walking to the US border, are fleeing wars — American wars. They are refugees. This is on the US voter, who can always be relied upon on to endorse war, and wars always turn large numbers of people into refugees. They should know better by now, but hey, they’re Americans.
Flopot, you might examine your own world view to see how much in common it has with that of the cynics who create the refugee crises, and use identity politics to secure the complicity of formerly marginalized people.
@Flopot,
Exactly, that’s about all that remains of them a big ugly scam show ! Human Rights ! HaHaHa Guantanamo, Total Surveillance, torture camps all over the place, tens of Millions vegetating very far off any Human Rights whatsoever inside the Beacons of Freedom and Prosperity, and the jewel of them all Israhell now regularly liquidating children in the dozens in the Gaza-strip as it seems just for the fun of it with explosive shots.
The maelstrom now accelerating into a vortex of destruction, chaos, and pure evil insanity.
In the end we will have to call in the Nukes from Russia and China on our coordinates, just to purge the place from the Orks rampaging around us.
There are ‘positive’ signs true, but the increase in insanity outpaces that a thousandfold now, here in the Western Hemisphere. It’s now becoming a kind of Dungeon Egoshooter without Exit and no Power Off and really real.
I saw a discussion on Chinese TV last evening. It included Brazilians, young, a woman and a man. They indicated that society there is vastly beyond the regression that is likely to be brought to the fore by the election.
They seem to think that the majority wanted change from the corruption of the Liberals, but they do not want strict conservatism and the scent of a military junta arising again.
This all seems logical. Brazil has a future, and the people want it. Going backward will have little support.
The two Brazilians on the show indicated that the majority in their Congress will not support policies that are regressive and oppressive.
What will happen as the new government unfolds its plans could be compromise. Or it could lead to civil strife and a fast return to military rule or dictatorship backed by the military. Brazil was once a Charnel House of fascism. It is possible that may occur again.
The death-squads will be rolling again, soon, in Brazil, Argentina, and anywhere that Bloody Gina Haspel has any say in it. The USA is the Empire of Death, and always has been.
As for the Empire of Death, in the end the old saying may apply – “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword”. Especially if the adversary if not of this world (aka Roswell).
Larchmonter445, I’m a Brazilian and I can say that our Congress has moved to the extreme right wing. They will certainly support regressive and opressive policies, but they will try to do it in underhanded fashion.
– Bolsonaro wants to move brazilian embassy in Israel to Jerusalém;
– The Monkey-boy, Guedes sad Mercosul is not inportant because its Bolivarianist (shit, he doesnt know the difference in Mercosul and Unasul)
– Bolsonaro had already traveled to Taiwan in march, awakening the wrath of Pequim;
– He wants to put the enviroment on the AgroBisness ministry guardianship, he already sad that he will eliminate part of environmental reserve.
And this is just the beginning.
Hi Bruno. I am from the Spanish speaking part of our country Latinoamérica (We do not accept the artificial division of the Patria Grande).
To practice Portuguese, I tried to tune in a good Brazilian or at least Portuguese channel, with cultural content: it was virtually impossible! There are very few programs in Brazilian television which could be: useful, engaging, interesting, technically well made by people with a superior culture.
Instead, I only could find the same sh¡t molded by the Satanic elite to keep the people helpless:
* Entertainment to the brim, with the smallest cultural formation that is possible to attain
* Zionews, which lies 24/7, so people have no idea what is REALLY going on
* Evangelical channels by CIA agents disguised as “priests”
* Marginal “cultural” channels, with huge deficits in budget and talent, whats leads to boring productions, e.g. nothing different from a person taking 1 hour against a static unchanged background, not even changing the focus plane!
To clarify how it could be, the best examples of solid cultural productions are documentaries like some in Discovery (before it became: RedNeckvery channel), the entrepreneurship series of M6 Capital France, the ZDF and Deutsche Welle ones (when they’re not ziotainted), the Japanese NHK ones, the cultural ones from China, Tvoi Stroy from Russia, etc.
I can only remember 2 good cultural series from Brazil: 3 or 4 guys with experiments in physics, and a fine lady showing the marine life of Brazil.
So socially, the cultural level of Brazil is rather low, and that is one of the reasons that people could be easily swayed by the zio-lies.
“* Entertainment to the brim, with the smallest cultural formation that is possible to attain
* Zionews, which lies 24/7, so people have no idea what is REALLY going on
* Evangelical channels by CIA agents disguised as “priests”
* Marginal “cultural” channels, with huge deficits in budget and talent, whats leads to boring productions, e.g. nothing different from a person taking 1 hour against a static unchanged background, not even changing the focus plane!”
I come from the Spanish speaking world as well but I live in a german speaking country. Except for the third point you mentioned , all the other ones could also apply for the country where I live and I think you can apply them to the whole Western world. The zombification of our societies goes as planned.Sad, really sad.
salu2
Is Brazil’s Bolsonaro a Pinochet or a populist? – George Galloway
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/442633-brazil-bolsonaro-pinochet-election/
If you notice, as illustrated by the good photo above, his smile is like grimace, a sign very saying about people always.
That horrendous fake smile explicitly shows all the darkness inside him….
Pepe writes “The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro.”
So what? With a population of 209 M, that still means that a considerable majority DID vote for this guy…
“Ordem e Progresso” is the slogan on the Brazilian flag, penned by a Brazilian, who was a member of the “Positivist church”. What exactly is that? What is “Pentecostalism”?
Perhaps a sitrep on the different churches/sects would help the non-Brazilians understand this Bolsonaro phenomenon better… ?
– The population able to vote in Brazil is about 147M, so 71M choose to vote in Bozo-naro or Haddad;
-Augusto Comte, the slogan flag boy, was a french philosofer, founder of positive church, not influncial in Basil nowadays, and they weren,t pentecostalist, I think;
-About the Pentecostalians, really, it’s difficult to say what they are, let me make a try:
the thing that unites than are the ‘Prosperity Theology’ , WIKIPEDIA says: it is a religious belief among some Christians, who hold that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one’s material wealth.[1] Prosperity theology views the Bible as a contract between God and humans: if humans have faith in God, he will deliver security and prosperity.
– Then are the big churchs: Assembleia de Deus, Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus, Igreja Internacional da Graça de Deus, Igreja Universal (in english: Assembly of God, World Church of the Power of God, International Church of the Grace of God, Universal Church) all those have links with the media television, the last one (Universal), is the most dangerous, they have an own channel, called Tv Record, and they are giving total support to Bozo;
-there are the little one too, for all kind of people, even a surf church! (search for Igreja bola de neve / snowball church)
-Bible distortion are their game, to fit in what they say;
-most are Zionist, and a problem is that they don’t pay taxes, so trere are churchs in every fucking street nowadays.
Bruno, thank you very much for your explanation. Forgive me, I don’t understand what you mean by “population in Brazil is about 147M, so 71M chose to vote”..does this mean there was less than 50% voter turnout? I have searched for the exact numbers from the election but couldn”t find them (I could only find the % for each candidate )
I don’t want nitpick over numbers. I am just under the impression that this new president (no matter how unpalatable to many) does have a democratic mandate…
Serbian girl, we have 147 million voters in Brazil. 57 million voted for Bolsonaro, 46 million voted for Haddad and the rest abstained. The population is close to 210 million inhabitants.
Bolsonaro could only be elected because the former president Lula was arrested in a totally absurd trial for corruption. If Lula could run for president, he would have surely won.
Thanks D.C. So Bolsonaro was elected with 57 M votes but between those who abstained, voted blank, or voted Haddad a total of 90 M voters did NOT vote for him.. puts things into perspective with regard to the headlines everwhere which claim a “landslide” victory and that he won 55% of the popular vote…
No it doesn’t. All of you try to twist things to your advantage, and no I do not promote Bolso, I do not care one bit who won.
What I am trying to say is this: You have the numbers in front of you:
57mln people voted for Bolso,
46mln for Hadad,
The rest ignored the vote. It stops right here: (147 – (57+46)=44mln decided to step out and not be counted.
You can not say, but, but, but, because:
Hadad lost Pure and Simple, as he got 44.66% of the votes (get it?).
Bolso won, as got 55.34% of the votes.
The key word here is “of the votes”
The ones who did not vote “Do not count”, they do not exist.
So, next time you decide to skip the vote in your country, you do it at your own peril of accepting whatever happens. I for one believe in voting for the lesser evil, that way I have my say, simply because there are no other choices.
@Anonius,
First, let me correct a small mistake: Haddad had 47M votes, not 46M as I previously reported. That, of course, makes no difference, but I feel the need to correct it.
Now, for your comments: I’m not trying to twist anything, I’m just reporting the objective truth. Yes, Bolsonaro won, yes he has some solid popular support. I’m just trying to show that he doesn’t have any kind of hegemonic control in Brazil, that most people actually didn’t vote for him, that the country remains divided, that Lula is still the most relevant popular leader (even in jail) and, as a consequence of all that, that Bolsonaro will face some major opposition. That’s all I’m trying to show.
Besides, I find totally absurd when you say that the ones who didn’t vote don’t exist. So 44M Brazilians don’t exist if they decided that neither candidate represented them? Should we reduce citizenship to a mere vote?
DC,
It’s not absurd, it’s a fact. By not voting they gave the advantage to Bolso. This advantage most likely translates to his advantage in Parliament as well. You can never say that people who chose to ignore the elections are relevant, because they are not. One way or the other it’s a number game, which translates to reality, which is “he won”.
Like I said elsewhere, I would have liked Lula or Dilma to win, but this does not matter since I am not Brazilian.
Bruno thank you for mentioning prosperity theology and its relations to politics within Brazil. In my opinion, prosperity theology is a virus that has infected Christianity. Especially for those living in the global south, which have the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the world. Many of these megachurches are sprawled over several city blocks and are found in some of the wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods.
Here in the United States some of these churches have become virtual shopping malls with restaurants, bookstores, hotels, banks, radio stations, and schools. Some of the pastors have their own personal jets so they can fly around the world to preach the good news. Although, some of them fail to mention that Jesus had to walk on his own two feet, borrow a donkey, and a boat to preach the same good news.
Some of them, not all, live in mansions in gated communities, drive their Rolls – Royce to church, and have amassed luxury car collections that would make some of the worlds wealthiest green with envy. They ask if God can bless the sinful musicians, movie stars, and athletes then why would he not bless the man and woman of God?
When on the pulpit they preach God said to tithe your last dime, so you too can be rich. “The more you give the bigger the blessings.” You don’t have food in your pantry to feed your family. “Have faith God will provide”. In some of these poor neighborhoods, the only benefit is to the real estate market, because every corner has a storefront church.
The meager wealth of the poor is extracted from these communities and church members and the communities become poorer. When the riches don’t come fast enough the parishioners begin to believe that they are not loved by God, and they lose their faith. In prosperity theology blessed are the poor is not preached but blessed are the rich is shouted from the mountaintop.
Oh, by the way, you know the church is blessed of God when during the political season several members of Congress, the mayor, and others running for political office are speakers at the pulpit. Off course, they are not there to tell you whom to vote for, but they wanted to tell you that they were once poor, and now that they found Jesus they’re not! May God forgive me and have mercy on my soul if this is not the truth!
It is the Material Prosperity Gospel which is a satanic deception. There is a spiritual prosperity gospel in the Bible for the believers. But the emphasis is on spiritual prosperity and not necessarily “material” prosperity. The permanent reward for the true Christians is stored up for them in Heaven. It is not in this world which is passing away. The material resources of this world is used by the Christians to sustain themselves in this world so that they may be able to serve God and glorify Him.
Hopefully the 3000 km distance between Brazil s greatest urban areas (southeast) and the Venezuelan border makes a sufficient logistics nightmare fort them to plan something of the kind… And besides the border is exactly within the Amazon jungle…
But this does not prevent the nazi bolsonarians to apply for and obtain newer much needed weapons (and expertise) at the Pentagon just like they DID with Colombia.
Since the country is a medium income and a socially very complex society
they might eventually fail to get all that to smash the left and the poor as planned.
Isn’t it too early to go all ‘It’s darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon.’?He was elected less than a week ago after all, while I myself have grave reservations about this man, isn’t there a need to wait and see what he does, before condemning him?
While I’m on the BRICS side, as far as sides go, millions of Brazilians did vote for this man(it is ultimately up to the Brazilian people to decide the fate of Brazil – incidentally, I’m not in or from Brazil), and while the article hints at irregularities in the election, it stops short of openly calling it rigged, plus, I haven’t read anything else anywhere suggesting the elections were unclean(weren’t international/independent observers present to monitor the election?), other than of course the obvious case of not allowing Lula to run, which does cast the election in a negative light.
The Amazon Rainforest is known as the lungs of the planet. It produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen and holds more than one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. More than 60% of the forest is in Brazil. The rest of the Amazon stretches into Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Columbia, and French Guiana. Within each of these countries are based companies of large multinational agribusiness, lumber, oil, and mining interest that are destroying the rainforest within their borders at an alarming rate. The globalists have finally discovered El Dorado, but at what costs?
What will happen to the planet when the rainforest disappears? What about the political relations in the region between these member states? Where will the people who are displaced by the rainforest destruction migrate? Surely, not further south into the ocean! Unlike the African slaves from the American south who followed the northern star to escape slavery. The migrants from America’s global South will have smartphones! And it doesn’t matter how many walls are built, or how many soldiers will be sent to the border. The United States won’t be able to keep them out! Because a hungry belly knows no fear.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amazon-deforestation-takes-a-turn-for-the-worse/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-do-environmentalists-keep-getting-killed-around-world-180949446/
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/10/18/environmental-activists-become-endangered-species-in-brazil.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/mexican-farmers-agricultural-subsidies_n_2457845.html
Anon, I am totally with you. I believe, the rain forest belt around the globe should be outside of any development, no matter what resources lie there, especially not tree cutting. Rain forest is the lungs of this planet, not just for humans. Tough. Aboriginal people can live there as they lived for thousands of years (no modern weapons allowed), or move to the cities.
Bolsonaro’s election yet again illustrates the fatal flaws of so-called ‘democracy’ under capitalism.
First of all, it is a sham. All real power belongs to the capitalist parasites who own society, the economy, the brainwashing apparatus of the mass media, and, through their ‘contributions’, the political system. And if ever a regime comes to power that prefers governing for the many, not the few, the USA and its stooges will always work to overthrow that government, through subversion, economic warfare, sanctions or outright military aggression, by Thanatopia itself, or trained military fascist thugs, as has occurred in Latin America on scores of occasions, accompanied by terror, torture and butchery to punish the serfs for their impertinence.
Then there is the electorate. Fifty percent, by definition, are of below median intelligence, many far below. And any measure of knowledge, humanity, morality etc would find a similar distribution. And all have the same vote as their intellectual and moral betters.
Elections themselves are increasingly sordid cavalcades of bribery, lying (growing ever more impudent)character assassination and hate and fear-mongering. Once elected the regimes generally abrogate all their promises to the gullible proles, and rule for the rich alone, as the Gilens and Page study showed was the case in the USA. And with new techniques of manipulation, as the Cambridge Analytica case shows, the plebs can be more effectively manipulated to vote against their interests and for those of the beloved parasitic rich. Add the horror of perverted religion, like the Pentecostal scourge, or the religious fanatics of Shas and other Talmudist parties in Israel, or Islamist nutcases like those currently agitating in Pakistan, and you are certain to get bad results.
Here in Austfailia we had one decent Government, that of Whitlam, from 1972-5. It dared to deviate from total subservience to Thanatopolis DC, so was overthrown by the CIA using a long-term ‘asset’, John Kerr, plus a crazed, but early in his Evil career, hate propaganda campaign from the Murdoch media cancer (and the rest of the entirely Rightwing media). Every regime since has been a step downwards. First we had proto-Blairism and pseudo-Thatcherism under Hawke and Keating, following a brief interregnum under traditional Tory, Fraser (who became a far better man in his post-political life). Then real Evil arrived with the hard Right Howard, who nakedly appealed to racism and class hatred for his success, plus enjoying the luck of 9/11. He enthusiastically joined the aggression and genocide in Iraq, of course. Two ‘Labor’ PMs followed, one, Rudd, knocked off by stooges in his own party after he annoyed Thanatopolis DC and Israel, a very grave error. Then the incompetent female Gillard, a Clinton groupie and admirer of the Great Confidence-Man, Obama, and, since 2013, the worst abomination yet, a hard Right, neo-liberal, slavishly pro-Israel, climate destabilisation denying, regime run by a succession of malignant buffoons, now a Pentecostal God-botherer, Morrison, just like in Brazil. At the same time the local intelligence, media and military elites have gone barking mad in hate and fear-mongering against China, apparently intent on destroying the country in order to please their Masters in Thanatopolis DC and Tel Aviv. ‘Democracy’?
“Two ‘Labor’ PMs followed, one, Rudd, knocked off by stooges in his own party after he annoyed Thanatopolis DC and Israel, a very grave error” I am not quite familiar with Australian politics. What did he do exactly to annoy DC and Israel ?
By the way, from what I heard, I think you forgot the worst of all, Abbott.
Rudd changed our voting at the UN to be less slavishly loyal to Israel. And, on advice from our ‘intelligence’ agencies (probably a set-up)he expelled a MOSSAD agent from the Israeli Embassy, after the repeated theft of Austfailian passport identities, used in one of Israel’s ritual murders of Palestinian leaders. The Israelis had given us ‘guarantees’ that this practise would cease, after previous episodes, but their ‘word’ is worth nothing, of course. Soon after that, the leading Sabbat Goy stooges in Labor, led by the current Opposition Leader, Shorten (a pet of Zionazi billionaire grandee, Pratt)engineered Rudd’s removal. The next day, Zionazi Murdoch’s local flag-shit, the ‘Australian’, was crowing over it all.
Thanks fo the explanation.
Cheers
Hello Mulga,
You haven’t placed a comment for so long I thought you had gone off seeking Polonius. (Hamlet Act IV )
With Rudd’s demise you have forgotten one minor detail, the Sydney born Jew who became a member of Mossad, and was involved in the assassination by the Mossad hit-team, and was so disillusioned that he dobbed the team in to the local police.
Naturally he was apprehended by the Israelis and placed in a ‘suicide-proof’ cell where he was eventually ‘suicided’.
For me, this raised the possibility of the Mossad in this case using real passports rather than the normal stolen passports used by the likes of Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza in the MH370 hi-jacking.
And of course, during their Chrissie break, the soon to be Prime Minister Julia Gillard, accompanied by the former treasurer, Peter Costello, visited Israel and both kissed the wall. I don’t know if Kevin Rudd ever displayed that loyalty to his masters.
Of course, Malcolm Turnbull, who you despise so much ever since he defended Peter Wright of ‘Spycatcher’ fame, and had a Jewish mother, has punished the Liberal Party for sacking him, by ensuring that Peter Dutton never got the top job (Prime Minister) by giving the nod to Scott Morrison of the Pentecostals, and another Jew Josh Friedenberg the 2IC post within the party. And of course to replace Turnbull’s seat with the former Australian Ambassador to Israel, David Sharma, except that the ‘Independent’ won that lottery.
Yes, all very relevant, although I doubt that Turnbull, the archetypal ‘Self-made man who worships his Creator’, waved the way for Morriscum through. I think that the Saturday Paper showed pretty clearly how Morriscum egged Dutton, the human potato, into his challenge, so as to pave the way for his, Morriscum’s, ascendancy. No doubt it was ‘God’s Will’. I despised Turnbull since my Grammar friends on the train informed me that he held the traditional twin leadership roles-chief prefect, and school bully-in-chief.
Of course what you dont know (removed ad hominem .. mod) is freedom forces did several things in the 2010 AU election and in the months following with Tony the Abbott that brought down Gillard. Damaged her heavily – engineered that hung Parliament and cost her the 2013 after the carbon caper. Islamic Council fired the torpedo after being supplied the intel in 2010, and other info hit its mark. Since PA 96 very powerful forces like termites are hard at work and very soon the entire structure will come tumbling down. As happened to Hilly and seen in Brazil.
‘Freedom forces’? Do you mean Kevin Rudd leaking against his own party during the 2010 election campaign?
Was nothing to do with Kev. A superior intellect from VIC brought down the witch single handedly. Of course Tony then didnt know how to handle things properly and he had to go, then your mate Malcolm. Been a sad story all thanks to Bennelong. I wonder how long Scotty will last ? Will they make the mistake of re-installing the most unlikable and bring back Tony ? But who would want Billy ? The cupboard is bare. Too many clowns. Looks like Pauline is the only one left with any sparkle (not that she’s ideal either).
Glad to see you back Mulga and listen to these pearls of wisdom – just got back from Pittsburgh did you amigo ?
The Pittsburgh killings are an atrocity and tragedy. The cold-blooded murder of anyone is wicked. Even if it had been eleven members of Nutty-yahoo’s Cabinet of racists and goy-haters, I would still see it as a tragedy, if only because they would thus escape justice, which, if they ever face it, will see them spend the rest of their days in gaol. A far preferable outcome.
Of course it depends on whether there really was a massacre in Pittsburgh.
Communists and socialists have certainly moved up in the world, if you guys are calling people, plebs, now.
Instead of blaming democracy and the plebs, I think it’d be better if the self-appointed representatives of the working class spent a little time engaged in self-criticism and reflection.Especially when it comes to this situation in Brazil, because there are a lot of signs this loss was a result of internal power struggles and back-stabbings of the Left, which was exploited by their opponents.
Hmm, I do not know anything about Brazil, but I can generalize what I read. I read that the guy is a crypto-evangelical-catholic (maybe he is something else, but no matter). The point is as follows:
Most of the complainers here sound like Soros’s paid goons, who are sore losers. Just like a repeat of Trump story. Guys, live with it. You had a chance and you lost the election. It doesn’t matter what you think or wish for. Like I said earlier, people who did not vote, did not like either one of them, so you can’t say: but, but, but. To bad for you. Next time organize yourselves better.
BTW,
What happened to Lula and whatever the lady’s name was. I thought they were going to run.
Personally, and not to change the subject but to make a point.
I hate All of the Greek government (majority of the parliament as well), but there is nothing we can do. There are to many commies in Greece, who will vote for the Commie Parties, no matter how hard they get f…d. People got what they wanted (EU) and now they cry wolf.
Trying times ahead for the planet. Bolsonaro’s thugs have already started to invade university campuses and trade unions locals. I doubt they will succeed in their attempt to smash the brazilian masses. The likeliest scenario is Brazil descending into chaos and the army openly taking the reigns to bring order.
Well, again this is nothing new. It happened in many other countries, the general consensus is that universities are the breeding ground for all kinds of “wrong ideas – reactionary”.
The essence of Christianity in simple words: What you give is what you get ! (hundredfold…)
It works very well in conjunction with: ” And again I say to you,it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God ” ;Mathew 19:20 ( this for the adepts of prosperity theology )
So many churches in Brazil but no Church.
PS. With Lula and Dilma out and Bolsonaro in,The Empire tries to get another brick from the… BRICS !
I would prefer to hear some Intellgent voices on why they voted Bolsonaro, rather than the usual US Wolf is coming.
People who voted have their good reasons. Hard criminality and corruption are big serious issues in Brazil, maybe people see Bolsonaro as someone who could improve this hardship.
You’ll have to try very hard to find an intelligent person who voted for Bolsonaro. I live in Brazil and so far I haven’t found any.
“D.C. on November 02, 2018 · at 9:29 am EST/EDT
You’ll have to try very hard to find an intelligent person who voted for Bolsonaro. I live in Brazil and so far I haven’t found any.”
More nonsense passing for something worth reading. He lives in Brazil…Of course, he’s spoken to millions of Brazilans, and of course he has an unfailing eye for “intelligent persons.”
Good grief!
If Brazilians want Bolsonaro let them have him.
WhAT will happen, we will see.
If he wants out of BRICS, no problem.BRICS will be RICS.
Russia, China and India are more than enough.
Latin AMerica will never be liberated from big boss from NORTH.
Because the most of the LAtin people do not want it.
Only REVOLUTION can liberate them, but it will never happen.
“Because the most of the LAtin people do not want it.” You are probably right, eventually it could happen if the US ends up divided in 4- 7 different countries but this it could happen tomorrow or in 150 years.
Pepe most certainly slandered the “Jungle”. The tropical jungle I know is a most wonderful place. There may be dangerous insects (mosquitoes, pathogens and animals (man-eating pythons and poisonous cobras). But by and large it is safe with a bit of experience and precaution. I even have a chameleon trying to befriend me once along the jungle path.
The friendliest of all are the leeches. They can’t get enough of me. They stuck to me from the weeds and underbrush and drop on me from the leaves above. But all their bites are harmless and they help me get rid of some excess blood!
Some of my best hours and healthiest times were spent hiking in the jungle!
Not long and cannibalism will reign there.
The whole is like a nightmare becoming true, the materialization of all the most evil and deviant the world can offer. It very certainly is a huge US-Bonanza taking off over there, everything is fully back to ‘normal’ in middle and South America in general it seems, so sad, but so predictable.
In the end only a huge Flamethrower will bring peace and killing off the upper 20% without any mercy. Time for cosmetics and details are over any way. Skipping that and you will have to double the percentage in order to have a small chance to save the remnants….
I know, I said few things before, and in general I stand by what I said before, but I just read an interesting article, which made me go what? If it’s true, what Maduro said, than we have a repeat of what happened to Chavez at some point in his political career. Okay, Bolso may not have had anything to do with it, but I suspect that he was aware of this event.
Having said that, I was expecting Lula to run in the elections and win. This explains, why he did not run. My question is: is he dead or just kept in some place in the jungle?
Insane does not find a cure in the psycopaths.
Criminally insane cannot be other than what was done to Iraq and Libya, Et Al.
The critical mass dark is when the opposite is going to happen.
Gardens? Food?
What can be the refusal be, do not do anything?
Being absolutely stone still, as the bloodless revolution!?!
Future and History will tell…
The truth in a mere sentence Mr. Pepe: Brazilians with this election REJECTED ALL the parties that have been in power ever since after the end of the military government. This election was all about rejecting… not endorsing.
The far right politicians are Freemasons
https://ebrael.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/bolsonaro-e-marco-feliciano-sao-macons/
If the Templars were all about Temple rites and secret knowledge, then the Freemasons continued with the Templar’s agenda. Their agenda is to install the final tower of babel from Jerusalem. These Freemasons politicians will move their Embassies to Jerusalem and support the construction of the Third Temple. They supported the dedication of its altar and may also support the start of slaughtering animals. None of them asked God if they could attempt to build their Abomination. At least David asked God if he could build a sanctioned Temple but David was told that he was disqualified from building it for having shed much blood. Yet, these child killers of today think that nothing prevents them from building the Abomination. The next few prophesied earthquakes may take care of their tower of Babel.