Boy, so much for "absolute good" and "absolute evil". Seems like we
all are swimming around in the same polluted pool.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/14/16, S. Kashdan <skashdan@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Brazil Impeachment & Left Press
by Howard Besser = Vigo
Libcom.org, September 8, 2016
http://libcom.org/forums/news/brazil-impeachment-left-press-08092016
US leftist press coverage of Brazil’s presidential impeachment has been
shameful. Because many of the politicians pushing for impeachment represent
reactionary forces, journalists from The Nation, The Intercept, and
Democracy Now! have decided to portray the impeached president as an
admirable martyr. They have chosen to hide important contextual facts
leading up to the impeachment, and they have failed to mention the
important
role played by the impeached president’s party in creating both of the most
recent large-scale corruption schemes. They have followed a binary world
view, where if the politicians leading the impeachment are horrible corrupt
reactionaries (which they are), then the party being impeached must be
blameless uncorrupt progressives (which they most certainly are not). And
by
purposely omitting important contextual facts, these elements of the
leftist
press have shown a huge disrespect to their readers and viewers by
presuming
that we might support those reactionary forces if we heard anything even
remotely negative about the party being impeached. The left press’
uncritical support for the impeached party reminds one of the Communist
Party USA’s uncritical support for Stalin, where any attempt (particularly
from progressives) to discuss even the slightest negative act from the
Soviet government was labeled “reactionary”.
The Brazil impeachment
Over the course of the past several months, the two branches of the
Brazilian Congress have voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, and at
the end of August she was officially replaced by her Vice-President Michel
Temer. Dilma came from the Brazilian Workers Party (Partido dos
Trabalhadores, commonly called the “PT”), the party that has ruled Brazil
since 2003 following a kind of social democratic agenda. Temer was
president
of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), a kind of coalition
party
embracing candidates from multiple ideologies. Dilma and Temer ran for
office on a common ticket, and were elected in 2014, winning 51.6% of the
vote in the runoff election. Temer will serve out the remainder of their
term (through 2018).
Key reasons for the impeachment include widespread disgust at the
staggering
amount of corruption amongst politicians (much of it originating with the
PT, with money flowing to more conservative politicians), and a decaying
economic situation throughout the country.
Though Dilma took many positions to move Brazil and the world in a
conservative direction (such as championing the 4th largest dam in the
world
and increasing production and exploration for oil; halting the distribution
of “anti-homophobia kits” in high schools because they are "inappropriate
for children", taking a hard line against public employee strikes, and
deploying military troops to end dam construction strikes), Temer’s very
short time in power has been characterized by even more backwards-thinking
(such as embracing large corporations, and naming a Presidential Cabinet
exclusively composed of white males in one of the most ethnically diverse
countries in the world). Whereas Dilma has embraced mid 20th century ideas,
Temer is more grounded in those of the 19th century (or earlier). Certainly
one way of characterizing them is by comparing Temer to Donald Trump and
Dilma to Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps because of the Trump-like danger that Temer poses (to minorities,
income inequality, freedom of speech, etc.), leftist publications in the US
have successfully managed to embrace Dilma and paint her as an innocent
victim. Yet while publications like The Nation and Democracy Now! are
willing to air criticisms of Clinton, they have shown virtually no
criticism
whatsoever of Dilma. This mirrors the kind of scorched-earth policy that
the
PT has followed since it first gained power—using straightforward as well
as
morally repugnant methods to marginalize independent voices, and trying to
represent itself as the only possible alternative to the right.
Following the PT’s lead, these leftist “journalists” have conducted a
black-out on important contextual facts that might lead readers/viewers to
see the PT as something other than a heroic representative of “the people”,
under siege from a cabal of the right.
While the impeachment was definitely a power-grab, with a conservative
parliamentary faction taking power from a more liberal faction, it was far
from a Coup. The final Senate vote to impeach wasn’t even close; she was
impeached by a 3-to-1 margin (61 to 20). And even leftist journalists who
call this a coup admit that Dilma is “deeply unpopular” with the general
populace (while somehow still maintaining that impeachment is an attack on
“the will of the people”).
Leftist journalists often refer to the impeachment of President Dilma
Rousseff as a "Coup", and as overturning the “will of the people” as
exhibited in the last election. Glenn Greenwald has called it “a complete
reversal of democracy”. What they fail to mention is that before the last
election campaign Dilma chose Temer as her running mate, with full
knowledge
of his Neanderthal views. She chose him because of bourgeois coalition
politics, and because she knew that she would not win without having his
supporters behind her. Even with Temer’s supporters, together they only won
51.6% of the vote in the runoff between the 2 top tickets. So certainly
without Temer she did not command the “popular mandate” that the leftist
press is claiming that the impeachment overturns. But the leftist press
ignores the fact that Dilma herself chose this Neanderthal as her running
mate, and that certainly some of those voting for her ticket were really
votes for him.
Leftist journalists repeatedly label the financial shenanigans that caused
Dilma’s impeachment as a commonly-employed trivial “minor infraction”. What
they fail to mention is that she concealed budgetary expenses during an
election campaign – an election that her ticket barely won, and might not
have won had she been honest about Brazil’s true economic condition.
Calling this a ‘coup” is insulting to the thousands of Latin Americans who
have had loved ones disappeared or tortured in real coups.
• A real “coup” involves a rapid change of government, circumventing legal
procedures. Instead, the impeachment was a long, drawn-out set of
parliamentary hearings, following all sorts of bureaucratic legal
procedures. The leftist press has criticized this procedure as unusual and
unfair, but has ignored that this procedure has been used 61 times since
1992, and that in the past the PT actually supported using this procedure.
Scandals initiated by the Workers Party
While the leftist press repeatedly emphasizes that Dilma did not personally
benefit from corruption (while many of her accusers in Congress have), they
never mention that the two largest corruption scandals (“Car Wash” and
Mensalão) were architected by her party, and that the Car Wash scandal was
created through the oil giant Petrobras during the period when Dilma
herself
was Petrobras’ Chairperson of the Board of Directors.
The Mensalão bribery scandal was architected by the PT to pay legislators
to
vote their way. Public funds were funneled through government contracts to
pay scores of legislators $12,000/month for their votes. A total of about
$43 million was looted from the national treasury by the “Workers” Party.
Though the scandal broke in 2005, many PT officials managed to postpone
jail
time by proclaiming that the scandal was fabricated by their enemies. For
example, PT President Jose Genoino and Lula’s Chief of Staff José Dirceu
were not arrested until 2013 (8 years after the scandal was made public).
The “Car Wash” money-laundering scandal began to be exposed in 2014. The
state-controlled oil company Petrobras grossly overpaid large construction
contractors, who then kept part of the extra funds and kicked back the rest
to politicians. Thus far hundreds of legislators from a variety of parties
have been indicted, and both PT Treasurer João Vaccari Neto and Lula’s
former Chief of Staff José Dirceu have been convicted of architecting the
scheme (and are now serving 15 and 23 years in prison respectively).
Current
estimates contend that approximately $3 billion was looted from the
state-controlled oil company.
When the left press laments that the legislators voting to impeach Dilma
were themselves corrupt politicians, they are absolutely correct. But they
fail to mention that Dilma’s party (and likely Dilma herself) were involved
in creating the corruption schemes that those politicians benefited from.
Legislative politics in Brazil is corrupt through and through, and even if
more rightists than PT politicians have personally benefited from them, the
PT was responsible for the creation of these two large corruption schemes,
looting billions of dollars from public funds.
Certainly one of the structural problems is that Brazilian political
officials can defer corruption charges as long as they remain in office.
This bureaucratic rule has been used by rightist officials as well as by
Dilma and Lula. Audio recordings released in March revealed that Dilma
sought to appoint Lula to a Ministerial position in order to defer his
prosecution as part of the Car Wash scandal. (Lula is accused of accepting
construction company kickbacks on the extensive renovations to his plush
beach house. His defense contends that the house is not his, even though
the
master bedroom pillows are embroidered with his and his wife’s names.)
Brazil’s political class is corrupt through and through. Politicians in all
the major parties are crooks, stealing from the government treasury while
still maintaining that they are defending the interests of “the people”.
(Transparency Brazil says 60 percent of Brazilian lawmakers are currently
either under criminal investigation or have already been convicted of
corruption-related charges.) Brazilian politicians are more interested in
maintaining their political and economic power (or their plush beach
houses)
than in supporting everyday people. And while it is true that during the
PT’s
first term in power, millions of people were raised from poverty into the
working class (no small feat in a country that has one of the worst income
disparities in the world), no real attempt was made to empower those people
at the bottom of the economic scale. Instead of encouraging the poor to
take
more control over their lives, the PT instituted a system of dependence,
where the poor and working class were encouraged to support the PT and rely
upon the PT to provide for their needs. With this reliance on the PT, many
were willing to overlook the vast looting of the treasury orchestrated by
PT
officials.
Since gaining power, the PT has been incredibly pro-development. They have
repeatedly clashed with environmental groups, indigenous groups, striking
workers, and the LGBT community. Their rabid defense of building the giant
hydroelectric dam in the Amazon (which will force the evacuation of
indigenous lands and destroy the habitat of many near-extinct species) has
been condemned by Greenpeace, Amazon Watch, and indigenous support groups
(while money skimmed from over-priced construction contracts to build the
dam were used to support PT election campaigns). It’s hard to imagine how
the left press can give uncritical support to such a pro-development party.
And that the left press barely covers the struggles of Brazilians to halt
the pro-development policies of the PT.
Case Study: Democracy Now!
The hypocritical stance of the left press was hard to miss in the Aug 29
episode of Democracy Now!. There Glenn Greenwald (who has previously
reported a wide variety of admirable stories, including breaking the news
from Edward Snowden) first paints Dilma as an innocent victim, implying
that
she is being attacked as a woman, and discussing how those judging her are
super-corrupt while she is not in the least bit tainted. He then goes on to
contrast impeachment in Brazil to impeachment in the US, pointing out that
presidents and vice-presidents in the US come from the same party, so an
impeachment might not mean a change in policy. He points out that
impeachment in Brazil will mean a significant change in policy because
Temer
and Dilma come from different parties. But he never once mentions that
Dilma
chose Temer as her running mate, that they were elected together as a
ticket, and that certainly some of those who voted for that ticket did so
because they supported Temer rather than Dilma.
But even more striking is a later piece on the very same broadcast where
Greenwald castigates the press for being so afraid of a Trump victory that
they let Clinton “waltz into the White House free of challenge or
questioning”. He contends that, no matter how bad the threat from the
right,
journalists have a responsibility to expose the flaws of those opposed to
them, particularly flaws like corruption. So, in a striking display of
hypocrisy, in one segment Greenwald himself avoids criticising Dilma
because
of a threat from the right, and in a later segment he castigates the US
press for reacting to a threat from the right by failing to publicize the
flaws of Clinton. But in some ways this is not surprising; Greenwald is
well-known in Brazil as an apologist for Dilma. She knows that he will only
ask her supportive questions, so after she was suspended from the
presidency
in May, she had Greenwald conduct her first interview.
Two days later (Aug 31) again on Democracy Now!, Greenwald accuses
Democrats
of smearing leakers (WikiLeaks, Snowden) with claims that they are pawns of
Russia. While his charges against the Democrats are certainly true, his
reporting on Brazil omits that the PT habitually does the same thing.
Anyone
opposing PT policy (especially those opposing it from the left) are accused
of being stooges of the right.
Conclusion
Most left press coverage of Brazil has been incredibly binary. Powerful
forces (in the form of the PT) opposing a threat from the right receive
uncritical support, while less powerful voices (like environmental,
indigenous, LGBT, and climate activists) receive no coverage at all when
they oppose or clash with the PT. Little or nothing from progressive
activist voices make it into the left press except on the rare occasion
when
they are not opposed by the PT. The US left press has turned Dilma and her
party into innocent victims of a right-wing power grab. And while certainly
the right has tried to grab power, Dilma and her party are far from
innocent
victims No mention is ever made of the key role played by the PT in
creating
all of the most recent corruption scandals, and the scandals are only
mentioned when highlighting the right-wing figures who are caught up in
them
(without noting that it was the PT that initiated the scandals that
benefited these right-wing politicians).
These elements of the left press have tried to turn disgusting politicians
into admirable martyrs by purposely hiding contextual facts. This shameful
binary division of the world into “good guys” and “bad guys” is reminiscent
of US leftist apologists for Stalin in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. As many
of us learned through previous struggles, one can oppose one evil without
having to support another “less bad” evil. To oppose Temer and his
Neanderthal policies doesn’t mean that we need to support Dilma and her
corrupt pro-development party. And to oppose Trump doesn’t mean uncritical
support for Clinton. The left press in the US needs to learn that an
uncritical binary portrayal of a situation can amount to foisting
propaganda
on its readers/viewers. With two bad alternatives, the real answer is a
third alternative. And even if one chooses the “less bad” alternative, s/he
deserves to know the flaws in that alternative. After all, the lesser of
two
evils is still evil.
