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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 5/13/16

Dilma out: Brazilian plutocracy sets 54mn votes on fire

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Reprinted from RT

Dilma Rousseff
Dilma Rousseff
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Never in modern political history has it been so easy to "abolish the people" and simply erase 54 million votes cast in a free and fair presidential election.

Forget about hanging chads, as in Florida 2000. This is a day that will live in infamy all across the Global South -- when what was one of its most dynamic democracies veered into a plutocratic regime, under a flimsy parliamentary/judicial veneer, with legal and constitutional guarantees now at the mercy of lowly comprador elites.

After the proverbial marathon, the Brazilian Senate voted 55-22 to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial for "crimes of responsibility"-- related to alleged window dressing of the government's budget.

This is the culmination of a drawn-out process that started even before Rousseff won re-election in late 2014 with over 54 million votes. I have described the bunch of perpetrators of what Brazilian creativity has termed "golpeachment" (a mix of coup -- "golpe" in Portuguese -- and impeachment) as Hybrid War hyenas.

Sophisticated golpeachment -- supported by what amounts to an Electoral Inquisition College -- has propelled Hybrid War to whole new levels.

Hybrid War as applied to Brazil exhibited classic elements of a color revolution. Of course there was no need for no-fly zones or humanitarian imperialism to "protect human rights" -- not to mention provoking a civil war. But considering the high resistance level of the victim state, where civil society is very dynamic, Hybrid War designers in this case bet on a mix of capitulation -- and betrayal -- of local elites, mixed with "peaceful protests"and a relentless mainstream media campaign. Call it "Civil War Light."

That carried with it a fabulous cost-benefit ratio. Now the (immensely corrupt) Brazilian political system and the current executive/legislative/judiciary/mainstream media alignment can be used by the usual suspects for their geopolitical agenda.

Welcome to regime change light -- politics, in a nutshell -- as war by other means on the BRICS. A new software, a new operating system. Carrying a pathetic corollary; if the US is the Empire of Chaos, Brazil has now gloriously reached the status of Sub-Empire of Scoundrels.

Scoundrels galore

Rousseff may be accused of serious economic mismanagement, and of being incapable of political articulation among the shark pool that is (immensely corrupt) Brazilian politics. But she is not corrupt. She made a serious mistake in fighting inflation, allowing interest rates to rise to an unsustainable level; so demand in Brazil dramatically dropped, and recession became the norm. She is the (convenient) scapegoat for Brazil's recession.

She certainly may be blamed for not having a Plan B to fight the global recession. Brazil essentially works on two pillars; commodity exports and local companies relying on the teats of the state. Infrastructure in general is dismal -- adding to what is described as the "Brazilian cost" of doing business. With the commodity slump, state funds dwindled and everything was paralyzed -- credit, investment, consumption.

The pretext for Rousseff's impeachment -- allegedly transferring loans from public banks to the Treasury in order to disguise the size of Brazil's fiscal deficit -- is flimsy at best. Every administration in the West does it -- and that includes Clinton's, Bush's and Obama's.

The Operation Car Wash investigation, dragging on for two years now, was supposed to uncover corruption in the Brazilian political system -- as in the collusion of oil giant Petrobras executives, Brazilian construction companies, and political campaign financing. Car Wash has nothing to do with the golpeachment drive. Yet these have been two parallel highways converging to one destination: the criminalization of the Workers' Party, and the definitive -- if possible -- political assassination of Rousseff and her mentor, former President Lula.

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BREAKING: Brazil senators vote to suspend , try her for breaking budget laws http:// on.rt.com/7cgd

When golpeachment reached the lower house of Congress -- an appalling spectacle -- Rousseff was eviscerated by Hybrid War hyenas of the BBC variety; "BBC," in English, stands for "bullet,""bible" and "cattle," where "bullet" refers to the weapons and private security industry, "bible" to pastors and evangelical fanatics, and "cattle" to the powerful agribusiness lobby.

The "BBC" hyenas are members of almost all Brazilian political parties, paperboys for major corporations, and -- last but not least -- corruption stalwarts. They all benefited from millionaire political campaigning. The whole Car Wash investigation ultimately revolves around campaign financing, which in Brazil, unlike the US with its legalized lobbies, is a Tarantino-worthy Wild West.

The Brazilian Senate is not exactly an "upper" -- as in more polished -- house. Eighty percent of members are white men -- in a country where miscegenation rules. A staggering 58 percent is under criminal investigation -- linked to Car Wash. Sixty percent hail from political dynasties. And 13 percent -- as alternates -- were not elected at all. Among those favoring impeachment, 30 out of 49 are in trouble with the law. Charges include mostly money laundering, financial crimes and outright corruption. Renan Calheiros, the president of the Senate -- who oversaw today's impeachment vote -- is the target of no fewer than nine separate money laundering/corruption Car Wash lines of investigation, plus another two criminal probes.

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Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia (more...)
 

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