What's Happening in Brazil? Exactly What the Coup Leaders Said Would Happen

Saturday, March 04, 2017 By Ted Snider, Truthout | News Analysis

As Rousseff wages a last-ditch battle to stave off impeachment, she has accused her rivals in Congress of creating turmoil, saying they are orchestrating a coup d’etat to oust her.

President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil during an interview with foreign
correspondents at her office in Palacio do Planalto, Brasilia,
Brazil on March 24, 2016. (Tomas Munita/ The New York Times)

The social democratic, left-wing government of Brazil was removed in a coup.

Though that striking statement could be ripped from the headlines of newspapers today, it also describes the headlines of half a century ago, in April of 1964.

The Brazilian coup gets forgotten in the crowd of Latin American coups. In discussions of Latin American interventions, it often gets lost in the press of the 1954 Guatemalan coup against Jacobo Árbenz or the 1973 Chilean coup against Salvador Allende. But the Brazilian coup that was sandwiched between them was significant and merits more attention.

In Who Rules the World, Noam Chomsky explains that in 1962, President John F. Kennedy made the policy decision to transform the militaries of Latin America from defending against external forces to "internal security" or, as Chomsky puts it, "war against the domestic population, if they raised their heads." The Brazilian coup is significant because it may have been the first major manifestation of this shift in the US's Latin American policy. The Kennedy administration prepared the coup, and it was carried out shortly after Kennedy's assassination. Chomsky says that the "mildly social democratic" government of João Goulart was taken out for a "murderous and brutal" military dictatorship.

The evidence that the US cooperated in the coup that removed Goulart from power is solid. The field report of the CIA station in Brazil shows clear US foreknowledge of the coup: "A revolution by anti-Goulart forces will definitely get under way this week, probably in the next few days." President Lyndon B. Johnson gave Under Secretary of State George Ball and Assistant Secretary for Latin America Thomas Mann the green light to participate in the coup: "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do."

And the steps were substantial. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon told CIA Director John McCone, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk that those steps should include "a clandestine delivery of arms ... pre-positioned prior any outbreak of violence" to the coup forces, as well as shipments of gas and oil. Gordon also told them to "prepare without delay against the contingency of needed overt intervention at a second stage" after the covert involvement. Rusk would then send Gordon a list of the steps that would be taken "in order [to] be in a position to render assistance at appropriate time to anti-Goulart forces if it is decided this should be done." The list, sent in a telegram on March 31, 1964, included dispatching US Navy tankers with petroleum and oil, an aircraft carrier, two guided missile destroyers, four destroyers and task force tankers for "overt exercises off Brazil." The telegram also lists as a step to "assemble shipment of about 11 tons of ammunition."

This little-known historical record is interesting for its demonstration that the last time Brazil had a "mildly social democratic" government, the US cooperated in its removal. The next social democratic government would be the now removed Workers' Party government of Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff.

How do we know that the maneuverings that removed Dilma Rousseff from power were a coup dressed in the disguise of parliamentary democracy? Because the coup leaders have told us so. Twice now.

A published transcript of a 75-minute phone call between Romero Jucá, who was a senator at the time of the call and soon to be the planning minister in the new Michel Temer government, and former oil executive Sergio Machado lays bare "a national pact" to remove Dilma and install Temer as president. Jucá reveals that, not only opposition politicians, but also the military and the Supreme Court are conspirators in the coup. Regarding the military's role, Jucá says, "I am talking to the generals, the military commanders. They are fine with this, they said they will guarantee it." And, as for the Supreme Court, Glenn Greenwald reports that Jucá admits that he "spoke with and secured the involvement of numerous justices on Brazil's Supreme Court." Jucá further boasted that "there are only a small number" of Supreme Court justices that he had not spoken to.

According to Greenwald, the Brazilian newspaper that first published the transcript, Folha de São Paulo, says that Jucá makes it very clear in the phone call that he believed the coup would "end the pressure from the media and other sectors to continue the Car Wash investigation," the corruption investigations that were closing in on many members of the government, including many of the coup participants, leaders and the coup president, Michel Temer, himself.

According to Jucá, the head of Michel Temer's party then, one of the intended purposes of the coup was to protect the coup leaders from the corruption investigation that was closing in on them.

According to Temer, the coup had a second purpose. In a post-coup speech in front of members of multinational corporations and the US policy establishment in New York on September 22, 2016, Temer brazenly boasted of his successful coup. Temer clearly told his American audience that elected President Dilma Rousseff was not removed from power for "violating fiscal laws by using loans from public banks to cover budget shortfalls, which artificially enhanced the budget surplus," as the official charge stated. She was -- the new, unelected president admitted -- removed because of her refusal to implement a right-wing economic plan that was inconsistent with the economic platform on which Brazilians elected her. Temer's economic plan featured cuts to health, education and welfare spending, as well as increased emphasis on privatization and deregulation.

Rousseff was not on board. So she was thrown overboard. In the words of Temer's confession:

And many months ago, while I was still vice president, we released a document named 'A Bridge to the Future' because we knew it would be impossible for the government to continue on that course. We suggested that the government should adopt the theses presented in that document called 'A Bridge to the Future.' But, as that did not work out, the plan wasn't adopted and a process was established which culminated with me being installed as president of the republic.

The second purpose, then, was the implementation of an unpopular right-wing economic plan.

So what's happening now in Brazil? What did Jucá and Temer say would be happening in Brazil? They are protecting themselves from prosecution for corruption and making real a radically right-wing economic plan.

The attempt to insulate themselves from the prosecution that was sure to come if Dilma remained president began quickly with the Brazilian Congress' attempt to pass a law that would retroactively protect members of the Congress from corrupt election financing. Temer and others have been implicated in the "caixa dois," or second box scandal in which they accepted undeclared contributions as bribes. Temer himself interestingly declared that he would not veto the amnesty law.

The plan to protect themselves continued to unfold when, a few months later, the lower house of Brazil's congress passed a law that would allow members of congress accused of corruption to accuse the prosecutors and judges of abusing their authority. This law, then, would allow politicians accused of corruption to pursue the prosecutors who were pursuing them. After protests on the streets of Brazil and legal challenges to annul the vote, the proposal is back at square one in the house. The progress of the bill will be decided after the ministers return from recess this month. The president of the senate has expressed the desire to continue with the proposal. Though the outcome is unknown, the introduction and the continued pursuit of the law clearly expose the coup government's intent.

So, that's part one of the coup plan unfolding according to plan. And part two is also predictably unfolding as Temer announced in New York. In his short time in office, Temer has ushered in a host of privatization and austerity measures. But the feature presentation was still to come.

In October 2016, the Chamber of Deputies approved the draft of a constitutional amendment that would limit annual increases in government spending to the inflation rate of the previous year for the next 20 years. What they passed was not just a draft of a law, but of an amendment locked into place for the next two decades by the constitution. The amendment would effectively freeze spending on social and welfare services, including health and education, just as Temer promised in New York, despite the government's assurances that it will not affect health and education.

In December 2016, Brazil's Senate passed the draft into law. Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said, "This ... radical measure ... will place Brazil in a socially retrogressive category all of its own." He went on to say that the "amendment would lock in inadequate and rapidly dwindling expenditure on health care, education and social security, thus putting an entire generation at risk of social protection standards well below those currently in place." The UN special rapporteur condemned the amendment as "clearly violat[ing] Brazil's obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which it ratified in 1992, not to take 'deliberately retrogressive measures' unless there are no alternative options and full consideration has been given to ensure that the measures are necessary and proportionate."

So, events in Brazil are unfolding exactly according to the expressed plans of the coup leaders. The removal of Dilma Rousseff was a coup, and the coup was executed to protect the coup leaders from corruption charges and to allow them to return Brazil to the regressive right-wing road it was on prior to the more socially progressive left-wing governments of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff that the oligarchs and corporations so opposed.

Unlike the 1964 coup, the degree to which the US was complicit is not yet known. Though, according to Latin American expert Mark Weisbrot, "there is no doubt that the biggest players in this coup attempt -- people like former presidential candidates José Serra and Aécio Neves -- are US government allies."

But the US is at least tacitly complicit, because the day after the impeachment vote, Sen. Aloysio Nunes of the new coup government began a three-day visit to Washington. Nunes is no small player in the coup government; he was the vice-presidential candidate on the 2014 ticket that lost to President Rousseff and a key player in the effort to impeach Rousseff in the Senate. Nunes scheduled meetings with, amongst others, then-chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker and Ben Cardin, as well as with Undersecretary of State and former Ambassador to Brazil Thomas Shannon.

The willingness to go ahead with the planned meetings with Nunes right after the coup suggests at least tacit acceptance or approval on the part of the Obama administration. And now, despite President Trump's assurances that his government would not follow the interventionist path of Presidents Clinton and Obama, Trump has already offered Brazil the same tacit approval and support. In December 2016, Temer and Trump agreed on a phone call "to improve business relations." According to Temer's office, the two presidents "agreed to launch, immediately after the swearing in of the new American president, an agenda for Brazil-US growth."

So, what's happening in Brazil today? Just what the coup leaders said would be happening in Brazil today.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Ted Snider

Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

Related Stories
Brazil Should Stand Firm Against US-Led Campaign to Undermine Venezuelan Elections
By Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research | Op-Ed

Brazil's New Government Is Already Planning to Balance the Budget on the Backs of the Poor
By Mike LaSusa, Truthout | News Analysis

Brazilian Prosecutor Finds No Crime Committed by Dilma: Will the Law Count for Anything in Brazil?
By Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research | Op-Ed

Source: Truthout (US)
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39711-what-s-happening-in-brazil-exactly-what-the-coup-leaders-said-would-happen

[OFF] The Difference Between How the U.S. Treats Brazil and Venezuela in One Video

Zaid Jilani
2016-06-06T19:28:04+00:00

(Para ler a versão desse artigo em Português, clique aqui.)

A State Department spokesperson repeatedly refused to comment on the momentous political crisis in Brazil during his daily press briefing on Friday — in almost ludicrous contrast to his long and loquacious criticisms of neighboring Venezuela.

When questioned on the stark contrast, increasingly exasperated department spokesperson Mark Toner replied, “I just – again, I don’t have anything to comment on the ongoing political dimensions of the crisis there. I don’t.”

Watch the spokesperson’s responses below:


The State Department has long been eager to criticize Venezuela’s left-wing government, which has pursued policies antagonistic to global corporations. In contrast, it has been silent about the takeover of Brazil by a staunchly right-wing, pro-business government that is making the privatization of state industry a priority.

Friday’s exchange began when The Intercept asked Toner why the U.S. has been joining in regional criticisms of Venezuela’s democratic backsliding but has ignored Brazil’s political crisis, where right-wing lawmakers voted on May 12 to suspend the elected government and open impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

“I’m not aware of the particular allegations that you’ve raised. … We believe it is a strong democracy,” Toner replied.

“Do strong democracies allow the military to spy on political opponents?” we followed up, pointing to recent reports that the new administration is spying on the former government. When Toner again deflected, saying he didn’t “have any details” about the surveillance, veteran Associated Press State Department reporter Matt Lee jumped into the fray, asking if the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff was itself “valid.”

Toner continued to deflect, affirming U.S. confidence in Brazilian institutions.

But when Pam Dawkins of Voice of America asked about Venezuela and “the state of democracy there” in light of the delay of a proposed recall referendum put forth by the country’s opposition, Toner’s tone changed dramatically.

In a response that went on for two full minutes, Toner got all moralistic, asking Venezuela to respect democratic norms. “We call on Venezuela’s authorities to allow this [proposed recall referendum] process to move forward in a timely fashion, and we encourage the appropriate institutions to ensure that Venezuelans can exercise their right to participate in this process in keeping with Venezuela’s democratic institutions, practices, and principles consistent with the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

Lee felt obliged to note the contrast. “You just – those are two very long responses, critical responses, about the situation in Venezuela,” he said. “And yet Brazil, which is a much bigger country and with – a country with which you have enjoyed better relations merits, what, two sentences?”

“I just – again, I don’t have anything to comment on the ongoing political dimensions of the crisis there. I don’t,” Toner stated.

“But you — you have plenty to say about the political situation in Venezuela.”

“We do,” Toner replied.

“Why is that?” Lee followed up.

“Well, we’re just — we’re very concerned about the current…” Toner started, before being interrupted by Lee once more.

“Why aren’t you very concerned about Brazil?” Lee probed.

“Again – well, look, I’ve said my piece. I mean, I don’t have anything to add.”

“Really? Okay.”

Another reporter then jumped into the fracas, asking Toner if the composition of the new Brazilian cabinet — it is composed entirely of men, many of them tied to large industries in the country, and replaces the cabinet led by the first female leader in Brazil’s history — raised any concerns.

“Look, guys, I will see if we have anything more to say about the situation in Brazil,” Toner concluded.

Rousseff and supporters have called impeachment a “coup” and multiple international observers have questioned its legitimacy, including OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and The Economist.

As popular pressure mounts against the nascent, scandal-plagued interim government of Michel Temer, a final vote on impeachment may occur as early as next month.

Related:
Credibility of Brazil’s Interim President Collapses as He Receives 8-Year Ban on Running for Office

Top photo: Supporters of ousted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hold a demonstration on May 22.

Source: The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/the-difference-between-how-the-u-s-treats-brazil-and-venezula-in-one-video/

[OFF] The 10 lies of Globo TV. The Mastermind of the coup against Brazil

The 10 lies of Globo. 24/04/2016

Globo, a media group from Brazil, responded to an article published by The Guardian about the brazilian political crisis:
"The real reason Dilma Rousseff’s enemies want her impeached" (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/21/dilma-rousseff-enemies-impeached-brazil)

Here’s the result:
by Priscila Silva

LIE 1: “It fails to mention that everything began with an investigation (named Operation Carwash)”.

The impeachment has nothing to do with Operation Car Wash, and Globo is mentioning it to confuse the readers of this respectable media outlet — as they normally do in Brazil. Rousseff herself isn’t implicated in any of the criminal facts been investigated by Car Wash. She is been impeached under accusations of fiscal maneuvers, executed to maintain social programs, like “Bolsa Família” (famous all over the world for been an example against social inequality). This maneuvers are regularly practiced by most brazilian public administrations (including by opposing ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso), and was also practiced just last year by 16 elected state governments currently in office. Does Globo want them impeached? Here’s a million dollar question.

LIE 2: “[…] investigation (named Operation Carwash), which in turn revealed the largest bribery scheme and corruption scandal in the country’s history, involving leading members of the ruling Workers Party (PT), as well as leaders of other parties in the government coalition, public servants and business moguls”.

Globo fails to mention that several members of the current political opposition to the Workers Party (PT) are also been implicated in Operation Car Wash. Aecio Neves, Rousseff’s defeated opponent in the last presidential elections, for example, was been accused of receiving bribes and was mentioned seven times in delations given by politicians and business men. The vice-president, Michel Temer, who has been orchestrating the coup himself in order to reach power, has also been cited. All of this can be easily verified, but Globo prefers to try keeping the readers in the dark, in order to construct the illusion that PT is the only party responsible for the corruption in brazilian institutions.

LIE 3: “The entire investigation process has been conducted in accordance with Brazil’s rule of law, under the strict supervision of the country’s Supreme Court”.

There have been serious violations of civil rights by the judge responsible for Operation Car Wash, Sérgio Moro, in collusion with the Globo Group itself, in order to inflame the masses and damage the image of Workers Party ex-president of Brazil, Lula. Sérgio Moro illegally leaked recordings of wiretappings placed in Lula’s residence to Globo, which then publicized selected parts of the audio in the network’s most rated news show. Apart from the fact that most of the conversations were personal and irrelevant to the investigation, the recordings caught a chat between Lula and the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and thus should have been immediately sent to the Supreme Court due to privileged forum. Instead, Moro sent them to Globo Group — but they don’t want anybody remembering that, do they?

LIE 4: “The Brazilian press in general, and the Globo Group in particular, fulfilled their duty to inform about everything, as would have been the case in any other democracy in the world. We will continue to do our job, no matter who may be affected by the investigation”.

The brazilian media in general, and specially Globo Group, is playing an important role in opposing the government systematically since Rousseff became president for the first time, in 2010 — actually, since Lula was president, and even before that, in 1989, when he lost the election to conservative and latter impeached Fernando Collor de Mello, after been deliberately harmed in a debate promoted by Globo. Members of the opposition involved in several corruption scandals, like “Trensalão” and “Máfia das merendas”, have been consistently spared by the oligarchic media of Brazil, which is controlled by something between 9 to 11 families with clear elitist interests. Brazilian media is famous all over the world for been extremely concentrated and devoted to conservative political forces. It also endorsed the military coup of 1964. Need I say more?

LIE 5: “As a reaction to the revelations of Operation Carwash, millions of Brazilians took to the streets in protest”.

The protests in Brazil are been deliberately stimulated by the media and the political opposition since Rousseff’s reelection, in 2014. Although there have been rallies in 2013, promoted by popular left-wing movements, the current protests are very, very different. They are financed by right-wing organizations like “Movimento Brasil Livre” and “Revoltados On-line”, which were created to promote the coup we see taking place in Brasil today, and also by corporate organizations, like Fiesp (Federation of São Paulo Industries).

There’s no doubt some of the protesters are going to the streets spontaneously, but it’s also clear the role that this artificially created movements and the oligarchic media have been playing in promoting them and in creating, among the masses, a hate feeling against PT and all left-wing social movements. Globo wants to make believe “the people” suddenly took the streets moved by a sense of citizenship and morality. But here in Brazil we know the political climate was been built since Rousseff displeased the conservative forces by becoming president again.

LIE 6: “Precisely to avoid any accusations of inciting mass rallies — as Mr. Miranda now accuses us — the Globo Group covered the protests without ever announcing or reporting on them on its news outlets before they happened. Globo took equal measures regarding rallies for President Dilma Rousseff and against the impeachment: it covered them all, without mentioning them prior to them actually taking place, granting them the same space as was given to the anti-Dilma protests”.

The coverage of the protests have been absurd, to say the least. For starters, Globo has been calling the pro-impeachment protesters “brazilians” or “Brazil”, while the protesters against the coup — many of them critics of Rousseff’s administration — are “pro-government” or “Dilma’s supporters”. But that’s just a detail. All the protests for the impeachment have been 100% televised live by GloboNews (the network’s cable news channel), that interviewed protesters and made sure to set a cheered climate. On the other hand, protests against the impeachment were covered by short superficial flashes and usually did not listen to the protesters arguments. No news here when it comes to Globo.

LIE 7: “The Globo Group did not support the impeachment in editorials”.

That’s the most absurd lie of the entire article, because it’s enable do resist a simples Google search. Just type “impeachment”, “editorial” and “O Globo”, and have fun!

LIE 8: “To blame the press for the current Brazilian political crisis, or to suggest that it serves as an agitator, is to repeat the ancient mistake of blaming the messenger for the message”.

Globo knows it has been promoting hate and conflict among brazilians. And that’s, actually, exactly what they want: to create a sense of general dissatisfaction that “justifies” a coup.

Just stop lying already! It’s starting to get embarrassing.

LIE 9: “The Brazilian press is a vast and plural landscape of several independent organizations, 784 daily printed newspapers, 4,626 radio stations, 5 national television broadcast networks, 216 paid cable channels and another multitude of news websites. Everyone competes with great zeal for the Brazilian audience, which in turn is free to make its choices. Among strong competitors, what one finds is independence, without any tolerance for being led”.

If less than a dozen families controlling the entire media is not been concentrated, I don’t know what is. Another lie that collapses on itself after a basic Google search. But if you want something more reliable, what about aresearch published by Oxford? Enjoy!

LIE 10: “With the Globo Group rests the responsibility to report the facts as they happened. It is our duty”.

In Brazil, that’s what we can call “cereja do bolo”: a bizarre ending to an absurd article. Simply amazing.

[OFF] Attempts to oust President Dilma Rousseff are undemocratic

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff with children in Rio de Janeiro last week.
Photograph: Roberto Stuckert Filho/AFP/Getty Images

Letters. Monday 11 April 2016 17.24 BST; Last modified on Monday 11 April 2016 22.00 BST

We are extremely concerned about the sustained efforts by sections of Brazil’s rightwing opposition to destabilise – and ultimately overthrow – its constitutional and elected government, including through attempting to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. This campaign has involved demonstrations for “regime change” through the ousting of the president before the end of her term. These have even included overt calls for the military to carry out a coup d’état.

There is also a crude campaign aimed at discrediting former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom Dilma is seeking to appoint as a minister in her government. The aim here seems to be not only to oust Dilma but also legally bar Lula as a potential presidential candidate in 2018.

Meanwhile, trade unions and social movements have denounced examples of physical aggression against government supporters. We oppose this golpista attempt, echo the support for Brazil being given by the Union of South American Nations, and defend Brazilian democracy.

Brian Eno
Michael Mansfield QC
Dr Francisco Dominguez Head of Latin American and Brazilian studies research group, Middlesex University
Grahame Morris MP
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Roger Godsiff MP
Jeff Cuthbert AM Welsh national assembly member
Manuel Cortes General secretary, TSSA
Doug Nicholls General secretary, GFTU
Mick Cash General secretary, RMT
Kevin Courtney Deputy general secretary, National Union of Teachers
Tony Burke Assistant general secretary, Unite the Union
Dr Derek Wall International coordinator, Green party of England and Wales
Salma Yaqoob
Martin Mayer Labour party national executive committee member
Dr Julia Buxton Central European University
Oscar Guardiola-Rivera Birkbeck, University of London
Francisco Panizza Professor in Latin American and comparative politics, LSE
Dr Peter Hallward Professor, Kingston University

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

[OFF] Attention! Coup Attempt in Brazil!

Don’t be mistaken, what is in course in Brazil is a coup attempt.

As a private conversation between President Dilma Rousseff and former President Lula is illegally tapped by the Federal Police following a decision by a first instance judge and selectively disclosed by the press, we must express our deepest concern with the erosion of the rule of law in Brazil. Today’s event is extremely serious and have a real potential to escalate into social unrest and bloodshed.

On 31st March 1964 a military coup was trigged against the legally constituted government of João Goulart. This was a day that lasted 21 years. It was not until 1988 that a new Constitution was drafted and Brazil began its democratization process. Similarly to 1964, the current coup attempt has the backing of the biggest Brazilian broadcaster- Rede Globo. Differently to 1964, the coup is enforced by an ideologically-driven judiciary that has three purposes: overthrown a democratically elected President, prevent former President Lula to run for the 2018 elections and ultimately blocks the Brazilian Workers Party’ license to exist.

There is no doubt that Brazil is undergoing extremely serious political instability. President Dilma Rousseff was re-elected for her second term in 2014. Right at the beginning her government Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil giant, was emerged in corruption scandals. Indeed, only a naïve person would believe that the Brazilian Worker’s Party has invented corruption. As Fernando Henrique Cardoso noted on his own memoirs, he was told that a huge corruption scheme taking place at Petrobras during his term as President. Differently to Dilma, Cardoso didn’t have the courage to initiate any investigation.

While the Cardoso administration undertook 48 federal police investigations in 8 years, the Brazilian Worker’s Party conduced 250. Concomitantly to a significant increase in federal police operations that aimed to tackle corruption, both the Lula and Rousseff administrations strengthened and devolved more powers to judiciary. Prior to 2003 most investigations were filed by the government.

Despite the fact that over the past several months the Federal Police has purposely, and illegally, leaked information regarding ongoing investigations involving people linked to the Brazilian Worker’s Party, last week events escalated with the kidnaping for a few hours of former President Lula. There is no exaggeration in employing the term “kidnapped” as the Brazilian legislation doesn’t allow such event to occur on those terms.

Following the above event, President Dilma decided to invite Lula to became the government’s main minister as an effort to reestablish governability. Members of the opposition accused Dilma to offer this position so Lula would enjoy an immunity granted to ministers. Nothing more misleading… Those who make such claim forget that Lula would still respond at the Supreme Court if needed, a significant disadvantage as if he was responding as any other citizen he would enjoy the benefits of surfing between different court instances…

For those who couldn’t see the coup coming, now it is more than evident. On the same day as Lula assumes as Minister, the Federal Police backed by a first instance judge, decides to publicize conversations between Lula and Dilma to stimulate a social convulsion that could potentially lead to the removal of Dilma as President.

Brazilians must ensure that the rule of law is reestablished and that the democratically elected government can continue its mandate. Tomorrow we will go to the streets to defend the democratically elected president and demand respect to our constitution and to the rule of law! Não Passarão!

By Diego

Source: O Cafezinho
http://www.ocafezinho.com/2016/03/17/attention-coup-attempt-in-brazil/

See more:
The draining agenda of Brazil’s pathetic pro-coup opposition
Ex-President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Faces Charges

[OFF] The photo that’s become the emblem of Brazil’s political turmoil

STEPHANIE NOLEN. RIO DE JANEIRO — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Mar. 14, 2016 7:48PM EDT

Last updated Monday, Mar. 14, 2016 9:46PM EDT

On a day when every Brazilian, or so it seemed, was sharing protest pictures on social media, there was one picture that became the picture, the one everyone was talking about – a sort of Rorschach test for the country.

On Sunday, nearly two million people took to the streets in 121 cities across Brazil to protest government corruption and to demand the impeachment or resignation of President Dilma Rousseff, whose government is enmeshed in a massive graft scandal.

Among the people who went to march were Claudio Pracownik and Carolina Maia Pracownik, a white couple who live on a leafy street in Ipanema. They brought with them their little white dog, on a colour co-ordinated leash, and their two toddler daughters, who rode in a stroller pushed by a black maid wearing the all-white uniform that some wealthy Brazilians prefer their domestic employees to wear.

Joao Valadares, a photographer with the newspaper Correio Braziliense, snapped their picture on the street in Copacabana, and before the protest was even over, it had been shared thousands of times – millions, by nightfall, here in this country that has the second-largest number of daily Facebook users.

Some Brazilians looked at the picture and saw a patriotic family, fed up with a seemingly unending series of revelations about politicians and kickbacks, on their way to make their voices heard – accompanied by a woman who has “an honest job”, as a great many commentators put it, at a time when millions of Brazilians are unemployed.

Others saw the poster-couple for elite Brazil. “I look at this photo and I see primarily the repetition of a scene going back to the time of slavery,” Deborah Thome, a Rio writer and political scientist, wrote on her Facebook page Sunday night. “I am disgusted by the sight of a nanny dressed in a slave-maid’s clothes.”

And that, she said, is emblematic of everything that’s troubling about the current protests.

Polling suggests that Brazilians across all social classes and ethnicities are extremely frustrated with corruption and with the crisis currently paralyzing government. But they differ in where they apportion blame. The half-dozen large anti-corruption demonstrations in the past year have been dominated by white and upper-middle-class protesters, who tend to be supporters of the opposition Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), and to have little love for Ms. Rousseff’s left-leaning Workers’ Party, which has won four successive elections, the last one with a narrow defeat of the PSDB in 2014. Rousseff supporters say they are using the corruption scandal – in which politicians from virtually every party have been named – to try to unseat a democratically elected government.

The research institute Datafolha said that 77 per cent of participants at the demonstration in Sao Paulo, which was the largest in the country, were university graduates, versus the overall rate of 28 per cent in the city. Half of participants said they earned “between five and 20 times minimum wage,” versus 23 per cent of people in the overall population who earn in this range; 77 per cent self-identify as white although the last census showed just 45 per cent of Brazilians are white.

It’s a troubling moment for the country, Ms. Thome said. “The debate now –nothing will convince me otherwise – is between different and conflicting political visions. I don’t support the protests, but like many friends who went to the street, I want a better country. But the paths we want to take to get there are very different. And, in most cases, those paths will not meet.”

But Joana Gryner, a Rio clinical psychologist who marched on Sunday, said she is frustrated by the suggestion that the Pracowniks have less right to protest than anyone else in this democracy.

“It’s too harsh to say that a particular social group cannot protest,” she said. “We have to stop churning out rules and dictating what is the correct way to protest. They were not hurting anyone, and plenty have done harm to them.”

Ms. Maia Pracownik and Mr. Pracownik did not return calls from The Globe and Mail. But in a Facebook post of his own, he expressed disgust at what he called the violation of his privacy, saying a photo without context was being used as a “distraction” from the country’s political and economic crisis. And he made a pointed reference to Lava Jato, the investigation into an alleged $2-billion (U.S.) contracts-for-kickbacks scheme at the state energy company Petrobras, in which many senior political figures, including former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, are now implicated.

“I earn my money honestly,” wrote Mr. Pracownik, who is the vice-president for finance at the Rio football club Flamengo. “My assets are in my own name, I don’t get gifts from construction companies, I pay taxes (not bribes), I employ hundreds of people in my business and four more in my home. … Everyone gets paid on time. And everyone has a registered employment card and I pay social benefits for every one of them.”

He said the nanny in the picture only works for them on weekends, and is paid extra because of it. “She is free to resign if she would prefer other work or another employer,” he said. “I don’t treat her like a victim, or as if she is a member of my family. I treat with respect and with the dignity that any employee deserves.”

But in the furious debate about the photo, many have expressed scorn – at Ms. Maia Pracownik in particular – that she wasn’t pushing the stroller herself, that she has a nanny even on Sunday. “You don’t know enough to handle a baby carriage, but you think you can give your opinion on how to run a country,” sniped an engineer named Francielle Soares in Sao Paulo.

Others expressed disapproval that employers would take their nanny to a political demonstration. But that part came as no surprise to the nannies watching over toddlers in a childrens’ park near the family’s apartment on Monday. “She’s working, right?” said one of the women – none was willing to be quoted by name talking about their jobs. “She’s obliged to go – she’s earning, so it’s her responsibility to accompany the parents wherever they want to go.”

Brazilians, who are deft and fast with memes, reposted the picture with a thousand snarky captions, such as “Speed it up, there, Maria [the generic ‘maid name’], we have to get out to protest against this government that made us pay you minimum wage.”

Brazil’s economic crisis has seen a huge spike in unemployment – 1.5 million jobs were shed in 2015 and another 2.2 million are expected to be lost as the contraction continues this year. For many women who had new pink-collar positions in the economy that boomed under Mr. da Silva, that has meant a reluctant return to domestic work, traditionally the chief occupational sector for women of colour in Brazil.

When the picture began to be shared with scornful comments, some domestic workers wrote their own comments, pointing out they would be glad to have the job. “What’s the problem?” wrote Marcela Margiotta on the popular Facebeook site Humans of the Protest. “I’m going crazy looking for a job to work on weekends. … Thank god there are nanny jobs out there, because these days you graduate and then, surprise: there are no jobs!”

Source: The Globe and Mail (Canada)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-photograph-thats-become-the-emblem-of-brazils-political-turmoil/article29230399/

[OFF] Television in Brazil. Globo domination

This post is a Off-Topic, bit I think it has connection with the issue of Media manipulation and authoritarianism.

The article below describes the behavior of TV Globo (Brazil), a TV station that rose in Brazil in 1964, year of the dictatorship, and it behaves like a Totalitarian TV, even in a democracy (the dictatorship ended in 1985 in Brazil, but the Globe has been attacking Democracy until today).

Even a liberal publication (The Economist) shows their shock chronicling the social control exercised by this TV Station in Brazil and the danger that it represents for any country (in case of some Country to copy this model of Globo TV for social control). Worth reading this matter for those who don't know the control model of this TV station in Brazil (Globo is one of the largest TV in the world, a big power, despite the loss of increasing power to the internet who Globo fears), which is "affectionately" nicknamed in Brazil, for popular sectors, as 'Goebbels TV' (Rede Goebbels) (a deserved name, in true).
__________________________________________________________________

Globo’s not so little piece of the ratings

Brazil’s biggest media firm is flourishing with an old-fashioned business model
Jun 7th 2014 | RIO DE JANEIRO | From the print edition

WHEN the football World Cup begins on June 12th in Brazil, tens of millions of Brazilians will watch the festivities on TV Globo, the country’s largest broadcast network. But for Globo it will be just another day of vast audiences. No fewer than 91m people, just under half the population, tune in to it each day: the sort of audience that, in the United States, is to be had only once a year, and only for the one network that has won the rights that year to broadcast American football’s Super Bowl championship game.

Globo is surely Brazil’s most powerful company, given its reach into so many homes. Its nearest competitor in free-to-air television, Record, has an audience share of only about 13%. America’s most popular broadcast network, CBS, has a mere 12% share of audience during prime time, and its main competitors have around 8%.

The company started in Rio de Janeiro with a newspaper, O Globo, in 1925, and was built by a visionary and long-lived media titan, Roberto Marinho, who died in 2003 at the age of 98. As it grew in the television age, Globo has arguably done as much as any politician to unite a vast and diverse country, from the Amazonian jungle to the heart of coffee-growing country, from wretched favelas on the urban periphery to the fancy boutiques of downtown Rio and São Paulo. Today it is controlled by Mr Marinho’s three sons and towers over Brazil like Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue. It is the largest media company in Latin America, with revenues that reached 14.6 billion reais ($6.3 billion) in 2013, having climbed impressively over the past decade. As a powerful, family-owned media firm, it looks like a local version of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, without the family drama.

Globo counts pay-TV stations, magazines, radio, film production and newspapers as part of its empire, but most of its profits come from its broadcast network, which airs salacious telenovelas, or soap operas, that are always the talk of Brazil. In richer countries the habit of “appointment viewing” has declined with the spread of digital video recorders, but Brazilians still tune in devoutly for the three telenovelas that run each evening, six days a week.

Globo airs Brazil’s snazziest and freshest shows, yet its business model feels decidedly old-fashioned. Its programmes are filmed on its own vast studio lot, called Projac, nestled among forested mountains on the edge of Rio. Actors and writers are on contract, just as they were in the early days of Hollywood. Workers stitch lavish costumes and build intricate sets on site, like those of “Meu Pedacinho de Chão” (“My Little Patch of Land”), one of the current soaps, a fantastical tale about a small town seen through a child’s eyes (pictured). The telenovela format can be adapted to audience feedback, and plots can be changed on the fly depending on what viewers like.

Globo executives obsess over the real-time audience figures streamed to their offices. “If ratings decline a tenth of a percent, you feel this building shake,” one of them says. For advertisers wanting to get a message to a national audience, it is the obvious choice. Globo knows this, and is estimated to have raised its rates for prime-time spots by nearly 60% since 2010.

Setting the standard

Not everyone is comfortable with Globo’s good fortune. Critics are unsettled by the firm’s share of advertising and audience. It controls everything from Brazilians’ access to news to the market rates for journalists’ salaries. Even entertainment shows can be remarkably influential. “Salve Jorge”, a recent soap set in Turkey, prompted hordes of Brazilians to take holidays there. Its programmes also shape the national culture. This year it aired what it believes was the first gay kiss on a broadcast network.

Elsewhere in Latin America big media companies are in the midst of real-life dramas. Argentina’s Grupo Clarín is being carved up by the government, and Mexico is trying to make Televisa slim down. But Brazil’s government is more docile towards media owners. It helps that the Marinhos tend to adapt to the political climate. Mr Marinho was a staunch supporter of the country’s 1964-85 military dictatorship; today his sons live in a more liberal, democratic Brazil and stay out of the public eye. Last year they ran an apology for their father’s politics in the “errors” section of O Globo.

Brazil does not have a tradition of sequels and prequels, and popular telenovelas are always killed off after a few months to make way for new ones (“Meu Pedacinho” is a rare remake). Likewise, for two decades people have predicted that Globo’s heady success would come to an end as Brazilians look for entertainment elsewhere. So far it has defied them. Sir Martin Sorrell, the boss of WPP, an advertising firm, points out that, as in Japan, traditional media in Brazil are “like a fortress” and continue to hold strong in spite of the incursions of new entertainment sources.

Because Brazil has lagged media trends in rich countries, Globo has been able to watch foreign firms’ mistakes “so we don’t have to make them”, says Roberto Irineu Marinho, the group’s boss. But internet use has taken off in Brazil, and will alter consumers’ viewing habits over time. Today Brazil has more mobile phones than it has people, and penetration of pay-television has slowly crept up to around 28% of households. In April Brazilians spent around 12.5 hours a week on online social networks from their desktop computers, more than double the global average, according to comScore, a research firm. For the first time in Globo’s history it is facing serious competition for advertisers and audience. Increasingly, Brazil’s advertising market will be a contest between the two Gs: Globo and Google.

Globo is still the biggest fish in a big pond, and can keep a hold on Brazilians’ attention, even as they migrate to new platforms. For example, as more households can afford pay-TV packages, Globo may lose viewers from its free-to-air network, but should gain when they tune in to the group’s paid-for channels. It is experimenting with new online offerings, such as letting people subscribe for a monthly fee to view its content online with a time delay.

“We don’t want to jeopardise our advertising revenues by changing people’s habits, but we have to be ready,” says Jorge Nóbrega, a senior Globo executive. Netflix, an American online-video firm, has entered Brazil, but Globo-boosters argue that Brazilians prefer telenovelas to foreign fare. In television, as in football, they are likely to keep rooting for the home team.

From the print edition: Business

Source: The Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21603472-brazils-biggest-media-firm-flourishing-old-fashioned-business-model-globo-domination

Escaping Reality With Brazil’s Globo TV

NOV. 10, 2015

Vanessa Barbara

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Last year, The Economist published an article about TV Globo, Brazil’s largest broadcast network. It reported that “91 million people, just under half the population, tune in to it each day: The sort of audience that, in the United States, is to be had only once a year, and only for the one network that has won the rights that year to broadcast American football’s Super Bowl championship game.”

That figure might seem exaggerated, but all it takes is a walk around the block for it to look conservative. Everywhere I go there’s a television turned on, usually to Globo, and everybody is staring hypnotically at it.

Not surprisingly, a 2011 study supported by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics found the percentage of households with a television set in 2011 (96.9) was higher than the percentage of those with a refrigerator (95.8), and that 64 percent had more than one television set. Other researchers have found that Brazilians watch four hours and 31 minutes of TV per weekday, and four hours and 14 minutes on weekends; 73 percent watch TV every day and only 4 percent never regularly watch television. (I’m one of the latter.)

Among them, Globo is ubiquitous. Although its audience has been declining for decades, its share is still about 34 percent. Its nearest competitor, Record, has 15 percent.

So what does this all-pervading presence mean? In a country where education lags (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently ranked us 60th among 76 countries in average performance on international student achievement tests), it would imply that one set of values and social perspectives is very widely shared. Furthermore, being Latin America’s biggest media company, Globo can exert considerable influence on our politics.

One example: Two years ago, in a bland apology, Globo confessed to having supported Brazil’s military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985. “In the light of history, however,” it said, “there is no reason to not recognize explicitly today that this support was a mistake, and that other editorial decisions in the period that followed were also wrong.”

With these hazards in mind, and in the name of good journalism, I watched a whole day of Globo programming on a recent Tuesday, to see what I could learn about the values and the ideas it promotes.

The first thing most people watch each morning is the local news, then the national news. From those, one might infer that there is nothing more important in life than the weather and the traffic. The fact that our president, Dilma Rousseff, faces a serious risk of impeachment and that her main political opponent, Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the lower house of Congress, is being investigated for embezzlement, get less airtime than the details of traffic jams. Those bulletins are updated at least six times a day, with the anchors chatting amicably, like old aunts at teatime, about the heat or the rain.

From the morning talk shows and other programs, I grasped that the secret of life is to be famous, rich, vaguely religious and “do bem” (those who stand on the side of good). Everybody on-air loved everyone else and smiled all the time. Wondrous tales were told of people with disabilities who had the willpower to succeed in their jobs. Specialists and celebrities discussed that and other topics with remarkable superficiality.

I decided to skip the afternoon programs — mostly reruns of soap operas and Hollywood movies — and go straight to the prime-time news.

Ten years ago, a Globo anchorman, William Bonner, compared the average viewer of the news program Jornal Nacional to Homer Simpson — incapable of understanding complex news. From what I saw, this standard still applies. A segment on a water shortage in São Paulo, for example, was highlighted by a reporter, standing at the local zoo, who said ironically: “You can see the worried look of the lion about the water crisis.”

Watching Globo means getting used to platitudes and tired formulas; many news scripts include little puns at the end, or an inanity from a bystander. “Dunga said he likes to smile,” one reporter said about the coach of Brazil’s national soccer team. Often, a few seconds are devoted to disturbing news like a revelation that São Paulo would keep operational data about the state’s water supply secret for 15 years, while full minutes are lavished on items like “the rescue of a drowning man that caused awe and surprise in a little town.”

The rest of the evening was filled with soap operas, from which you could learn that women always wear heavy makeup, huge earrings, polished nails, tight skirts, high heels and straight hair. (On those counts, I guess I’m not a woman.) Female characters are good or bad, but unanimously thin. They fight one another over men. Their ultimate purposes in life are to wear a wedding dress, give birth to a blond-haired baby or appear on television, or all of the above. Normal people have butlers in their homes, where hot male plumbers visit and seduce bored housewives.

Two of the three current soap operas talk about favelas, but with little resemblance to reality. Politically, they tend toward conservatism. “A Regra do Jogo,” for example, has a character who, in one episode, claims to be a human rights lawyer working with Amnesty International in order to smuggle bomb-making materials to imprisoned criminals. The advocacy organization publicly complained about that, accusing Globo of trying to defame human rights workers throughout Brazil.

Despite the high technical level of production, the novelas were painful to watch, with their thick doses of prejudice, melodrama, lame dialogue and clichés.

But they had their effect. At the end of the day, I felt less concerned about the water crisis or the possibility of another military coup — just like the apathetic lion and the empty women of the soap operas.
Correction: November 10, 2015

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described a brief report by Globo television about the status of operational data on São Paulo’s water supply. The report said the data would be kept secret for 15 years, not that it had been kept secret for 25 years.
________________

Vanessa Barbara is a columnist for the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo and the editor of the literary website A Hortaliça.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Source: New York Times (USA)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/opinion/international/escaping-reality-with-brazils-globo-tv.html?_r=2

In Portuguese:
Deu no New York Times: “Rede Globo, a ‘TV irrealidade’ que ilude o Brasil”