Brazzil Brazil is up to the point of becoming a new Colombia, owing to people like Mr. Lula da Silva and Beira-Mar. This is not just an opinion. It's a fact. People who try to cover facts under pseudo-patriotic rhetoric are not real patriots. They are just stupid. Moreover, Mr. Menges is not a government official, he is just an intelligence analyst who tries to understand what is happening in Brazil. If a simple press article is an "undue interference in Brazilian affairs", then all press commentary in foreign newspapers concerning Brazilian politics should be prohibited, except those favorable to Mr. da Silva, of course. To say that Mr. da Silva's enemies intend to "overthrow the government and remilitarize Brazil" is a huge and cynical lie. Mr. da Silva is overtly supported by the military, to whom he promises government money for nuclear research (appealing to the old ambition of making Brazil an anti-American atomic world power—exactly what Mr. Menges had foretold). Mr. da Silva is very close to ultranationalist military, the most dangerous part of Brazilian Armed Forces. These people, and nobody else, intend to "remilitarize Brazil", this time under an anti-American flag. It's also a lie that the Workers’ Party (PT) is not a revolutionary one. Some months ago a political scientist from UFRGS (Unversidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul—Rio Grande do Sul’s Federal University), Prof. José Giusti Tavares, wrote that the PT was a revolutionary party and was sued for that. He brought to Justice the evidence confirming his diagnosis (papers from the Party itself) and was acquitted. Mr. da Silva himself admitted to his extreme-left supporters that any "light" tone he had adopted in his electoral propaganda was just this: electoral propaganda, and nothing more. Well,
Brazzil’s article suggests that people should read Brazilian papers like
O Globo instead of believing Mr. Menges. Bullshit. I am myself one of
O Globo's columnists, and this is what I wrote there some days ago:
Harvest Time by Olavo de Carvalho
O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), September 7, 2002 Since 1990 and after the downfall of the USSR, the Forum of São Paulo has become the most powerful initiative to restart the international communist movement and, in Fidel Castro words, "to regain in Latin America what was lost in East Europe". Summoned by the Cuban dictator and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Forum brings together the legal Communist (and pro-Communist) parties, engaged in the struggle for cultural and political hegemony within their nations, and armed organizations involved in kidnapping, terrorism and drug traffic. Among the latter, the outstanding one is FARC, whose connections with the Brazilian drug market were proven with the arrest of Fernandinho Beira-Mar. There are also double-faced organizations, both legal and illegal, like the Chilean Communist Party, whose armed wing had something to do with the kidnapping earlier this year of Washington Olivetto, one of Brazil’s most celebrated admen. Perhaps the readers will at first find strange a meeting in which legally organized parties fraternize with criminal gangs. Actually, this association only follows the old Leninist rules that recommend the joining of legal and illegal means in the revolutionary struggle. In fact, one of the advantages of the international alliance is to allow that the promiscuous mixture of licit and illicit ways, of moralist rhetoric and drug traffic, of beautiful ideals and the brutality of kidnappings, of humanitarian sentimentalism and organized terror—a mix so clear and evident in continental scale, and at meetings of the Forum—that it appears disguised and nebulous when seen from the perspective of each separate nation. Using Argentineans to act in Mexico, Bolivians in Brazil or Brazilians in Chile, the most obvious connections become invisible to the eyes of local public opinion: the legal parties continue above any suspicion, and the simple suggestion of investigating them is rejected as an intolerable offense when the arrest of criminals shows full proof of the intimate association between organized crime and leftist politics in the continent; identification that becomes still more evident when the arrest of such persons is followed, with magical coincidence, by the quick and effective mobilization, for the criminals, of officials and "decent folk" of the Left. Since 1990, the Forum of São Paulo has been meeting regularly. The tenth meeting took place in Havana, Cuba, in December, 2001. Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was there. To deny therefore that he is associated politically with the other entities, signatories to the declarations of the Forum, it is to deny the validity of the Brazilian presidential candidate's signature on official documents of international relevance. As wrote Vasconcelo Quadros in the weekly magazine
Isto É of March 2002, "Brazil shelters a secret network of support of international guerrilla organizations employed in kidnappings, bank robberies and drug traffic". In a country where any phone call to a swindler is enough to place a politician under police suspicion, a countrywide refusal to investigate a link enshrined in public documents it is, at least, surprising. Still more surprising is that, among so many media commentators, policemen, politicians and the military, all reputed intelligent, nobody gets—or wants—to establish a logical link between those facts and Dr. Leonardo Boff’s August 23 declaration, in
Jornal do Brasil that with the next election "the time for the Brazilian revolution will have arrived. The sowing has already been done. It is harvest time". Or, when using the word "revolution", didn't the retired clergyman mean anything of the sort, and was all innocent hyperbole? The massive and obstinate refusal to face with realism this state of affairs can be explained by the fact that it constitutes a dreadful reality, whose vision would be too traumatic for the delicate nerves of a dandy bourgeoisie, terrified to the point of no longer admitting the reality of the evil that terrifies it. Psychologically kidnapped by a nameless Marxism that permeates the air, the dominant class is already ripe to act its role of docile, smiling and helpful victim. But, please, don't think that with those remarks I am acting in favor or against any candidate to the presidency of the Republic. Mind you: four candidates, with token differences, have the same ideology, and any one of them, when elected, cannot govern without the support of at least one or two of the other three. All we have then is a single slate election, subdivided into four temporary denominations. Perhaps what Dr. Boff will not say is that the revolution will be inaugurated with the victory of candidate x or y, but with "the election" itself—no matter who wins. From the psychological point of view, at least, that revolution has already begun: the ideological uniformity, once accepted as the normal state of the democratic politics, is enough to virtually outlaw, as "right wing extremism" any word henceforth said in favor of liberal capitalism, of the USA or of Israel. He who says it receives regular death threats, no longer with the precaution of delivery as anonymous messages: they are to be seen in Internet sites and cause no scandal. Dr. Boff is right: Sowing has already been done. It is harvest time. But all this certainly is mere hyperbole. Yes, it would be a scandal to see some malign intention in such innocent words. Olavo de Carvalho is a philosopher and the author of several books, including
O Imbecil Coletivo: Atualidades Inculturais Brasileiras (1996) and
O Futuro do Pensamento Brasileiro. Estudos sobre o Nosso Lugar no Mundo
(1997). He writes a column for Rio’s daily O Globo and can be contacted at
olavo@olavodecarvalho.org
Politics
October 2002
have the same ideology. All we have is a single slate election,
subdivided into four temporary denominations.
