Dilma: will she really go?

While the corporate press seems to be looking forward to Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff’s impeachment — perhaps, as some argue, because they assume a pro-corporate regime would replace the present government —  my “Brazilian connection”, Flávio Américo Dos Reis, points out it is by no means a done deal.  

Dilma Rousseff has not been implicated in any corruption–that’s a fact! The motion to impeach still has to be voted on in the Senate. And even if the motion to impeach is given the approval of the Senate, it still has to go to an “impeachment trial” before the Supreme Court. Then, at that point, the Attorney General for the Union can bring so much dirty laundry out into the open…implicating many, if not most, of those frothing at the mouth, they may call the whole thing off.

“A large proportion of the deputies (representatives) used family and God as justifications for Dilma’s impeachment,” the Carta Capital article mentioned. Just as in the U.S. House of Reps, there are a ton of Evangelicals in the Brazilian Congress–and they’re just as insane, if not more so, than their counterparts in the U.S.

They’re basically Wahabbi Christians–they’re not Catholics. They hate women. They would rather they were in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant and cooking something for them. They would bring back the death penalty. They want to lower the age of majority–because that would affect mostly poor blacks and mixed-race kids in the slums.

They make jokes about rape and jokes about openly gay representatives in the Congress. You can Google this. It’s a fact.

And they hate the lady president perhaps as much, if not more, than they hate the black president in the U.S.

I hate to admit it, but Brazil is still very much in the 13th century as far as equal rights and human rights. It’s really sad.

The right-wing is very strong in Brazil–very, very strong.

The other thing that is undeniable is that when the progressives had the power, they did not invest as much in education and counter-propaganda as they could/should have. Too many of the kids now protesting were not born during those heavy years, so they have no idea what a thoroughgoing, right-wing dictatorship is–even as they protest for the return of the Lieutenant Colonels. I forgive them. They don’t know.

There’s a very famous saying from the dictatorship years in Brazil–it goes something like “You don’t poke the panther with a short stick!” Portuguese: “Não se cutuca a onça com vara curta.”

So yeah, Dilma is somewhat to blame, and so is Lula. More should have been invested in civic education–and wasn’t. Not by a long shot.