Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Pepe Escobar — Welcome to the Jungle

[Jair Bolsonaro's] first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age.

French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as “pathological politics on a large scale”.

His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers’ Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a “justice” system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded “training” of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes.

That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a “free market” agenda, all his sins are forgiven....
Pepe Escobar is Brazilian.

Consortium News
Pepe Escobar

Also

Anatoly Karlin (Russian and alt-right) has a different take.

The Unz Review
Is Bolsonaro an American Stooge?

See also Escobar on the snake pit.

8 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

The liberal extremists are fuming, ranting and raving in fact, that another pragmatist was elected to office. The Guardian is mortified that the man is so stupid and impolitic that he doesn't even know the correct positions and polite responses to their questions. It's as if he isn't even trying to appear savvy and well versed in their liberal value system.

Calgacus said...

He talks about killing and raping political opponents. This is pragmatism? Being against this is a liberal value system?

One can make a respectable case that Trump was the better candidate by normal, universal, human values than Clinton. I don't see how to do this for Bolsonaro.

Ryan Harris said...

Academic elite talk with figurative language constantly, from the outrageous to understated euphemisms; Everyone gets it. Everyone. From the beggar on the street to the billionaire and everyone in between.

When an army captain turned politician talks like an ordinary man, as any soldier speaks, is it really that difficult to understand for elites? If people even attempt to understand his background, his experience, sort of imagine his frame of reference then listen to what he talks about and what is being said it's not that alarming. Some probably gets lost in translation but this is nothing new.

Matt Franko said...

Ryan this is just what leftist do when they lose...

Say shit like “there is no democracy!” , “too much money in politics!”, etc....

Anything other than doing a better job of it....

They are not qualified...

Ryan Harris said...

Sore losers

Ryan Harris said...

I think what we're up against is the integration of women into the labor force and society more generally. Men talk about ideas, use language and use humor in ways that that women find uncomfortable. When women began to dominate institutions in the 80s they tried to shut men up and make us behave prim and proper. As Universities, gov, media and companies increasingly went from trying to accommodate women to women actually dominating, then the rules on male banter became more outright hostile. Liberal consensus became that male speech was basically assualt or verbal rape. Unacceptable in it vulgarity and roughness. Hurtful and unnecessary.

The problem forever is that men aren't women and we aren't ever going to be soft and cuddly in our speech to avoid hurt feelings.

There is value in pushing back against the social norms and allowing your self to be labeled as a hate filled Nazi racist. Embrace it. Wear their fear as a badge of honor. There is nothing wrong with being male or talking like a male, including offending people with ideas. Everyone is ignorant of everyone else's experience, if you aren't being an ass and malicious, people affected aren't fragile flowers.

Calgacus said...

Basically, ordinary people and soldiers and males (like me) do not speak like Bolsonaro. Though of course all this is an untenable generalization, to say so is an insult to them. Matt & Ryan, you should get out more; I think you are believing elite imaginings of how ordinary people speak, that they are always cruder than the refined elites. Real world experience rather than TV would show this is not the case. And it has nothing to do with the era, while I agree there is something of an official and constricting PC consensus... but I am older than either of you and discourse generally has become a great deal cruder and more "improper", not the reverse. Hey, just look at old TV and movies compared to current ones.

Bolsonaro speaks in a rather more crazy and bloodthirsty way than Trump or Obama, who in my opinion are roughly the same, Obama being worse, the more murderous and bloodthirsty in thought and action. But in my and many others' opinion Bolsonaro's rhetoric is farther out than any other nation's leader, period.

Of course, the failure of the left in Brazil was due to its own brainwashing. Austerity and pandering to neoliberalism and austerity under Lula and the Worker's Party was perhaps a political necessity, though I do not think so. But, true, Dilma Rousseff caving into a ridiculous, entirely fraudulent debt crisis was entirely the result of her incompetence. She was "not qualified". But the coup against her was still a coup, and the apparently fraudulent prosecution of Lula was still unjustified.

Ryan Harris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.