The
Car Wash Task Force team of anti-corruption prosecutors in Brazil was
presented recently by Jimmy Dore in his YouTube show and draw
immediately our attention. While we enjoy most of the shows, we must
warn the Jimmy Dore Show contributors and friends that this case
smells badly. The show presents a kind of commercial for this
operation, (Lava Jato in Brazilian), which is highly suspicious for a
number of reasons.
Indeed,
the way the video was directed resembles a modern commercial that
refers to some kind of services. It depicts the team in modern
offices siting in front of computers, while the narrative and the
music background are really relaxing. What kind of prosecutors,
investigating such crimes, are depicted in this way?
The
Federal Judge Sergio Moro speaks in the video. He is considered the
one who started the Lava Jato operation. Yet, the big surprise comes
later. It ends with Lula da Silva, one of the most popular
politicians who served as president of Brazil, sentenced to jail for
taking bribes. Not a single word about (as characterized by many) one
of the most corrupted presidents, Michel Temer! The neoliberal
pro-Washington Temer, not only currently stays in his position, but
it is known that he was put in power after a constitutional coup
against previous Leftist president and Lula's successor, Dilma
Rousseff!
Furthermore,
the video proceeds beyond its prosecutional 'territory' towards
indirect political positions. The narrative almost implies that
poverty in Brazil is linked with state corruption through government
officials in power. Well, poverty in Brazil and elsewhere is a
complex story, related mostly to specific policies applied by
neoliberal politicians like Temer in favor of the elites. But we
guess that this is not considered 'corruption' according to the
video.
The Lava Jato operation began when
Sergio Moro, a little-known judge in a southern state capital, began
to uncover bribery, kickbacks, illicit funding of parties, and
plunder of public assets at an immense scale, all centered on the oil
giant Petrobras and its contractors, mainly in the construction
industry. The sums alleged to have been plundered total in the tens
of bllions of dollars.
It remains a misconception
outside Brazil, however, that Lava Jato caused the impeachment of
President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (PT). She was
impeached on the frivolous grounds of breaking budgetary laws. No
evidence has yet been produced to tie her to the corruption scandal.
Michel Temer, Rousseff’s former vice president, is now president.
His Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) is an ideologically
amorphous party that serves as little more than a vehicle for power,
and as the (small-c) conservative ballast in Brazil’s
establishment. His party now rules in a de facto coalition with the
neoliberal Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). Last year, leaked
recordings involving Temer allies laid bare the real motives to
impeach Rousseff: her unwillingness to protect leading politicians
from investigation.
[...]
Up
until late 2016, the major figures ensnared in investigations were
from the PT. In March of that year, Brazil’s left-wing former
president Lula was sensationally detained by federal police, without
charge. Additionally, media cheerleading of Lava Jato and
orchestration of anticorruption protests had all targeted the Left.
Judge Moro encouraged this with deliberate PR moves, such as the
(illegal) leaking of (illegally obtained) recordings of Lula and
then-president Rousseff. This raised hackles for privileging
spectacle over due process, and surfaced preexisting doubts about the
neutrality of the judiciary.
Brazilians are used to seeing
political corruption punished with a mere slap on the wrist, so the
judiciary’s newfound zeal — while potentially welcome — seemed
mainly to apply when prosecuting Workers’ Party figures. Indeed,
even the Rio de Janeiro state branch of the Order of Brazilian
Lawyers criticized Moro for his selective leaking. His puzzling and
self-serving defense was that these were not leaks, but deliberate
publications. Lula was then accused of being the mastermind of the
whole Petrobras-related corruption scheme without any evidence.
[...]
Now Temer has nine minsters under
investigation. The Right’s defeated 2014 presidential candidate,
Aécio Neves of the PSDB, is the most-cited politician in Justice
Fachin’s list. The PSDB’s expected 2018 presidential hopeful, São
Paulo state governor Geraldo Alckmin, is also to be investigated.
More broadly, around 60 percent of both houses of Congress are under
investigation for serious crimes, some of which fall under Lava Jato.
Let's
see how far the 'prosecutors' will go with Temer. Our guess is 'not
too far'. The case resembles impressively the Panama
Papers fiasco.
It looks like the neoliberal regime continues to build a Matrix of
virtual reality through carefully selected actions. As the neoliberal
ideology collapses globally, exactly because of the skyrocketing
corruption related to corporate lobbyists and politicians like Temer,
the Left must be presented as much more corrupted by all means.
Indeed, as the old-fashioned propaganda is not working anymore, the
current establishment adopts a much more sophisticated version.
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