By TARSUS GENUS*
The general's arrest is the culmination of the qualitative change in the high-intensity crisis, which has been going on since the medievalist inquisition launched by the Republic of Curitiba.
The book by my friend Nicolás Sartorius (Expansive democracy, Anagram) reached my hands on December 14, 2024. The arrival of the book awakened in my political memory the characteristic coincidences of an era: the transition from Francoism to democracy in Spain – with the attempted coup by Colonel Tejero – in February 1981; the final crisis of the dictatorships in Latin America, which matured in the early 1980s; and today also the arrest of General Braga Netto – here in Brazil – which may be an impulse for the transition from the sordid militarism of the Cold War to a professionalization of our Armed Forces, as occurred in Spain in the 1980s.
Nicolás Sartorius, lawyer and essayist, is from a political generation that allowed him to be a co-founder of the “Workers Commissions”, deputy of the PCE and the Izquierda Unida, in three legislatures, which has works on the Spanish transition, on the crisis of the Marxist idea that prevailed in the socialist project due to the influence of the USSR and also on the new language in democratic politics, on the climate transition and the new statements for democratic socialism.
I learned a lot from Nicolás Sartorius, at the Alternativas Foundation, about the Franco dictatorship (which led to his arrest and conviction on several occasions), about Europe and the crisis of social democracy, in the various colloquia we organized together, with European and Brazilian personalities, in the debates on democracy, peace, socialism and the Welfare State.
Nicolás Sartorius narrates (from page 232) that when the President of the Government Adolfo Suarez (a Francoist figure who emerged as a “center” in the Spanish transition) received in Moncloa (in August 1977) two years after Franco's death, the union representatives agreed to a "social pact". The proposal by the President of the Government was rejected by the unionists. They understood that the economic solution proposed by the regime would not have the support of the political parties, which could support a constituent process that would effectively democratize the country, which occurred later in 1978.
On February 23, 1981, a political-military event in Spain is reminiscent of the events of January 8, 2023 here in our country. The episode links General Braga Netto as one of the organizers of the new national coup, who was arrested by order of the Supreme Federal Court, a fact that gives us hope that, analogously to what happened in Spain, the Braga and Bolsonaro Coup will have the same fate as Colonel Tejero's coup attempt.
Tejero invaded Parliament, shouting hysterically – leaning on a phalanx of soldiers and shooting at the roof – for everyone to throw themselves to the floor. Two refused: Santiago Carrillo, a communist deputy, and Adolfo Suarez, a former Francoist who represented the center, who had then joined the democratic project under construction without restrictions. In that act, both symbolized the democratic decision of Spanish society to move towards Europe, as Portugal had done in 1975, in the Carnation Revolution. For the sake of the ironies of history, this is the same Europe of the countries that today remain silent or support the Palestinian genocide.
This Saturday, December 14, 2024, “accused of being part of the articulation of a coup d’état plan” and of trying to obstruct investigations into the coup process, Army General Braga Netto was arrested by the Federal Police. Don’t be surprised: Walter Braga Netto is an ordinary general, he is not a Golberi do Couto e Silva – a learned right-wing policymaker for the Brazilian National State – nor a Jarbas Passarinho, an erudite senator and qualified negotiator of the interests of the military corporation in the transition. Braga Netto is a Tejero without shots! His arrest is the arrest of a gang leader, who exposed his fellow soldiers and their families in a sordid and sick way, dishonoring – with his servility to Jair Bolsonaro – the most elementary principles of corporate social coexistence.
Jair Bolsonaro's slow political isolation in the country is based on three foundations, which have exhausted their charm, both among the socially disinherited of democracy and among the most evident lumpen-bourgeois sectors of the country: the Leader's psychotic lack of lucidity is one of the foundations; the erosion of his policy of damage to the National State, due to his destructive management – including during the pandemic – is another foundation; and the main (and third) is his irreverence towards the traditional political world, including those sectors of the ruling classes not pragmatically sympathetic to the proto-fascism that he represents.
The general’s arrest is the culmination of a qualitative change in the high-intensity crisis that has been going on since the medievalist inquisition launched by the Republic of Curitiba. Supported by the “parliamentary” coup against President Dilma Rousseff’s term, the inquisition of the Republic of Curitiba reinforced the extreme right, already globally stimulated on social media, and accentuated the dissolution of liberal democracy, already surrounded by more inequalities and more lavish consumption: the little spiritual “Mussolinis” who were sleeping on the periphery of the world’s great fortunes then came furiously to the surface!
On this same day, December 14, President Javier Milei, at the Youth Festival “Brothers of Italy”, a conclave of the Italian far right youth, thanked the President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni for the honorable invitation he had received. In his speech he said the following: that he does not care “a horseradish” (“I don’t care”) the opinion of politicians and that “listening to politicians is the same as turning your back on the citizens”.
Javier Milei went further: that “one should never deny one’s own ideas in order to get votes” and that the only way to “fight organized evil” (the enemy) is with the “well organized” (the party, for him, a charismatic “part”) and, finally, that “unlike the economy”, politics (traditional bourgeois) is a “zero-sum game”.
These arguments by Javier Milei, taking into account their historical specificities, today have – for the fascist right wing subversive of liberal democracy – the same weight that the revolutionary speeches of the left against “bourgeois democracy” had in the golden age of the struggle for socialism of a Marxist nature.
The old fascist refrain, however, imbued with postmodern libertarianism, is here to do politics in high style and, equally, to deny politics, which, for Javier Milei, always results in “zero sum”. Therefore, by stating that the economy must break what remains of liberal politics, he promotes the apocalypse of political democracy in a cultured country like Argentina, defeating culture as an indicator of civilization, which is not necessarily linked to bourgeois humanism. And everything, as always, is blown up by the most petty interests that are in dispute, in a terrain often called class struggle.
The most obvious purpose of Javier Milei's canine actions, who always cretinously claims to be a "non-politician", is to standardize opinions through the State (which he falsely calls a "non-politician") in order to criminalize any divergent policy. It is a fascism supported by the socialization of dementia, which is transformed into popular morbidity, activated in a geometrically progressive way by social networks.
Javier Milei is the Colonel Tejero of postmodernity, with one substantial difference: his speech captures the hearts and minds of the bases of the socialist revolution, which are in decline. Resistance also means reforming democratic institutions to restore to the majority of the people the hope of a better, freer, more open life, guided by equality.
*Tarsus in law he was governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, mayor of Porto Alegre, Minister of Justice, Minister of Education and Minister of Institutional Relations in Brazil. Author, among other books, of possible utopia (Arts & Crafts).[https://amzn.to/3DfPdhF]
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
