By LUIZ MARQUES*
The circus is cosmopolitan. The reproduction of the outrageousness survives institutional demagogy, which propagates anti-politics, the free market and criminalizes the left.
In 2002, it was translated in Brazil The political scandal: power and visibility in the media age, by John B. Thompson (Vozes). This is not a gratuitous attack on those who trade in scandals, but a study of an influential phenomenon in the disputes that emerge in the 21st century. Communication technology to inform, misinform or omit has a long history. Roberto Marinho elected the “Hunter of Maharajas”, then removed him from the Presidency. Cyber networks did not invent the wheel.
The Cambridge professor focuses on three scandals: “abuse of power” (Richard Nixon/Watergate); “political-financial” (European Parliament/Qatar); political-sexual (Bill Clinton/Mônica Lewinski). In Brazil, appeals to the military ignore human rights violations swept under the rug (Vladimir Herzog/Torture). Cases include beatings and electric shocks on the pau-de-arara to protect the Armed Forces. The missing are still waiting for justice.
The bad gets worse with the fake news to tarnish the image of their opponents, which involves collusion between the media and the judiciary. The situation evokes a commitment to use new mechanisms to correct the misconduct of public officials. The performance serves as a stage for sociopathic clowns with no republican notions, such as the Italian Silvio Berlusconi, the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro and the Argentine Javier Milei. The circus is cosmopolitan. The reproduction of the outrage survives institutional demagogy, which propagates anti-politics, the free market and criminalizes the left — a scapegoat for discomfort.
The crushing machine of the lawfare triggers fictitious episodes. The forged accusations dismantle national engineering companies, the naval industry, the pre-salt, Petrobras. The undermining of the mongrels obeys foreign dictates. The book Lava Jato: Judge Sergio Moro and behind the scenes of the operation that shook Brazil, by Vladimir Netto, praises the man without qualities anointed hero by Globo. It is difficult to know where the lack of critical reflection on the part of the corporate press ends and where the cynicism of those who deceive without the discretion of hypocrites begins, allowing the imposture to be caught by observers. In the theater of falsehoods, the truth goes down the drain; rats come to the surface.
Democracy under threat
The media is not democracy, but rather the spectacle in the act of producing meaning. To this end: (a) it replaces the use of reason “with the public expression of feelings”; (b) it replaces the right of each and every person to express an opinion with the “opinion maker”. In Simulacrum and power: an analysis of the media, Marilena Chaui inserts pantomime into the “destruction of the sphere of public opinion”.
During the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, reporters ask residents what they feel about the floods, instead of asking what they think about the shameful inaction of the City Hall. The disaster is reduced to a domestic fatality, without any link to government negligence. The maneuver shields the mayor from the “COVID-kit” of chloroquine and ivermectin distributed during the pandemic, in the sad capital of Rio Grande do Sul.
Scandals shake power and, sometimes, generate personal scourges; see the fate of the “father of the poor” Getúlio Vargas and the rector of UFSC Luiz Carlos Cancellier — an innocent man accused of “convictions” without Power point. Not that errors undermine systemic reliability, in themselves. Congress is full of adventurers who surf on slanderous and defamatory campaigns. Anything goes in the guava tree of parliamentary amendments in their own interests, illustrating the serious crisis of dedication to res publica for the love of the philosophy of avarice, which raises the god of money on the altar of hyper-individualism.
Journalism's mission to monitor governments, reveal flaws and eradicate evils — in the name of the public interest — is subverted. There is disrespect for ethos of the profession inspired by the principles of the Enlightenment, with the noble task of diagnosing social illnesses. In the oligopoly of communications, the so-called independence of journalists is cannibalized by the upper hierarchy. Lies, for pay, are echoed by paladins of morality and customs to hide the responsibility of the “elites”.
Changes in labor relations lead to a search for support at the polls, beyond the old social classes. With ideological divisions attenuated, progressives join forces with other segments to win elections, and increase the negative headlines resulting from non-programmatic alliances with dubious partnerships. There must be balance in the scales of practices, desires, expectations and results.
The triad of scandals
John B. Thompson addresses events in the Northern Hemisphere, as he dissects the triad of scandals. Among us, the challenge lies in uncovering events covered by the silence of the media. The following Cases who engage in “struggles for symbolic power, in which reputation and trust are at stake”, in harsh reality. They are metaphors for the re-actualization of the colonialist dialectic for domination/subordination.
(i) Political-sexual (and racist) scandal. The Bill (PL 1.904/2024) prohibits abortion after the 22nd week, including for rape, and stipulates a higher penalty for homicide for offenders than that provided for in the legislation for rapists. The mobilization of several feminist groups in the main metropolises prevents the bill from being processed in the Federal Chamber. The media emphasizes the nonsense of the penalty and confines the matter to dosage. It does not investigate the parties and politicians in office who commit sexist (and racialist) violence. The law affects poor black girls aged 8 to 12, the greatest victims in statistics over time. The flag of women's natural right to their bodies is not raised. And Bolsonarist medievalism emerges unscathed from the blow against the values of modernity.
(ii) Political-financial scandal. The crime against the country of the Central Bank's Selic rate will take R$816,2 billion from the Treasury in 2023. For comparison, the budget of the Ministry of Health is R$231 billion; of Education, R$180 billion. Target of accusations for investments inoffshores In conflict with his role, the president of the Central Bank obtains personal dividends from high interest rates. These encourage deindustrialization and the neocolonial-export model, which burns down biomes and forests. The current monetary policy inhibits the nation's growth with job creation and income distribution. The rentiers and extractivists are grateful for the kindness, with their pockets full. And Bolsonarist neoliberalism emerges immune from the blow against the values of the welfare state.
(iii) Scandal of abuse of power. In the misgovernment, the creation of a “parallel ABIN” in the Brazilian Intelligence Association aims at a surveillance body typical of exceptional regimes. In defiance of due process, the invasion of privacy affects thirty thousand citizens; not even the friends of the family militia. Unlike the famous triplex that did not belong to Lula, the right-wing conspiracy does not receive attention in the news. No one is arrested. The terrorist articulation between sociopolitical fascism, laissez-faire economic and cultural conservatism. And Bolsonaro's totalitarianism emerges unscathed from the coup against the civilizing values of the democratic rule of law.
Don't forget the flowers
“The mystery of things, where is it?/ Where is it that does not appear/ At least to show that it is a mystery?”, we read in the poem by a heteronym of Fernando Pessoa. Forbidden scandals move the mill of extremist populism, to the exact extent that the individual entrepreneurial ideology erases the dimension of the public in the social imaginary. Utopia can and should be anticipated with the deconstruction of the illusions atomized in neo-Pentecostal temples or digital bets on BETs. Only participation and cooperation form the subjects that transform the established order.
Norberto Bobbio, a self-proclaimed “liberal-socialist,” considers the media a threat to democracy because it pasteurizes consciences and restrains individuals’ independent judgment. The situation is made worse by the abandonment of essential areas: water, electricity, sanitation, transportation. Privatization turns rights into commodities accessible only to those who pay. Sebastião Melo (MDB-RS) and Ricardo Nunes (MDB-SP) seize public facilities to provide services; not even parks escape the fury of privatization. They outsource functional obligations and also things that do not belong to them, as do managers without the competence to manage. It is better to return them to their owners, to exchange them for the Participatory Budget (PB). Without fear of being happy. With a desire to win.
* Luiz Marques is a professor of political science at UFRGS. He was Rio Grande do Sul's state secretary of culture in the Olívio Dutra government.
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