By ALEXANDRE ARAGÃO DE ALBUQUERQUE*
In Bolsonaro's sophistic speech on Sete de Setembro, all the ideological propaganda with which he has been committed since the first day of his mandate is proven.
Everything is still just like the not-distant past of the dictatorial times lived in the 20 years from 1964. We have an elite that towers over the Brazilian people, sucking their blood and sweat, to obtain infinite profits, as proclaimed by neoliberalism. The dollar currently costs R$5,40 in Brazil (five reais and forty cents), making exporters and financial speculators who hold positions in US currency happy, forcing a rise in domestic production prices, tearing the pockets of working families and Brazilian workers who see the cost of living skyrocket, especially basic necessities.
In the last two years of the first Dilma Rousseff government (2011-2014), a period in which she had effective conditions to carry out her federal administrative plan, since in 2015 the hybrid coup was launched by Eduardo Cunha, who withdrew her of power, the position of the dollar was as follows: on 31/12/2013 one US dollar cost R$2,34 (two reais and thirty-four cents); on 31/12/2014 the amount corresponded to R$2,65 (two reais of sixty-five cents), an annual variation of around 13,24%. This variation was enough for the coup organizers to trigger an orchestrated sequence of social unrest (also called “springs” in the political literature specializing in hybrid coups) of several street protests complaining about the high price of the American currency that was preventing the class average trip to Miami (USA). The minimum wage in 2014 was worth R$724,00 (seven hundred and twenty-four reais), that is, something around $275 dollars.
Today, in the Bolsonarist homeland, the minimum wage is R$1.045,00 (one thousand and forty-five reais) and the American currency is quoted at R$5,40 (five reais and forty cents). Consequently, a minimum wage is equivalent to $193,00 (one hundred and ninety-three) dollars, but, inexplicably, no one is seen on the street asking for the fall of this government. That is, six years later, the Brazilian male and female worker, instead of earning a gain in their purchasing power, suffers an enormous monthly loss of the order of $82 (eighty-two dollars) dollars representing $984 (nine hundred and eighty-four) dollars – less – in one year, that is, R$5.313.60 (five thousand, three hundred and thirteen reais and sixty cents) withdrawn from the pockets of each worker to go to the pockets of the bosses. That's why Guedes smiles so much, his neoliberal plan to "make money with the big guys", as he said at the ministerial meeting on profanity on April 22, is working.
One of the centralities of the Hobbesian State, as we saw in our last article, is to conceive of Power as the Force capable of establishing control over Prices in a way that they are advantageous for the holders of Power. To maintain this condition (status quo), Power must constantly acquire more Power by constantly expanding its authority over the governed. In this way, the Hobbesian State project develops a stratagem for the containment of human freedoms, seeking to limit their capacity for critical, political, philosophical, imaginative and creative thinking through the development of a broad mechanism that develops pedagogies for obedience. That is, the actions of the subjects must all be regulated by the State so that the conduct of humans is all limited and predictable, from the conception of a freedom always considered in restrictive terms. Therefore, a kind of domestication that develops personalities obedient to the State and to God. The Hobbesian State is conceived by the philosopher as a large gathering of a few patriarchal families whose father has the power of life and death over all family members and servants. Thus, Religion and the Media are configured as great weapons to control human passions for the implantation and maintenance of this type of authoritarian State.
Bolsonaro's sophistic speech on September XNUMX proves all the ideological propaganda with which he has been committed since the first day of his mandate, presenting a non-historical and non-conceptual framework, aimed only at provoking misunderstandings, as Plato well recalls. in his work Phaedrus. Bolsonaro said that with Independence, Brazil became a country of equals. He forgot to say, among so many facts, that it was the country in the world that carried out the most trade in black men and women in the western slave system.
Among other images, his speech contained categories of the ideology of green yellowism, which does not admit the existence of conflict in Brazilian society. An ideal and ruralist country. A nation, according to him, “fearing God (fear, therefore), which respects the family (patriarchal) and loves the Homeland (as in Medici times: Brazil love it or leave it)”. As is known, Patria originates from the word Pater. It is a term that evokes fidelity, a strong and affective family-sacred charge, much like Hobbes, for whom the obligation of a wife, sons and daughters to the Pater (father) derives from the right of the latter not to have killed them at birth. That is, the Pater has the power of life and death over his family. This speech by Bolsonaro also reminded “the rod” of the video of the minister-pastor of education teaching his faithful – fathers and mothers – to use the rod in the education of their sons and daughters. Everything is still as it is.
*Alexandre Aragão de Albuquerque Master in Public Policy and Society from the State University of Ceará (UECE).