By FERNANDO NOGUEIRA DA COSTA*

The power of the disinformation machine is the ferment of the Brazilian extreme right

The tolerance policy of liberalism refers to the right assured by the majority to the minority. It is no coincidence that the US left, a minority in their country, calls itself “liberal”. Liberal democracy does not allow the extermination of opponents.

Freedom: who doesn't want it for themselves? The ideological difference is the individualist desire to take away the freedom of opponents, perhaps, in the extremist case of Tupiniquim neo-fascism, to exterminate them.

Does this humanitarian and universal ambition of freedom itself, to be a criterion for defining a given ideology, require freedom of expression to be granted to those who propagandize against this very freedom? The other ideologies do not tolerate the intolerance of defeated preachers against electoral democracy!

Brazilian neoliberalism, in its practice, privileges only its own economic freedom and does not care about the “equality of opportunities” for all, defended by classical liberalism. The motto of would make limers it is to defend, above all, austericide (austerity + suicide), provoked by the continuous cuts in public expenses. They fight the purpose of increasing the progressive tax burden based on the unrealistic threat of insolvency in the state's ability to redeem public debt securities.

Worse, the uncultured lower middle class (income between 2-5 minimum wages) imagine themselves enriched on their own and, therefore, able to dispense with public policies. Ledo deceit: would the ruralists/interiors dispense with subsidized agricultural credit? Would they be indifferent to the need for public health, public education and assistance to the poorest in need? Southerners and Westerners from Terrae Brasilis With free arms, would they dispense with public security because they feel invulnerable when they have weapons to threaten opponents and commit murder?

Egalitarian liberals stand for freedom, but not freedom to attack “others” and/or absolute freedom of expression, including against the democratic rule of law. Center-right conservatives are afraid of changing the social hierarchy and criticize the limits of human reason in recreating society.

And the fascists? The Tupiniquins wear the shirt of the corrupt CBF and are not nationalists in the sense of defending a national renaissance – making the country great again with the planned resumption of sustained (and sustainable) growth in the long term.

The historic distinction of fascists is their glorification of violent struggle and martial courage. They defend the agenda of conservative customs with rigid gender, regional and racial hierarchies. Southern xenophobes do not hide their racism and sing the national anthem doing the Nazi salute!

Hitler's rise is incomprehensible without the emergence of murderous right-wing militias in Germany, in the hyperinflationary context of the 1920s, when "life was worthless". Here, the militiamen's allies are calling on the military to attack democracy and return to violence against their left-wing opponents.

In the throes of misgovernment defeated at the polls, its “autocratic legalism”, allied with the Centrão, sanctioned the legislation in procedurally correct ways. It allowed the (re)election of right-wing allies. It allows the repressive apparatus of the State to remain silent and/or not to punish those who act against the rule of law.

Elisabeth Roudinesco, psychoanalyst and biographer of Freud and Lacan, believes that social networks, individualism and narcissism encourage a mistaken collective engagement. As a result, many people assume identity, nationalist, xenophobic positions.

Stupid neo-fascists still can't do what they threaten. The saying sounds unpleasantly like a cacophony. These ignorant people are capable of anything.

In the last three decades, due to the globalization of the world market, with massive industrial production in Asia, western workers lost their union bargaining power and worsened income distribution in their favor. With the precariousness of work, the “save-who-can” environment became the law of survival for the majority. The rise and fall of social mobility now imposes its recovery on the left.

Many “informal fighters” left the left. This, in turn, abandoned the idea of ​​revolutionizing the world. Soon, the communist threat became anachronistic, although it still deceived the uneducated shunting mass – and the shunting trucks to block the roads! It remains for the ignorant plebs – useful innocent evangelicals (sic) – to pray in front of the walls of the barracks for military protection!

This new fascism is closer to Mussolini than Hitler. Fascism was based on the superiority of whites, but not on the extermination of others, like Nazism. Defenders of dictatorship, relying on business support (merchants and farmers) and Protestantism, focus here on anti-communism, not on racial purity.

They defend the Empire of Arms, in their rural territories, and spread the mythologies of the hate network. They are contrary to the characteristic internationalism of the left.

The Tupiniquim extreme right-wing militancy believes in “holy war against Satan-worshipping pedophiles”. Your fantasies are frightening. Dressed in green and yellow, kneeling and weeping, they celebrated the imaginary “arrest” of Minister Alexandre de Moraes. The merchant from Pernambuco, Junior Cesar Peixoto, continued down the road, clinging to the seat of the roadblock truck. They say that the deputy fleet – the one with a gun in hand bumping against the wall on a public road – would have hijacked a fleeing plane to the States, hanging from your windshield… and wielding your gun!

The power of the disinformation machine is the yeast of the extreme right. Conservative values ​​took root in evangelical family groups through the day-to-day preaching of pastors in favor of tithes and against gender conquests.

We have to point out the ridiculousness of the Ku Klux Klan [KKK] revival in Terrae Brasilis. It remains for us to use the weapon of humor to demoralize violent actions against the rule of law. Founded in Tennessee-USA, in the period immediately following the Civil War, by six former Confederate soldiers and beginning lawyers, they saw themselves as a circle of people with common ideas about white supremacy — hence the chosen name, “kuklux“, slight alteration of the Greek word kuklos meaning "circle". To it they added “klan” because all had ancestry in the military clan.

The Young Klan went into hiding, using white sheets and hoods made from pillowcases, to terrorize and kill freed slaves. Among the leaders were former Confederate generals and their biggest supporters were farm owners.

The Young Klan practiced terror through leafleting, lynchings, arson, castrations, beatings, and many other forms of intimidation. The targets were former slaves and any white supporters, for blacks, of the right to vote, land ownership or education.

The KKK was a secret society, with passwords and hand signals, but its real power lay in fostering public fear. After all, the Ku Klux Klan and law enforcement officials were comrades in arms.

However, a fearless and half-witless devoted enemy of racial prejudice decided to join the KKK as a spy. He uncovered the identities of local and regional leaders and deciphered the hierarchy, rituals and language used within it. Many of the group's customs sounded ridiculously stupid from the outside.

However, the spy soon discovered a basic fact of life in the KKK – and terrorism in general: most threats of violence never got past the threat stage. It was “tigrão” against the workers and “chutchuca” with the rich and privileged…

The KKK discovered consisted of a mock fraternity of individuals, most of them with little education and few prospects, in need of a place to reveal themselves and spend their long time of wandering – like at roadblocks or in front of barracks. This fraternity promoted the singing of religious hymns, the taking of oaths and the chanting of praises to itself - all in a top secret way - in order to make it more seductive.

In reality, the KKK was a crooked financial operation for those at the top. Its members contributed and reactionary businessmen donated a lot of money.

The infiltrated member saw a group of boys enjoying a game of spying using silly secret passwords. It reminded him of the KKK.

Wouldn't it be interesting, he thought, to pass on the organization's passwords and other secrets to children across the country? What better way to prune a secret society's grip than to infantilize it by making its most secret information and machinations public?

The ideal channel for its mission was the radio program The Adventures of Superman, to millions of listeners nationwide. Superman had spent years fighting Hitler and Mussolini, but World War II was over and he needed new villains.

KKK members complained, “My son and a bunch of his little friends were playing. Some had towels tied around their necks, like capes, and others wore pillowcases on their heads. Those on the covers were chasing those on the pillowcases. It was a new cops and robbers game called Superman versus the Klan.

They knew the passwords and everything else for the echo chamber. Bubble fans have never felt so ridiculous in their lives! Would their own children discover them wearing the Klan's white sheet?" KKK, that's it, she's done with public ridicule.

*Fernando Nogueira da Costa He is a full professor at the Institute of Economics at Unicamp. Author, among other books, of Support and enrichment network. Available in https://fernandonogueiracosta.wordpress.com/2022/09/20/rede-de-apoio-e-enriquecimento-baixe-o-livro/

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