By FRANCISCO FOOT HARDMAN*
Down with the government of death!
How much longer do the “thinking elite”, the “counterweights” of our bankrupt democracy, want to wait to act?
And again from Manaus the most tragic news arrives. The most populous capital of our Amazon, which has been rapidly being destroyed by the villains of the Planalto, now, again, after a few months, it becomes the epicenter of the national tragedy. It is not worth counting the dead, who saw empty statistics in the face of Bolsonaro mismanagement, which is not just “mess” as the journalist Helena Chagas rightly referred to him; it is a government committed, yes, to the destruction of life in all its manifestations – economy, environment, education, international relations, art and culture and, more than ever, public health.
How much more proof does the National Congress want of the collapse of a president who laughs at the death of his citizens and ignores all the responsibilities that his role entails? What is still needed to see that this government of death has abandoned the suffering people in painful conditions that could all have been avoided?
Deputy Maia and Senator Alcolumbre: no excuses! Beyond their pettiest political-personal interests, we are here facing a long-announced massacre that is unfolding right now in the open under the placid eyes of blind, deaf and mute politicians for the literal asphyxiation of patients dead in droves in Manaus , mourned by relatives, neighbors or friends, forgotten by the Homeland that denied them.
How much longer will the STF and TSE, as the highest levels of the judiciary, wait to act? Do you want to perversely continue to watch Anvisa's macabre comedy? Who, without shame, schedules a collegiate meeting for Sunday, 17/01, to be broadcast on Youtube, to deliberate – oh, complex issue! – on the emergency approval of vaccinations that should have started a long time ago? From an anti-Minister of Health who only disorganizes to disorganize?
Death bureaucrats, history will judge you! The moral and political judgment, however, is immediate.
Because before, here and now, it is necessary that the fractured nation, that the poor people cast by lot, put a definitive end to this pack of insane people. Amidst the multitudes of patients murdered by negligence and sadism by the central government, it is necessary to shout the urgent need to remove this evil president.
Among so many omissions and “normalizers of chaos”, one cannot ignore the source of hypocrisy that leaks from the most unfortunate recent interventions by FHC, when, from the top of his usual arrogance (always boosted by the mainstream media enraptured with one of the last representatives of the ideology paulista), spoke and wrote against Bolsonaro’s impeachment and in favor of “tolerance” towards the president. FHC: Seldom has one seen such political decline disguised as boastfulness and rhetorical tricks. He who could, in effect, have some active voice in the general riot, chose the sad path of converting himself from a withdrawn Prince to a Captain's Knave.
Those who believed in the “Posto Ipiranga” minister saw how many inoperative actions he has been capable of. Or still want to see more?
It is not possible to tolerate so many disastrous delusions, to which is now added the inept head of INEP trying to justify the unjustifiable, that is, the equally criminal decision to take the ENEM tests at any cost, when postponing them for an indefinite period is the only decision that it is up to those who must care for the lives of our youth. Brazil can no longer support so much negligence. And our young students cannot be thrown, at this hour, into yet another disastrous adventure because of the MEC.
Does anyone, in their right mind, bet that from here to 2022 it will be better? With Trump's parrot robot installed in Brasilia, threatening, in perverse videos, once again, at the expense of invective without evidence, our electoral process? Preparing the weather and the boat? How many attacks on democracy and how many corpses will it take for us to stop tolerating the intolerable? Does anyone, with a shred of lucidity, still believe in respect for law and democracy on the part of a family that is friends with militiamen?
The democratic consciousness that remains for us, in all the social movements that are today withdrawn, in all the opposition political parties that are now withdrawn, in all the collapsed institutions, must seek the most viable means of unifying itself here and now for the only call that makes sense. in the light of history and Brazilian life currently stolen: Down with this government of death!
Therefore, our appeal to free and independent journalists, to Brazilian scientists and to the heroes of the health front line, who are proud of our intelligence and our best human solidarity, to teachers of all degrees, to advocates for the public good, high school and university students, rule of law jurists, mayors and governors who are outraged by this state of affairs, as well as social movements of all regions and genders, blacks, indigenous peoples, peasants, homeless workers and populations threatened by dams, unions of all categories plundered: let's add our voice to our action!
Thanks to the good air we still breathe, and which remind us with so much sadness of the deaths in Manaus without an oxygen balloon and the many thousands of deaths that will still occur due to the deliberate delay in starting vaccination, we can do our will, our united hearts and our joint action the link of hope for the end of these sinister days: Down with this government of death!
Manaus is here. Manaus is now. Manaus is Brazil. Our country must only and only resume the path of solidarity. And remove this government from destruction, with its nightmares and monsters, like the worst garbage in our history.
*Francisco Foot Hardman, PhD in philosophy from USP, he is a full professor at the Institute of Language Studies at Unicamp.