By MÁRIO MAESTRI*

And the opposition electoral chloroquine recipe

Brazil is in the ICU and the collaborationist opposition prescribes electoral chloroquine as a cure. At the end of series B crime films, an event always clarifies who the murderer was. One can then understand everything that happened, from beginning to end in the poor plot of the film. On February 1st, the election of Deputy Arthur Lira, for President of the Chamber of Deputies, was the party-pooper friend who insists on telling the end of the film, taking away all the little and poor emotion.

From the beginning, the meaning of the 2016 Coup was clear and clean, leaving no surprises at the end. However, the putschists and the make-believe opposition always made an effort to hide the identity of the murdered person and the murderer. Each one for their reasons, in the frying pan, not so diverse. And the spectators followed, dumbfounded, the false suspense of this endless horror film, which they continue to present to us as a simple police film.

The coup executors disguised the crime, to follow, with impunity, real serial killers, marching on the workers, on the population, on the nation. They did and do everything for their own benefit, obediently following the orders of the  godparents as usual, big capital and imperialism that, this time, want to take everything and not just grab a piece, even a big one.

The Lie Oppositions

The fake opposition, apparently powerful in the past, obsequiously advances the farce, as it did when it was in the supreme government, dreaming and fantasizing about returning to it someday, it got out of punishment, for good behavior. He does not want to lose his current role as a despised and humiliated supporting actor, since the fee for disqualified participation is not despicable, as only consented opposition. No one wants to lose hot tits, big, small, insignificant.

Defeated from the government, in 2016, the make-believe, traditional opposition now sees the modern opposition, which strives to represent the enlightened middle classes and

unconcerned with the workers, trying to fish in his aquarium, enjoying his unhappiness. Soon she, his younger sister, with whom he broke the dishes and separated, a few years ago. She does everything, disgraces her, to inherit the trousseau and the fiancé of her betrayed older sister, banished from the matrimonial bed.

The hoax is a huge success. Spectators remain waiting for a happy ending to the horror film, in a strange third dimension, in which the cannibal villains leave the screen to devour, one by one, the naive payers, increasingly scared, but immobile, in their uncomfortable armchairs , as the ushers, from the old and new opposition, say, non-stop: – Don't get up. – Stay at home. "Wait for the elections!"

Scratched and Cut in the USA

The coup was installed in mid-2016, making use of fake constitutional instruments, and advanced incessant structural transformations of society and the nation, with pantagruelic voracity. Everything following the pattern scratched and cut in the USA, in the government of Barak Obama, as today even the most innocent people know. just the seamstresses and the business who lounge on the catwalks are nationals: the gentlemen generals; the mainstream media; the great Justice; the federal police; corrupt politicians; the business community intoxicated by the installation of wage slavery.

The ease of victory and consolidation of the coup was due to the fact that all governments, since the “redemocratization” in 1985, happily flattened the domination of imperialism and big capital over society and the nation. Capitalism and privatization are good for health. In 2016, in order not to go against their scorpion nature, they accepted everything without lifting a finger against the scam. After all, there was no quality contradiction, for them, between before and after. And, in general, no one questioned their right to continue parasitizing the State and society, relegated to the third division.

After kindly accepting Rousseff's deposition, which behaved respectfully towards the coup leaders, the PT and its supporters denounced Temer's illegitimate government, turning a blind eye to the attacks of the coup d'état in consolidation. Professor Haddad even proposed that “coup” was too strong a word to define what had happened. And on the left that claimed to be revolutionary, not a few denied that there was a coup in progress, when they did not support it, blustering revolution.

The elections saving the crop

The fundamental thing now was to recover lost positions in the electoral game. Preparing for the 2018 elections, which would return everything to the way it was before, they said. And when the population took to the streets shouting Out Temer and promoted a successful strike, Lula da Silva himself shouted, with clear words, in Salinas, in Minas Gerais, the Stay Temer! He sent the population back home to prepare for 2018, when he would return to the wonderful times of his governments. Victory awaits around the corner!

An atucanado PT supporter was chosen as a candidate, with a horny-killing and mobilization-killing program in his pocket. However, the collaborationist opposition, old and new, knew this part of the film as well. There was no reason for the coup leaders to hand over the government, even to the watery PT, who promised to accept without complaining what had been changed by the coup, since legally. No revenge, comrades.

But the collaborationist opposition, old and new, continued the charade, promising a happy end impossible. And the result was script defined already in 2016, as it was inscribed in the stars. Financial abuse. Media factionalism. Disrespect for electoral law. Intervention by the Electoral Justice and the generals. Calculation of votes by coup plotters. A real blood bank guarded by vampires with years of abstinence.

The Birth of the Ogre

The scammers washed the mare. They lay down and rolled over. The only false surprise was the elected monster, born of anti-politics, cherished, for a long time, by the opposition that likes capital, addicted to the exercise of power and its benefits. Then, Haddad, Boulos and Lula bowed obsequiously, recognizing and legitimizing the election in everything illegal. How the show must go on: the collaborationist opposition licked its wounds, happy with governors, senators, elected representatives. Not as many as yesterday, but there will be much more tomorrow, it is hoped and promised.

Bolsonaro, the monster, was manna from heaven for the fool-fool opposition. The scam and the scammers were forgotten and denied. The only thing that mattered now was to defeat the Ogre and his hordes that would advance killing leftists, blacks, gays, women, lesbians, intellectuals. And, for that, a broad patriotic front was required, capable of welcoming the “anti-fascist coup supporters” and “democratics”. In other words, a kind of horned chicken, which is said to have existed in the mythological past, alongside unicorns, werewolves, the headless mule.

It was, therefore, necessary, a purely democratic program, which promised not to touch anything that had been taken away by the coup from the workers, the population and the nation. As in the FHC-Lula da Silva transition, the lost was lost. No revenge, comrades. The population should “stay at home”, preparing for the 2020 municipal elections, general rehearsal for the great victory in 2022. Then, democracy threatened by Bolsonarist fascism would win.

Save lives, stay home

Despite being tragic for the population, the pandemic was a hand in the wheel for collaborationism. He came out screaming, "Save lives!" — Stay at home! — Write on Facebook, on Tweet, on WhatsApp. — Do lives!—Bang pots, on the windows! But stay home! The watchword was to expand the democratic, popular, patriotic front to 2022. anti-fascist right, those of rational generals, all united against the Chupacabras. All those who landed from non-denialists became companions. Especially when they wore masks. Lula, Dino, Boulos, the opposition of all flavors, hailed Dória, Witzel, as exemplary administrators against covid-19.

Dória, Witzel, Rodrigo Maia … good names, for the second round of 2022! And thus, in the background, the collaborationist opposition, the new and the old, failed to propose the expansion of its campaign with the incorporation of a faction of the “right-wing anti-fascist coup”. They accepted and began to propose to the Brazilian mob slaughtered by the coup d'état, that it constitute itself only as the faction of left from the right-wing “anti-fascist” bloc, from the so-called kind and rational coup plotters.

For this new road would triumph in 2022! Who, they didn't say. But before that, the fundamental thing was to open the way, in November 2020. And as it was also determined by the coup script, the elections were a huge disaster. Once again, the right wing and the coup d'état won by a rout. A vexation. But the defeat was celebrated as a victory, by collaborationism, the traditional and the new. Especially because it was a successful dress rehearsal for 2022.

All against the Ogre

The Anti-Ogre Front worked. A historic step! they shouted. Collaborationism, new and old, and movements claiming Marxism all called for runoff voting for right-wing candidates. Or shameless collaborationists, who concluded the campaign by groveling in front of the capital, asking for votes and water. The dissolute revelry was held in Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, Recife, São Paulo, Porto Alegre and so on. All against the candidates of the Vampiro-Mor. Even there where they had no chance of winning.

And PSOL happily celebrated the election of some black, gay, lesbian, tranny! With high wages. With multiple advisers. With the telephone, gasoline, free mail. With all these blessings from the State, why organize a party at the base, dangerously sharing with it the decisions of the enlightened leadership. And the massacre continued, without the slightest change, with a population already used to staying at home and getting used to having to hand over their own teeth!

But the great victory had been won. The people of the left voting for rightists, in the second round, accepting as irremovable everything that the coup d'état had done and would do. All, against the Ogre and the fascist barbarism that he -and he alone- embodies. And now, in a real general rehearsal, we would go one step further, with the election for the presidency of the candidate Rodrigo Maia, consecrated coup leader – alongside Dória, of course. Good name for the second round of 2022!

And now Jose!

All the opposition parties-me-deceived-that-I-believe embarked on the project of electing Baleia Rossi, beyond difficult to be presented, and swallowed, as a coup-democrat. It is always good to remember his vote, when impeachment —  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV-iIl-SRGA A faction of the PSOL demanded a pure-blood candidate, all pure, -Erundina!-, for the first round, of course. Afterwards, everyone would suffocate, in the second, in the scammer, like the friendly marine mammal that he has by name, amphibian in the distant past.

With a friendly presidency of the chamber, the farce of the impeachment, impossible to be accepted and even more voted for, and, above all, the choice of candidates for the first and, above all, the second round, in 2022. The Ogre would be defeated and the new president, a civilized coup leader, would govern over the crippled country forever. But political-parliamentary life would go on. Making him his successor, Rodrigo Maia would place himself, with Dória, in the front row of the “democratic coup plotters” of the deceive-bobo opposition.

As it turned out, in the first round Without ceremony, the parliamentary coup counted the end of the film, always known, from beginning to end. At least, the end of Season One (2016-2022). What was, however, a blow for the electorate deceived by the obedient opposition to capital. The secret was revealed. It's no use waiting. There is no “democratic right” or electoral future for anti-coupism, even watery, in the style of milk in a bag, clear, clear, clear, like a diaphanous bridal veil.

a declared scammer

The election was won by Arthur Lira, from the so-called Progressives, a direct descendant party of ARENA and PDS. The candidate banked by the coup, by Centrão, by DEM and, above all, by Bolsonaro, won. By an overwhelming majority, 302 votes, against the 145 votes for Baleia Rossi. It was a complete pronouncement by the large parliamentary bloc in favor of continuing the coup, with super-structural political modifications and tweaks, difficult to predict.

The proposed dream of the opposition “hit me because I like it” of an alliance with the right and coup leaders promoted without any merit to democratic. The Brazilian parliamentary world, corrupted to the marrow of its bones, followed and celebrated its scorpion nature. The staging of Bolsonaro's constitutional removal became a bug forever. There is no electoral creoline that removes the worm, cures the stinking worm. If Rodrigo Maia sat obediently on top of the impeachment, imagine what Arthur Lira will do!

However, the spectator is asked to remain firm in his armchair, without moving, even though he is aware of and knowing the sad end of the dramatic political farce, which crushes him. The electoral defeat of the coup in 2022 is a mirage in the desert, a collaborationist fable to put the mistreated and humiliated population to sleep. But the blow was even harder. Since June 2019, the generals have imposed a veto on impeachment, associated with the proposed domestication from Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro without Bolsonarism, or almost

Bolsonaro was under military protection and palatable ministers were appointed, in Communications, in Education, in the STF. Olavinho disappeared into the ether, pursued by legal debts. Damares was eclipsed with her dick bottle. The little ogres, in hushed tones, raise their heads, grunt a little, and go back into hiding. the victory of Joe Biden Junior reinforced the pacification da Beast, product of the 2016 coup planned in the Obama administration.

The uncontrolled advance of the pandemic forced Bolsonaro to crawl towards China, promising open for Huawei. The Centrão, supporting the government, now without the intermediation of Rodrigo Maia, demands the head of Eduardinho, in Foreign Affairs. Salles also has a price on his head. Bolsonarist federal deputy Daniel Silveira did not understand the change in music and danced on the curve. The watchword is to maintain and radicalize coup attacks, without extravagance.

Bolsonaro abandons Bolsonarism, an extreme ideological bias with no way out, to become increasingly only a government of the right-wing coup-mongering and radicalized surrender, under the approval of the Centrão, big capital, imperialism, today democrat. Preparing candidacy for 2022, with a vice like Antônio Magalhães Neto. The DEM president who sold Rodrigo Maia for well over thirty silver coins. Bolsonaro fears turning into a Temer, a Moro, a Rodrigo Maia, excellent protagonists, disposable, with a limited use date. Yesterday they were everything, today they are almost nothing.

Nothing new on the front

In the World, US imperialism presents a new season, of the same series, debuting as protagonist a heartthrob, democrat and identity, somewhat disjointed, with a past as a bandit, with former assassins as supporting actors. And a huge part of the Brazilian opposition and left applauds excitedly. Their Beast has fallen! The Chupa-Cabras has fallen! In Brazil, on the contrary, the coup premieres just one more episode, of the same season, with a huge paying audience. The plot and the protagonists remain the same — generals, parliamentarians, Justice, the mainstream media, all disciplined, advancing the general devastation of the country.

The autonomy of the Central Bank was approved in a vapt-vupt. Administrative, tax and electoral reforms will soon come. The general liberation of mining, land grabbing, large and general privatizations. The end of any cutting-edge industry. Only ores, grades, energy. Workers and wage earners, with or without a formal contract, will be squeezed to the marrow, at home, preferably in the Home office, where capital does not use electricity and nobody controls respect for working hours. By 2022, the coup meat grinder will forever turn the population and the country to mush.

Collaborationism felt the blow, but it straightened up. He acted as if everything remained the same. He pointed to 2022, concerned with what interests him: electing some governors, senators, federal deputies, preferably with identity, who, like those of now, will be little different from the coup plotters. Power corrupts, especially when it is little! Lula da Silva kicked off the second half of the farce, nominating Haddad as the official candidate. The Workers' Party was informed by the newspapers.

What about us, people!?

Incontinenti, PSOL and Boulos shouted, indignant, at Lula and Haddad: — And I, and we, people, how we ended up in this! We stayed out of the electoral joy train?!? And, to disguise collaborationist bossiness, Lula da Silva, by naming his golden champion, lord of so many shameful defeats and fleeing from the enemy, verbalized that the people should take to the streets, inviting them to a party without a place or date set. I mean, it's all a lie.

The crisis advances at a trot-gallop. National autonomy evaporated. Wage slavery is consolidated. Unemployment exploded. The pandemic and mortality radicalize. What awaits us is perhaps unimaginable. The media celebrates: one, two, almost three percent of the population has been vaccinated! With a first dose, of course. —Stay at home! "Wait your turn!" – they hammer. They don't say that, if it continues like this, it will take more than two years to immunize a significant part of the population. Period in which we will be assaulted by new variants of the virus and those that lurk around the corner.

The slogan vaccination for all is silly, if one does not demand, in the here and now, the breaking of patents and mass nationalized production, unimaginable by the coup and collaborationism. Capital has to be respected. Don't tease, mate. Lives, who cares about them? Social organizations and unionism are in agony, disorganized, castrated by collaborationism, which continues to order everyone to stay at home. Waiting for the 2022 elections. Motorcades and bicycle rides are now proposed, not to say that the opposition is not moving. However, today, she is just a walk dead, aimlessly, concerned only with eating fresh meat.

“Left front”. But with whom?

There are those who propose the “Left Front” in opposition to the collaborationist front, as a fabulous panacea. The problem is with what -and for what- the wonderful medicinal infusion will be made. With PSOL, voter, collaborationist, identity? With the PSTU, which still hasn't decided whether or not there was a coup? And it is better not to go further down this path. The left word is corroded, devoid of content. The proposal would then be a “classist front”. That is, a bloc that brings together groups, militants, trade unionists, workers, wage earners, etc. around the fight to the death against big capital and imperialism.

But what is the strength of classism and the possibility of centralizing it in Brazil today? And can he guide national policy? The political and social disaster we are experiencing was not materially and subjectively produced by collaborationism, despite its immense responsibility for it. In the 1930s and 40s, Leon Trotsky proposed the existence of a “leadership crisis”. That is, a world of work tending to be willing to embrace revolutionary proposals, stuck by Stalinist and social-democratic leaderships. So, the class contradiction between the world of work and its leaderships stalled the fight against big capital. Overcoming the “management crisis”, extremely difficult, but possible, would put the workers in motion.

Today we live in the Counter-Revolutionary Era, inaugurated in 1989-91, with a historic defeat for the workers, as never happened in the past, which was followed by thirty years of international reflux of the social movement. Today, the collaborationist, social-democratic, social-liberal leaderships, etc. they express, support and deepen the disorganization and demoralization of the world of work, which is a spectrum of what it once was. It is not just about creating leadership and a vanguard, but also rebuilding organizations, awareness, the program, workers' confidence in their program.

Separating the wheat from the chaff

Construction of a classist pole presupposes a radical political and ideological separation from collaborationist leaderships of all kinds. Reunification around a minimum program that defends uninterrupted anti-imperialist struggle; the relentless fight against the coup in Brazil, in all its expressions; the centrality of the working class in the class struggle, with a theoretical and practical critique of identity; the rejection of electoral and unionist fixation, with the persecution of parliamentarians and unionists as political, organic and financial support of groups that claim to be classist.

An extremely difficult proposal, mainly because there is not, especially in Brazil, an active core of the world of work on which to rely. There is also a dispersion of nuclei that claim to be classist and proclaim themselves, explicitly or implicitly, as the leadership or the embryo of a revolutionary leadership. Not a few leading teams of Marxist organizations, for long years on the sidelines of the class struggle, struggle to self-perpetuate, rightly or wrongly, in defense of the accumulation of experience. Some are species of  franchises of international trends, without autonomy for national regrouping. Metropolises never want to lose their colonies.

Understanding and analyzing, in depth, the crisis we are experiencing is an imperative need. Process that requires difficult collective reflection, linked to the social movement in reflux. The global character is today, as never before, a dominant characteristic of the class struggle, in its ebb and eventual influx. The displacement of the central core of the manufacturing proletariat from West to East is another phenomenon that will also determine the coming decades. Beyond all difficulties, there is no other road than struggle. In fact, more than ever, the very fate of humanity depends on it.

* Mario Maestri is a historian. Author, among others books, de Revolution and counter-revolution in Brazil: 1500-2019.