“Doria's gambit” and checkmate in the class struggle

Image: Marcio Costa
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By Roberto Jorge Regensteiner*

Analogies with chess are useful for analyzing the conflicts that are expressed through the institutional channels of an idealized society.

"Doria's Gambit", published on the website the earth is round, is a beautiful article in which Paulo Capel Narvai, using the analogy of the game of chess and the film “O gambito dama” (Netflix), exposes the moves of a match between Doria and Bozo in the “presidential championship of 2022”.

The article presents the dispute around the vaccine in view of the 2022 elections and the struggle for control of political power. It analyzes some of the fundamental pieces of this chess game, such as the positioning of the players in relation to public opinion and the SUS, and the relationship between governors and other entities of the federation.

To take the analogy with chess further, we must consider that many simultaneous games are being played and identify which of them are decisive for the conquest and maintenance of political power.

With this objective in mind, we depart from the (still) dominant trend in world chess, which is the influence of the American school, especially in the western world. In addition to the technical and economic qualities that, in the past, provided him with the condition of superiority that he still enjoys today, he is characterized by not accepting losing, not even matches, much less championships. When they lose in the game, they never conform and appeal to the mat. When the mat fails, he is not shy about turning the board over and passing the tractor on the rules. And when this doesn't work for them either, they are extremely vindictive and petty. See how little Cuba is treated, from where Capablanca and other great masters were projected. They try to keep her ostracized and punish as best they can those who don't share her cowardly attitude. It can be called the “School of the Imperialist Coup” or, for short, EGI.

In this political chess, Bolsonaro is EGI's pawn on the world championship board and, at the same time, a fundamental piece in the Brazilian championship. He reached the top of the national ranking in 2018, in a tournament full of barbarities, with emphasis on the ban on the participation of the main opposing player.

The plays organized by EGI successfully struck a blow against Dilma and decisively favored the transformation of the pawn into, more than a horse, a valuable lady (let's laugh a little). In this trajectory, they used dirty games, articulating pieces in Curitiba and in the STF, combining actions at various military levels, in the political-electoral apparatus, validating prohibited attacks in the digital media, a brand new tactic, which is still an open flank on which the opposition fights to contain the enemy. Luck is also part of the game and they did well.

How do whites play

Since 2018, Bozo has played with white, that is, he has the initiative.

In retrospect of its evolution, it has managed to advance pieces in the occupation of the federal apparatus, especially with functions that are decisive for the eventual turning point, in case it loses the 2022 electoral dispute. It invests public resources in buying support in the armed forces ( army, PMs, paramilitaries) preparing in case everything else goes wrong. Concatenatedly it converges resources to structures that respond to its command, notably some churches, electoral corrals, media groups and friendly businessmen. It combines old mafia and militia methods, with manipulation of the state apparatus for private purposes, including against players of its own ilk and league. Several of them were discarded after they helped him in the conquests of 2018. Moro, Mandetta, Bebianno, General Santos Cruz, among others, the list is long and includes suspected homicides. The “horse” Mourão against whom he disputes uninterruptedly in the Amazon and relations with China (5G auction and vaccine) is kept on a short leash.

At the federal level, it deployed thousands of officers and assholes (Araújo, Regina Duarte, Salles, Damaris et caterva). Even though it sometimes had to change pieces (several in Education, Culture, Health), it expanded the space conquered in the Federal Executive that it now uses as a bargaining chip to advance over the other republican powers, at the same time that it tries to destroy conquests such as the SUS, IBAMA, CNPq, CAPES, universities, ENEM, among others that resist – we still don't know for how long – their intentions and that made it seem that the country was progressing towards a higher level.

In disputes with the Legislative and the Judiciary, in these two years, it lost some, won others, but continues to rise in the ranking in increasingly fierce battles. This is demonstrated by the recent clashes involving the sentences of the STF (where Nunes de Troia placed a Horse) and the carrying out of maneuvers decisively influencing the election for the presidencies of the Houses of Congress. It has been expanding its position in the institutions through which the political powers of the (still) Federative Republic are formally exercised.

The tactic seems clear. If he loses the elections in 2022, he will not recognize the result because, if when he won in 2018, he “denounced” the ballot box system and continues to dwell on the issue, it will not be losing in 2022 that he will elegantly greet the winner. Will try to leave for the confrontation. The vision he had that “a corporal and a soldier in a vehicle would be enough to close the STF” proved to be clumsy. At the beginning of this year, the pandemic urged pedestrians and quadrupeds to close the STF and Congress. For the time being, it has not achieved its goal and on this front has temporarily retreated. It tries to advance along other paths towards the declared objective of absolute control of political power, either by ballot box or by guns.

In the championship that takes place within the judicial system, simultaneous matches take place in various institutions and jurisdictions. Car wash tactics were reduced to occasional use, on the eve of the election period. They were partially contained by the demoralization in public opinion caused by the leaks and by Moro's trajectory. There he also operates with the discreet lady of the PGR and with other minor pieces, eating opponents, supporting maneuvers such as disapproval of electoral accounts and attempts to impeach governors (RJ and SC). In the Judiciary, the most important disputes at the moment are those involving family corruption. On this flank, he is vulnerable and can be defeated, if this evolves into impeachment maneuvers, a finishing tactic that has become popular in Brazil in recent decades.

If he is not first defeated by an impeachment, the one who plays with the whites will only leave “for good” in 2022, if the correlation of forces allows him to be contained in a straitjacket by what will remain of the medical-psychiatric service of the SUS ( which he now tries to destroy).

How does black play

The vaccine board where Doria presented herself with a gambit is one of the most complex and decisive in the championship of responses to the pandemic. It is where there is room for actions that can weaken the enemy and protect the people with practical and intelligent measures, showing who are the best and greatest defenders of their interests. So applause for initiatives such as, among others, those of CUFA (Central Única de Favelas, cufa.org.br) which energized its network of associates by incorporating logistical functions in the capture and distribution of resources (food, money, solidarity) to face of the consequences of the pandemic and for actions by the MST and other organizations with the same aim of promoting solidarity and the defense of the most vulnerable.

In the face of disputes in which the federated entities operate, the victory against the EGI demands greater imagination and articulation, in addition to the Doria gambit, the consortium of governors of the northeast, actions such as those of the governor Flavio Dino in the importation of rapid tests and with the STF.

The economy continues to be a decisive chessboard in the class struggle.

The pandemic had a strong impact on world capitalism, still affected by the 2008 crisis. EGI has been feeling the loss of economic power that, since 1945, and together with its military components, were fundamental to impose its hegemony on the rest of the world. In its recent games, military maneuvers have been superimposed on economic and diplomatic moves, on boards that are becoming so intertwined and interdependent that traditional chess becomes a poor analogy to express what is in dispute and what effectively represents victory. in this championship.

The board of the subservient Brazilian capitalism has been reconfigured in a variation of the old export model of primary products, the one that liquidates the environment of the original peoples and the environmental heritage of the Nation, privatizing profits and socializing losses. In it, the manufacturing industry underwent liposuction and suffers from chronic bulimia. Large urban contingents reject economic and social slavery, in the colonial fashion, and react. Points of culture sown in the social outskirts gave rise to a new protagonism that repels racism, patriarchy, values ​​history, raises awareness and mobilizes the population. It is felt in the skin that the bottom-up growth of the black pieces has been expanding and auguring victories for new schools that challenge the dominant EGI. Although in the short term everything is uncertain, the case of George Floyd (at the end of May in the USA) and that of Beto Ferreira (in Porto Alegre, 19/11, the eve of the celebration of Zumbi dos Palmares and the Day of Black Consciousness) are turning points.

Checkmate is with the red ones

Analogies with chess are useful for analyzing the conflicts that are expressed through the institutional channels of an idealized society that functions properly with stable rules. In this sense, the 1988 Constitution was a new edition of the rules of the game and, also, the result of a chess game in which the national forces committed themselves to a new regulation. Behold, the impeachment coup and the 2018 election confirm the old and harmful practices of the “imperialist coup school” that when they lose the game they turn the board and try to rewrite the rules.

At the end of 2020, when 200 years of the birth of Engels, an inspiring great master, are being celebrated, it is encouraging to see that he and other important theorists are once again widely studied, that the Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese schools, among others, which provided great Played, are being valued again. There are increasing indications that from all the geographies of Brazilian society and the surrounding countries, new figures, people, groups and movements, are forming a flow that makes the analogy with chess precarious and forces us to reflect on what, in the reality of the struggle of classes, beyond the electoral dispute, is the true checkmate

* Robert Regensteiner is a professor and consultant in Management & Information Technology.

 

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