Weekly editorial – Assault on the Nation’s coffers and the catastrophe in the South
We publish an unofficial translation of the Weekly Editorial of A Nova Democracia.
There is no doubt, therefore, that workers, traders and the popular masses affected by the premeditated crime of floods must extract as much as possible for their needs from the governments of shifts, thirsty to look “good in the picture”.
According to the Central Bank’s “Fiscal Statistics” (of May 6), the public sector (federate units at the three levels and state-owned ones) spent an additional R$64.2 billion to pay interest on the public debt, in March 2024 alone. To understand the extent of the perversity, it is enough to note that this amount – one month of interest – is 1,600% higher than the federal government’s entire investment in preventing floods and natural disasters over ten entire years! The R$4 billion for prevention, accumulated since the Dilma government, through Temer, Bolsonaro and the current one, compared to the previously mentioned interest, shows how premeditated and criminal the “natural catastrophes” have been, which, calculated, are allowed because they are part of the guarantee of the criminal and country-selling continuous bleeding of capital to imperialism.
The resource drained, just in interest, to the international financial oligarchy is even more horrifying if we take longer periods into account. In 12 months (from March 2023 to March 2024), more than R$745.7 billion were transferred to the magnates of this oligarchy who held public debt securities. This is almost 275 thousand percent more than the R$270 million offered by the federal government in aid to Rio Grande do Sul, for rescue and immediate recovery from floods so far. Yes, 275,000% more (!!!).
There is no doubt, therefore, that workers, traders and the popular masses affected by the premeditated crime of floods must extract as much as possible for their needs from the governments of shifts, thirsty to look “good in the picture”. They must take everything, without any pity. Those affected who received some government aid do not owe any favors and even less gratitude to the governments: this would be as unthinkable as praising the criminal for having returned a hundredth of what was destroyed and stolen, such a degradation cannot be allowed. If each family demanded from governments, at the three levels, complete compensation for the material and human damages suffered, throughout the state, it would still be less than what the financial oligarchy takes in just an average year. To those affected in RS, the watchword is: fight with fury and wrest everything from the governments!
The maintenance of very high interest rates continues at its own pace. The Central Bank, directly controlled by the international financial oligarchy, continues to agree to maintain it at 10.5% per year, an assault that drains all national savings to give them to the pockets of imperialist magnates and their lackeys in the country’s financial system, destroying commerce and national industry. For this reason, unemployment increased in eight states in the first quarter alone (IBGE survey released on 17/05), not to mention default, which reached 68.7 million Brazilians in April (according to the National Confederation of Store Managers – CNDL). Regarding this, the government only has complaints to make, like an irresponsible person who blames others for the current state of affairs, when, in reality, it is committed to maintaining the policy against which it launches furious criticisms.
A good example is at Petrobras. With Jean Paul Prates, under the current government, the policy of Parity Import Prices (PPI) was only formally extinguished, which directly benefited foreign monopolies in the sector, but maintained in practice, with low investments to justify its slicing and privatization. Jean Paul Prates was fired and Magda Chambriard took over, known for being a defender of the penetration of imperialist corporations in oil exploration in Brazilian territory, the privatization of the state-owned company and against the change in the PPI. Recently, the Petrobras Engineers Association (Aepet) issued a statement criticizing the appointment. It is, here too, an expression of the old adage: change, to keep the same.
It is not without reason that the popularity of the government is falling – elected under resounding promises to improve the living conditions of the popular masses, with the famous slogan of “picanha and beer” – while the country’s establishment of big bourgeoisie and big landowners, servants of imperialism, mainly Yankee, is strengthening its future candidate for 2026, a Bolsonaro-free Bolsonarism, better behaved, and therefore also more dangerous. The failure of the government of the false left in coalition with the traditional right is inevitable due to its policy of class conciliation – which will inevitably engender its bankruptcy, whose cultural broth will encourage new projections from the extreme right and new attacks on coup generalship, who now pretends to be dead. The popular masses must, therefore, not invest in the maintenance of this or that government, fleeting as the clouds, but perverse towards them: but rather in the relentless and tireless struggle for their rights that have been trampled on a thousand times, no matter who it hurts, aware that only the struggle for Power, for a popular and revolutionary government, can give redemption, a new democracy and liberation to the Nation.
