AND: Editorial – Presumption of innocence, even if the opposite is proven
We publish an unofficial translation of the editorial of A Nova Democracia.
More than 839.7 thousand Brazilian men and women are imprisoned, of which 68% are black and, of the total, more than 41% of them are imprisoned without having been convicted (data from 2019). They are, therefore, innocent until proven otherwise – but, under the law, they are presumed guilty, even if proven otherwise, simply because they are poor and black. Of course, this does not apply, for example, to people like the trio of billionaire shareholders of the monopoly corporation “Americanas”, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Telles, who are filthily rich.
Former CEO Miguel Gutierrez, proven guilty of fraud that deviated more than R$25.3 billion and now in prison, guarantees that the three knew the real situation and actively participated in the management of the corporation. “I became a convenient ‘scapegoat’ to be sacrificed in the name of protecting notorious and powerful figures of Brazilian capitalism,” he told the PCI [Translator’s note: Parliamentary Commission of Investigation – PCI], which is investigating the case, in September 2023. “As is well known, and as is even stated in the famous book in which it tells its business trajectory, 3G (group of three shareholders) actively participates in the management of the companies in its portfolio and strictly controls their finances”, he concludes. And these are the facts, so much that the group sold a large volume of its shares before the scandal broke. But neither the PCI, nor the press monopolies nor the criminal investigations even considered the possible responsibility of the tycoons as intellectual authors of the madness. On the contrary, they propagandize everywhere that the scheme was discovered and the tycoons are poor, defenseless victims of a trickster administration… This is the power of financial capital, in a raw form, over the so-called “public power”, that is, the power of financial capital over the “public”.
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The president of the republic, once again, complained about the current president of the Central Bank (CB): “It’s been a year and I’ve been with Bolsonaro’s [CB] president”, he grumbled, during an event in Feira de Santana. “How can a president win the elections and not be able to nominate the president of the CB?”, he insisted. Of course, he said this to the voters, because he need to take back a leftist stance – and, of course, the right-wing columnists in the press monopolies are scandalized, because they want to criticize the social-democratic president in the “market” to pave the way for return of Bolsonarism, now “moderate”.
In addition to that, everyone knows it’s just a play, as Luiz Inácio only won the elections with the tacit support of the establishment to get rid of Bolsonaro because he guaranteed that he would not tamper the pillars of the nation’s bloodletting economic policy and even publicly promised, on several occasions, he accepted the “independence” of the CB. Moreover, he promised not to remove Roberto Campos Netto – which is his right, as president, although he pretends it is not. Campos Netto is a ghostly enemy, useful for achieve a further cohesion of the base of the popular movement co-opted by the government and to blame on others the responsibility for the inflation, high interest rates and persistent economic stagnation.
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The resounding defeat of Emmanuel Macron, in the first round, after he himself brought forward the parliamentary elections, expresses the degree of crisis of bourgeois democracy in Europe: his allies, from the traditional right, achieved only 20% of the votes, against 33% from the far right-wing led by the ultra-reactionary Marine Le Pen – whose historical family ties to Nazism are evident. In the United States, after defeating Joe Biden in the first presidential debate, Donald Trump had a favorable decision from the Court, which considered that he is entitled to partial immunity for acts committed in relation to his constitutional power as president. As can be seen, the far-right is recovering spaces – after all, the tendency of imperialism, even more so in the period of its general crisis of unprecedented decomposition, is violence and reaction across the line. This will certainly reflect on the country, as a boost to the Bolsonarist candidacy, which will redouble its strength by having as its opponent a rhetorical social-democratic government, which frustrates the popular masses due to its servility and its untouchable commitments to the big bourgeoisie, latifundium and imperialism, mainly Yankee.
To frustrate the aspirations of the far-right and fascism and defeat them completely, it is necessary to occupy the streets and mobilize the masses, who will only respond to the call of those who defend their immediate interests and link them to the political struggle against the reactionary tendency and, later, against the entire old order, for a New Brazil and New Democracy.
