AND: Editorial – Police-military State in the Bolsonaro style
We share an unofficial translation of the recent editorial by A Nova Democracia.
Opportunism has no limits in its desire to preside the old and genocidal Brazilian State, however, the resounding silence of the false left regarding the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC), presented by the right-wing government headed by Luiz Inácio, of “public security” still causes astonishment to truly democratic consciences. Leonardo Fernandes, from “Brasil de Fato”, to give just one example, when dealing with this topic, limited himself to stating “right-wing governors are against it”. As for the transformation of the Federal Highway Police into an overt police force with the same operational procedures as the Military Police, as Bolsonaro already had been doing illegally in his government; or the transformation of the Federal Police into an organ for repressing “crimes against the political and social order”, resurrecting the DOPS in spirit and purpose, something that Bolsonaro himself must have dreamed of achieving; well, not a word.
The PEC will find resistance in the legislature and among governors – there is no doubt. However, this does ennoble them as opponents. It’s simple: governors oppose the establishment of federal guidelines for the actions of the Military Police and the intervention of federal police forces in states without their requests and consent, on the one hand, and they also do not accept that the government approves such a measure and takes credit for that. Although reactionary and draconian, the measure is electorally palatable: the immense mass of the petty bourgeoisie in particular and a diffuse public opinion made up of the people’s masses, in general, disorganized and buffeted by the growing and widespread delinquency in the country’s cities and countryside, especially in large urban centers, desperately looking for a solution, they will take such a project at least as an attempt, and this will bring votes – like, in general, the genocidal operations in the Favelas of Rio and São Paulo, to mention just two examples of exorbitant severity, surprisingly, give them votes. We should not judge the masses, even when they are pushed into gross mistakes like these: the level of frustration and fear of delinquency is such that it has become the people’s biggest concern – therefore it is the best way to gain votes – and the entire democratic approach to solve the issue is impossible in the arena of the old democracy, is even as a proposal as demoralized as the opportunism that vociferates it, from the perspective of the simple worker. It is necessary to regain, among the masses, democratic and progressive values for solutions against crime, after so much frustration with the false left.
The PEC, in reality, would not change the social degradation that produces delinquency, neither would it serve as effective repression, as the problem of the spread of the so-called “organized crime” is deeply linked to the structures of the decadent Brazilian State. And in such a way that among senators, federal and state deputies, governors, mayors, secretaries and even ministers there are many involved, financing or participants in high-level schemes, along with large agribusiness companies, big landlords and owners of large logistics corporations managing highways. Everyone knows this, except the “authorities”. The PEC would even serve to improve the apparatus of repression of popular and revolutionary movements, especially those that are already labeled as terrorists, guerrillas, bandits, violent, fanatics and other qualifications formulated by police officers and other reactionaries to justify repression.
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The struggle for land in the northeast has expressed, forcefully, the main contradiction in our country. On the social and political arena, squatters in Jaqueira (Pernambuco) and Messias (Alagoas) have shown the level of big landlord greed: in Alagoas, in particular, an area consolidated more than 15 years ago had been brutally destroyed, resulting in the death of an elderly peasant, who was desperately trying to rescue part of his belongings and fell of the truck. At the same time, it is clear that, today, the agrarian-peasant question condenses, at the same time, the anti-fascist question. Combating Bolsonarism, coupism and the far right, heavily armed and encouraged by the belief that they are dealing with cowards and appeasers (judging from the condescending stance of the federal government, which they believe to be “left wing”) is a task today, taken by the peasants who struggle for the Agrarian Revolution. Bolsonarism and the extreme right versus the struggle for land, in particular the Agrarian Revolution which acts as its vanguard, this is the main contradiction, today, on the political terrain, an expression of the contradiction poor peasants versus the latifundium system in the economic-social field. To be an anti-fascist is to be a defender of the rural revolutionary struggle for the land for the tillers and for the destruction of the Latifundium, which means the transformation of the Latifundium’s agrarian structure by the proletarian path, where the armed extreme right is fought – much more than just the generic defense of democracy. In this regard, the opportunists, as numerous as they are coward, who publicly distort, but try to discredit the peasant struggle and to criminalize it, objectively act as a reserve of Bolsonarism, just as the opportunist government is. It is urgent to shout everywhere: Long live the Agrarian Revolution! War on the Bolsonarist paramilitary hordes!
