Petrobras

The general elections in Brazil on October 7 come amid recent upheavals which have resulted in a sharp political divide, with a large portion of the population either defending the idols they see as persecuted, or turning to the right in an attempt to escape the left they see as fully responsible for corruption and graft.
Meanwhile, a large percentage of the electorate are reeling in horror at the thought of voting for either of the two frontrunners.

Brazil’s President Michel Temer arrives to speak, at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, May 12, 2016.
The presidency of Brazil’s Michel Temer, who replaced disgraced and impeached predecessor Dilma Rousseff last summer, lasted about one year without a major corruption scandal.

Liam Fox, right, British Secretary of State for International Trade, and Damien Green, the Work and Pensions Secretary smile as they leave 10 Downing Street following the weekly cabinet meeting in London, Tuesday, March 21, 2017. (AP/Alastair Grant)
The UK government has provided fossil fuel companies with £6.9 billion in financial support since 2000, according to a joint investigation by Energydesk and Private Eye.

Brazil’s acting President Michel Temer arrives to speak, at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, May 12, 2016.
A Brazilian Supreme Court judge opened investigations Tuesday into almost 100 politicians who allegedly were part of the largest corruption scheme in the country, including a number of top allies of unelected President Michel Temer.

Left-wing academics, writers and journalists have written tendentious articles where they manage to transform reactionary political leaders into working class heroes and present their dreadful policies as progressive advances.
Recently, leftist pundits throughout US and Latin America have plagued the reading public with gross distortions of historical events contributing, in their own way, to the demise of the left and the rise of the right.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was removed from office through a well-organized, carefully planned operation among the corrupt Brazilian political elite, closely linked to the stock-market, financial institutions and foreign energy companies. This ‘legislative coup d’état ’eliminated the democratically-elected ‘political intermediaries’ and installed a regime directly controlled by the CEOs of leading multi-nationals.

La présidente brésilienne Dilma Rousseff vient d’être officiellement écartée du pouvoir présidentiel au Brésil. L’annonce fait suite au vote mercredi des sénateurs en faveur de l’ouverture du procès en destitution de la dirigeante, qui est automatiquement remplacée pour une période de 180 jours maximum par celui qui était alors vice-président de la République, Michel Temer.

President Obama is racing forward to establish his imperial legacy throughout Russia, Asia and Latin America.
In the last two years he has accelerated the buildup of his military nuclear arsenal on the frontiers of Russia. The Pentagon has designed a high tech anti-missile system to undermine Russian defenses.

This weekend, millions of Brazilians took to major city streets (again) to protest the hydra of corruption gushing from Petrobras, Brazil’s largest oil company and the government amidst deepening economic recession. Calls for the impeachment of sitting Workers’ Party (PT) president (and former Chair of Petrobras), Dilma Rousseff filled the air.  (I can’t wait to see the frenetic state of things when I swing by there  in two weeks for talks and book research.)

Pundits and commentators on the Left and Right are pronouncing ‘the end of the progressive cycle in Latin America’. They cite the recent presidential elections:
1. Argentina, where hard-right Mauricio Macri was elected;
2. Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff has appointed a neo-liberal ‘Chicago Boy’ economist, Joaquin Levy, as Finance Minister and launched an IMF-style regressive structural adjustment policy designed to reduce social expenditures and attract financial speculators; and