A Brazil for them

How would it be possible, with the logical equipment normally available for the mental circuits of a human being, to understand why a State Minister needs to travel 64 times over a period of eight months to deal with work matters — in a jet that is public property and entirely paid for by you? Without work matters, neither he nor anyone else has the right to use an official airplane to go from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ anywhere in Brazil or the world — and for it to be a work matter, there must be at least, really at least, some public interest in this whole expense. The 64 trips that the Minister of Justice made from January to August in Brazilian Air Force planes were not to take care of work matters. His propaganda service, also paid for by you, may say they were, but it cannot inform what benefit, even indirect, the citizen received on any of them. If there is no information, it’s clear that there was no work involved.

It is not a minor thing, as the government always says when this kind of story appears in the press. With 64 flights in eight months, the Minister of Justice traveled on public funds once every four days, or something like that. He also spent an endless amount of money. The price of a private jet, on a long-distance flight, is around R$ 100,000 — and the minister frequently travels the Brasília-São Luís route, which is about 2,000 kilometers in flight. He travels in a large jet. Not even God knows the real value of this bill; the Air Force and the Ministry of Justice say it is a state secret. The money is yours. But in practice, it is theirs — and they spend it without giving any explanation to anyone, with the carelessness of Marie Antoinette in the royal court of old France. The people don’t have a small jet or a large jet? Then why don’t they go by flying saucer? This is the essence of the Lula government.

Don’t try asking Minister Flávio Dino, the standard PT activist, or the commentators on Globo TV how to explain such a thing — a high-ranking official who travels every four days, without being a pilot, in a country where the government only knows how to complain that it’s ‘out of money’ for anything and needs to charge more taxes. The answer, if any answer comes, will be something like: ‘What about Bolsonaro’s jewels? What about Marielle’s death? What about the genocide?’. The truth is that there is no rational answer for the Minister’s serial flights — not if he or the Lula government think that the Brazilian people have the right to some kind of explanation. But they don’t think so. What they think is the opposite: if we are the ones in charge, then no one has any business demanding accountability for what we do or don’t do. This is the raison d’être of the national left and its colonies of parasites — to take advantage of the state machinery as private and personal property. If it’s not like that, they are not interested in being in the government. It’s just like dictatorships.

Brazil would be relatively well-off if the only one using the National Treasury as his personal bank account were Minister Dino. But he is just another passenger — in a superior luxury cabin, true, but just another one — on this five-star cruise paid for, down to the last cent, with the money that citizens give to the Treasury every time they go to the gas station or turn on the lights at home. The Lula government has turned the Air Force into its private air taxi service, and since January 1st of this year, no fat cat from the “L” System has reached into their pocket to buy a plane ticket or spent ten minutes in an airport waiting room. The runner-up in this aviation race, close behind Dino, is a citizen named Waldez Góes, who very few people know what he does in the Lula Ministry; so far, he’s accumulated 59 flights. The third is the Minister of Education, Camilo Santana. Brazil’s public school system continues in ruins, and Lula has just cut R$ 330 million from the area’s budget, but Santana has already traveled 51 times with money the government says it doesn’t have. The Minister of Health, of all people, managed to take 50 flights. And so it goes on down the line — including the one who takes an Air Force plane to see a purebred horse exhibition. And the deputies and senators of the “allied base”? Since they can’t request planes, they hop on flights with the ministers. They’ve made 187 trips this year; the champion is the PT, with 48 free rides.

All of this is just the first aria of the opera, and it may not even be the most expensive part. The limitless use of state apparatus for personal benefit is an obsession for Lula, his wife, and the big fish in his government. It’s not a matter of setting a good example—what the Lula government really enjoys is setting a bad example. In a country with “33 million people going hungry,” as the President of the Republic says, the magnates in Brasília would have the minimal obligation to live with the modesty of a Benedictine convent. They do exactly the opposite. They speak every single day about their passion for the “poor” or about raising taxes on the “rich,” but they live like millionaires—and make sure to flaunt to the maximum how much they are spending with the money of those who work. It is also not just a financial or public moral issue. It’s a sickness. Lula and the forces supporting him are trying, through their concrete actions, to create a nation without people. There is only one God, “the State,” and Lula is its sole prophet—with the help of the Supreme Court, yes, but the only real prophet is he. The rest are all “suckers.” They have to work to earn a living, pay the expenses of those in charge, and be careful not to be indicted in the investigation of “anti-democratic acts.”

From there, anything goes. The Minister of Labor, Carlos Lupi, was fired from the Dilma government for incompetence—and being fired for incompetence by Dilma Rousseff is not for everyone. The minister of something invented by Lula and called “Racial Equality,” Anielle Franco, has only one visible achievement on her resume—she is the sister of former Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco, canonized as a martyr by the left, intellectuals, and most Brazilian journalists. Well then: the two were appointed to the Board of Directors of a nationalized company, Tupy, which, according to itself, is dedicated to the production of structurally complex geometric components. They will earn at least R$ 36,000 per month each, without having to do anything—and it’s not even possible for them to do anything. What do Anielle or Lupi know about structurally complex geometric components? The two already earn more than R$ 41,000 per month as ministers; they thought it was too little, and now, with a stroke of Lula’s pen, they will earn almost R$ 80,000, all coming directly from your pocket. How could the two of them, combined, help in any way, anything, a company that belongs to the nation’s patrimony and should be administered with maximum efficiency?

The ministers join a crowd of relatives, general left-wing “activists,” election losers, opportunists, friends, and friends of friends that the “L System” has placed at the mouth of the public treasury. There is Itaipu. There is Petrobras. There is Caixa. In total, there are over 600 state-owned enterprises, with salaries of R$ 50,000 per month and upwards, and much further upwards. It’s not just about money. In the same way that they have transformed public service into a provider of salaries of up to R$ 1 million per year for those who are part of the Supreme Commissariat of Government, they act all the time as if the legal authority of the State were a personal asset that each baron of the government exploits as they see fit. The same Flávio Dino, for example, has turned the Ministry of Justice into a police headquarters dedicated to his service—over the last eight months he has not bothered a single criminal but has not stopped repressing political opponents. The most recent outbreak of privatizing the public function came from the president of the Republic’s wife—who has no public function at all, but in practice is worth more than any minister, state-owned enterprise owner, or all three Armed Forces combined.

A video posted on social media showed, a few days ago, Janja looking at a poorly resolved image of the new minister Cristiano Zanin, who has just joined the Supreme Court by appointment from Lula. With a troubled expression, she cleans her glasses to see better—and the image of Zanin, then seen clearly, transforms into Minister André Mendonça, appointed to the Supreme Court by Jair Bolsonaro. Few insults can be more poisonous, in the mind of the hardcore Workers’ Party supporter, than calling someone a “Bolsonarist”; it’s like cursing one’s mother. But Janja said nothing about the use of her image in the video, nor did she show any kind of solidarity with the minister appointed by her own husband. On the contrary—she found it “funny” and “a bit tragic.” It is very clear whose side she is on: against Zanin and in favor of the firing squad that has already formed against him for not having voted as the left wanted him to vote in his initial decisions. Lula’s wife, in this story, showed how she really sees Brazil. She is convinced that Zanin, by virtue of having been appointed by her husband, has become a private domestic servant who must obey her orders and vote as she wishes. He is not an employee of the Brazilian State; he is a service provider for the presidential couple.

It is a disease, as mentioned above. It’s the stuff of a banana republic dictatorship. It’s what the Maduros and Ortegas of the world do.