Peace is Forbidden

Lula’s administration, the Supreme Federal Court, and their support system have decided that January 8, 2023, is not over and, as far as they’re concerned, it never will be. An official celebration of the date has just been held – it’s the latest “religious” holiday yet to be included in the Brazilian calendar. They used the occasion to insist, as they have for a year, that the rowdy disorder that took place on that day in Brasília was a “coup attempt.” What a delusion. A full year of investigations into the case, by the Supreme Court and the grand “police station” that public service in Brazil has become, has failed to produce a single piece of evidence of a coup, or anything even remotely resembling one. But it’s not just that – it’s yet another invention like the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), the newfound “world leader” status attributed to President Lula, and the picanha (top sirloin steak) promised to the people in his electoral campaign. The perpetual “January 8” serves a much more destructive purpose: preventing Brazil from returning to a state of political peace, coexistence among different ideas, and real freedom to choose leaders by the vote of all citizens.

At the rally promoted by the Lula-Supreme Court government junta to boost the campaign for the perpetuation of the “coup,” forbidden to the public and heavily guarded by 2,000 police officers, no one was more accurate than the keynote speaker, justice Alexandre de Moraes. He said that peace does not mean “appeasement,” which in his view is an “ignoble” stance. In the heat of the moment, he compared the regrettable vandalism in Brasília, where the most dangerous weapon was a slingshot and no one was severely injured or needed even a single band-aid, with World War II, in which more than 50 million people died and which only ended after two atomic bombs were dropped. Furthermore, he put the attitude of rejecting peace in Brazil today on a par with what Winston Churchill did 85 years ago, when he refused peace proposals with Hitler’s Germany. Lula, amid a nearly incomprehensible mishmash of lines, said that “there is no forgiveness for those who attempt against democracy.” A governor, member of the Workers’ Party (PT), repeated the extreme left’s slogan: “No amnesty.”

How is it possible to find any similarities between the Brasília ludicrous riot and the Nazi Germany – or to respect people (a.k.a. justice Moraes) who declare themselves against the fundamental idea of human compassion, which was pled in all amnesty appeals filed with the court? None of this makes sense, the same way as none of what they are preaching does. After all, the former president of the Supreme Court, retired justice Rosa Weber, has said that the riots of January 8 were our Pearl Harbor – the Japanese bombing that left 2,400 dead in Hawaii and thrust the United States into World War II. Why not allow, in that case, her colleague, justice Mores, to be cast in the same team as Churchill? What they all claim is that Brazil is in a life-or-death situation, with highly dangerous coup plotters ready to end democracy at any moment. To prevent them from doing so, then, is to allow the Lula-Supreme Court junta to do “whatever is necessary” to save the country. This includes, more than anything, the general restraining of freedom in Brazil. As a parody of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s saying “Brazil above everything. God above everyone,” their motto is “Democracy above everything. Alexandre de Moraes, followed by Lula, Janja, etc., above everyone.”

The plain fact is that a Brazil of political normality, with free debate, honest elections, and the victory of whoever got the most votes is the last thing the Supreme Court-Lula consortium wants. To survive, they need illegality and, to maintain it, they need a ghost that haunts everyone and against which it is lawful to do anything. It is the only way left: when there is no support from the majority of the people, compliance with the law is life-threatening. It has been like this since Alexandre de Moraes opened, five years ago, an illegal inquiry to combat what they call “anti-democratic acts.” It’s illegal because it’s perpetual. It grants the Supreme Court powers that the law itself does not. It underpins all sorts of “reasons” for indictments that the justice wants to make – like a fantasized spat between a few Brazilian travelers and him at the Rome Airport, for example, or someone calling the Minister of Justice a “fattie.” It suppresses the constitutional rights of the accused, such as the right to legal defense. It ignores due process, imposes a seal on communications, and orders the Federal Police to raid WhatsApp groups. It proceeds in secrecy. There’s nothing like it, in short, in any serious democracy in the world.

It’s obvious that the Supreme Court-Lula consortium wants everything to continue this way since they wouldn’t survive in an effectively democratic regime, with respect for the law, individual rights, and public freedoms. It is not their biome. For them to thrive, there has to be a Superior Electoral Court justice that says “mission accomplished” when it certifies Lula as president of the Republic. There has to be, in fact, a Superior Electoral Court exactly as it is, and exactly with the same voting machines. There has to be a Supreme Court that takes Lula out of jail where he was serving time for passive corruption and money laundering – to this day he has not been acquitted of either crime, but he is the President of the Republic because the justices annulled his cases on technicalities. He is not innocent once no legal authority has officially declared his innocence so far. Yet, according to a sentence from Globo TV, “he owes nothing to justice,”. Also, he wouldn’t be where he is today if it weren’t for the Supreme Court actions – as one of its justices made a point of saying in public. His ideal world is the lawless world of Alexandre de Moraes’ illegal inquiries and proceedings against the participants in the “coup d’état” of January 8, 2023.

Brazil under the Lula-Supreme Court consortium needs “anti-democratic” acts, imaginary “coups,” and nonexistent “threats” to justify the general illegality that keeps it standing. If any of these things had any connection to the reality of the facts, why wouldn’t five years of investigation, with all the state machine power and billions of reais, have been able to prove any minimally serious danger to democracy – not a single one so far? It’s simple: if they haven’t found anything, it’s because there was never anything to be found in the first place. The “coup” of January 8 is the most ambitious fiction that the Supreme Court, Lula, and the national left, with the support of most of the media, have ever concocted as part of their basic strategy of sabotaging democracy while they won’t stop shouting “in defense of democracy” at the same time. With 30 people sentenced to up to 17 years in prison for being present at the vandalism committed during the “coup” and another thousand awaiting trial, justice Moraes has come up with the prodigious news that he would be hanged by the “coup plotters” in the Three Powers Square. Coup? What coup? The simple truth is there has never been one.

Lula, the Supreme Court, and the journalists want to convince the population that they really saw the Bogeyman, or whoever it was, pass through Brasília wanting to overthrow the government, end the “anti-hunger” programs, and turn the Amazon into a pile of ashes. To prevent these horrors, then, justice Moraes must be allowed to take care of everything, justice Toffoli must have permission to annul the decision that obliged a “friendly” company to collect R$ 10 billion for the Treasury, and justice Barroso must have the liberty to continue living, as he himself says, to make “history.” Alright: as “mice and men,” in the words of Robert Burns, they may have the best-laid plans – though these plans, as the poet reminds us, often end up not working out (that’s, however, another story, for another time). At the moment, for sure, they can make whatever plans they please, especially when they have the Armed Forces serving as their private security company. If they feel like nominating Donald Duck for the next vacancy on the Supreme Court, for example, no problem – senators Romário, Mara Gabrilli, and about 50 other ones will think it’s a great idea. The actual problem here is to say that there was a “coup attempt” and pretend that someone takes it seriously.

Obviously, the vast majority of the population doesn’t: in the last opinion poll on the subject, only 20% of the respondents said they believe in the “coup.” How could it be otherwise? If what Lula and the Supreme Court were saying was remotely close to the truth, we would be facing one of the most prodigious phenomena in human history – the absent “leaderless coup.” For the first time in 10,000 years since humans left their caves, the accused of benefiting from the coup hasn’t perpetrated it while in the Presidency of the Republic and in full control the entire state apparatus, as well as in the supreme command of the Armed Forces – as written in Article 73 of the Constitution. Despite all the odds in his favor, such “leader” does nothing until the last minute of his term. On the contrary: he lets his successor take office peacefully and leaves the country. Then, eight days after stepping down from office, and being in the United States, he decides to stage the coup. In what universe is that possible? It’s also the first time in history that slingshots are the only weapon used in a coup. On top of it all, there has never been a coup without the leadership declaring the vacancy of the office of president – and the proclamation of someone to occupy it.

Not a single soldier, paratrooper or marine participated in the “coup” that Lula, the Supreme Court, and the media claim to have happened on January 8. Rather than the military, a cotton candy vendor was in place. It is also extraordinary, in this case, that the “coup plotters” had never had an action plan. Who would do what, how, when, where, and why? The only “plan” mentioned so far was the hanging of justice Alexandre de Moraes, of which there is no proof, not the slightest shred of evidence. None of the people accused of attempting the “coup” had the remotest political influence, contact with any fat cat in the government, or the ability to organize anything. There was no information about what the “coup plotters” would do regarding the National Congress, the governors, or the Supreme Court itself – other than the lynching of Moraes, which, according to the Federal Police itself, was an “internet delirium.” By the way, that was the first coup materialized only on WhatsApp groups to be recorded in universal history. More astonishing of all, perhaps, is the fact that no one has felt threatened at any moment by anything that the “coup plotters” have done.

According to the consortium’s propaganda, the Brazilian people were saved from the attempt to establish a dictatorship, which ordinary Brazilian people had no idea of. On the first anniversary of their salvation, the people should be crowding Paulista Avenue, Copacabana Beach, and the Esplanade of Ministries to celebrate, shouldn’t they? Yet, there wasn’t a single Brazilian in flesh and blood at the ceremony put up by Lula, the Workers’ Party, and the Supreme Court; if anyone had tried to attend it, by the way, they would have been arrested by the police who surrounded the Senate and would not let anyone close. In the end, all that was left was what today is called a “narrative.” It is on top of it that the consortium will try to continue governing Brazil. So, truth be told, they have no other cards up their sleeve.