Glenn Greenwald - Brazil Paralyzed by Nationwide Strike, Driven by Global Dynamic of Elite Corruption and Impunity
JUST OVER one year ago, Brazil’s elected President,
Dilma Rousseff, was
impeached – ostensibly due to budgetary lawbreaking – and replaced
with her centrist Vice President, Michel Temer. Since then, virtually every
aspect of the nation’s political and economic crisis – especially corruption –
has worsened. Temer’s approval
ratings have collapsed to single digits. His closest political allies – the
same officials who engineered Dilma’s impeachment and installed him in the
presidency - recently became
the official targets of a sprawling criminal investigation. The
President himself has been implicated by new revelations, saved only by the legal
immunity he enjoys. It’s almost impossible to imagine a presidency imploding
more completely and rapidly than the unelected one imposed by elites on the
Brazilian population in the wake of Dilma’s impeachment.
The disgust validly
generated by all of these failures finally exploded this week. A nationwide
strike, and tumultuous protests in numerous cities, today has paralyzed much of
the country, shutting roads, airports and schools. It is the largest strike to
hit Brazil in at least two decades. The protests were largely peaceful, but
some random violence emerged.
The proximate cause of
the anger is a set
of “reforms” that the Temer government is ushering in that will limit
the rights of workers, raise their retirement age by several years, and cut
various pension and social security benefits. These austerity measures are
being imposed at a time of great suffering, with the unemployment rate rising
dramatically and social improvements of the last decade, which raised millions
of people out of poverty, unravelling. As the New York Times put
it today: “The strike revealed deep fissures in Brazilian society over Mr.
Temer’s government and its policies.”..
read more:
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/28/brazil-paralyzed-by-nationwide-strike-driven-by-a-familiar-global-dynamic-of-elite-corruption/