Brazil: Glenn Greenwald on Conviction of Populist 'Lula' Ahead of 2018 Election

[goldenequity]

A Further Blow to Democracy in Brazil? Glenn Greenwald on Conviction of Lula Ahead of 2018 Election

Published on Jul 13, 2017

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been convicted on corruption charges
and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison.
Lula, widely considered one of Brazil’s most popular political figures,
is the front-runner in the 2018 elections.

We look at how this development could impact his presidential bid,
and we speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept.






=================

short 'history'

Brazil’s democratically elected President (Liberal/Progressive) Dilma Rousseff
after 13 years of governance, was formally ousted by the Brazilian Senate.
(basically 'incumbents'.. insulated by decades of corruption/bribery... sound familiar?)

There were mounting 'investigations' initiated by Rousseff against 'certain' members
that threatened coming corruption charges... so... votes were bought & sold (yunno the normal stuff)
and they surpassed the required two-thirds majority with 61 votes in favor and 20 votes against.

Rousseff was impeached. Michael Temer becomes 'interim' President until the coming 2018 election.

The controversial impeachment formalizes the provisional government of former Vice President Michel Temer
bringing an end to 13 years of governance by Rousseff.

The by-passed electorate was NOT happy and continue to claim a “soft coup” suggesting:
— an undemocratic process of regime change
tainted by political malfeasance,
selective justice,
and a non-electoral transfer of power
cloaked in the guise of the rule of law.
(reasonable definition? Hang on to it... we might need it.)

Like I said... a 'short' history... more stories of 'coverups' etc.
Corporatism, Neo-Liberalism, CIA etc. etc...
but you get the idea and basic sentiment
of 'another' poverty stricken, crime ridden, 'socialist' Latin American nation.
'Member last year's Olympics fiasco?? Ugh.

So basically the Southern Hemisphere 'usual'...
another target rich environment
for economic hit men to steal national assets
buy off / threaten political structures
impose 'austerity' (wealth transfer to the indebted state)
and saddle the masses with ginormous debt.

yer basic Globalist Agenda piece is HERE

[Brian4Liberty]

Brazil is the model for corrupt crony plutocratic rule. Not hard to imagine that attempts at reforms will be met with personal destruction.

[goldenequity]

Brazil is the model for corrupt crony plutocratic rule. Not hard to imagine that attempts at reforms will be met with personal destruction.

I enjoyed Greenwald's analysis... you could substitute 'Brazil' for SO MANY other countries..
corrupt as helll... socialism or no socialism... populace 'exhausted' by the cronyism/corruption.

==================


btw..
If you want Greenwald's 'next' audio piece... it's here. it's reasonable. it's good/logical

Video (no youtube yet)
Greenwald: Are Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Evidence of a "Smoking Gun"?

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/4...inal-collusion

[Brian4Liberty]

I enjoyed Greenwald's analysis... you could substitute 'Brazil' for SO MANY other countries..
corrupt as helll... socialism or no socialism... populace 'exhausted' by the cronyism/corruption.

==================


btw..
If you want Greenwald's 'next' audio piece... it's here. it's reasonable. it's good/logical

Video (no youtube yet)
Greenwald: Are Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Evidence of a "Smoking Gun"?

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/4...inal-collusion

I don't follow Brazil close enough to know which ones are really corrupt. And it's likely only the corrupt cronies know who they are.

[goldenequity]

I don't follow Brazil close enough to know which ones are really corrupt. And it's likely only the corrupt cronies know who they are.

ha. its become infested... you can probably use the 61/81 senators voting impeachment as fair 'guide' of greed and fear.
The Speaker of the House was the one Greenwald referenced who's now in prison...
BOTH he and Michael Temer were about to be outed on corruption charges...
then
the impeachment happened and Temer automatically got 'immunity' from any/all past sins.
The corruption charges Temer NOW faces are NEW sins.

[goldenequity]

This exactly represents the planned plunder by the soft coupsters. Sickening.


Temer Signs Law That Could See Millions of Acres Lost in the Amazon




BRASILIA, Brazil: On 11 July, President Michel Temer signed into law important new legislation (MP 759) that paves the way for land thieves, who have illegally occupied and cleared vast areas of public land in the Amazon, to legalize their land holdings. The changes introduced by the legislation will make it easier — and very cheap — for wealthy land grabbers (even those who illegally occupied land fairly recently) to gain property rights over vast areas.

The bill was passed at a time of drastic cuts in funding for key government regulatory bodies, such as the environmental agency IBAMA, the agrarian reform institute INCRA, and the Indian agency FUNAI.

The new law which is likely to embolden land thieves, when combined with the huge enforcement cuts, could lead Brazil into a period of lawlessness and unrest believes Deborah Duprat, Prosecutor for Citizen Rights in the Office of the Attorney General (PFDC).

“Among numerous unconstitutional elements, MP 759, which was approved in the midst of protests, transfers into private hands an enormous stock of public land,” said Duprat. “With this, various policies that guarantee land for peoples, the environment and conservation units, are going to become completely compromised. We have to be prepare for a situation in the countryside where — as a result of the bankruptcy of public policies — violence will grow exponentially,” Duprat said.

Remote parts of the Amazon are especially expected to be impacted. Experts fear that the passage of MP 759 will greatly accelerate deforestation.

The new legislation came in the form of a provisional measure, MP 759/2016, which was proposed by the administration, approved by Congress, and then signed by Temer. Despite its expected major impacts, the law has attracted little attention in the mainstream media, largely because of the current political tumult in Brasilia, which is dominating the news.

President Temer signed the measure on the same day that Judge Sergio Moro sentenced former president Lula to nearly ten years imprisonment for corruption, on the basis of what many see as flimsy evidence. The Lula conviction announcement, while taking attention away from MP 759, also muted trade union movement protests over a massive erosion of labor rights that was being approved by the Senate. All of this also helped delay voting by a Congressional Commission on the serious corruption accusations Temer is facing.

MP 759 alters Terra Legal, a program announced as a means of enabling peasant families to gain ownership of their small land plots, even though legislation for this purpose already existed. Introduced in 2009 under President Lula, Terra Legal has, in fact, largely strengthened big farmers: although peasant farmers make up 85 percent of the program’s beneficiaries, they have only gained 19 percent of the land. The rest has gone mostly to the wealthy elite.

The significant changes to Terra Legal, some introduced at a late stage by the bill’s rapporteur, Senator Romero Jucá, will further facilitate land theft. The law includes an increase in the maximum size of individual land occupations that can be regularized from 1,500 to 2,500 hectares (5.8 to 9.6 square miles). This change will make it easier for land grabbers to gain control over larger areas of land, particularly given the common practice by which laranjas (literally oranges, or stooges) who register land in their name but actually hand it over to the land thieves.

There are also fears the new law will negatively impact Brazil’s agrarian reform settlements, many of which were set up due to pressure from Brazil’s globally known landless movement (MST).

Gerson Teixeira, an agrarian expert, said that the new law will remove a stipulation that allowed peasant families to delay paying for their plots until the land is supported by adequate infrastructure. “Most of the settlements are in a precarious condition,” Teixeira said. “They don’t have rural credit or infrastructure. Some have existed for 20 years and don’t have a single well.”

If peasant families must start paying for their plots immediately, many will have no option but to sell, because without rural credit and adequate roads, they can’t farm profitably, Teixeira added, “Big landowners want to get their hands on the 80 million hectares [308,882 square miles] given over to agrarian reform. Making settlers start paying for their plots will give agribusiness what it wants — land for sale.Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, from the University of Sao Paulo, believes that current policies, including Terra Legal, will boost the morale of land thieves, encouraging them to form some of the largest rural estates recorded in the history of humanity.

The government insists that the main objective of the new legislation is to sort out Brazil’s chaotic land situation. “Our goal is to simplify inefficient procedures and to cut the red tape,” said Eliseu Padilha, the Presidential Chief of Staff. “With the new program the government will turn millions of Brazilians into citizens.”

Senator Romero Jucá said that the government was paying its “historic debt” to the thousands of families who had migrated to the Amazon in the 1970s and 1980s and never received the land titles they had been promised.

However, according to Brenda Brito, who has a doctorate in law from Stanford University and now works with the Brazilian NGO Institute of Man and the Environment in Amazonia (Imazon), Jucá’s argument is weak, because the new legislation is not needed to provide families with these titles.

According to Brito, the government’s real motives can be found in two changes introduced by the new law. The first is to bring forward the cut-off date after which land cannot be registered, from December 2004 to December 2011. “Those who invaded public land after the approval of law 11,952 did it knowing it was illegal to do this, and thus carried out the crime of invasion of public land, set out in article 20 of law 4,947/1966. In extending the date to 2011, the MP is, in practice, providing an amnesty for this crime.”

The second change is to consolidate the system by which the government provides a generous subsidy for the land sale. According to Brito, Brazil’s General Accounting Office (Tribunal de Contas da União) had already reported that the charges made by the Terra Legal Program were “derisory” and infringed the law. But, she says, the new law continues with the old system: “just to give an example, a hectare of land in the district of Paragominas in the state of Pará, would have a market cost of up to R$10,000 (US $3,120). But, by the rules of the [new] MP, the government will charge only R$45 (US $14).”

Brito concludes: “During a period of economic crisis and increasing deforestation … this MP is doing the opposite of what is needed, by allowing derisory prices to be paid, and stretching out the time periods. The Castanheira and Flying Rivers Operations, carried out by the Federal Police, showed that there is a scramble [by land thieves] to illegally take over public land in Amazonia. For this reason, instead of giving an amnesty and becoming an accessory in this criminal behavior by providing a presidential sanction, the government should have vetoed the MP and sent out the message that this kind of theft of public property will not be tolerated.”

The new law also weakens environmental regulations. The final version, signed by Temer, abolishes the earlier stipulation that claimants would lose their title to the land if they cleared the area of forest, called a legal reserve, which they are bound by law to leave untouched. All that is now necessary to deforest is that the claimants register their land with the Rural Environmental Inventory (CAR).

MP 759 is just the latest in a series of retrogressive measures that are being pushed rapidly through Congress by the bancada ruralista rural caucus that are undoing the environmental and social advances made by Brazil since the return to civilian rule in 1985. Civil society is protesting vociferously but has been unable to influence the Congress.