Ainda há militares em Brasília? - Merval Pereira (O Globo)

 Ainda há militares em Brasília?

Merval Pereira
O Globo, domingo, 10 de julho de 2022

A exacerbação da retórica radicalizada do presidente Bolsonaro à medida que se aproximam as eleições, com indicações de dificuldades quase intransponíveis para sua reeleição, demonstra que ele não está aceitando a derrota e prepara o terreno para uma subversão do resultado. Informações não desmentidas de que a recente reunião ministerial, além da ilegalidade de ter tratado da campanha eleitoral, foi uma exaltação a um golpe de Estado com ares de legalidade, fazem com que o sinal de alerta tenha sido ligado em diversas instituições democráticas, e provocou a denúncia do Observatório para Monitoramento dos Riscos Eleitorais no Brasil à Comissão Interamericana de Direitos Humanos da Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA).

Bolsonaro ameaçou as eleições novamente na reunião ministerial no Planalto. O caso é mais sério porque o general Braga Netto, ex-ministro da Defesa, estava presente, e o atual ministro da pasta, general Paulo Sergio, respaldou as ameaças, ao afirmar que o TSE não respondeu às demandas das Forças Armadas. O primeiro absurdo é fazer reunião ministerial para tratar de eleições durante o expediente dentro do Palácio do Planalto, e pedir aos ministros que participem da campanha.

Os relatos indicam que o presidente disse que, se as informações pedidas pelas Forças Armadas não forem dadas pelo Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), ele não participará da eleição. Isso é diferente de “não vai ter eleição”, como vinha ameaçando. Pode desistir, se sentir que vai perder já no primeiro turno? Não parece de seu feitio, o que aumenta a possibilidade de que pode tentar decretar um estado de sítio, ou medida semelhante. O que passa pela cabeça dele não pode ser coisa boa, porque está batendo com muita persistência nas urnas eletrônicas, e nos dias mais recentes tem claramente estimulado uma reação de seus seguidores: “Vocês sabem o que têm que fazer”, disse Bolsonaro nada enigmático.

Ele não tem escrúpulo, vai avançando sobre as leis e sobre os limites, e os tribunais ficam numa situação difícil porque, se impugnarem sua candidatura, o que já merecia ter acontecido, tantas são as ilegalidades que comete, irão provocar uma grande reação – que é o que ele quer -, e, se não fizerem nada, permitem o avanço sobre a democracia. Como o Congresso tem a maioria governista e está fazendo manobras para aprovar benesses sociais para ajudá-lo, não há medida de contenção à vista.

Como estamos antevendo uma tentativa antidemocrática de contestação dos resultados da eleição presidencial como a levada adiante pelo então presidente Donald Trump com a invasão do Capitólio em Washington, seria bom também relembrar episódios edificantes das Forças Armadas dos Estados Unidos na contenção dessa tentativa de golpe. A principal autoridade militar dos EUA, o chefe do Estado-Maior Conjunto, general Mark Milley, tão preocupado estava em que o então presidente e seus aliados tentassem um golpe que se uniu a outras autoridades com o objetivo de parar Trump.

Não foi apenas o comunicado oficial colocando de prontidão as Forças Armadas para defender a democracia. O livro dos repórteres do The Washington Post Carol Leonnig e Philip Rucker, ganhadores do Prêmio Pulitzer, intitulado I Alone Can Fix It ( “Só eu posso resolver”, em tradução livre), uma frase usada por Trump que os autores ironizam, descreve como Milley e os outros membros do Estado-Maior tomaram a decisão de renunciar para não cumprir ordens que considerassem “ilegais, perigosas ou imprudentes”.

A obra conta os bastidores do último ano do “catastrófico” governo de um Trump desequilibrado após perder a eleição de 2020. Milley conversou com autoridades e políticos, e garantiu que Trump e seus aliados não conseguiriam fazer nada sem os militares: “Eles podem tentar, mas não vão conseguir. (…) Não dá para fazer isso sem a CIA e o FBI. Nós somos os caras com as armas”.

Ele acreditava que Trump estava fomentando uma agitação com o intuito de invocar a Lei de Insurreição e convocar os militares. Após a insurreição de 6 de janeiro, o livro diz que Milley fez teleconferências diárias com Mark Meadows, chefe de gabinete de Trump, e o então secretário de Estado Mike Pompeo, assim como com a presidente do Congresso, Nancy Pelosi. Quando Trump demitiu o secretário de Defesa Mark Esper em novembro, Pelosi foi um dos vários congressistas que ligaram para o general Milley. “Estamos todos confiando em você”, disse. “Lembre-se de seu juramento”.

Após a insurreição de 6 de janeiro, Pelosi disse ao general que estava preocupada com a possibilidade de que Trump , que ela considerava louco, usasse armas nucleares durante seus últimos dias no cargo. Ele a tranquilizou: “Seguiremos apenas ordens legais. Só faremos coisas que sejam legais, éticas e morais”.

Por que não relembramos esses episódios de resistência democrática de militares, ou ainda o julgamento a que está sendo submetido Donald Trump pelo Congresso dos Estados Unidos, para exorcizar essas ameaças ? A frase famosa “Ainda temos juízes em Berlim”, que enaltece a independência do judiciário a favor de um camponês que estava sendo ameaçado pelo rei Frederico II, merece uma repetição: “ Ainda temos militares em Brasília?”.

Does Democracy Drive Growth? - Greater Pacific, London and Mumbai

  

Greater Pacific, Londres e Mumbai – 7.7.2022

Does Democracy Drive Growth? Can China Succeed Without it and India Prosper Under it?

 

The 20th Century has undoubtedly been the century of democracy. The past 100 years have seen democratic government move from being an anomaly for modern states to being the rule, with the number of democratic countries in the world increasing from under 10 in 1900 to over 120 in 2007, covering nearly 60% of the world’s population. The fall of Communism late in the 20th century was seen as the final triumph for liberal democracy and the capitalist economic system it supported. However, in the minds of many, China’s economic rise over the past 30 years cast doubt over the superiority of democratic government, at least with regards to creating economic growth and prosperity, its own brand of state capitalism having delivered decades of double digit GDP growth. India in contrast stood as a developing country that failed to demonstrate the economic growth from its democracy. Today, developing countries appear to have the choice to reject liberal democracy without rejecting economic growth, by following China’s authoritarian-based development model. However, the question of democracy and the role of freedom in economic growth has resurfaced as China sees its own growth slowing and struggles to once again re-invent its economy while preserving its authoritarian political institutions. In contrast, India’s growth has started to increase under its new leadership. Understanding freedom’s impact on economic development appears to once again be critical for both the likely economic trajectory of major economies such as China and India and indeed for the continued growth of democracy in the world, which at least in Western minds, is not just an economic growth enabler but also a fundamental human right.

 

Do Democracy and Freedom Drive Economic Growth?

 

This seemingly straightforward question has sparked much debate and analysis, which has typically sought to separate the impacts of democracy (defined as "a system of government in which all the people…are involved in making decisions about its affairs” ) from that of freedom. In terms of the former, strong arguments have been voiced both in favour of and against democracy’s impact on growth. Its supporters point to the developed world and the OECD in particular, arguing that only democracies have to date created post-industrial economies and societies. Its detractors point to China, who under authoritarian leadership has embarked on one of history’s most amazing development feats, and to countries such as India, which despite (or because of, they argue) its democracy has suffered from low growth for much of its modern history. Logical arguments about democracy’s impact or lack thereof on growth support both sides of the debate. Supporters of democracy point to the accountability it creates for leaders and the checks and balances on their power that it instils in addition to democracy’s broader promotion of fundamental human rights and the dignity of the individual, which are (more or less) universally recognised as worthy goals in and of themselves. Democracy’s detractors on the other hand point to the distorting effects that elections give rise to, ranging from a skewed focus on short-term priorities over long term needs to the undemocratic impact of special interest groups shaping government policy.

While it is clear that democracies (and politically free) states are on average richer than authoritarian and unfree states, studies that have tried to statistically quantify democracy’s impact on economic growth, have been inconclusive. This is should be no surprise given the complexity in separating cause and effect in topics related to social science and impact of variables other than freedom impacting economic growth. In broad-based studies, authoritarian states include the majority of the world’s high growth oil states, while the democratic states include among others African states at the time of their independence, then lacking the basic institutions required to ensure security, stability and development.

More straightforward however, is the question of economic freedom on economic (GDP) growth, which has been clearly demonstrated. The key transmission mechanisms whereby economic freedom drives growth include the creation of strong institutions (including property rights, the rule of law and free markets), a focus on creating and unlocking value from human capital and the reduced importance of government consumption in the economy. Some combination of these factors, if not all of them, have been critical components to the successful economic development of every major economy in the world during the past 50 years. Importantly, these growth promoting economic freedoms are not necessarily accompanied by political freedoms or democratic government: Chile and South Korea (not to mention China), for example in the early phases of their development implemented economic freedoms under authoritarian regimes and still grew successfully as a result. Further, as the events of the Global Financial Crisis has shown, economic freedom, particularly an excess of freedom in the form of a fundamental lack of regulation, can have high economic costs, enabling extreme cycles, market bubbles and subsequent crashes. However, despite big swings, these freedoms also create systems of enterprise that are self-balancing and end up putting the country and its people back on an upward trajectory of growth, which explains their enduring success (and the corresponding failure of communist economic planning).

While democracy’s statistical impact on economic growth may remain uncertain, economic growth’s impact on democracy is clear, and strongly positive. The increased standards of living that result from growth (which are a result of economic freedoms) invariably drive demands for political rights too, and only a few countries have been able to resist the demands of its citizens for political reforms over the long term. What is less clear is what happens to growth once these political reforms and freedoms are implemented and whether democratic transitions on balance hurt or help further economic growth, especially in the short term.

Understanding this relationship is critical to understanding the economic value of democracy, (its fundamental value as a fundamental human right aside). Is democracy a “luxury good” that, while valuable for its own sake, can only be afforded past a given level of national wealth or is it a required cost in ensuring sustainable growth above a certain level of development that virtually all countries need to make? The answer to this question likely depends not only on what happened to GDP growth after democratisation but also on at what levels of GDP the transition itself took place at. History has shown that democratisation in the absence of strong institutions and a base of economic performance has led to serious economic and political disruptions and even regime failure in some cases (e.g. post-colonial Africa and certain former members of the USSR). What is more, the process of democratisation by revolution and mass uprising can destabilise existing institutions, thereby depressing economic development and undermining the political reform process itself, as the lessons of the Arab Spring in countries such as Egypt demonstrate. This is by no means to say that the choice of people to rise up en masse is not a legitimate part of the process of social-political change; it is to recognize that it can lead to economic and political setbacks and unintended consequences. The key questions to ask therefore are (i) where along the development curve does the pressure to democratise sustainably build up, (ii) whether democratising at this stage drives or restricts further GDP growth and (iii) how long do the adjustment pains last after which one can expect the trajectory to continue to be an upward one.

These questions are highly relevant to both India and China: India has (many believe) paid a high price in the past for being a democracy, and the key questions for it are whether and where along its own development curve the hoped for “democratic dividend” will kick in. China on the other hand has for a long time enjoyed economic success from having implemented many of the economic policies and (to a lesser extent) freedoms that help growth while continuing to run an authoritarian political regime. Given the dramatic shift down of China’s economy, markets and currency, for China observers (if not China itself), the question of the value of democracy to continued prosperity and when the demand for democracy is likely to be at critical or irresistible point is critical, given that successive leaderships have appeared to be committed to maintaining the political status quo indefinitely, regardless of economic development levels and growth considerations.

 

When Do States Democratise?

 

What is undeniably true is that there are only a few examples of developed and at least moderately wealthy countries that are not democratic and politically free. The table below captures all of the countries with GDP/capita levels above US$7,500, and compares economic prosperity with political freedom. While this does not provide an indication of when and how countries have democratised during their development, it does show that the pressure towards political liberalisation has been resisted by only a small number of well to do countries.

A closer look at the undemocratic outliers above reveals their being in one of two groups, either resource rich states (e.g. the Gulf States and other oil producers) or countries that have delivered consistent and a few nations with long-term high economic growth (e.g. China, Turkey, and to a lesser degree Singapore).Resource-rich states of course either directly own the natural resources in question or generate the majority of their tax income from them, making them less dependent on, and receptive to its citizens’ wishes, impacting the balance of power between state and society. However, the Arab Spring has demonstrated that this cannot be taken for granted indefinitely, particularly in states with large young and increasingly well connected populations with access to information. High growth states, on the other hand, have a powerful currency in the form of increasing household wealth that they can offer its citizens in exchange for continuing to forfeit increasing political freedom. The former of these models is of course dependent on the continued production of natural resources, while the latter model is dependent on delivering consistent and on-going growth. The table on the right captures the long-term growth rates and effective resource dependency of the outliers, indicating their grouping in one or the other of these categories.

 

Para acessar íntegra, com gráficos e quadros:

https://www.greaterpacificcapital.com/thought-leadership/does-democracy-drive-growth-can-china-succeed-without-it-and-india-prosper-under-it

Gilberto Amado nas páginas de Vicente Licinio Cardoso: permanência do pensamento

Neste livro, publicado originalmente em 1924 — aqui na edição de 1979, da CD e da Editora da UnB — figura um texto de Gilberto Amado, “As instituições políticas e o meio social no Brasil”, que começa com uma frase que deveria interessar nosso maior historiador da escravidão, Laurentino Gomes:

“Atentai, Senhores, aí está esboçada toda a história do Brasil no século XIX: Senhores e escravos.” (p. 45) Eu apenas corrigiria: não é só no século XIX, mas em toda a história do Brasil, da conquista portuguesa aos nossos dias. Gilberto Amado trata, em sua contribuição ao livro de Vicente Licínio Cardoso, não só do tráfico, como da escravidão, de uma forma geral, e também da ausência de escolas no imenso território brasileiro. 

Gilberto Amado se perguntava, ao final, se “diante do estado social do Brasil, é lícito acreditar que qualquer mudança nas instituições possa influir decisivamente para a felicidade do país? É de crer que qualquer modificação nos textos da Constituição [de 1891] tenha efeito sobre um meio nas condições em que se acha o nosso?” (p. 58)

Ele termina por um julgamento que, 98 anos depois, ainda parece válido para os nossos tempos;

“A ação política não pode deixar de exercer-se senão através de homens bem intencionados que possam suprir pela própria energia construtiva, atividade e patriotismo — no sentido do desinteresse pessoal e da capacidade de resistência às agitações improfícuas — as insuficiências de uma população ainda incapaz de exercer os seus direitos políticos e cumprir, como responsável pelos próprios destinos, os deveres cívicos que lhe incumbem.” (p. 59)

Cem anos depois desse diagnóstico desanimador, parece que ele se mantém intacto na perenidade de suas constatações. Triste constatar isso!

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Brasília, 26/05/2022

As Forças Armadas e o momento político nacional - Rubens Barbosa

 COLUNISTA Rubens Barbosa

Presidente do Instituto de Relações Internacionais e Comércio Exterior (Irice) e ex-embaixador do Brasil em Londres (1994-99) e em Washington (1999-2004), Rubens Barbosa escreve mensalmente na seção Espaço Aberto

Não tenho dúvida de que, se houver qualquer quebra das regras democráticas com o apoio das FA, a reação vinda de fora será imediata. 

Opinião

As Forças Armadas e o momento político nacional

Rubens Barbosa

O Estado de S.Paulo. 24 de maio de 2022

Um ano após o ataque de apoiadores trumpistas ao Congresso dos EUA, contestando o resultado da eleição que, estimulados pelo então presidente, julgavam fraudada, um general norte-americano publicou artigo no Washington Post manifestando preocupação com o dia seguinte das eleições presidenciais em 2024 e a ameaça de divisão entre os militares, o que poderia pôr em risco a democracia no país.

Não afastando a possibilidade de contestação dos resultados da eleição e de um golpe de Estado, o militar apontou para o risco de confrontação no interior das Forças Armadas (FA) e a eventual quebra da hierarquia para respaldar essa diferente visão. Todos os militares juram respeitar a Constituição, mas numa eleição contestada, com lealdades divididas, alguns poderão seguir as ordens do comandante-em-chefe e outros, o comando trumpista. Como exemplo, mencionou a recusa da Guarda

Nacional em acatar pedido do presidente Biden para que todos os seus membros se vacinassem. Com o país muito dividido, as FA e o Congresso deveriam tomar medidas para prevenir qualquer tentativa de insurreição e adotar providências cautelares, observou.

O alerta do militar norte-americano sobre a ameaça à quebra dos valores democráticos nos EUA, a partir de uma ação política das FA, não poderia ser mais atual para o cenário político brasileiro. A descrição feita pelo militar muito se assemelha a uma série de atitudes que colocam as FA brasileiras no centro do debate político nacional.

A gradual profissionalização das FA nos últimos 35 anos está sendo testada nos dias que correm. No atual governo, surgiu uma situação diferente dos governos anteriores desde 1985. Desde o período de governos militares, nos últimos 30 anos, podem ter surgido tensões esporádicas, mas atualmente elas se acentuaram a partir da participação de grande número de militares da ativa e da reserva em cargos públicos no governo federal. A crescente exposição dos militares no governo, com acusações de

corrupção, de ameaça à democracia e de contestação das urnas eletrônicas e das ações do Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), está causando um forte desgaste à imagem pública das Forças Armadas. Os acontecimentos do 7 de setembro, com o silêncio eloquente dos comandantes militares, contudo, reafirmaram o papel profissional e constitucional das FA. A politização das Polícias Militares estaduais preocupa, em especial se apoiarem pessoas armadas, não militares, passíveis de reforçar um

movimento de apoio ao presidente, porque poderão se chocar com as FA.

Nas últimas semanas, afirmações de que as Forças Armadas não assistirão passivamente ao pleito, de que as FA deverão fazer apuração paralela da votação, por questionar o sistema de urnas eletrônicas e a lisura das apurações (auditoria privada), e o pedido do ministro da Defesa para a divulgação das sugestões de aprimoramento da eleição apresentadas pelos militares, sobre a função das FA (“o permanente estado de prontidão das Forças Armadas para o cumprimento de suas missões 

constitucionais”) parecem reforçar a ideia de que as FA poderiam desempenhar um papel de poder moderador, à luz do artigo 142 da Constituição, quando, na realidade, não há uma nova missão para as Forças Armadas além daquela definida pela Carta Magna, como decidido pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF).

Apesar da dubiedade de afirmações sobre a preservação da democracia, sobre eleições conturbadas, sobre ato de força que ponha em risco as instituições (“só Deus me tira daquela cadeira”) e parcialidade do TSE, não há sinais de que as FA, como instituição, poderão se engajar numa aventura que ameace as eleições e a democracia. A discrição da maioria das lideranças militares, em especial do Alto Comando, parece indicar que os militares deverão se manter dentro de seu papel de instituição de Estado,

profissional, sem interferência política em apoio de partidos ou grupos políticos ou em decisões tomadas pelas instâncias civis competentes.

Assim, não me parece haver ameaça à realização das eleições nem ações violentas antes de 2 de outubro, mas o roteiro que está sendo traçado indica que, dependendo do resultado da eleição, é real o risco de, no dia 2, haver mobilização de grupos radicais, armados, para tentar atacar o STF ou o TSE, não o Congresso, como no caso dos EUA. De qualquer forma, a sociedade civil, o Congresso e as próprias Forças Armadas devem estar atentos e mobilizados para evitar qualquer tentativa de ameaça à democracia.

As eleições brasileiras estão despertando crescente atenção no exterior também pela presença dominante de dois políticos que, por razões diferentes, despertam fortes reações e apreensão sobre as perspectivas políticas e econômicas do País. A preocupação com a preservação da democracia e a condenação do autoritarismo estão muito presentes hoje num cenário de grande instabilidade global e de crescente confronto entre os dois regimes de governo representados pelos EUA e por China/Rússia.

Não tenho dúvida de que, se houver qualquer quebra das regras democráticas com o apoio das Forças Armadas, a reação vinda de fora será imediata e o Brasil poderá ser alvo de sanções econômicas e comerciais que, além de aumentar o isolamento internacional do País, afetarão ainda mais o crescimento e os setores mais dinâmicos da economia nacional.

*

É PRESIDENTE DO CENTRO DE DEFESA E SEGURANÇA NACIONAL (CEDESEN)

Futura embaixadora dos EUA no Brasil, Elizabeth Bagley, corre o risco de esperar na fila para entregar credenciais - Miriam Leitão (O Globo)

 Futura embaixadora dos EUA não fica em cima do muro e diz que confia em eleições justas no Brasil, apesar de Bolsonaro

Por Míriam Leitão
O Globo, 19/05/2022 • 11:09

A indicada à embaixada dos Estados Unidos no Brasil, Elizabeth Bagley, afirmou ontem, em sabatina no Senado americano, mostrou uma visão interessante sobre o país: disse que há instituições democráticas para uma eleição justa, independente das declarações de Bolsonaro. Salientou que o Brasil tem um legislativo e judiciário independente e uma imprensa livre. 

Ele separou a atuação do presidente Bolsonaro das instituições democráticas. Normalmente diplomata preferem não fazer críticas ao presidente do país no qual vai servir. Ela fez declarações pouco usuais numa sabatina. Alguns integrantes da comissão do Senado mostraram ceticismo em relação à democracia brasileira, mas ela deixou clara sua confiança nas instituições. Mesmo com restrições ao presidente Bolsonaro, demonstrou que confia no país. 

Elizabeth Bagley  tem uma experiência muito grande como observadora de eleições, então ela chega no momento certo e no país certo, já que tudo indica que o pleito no Brasil será complicado por conta da posição do presidente Bolsonaro. Ele mesmo disse que elas seriam “conturbadas”. 

Também falou sobre a questão ambiental, mostrando que ela vai atuar na defesa da Floresta Amazônia, no combate ao desmatamento, na proteção das populações locais que defendem a floresta. Lembrou da importância do país, já que o Brasil tem 30% das florestas tropicais do mundo e 60% da Amazônia. 

A informação que se tem é que o Planalto não se agradou muito com essas declarações da embaixadora, mas o Itamaraty gostou até porque Carlos França, ministro das relações exteriores, ganhou uma declaração favorável. Disse que França é moderado e elogiou o voto brasileiro condenando a invasão da Ucrânia.

https://blogs.oglobo.globo.com/miriam-leitao/post/futura-embaixadora-dos-eua-nao-fica-em-cima-do-muro-e-diz-que-confia-em-eleicoes-justas-no-brasil-apesar-de-bolsonaro.html

ONGs se posicionam criticamente ao Brasil em diversos quesitos da demanda de ingresso na OCDE

Correio Braziliense desta quinta-feira, 14/04/2022, reflete preocupações de ONGs com os retrocessos do Brasil nos campos do meio ambiente, combate à corrupção e proteção da imprensa e de normas elementares no campo da democracia.

Ex-chanceler (ministro das relações exteriores) da Alemanha Federal denuncia o projeto imperial da Rússia - Joschka Fischer

 The Telegraph, Londres – 25.2.2022

Russia's Stolen Future

By invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is challenging not only that country's independence but also the broader European system, which rests above all on the inviolability of borders and the law of nations. There has been no comparable event in Europe since the Hitler era.

Joschka Fischer

 

Berlin – Russian President Vladimir Putin has made his choice. He has brought war to Ukraine. This is a watershed moment for Europe. For the first time since the Balkan wars of the 1990s, which were limited to the area of the disintegrating Yugoslavia, the continent is once again confronted with bombardments of cities and rolling tank divisions. But this time, it is a nuclear superpower that started the fighting.

By ordering an invasion, Putin is showing a brazen disregard for international treaties and the law of nations. There has been no comparable event in Europe since the Hitler era. According to Putin’s latest declarations, Ukraine has no right to exist as a sovereign state – even though it is a member of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Council of Europe; and even though Russia itself (under Boris Yeltsin) has recognized the country’s independence.

Putin now claims that Ukraine is an inseparable part of Russia. Whatever the majority of Ukrainians think is irrelevant to him; Russia’s greatness and international standing are all that matter. But make no mistake: Putin wants more than Ukraine. His war is about the entire European system, which rests above all on the inviolability of borders. In seeking to redraw the map by force, he hopes to reverse the European project and re-establish Russia as the preeminent power, at least in Eastern Europe. The humiliations of the 1990s are to be erased, with Russia once again becoming a global power, on par with the United States and China.

According to Putin, Ukraine has no tradition of statehood, and has become a mere tool of American and NATO expansionism, thus posing a threat to Russia’s security. In a bizarre speech the day before his troops stormed across the border, Putin even went so far as to claim that Ukraine is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. In fact, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Ukraine – home to the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal at the time – surrendered its nuclear weapons to Russia with the active diplomatic support of the “evil” US.

Ukraine did so because it had received “guarantees” of its territorial integrity, as stated in the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of December 5, 1994. That document was signed by the guarantor powers: the US, the United Kingdom, and Russia, alongside Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan (the latter two relinquished the smaller nuclear arsenals they had inherited from the USSR).

Set against the historical facts, Putin’s statements are nonsense. His primary purpose, clearly, is to give his own population a justification for invading Ukraine.Putin knows that if ordinary Russians were given a choice between a war to dominate Eastern Europe and a better, more prosperous life at home, they would prefer the latter. As so often in Russian history, the country’s people are having their future stolen by their rulers.

Russia’s ascent to global power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulted in numerous tragedies not only for the neighbors it subjugated and gradually absorbed, but also for its own people. China’s current leaders, in particular, should be mindful of this history, considering that imperial Russia seized more territory from China than from anyone else.

What Putin does not seem to realize is that Russia’s longstanding policy of dominating foreign peoples in its sphere of influence makes other countries focus on how to escape the Kremlin’s geopolitical prison at the first opportunity, by securing protection from NATO. The alliance’s eastward expansion after 1989 attests to this dynamic. Ukraine wants to join NATO not because NATO intends to attack Russia, but because Russia increasingly demonstrated its intention to attack Ukraine. And now it has.

It is worth remembering that in the 1990s, Russian propaganda accused the West of harboring all manner of evil plans. None of these plots was realized at the time, when Russia was down, because no such Western scheme ever existed. The accusations were fearmongering nonsense.

The Russian imperial project has always been characterized by a mixture of domestic poverty, brutal oppression, florid paranoia, and aspirations of global power. And yet, it has proved to be exceptionally resistant to modernization – not just under the czars and then under Lenin and Stalin, but also under Putin.

Just compare Russia’s economy to China’s. Both are authoritarian systems, yet Chinese per capita incomes have grown robustly while Russian standards of living have been declining. In historical terms, Putin is taking Russia hurtling back toward the nineteenth century, in search of past greatness, whereas China is forging ahead to become the defining superpower of the twenty-first century. While China has achieved unprecedentedly rapid economic and technological modernization, Putin has been pouring Russia’s energy-export revenues into the military, once again cheating the Russian people out of their future.

Ukraine has tried to escape this never-ending cycle of poverty, oppression, and imperial ambition with its increasingly pronounced orientation toward Europe. A well-functioning European-style liberal democracy in Ukraine would jeopardize Putin’s authoritarian rule. The Russian people would ask themselves and their leaders, “Why not us?”

Putin would have no good answer to give them, and he knows it. That is why Russia is in Ukraine today. (P.S.)

 

Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a leader of the German Green Party for almost 20 years.

 

Sobre a destruição da democracia nos EUA e no Brasil: um projeto ainda em curso - Paulo Roberto de Almeida, Umair Haque

Sobre a destruição da democracia nos EUA e no Brasil: um projeto ainda em curso

  

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Diplomata, professor

(www.pralmeida.org; diplomatizzando.blogspot.com)

  

O plano trumpista para destruir a democracia americana – pela submissão do Congresso e pela manipulação do processo eleitoral – foi seguido quase ipsis litteris pelo seu imitador, adorador, seguidor fiel (mas um pouco mais imbecil) do Brasil, com as diferenças aplicáveis a dois sistemas político-partidários e eleitorais bastante diferentes. 

Ambos não conseguiram realizar o seu intento, inclusive porque as instituições dos dois países dificultaram esses intentos respectivos, mas o americano esteve muito mais longe desse objetivo do que o brasileiro, por um motivo muito simples: as FFAA americanas são muito menos manipuláveis do que são as brasileiras (que foram praticamente compradas pelo candidato a ditador, mas os comandantes das três forças, e o próprio ministro MILITAR da Defesa concluíram que não tinham condições, nem motivos, para seguir o tresloucado). 

O que não impede que ambos, Trump nos EUA, Bozo no Brasil, disponham, cada um, de uma base social e eleitoral respeitável, com a diferença que Trump praticamente domou o Partido Republicano e o tem a seu serviço, com alguns poucos dissidentes, ao passo que o seguidor tupiniquim foi domado pelas forças mais corruptas e venais do establishment político e não tem nenhum partido a seu serviço, mas se se serve deles irrigando seus aparentes apoiadores com toneladas de dinheiro público que aqui no Brasil parece ser mais fácil de desviar do que nos EUA. 

Trump nos EUA e Bozo no Brasil gostariam de decretar fechamento do Congresso, para governar por decretos, ignorando eleições e eleitores, mas as instituições atuaram como contrapesos e vetaram essa via destruidora. 

Mas ambas democracias permanecem frágeis e fragilizadas, pela ação corruptora dos dois grandes mentecaptos que empolgaram as duas nações, respectivamente em 2016 e em 2018, o que também é uma tendência em outras democracias avançadas, nas quais também se observa um eleitorado ignorante disposto a seguir populistas mentirosos – como Trump, Bozo, Modi, Orban, Erdogan, Salvini, Duterte, AMLO e muitos outros, vários que ainda são candidatos, inclusive na França – na ilusão de solucionar problemas corriqueiros da vida nacional: inflação, desemprego, desigualdades persistentes, insegurança civil, supostas ameaças externas (representadas por potências estrangeiras, imigrantes ilegais, terroristas fanáticos, etc.) e persistência de velhos problemas internos, entre eles frustrações individuais.

A democracia é um regime aborrecido e demorado, daí que os insatisfeitos queiram resolver esses problemas com alguém que se apresenta como o "solucionador" eventual: Make America Great Again, família, religião, propriedade, ordem, segurança, e o que mais existir como promessa fácil.

A única solução duradoura é a educação e a capacitação produtiva de todos os cidadãos, o que nem sempre é fácil, dada a conhecida fórmula econômica de desejos ilimitados e recursos limitados.

 

 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 4044: 13 dezembro 2021, 2 p.

Inside Trump’s Plot to Destroy American Democracy

Martial Law. Overturning the Election. What We Know Gets Worse By the Day

Umair Haque in Eudaimonia and Co

Medium Daily Digest, December 13, 2021

https://medium.com/@umairh/inside-trumps-plot-to-destroy-american-democracy-c5e86d0e2807?source=email-319a74712899-1639374431766-digest.reader-9b4cc1c6abbd-c5e86d0e2807----0-2------------------bcd0d557_6910_4251_8ed0_086d78d0cff6-31-08b0a3b6_ac13_4a20_80e0_141bdfe9b5d8

I know, I know. It sounds like the bad season finale of a worse TV show. “The plot to destroy American democracy.” And yet here we are. It turns out that not only was there one, it was way, way worse than the average person or pundit believed…even at the time…while Trumpists were storming Congress…and killing people…one that was every bit as over the top and unhinged as us scholars and survivors of authoritarianism warned of.

I bring all that up because Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, is the latest such figure in the Congressional Investigation’s crosshairs. He’s refused to testify. And then a presentation by him got leaked. And…whew. If you haven’t read it yet, prepare to have your breath taken away.

The presentation goes like this. It’s entitled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan.” As in…“options”…for the date…the Presidential Vote was to be certified by Congress…for Biden. If this is already sounding vaguely menacing, just wait.

It sketches out a conspiracy theory — of a truly insane and ludicrous kind. “The Chinese systematically gained control over our election system constituting a national security emergency. The electronic voting machines were compromised and cannot be trusted to provide an accurate vote count. To restore confidence the “failsafe” of counting the paper ballots must be used to determine who won the election for President, Senators, Congressional Representatives. Hand counts reported by the media are not really hand counts and easily subverted.”

The bolding’s mine. You can already see where this is heading.

Why the need for a conspiracy theory? Well, because, the presentation, aka Mark Meadows, the President’s Chief of Staff, continues: “Donald J. Trump was winning by a significant margin across all key states. Nov 3 evening, a massive spike occurred that favored Joe Biden and exceeded the counting capabilities that were on hand in many cases.”

It must be the Chinese! Of course not. This sketchy “analysis” just cherry-picks data. The presentation goes on to show a few pages of charts…with minor upticks for Biden. The same was true for Trump, too, where counties and cities leaned heavily for him. It’s just selection bias of the most obvious and egregious kind. For example: “FiveThirtyEight told Reuters that it is not true that Biden received all the votes in the overnight dump: “these batches were NOT 100% Biden votes; behind the blue line, there is also a red line representing the thousands of votes Trump gained. There are also counter examples, where Trump’s line shoots up suddenly when a favorable batch of results are reported.” But this is hardly about science. It’s about…stopping an election.

This is all a setup, of course — a pretext and a justification. For what? We’re getting there. But let’s keep going with the conspiracy theory. Not just because it’s entertaining, but because it’s a vivid demonstration of how completely crazy and malicious Trump and his ilk really are.

Who gets involved next in this erstwhile plot, according to Meadows? Well, it can’t be Putin, since he was busy installing Trump to power and keeping him there. North Korea? Iran? Close. You guessed it, Venezuela. LOL.

“China has leveraged financial, non-governmental and foreign allies including Venezuela to acquire INFLUENCE and CONTROL US Voting Infrastructure in at least 28 States.”

Remember for a moment…this is the White House Chief of Staff. Espousing by now what are obviously completely loony theories with no substantive evidence of any kind. How could there be? Are you kidding me? Venezuela can barely feed itself. It’s not exactly the kind of nation that can influence or control much of anything.

But all this, remember, is just an obvious pretext and justification. China and Venezuela. Together. They’ve stolen America’s election. They’re the ones who’ve thwarted Donald Trump. Why? Wait for it…because this part might just make you splutter out your coffee in laughter.

China and Venezuela are part of “an ongoing globalist/socialist operation to subvert the will of United States Voters.”

Funny? Hilarious. But also see how weirdly sinister that is. If you don’t vote Trump, you’re not really a “United States Voter”….you’re part of a “globalist/socialist operation.” That’s the only way anyone but Trump could really have won — because “real” Americans only vote one way, apparently, or else. Or else what? They’re not real Americans to begin with. Hmm, sounds a lot like the way Putin gets 99% of the vote.

Who stole the election from Trump? Wait for it…a nefarious and shady spy operation run by some group, even more powerful than America, known as…“global socialism”…did. Apparently, Karl Marx is alive and well, or maybe directing the operation from his grave in Highgate. Who is “global socialism,” anyways? Well, it’s Venezuela and China — because it can’t be France and Denmark, who are pretty damned socialist…but they’re.…wait for it again…too white.

Come now. We all know there’s no “global socialism.” There’s no council, no ministry, no spy agency. It doesn’t exist as an entity, institution, force, even politics anymore, except maybe outside grubby college shared houses.

Yet here we are — right, LOL, back at the boogeymen of the Cold War. Socialism! The red menace! And it leads to totally bizarre places. Way back when, the Soviet Union was scary and backwards. Now? Well, to invoke the scare of the red menace, Meadows has to dream up China and Venezuela getting together to thwart American democracy. Even James Bond movies would turn down such a ridiculous comedy cartoon villain on grounds of implausibility. Meanwhile, Russia, which actually did help install Trump, isn’t, conveniently, part of the picture.

It’s already, I grant you, absurd, hilarious, ridiculous, idiotic, crazy.

And now it’s about to get scary.

Because having frantically laid out his ludicrous pretext — Biden only won because of a global socialist plot, and real Americans only vote for Trump — Meadows now rises, hysterically, to his conclusion.

“ — Declare National Security Emergency

— Foreign influence and control of electronic voting systems

— Declare electronic voting in all states invalid”

Did you get that? Trump’s Chief of Staff was laying out a pretext for him to declare Martial Law. To declare a “national security emergency” and then to “declare” all electronic votes — every single one — invalid.

What was to happen next? A recount. Of only paper ballots.

Run by the military and law enforcement.

“A Trusted Lead Counter will be appointed with authority from the POTUS to direct the actions of select federalized National Guard units and support from DOJ, DHS and other US government agencies as needed to complete a recount of the legal paper ballots for the federal elections in all 50 states.

US Marshals will immediately secure all ballots and provide a protective perimeter around the locations in all 50 states.

• DHS will use their emergency response logistic capabilities to support the effort. They will integrate the IT support that will include separating out the legal from the counterfeit ballots and communications with all supporting the effort and cameras (Possibly cell phones) imaging each and every ballot. These images will be distributed to the Internet.
• The federalized National Guard in each state will be supplied detailed processes and be responsible for counting each legitimate paper ballot. Teams made up of three (first couple counties will be five) National Guard members will do the counting. As the counting occurs each ballot will be imaged and the images placed on the Internet so any US citizen can view them and count the ballots themselves. The process will be completely transparent.”

Now we’ve come to a territory so insane, so baffling, that it’s even beyond most failed states.

What Meadows is recommending here is that martial law — as in the military — be used to direct a democratic process. But obviously, such a process has no democratic legitimacy to begin with. We don’t involve the military in elections in democracies for a very good reason, because that would immediately disqualify any electoral result to begin with. The military, too, doesn’t often want to get involved with democratic processes for just that reason. Meadows appears to not even be aware of the most basic principles of civil jurisprudence and martial law both.

Even in failed states, this kind of bizarre situation rarely comes to pass. An “election”…run by the military? LOL — everyone would instantly know it was a sham. That’s how you get to places like “99% of Russia always votes for Putin!”…precisely because democratic processes have no integrity exactly since they’re under the control of the military and law enforcement. In other words, the men with guns run the elections — not the people.

Meadows finishes with this final set of recommendations, which are the “options” for 6th Jan:

“VP Pence seats Republican Electors over the objections of Democrats in states where fraud occurred

▪ VP Pence rejects the electors from States where fraud occurred causing the election to be decided by remaining electoral votes

• VP Pence delays the decision in order to allow for a vetting and subsequent counting of the all the legal paper ballots”

Now we are beginning to know the whole story. It goes like this.

Trump and seniormost team really were drafting a plan — an insane and ludicrous plan — to overturn the election. It relied on a baffling, bizarre, comedic conspiracy theory — China and Venezuela were just one part of a “global socialist” plan to “subvert the will of the United States Voter.” They stole the election, and that’s how Biden won. As a result, Trump would declare a national security emergency, all electronic ballots — all of them — would be thrown out, and paper ballots, which of course leaned for Trump, would be “recounted” under martial law.

It’s worth saying: this is exactly what us survivors and scholars of authoritarian collapse — and maybe, probably you — were warning of at the time. Martial law. A pretext to declare the election invalid and overturn it.

The reality, it turns out, is even stranger than the fiction. There really was a plot — and it was way, way worse than anytime much at the time knew or believed.

So why didn’t it come to pass?

Because of what happened on Jan 6th. It seems Pence refused. I’m not saying that Pence saved America — sorry, no, he helped get it to that point. The Trumpists who stormed Congress, ironically, may have made it impossible for Trump’s plan to go according to plan. They went too far — or they didn’t go far enough. They didn’t intimidate Pence into going along with the plan. They drew too much attention to the idea that democracy could fall. The nation’s eyes suddenly opened up.

And the Trumpists had to retreat. On that fateful day, though, American democracy really did almost fall.

We knew it in a different way: the Trumpists stormed Congress, shed blood for the first time since the war of 1812, smeared faeces all over the walls…and came within a hairs’ breadth of massacring those counting and certifying the election for Biden. If they’d done that? Trump probably would have gone on full on with the plan.

Which plan? The plan to declare martial law because of a fake “national security emergency” and overturn the election. The plan anyone sane could have seen even without the PowerPoint above.

Every day, we’re learning how much closer America really came to losing democracy on Jan 6th. Now we know it wasn’t just about the Trumpists almost massacring those counting the vote. It was a plot much, much worse than that. It was about literally declaring martial law to overturn the election.

Only two things stood in its way — the Vice President, and America’s apathetic acceptance of it. Neither one of those happened. The storming of Congress made America wake up — and it made it, enough of it, anyways, feel ashamed, angry, and alert. And the VP didn’t go along with the plan. So the plan didn’t come to fruition.

But America came this close. This close. A baby’s breath.

To a President declaring martial law over a fake “national security emergency” to overturn an election.

Think about that. Really think about it. Because the truth is that they haven’t stopped. They have only gotten smarter. For the bad guys, Jan 6th was a warm-up, a trial-run, mere preparation.

Now we know. American democracy really did almost collapse. In the most spectacular way imaginable. Like in the plot of a bad movie. Like at the hands of authoritarians and fascists ready to declare martial law and use real military force to end the project of self-determination and self-governance for good.

And we know why Trump’s top henchmen are “refusing” to testify before Congress — as if that was some kind of perfectly normal option. The reason is that they’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. If they don’t, they’re in contempt, if they do…well, unless they want to perjure themselves…the truth, which is almost comedically horrifying, speaks for itself.

Umair
December 2021

Eudaimonia and Co

Eudaimonia & Co

A democracia que funciona, segundo Beijing - CGTN

 Ainda preciso ler:

Full text of China's white paper on its democracy

Updated 13:36, 04-Dec-2021

CGTN

China's State Council Information Office on Saturday released a white paper titled "China: Democracy That Works." 

Click on the attachment for the full text.  

https://news.cgtn.com/news/whitepaper/China+Democracy+That+Works.pdf

Full Text: China: Democracy That Works