Blaming The Left For The Right Turn

PUT simply: the reason we have President Trump today is because we had President Obama yesterday. The reason we have Bolsonaro voted president of Brazil today is because we had President Lula da Silva yesterday as president of Brazil. In his own case, unlike President Obama, Lula da Silva was able to get his appointee voted to succeed him. Well, today, Lula da Silva’s successor was impeached and sent out of the presidency while Lula himself is in jail serving time for corruption.

Of course, there is no attempt here to call President Obama a person of the Left. Nor could the Democratic Party of the United States of America be said to be a Left leaning Party in the manner of the Brazilian Workers’ Party. That said, a brilliant President is succeeded by a dumb racist bigot because some people feel that the country was getting away from them, whoever they of the right wing might be. President Obama was so careful to ensure that social policies that would benefit African Americans were also managed in such a manner that they benefitted all Americans in the specified needzone. It is a lesson to others learning to place policies in such a way to correct historical injustices without giving it that name.

Let us stay in Brazil and the United States of America for now. It would have been relevant to add the Republic of South Africa but what has happened there is that one nice wing of the party has almost succeeded in replacing another not so nice wing of the party. Were the Democratic Alliance (DA) to succeed the ANC by winning next year’s election, we could then add the Republic of South Africa as a place where a radical party is followed by a right wing party.

So, what radical policies did the government of President Obama carry out that encouraged the right turn? Health insurance for every able-bodied American is one domestic policy that seemed to have pleased millions. Yet President Trump is determined to destroy it.

In the area of international policy, there is the matter of climate change. World temperature is rising. Ice that should not, is melting in the North as well as in the South Poles. Sea levels are rising, threatening island nations and coastal settlements around the world. Floods and fires are punishing more and more areas of the world. All these eventualities call for greater and closer relationships among the nations of the world. Yet, both President Trump and President-elect Bolsonaro deny climate change and are happy to pursue isolationist policies.

Inequality has been identified in the last decade or so as the greatest plague bedevilling economies around the world over. The smallest percentage imaginable is gobbling up the largest percentage of world resources possible leaving most human beings hungry and thirsty and breathless. The relentless match of successful pursuit of profit at the cost of the environment and of human lives speaks to nobody on the right wing. It must be business as usual without caring for the environment and the quality of human existence and as for the humans of the future? That’s their business, is not an adequate response. It is in fact irresponsible. The global governance problem is how to make the right wing governments of the world see the irresponsibility of their present positions.

The societies of Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America are some of the most unequal societies on earth.

These countries share the same history of extended slave holding periods. All these countries are always anxious to pretend that all is well in their societies when all is not well. If you asked any Brazilian White, he or she would tell you that there is no racial prejudice in the country. Look closely for the AfroBrazilians, the African

Americans and the Blacks and you find them mainly and squarely in the favelas just as you find them in the slums of the United States of America and the dusty townships of South Africa. What becomes left and radical to the right wing are policies to correct the historical injustice of slave labour and the stealing of the rights of Black people in these countries.

What did Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party do in Brazil that made the Brazilian elite vote Bolsonaro as president? From 2003 onwards Brazil began a poverty alleviation programme that avoided subsidies and social grants. Instead, the Bolsa Familia paid each family a fixed amount equivalent to thirty dollars US “in exchange for sending their children to school and complying with different health checkups.” This was done through a single registry of the poor in the country.

By 2013, this programme had reduced poverty in Brazil by half, that is from 9.7% to 4.3%. This means that 50 million Brazilians, that is one quarter of the country’s population were taken from the poverty zone.

Brazil also set up Mundo Sem Pobreza (World without Poverty) as a “market of ideas and experiences in applying programs to benefit the most disadvantaged citizens” around the world. This encourages cooperation across the nations of the world, not isolationism. This global centre for poverty was already yielding results for countries around the world. Poverty is a global problem. Almost one billion people cannot find a meal a day across the world. That translates into 15% of the world goes to sleep on empty stomachs.

So, if Brazil and its Left leaning government was doing so well, why did the Car Wash Scandal happen? How did it happen? Why is the Left carrying the can for it?

Since March 2014 a criminal investigation known as Operation Car Wash is being carried out by the Federal Police of Brazil. 232 people are being investigated for obtaining money illegally from Petrobras; 16 companies are involved; 160 people have been arrested while 93 have been convicted and 179 are indicted. The investigation was about black-market money dealers who used petrol stations and car washes to launder the profits of crime. The Left wing government lost power because the corruption happened under their watch. Sometimes the promise that the poor will inherit the earth, makes one wonder where the rich would be when that is happening. Would they have gone to another planet with their riches? And left a polluted and diminished earth for the poor to inherit?