Studies by the United Nations indicate that in the world there are 800 million people suffering from hunger. Of these hungry, about 35 million are Brazilian and – amazing! – in the same group there are 35 million Americans. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam spends 200 billion dollars to overthrow Saddam Hussein from the Iraqi government and so on. to get revenge on bin Laden for having sponsored the fall of the twin towers, where nearly three thousand died citizens.
All that money would be enough to eliminate hunger and all diseases on the African continent; more important, however, is to sate the war industry's voracity, satisfying its shareholders' appetite for profits with pantagruelic banquets.
The huge gulf between rich and poor widened exaggeratedly from 1971, when Richard Nixon, president of the United States, decided that the issuance of paper money by each country would no longer need to be guaranteed by reserves of gold.
With this measure, a country's currency started to have only fiduciary value (from the Latin fidus=confidence), that is, the credibility that each government or nation has to honor its commitments.
From then on, the rich nations grew stronger; developing nations, which needed to import raw materials and machinery to set up industries, found themselves in a harrowing dilemma.
With their economies weakened and their fragile currencies weakened, they needed to import much more than they exported. This created an imbalance in the trade balance and there were only two ways to solve it: issuing more paper money causing accelerated inflation or borrowing money from loan sharks international. It's like choosing between being roasted over the grill or fried in a pan.
In Brazil, these two methods were adopted with an inventive capacity to leave Machiavelli with a jaw dropping: high population growth rate + tight wages = plentiful and cheap labor.
This formula as simple as the summary of Einstein's theory (E=mc2) was consolidated by the then Minister of Finance, Antonio Delfim Neto, who skinned the loins of Brazilians with the whip of the “Economic Miracle”, promising that in the end there would be cake for all.
But that cake disappeared and the people, like a scalded cat, never again “paid the pain” of calling on a minister's promise. In 1964, in the “Gold for the good of Brazil” campaign, we had already given away our rings and rings without suspecting that they would come back later to rip our fingers off. “This is a country that moves forward” became the anthem of the insane and winning the World Cup in 1970 anesthetized the “mass” that is content with Circus even though lamenting the lack of bread, while proclaiming “Brazil – love it or let it".
General João Batista de Figueiredo took his leave with a laconic phrase: “Forget about me”. Indeed, he was already in a hurry. The poet of “Marimbondos de Fogo” took over, but the light you were trying to see at the end of the tunnel remained off.
In the renovation we elected Fernando Collor de Melo, who had the pose of Sassá Mutema, but there was a PC Farias backstage. (Little disgrace is nonsense).
Finally, a Lula promised to give the bread that was needed to fill the people's belly; the Circus was left to the National Congress, whose acrobats take turns in the shows: Os Dwarves of the Budget, O Mensalinho, Os Mensaleiros, As Sanguessugas, with plots that would resemble a mix of opera-buff and opera-comic, if it weren't for the hard-earned taxpayer's money disappearing down the ring drain every staging. One of the main actors even puffed out his chest and tore his throat out trying to prove that Caruso was inimitable in his portrayal of Ó Sole mio; and the clumsy pizza dance will not be re-enacted because the dancer was “invited” by the ballot boxes to give up her character. Too late.
“PIZZAS, PANES ET CIRCENSES”. (It will be?)
Thus walks humanity. And we Brazilians are going in tow without realizing that the halter of ignorance will be the shroud of our misery...
Good to us, God.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
By João Cândido
Columnist Brazil School
Sociology - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
DANTAS, James. "Statesmen or Beast-Beasts"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/sociologia/estadistas-ou-bestasferas.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
