Story to Watch: Dilma A First Step (Aug 31)

The impeachment of the Brazilian President marks a first in a series of successful steps the US is taking to bring the world back under its firm direction.  Why?  Because the largest country of the American southern hemisphere is also one of the BRICS, the largest emerging countries that came together starting in 2006, adding South Africa in 2010, in order to encourage commercial, political and cultural cooperation. In June 2012, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa pledged $75 billion to boost the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on condition it implement key reforms. Since this did not happen, during the fifth BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa in 2013, members agreed to create a global financial institution intended to rival the IMF and the World Bank, which hitherto had been developing countries’ main sources of funding.

In 2016, with the world still in dire economic straits, the BRICS represent a significant challenge to US global dominance. US activities aimed at weakening Russia and China have almost become routine, and while the countries of Africa as well as the continent’s colonial history, are far too diverse for one country to stand out, very differently, since the Cuban Revolution, Latin America has organized itself into several independent organizations, including Mercosur and ALBA. The Neocons in Washington have pounced - or created — the first occasion to weaken Brazil, as membership in other Russia/China led clubs, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization foremost among them, grows. Most recently, Iran has been invited to join the SCO, as has Turkey, in the wake of the failed coup to oust President Erdogan.

Simultaneously with these developments, European leaders are increasingly daring to balk at signing the TTP, while grumblings grow louder in Asia against the TTIP.  Clearly, Washington has to take down whoever it can, to shore up neo-liberalism, starting with Brazil’s left-wing president, a seventy-year old woman, while continuing the transformation of Europe’s welfare state into an obedient neo-liberal puppy.