Dilma is full of win

Now that Brazil has made history, electing its first female (and first female leftist ex-guerrilla) president, here’s Carlos Latuff, Brazilian cartoonist, with the “official portrait”:

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And now that one ass-kicking is done, let the next commence. Here’s a round-up of all things Dilma on the day after “DilmaDay”:

The WSJ mutes the historic significance of Dilma, and instead strikes the usual unnecessary note of neoliberal caution about how social spending went up under Lula (hinting, stupidly, that it has to be reined in and cut back now). Duh: that increased spending the reason Brazil weathered the recession so much better than the “civilized” countries of the north. If you don’t expect poor people to live on air, they actually help fuel the economic engine, dumbasses. Or did you think poor brown folks are just all useless eaters?

Bloomberg BusinessWeek seems to have been bitten by the same bug, only they’re saying it’s the Brazilian currency unit, the real, that needs to be “curbed” (stomped?) under Dilma. Translation: Make yourselves cheaper for us northern imperialists, can’tcha?

But here’s the funny thing: The same Bloomie article draws that spin based on the words of a local CEPAL analyst. Whose real emphasis, it should be noted, was not on the “inflated” real, but on wealth redistribution, otherwise known as taxing the rich and social spending for the rest–a broadly beneficial concept surely foreign to the money marketeers except, of course, as an example of the socialism they want us all to abandon. Buried close to the bottom: a prediction that Brazil’s economy will grow 8%, surpassing CEPAL’s earlier estimate. I’m sorry, Dilma needs to “curb” WHAT, again?

And here’s something interesting: the stodgy Torygraph rather blandly mentions Dilma’s guerrilla past, and also that she was jailed for it and subjected to electroshock torture. If you’ve seen State of Siege, you’ll probably be gasping with recognition here; the electroshock torture method was imported to Brazil, and taught to its police, by none other than Dan Mitrione (who is thinly fictionalized in the Costa-Gavras film as “Philip Michael Santore”). Mitrione later went on to inflict the same upon Brazil’s little southerly neighbor, Uruguay. So now, not only does Uruguay have a president who was once jailed and tortured for his leftist guerrilla work by Mitrione’s pupils, but so does Brazil! This should be interesting when she and Pepe Mujica get to talking. Can’t wait to hear about THAT conversation! But of course, I won’t expect to hear much from the Torygraph, which prefers to compare her to their senile homegrown villainess, Maggie Thatcher. Oh yeah, real basis for comparison there–Dilma was and probably still is opposed to everything Maggie the Milk Snatcher was about, and vice versa. Torygraph FAIL! Pepe Mujica is a much more natural one to compare Dilma to, and for that, I’ll be reading the Spanish-language alternative news from down thereabouts.

As usual, the anglo crapaganda whores are missing the real story and focusing mainly on the bullshit. But you and I knew that already, eh?

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