"Mysterious" deaths may be too "routine" for ordinary Russians to care, but that begs the question of just what kind of people are they? Certainly a different breed than people in the West

 

Some countries do learn from past mistakes. Take for example Germany, blamed for two world wars and left in mostly ruins after the second one. Today most of its people (save for a few neo-Nazi types) have become quite satisfied with democracy where everyone can have a say without fear of arrest or being killed. They are part of a collective military defense that is treaty bound to protect their way of life. Today, Germans are about as pacifist a people as they come in this world. Of course it is probably useful to keep in “practice” to see if you still got what it takes when it actually comes time to join in that mutual defense.

Now let’s take another country, Russia for example. While we can speculate about the Chinese presence in this country, some of whom have been arrested for being part of “sleeper cells" stealing technological secrets while posing as “businessmen” or “students,” Russians have always seemed to be “apart.” Russian immigrants in this country seem to be self-conscious and conspiratorial, setting themselves apart, quite unlike South Asians who run businesses out in the open and are quite happy to take your money.

I once found a Russian language Yellow Pages in a Laundromat and thumbed through it; I couldn’t believe that here in King County there were so many hidden Russian businesses catering to the needs of the hidden Russian community. The Russian “mafia” also has a thriving business few talk about; I once worked at a sports apparel company when one morning we discovered a completely stripped car behind the building. One of my colleagues—a Polish immigrant—looked at it and said one word: “Russians.”

Russians do seem to be a paranoid bunch; yeah sure, I know that once upon a time Napoleon invaded Russia and Moscow was burned (probably by Russians), and later on by the Germans in two world wars, and many Russians were slaughtered in the latter. But so were the citizens of a lot of other countries—like Poland, for example, by both the Nazis and the Russians, and the Russians conducted their own mayhem when they plowed through Germany.

Today, Russians are acting out their paranoia on other countries, like, say, Ukraine which just wants the Russians to stop making threats against their sovereignty. If Russians are their “brothers,” then why don’t they act like one? Perhaps because they are only “half-brothers” and Russians feel they can beat on them just because they are smaller and need to take out their angst on someone.

But can this explain why Russians are peculiarly indifferent to the crimes committed by its government in their “name”?  Have they no clue that the behavior of its government reflects on themselves as well? Today you hear people on the street mostly say one of two things: embarrassment about the way the war is going—and worse, belief that the government knows what the hell it’s doing. You don’t hear anything about all the soldiers who have died for an unjustified “cause,” or the Ukrainian civilians massacred. Of course who knows what people are saying behind closed doors, since thousands of people who have spoken out against the war have been arrested in the thousands.

Or found dead under “mysterious” circumstances. So let’s talk about that, since the “secret” killing of people perceived as enemies of the state in Russia has been an open secret in the country for a century. Beginning in 1921, the Soviets established laboratories especially to concoct poisons to kill those persons considered a threat to the government. Of course, what that government would be was still in question and the only tool at hand was to keep the Bolshevik  “movement” alive before other forces “killed” it, and that meant by whatever means “necessary.”

We should remember that the intention of the Marxist movement was government by the “people”—the “proletariat”—and not by the few “elites” it eventually would become. But the closest that Marxism came to a theory of government was the Paris Commune, which lasted a few months in 1871; while it supported many progressive principles that today we take for granted, many of its members were keen on keeping power through violence, and the commune went down in a literal blaze of “glory” as it went down to defeat against government forces, leaving Paris in ruins.

That of course is not what the Soviet Union ended-up being, but rather a totalitarian state where few people had any rights. Of course there were those who favored government “by the people”—like, say, Leon Trotsky—and those people needed to be eliminated, because people like Stalin saw enemies everywhere and “the people” were not to be trusted; after all, they were too stupid and childlike to “govern” themselves.

Trotsky was murdered in faraway Mexico, so it was safe to employ an assassin to bludgeon him to death. During the “Great Purge,” those declared enemies of the state were simply rounded-up, and executed, with or without sham trials. But there were other people who could not be so easily done away without people being somewhat disturbed by it—say, for example, world-renowned novelists and poets. That is where places like Laboratory One came in, where secret experiments, often on human subjects in the Gulags, were conducted to create poisons that were “undetectable” or mimicked “natural” causes of death.

Among the victims of death under “mysterious” circumstances was the then famous genetics scientist Nikolai Koltsov, whose main crime was that he was an international embarrassment to the regime with his nonsense about eugenics and scientific racism, which to the “credit” of the Soviet regime it didn’t aspire to given the polyglot nature of the state. Meanwhile it was suspected that Nobel Prize for Literature nominee Maxim Gorky died from slow-acting poisoning because of his unconventional beliefs regarding the Stalinist regime. Religious leaders were not immune either; in 1947 an archbishop of the Russian Greek Catholic Church, Theodore Romzha, died from suspected poisoning. The church served mostly Ukrainian parishioners, and today it is still under a partial ban because of its “unorthodoxy.”

But the KGB is no longer in that business, the FSB is. We have seen numerous poisonings of Russian dissidents since Vladimir Putin took power, which should be no surprise since he is a former KGB and FSB agent and is aware of the uses of poison. Journalists like Anna Politkovskaya and Yuri Shchekochikhin, former FSB agent and whistleblower in exile Alexander Litvinenko, and liberal politician Vladimir Kara-Murza all died “mysteriously” of apparent poisoning. Others who have been poisoned but did not die are imprisoned anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny and former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

But since it seems that poisoning isn’t always “reliable,” Putin and his FSB cronies have apparently decided that murder the old-fashioned way is the way to go, since Russians are seemingly immune to the effects of other people’s lives as long as it isn’t their own. The latest deliberate bombing of a residential apartment in southeastern Ukraine, killing three-dozen civilians, naturally elicited no protests in Russia, and is proof enough of that. I mean, Russian security forces killed hundreds of innocent Russian civilians just to get at a handful of Chechens, and the FSB was suspected of conducting “false flag” bombings of apartment buildings that killed hundreds, and still the Russian citizenry  trusted that their leaders were doing “right.” Why should they care about the crimes against humanity committed by their war criminal leaders in the Ukraine? They have no “morality” left to spare anyways.

So today we see oligarchs, businessmen, politicians journalists and generals falling out of windows, committing suicide or first killing their wives and children, and then killing themselves, which The Atlantic calls “Sudden Death Syndrome” in Russia. In the past year there has been 23 such death, and probably more counting lesser-known individuals. Sausage oligarch and politician Pavel Antov fell out of a window in India, Sergey Protosenya allegedly axed to death his wife and daughter while on vacation in Spain before allegedly hanging himself; neither of those two governments thought the quotation marks around the word “coincidental” was big enough to question what exactly happened in those cases.  A general in charge of tank production. Alexei Maslov, died mysteriously hours before a meeting with Putin was cancelled. “Coincidental” too?

The murder-suicide gig seems to be a popular way to lead to the demise of those deemed expendable; a more recent example is oil company executive Vladislav Avayev, whose inexplicable death could only be explained by his knowledge about “where the money went.” His wife and one of his daughters were found shot to death along with him. Now why would oligarchs who have money want to just kill themselves and their families? I suspect that initially, these family members were witnesses who needed to be silenced, but once the Russian public seemed not to be concerned about questionable details and the trail of improbable “coincidences,” murder-suicide was deemed a “reasonable” way to explain to what I’m sure is a Russian public that may not wish to question anything too openly these days, since it calls into question their own lack of moral backbone.

After all, why should Russians concern themselves with the odd political murder in Russia when government security forces had routinely killed innocent people in the name of the “security” of the state before—and they bought that line hook, line  and sinker, if for no other reason they think they don’t have a choice? But everyone has a “choice,” if they only want to fight for what is moral. Ukraine had its “orange revolution” from 2004-2005, when pro-Russian puppet president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after winning a sham election against pro-West Viktor Yushchenko, who subsequently also suffered poisoning under “mysterious” circumstances.  He survived, and so did Ukrainian democracy, which is what this war there is supposed to be about. We don’t want what Russia is “about.”

Going against the grain on the Harry-Meghan story

 

The late Queen Elizabeth II banned the use of the titles Duke and Duchess of Windsor after the death of Wallis Simpson in 1986, supposedly because it was irretrievably “sullied,” which was more a reflection of the juvenile 50-year grudge that Elizabeth and the queen mother still bore against Simpson. Although Elizabeth herself was untouched—thanks largely to the immunity the press granted her—her reign was scandal-plagued, with the actual behavior of her sister Margaret and sons Andrew and the current king in the past rather more “scandalous” than that of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle:

 

 

The fact that the Sussexes have had the audacity to say that “we tried to play the game and you just shit on us, so see you later” and then providing the reasons that are at least clear to themselves finds even the American press joining the British press in vitriolic outrage. They are acting like spoiled, privileged children it is said, and Meghan is the evil gold-digging temptress who doesn’t know her “place.” You really think she signed-up for all this drama?

But can you (as an American, not as a snooty, self-important Brit complaining about what kind of shoes Meghan wears)  name anything that Meghan—and Harry, for that matter—has actually done "wrong" since their marriage other than not having the good manners to just shut-up about the level of “acceptance” and support they perceive as  lacking even from  palace functionaries who are supposed to "serve" their needs? 

Of the latter I am reminded of the British series Yes, Minister, where Sir Humphrey—technically the subordinate required to do the bidding of whoever the current minister of his department wants—is being patronizing while constantly thwarting the minister’s policy desires from a self-superior attitude ingrained solely from his double-talking longevity in his position (the probable reason why he was even deemed worthy of “knighthood”).

Neither Harry nor Meghan have been accused of such things as cozying-up to genocidal dictators, openly committing adultery or hobnobbing with accused pedophiles...

 

...like some other members of the royal family past and present. There are some (like myself) who have made comparisons to Meghan’s situation to that of Simpson, the subject of much vitriol from the British press, the royal family and the British government, but these comparisons have their limits as well—and not necessarily to Meghan’s discredit.

I admit that Harry and Meghan refusing to play the game anymore has opened them up to that vitriol, but they are currently not the public parasites the rest of the royal family is, since they have been cut-off from most "royal" funding and are trying to be “self-sufficient,” which must be driving the rest of the clan nuts. You think that "The Firm" doesn't want to see them fail? Of course they do. Here in America we should be supporting their efforts not to be a "public charge." Just because some people don’t like the way they are doing it is tough luck.

Back to comparisons, there are those who still insist that Simpson was in “love” in Edward, and she no doubt made efforts to “fit in,” but these efforts were rejected out of hand; Winston Churchill for one supported Simpson, and bemoaned the opposition of the British press and government against her, and even proposed a “morganatic” marriage that would “allow” Edward to keep his throne without the whole British government resigning in “protest.”

This compromise was rejected by the prime minister at the time, Stanley Baldwin, who it seems was the subject of “speculation” of whether he was a “friend” of Edward—or in fact wanted to see him removed from the throne, and the Simpson controversy was perfect to achieving this end. To what extent “commoners” shared this “outrage” is also subject to some speculation, but the government certainly persuaded the British press to aid it in this endeavor.

But there are others—in fact, most others—who believe that Simpson, who grew-up in at best very modest means, was a committed social climber who slept her way to what she hoped was the “top.” She married a shipping magnate, but then set her eyes on the next “prize”—a prince in line for the British throne who she encountered at a party, and was friends with a woman whose sister was Edward’s current mistress, and Simpson quickly ingratiated herself with Edward to replace her.

Edward, however, became smitten, and it was already well-known by his closest advisors for a decade before he became king that he really wasn’t suited for that office temperamentally, morally or ethically, which was found to be quite disturbing. In his 1951 memoir, he stated he was in “unconscious rebellion” against the “lonely” position of king. 

But if he himself was in a take-it-or-leave-it mindset, Simpson had her “heart” set not in Edward as a person, but as “king.” When he decided to marry her and abdicate, she begged him to “reconsider” giving up his throne: maybe she “preferred” just being the “mistress” of a king, or she wanted him to keep fighting; but one thing that was certain is that it wasn't her plan to marry him if he wasn’t king.

In the end, Simpson apparently thought that she had no choice since Edward had sacrificed "everything" for her love—if in fact she ever did love him, which some doubt with reason. We know that in Edward’s mind that this was a “win-win” for him, because he didn’t want to be king anyways, which he found “dull” and intrusive.   

On the other hand we can speculate that Harry’s position as a royal made him an “eligible” bachelor, but he did have a choice in the matter, and it helped that Meghan was at least “willing” when his own interest was known. We may even speculate that he saw in Meghan a willing ally in upsetting the “status quo” in the royal family, which he found to be treating him like a “spare” even as he served in active duty putting his own life in danger in Afghanistan.

We are told that Edward and Simpson themselves didn’t have much in common and rarely conversed with each other when they were alone in private; this is certainly not the case with Harry and Meghan, who seem to have at least one thing in common—their gripes about how they have been treated. Unlike Harry who has now come under attack, Edward was always viewed as the love-smitten “victim” of Simpson. Harry on the other hand is seen as Meghan’s accomplice in "rebellion," and vice-versa. 

I mean let’s be honest about this: Meghan’s “black Americanism” is certainly stereotyped in a negative way in Britain, and in the end those assumptions fueled by some outrageously petty criticisms of things she did “wrong” while she was still trying to play the "game" right, became a predictable self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the other hand as noted, Edward wanted “out,” and royal family was so dead-set against Simpson and granting her any kind of accommodation or allowing her to represent them in public that the Windsors had little choice but to go into exile in France. Was "Megxit" avoidable? Why must we insist that Harry and Meghan have had skins of iron? They couldn't escape the tabloid headlines or the constant barrage of complaints by etiquette warriors with their vomit-inducing accents without closing their minds completely. Harry and Meghan are human just like the rest of us.

Of course, unlike Harry and Meghan, Edward and Simpson being forced to leave the country only caused more embarrassing behavior that could have been avoided if they were treated civilly by the royal clan. The House of Windsor actually had a German heritage; in fact there was considerable German “blood” running through British royal veins since 1700. So it is no “surprise” that Edward and Simpson welcomed the attention of the then current German leadership, which happened to be headed by none other than Adolf Hitler. 

 

Edward was a known anti-Semite, and Simpson went along given her predilection toward being seen in the company of those in elevated social positions. During the war after the Windsors fled France to neutral Spain, Churchill thought it necessary to send them off to a position in the Bahamas to prevent them from becoming a further embarrassment—and even being perceived as “traitorous” when it became known that German agents were offering Edward a figurehead position in a potential German-ruled Britain.

If Harry and Meghan are “traitors” to anything, it is to the notion that they have "rebelled" against existing to “serve” as placeholders to silly royal functions; Harry has made known his desire to serve the charitable foundations which his involvement served a useful PR purpose, yet he has been denied even this right out of petty spite by “The Firm.” For her part, Meghan has been under attack by the “white” side of her family, mostly a bunch of loafers and layabouts who probably are going “green” with envy by her success as an actress and beyond.

So, yes, I am going against the grain here in the face of what seems to be close to universal condemnation of the Sussexes—Meghan in particular—and the hypocritical defense of the other royals. So be it. I know what I see.

Final thoughts on Packers' season, and Aaron Rodgers

 

Since I’ve already broken my New Year’s resolution and have no plans on killing myself—especially over the Packers’ Titanic of a season—I might as well make a final comment on what transpired, with a playoff knockout 20-16 loss to the Lions on Sunday which ended with style. That is to say, Brett Favre “style,” with Christian Watson having no chance in hell of catching this ball, but that guy in the Lions’ jersey on the far left certainly did—and did:

 

There was still over 3 minutes to play,  but the defense “rested” and gave-up three first downs to a Lions team that had already been knocked out of the playoffs after the Seahawks won their game earlier in the day. Fun Fact One: The Lions never swept the season series during the Favre era, but three times during the Rodgers era. Fun Fact Two: The Packers only had one losing season in 16 years during the Favre era; they’ve had four during the Rodgers era. Tom Brady had to play 22 seasons as a starter before he had his first losing season—and still made the playoffs.

After signing that gigantic contract over the off-season, Rodgers just decided he didn’t owe the organization anything. The Packers drafted two promising wide receivers in Watson and Romeo Doubs, but Rodgers decided he didn’t have to come in during the off-season workouts and minicamp to get them acclimated with his idiosyncrasies. You have to hand to Favre for one thing: unlike Rodgers, he made the players around him “better,” which is why he had 15 winning seasons, played in two Super Bowls, and 5 of the 12 losses during the  2005 season were decided by a field goal or less, and three others by a touchdown or less. Only in two games could the Packers be said to have been uncompetitive.

So unlike the 2005 season, during Rodgers losing seasons the Packers were often not competitive. I mean if you get blown-out by some bleeping moron like Zack Wilson in Lambeau Field, there has to be something seriously amiss. Even in losses that the Packers were not blown-out in, they just didn’t look like they had any chance of winning. Of course we learned that Rodgers injured his throwing hand early in the season against the Giants, and as we discussed he decided to keep playing instead of taking a week or two to heal, and the Packers went on to have its worst period of losing since the 2005 season, dropping seven of eight games, and just narrowly missing eight straight losses after a typical Cowboys meltdown and the Packers winning in OT.

Time and again, observers would say “What the (fill in the blank) is wrong with this team?” When Rodgers was putting himself to pasture, the defense “rested.” When Rodgers was “on”—which this season meant mainly serving as “game manager” with a few timely tosses to compliment the running game—the defense tended to help the opposition to “even” the score. Case in point: the Packers had only three double-digit wins this season; the previous two seasons the Packers had 15 double-digit wins. More often than not, only when the offense and defense made “plays” together did the Packers win: the defense forced eight turnovers combined against the Dolphins and Vikings (yeah, when Kirk Cousins goes “downhill,” it’s a landslide), and the Packers scored 67 points combined. But against the Lions, it was zero turnovers forced, and only 16 points scored.

Don’t give me that shit about Davante Adams. The Packers had losing records with him as the principle target in Mike McCarthy’s last two seasons as coach, and the Raiders were 6-11 this season. Yeah, maybe the Packers would have played better with him in the line-up this season—or probably not, given Rodgers playing with an injured hand. The Packers were 7-0 in games that he did not play in previously, and we know that Rodgers’ “tunnel-vision” during the playoffs hurt the team’s chances of winning when the game was on the line; that happened against the Buccaneers in the NFC championship game in 2020, and against the 49ers last season.

It just seemed to me that what kept the Packers from having a fourth consecutive 13-win season all rested on the play of Rodgers, and he never really once played like “himself”—if that was ever anything but teammates making him look “good”—unlike, say, Brady or even Favre. How often did we see Rodgers loft those horribly easy passes to intercept as he did on the last offensive play of season? Whose fault was that? How often did we see passes bounce off the heads of linemen? How often did we see passes thrown behind receivers? For all the talk about “dropped” passes, how often did we see passes thrown that were simply uncatchable? That last pass had zero chance of being caught by Watson, and why with over three minutes to play why wasn’t a shorter pass to keep the drive alive and burn-up clock called? How many times have we asked the question this season of why a low-percentage pass was run on third and fourth down?

Well, that’s all over now. What will happen after this season? Will Matt LaFleur be able to finally run the offense he wants, which is why the team drafted a “mobile” quarterback like Jordan Love? Well, let’s see here:

 

 

If Rodgers decides to come back next season, the team will see a nearly $60 million dollar salary cap hit. Now, if the Packers decided to cut him during the off-season, that would leave $100 million in “dead” money that can’t be used for anything to help the team (unless being rid of Rodgers “helps” the team). If he is traded, it is unlikely any team—based on his play this year and the example of Russell Wilson’s awful season with the Broncos after the huge contract he signed—would be willing to shoulder all of Rodgers’ contract, and the Packers would still be on the hook for $40 million (depending on if the “move” is made before or after June 1). Rodgers also has an injury clause that could force the team to pay him if the injury seeps into the 2024 season.

The bottom line is that given the salary cap situation, if this season was the “make or break” season, then “break” certainly seems to be on the horizon if Rodgers is still on the roster next season. This past season he had a career worst not just in passer rating, but his career-low QBR was so bad (26^th in the league among quarterbacks with the minimal number of snaps), that this more than anything else testified to his general ineffectiveness. A 39.4 QBR suggests that he had a net negative impact on the team’s performance on the field. Case in point, in the previous 64 games Rodgers threw just 15 interceptions; this season he threw 12, the most since his first season as a starter. From 2018 to 2021, Rodgers threw 9 TD passes for every one interception; this season, it was 2-1.

The question is even if this was an “off” season for Rodgers, is it worth it to see if he still “has it”? Given Rodgers tendency to be easily affected by adversity—which is distinctly at odds with Brady’s single-minded devotion to winning at all costs—I’m not sure of that at all.

 

Now it is Brazil's turn to prove that democracy can survive a Trumpist dictator wannabe

 

The world just never ceases to confound and infuriate. I want to start on a different project, but I just have to say something about yesterday’s events in Brasília, the capital city of Brazil, where we saw scenes like this…

 

 

…and destruction…

 

…which of course reminds us of a certain event that occurred in this country not long ago. We don’t need to belabor the fact that Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters were taking a few pages from the playbook of Donald Trump and his supporters. In September before the election, Bolsonaro was seeding the fields with “doubt” about proficiency of electronic voting machines. 

Then after the runoff election which he narrowly lost, Bolsonaro insinuated “fraud” and called for the nullification of votes from districts that voted heavily for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which would have given him the majority of votes, but was rejected by the Supreme Court as baseless. Not to be deterred, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a lawmaker in the national assembly, met with Trump, Steve Bannon and others to formulate a “strategy” to overturn a democratic result and restore his dictator father to power.

Bolsonaro, his government ministers, security forces, local law enforcement and the regional governor did virtually nothing as supporters claiming the election “stolen” began mobilizing in force, including camping outside military bases to force the military to take action to restore Bolsonaro to power. The military had previously released a report stating that they did not detect evidence of fraud, but it was believed that it favored Bolsonaro and it also did nothing to disperse those camped out in front of their bases.

With Lula to be sworn-in on January 1, Bolsonaro flew to Orlando, Florida. Why? Perhaps from there he could watch events from a distance with the protection of fellow Trumpist Gov. Ron DeSantis—and allow his supporters to ransack the presidential office building without him in it. Like Trump gleefully watching events on television, he wasn’t horrified by what he saw, with the Supreme Court and legislative assembly buildings also ransacked. Bolsonaro claimed that he didn’t personally order the attacks, but only in a tepid manner did he criticize them: it was all just a demonstration of the “anger” of the people about a “stolen” election.

We are told that 4,000 would-be rioters arrived on 100 buses. We don’t yet know who was behind the sending of this convoy intent on creating destruction and mayhem, but it is likely it somehow leads to Bolsonaro and his agents, which explains why he is safely out of the country. As on January 6, despite the fact that security forces were warned that something like this was going to happen, police presence was minimal. Federal District Gov. Ibaneis Rocha, Bolsonaro’s former Justice Minister, who was personally responsible to see that nothing untoward occurred, chose the capital city’s head of public security Anderson Torres as his “fall guy”—which didn’t work, since within hours he himself was suspended from office for willful dereliction of duty.

Over 1,000 rioters have been detained for “questioning,” and by all appearances they look more like people (like the January 6 rioters) with nothing better to do with their sorry existences but go on mindless destruction (numerous works of art, we are told, were vandalized). We are told that a letter signed-off by politicians from across the political spectrum denounced the attempted insurrection and promised punishment. Even Bolsonaro’s far-right party realized that letting loose a violent mob it couldn’t control was a threat to its own existence, which is something that few Republicans recognize in Trumpism, with  a new breed like DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott waiting in the wings.

What we see here is the danger of Trumpism to democracy all over the world. It starts with a far-right “populist” who feeds into a segment of the population’s fears, paranoia and desire to place blame for whatever they personally feels “ails” them on scapegoats. These people don’t believe in “democracy” as such; they don’t accept that other people have different notions about the world or how they view their own “rights.” Trumpists support anyone who acts with dictatorial powers that disregards the give-and-take and compromise of democratic policy-making.

Some of these people have a “secret” desire to act-out their anger against anyone or any institution that directly opposes their viewpoint, and when they are given sanction by none other than the president of the United States, they feel some kind of “justification” for violent actions with the promise of “immunity.” In the U.S., there was no such immunity—Trump was no longer around to grant a blanket “pardon”—and the perpetrators have been systematically brought to justice.

That lesson was clearly not learned by the rioters in Brazil, and in that country the constitutional system of government must prove that it is capable of defending itself and punishing those who would turn the country into a dictatorship, or return it to being ruled by a military junta, if “civilians” prove they are incapable of governing themselves. The world didn’t learn that lesson on January 6, at least not in Brazil. What Brazil does now is needed to confirm that democracy can stand against dictator wannabes.