STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Simon Black vs NPR: Conundrum of Brazil
By Daily Bell Staff - December 09, 2015

In Brazil, Rising and Rampant Racism Is Written On The Wall … A group puts racist tweets on billboards in the neighborhood in which the troll lives. The biggest lawyers group seeks an apology and reparations for slavery. Brazil is combating racism in new ways. – NPR

Dominant Social Theme: The real problem with Brazil is its history of racism.

Free-Market Analysis: In this article, we will attempt to show the difference between an elite meme and a realistic, grounded, "human" analysis of the formal (accepted) profile of Brazil.

There is the reality of Brazil (which is merely a construct on a map) and the reality of the people who live in the construct called Brazil. The people who live in the construct called Brazil are a variable lot with their own cultures and tribal identities.

But Brazil (the "country") is a deeply dysfunctional, authoritarian construct. It has been made so on purpose by the Anglosphere that has busily configured Latin America so that each geographic construct (country) is administered mostly by a few light-skinned familial enterprises of European descent.

You won't read about this in the mainstream media that has dubbed Brazil one of the "BRICs" destined to rise as the "West" (another artificial construct) declines. Lately, the meme of the rising BRICs has come undone, with Russia turning into an enemy of the West, and Brazil, India and China suffering various forms of economic dysfunction.

The real problem with the BRICs is that they are perfect examples of what globalists seek to install around the world. The BRICs are authoritarian enterprises where "capitalism" – really, neo-feudalism – is presented as some sort of social and economic progress.

In these countries, and increasingly in Europe and the US, one is encouraged to participate but only so long as one accepts the operative rules. Money is controlled by central banks and those who stand behind them. Regulatory democracy is the approved form of government. Vast multinationals, often with state involvement, provide Brazil's industrial infrastructure.

This sort of artificial "bigness" mandated by court power and administered under the threat of state violence, is rampant around the world. However, in Brazil, which has no culture of republicanism, there is little in the way of formal, intellectual pushback. Instead, the culture is permeated with elite memes concerning global warming, environmental awareness and, of course, racism.

The excerpt with which we began this analysis is from National Public Radio, which broadcast the program on December 6th. It is notable because Brazil currently is in a kind of slow-motion economic collapse. Every part of Brazil's dysfunction is on display. It is a systemic default rooted in the country's sociopolitical and economic system.

But that is not what NPR has chosen to focus on. At a time when a regional aggregation of some 200 million people is in economic freefall, NPR chooses to report a story about that region's "racist" past.

This is indeed the way elite narratives are shaped. It is the hoary manipulation of divide and conquer. As systems built around the "white man's burden" begin to sink under the Internet's relentless exposure, those responsible for the system fight back by offering narrative diversions.

Women's liberation provides us with another example of a narrative diversion. NATO and the US have been fighting a long war in the Middle East and Africa. In the process of waging war, the armies involved have cast a fine haze of radioactive dust over the entire region. The offending particulate matter is known as "depleted uranium." Iraq is so poisoned that doctors have advised women in certain regions not to have children for fear of birth defects.

But one hears little of the ruin inflicted by these weapons. Instead, the Western media is filled with profiles of girls and young women happily imbibing a Western-style education at newly minted government schools. That the conquerors have virtually poisoned the gender they now seek to celebrate is a massive irony, but one that is rarely, if ever, reported.

The same sort of paradigm is at work in Brazil, if we accept that "racism" is an evolving meme designed to distract observers from the reality of Brazil's deepening authoritarianism and dysfunction. Blame it on skin color.

Here's more from the NPR story:

In Brazil, a new campaign called Virtual Racism, Real Consequences targets people who make racist comments online by putting up a giant billboard with their tweet near where they live. … The billboards are simple, all white with the comment written in black bold. One of them, put up in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, reads, I came home stinking like a black person. The name and picture of the person who wrote that on Twitter is blurred out. But the organizers tracked down where they live, and the placard is in their neighborhood. Those targeted have taken their tweets down.

JUREMA WERNECK: They call women, mainly women, macaca.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Monkey.

WERNECK: They are talking about their hair. They are talking about the color of their skin. They are calling them prostitutes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Brazil was the last country in the Americas to end slavery. It imported more enslaved people from Africa than any other country, well over 4 million. After slavery ended, there wasn't legal segregation like in the U.S. There was something more insidious, a social apartheid that still exists today. Other groups say that in order for the country to move forward, it first needs to look back.

Actually, Brazil doesn't need to "look back." In fact, lines on a map, last time we checked, don't have that particular facility. In any event, all one ought to do to improve things is to state what Brazil actually is. Comes Sovereign Man's Simon Black, who is traveling in Brazil, to provide the blunt assessment in a recent post about Brazil.

Here's an excerpt:

One of the truest aphorisms in the world of investing is that Brazil is the country with the MOST potential… and always will be. … And yet Brazil can't ever seem to get out of its own way to realize its potential.

… There's a huge dark side to this place. Brazil is notorious for rampant corruption, regulation, and taxation that turn simple, basic tasks into unimaginably mind-numbing challenges. That chaos and disorder is now reflected in Brazil's economic strife. The official numbers say that Brazil's economy has contracted 4.5%. Being on the ground, it's obviously much worse.

… [Brazil's] massive welfare state is matched by an astonishing tax burden. In fact, creating new taxes seems to be a national sport in Brazil, where an average of 46 new rules are added to the tax code EACH DAY. One Brazilian attorney took it upon himself to compile the country's tax code. It took him 23 years to do so and the finished product weighed seven whole tons. Even then, he only managed to track up to 2007, because he just couldn't keep up with the rate of increase.

Such a vast, complex tax system obviously requires an even more vast, more complex bureaucracy to administer it, giving legions of bosses and bureaucrats the opportunity to plunder taxpayer resources. All of these problems are related. Corruption is enabled by the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy is mandated by a socialist system designed to keep the corrupt in power. …

Compare Black's analysis with NPR's evaluation that "Brazil" must "look backwards" in order to move ahead. Even if "Brazil" could recognize racism (whatever Brazil is) it seems dubious that such would do anything other than antagonize and polarize existing populations.

Of course, this is perhaps the purpose of this evolving meme. The current system is falling apart. The solution of those in charge is to poison the public narrative to ensure that the kind of truth that Simon Black provides us is drowned out by racial polarization.

Simon Black thinks Brazil holds enormous promise for expats and entrepreneurs who can navigate the shoals of the system to take advantage of the many positives of Brazil, including an educated work force and a vast array of valuable raw materials. He points out it is "a fantastic country to obtain a second passport; after a few years of residency, it's possible to become a naturalized Brazilian citizen…" But those who want to settle in such places must as a matter of course carefully evaluate the realities.

After Thoughts

The problems of Brazil have little or nothing to do with racism and everything to do with its degenerating system of regulatory democracy and crony capitalism. The proper approach to entering such countries is with one's eyes "wide open." Gather all the information you can and then visit to ensure you are personally familiar with the terrain.

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