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 Once in a while, certain important questions, some even transcendental ones, emerge from dealing with the government's administrative routine. Indignation in face of massacres as the one that just happened in Baixada Fluminense, in Rio, leads many good hearts to consider adopting death penalty or life in prison for those true animals who committed such horror.
The finding that this year we will be sending overseas US$ 93 billion to pay interests of our foreign and public debt, while the social and infra-structures sector will only receive US$ 3 billion for investments, makes us once again entertain the wish of following Argentina's example and decreeing a moratorium.
Not keeping campaign promises by a certain candidate leads the electorate to not vote for him again in countries where there is reelection.
Moribund Health
Another extremely important discussion has started after recent instructions by the Health Minister to the hospital departments under his jurisdiction. Minister Humberto Costa recommended that ITU directors in public hospitals give preference to patients who have a chance to get better, forgetting those in terminal state or without hope.
I will not condemn the Minister for officializing euthanasia, but in practice, this is not what will happen because this is what is already happening.
Some time ago a doctor from one of these ill-equipped emergency hospitals suffered a nervous breakdown and poured out his feelings to the press: "I'm not God! I have no power to determine who is going to die and who is going to live, but this is what I do every day, when I get three patients, all gravely ill, and I can only care for one. Who do I choose?"
There is no doubt that things are like that in a country where public health is moribund. But the question does become crucial: should society let die those, who apparently or really, have minimum chances of survival?
And, if that's the way it is, won't this process get us to the latest consequences like, for example, in Nazi Germany, when physically imperfect newborns were sacrificed? And what about mentally retarded children?
Who knows, due to the increase in hunger and unemployment, we will have to condemn to death those citizens incapable of dealing with a computer or unable to speak a second language?
In practice, and I repeat myself, this is what is already happening without the violence of an abrupt execution of our fellow men. But to leave whole populations starving, without food or job, because they are not able to follow the advances of technology, isn't it a giant step towards euthanasia?
Connivers at Best
Just recently, another Indian child starved to death in the state of Mato Grosso. For lack of option, eight-, nine- and ten-year-old boys initiate a narcotraffic career with minimum chances of reaching adulthood without being murdered. If we don't do anything, we are at least connivers.
All these examples bring us the most fundamental question of our times: should we proceed with this economic policy that benefits only the well endowed, the well born and the rich, condemning the masses to poverty, misery and indigence? To death in life or to real death?
A recommendation like the one given by the Health Minister to public hospitals possibly cannot be avoided, but we would need for it to never be allowed.
Governments that do not commit enough money for public health should not continue being governments, especially if they are able to find much greater resources to pay abominable debts and interests.
It will come a time when humankind will be able to cross the chalk circle. It will break the shell of this snake egg to smash it in a single blow. Because the option is to institutionalize euthanasia, relive Nazism and condemn the planet to neoliberalism's sophisticated barbarism.
President Lula and ministers José Dirceu and Antônio Palocci should be thinking about these questions. The majority in Congress would do a much better job if they cared for these kinds of themes instead of being worried about strategies to win reelection.
Outside, hopes that won fear are being defeated by frustration, which is revolt's anteroom.
Inside, they continue breeding plans to benefit the elites and to keep themselves in power, ignoring that power can be used in favor of those condemned to the cruelest of euthanasias, the one that kills slowly, little by little.
The elites are not even worried about questions like those. They deceive themselves, because every single day they become an easier prey to the
Big Euthanasia, when it does arrive.
Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio's daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a representative of the Brazilian Press Association, in Brasília. He welcomes your comments at carloschagas@hotmail.com.
Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.
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Some months back: there are strong denounces that there is contraband of weapons into our borders from Paraguay. That goes to TV and the government admits that. The Army says that this is responsibility of "Receita Federal". This one, by its turn, says the defence of the borders is in charge of the army. Anyone there wants to get some money in a low risk activity, where no government official is going to disturb you?
And now this news. The state, again, admits that they cannot provide health for the population. That's not a real problem, for the state in most of the richest countries admits that too. But wait! We are paying for it! We pay almost half of what we earn (probably that's even more) and what are they saying? Are they saying that, although we pay them for providing health, they cannot do that? C'mon, stop it!
About the interest rates: why did the government borrowed money offshore in the first place? Why? To provide the country with infra-structure and developed industries? Wait, in a capitalist economy, isn't that responsibility of public and private (non-governmental) companies? Of course, but who can say we are really a capitalist country? There are some legal aspects to that, the essential being that the state guarantees, above all things, private property rights, individual rights and respect for contracts. Do those happen in Brazil? Well, no... property rights are respected when it interests to people in power. The "rights" of grileiros and sem-terra to a "life in dignity" is above those. And don't dare to harm anyone who invaded your private property. The right of the burglar is above it too. Individual rights? Well, considering that 99% of the murders don't have the author arrested, I can be very sad. Respect for contracts? Don't need to cite anything, anyone who can read a newspaper in Brazil and already tried to make some contract obeyed in the courts knows what I'm talking about. That is in the Exame magazine this month too. Anyway, is the government going to stop spending more than it earns, so that it won't need to borrow any more money? If so, it's ok to stop paying interest rates, otherwise... just shut up and pay it.
All that stated, brazilians should really think about the role of the government in our country. They are worth for nothing. We pay too high taxes for too few services. Every real given to the government is a money given to your enemy, the one that'll kill you. Am I exaggerating? Really? Then, try falling into a bed of a public hospital and have the doctor choosing you to die, or cross the path of some enraged policemen willing to the GTA thing in Rio. You are paying them. You are financing them.