Brazilian Porn redux, with Mr. Balls!

There was a brief moment when I allowed myself to believe that the perversions of Rio’s mad rush to privatize life might have hit a democratic roadblock.

After the May 9^th “revelation” that the Maracanã was being awarded to the same company contracted to do the economic viability study, on May 10^th Judge Gilsele Guida de Faria suspended the decision. In her ruling, the judge pointed out a million obvious things wrong with the contract including the lack of transparency, the conflicts of interest, and the huge loss of money for the public.

The most shocking piece of datum was this: the economic viability study suggested that the private management company would make approximately R$157,025,000 per year while paying the state a rent of R$4,500,000 (2.86% of profits). If this isn`t a direct transfer of wealth from public to private hands, then there are still WMDs in Iraq.

Mr. Balls enters the running for FIFA uber-mascot.
Once he parachutes into the stadium, a thousand
Fulecos will roll out of the ruptured scrotum.  

Beyond the financials and complete ludicrousness of privatizing one of the world`s most famous stadiums (after having totally disfigured it), the troubling element for Cariocas and Brazilians should be the fact that their democracy has been kicked in the Mr. Balls so hard that its growth may be permanently stunted. What we saw here was a state level judge identifying potential illegal activity on the part of the executive and sending down a ruling to stop the loss of public goods. The executive branch then cranked up its lawyers, went to the president of the tribunal to say “this will be a grave threat to public order and economic stability”. The president of the tribunal, Leila Mariano (who will no doubt have received future political or current financial benefit), ruled last night to suspend the suspension, allowing everything to fall into place so that public culture and a fledging democracy can be pulverized, put into pipes and smoked.

This ruling represents the end of checks and balances in Rio de Janeiro`s democrapitalist system. The Maracanã, tortured into submission will likely spend the next 35 years as a pet monkey held on a leash held by Brazil`s biggest capital interests. The novela of the Maracanã will continue but as with all porn flicks we know the sticky, unilateral ending.