Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

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Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:33 pm

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Suggesting a consolidation of stories and discussions about Brazil in the wake of the shocking election of Bolsonaro with his fascism and promise of a new dictatorship.

This article really helps with the disinformation (sometimes even found here) about what happened.

I've seen a lot I want to post if I have the time. (Bad idea, actually, but I probably won't be able to help myself.)



http://www.brasilwire.com/why-bolsonaro ... e-cliches/

BRIAN MIER , OCTOBER 31, 2018

Why Bolsonaro won: beyond the cliches

If mind-stopping cliches of violence and corruption do not correspond with voting patterns or Bolsonaro’s governmental plan why did he win the election? It was not a free or fair process.

by Brian Mier

Why did the Brazilian people elect a neofascist? If you get your information from the newspapers, you might think that this happened because Brazilians are afraid of rising violence rates or fed up with corruption. These explanations sound great on paper because they function as what sociologist Pierre Bordieu called mind stopping cliches. When hearing something familiar and logical sounding, the brain stops and moves onto another subject.

Violence and corruption. Everyone hates that. What’s happening in sports? This is how the Anglo media wants people to process the issue of the arrival of fascism in Brazil, because if the public begins to scratch under the surface, it will find uncomfortable truths that implicate their own governments, think tanks, corporations and media institutions. That could lead to some difficult questions, so why not stick to the mind stopping cliches of violence and corruption? The problem is that, although both issues may have been used to manipulate the public, neither of them hold up to scrutiny.

Haddad had more support in the most violent regions

Like all countries that have to deal with the legacy of slavery and the fact that one segment of the population considers another segment to be sub-human, Brazil has always been a violent place. The image of Brazil as a land of violence has been burned into the minds of the Anglo public through films like Pixote, City of God and Elite Squad. Only 6% of Brazilians live in favelas, and many favelas have more middle class residents than poor, but in the minds of many casual northern observers, most Brazilians live in desolate slums full of child soldiers. Could fears of violence have been the deciding factor in electing a military man to the presidency? Brazil certainly sounds scary to many Americans.

While it is true that violence has risen in Brazil in recent years – especially after the start of the austerity policies that began mildly during the last year of Dilma Rousseff’s presidency and were greatly exacerbated by the coup government which took power in 2016 – violence patterns have been marked by a geographical shift which does not strongly correspond with electoral support for Bolsonaro. The case in point is São Paulo state, where Jair Bolsonaro received over ¼ of his total number of votes. Although Brasil witnessed a 14% rise in homicides between 2006 and 2016, São Paulo saw a 46% drop in the same period, with an even greater drop from 2000-2006. São Paulo city has seen its homicide rate of 60/100,000 in the year 2000 drop to 7.8 in 2017, which is significantly lower than most big American cities. Likewise, statewide homicide rates have dropped from 26/100,000 to 9.5/100,000 in the same period. Although there was a slight increase in the state wide murder rate during 2017, murders actually dropped by 15% in São Paulo city.

The case of Rio de Janeiro, where 67% of voters supported Bolsonaro, is also telling. In 2002, Rio de Janeiro had a homicide rate of 60/100,000. By 2010 it had dropped to 26/100,000. Murder rates began rising again after the mega-events, reaching around 37/100,000 in 2017 – a disturbing statistic, but not one that places Rio de Janeiro among the ten most violent states in Brazil. As I have argued before, however, Rio has a unique political and criminal environment. For example, a report by Amnesty International shows that 25% of all murders committed in Rio de Janeiro last year were done by police officers. Neighboring Minas Gerais has violence issues of its own, but it’s police killed around 10 times fewer people per capita in 2017 that the police in Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, as Ben Anderson and I discovered while filming the HBO/Vice TV special, The Pacification of Rio, there is evidence that the Rio de Janeiro State government cooked the books, and shifted numbers between homicides, violent deaths of undetermined causes and disappearances to make crime rates appear lower during the lead up to the World Cup and Olympics. Therefore, although there is a recent rise in violence in Rio, the real numbers may be lower than they appear due to statistical manipulation by the government to build up support for the military occupation and, even if they are not, they don’t compare to the numbers from the early 2000s or rank Rio as one of the most violent places in Brazil.

If the homicide rate in Brazil has fallen so dramatically in the last 15 years in Rio and São Paulo, why did Brazil experience its highest murder toll ever last year? One reason is that the Brazilian northeast has been inundated with crack. Last year, 6 of the 10 most violent states in Brazil were located in the Northeast, the region where Fernando Haddad beat Bolsonaro in every state. In Ceará, for example, which has a homicide rate 8 times higher than that of São Paulo, Fernando Haddad received 71% of the vote.

Was fear of violence the reason people in São Paulo elected Bolsonaro, or was fear of violence the reason northeasterners elected Haddad? Let’s face it. Everyone is afraid of violence. But if 25% of the votes for an “anti-violence” candidate come from a region of Brazil that has crime rates comparable to places in Europe or Canada, one could come to the conclusion that the either electorate was manipulated or there were other, more important issues at stake.

It’s only corruption when communists do it

The other reason commonly cited for supporting Bolsonaro is Brazilians frustration with corruption, which, for the last 5 years has been nearly exclusively associated in the national and international media with the PT. Like the issue of violence, this does not hold up to a minimal level of scrutiny. President Dilma Rousseff was never involved in personal enrichment through corruption. In fact, she herself is a victim of corruption. Impeached for committing a non-impeachable offense, a budgetary infraction that was systematically committed by all leaders of all levels of Brazilian government and legalized one week after she was removed from office, it has subsequently come out that congressmen were bribed to vote in favor of her impeachment. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was the one man generally believed powerful enough to block the privatization of Brazil’s massive offshore petroleum reserves, was arrested on charges that he committed “indeterminate acts of corruption” related to an apartment the courts were unable to prove he ever owned and thrown in jail before his appeals process played out, in a move which Glen Greenwald says was obviously done to keep him for running for president this year. Likewise, Fernando Haddad was a victim of corruption when US-backed judge and prosecutor Sergio Moro illegally leaked plea bargain testimony to the press during election season, alleging that it implicates him in a corruption scandal despite the fact that the testimony had already been thrown out by the public prosecutor’s office.

Jair Bolsonaro, on the other hand, spent 25 years affiliated with the most corrupt political party in Brazil, the Partido Progressista (PP), led by the most corrupt politician in Brazilian history, Paulo Maluf, who is on Interpol’s most wanted list and can not leave Brazil or will be arrested. Furthermore Bolsonaro is already inviting corrupt politicians to help run his government. These names include:

1) Alberto Fraga, Congressman from the DEM party and gun industry pitchman who Bolsonaro invited to lead his bloc in Congress. Three weeks before the first round elections, in September, 2018, Fraga was sentenced to 4 years of semi-open imprisonment after being caught on tape charging and receiving bribes from a bus company;

2) Congressman Onyx Lazaroni, who has already confirmed as Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, who admitted to taking bribes from the JBS meat packing company to use in an illegal campaign slush fund in 2017;

3) Congressman Pauderny Avelino from the DEM party, who was convicted in 2016 of paying cronies millions of dollars above market rate in rents for buildings and used school furniture when he was education minister in Manaus; and

4) Paulo Guedes, a University of Chicago educated monetarist economist and former attache to Augusto Pinochet. Bolsonaro has invited him to be his Economic Minister, even though he is currently being investigated by the public prosecutors office, who want to know how he managed to pocket R$1 Billion in six years while managing pension funds.

If mind-stopping cliches of violence and corruption do not fully correspond with voting patterns and Bolsonaro’s governmental program, why did he win the election? My take is that the election was neither fair nor free. It was the result of a massive fraudulent campaign backed by the US government, Brazilian military and the judiciary to guarantee that the privatizations of the world’s largest offshore petroleum reserves implemented by the coup government of Michel Temer are not reversed, and that the US military has access to Brazilian bases for another possible future petroleum grab in Venezuela. The following events had a much bigger effect on Bolsonaro’s victory than violence and corruption:

1) A joint US/Brazil operation imprisoned leading candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who promised to reverse petroleum privatizations and re-allocate state oil profits to public health and education. He was jailed before his appeals process was finished on trumped up charges with no material evidence, based on a single plea bargain testimony made by a convicted criminal in exchange for sentence reduction and partial asset retention;

2) Lula announced he would run for President anyway, as was his right according to Brazilian and international law. The electoral court allowed 1400 candidates with similar legal issues to run, but they made an exception for Lula. Still leading in all election polls from behind bars, with more support than all other candidates combined and double the support of Bolsonaro, the one man easily capable of defeating fascism was barred from running;

3) The UN Human Rights Committee issued a ruling ordering the Brazilian government to allow Lula to run for office. Brazil is a signatory to the UN Protocol on Civil and Political Rights and, according to MP 311/2009, UNHRC rulings are legally binding. The Supreme Electoral Court broke Brazilian law and disobeyed the UN when it refused to let Lula run;

4) In a country where TV crews regularly enter prisons to interview drug traffickers and mass murderers, the courts bared Lula from speaking to Journalists, illegally prohibiting him for communicating to the public why they should vote against fascism in the elections;

5) 3.3 million voters, most of whom were poor and Northeastern – essentially the demographic that most supports the PT party – were purged from the voter rolls two weeks before the elections; and

6) After Bolsonaro support surged in the first round election, Folha de São Paulo revealed that his campaign was using an illegal slush fund created by hundreds of businessmen paying up to $4 Million USD each, to hire tech firms to illegally acquire personal data from users of the WhatsApp social media app. According to the article, this was used to create thousands of demographicly targeted groups of 256 uses each and bombard them with lies and slander against the PT party. These lies were not primarily based on fear mongering about violence and corruption, but on slander that the PT party is run by sexual perverts who want to make everyone’s children gay. After Supreme Electoral Court President Rosa Weber received death threats from Bolsonaro supporters and held a meeting with Bolsonaro supporter General Sergio Etchegoyen, she decided to hold off investigations until after the final round of the elections.

International capital and the US government now have exactly what they want in Brazil. All natural resources will be opened to exploitation from foreign capital. The US military will be able to use the Alcantara rocket launching base as a take off point for forays into Venezuela. Brazil’s participation in the BRICS is dead in the water and US Petroleum companies will be swimming in Brazilian oil. Regardless of the level of participation by the US and its institutions, these events fit a pattern of US interventions in Latin America over the past 100 years. If we are truly interested in defeating fascism it is important to move beyond cliches and work to identify the real actors at play, so that their power can be countered. In order to do this, we have to move beyond the idea that Brazil operates in a geopolitical vacuum and that the return to neofascism, which was previously installed with ample US government support from 1964-1985, can be explained by oversimplified generalizations on public opinion.

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I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Nov 03, 2018 6:46 pm

Black Agenda Report

Facism Takes Brazil

This Is Hell 01 Nov 2018

If there is an African world, and that African world has eyes, they are fixed on Brazil right now, where the majority of Africans taken from the motherland to the new world were landed. BrasilWire's Brian Meir reports on last weekend's election of Jair Bolsonaro, a genuine fascist sympathizer to the presidency of that unhappy country.



If there is an African world and it has eyes, they are fixed upon Brazil this week where a genuine fascist has come to power in the person of Jair Bolsonaro, who has vowed to hand over Brazilian pensions to the private sector and bring Breazil's bloody handed military torturers and Chicago boys back into power.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/facism-takes-brazil
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby liminalOyster » Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:15 pm

I have an old friend in Rio. I wrote last week saying: "I am hopeful things look more normal and safer on the ground there." Response: "No, things are worse on the ground."

There is clearly alot of grave concern about safety for organizers there.

PS. Also never forget Marielle Franco and the good that has followed her murder.
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:31 pm

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There is no way this is not going to be bad, bloody, full of death and repression. Some variant of dictatorship is coming, with Bonapartism as the best to hope for and full-on military rule and counterinsurgency killing thousands as a strong possibility. Who says there will be an election in four years, that it will not be fixed, or that results will be respected? Not to rule out worst cases developing sooner or later in United States and "the West," but there are essential differences that mean it's already developing in Brazil:

- 21 years of military dictatorship along classical fascist lines, with torture, death squads, restricted rights, and all of the rest, ending only in 1985. Very recent. Bolsonaro grew up in this. People remember. People voted for it.

- They have a consolidated corporate media controlled by six(ish) conglomerates owned by oligarchs. Sounds familiar, right? Now imagine if all of these were FOXNEWS. Except, usually, way worse.

- They have had a much worse economic crisis with a brutal austerity applied.

- Constitutional government was already suspended by the oligarchy more than two years ago in the coup against Rousseff, all of which had the full backing of a completely corrupted judiciary. Courts will pose no obstacle.

- Bolsonaro talked a much worse, much more openly violent game than Trump. He's been specific, not about whom he wants locked up, but about whom he intends to kill, in the thousands. He's been promising rivers of blood, and he got a real vote, almost certainly a real majority and not just a fixed election.

- Markets totally support this. Have been going nuts at his coming for months.

- The old Brazilian dictatorships had support, but they were not openly congratulated and embraced as progressive developments by half the governments in the world. This is a bad time.

The first act already will be to terminate all indigenous reserves and open every square mile of the rain forest to speculation and prospecting. This can turn into a global disaster very quickly. (I should say, major exacerbation of the ongoing global disaster.)

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Last edited by JackRiddler on Sat Nov 03, 2018 11:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby liminalOyster » Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:45 pm

From a list I'm on related to the favelas:

As I expect you've heard, Brazil had a historic election on Sunday. Unfortunately, not in a way that is remotely helpful to our mission. Our team is devastated. We are particularly concerned for the safety of the thousands of favela-based community organizers we have been supporting for eighteen years, and for indigenous and quilombola leaders across Brazil. Their lives and communities are now in direct risk from a man who, as candidate and in his two and a half decades in public office, has said such horrendous things as "I wouldn't enter an airplane piloted by a beneficiary of affirmative action, nor would I accept being operated on by one," “I don’t run the risk [of my sons dating a black woman]. They were well educated,” that a female political rival wasn't worth raping because she "didn't deserve it,” that “gays are not demi-gods. Most of them are the result of drug consumption,” that “the poor are only worth it for their votes... Only birth control [through sterilization] can save us from chaos,” that “[quilombo residents] do nothing. I think they are not even apt for procreation anymore," and most recently during his campaign, that “there will be no more NGOs,” that if he's elected “[adversaries] will either go into exile or go to jail,” and that "activism will not be permitted" under his administration, with further qualification of what he terms "shiite environmental activism." He insists he will remove Brazil from the UN and sees movements for equal rights as crybaby pleas. He has shown a strong tendency towards reducing press freedoms even since Sunday's election, and says he will end demarcation of indigenous or quilombola lands. His primary policy proposals towards favelas are of repression, whether towards land rights in treating occupations as ‘terrorism,’ or in encouraging extrajudicial killings by police. He thinks Brazil’s already poor quality educational system will be improved by removing children from classrooms and instituting distance learning from grade school on, not to mention eliminating dissent.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby Elvis » Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:30 am

So, the polity of Brazil were denied the progressive man of the people they wanted and turned to the next strongest available force for change—any change. Sounds familiar. I worry the new regime in Brasilia will tend to further normalize such brazen rightwing authoritarianism and set an example for Trump's America to follow. On the other hand, I wonder to what extent Trump's supposed economic successes encouraged Brazilian voters to make a hard right turn.

Looking for something similar, I found this...book is a free download:

https://epdf.tips/the-united-states-and ... -inte.html

BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES...
Author: Monica Hirst

Page 7

In March 1964 a military coup changed the course of Brazilian political his-
tory. Though motivated by internal political developments, it occurred with the
veiled blessing of the U.S. government. During the first phase of the military
regime (1964–74), Brazil reverted to a policy of alignment with the United States
and abandoned its autonomous foreign policy premises. Convergence with West-
ern values under U.S. leadership again defined the ideological profile of Brazilian
diplomacy, as the government of Castelo Branco (1964–67) agreed with the
United States on the military and economic questions. Brazilian support for the
Inter-American System was reinforced, especially through the newly created
Inter-American Peace Force. The repeated adage of foreign minister Juracy
Malgalhães (1966–67), that “whatever is good for the United States is also good
for Brazil,” became the new emblem for Brazilian foreign policy. Hence, Brazil
broke relations with Cuba, participated in the invasion of the Dominican
Republic (1965), and considered sending troops to Vietnam. Ideological and mili-
tary affinity with the United States also reverberated in the economic realm, and
new measures promoted the rapid elimination of the nationalistic policies that
had hurt U.S. interests in Brazil.

In 1967, economic issues began to take a prominent position in the Brazilian
diplomatic agenda. Under foreign minister Magalhães Pinto (1967–69), Brazilian
foreign policy, based on a “diplomacy of prosperity,” gave a new priority to the
field of economic diplomacy. This tendency deepened as Brazilian economic poli-
cies again sought to promote national development.

Autonomy
The third phase in U.S.-Brazil relations began in 1974, during the second half of
military rule in Brazil. Brazilian foreign policy went through major changes in
the mid-1970s, based on the assumption that foreign affairs should meet national
interests and become a crucial tool for economic development. Foreign economic
policy was primarily motivated by the impact of the 1973 oil crisis and by new
Brazilian industrial needs. It was now considered that while the diversification of
trade, as well as foreign investors and financial sources, would strengthen the
economy, an autonomous foreign policy would open doors for Brazil’s interests
abroad. Autonomy in foreign affairs would involve a nonideological foreign
policy (i.e., disconnecting from the Cold War agenda), close ties with the third
world, and ending the constraints posed by the alignment with the United States.

Beginning in 1974, during the administration of Ernesto Geisel (1974–78), Brazil
transformed its foreign policy to one grounded in autonomy, pragmatism and
universalism.

Accordingly, Brazil pursued critical changes in its relations with the United
States. At first, this implied upgrading the relationship with the United States,
and Brazil’s foreign minister Francisco Azevedo da Silveira (1974–78) sought to
establish a new level of understanding with Washington by substituting tradi-
tional alignment with a new “special relationship.” Thus, Silveira and U.S.
secretary of state Henry Kissinger signed a Memorandum of Understanding in
1976, which was intended to provide for reciprocal consultation on common in-
terests, and semiannual meetings, through which Brazil hoped to achieve a more
symmetrical relationship with the United States.

However, this initiative fizzled shortly after the administration of Jimmy
Carter came to office in the United States (1977–81). The Carter administration’s
concerns for human rights and nuclear proliferation would affect relations with
most of the military regimes in Latin America, including that of Brazil. The
Carter administration vehemently wanted to circumscribe Brazil’s nuclear pro-
gram, which was based upon cooperation with Germany. Such stringent U.S.
pressures, however, produced an anti-U.S. reaction within Brazil’s military as
well as its diplomatic, political, and scientific circles. In 1977 Brazil denounced the
1952 military agreement with the United States and continued its nuclear pro-
jects with Germany. For the Geisel administration the nuclear program had
become a symbol of autonomous development and security sovereignty.

After a period of high tension, U.S.-Brazil relations entered a low-profile
phase that remained until the end of the Brazilian military regime. This political
distance was accompanied by a more complex economic agenda, marked by the
participation of U.S. financial entities in the growing Brazilian external debt, the
increase in exports of manufactured and semimanufactured Brazilian products
for the U.S. market, and the growing presence of U.S. investment in Brazil. For
the next fifteen years, misunderstandings involving trade, finance, technology,
security, and environmental matters expanded in U.S.-Brazil relations.

During the administration of João Figueiredo (1979–85), the tone in U.S.-
Brazil relations was one of reciprocal disdain. Even though Brazil condemned the
1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it refused to adhere to sanctions proposed
by the United Nations and the United States. And as expectations for a rap-
prochement—stimulated by President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 visit to Brazil—failed,
disagreements arose in different areas.

Brazilian diplomats observed U.S. actions in Central America with concern.
They also deplored the U.S. intervention in Grenada (1983), and opposed the cre-
ation of a proposed South Atlantic Treaty Organization that would include the
participation of Argentina and South Africa. This lack of understanding also af-
fected military cooperation, as the U.S. government opposed Brazil’s sensitive
technology programs in the fields of microelectronics, aerospace materials, and
long-range missiles.

In the meantime, the U.S.-Brazil trade agenda also found new complexities.
Apart from the problems created by the use of protectionist measures that af-
fected its exports, Brazil became a target for U.S. coercive diplomacy practices.
These economic pressures intensified, first due to the Brazilian export incentive
programs, and later due to its market reserve policy, particularly in the informa-
tion technology sector. Furthermore, new differences between the two countries
emerged over the new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade agenda. Brazil
opposed the inclusion of new issues—services and intellectual property—in
multilateral negotiations and soundly resisted United States pressure in favor of
unilateral economic liberalization.

In 1985, Brazil initiated its transition to democracy with the inauguration of the
administration of José Sarney (1985–90). Again, the U.S. government did not wel-
come Brazil’s foreign policy postures during the initial phase of democratization.
At this time, Brazil took a critical view of U.S. military involvement in Central
America, voiced its frustration over the lack of political attention toward the Latin
American debt crisis, and became increasingly upset over coercive U.S. trade prac-
tices. New trade controversies blossomed after the U.S. Trade Representative
initiated a series of investigations against Brazil under Section 301.

The U.S. decision evolved from lawsuits aimed at numerous countries accused of commercial
malpractice. Disputes over computer hardware and software also increased.
At this time, military submission to the civil authorities in Brazil was reduced
under the new 1988 constitution: the formal presence of military authorities in
the government continued, and they held an implicit veto power in all topics
related to international security. With respect to foreign policy matters, innova-
tions were carefully negotiated between the Foreign Ministry and the military
authorities. In the newly created Science and Technology Ministry, concerns
shared by the military and the scientific community regarding technological
autonomy were vigorously pursued. Simultaneously, the Brazilian military became
more concerned with its presence in the Amazon region, an area of growing
attention in the United States as a result of the expansion of environmental
movements and organizations.

Adjustment
In 1990, a new set of domestic and international factors, including the end of the
Cold War and economic globalization, along with democratic consolidation and
economic reforms in Brazil, led to a process of gradual change in U.S.-Brazil rela-
tions. As the United States reviewed its Latin American policy, Brazil slowly
abandoned its defensive posture vis-à-vis the United States.

Adjustments in international security policies, together with the implementa-
tion of an ample set of liberal economic policies, contributed to the rebuilding of
bridges between the two countries. As Brazilian democratization began to consol-
idate, the government advanced major changes in foreign policy. These were
aimed at stimulating closer relations with industrialized countries and would
leave behind Brazil’s previous autonomous stances in world affairs, most of
which had become a source of friction with the United States.

Motivated by the need to deepen Brazil’s international competitiveness and to
improve the countries’ access to markets, credit, and technology, the administration
of Fernando Collor de Mello (1990–92) reshaped the country’s foreign policy
premises. The environment, human rights, and nonproliferation were no longer
addressed with defensive postures, and international pressures were more accepted.
In the economic realm, the government announced a series of new reforms, leading
to economic openness, investment liberalization, privatization of state enterprises,
and the renegotiation of the external debt. In regional affairs, the most important
step was the formation, together with Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, of
MERCOSUR (Mercado Comun del Cono Sur, or Southern Cone Common Mar-
ket), with the aim of deepening the commitment to open regionalism.

Nevertheless, prospects for a more cooperative relationship with the United
States suffered a setback with the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Though the Brazilian
government condemned the Iraqi government and favored the United Nations
Security Council’s decision to apply economic sanctions against the aggressor, it
did not endorse military action against Iraq, as the United States had hoped.

Domestically, Brazilian reality soon revealed how fragile the domestic grounds
were for enforcing the changes that had been announced by the new government.
The resistance on the part of the political and economic elites to neoliberal
reforms, together with a general rejection of the abuses of power by the new
president and his closest collaborators, led to Collor de Mello’s impeachment. As
Vice President Itamar Franco assumed the presidency, Brazil faced a dramatic cri-
sis of governability dominated by general macroeconomic disorder, in which the
Brazilian Congress became a major source of stability and democratic continuity.
Significantly, even as Brazil faced a serious and unpredictable domestic crisis, the
military kept its distance from domestic politics and defended democratic order.

Franco took on the presidency in October 1992, and foreign policy during his
administration (1992–94) emphasized Brazil’s multifaceted international identi-
ties: a continental nation, a global player, and a relevant actor in hemispheric
affairs. The prominent issues on Brazil’s diplomatic agenda included the expan-
sion of MERCOSUR, the formation of a South American Free Trade Area, the
depoliticizing of relations with the United States, and rapprochement with such
major powers as China, India, and Russia.

After Brazil’s monthly inflation rate reached a peak of 40 percent, the Real
Plan was launched in March 1994. The plan was Brazil’s sixth attempt to achieve
economic stabilization, this time under the conduct of finance minister Fernando
Henrique Cardoso. The plan succeeded, and the country rapidly recovered inter-
national credibility. Furthermore, the success of the Real Plan would pave the
way for Cardoso’s victory in the 1994 presidential elections.

“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:56 am

In my list of why the Bolsonaro rise is not the same and actually much worse than the "right-wing populism" arriving in the West -- although it was encouraged and celebrated by most of the leaders of the latter -- I forgot to emphasize perhaps the most obvious and fateful difference.

The conflict in Brazil is much more clearly configured as class war. That may not always be in the confusionist propaganda making Bolsonaro out as a man of the little people, but it's obvious in the voting demographics. In the U.S., the confusionism has succeeded in misrepresenting the 2016 election as some kind of revolt of a disaffected and ignored working class. You will find many (neo)liberal Trump critics making this mistake, pehaps because they can distance themselves from the imagined poor deplorables and deny their own responsibility. The U.S. middle class to rich, at least the majority who voted, were split mostly for Trump, contrary to the image. But education level clear correlates against Trump. Many rich zip codes voted against Trump, and will again despite the fat tax cut.

The same districts, however, are probably where many live who of those outside Brazil applauding the arrival of Bolsonaro because it will be good for the economy and acceptance of the simplistic summary-for-foreigners that the result happened because "PT was corrupt" (less corrupt than the other parties, in fact, but it's a nice mantra to invoke as one supports the latest foreign Hitler since he will be good for markets; I don't know what would possess an RI member to re-post such "analyses" uncritically). World markets are enthralled and it's an absolutely disgusting display they have put on.

The exceptions and complicated picture regarding class are less the case with Brazil and Bolsonaro. It's a straight split between well-off and poor, as dramatic and clear as any example. This doesn't mean poor people didn't vote for guy promising to pepper their neighborhoods with the machine-gun fire of state-employed death squads, because of course some did. Of course large numbers of the better-off voted against Bolsonaro, especially if they belong to the targeted social and racial groups. But taking economic class as a set of cumulative categories, there was a straight split by income. Extreme reaction, clear battle lines, majority counted for the fascist.

(Translation of headline) "Bolsonaro wins in 97% of the [1000] richest cities and Haddad in 98% of the [1000] poorest."

BRAZILIAN FASCISM = CLASS WAR GONE INSANE


https://www.estadao.com.br/infograficos ... pio,935854

Bolsonaro vence em 97% das cidades mais ricas e Haddad em 98% das pobres

Entre os mil municípios com os maiores IDHs do País, Bolsonaro venceu em 967, enquanto Haddad conquistou 33. Já nas mil cidades menos desenvolvidas, Haddad ganhou em 975 e Bolsonaro em 25
Texto: Luiz Fernando Toledo e Cecília do Lago / Dados: Vinicius Sueiro / Infografia: Bruno Ponceano

29 Outubro 2018 | 04h30

Apesar de ter perdido a eleição, o candidato petista Fernando Haddad teve mais votos na maioria dos municípios brasileiros. O petista ganhou em 2.810 cidades, ante 2.760 de Bolsonaro. Ainda assim, a diferença de votos entre eles foi de 10,7 milhões.

Os dados levantados pela reportagem mostram ainda que, quanto menor o Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano (IDH) do município, maior foi a votação em Haddad – e quanto maior, mais votos para Bolsonaro. O indicador mede a qualidade de vida da população com métricas de acesso à educação, longevidade e renda.

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Em São Caetano do Sul (SP), cidade com maior IDH do País, o militar da reserva venceu com 75,1% dos votos. Já o pequeno município de Melgaço (PA), com menos de 10 mil habitantes e o menor IDH do País, deu vitória a Haddad por 75,6% dos votos.

A correlação é semelhante à estabelecida a partir das eleições presidenciais de 2006, quando o candidato petista era Lula e o antipetista era Geraldo Alckmin, do PSDB. A onda Bolsonaro praticamente substituiu o protagonismo do PSDB. Alckmin teve votação abaixo do esperado, mesmo no principal reduto do partido, o Estado de São Paulo.

A cidade de Nova Pádua, no Rio Grande do Sul, deu a maior vitória de Bolsonaro – 93% de seus 1.904 habitantes o escolheram como novo presidente. Guaribas, no Piauí, deu 98% de seus 2.938 votos a Haddad.

DESEQUILÍBRIO
Haddad conquistou mais municípios, porém com menos eleitores
Apesar de ter conquistado maioria em menos municípios, Bolsonaro foi vitorioso em cidades muito mais populosas do que Haddad – como São Paulo, por exemplo, que tem o maior eleitorado no País. Em votos válidos, a diferença de Bolsonaro para Haddad foi de 10,7 milhões de votos.

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Os resultados do segundo turno mostram que o presidente eleito venceu em menos cidades do Nordeste – no primeiro turno ele teve mais votos em 38 de 1.377 municípios da região e no segundo, em 23. Haddad foi o que mais teve votos na região – ele venceu em todos os nove Estados nordestinos. Mas o militar da reserva teve vitória com larga diferença em Estados como São Paulo, Acre e Santa Catarina.

Em São Paulo, Bolsonaro conseguiu vencer com folga – teve 67,97% dos votos, ganhando na grande maioria dos municípios. O governador eleito no Estado, João Doria (PSDB), deixou de lado a figura do presidente de seu partido Geraldo Alckmin, que não decolou na eleição presidencial, e colou no nome do militar da reserva para se alavancar com pedidos de voto “Bolsodoria”. Ele e Márcio França (PSB) vinham polarizando fortemente desde que o socialista ultrapassou Paulo Skaf (MDB) e conseguiu ir ao segundo turno. Doria venceu com 10,9 milhões (51,75%) de votos válidos.

Nos três Estados do Sul, a vitória de Bolsonaro foi ainda mais expressiva. No Rio Grande do Sul, ele teve 63,24% dos votos válidos, ante 36,76% de Haddad. No Paraná, Bolsonaro ficou com 68,43% dos válidos, ante 31,57% de Haddad. Mas o Estado que mais deu votos para o presidente eleito na região foi Santa Catarina, com 75,92% dos válidos, contra 24,08% de Fernando Haddad.

Mudança. Alguns municípios mudaram de lado entre um turno e outro. Bolsonaro conseguiu converter 25 municípios de Fernando Haddad, seis deles em São Paulo, mas a resposta do petista foi maior. Haddad “virou” a disputa em 120 municípios onde o capitão reformado tinha sido o vencedor no primeiro turno, sendo que 41 deles estão em Minas Gerais, 19 em Goiás e 17 no Rio Grande do Sul.

Além disso, Haddad herdou a vitória em todos os 103 municípios em que Ciro Gomes (PDT) tinha obtido maior parte dos votos, todos na região Nordeste do País. No Estado do Ceará, que é reduto político de Ciro, o petista teve um de seus melhores desempenhos no Brasil e ficou com 71% dos votos válidos.

Essa transferência de votos de Ciro para Haddad já era prevista na série de pesquisas Estado/Ibope/TV Globo divulgadas durante o segundo turno, a partir do dia 15 de outubro, mesmo com o pedetista não declarando apoio formal a Haddad. O ex-governador do Ceará teve 13,3 milhões de votos no primeiro turno (12,47%) e ficou em terceiro lugar na disputa.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Nov 04, 2018 5:29 pm

Hmm, kind of missed this one.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41353

Should we merge? I don't know.

I'd like it to be called something simpler, like Bolsonaro Thread.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby Elvis » Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:39 pm

I can merge them, as I mention in conniption's other one you linked. Much less work than moving individual posts.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby liminalOyster » Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:45 pm

JAIR BOLSONARO IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL. READ HIS EXTREMIST, FAR-RIGHT POSITIONS IN HIS OWN WORDS.
Andrew Fishman
October 28 2018, 6:20 p.m.

JAIR BOLSONARO WAS elected president of Brazil on Sunday evening. The far-right candidate received more than 55 percent of valid votes. His opponent, Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party, received less than 45 percent. In a country with compulsory voting, almost 29 percent of adults preferred to annul or not cast their ballot.

Across Brazil, city streets echoed with fireworks, shouts, and car horns as preliminary election results came in. Thousands of supporters, many dressed in green and yellow, assembled outside the president-elect’s beach-front residence in Rio de Janeiro. On São Paulo’s main street, Avenida Paulista, police used tear gas to separate Haddad and Bolsonaro voters.

Bolsonaro, who has taken aim at the media throughout his campaign, chose to make his first statement after the election via Facebook Live, rather than a press conference. “We could not continue to flirt with socialism, communism, populism, and the extremism of the left,” he said. The broadcast was picked up by major TV networks, but repeatedly froze due to connection issues. “All of the promises made to political groups and the people will be kept,” he added.

Soon after, he stepped outside, made a brief statement to the media, and asked a key supporter, Sen. Magno Malta, to lead the group in prayer. He then read a prepared statement and took questions from a representative of the press.

The Workers’ Party originally ran former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as their candidate, and he was the clear favorite in the polls. However, they were forced to swap him out at the last minute for Haddad, a former mayor of São Paulo who had failed to win re-election in 2016, after Lula was sent to prison on a questionable corruption conviction, and it became clear that higher courts would not overturn the sentence. Hindered by a late start and the lack of a national profile, Haddad struggled to gain name recognition and failed to distance himself from public perceptions that linked his party to corruption and the status quo. Nonetheless, with the strong base of the Workers’ Party and the message, “Haddad is Lula,” the 55-year-old academic was able to scrape his way through the first round of elections on October 7, taking 29 percent of the vote in a 13-way contest.

This year’s elections were particularly fraught, marked by dramatic polarization, political violence, and massive disinformation campaigns on social media, in a country that has been roiled by years of social, economic, and political crises. Since 2013, millions of people of all political stripes have repeatedly taken to the streets in protest; Brazil has struggled to climb out of the worst recession in history; massive corruption scandals have destabilized political institutions and major economic players; former President Dilma Rousseff (also from the Workers’ Party) was impeached on dubious grounds; her successor, President Michel Temer (the most despised leader in Brazil’s democratic history), has pushed through a series of unpopular austerity measures; and Lula was jailed, a process that has exposed the judiciary to relentless criticism for perceived partisanship.

Supporters of far-right lawmaker and presidential candidate for the Social Liberal Party (PSL), Jair Bolsonaro, parade a fake coffin representing the Worker's Party (PT), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the second round of the presidential elections, on October 28, 2018. - Brazilians will choose their president today during the second round of the national elections between the far-right firebrand Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad (Photo by Carl DE SOUZA / AFP) (Photo credit should read CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images) Bolsonaro supporters parade a fake coffin representing the Workers’ Party, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the second round of the presidential elections, on Oct. 28, 2018. Photo: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
In short, every major political institution has been increasingly discredited as Brazil has spiraled deeper and deeper into a dark void. And from the abyss emerged a former army captain and six-term congressman from Rio de Janeiro, Jair Bolsonaro, with the slogan “Brazil above everything, God above everyone,” and promises to fix everything with hard-line tactics.

Seven years ago, Bolsonaro was a punchline for the political humor program CQC, where he’d make outrageous statements. A former presenter, Monica Iozzi, said they interviewed him multiple times “so people could see the very low level of the representatives we were electing.” Now, it’s Bolsonaro who is laughing, and Iozzi says she regrets giving him airtime. Riding the wave of public discontent, Bolsonaro campaigned against the Workers’ Party, corruption, politicians, crime, “cultural Marxism,” communists, leftists, secularism, and “privileges” for historically marginalized groups. Instead, he favored “traditional family values,” “patriotism,” nationalism, the military, a Christian nation, guns, increased police violence, and neoliberal economics that he promises will revitalize the economy. Despite his actual political platform being short on specific proposals, the energy around his candidacy was enough to win the presidency and turn his previously insignificant Social Liberal Party into the second-largest bloc in Congress.

But what has frightened his opponents, many international observers, and even some fervent Workers’ Party critics, are Bolsonaro’s repeated declarations in favor of Brazil’s military dictatorship, torture, extrajudicial police killings, and violence against LGBTQ people, Afro-Brazilians, women, indigenous people, minorities, and political opponents, as well as his opposition to democratic norms and values.

Here is Brazil’s next president in his own words over the years. In the coming months, Brazil and the world will discover if Bolsonaro will make good on these drastic promises when he takes office on January 1, 2019:



“I am in favor of a dictatorship, a regime of exception.”

– Open session of the Câmara dos Deputados, 1993



Interviewer: If you were the president of the Republic today, would you close the National Congress?

“There’s no doubt about it. I’d do a coup on the same day! It [the Congress] doesn’t work! And I’m sure at least 90 percent of the population would throw a party, would applaud, because it does not work. Congress today is good for nothing, brother, it just votes for what the president wants. If he is the person who decides, who rules, who trumps the Congress, then let’s have a coup quickly, go straight to a dictatorship.”

– Câmara Aberta TV program, May 23, 1999



“The pau-de-arara [a torture technique] works. I’m in favor of torture, you know that. And the people are in favor as well.”

– Câmara Aberta TV program, May 23, 1999



“Through the vote, you will not change anything in this country, nothing, absolutely nothing! It will only change, unfortunately, when, one day, we start a civil war here and do the work that the military regime did not do. Killing some 30,000, starting with FHC [then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso], not kicking them out, killing! If some innocent people are going to die, fine, in any war, innocents die.”

– Câmara Aberta TV program, May 23, 1999



“I will not fight nor discriminate, but if I see two men kissing in the street, I’ll hit them.”

– Folha de São Paulo newspaper, May 19, 2002



“I’m a rapist now. I would never rape you, because you do not deserve it … slut!”

– Rede TV, speaking to Congresswoman Maria do Rosário, November 11, 2003

Right-wing federal deputy and presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, gives a thumbs up to supporters during a rally at Afonso Pena airport in Curitiba, Brazil on March 28, 2018. Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly praised Brazil's two-decade-long military dictatorship, taunted Lula, calling him a "bandit," and challenging him in Curitiba to see "who can get the most people out on to the streets without paying them." / AFP PHOTO / Heuler Andrey (Photo credit should read HEULER ANDREY/AFP/Getty Images) Jair Bolsonaro gives his signature finger-gun salute to supporters during a rally in Curitiba, Brazil on March 28, 2018. Photo: Hueler Andrey/AFP/Getty Images
“I would be incapable of loving a homosexual child. I’m not going to act like a hypocrite here: I’d rather have my son die in an accident than show up with some mustachioed guy. For me, he would have died.

“If your son starts acting a little gay, hit him with some leather, and he’ll change his behavior.”

– Participação Popular, TV Câmara, October 17, 2010



Preta Gil, actress and singer: If your son fell in love with a black woman, what would you do?

“Oh, Preta, I’m not going to discuss promiscuity with whoever it is. I do not run this risk and my children were very well raised and did not live in the type of environment that, unfortunately, you do.”

– CQC, TV Bandeirantes, March 28, 2011



“If a homosexual couple comes to live next to me, it will devalue my home! If they walk around holding hands and kissing, that devalues it.”

– Playboy Magazine, June 7, 2011



Interviewer: Are you proud of the story of Hitler’s life?

“No, pride, I don’t have, right?”

Interviewer: Do you like him?

“No. What you have to understand is the following: War is war. He was a great strategist.”

– CQC, TV Bandeirantes, March 26, 2012



Interviewer: Have you ever hit a woman before?

“Yes. I was a boy in Eldorado, a girl was getting in my face …”

Interviewer: Put her against the wall, a few taps? Pah!

“No, well, no … [laughs] I’m married. My wife isn’t going to like this response.”

– CQC, TV Bandeirantes, March 26, 2012



“[Homosexuals] will not find peace. And I have [congressional] immunity to say that I’m homophobic, yes, and very proud of it if it is to defend children in schools.”

– TWTV, June 5, 2013

Brazilian congressman and presidential canditate for the next election, Jair Bolsonaro (L), takes pictures with militaries during an military event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 3, 2018. (Photo by Nelson ALMEIDA / AFP) (Photo credit should read NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images) Jair Bolsonaro takes pictures with soldiers during a military event in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 3, 2018. Photo: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images
“I would not employ [a woman] with the same salary [of a man]. But there are many women who are competent.”

– SuperPop, RedeTV!, February 15, 2016



“Beyond Brazil above all, since we are a Christian country, God above everyone! It is not this story, this little story of secular state. It is a Christian state, and if a minority is against it, then move! Let’s make a Brazil for the majorities. Minorities have to bow to the majorities! The law must exist to defend the majorities. Minorities must fit in or simply disappear!”

– Event in Campina Grande, Paraíba, February 8, 2017



“Violence is combated with violence.”

– The Noite with Danilo Gentili, SBT, March 20, 2017



“I went with my three sons. Oh, the other one went too, there were four. I have a fifth also. I had four men and on the fifth, I had a moment of weakness and a woman came out.”

– Speech at the Hebraica Club, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017

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“If I [become president], there won’t be any money for NGOs. These worthless [people] will have to work. If I get there, as far as I’m concerned, every citizen will have a firearm in their home. You will not have a centimeter demarcated for indigenous reserves or quilombolas [settlements of the descendants of escaped and freed slaves that have protected status].”

– Speech at the Hebraica Club, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017



“Has anyone ever seen a Japanese begging for charity? Because it’s a race that has shame. It’s not like this race that’s down there, or like a minority ruminating here on the side.”

– Speech at the Hebraica Club, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017



“The big problem in Brazil is that the government is at the jugular of businessmen. … The worker will have to decide: less rights and employment or all the rights and unemployment.”

– Event in Deerfield Beach, FL , October 8, 2017



“I’ll give carte blanche for the police to kill.”

– Event in Deerfield Beach, FL, October 8, 2017



“Since I was single at the time, I used the money from my [congressional] housing stipend to get laid.”

– TV Folha, January 11, 2018



“This group, if they want to stay here, will have to put itself under the law of all of us. Leave or go to jail. These red marginals will be banished from our homeland.”

– Live video address to a rally in São Paulo, October 21, 2018



“You will not have any more NGOs to quench your leftist hunger. It will be a cleansing never before seen in the history of Brazil.”

– Live video address to a rally in São Paulo, October 21, 2018




“You will see a proud Armed Forces which will be collaborating with the future of Brazil. You, petralhada [a derogatory term for Workers’ Party supporters] will see a civilian and military police with a judicial rearguard to enforce the law on your backs.”

– Live video address to a rally in São Paulo, October 21, 2018

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/28/jai ... nt-brazil/
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby American Dream » Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:40 am

Ivysyn's blog

How Pink Tide Failed Brazil

Image

How the failure of the leftist Pink Tide movement lead to the right's victory in Brazil.

Brazil’s runoff election has been won by the right wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro. Among Bolsonaro’s less than savory traits are colossal misogyny, and nostalgia for Brazil’s military dictatorship. This is naturally a dark time for Brazil’s working class and oppressed people. Regardless, Bolsonaro did not fall from the sky. His victory was the direct result of the failure of the so called “Pink Tide” in Latin America.

At the turn of the 20th century Latin American social movements in resistance to neoliberal policies of exploitation lead to the election of left-wing officials and governments. This has been called “Pink Tide”. From Pink Tide came significant left-wing governments on the continent such as that of Correa in Ecuador, Morales in Bolivia, and Chavez to Maduro in Venezuela. These new leftist regimes were suppose to be popular governments that actively resisted neoliberalism. They were suppose to create economically self-sufficient nations. If the goals of Pink Tide governments were met at all, it was only in very limited ways.

The fundamental problem with Pink Tide was two-fold. Firstly the popular energy of Pink Tide was transformed into state power. Prominent figures in social movements were absorbed into the state bureaucracy and the state, as it always is, was constituted as a sovereign power completely uncountable to popular demands. Secondly, and most obviously, capitalism was left in tact. Effectively Pink Tide tried to resist the pressures of the global capitalist economy through a national capitalism controlled by left-wing governments. This plan did not account for the fact that capitalism can not be channeled by leftists for their aims. Capitalism only cares about the maximization of profit which is only accomplished through the exploitation of labor and the environment.

Pink Tide amounted to nothing more than another leftist attempt at managing capital and the state. The problem with such attempts as can be seen in so called “Nordic Social Democracies” and Stalinist regimes is that they are attempting to manage the very foundation of modern people’s misery. Rather than overthrowing the systems of domination that keep the working class subordinated to the capitalist class, these leftists become participants in them. In Pink Tide’s case this meant the continuation of the extraction of natural resources such as oil for the world market, often against the will of indigenous people. Fundamentally, it also inherently meant the continued exploitation of the working class. In order for capitalists to make profit they need a workforce that can only survive on the wages they get in exchange for producing commodities for the capitalists. This is the backbone, not only of every national capitalist economy, but the global capitalist economy as a whole.

Capitalism is also prone to periodic crises because of the instability of it as an economic system based on the fluctuations of the market. Thus the recent global economic crises hit the Pink Tide countries just as it hit the rest of the world. The fact that Pink Tide regimes continued to be capitalist governments based on the exploitation and thereby misery of the masses meant workers often became fed up and turned to the political right. In the case of Brazil the country has elected left-wing presidents for the past 20 years. Former president Dilma Rousseff was impeached as a result of a corruption scandal and her still popular predecessor “Lula” is serving a twelve year sentence on corruption charges.

The fact is that Bolsonaro is promising law and order and shake up of the Brazilian government in a time of crises where even the left-wing Pink Tide has failed to create an alternative to the miserable capitalist world we all live in based on oppression and exploitation. Of coarse the Pink Tide is not directly responsible for Brazil’s turn to the right. Despite this the unavoidable truth is that the failure of Pink Tide to deliver real change gave the political right an opening in Brazil to mobilize on the basis of popular frustration. Since left-wing capitalism got us into the mess of right-wing capitalism the only way out is capitalism’s abolition. Since the poverty of left-wing politicians has delivered the predictably regressive Bolsonaro government the solution is not to simply replace Bolsonaro with a leftist when his term is up.

There is no way to utilize the capitalist state for the goals of fundamental social change. The state is in fact THE coercive mechanism for the maintenance of the status quo. The state and every politician from Bolsonaro to Maduro must go along with the capitalist mode of production. This requires an international movement of the working class and oppressed people, independent of all political parties and state influence, carried out through self-managed organizations, for the transformation of society along the lines of common ownership of production, meeting human needs, harmony with the natural environment, and directly democratic management of society without coercive political mechanisms.


Bibliography:

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18037530 ... -elections

What Happened To Pink Tide?, Kyla Sankey:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/pink ... socialism/

The State: It’s Historic Role, Peter Kropotkin

Capital Volume 1, Karl Marx
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby DrEvil » Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:05 am

^^That has to be some of the most mind-numbingly stupid and simplistic horseshit you've posted in a while. Just.. wow.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby American Dream » Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:15 am

Thank you for your cogent and erudite critique.

DrEvil » Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:05 am wrote:^^That has to be some of the most mind-numbingly stupid and simplistic horseshit you've posted in a while. Just.. wow.
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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Nov 06, 2018 1:13 pm

.

What's to be said constructively about your latest copy-paste effort, dude? There is a valid critique of the PT and Pink Tide there for its genuine failings of accommodation to the system and lack of militancy. But to present PT's failures as the reason for Bolsonaro winning is active disinformation. Such an analysis can also be found in the Wall Street Journal.

Dilma was ousted in an illegitimate legislative coup comparable to the one that threw out Zelaya. The "charges" had nothing to do with Carwash or any corruption allegations, and anyone who suggests this is allying with the right-wing liars who ousted her. Lula was locked up on totally invented bullshit, and was gagged so that he could not speak an endorsement. Again, your author repeats the big lies about Dilma and Lula, at which point any valid analysis or anarchist cred becomes superfluous, or rather, akin to the traditionally left-liberal cover for CIA disinformation. After the anti-PT coup, Temer implemented accelerated austerity. That has been the incumbent government for two years: not PT! The oligarch-owned media carpet-bombed the country with lies about PT and support for Bolsonaro.

Any analysis that leaves out the most important facts is de facto assisting the coup. Again, the motives of your miscreant fake-left author are superfluous. Misinformed and stupid are not an excuse. If you don't know the basics, STFU.

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Re: Fascism Crisis in Brazil, 2018-?

Postby liminalOyster » Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:32 pm

Blaming Morales and Correa for Bolsonaro is pretty revolting.
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