Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
American Dream » Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:56 pm wrote:This does not mean a wholesale slam on all those social experiments
liminalOyster » Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:58 pm wrote:American Dream » Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:56 pm wrote:This does not mean a wholesale slam on all those social experiments
Maybe not "wholesale" but enough to suggest a pattern, IMO: PT, Rojava, most consciousness communities, etc. I don't get it, frankly.
JackRiddler wrote: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.
American Dream wrote:What is the pattern you are suggesting exists?
American Dream » Tue Nov 06, 2018 5:15 pm wrote: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.
JackRiddler wrote:Why in the name of leftier-than-thou politics you have spent a decade flooding the board with a non-stop copy-paste deluge of lame-ass pseudo-anarchist propaganda defaming every effective leftist resistance to imperialism and hypercapitalism on the planet. Obviously. Like most everyone else here, liminal (and Elvis on the cross-post) has had it with your bullshit. So have I, although very often I found myself in agreement with you on many issues, and didn't mind your archival efforts. But the consistency of your crusade, no matter the issue or the place, has been tiring, and this latest round is the last straw, at least for me.
American Dream » Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:31 pm wrote:The tendency to want a general consensus, or at least something veering in that direction, is very strong indeed. People with marginalized beliefs often have a hard time with divergent thought in their ideological home terrain and so may tend towards dark insinuations, which in no way are helpful.
American Dream wrote:People with marginalized beliefs often have a hard time with divergent thought in their ideological home terrain and so may tend towards dark insinuations, which in no way are helpful.
Students in São Paulo debating resistance to Bolsonaro after the election.
(Pic: Margarida Salomão on Twitter)
The Lesson of Brazil
By Pierre Beaudet
The catastrophe — expected and foreseeable — has happened. This immense country, with its 200 million inhabitants, is now in darkness. At best, it will take a decade or two to emerge.
The ‘Colombian model’
It is of course very early to predict what will happen, but the election of the fascist Bolsonaro raises two possibilities. The “optimists,” if one can put it that way, think that a kind of Colombian-style regime will emerge: authoritarian, militarized, using targeted repression against certain sectors of the popular movement with the consent if not support of a vast sector of the middle and popular classes. In Colombia, under Álvaro Uribe’s rule, the state was reinforced and restabilized, benefiting from the militarist excesses of the FARC. Today, Colombia emerges as a small regional power with a façade of democracy, a fragmented opposition, and a solid alliance between the various reactionary factions, not to mention the unfailing support of the United States. In that country they assassinate, kidnap, destroy the opposition, but they leave it a small place in a well-organized system that rules out any change. Has history come to an end in Colombia? Of course not, it never does. Also, Brazil is not Colombia. The popular movement did not become militarized. It still enjoys broad electoral support (45% of the votes), foundations in the institutions, states (provinces) and municipalities. All that cannot be destroyed overnight. However…
The pessimistic scenario
Bolsonaro expresses the hope of sectors that are truly fascist, not only authoritarian. The president-elect said it himself, he wants to “exterminate” the left. Which could mean several things, such as a “purge” of the public service, education and the cultural milieu, as the Turkish dictator has done in his own way. But there is worse yet. In the Brazilian case it will be necessary to break vast popular movements, including in the first place the powerful landless peasants movement, the MST. For three decades this movement has sunk roots in various rural sectors, with an organized network of establishments, cooperatives and institutions. Although not obtaining the agrarian reform it sought from its allies in the Workers Party (PT), the MST has established itself in some regions as a mini “state within the state,” with hundreds of thousands of members. Bolsonaro has said he will “clean them up” with the support of the powerful agrobusiness sector, local notables and popular sectors fueled by junk media and the evangelical churches. The MST, which fortunately has never toyed with the militarist option, will have a hard time withstanding the shock, unless other popular sectors join with it to build a sort of anti-fascist front. For the moment, that’s unlikely. The trade-union movement, including the CUT, which gave birth to the PT, is virtually paralyzed, in large part by the frontal assault on the workers in recent years and the impact of “globalization.” Reorienting toward primary resource extraction and agrobusiness, Brazilian capitalism concluded that a working class organized in industry and public services was due for slaughter.
The next challenges of the fascist project
There are still many unknowns in the equation. Urban popular sectors are not, at least in the short term, in a position to mobilize, partly because of the dense network of evangelicals. The PT has for several years lost ground in the favelas. The “middle” layers, including a large petty-bourgeoisie that is relatively comfortable in the state apparatus, education and the media, are neutralized. The big bourgeoisie, initially rather hostile to Bolsonaro, is ready to “play the game,” especially if the new president will undertake the dismantling of the social sector of the state, which will mean lower taxes (which are already very low). In Europe, at the turn of the 1930s, the dominant sectors in Germany and elsewhere lined up behind the fascists, albeit with some reluctance. The popular movements and unions, well organized and implanted, were not in a position to resist. Admittedly, Brazil and today’s world are not Germany and the traumatized Europe of the 1930s. One of Bolsonaro’s challenges will be to prove to the ruling classes that he actually can govern, which means consolidating and worsening neoliberal policies in line with the interests of the big bourgeoisie and imperialism. On the other hand, managing his repressive policy by avoiding “excesses” (too many massacres, too much racism and homophobia), while putting in place a very repressive system. It is easier said than done.
The shock
At this point, everyone is in shock. The natural reflex is to point to the dreadful manipulation of the right, through the use of the media, elite corruption and repression. That’s completely true. The election campaign that just ended illustrates the tremendous slippage of the current liberal democracies, and not only in Brazil (think of the United States). There is a strong tendency to turn politics into a huge show where anything can be said. One might have thought, however, that the left, the PT and the popular movements should have seen it coming. The victory of a fascist comes two years after President Dilma Roussef was overthrown in a “constitutional” coup, the logical and natural consequence of which was Lula’s imprisonment. Even before that, in 2013, the right had taken the initiative by organizing real mass movements in the street to confront the inanities of the PT government, unable to tame the repression and reorient the country to the needs of the people instead of mounting megalomaniac projects (the Olympics, among others). With various media, police and judicial operations, the PT apparatus found itself in hot water. These episodes, events, scandals and other phenomena have of course been reflected in and mobilized by a highly-organized Right in Brazil, deeply embedded in the state apparatus, “armed” by a vast coterie of “service” intellectuals and firmly seated in a racist and reactionary culture that is the legacy of 500 years of social apartheid and slavery.
Dark spots of the left
That being said, it is necessary to look elsewhere. A product of the great workers and democratic struggles of the 1980s, the PT emerged from oblivion with a project of emancipation that boasted some new features. The need to “democratize the democracy” and redistribute wealth to the popular sectors resulted in a broadly attractive and arguably hegemonic project. This kind of “not so quiet revolution” seemed an ideal way to change this country without too many clashes and grinding of teeth. Once elected in 2012 after a decade of slow and partial victories, the PT enjoyed a state of grace, spurred by an economic boom propelled by rising resource prices. This giant country of agrobusiness and mining and petroleum industries amassed a lot of money, and this allowed Lula and his government to redistribute part of the wealth without harming the interests of the better-off sectors. They were never supporters of the PT but they could tolerate it with the thought that the new governance had the effect of pacifying popular demands and moderating more radical sectors. For example, PT governments continued to refuse the major demand of the MST to implement an extensive agrarian reform, thereby reinforcing the power of agrobusiness, the most dynamic sector of Brazilian capitalism. The same thing can be said for the political system.
Shortly after Lula’s election, some dissident sectors had dared to take their distance by insisting that no real change could occur in Brazil without a ruthless fight against a thoroughly rotten political system. Elected officials at all levels, civil servants, members of the judiciary and the repressive apparatus were gangrened by perverted manipulative practices and a corresponding ideology in which the supreme principle is personal profit, anchored in a deep hatred of the people. Lula and the PT leadership simply chose to live with this system.
seemslikeadream » Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:50 pm wrote:Cuba to pull thousands of doctors from Brazil in Bolsonaro row: official
Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to make changes to a program that pays Cuba for the services of thousands of doctors working in deprived parts of the South American giant (AFP Photo/Sergio LIMA)
1 / 2
Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to make changes to a program that pays Cuba for the services of thousands of doctors working in deprived parts of the South American giant
Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to make changes to a program that pays Cuba for the services of thousands of doctors working in deprived parts of the South American giant (AFP Photo/Sergio LIMA)
Havana (AFP) - Cuba announced Wednesday it will pull thousands of its doctors out of Brazil in response to President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's "direct, contemptuous and threatening" remarks about its medical aid program.
The far-right leader repeatedly criticized the Communist-run island's "More Doctors" program -- which sends thousands of Cuban doctors to work in deprived areas of Brazil -- and said his government would introduce changes.
"In the light of this unfortunate reality, the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba has decided to discontinue its participation," a statement released by the ministry said.
Bolsonaro has been scathing about Cuba's program saying the doctors received only a quarter of what Brazil was paying the Cuban government for their services. He said his government would individually hire doctors who wanted to remain in the country.
The Cuban health ministry said Bolsonaro had "questioned the qualification of our doctors and has conditioned their permanence in the program to a process of validation" of their qualifications.
The program has been underway since August 2013, and since then nearly 20,000 Cuban doctors have treated 113.5 million Brazilians, according to the ministry.
In the strongly worded statement, Cuba said the conditions being imposed by Bolsonaro -- who takes office on January 1 -- were "unacceptable."
It blasted Bolsonaro's "decision to bring into question the dignity, professionalism and altruism of Cuban cooperation workers" who it said were currently serving in 67 countries.
The Brazilian people "recognized their virtues," the health ministry said, and knew who should be "held responsible for our doctors not being able to continue offering their fraternal contribution in that country."
Cuba's "white-coat diplomacy" was begun under Fidel Castro after the 1959 revolution, and has grown to become the island's main source of foreign earnings, estimated at about $11 billion a year.
Cuban media reported this week that Havana is sending 500 more doctors to crisis-wracked Venezuela.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cuba-pull-th ... 45035.html
JackRiddler » Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:40 am wrote:.
This has been the news in Brazil for weeks, obscured from us by all the other noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4edeJiqY41E
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/24/vid ... ee-brazil/A DRAMATIC, MULTI-LEVEL, and increasingly dark scandal has been engulfing the Brazilian presidency of Jair Bolsonaro for the last month. It began just weeks after his stunning November victory but before he was inaugurated on January 1, and has completely paralyzed his presidency ever since. Just this week in Davos, where Brazil planned to unveil its new face to foreign capital, Bolsonaro and his top ministers left a long-scheduled press conference empty to avoid answering questions about any of this, causing empty chairs abandoned by fear — rather than vibrant, investor-friendly policies — to be the face of the new government.
Folha de S.Paulo ✔ @folha
Bolsonaro cancela entrevista em Davos e culpa comportamento da imprensa ----> https://bit.ly/2T9adul #folha #Bolsonaro
4,525 5:02 PM - Jan 23, 2019
The scandal most centrally involves Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio, who has long been a state deputy from Rio de Janeiro, but was just elected to the Federal Senate with a massive vote total in the last election. The scandal began with the discovery of highly suspicious payments into and out of the account of Flávio’s driver, a former police officer and long-time friend of the president’s.
Each new discovery has escalated the scandal’s seriousness: One unexplained deposit was found going into the account of Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle; both the driver and Flávio himself began using highly suspicious maneuvers to try to stymie the investigation; the amounts of the suspicious transfers began rapidly increasing to US$2 million; and then deposits were found going into Flávio’s accounts in small increments of multiple deposits in rapid succession: at times up to 10 cash deposits made within three minutes, the hallmark of money laundering and evading banking regulations.
But two recent events have converted what looked to be a classic scandal of money laundering and kickbacks into something much more ominous and terrifying. Earlier this week, Rio de Janeiro police arrested five members of Brazil’s most dangerous militia, one linked to the 2018 assassination of City Council Member Marielle Franco of the left-wing PSOL party. As it turned out, Flávio Bolsonaro formally praised two of the leading members of that militia; gave an award to the militia’s chief; and, most astonishingly of all, kept the mother and the daughter of the militia chief on his payroll for the last 10 years. That the Bolsonaro family has been discovered to have such close and intimate ties with militias, including the one involved in Franco’s brutal assassination, stunned the country.
Then, on Thursday, Brazil’s only LGBT member of Congress, the longtime leftist critic of Bolsonaro, Jean Wyllys, who just won a third term in the November election, announced that he has fled the country and will not assume his office due to serious threats to his life. In explaining why he fears for his life, Wyllys specifically cited these new revelations that the Bolsonaro family is linked to the militia blamed for the death of Franco, who was in the same party as Wyllys (my husband, David Miranda, is a Rio de Janeiro city council member in that same party and, as the alternate behind Wyllys, will now assume Wyllys’s seat in Congress, becoming the only LGBT member of the lower house).
Prior to Wyllys’s stunning announcement, we began work on a short video documenting the key facts of this genuinely shocking scandal that has paralyzed the Bolsonaro presidency before it could even begin and, today, drove the country’s only LGBT Congress member not only from office, but from the country. Watch:
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 43 guests