In late April, Petrobras approved the sale of eight refineries as part of its divestment plan. In May, the energy firm struck a deal with the Brazilian antitrust regulator that will allow it to sell those downstream assets in a bid, the company said, to encourage greater competition in the industry....Oilprice
Lula detailed the current “terrible conditions” for Brazilian workers. He ripped to pieces the economic program – basically a monster sell-out – of Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy and Pinochetist who’s applying the same failed hardcore neoliberal prescriptions now being denounced and scorned every day in the streets of Chile.
He detailed how the Brazilian right wing openly bet on neo-fascism, which is the form that neoliberalism recently took in Brazil. He blasted mainstream media, in the form of the so far all-powerful, ultra-reactionary Globo empire. In a stance of semiotic genius, Lula pointed to Globo’s helicopter hovering over the masses gathered for the speech, implying the organization is too cowardly to get close to him on ground level.
And, significantly, he got right into the heart of the Bolsonaro question: the militias. It’s no secret to informed Brazilians that the Bolsonaro clan, with its origins in the Veneto, is behaving as a sort of cheap, crude, eschatological carbon copy of the Sopranos, running a system heavy on militias and supported by the Brazilian military. Lula described the president of one of the top nations in the Global South as no less than a militia leader. That will stick – all around the world.
So much for “Lula peace and love,” which used to be one of his cherished mottos. No more conciliation. Bolsonaro now has to face real, fierce, solid opposition, and cannot run away from public debate any more....
The question is how [Lula] will be able to muster the organizational work, the method – and have enough time to change the dire conditions for democratic opposition in Brazil. The whole Global South is watching....
At least now the die is cast – and crystal clear: It’s social democracy against neo-fascism....Asia Times
Beijing could be forever tarnished if it does ‘dirty business’ with the Bolsonaro government in BrazilAsia Times
The ascendence of China and multilateral trading blocks could eventually spell the doom of the G20 and U.S. global dominance, as Pepe Escobar explains.
[Jair Bolsonaro's] first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age.Pepe Escobar is Brazilian.
French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as “pathological politics on a large scale”.
His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers’ Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a “justice” system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded “training” of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes.
That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a “free market” agenda, all his sins are forgiven....
Stripped to its essence, the Brazilian presidential elections represent a direct clash between democracy and an early 21stCentury neofascism, indeed between civilization and barbarism, writes Pepe Escobar.I would say that the future of Western democracy is being played out in the US and UK, and it doens't look like a bright one.
For the first time in decades, the threat of a military dictatorship is surfacing. No responsible journalism should ignore this threat, nor legitimize the extremism that strengthens it. And anyone who cares about democracy in Brazil would have to support Bolsonaro’s opponent in the second round of the election.Consortium News
According to Brazilian law if you have a conviction underway, that appeal process underway, you can't run for office. But if you're already in jail you can run for office. So Lula has announced that he is going to declare his candidacy anyway. And it's not unprecedented for political prisoners to win elections....TRNN
Indigenous communities in Brazil have scored a major victory, as the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in their favor in a conflict over the Xingu Indigenous Park, in the state of Mato Grosso, and the Indigenous reserves of Nambikwara and Parecis.teleSURtv.net
The question then is how much of the push to limits to the power of the legislative assembly dominated by the opposition, and how much of the political repression (including the treatment of opposition leaders, but also the police violence) results from the very violent and anti-democratic push from the opposition itself, that has tried to bring down the government since the very beginning (including a failed coup attempt in 2002). And this is also a valid concern that many (almost all the mainstream media) on the left seem to forget. I can’t honestly respond. But I can provide a perspective, based on my understanding of the Argentine and Brazilian cases that are closer to my experience.Naked Keynesianism
Prof. George Ciccariello-Maher of Drexel University analyzes the latest developments in Venezuela, including a new UN human rights report, US sanctions, and the begrudging admission by President Maduro's foes that he still has popular support
Just imagine the most extreme, primitive cartoon version of a gleefully hypocritical moralizer – a preacher who leaves his weekly whorehouse orgy to go directly to Sunday church to rail against hell-bound sinners – and you’ll have a perfect vision of the majority faction that sanctimoniously paraded itself that day. The slime that oozes from their pores is palpable....
