Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 2 - 15.11.2018

Today's Topics:

   1.  cgt.org.es: The doctrine of shock and the Brazilian crisis
      (ca, it) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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The following article is sent by Eduardo Cunha, a colleague from the Brazilian region, 
where he contextualizes the rise of the extreme right, making a general context of the 
mobilizations in that country since 2013 until the presidential election that can emerge 
victorious military Jair Bolsonaro. The analysis from an anarchist perspective, where 
explains how the Social Democracy, and the Workers Party raised a crow that will quickly 
tear their eyes. ---- This text will appear in the next issue of our Revista Rebeldías. It 
was written in June 2018. Due to the context that Brazil is going through, we thought it 
would be appropriate to publish it as soon as possible so that it could contribute to 
debates and discussions. You can check its original version in Medium

In the first half of June 2013, large protests took to the streets of the main Brazilian 
cities. Inspired by the wave of international movements such as Occupy , Primavera Árabe 
and 15M , they have brought novelties for the repertoire of social movements in the 
country. They were the first mass demonstrations mobilized through social networks, with a 
non-partisan character centered on their demands, namely the revocation of the increase in 
public transport fares. The conquest of the claim served as proof of the success of the 
strategy, fueling the hopes of the convergence of the new cycle of social struggles in an 
autonomous pole of the Lula sphere of influence.

"In spite of the clear ideological differences between the agents, the three episodes, 
inserted in a short interval of six months, demonstrate the political persecution of the 
whole field of the left, from anarchism to social democracy."
After five years of the 2013 demonstrations, little is subtracted from that optimistic 
forecast. The turn of events is synthesized in three episodes that took place between the 
end of last year and the first months of 2018: in November 2017, the invasion of the 
headquarters of the FAG ("Federação Anarquista Gaúcha") ¹ , with the seizure of books of 
the library as criminal evidence;

Material 'anarchist' raided by the police. Porto Alegre October 2017
the execution of the councilor of Rio de Janeiro, Marielle Franco, after denouncing the 
actions of paramilitary forces in the city, in March 2018; and, in April, the prison of 
former president Lula da Silva, in an accelerated judicial procedure and with fragile 
evidence. Despite the clear ideological differences between the agents, the three 
episodes, inserted in a short interval of six months, demonstrate the political 
persecution of the whole field of the left, from anarchism to social democracy. If in 2013 
there was the possibility of the renewal of social struggles, in 2018 we are facing an 
evident context of criminalization, anchored in an increasingly conservative public 
opinion driven by the radicalization of the right. To understand that picture, it is 
necessary to look again for what happened in the last five years.

Note of Rebellions:  ¹ To know more about the raids and the subsequent cancellation of the 
Anarchist Book Fair of Porto Alegre, see the communiqué of the comrades, and note from the 
bourgeois press . Response of the FAG ( SEE )

The effects of a great defeat
"The protests grew exponentially, with more than 1,000,000 people on the streets, but 
their initial motivations were lost."
In the first place, we return to the June 2013 Conference . To affirm that the 
demonstrations encouraged the sectors of the autonomous left with the hope of a new path 
for social struggles is a half truth. While the first days there was a clear political 
content of the left with a pattern that questioned the interests of companies in the 
conduct of public transport policies, there was also a second cycle, in the last fortnight 
of the month. The protests grew exponentially, with more than 1,000,000 people on the 
streets, but their initial motivations were lost. Among the crowd, the demands have become 
diffuse claims and there was already the presence of right-wing groups, with an 
anti-corruption agenda.

Consequently, it is possible to look at "two junes":

Based on the protests that converged around the expansion of social rights, promoted by an 
autonomous social movement of any partisan linkage, organized from a federative model 
using direct action tactics;
The "second June" was characterized by multitudinous demonstrations throughout the 
country, with very broad and diffuse patterns and without a defined ideological content.

The "two junes" inspired new movements throughout the political spectrum since then. 
Within the left, the political content of the "first June" influenced important struggles. 
In 2014, the "Comitê Popular da Copa" was organized , responsible for mobilizing large 
protests against the accomplishment of the FIFA mega event in São Paulo, and there was the 
strike of the sweepers in Rio de Janeiro, in which the workers organized themselves 
against the position of the union bureaucracy and achieved successes. The school 
occupation movement, begun in 2015 in São Paulo and disseminated to 20 of Brazil's 27 
provinces in 2016, is also worth noting, with 1,022 schools and 84 universities being 
occupied.Finally, the growth of political groups involved in the struggle for the rights 
of the black and LGBT population in the last five years is remarkable. Despite each fight 
having its specificity, all, in general, used repertoires placed in evidence in 2013, such 
as direct action tactics and federative organization. Thus, open a perspective for the 
formation of an autonomous social struggle pole of the Lula sphere. However, there was a 
fragmentation of social movements and, as a consequence, the absence of organizational 
accumulation. The renewal potential was lost.

With new apparel, mobilization in social networks and an anti-corruption pattern, the new 
right-wing movements managed to organize large demonstrations to demand the dismissal of 
Dilma Rousseff (PT)
Something that did not happen on the other side of the political spectrum. Movements from 
the right, sponsored by business associations and banks, used the novelties contributed by 
2013 to restructure themselves. With new apparel, mobilization in social networks and an 
anti-corruption pattern, the new right-wing movements managed to organize large 
demonstrations to demand the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff (PT). Even the jargon and the 
names of the original movements were recycled: in 2013, the MPL ("Movimento do Passe 
Livre"), the group responsible for the convocation and for the debate about public 
transport, was plagiarized by the MBL (Movimiento Brasil Livre), anti-clerical reactionary 
group, to cite an example.

The inspiration of the "second June" proved to have more encouragement compared to the 
"first". With a new air, the right managed to articulate the street demonstrations with 
the palace maneuvers, deposing the president Dilma with a parliamentary coup in 2016. The 
coup indicated that, for its architects, the policy of class conciliation of the Lulista 
governments stopped to be interesting. But Lulismo is not exempted in the process of its 
own overthrown.

Raise crows and they will take out your eyes
The Workers' Party made the alliance with the Pentecostal conservatism, and began to 
militarize some localities

Fear; Dilma; Lula
It must be remembered that the path trodden by the bourgeoisie and by the political forces 
that promoted the coup was opened by lulism. To begin with the electoral alliances with 
the reactionary parties, mainly with the PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement), of the 
current president Michel Temer , who was vice president of Dilma in two presidential 
elections (2010 and 2014). In addition to that long-standing link, we must highlight the 
alliances with neo-Pentecostal politicians, promoters of the political agenda of moral 
conservatism.

It is also necessary to remember the role played by the Workers' Party (PT) in the rise of 
militarization in Brazilian society. If the army is currently in command of public 
security in Rio de Janeiro since the beginning of 2018, the first step was taken when 
Dilma summoned the military to control specific regions of the capital of the province . 
Even more, the former president enacted the Anti-Terrorist Law, which opens the door to 
the persecution of social movements as terrorists.

In the economic sphere, the budget allocated to the praiseworthy policies of income 
transfer, whose consequence was the departure of more than 40 million Brazilians from the 
situation of extreme poverty, were small when compared to the sum of public money reserved 
for the financial market, through of the issuance of public debt securities. Not 
surprisingly, the main Brazilian banks achieved record profits in the years of Lula and 
Dilma. The essence of lulism, that is, the simultaneous promotion of the increase in the 
profits of the bourgeoisie and unprecedented social policies of expanding the access of 
the lower social strata to public services, through the attempt to build a sub-imperialism 
based on the appeasement of the class struggle, it ceased to be practicable in a scenario 
of deepening the economic crisis.the moment in which the entrepreneurs earned the most 
money, the workers earned more salary increases, that we generated more jobs, that there 
were fewer occupations in the field, less occupation in the city " ¹ had happened. Now, if 
they wanted to maintain their profit rates, it was necessary to start a new stage in the 
exploration of the labor force.

Note:  ¹ Lula da Silva's interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, after his 
condemnation and before his prison. 03/01/2018:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/03/nao-vou-mematar-nem-fugir-do-brasil-vou-brigar-ate-o-fim- 
diz-lula.shtml

Incubating the snake's egg
" The worst of democracies is preferable to any dictatorship "
Errico Malatesta
Malatesta, living in the Mussolini years, emphasized that anarchist criticism aimed at 
both dictatorship and democracy does not prevent us from recognizing that the worst of 
democracies is always preferable to any dictatorship . Its positioning points to the need 
for the political project anarchist be accompanied by the reading of the institutional 
forms in which the State instituted in society. However, with the growing state of 
emergency that marks the beginning of the 21st century, trying to comprehend the current 
political regimes is a challenging task. Increasingly distinguishing democracy from 
dictatorship is difficult, since the lines that define it are mixed in a gray zone. Such 
is the case of the current Brazilian situation.²

NOTES: ¹ Errico Malatesta, " Democrazia e anarchia ", 03/15/1924.
² Regarding the gray area lived in Brazil, I recommend reading the text "What hours Lula e 
Marielle voltam?", By Leo Vinicius: http://passapalavra.info/2018/04/119630

After the coup of 2016, Temer began a " doctrine of shock " to implement austerity 
measures, justified as recovery policies of a country in crisis. In the external field, 
there is the end of the project of a "Brazil Power", represented by the dismantling of the 
construction company Odebrecht, the tip of the spear of Brazilian capital in Latin America 
and Africa, with a series of corruption processes. The alliance between the public 
authorities of the USA and Brazil in the investigations to combat corruption, establishing 
the informal exchange of evidence between the prosecutors of the two countries, regardless 
of the "official procedures" (in the words of the Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the 
US Department of Justice ¹) indicates the interests of US imperialism in reaffirming its 
dominance in South America. Not in vain that, beyond the Odebrecht , the other company 
involved in operations to fight corruption was Petrobras, formerly one of the world's 
leading oil companies.

NOTE:  ¹ Palestra by Kenneth Blanco can be conferred at: https: // 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbPLM5onjLk

Internally, the government of Temer, with a fragile legitimacy, sustained by the promotion 
of ultraliberal reforms. Such measures aggravate the concentration of income in the 
country, one of the largest in the world . The maintenance of this picture is only 
possible from the militarization, a path indicated by the government to record last year 
the largest investment in military spending in the last decade.

A landowner entrepreneur, justifying his support for Bolsonaro, says: " We are with the 
country in a coma and want to treat the patient with homeopathy. We need an antibiotic. It 
is not something for life, it is only a period. "
It is not difficult to think about who this "antibiotic" is destined for.

The nature of the Temer government begins to be noticed by the people, fueling the 
disbelief in democracy. The feeling against the political system does not represent a 
positive aspect, since it has been led by the far right forces, especially by the 
presidential Jair Bolsonaro , leader in the polls on the stages without Lula. Based on the 
neoconservatism of surge Trump with strong militarist discourse, Bolsonaro has all the 
elements to be a Duterte - Philippine dictator - of the tropics. The "Financial Market", a 
supernatural entity that demands immense sacrifices from those below, starts a flirtation 
with his candidacy when he realizes that the suppression of liberal democracy may allow an 
altar full of offerings. A landlord entrepreneur,justifying his support for Bolsonaro, he 
says: " We are with the country in a coma and want to treat the patient with homeopathy. 
We need an antibiotic. It is not something for life, it is only a period. "It is not 
difficult to think about who this" antibiotic "is destined to be. Maybe Marielle's 
execution will help answer .

In the current Brazilian situation there are the vacillations of the social democracy, the 
disbelief in the liberal democracy, the inability of the revolutionary sectors to promote 
their agenda and the dissemination of an irrational culture that hates all the thinking of 
the left. It only remains to know if we also have our March on Rome.

https://revistarebeldias.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/la-doctrina-del-shock-y-la-crisis-brasilena/

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