In the current situation, resource disputes are intensifying under the
umbrella of international relations and the advances of Brazil'sagrarian elite. As anarchists, we need to interpret these movements to
act appropriately within the popular struggle. ---- While the Trump
administration tightens its sanctions, in its imperialist eagerness to
further expand its dominance, the Brazilian government uses rare earths
as a bargaining chip. In an attempt to curb a tariff war, Lula reserves
an even larger portion of biodiversity for capitalist logic. Internally,
the National Congress approves the Devastation Bill and illegal mining,
exposing a Workers' Party government incapable of responding
appropriately. COP30, a veneer of capitalist environmentalism, opens
even more wounds in the lands of Belém. The Bolsonaro family, if they
haven't already driven our people into enough misery during their years
in office, are assuming the role of agents of imperialism, hoping to
prevent Jair's arrest and dreaming that something will be left for them
at the tables of the rich. The genocidal leader's arrest may be a
necessary relief within the current situation, and the celebration of
his conviction by the oppressed people is just. However, far from being
a concrete victory, it is yet another piece of the class game.
The environmental crisis is a crisis of capitalism. The basis of this
crisis is the exploitation of the people by the few who hold the vast
majority of wealth: the lords of agribusiness, the owners of highly
polluting industries and companies, and the CEOs of Big Tech, whose data
centers consume excessive amounts of water. The exploitation of the
people by those at the top comes hand in hand with the exploitation of
the Earth's resources, the need to extract minerals from its depths, and
even the generation of pollutants on a massive scale. It's not the
people who are responsible for climate collapse, it's the rich! As if
the rapid advance of climate change weren't enough, the colonialist
elite is still hungry and is putting pressure on the little
infrastructure we've managed to create to halt the advance of capitalism
on our territories with the Devastation Bill.
Amid tensions and backroom deals, pressure from agribusiness and Trump's
Tariff Boost, the Devastation Bill (Bill 2159/21) was approved by Lula
with 63 vetoes, including some changes to its basic text, but it
continues to pave the way for impunity in the devastation of our biomes.
This is a clear attack on the lives of our people in this context of
climate collapse, especially the forest peoples. Furthermore, we need to
see the agenda of this bill as a critical issue for the working class,
since, by reducing the requirement for environmental licensing, it will
also reduce job opportunities for environmental professionals. It is
therefore necessary to approach its dismantling as a union issue,
involving workers in this sector, combining environmental and
territorial discourse with union discourse, to guarantee the conditions
for environmental licensing, a result of the struggle of organized
people, as well as for the public servants who work in it.
Our political proposition as oppressed classes is linked to our idea of
social ecology, so that from now on we act in our spaces of struggle in
accordance with our plans for a future society, of integration between
human beings and nature. Only with the effective participation of the
scientific community and affected populations, as well as grassroots
decisions by peasant, Indigenous, riverside, and quilombola communities,
will we confront the crisis created by those at the top. We defend the
idea that climate justice and the survival of our people can only occur
by overcoming capitalism. Far from being a matter of stages, the
destruction of this system and the construction of a new world go hand
in hand.
In Trump's trade offensive, with a 50% tariff on exports, we must not
embrace a nationalistic and simplistic rhetoric like "Brazil belongs to
the Brazilians." As socialists, we are internationalists and, as such,
we must be guided by international solidarity among oppressed peoples.
We fight for the self-determination of peoples, their participation in
the decisions and direction of economic and political life. Trump's
taxation allowed Lula a breath of fresh air, a rhetoric of "national
unity of different social classes" between the people and sectors of the
bourgeoisie-whose enemies we are and who certainly do not share our
interests. More than a partnership between Trump and Bolsonaro, the
tariffs are primarily driven by the BRICS issue and how it poses a
threat to the US, especially in the face of China's strengthening and
the growing signs of de-dollarization.
This rhetoric of fighting for "national sovereignty" by the Brazilian
elite creates the illusion that the government is in conflict with
international capital and even Big Tech, while in reality it is making
significant investments in these groups. One example of this is the
incentive to implement data centers beyond the 188 already existing in
the country. The Workers' Party government already has a proposed tax
exemption policy, ReData, to attract these companies, which are known
for their high energy and water consumption. The US government's
objective is economic and imperialist. If necessary, they will dismiss
Bolsonaro to please Big Tech or harm the BRICS in some way. So far,
there is no indication that the international alliance of the far right
will keep Trump on a leash or guarantee his unconditional support. With
the tariffs, the Brazilian bourgeoisie takes advantage of the situation
to implement layoffs and receive state aid, while food prices rise in
the US. Ultimately, our people lose here and the American people lose
there, proving that there is no winner from below in the disputes of
those at the top.
Our response to imperialist exploitation must be an alliance among the
oppressed people: those who have no nation, no borders, only their
internationalist solidarity. It is essential that this stagnation in the
streets be broken by popular organization, denouncing the agreements of
the global elites. Although there is a sense of celebration in seeing
the former president cornered after years of impunity, his arrest is yet
another illusion of bourgeois justice. The sword of bourgeois justice
does not cut one's own flesh.
Repression selects the coup plotters to contain the undesirable or
uncontrollable within Bolsonarism, but, by its very logic, it also
advances a penal apparatus to discipline all forms of social protest. We
certainly want Justice, Memory, and Truth, and we unite with the entire
popular movement so that Bolsonaro and the other coup plotters do not
gain impunity, but let us not be fooled by the circumstances. The
judiciary is a conservative element of bourgeois political power whose
function is to accommodate all social conflicts to the rules of the
system's game. The military personnel who carried Bolsonarism on their
shoulders remain unpunished, as does the military, which has never been
held accountable for its crimes during the Corporate-Military
Dictatorship. Furthermore, Bolsonaro's allies in Congress continue
pursuing their anti-people agendas, governing within conservative
policies that attack the freedoms of social minorities.
In the fight against Bolsonarism, many different positions may coincide,
but full vigilance is needed to prevent this from becoming a kind of
progressive capitulation to neoliberalism; to prevent it from becoming a
programmatic retreat and subordination of unions, social movements, and
socialist organizations to the agendas dictated by the state's ruling
elites and bourgeois sectors.
The fiscal framework was the PT government's way of governing in
negotiations with sectors of the Brazilian elite, cutting everything
possible from public budget spending and social policies. Thus, it's
possible to spend all this money on banks through public debt, accepting
the burden of breaking the fiscal framework when it needs to be breached
to ensure the health of agro-exporting or industrial businesses. The
government doesn't even consider changing this because it's completely
entangled in agreements with the right-wing, centrist, agro-political
caucus, and financial speculation sectors. The fiscal framework has
guided most political and economic decisions, a continuation of the
spending cap approved during the Temer administration - then harshly
criticized by the Workers' Party (PT), who were then in opposition.
The plebiscite, an important form of popular consultation, calls for
taxing the rich and ending the 6-for-1 scale, but it doesn't bring the
fiscal framework into the debate, shielding the government from having
to discuss an anti-people instrument that supports its agreements with
elite sectors. The plebiscite can be a tool for dialogue between
grassroots movements and sectors of the people, bringing the debate on
taxing the rich and ending this exploitative labor regime closer to the
daily lives of popular organizations. However, the fiscal framework must
be integrated into the discourse surrounding this grassroots
construction of plebiscites, putting pressure on the Workers' Party
government and sectors of the left who fear clashing with the country's
elites due to the electoral theater.
Nothing can be done today within bourgeois democracy that will guarantee
any victory for the oppressed classes in 2026. The path to a dignified
life is popular organization, with direct democracy, fraternal dialogue,
and actions built collectively with our peers in the workplaces and
homes, in our territories. We must increase pressure on this government,
which has offered very little to those below, without fear of the far right.
The current situation makes it urgent that our dreams regain their value
and drive our actions, with the haste of those who seek their own
survival in times of climate crisis. Build now what we want for the future!
Brazilian Anarchist Coordination
August 2025
https://cabanarquista.com.br/analise-de-conjuntura-cab-agosto-2025/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten