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64-85 DICTATORSHIP ARMED FORCES AUTHORITARIANISM DEMOCRACY ELECTION 2022 POLITICS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS UNDERSTANDING BRASIL

5 Decades with Lula

On May 1, 1978, the first issue of the Brazilian underground newspaper O Trabalho hit the streets. The paper was the result of the fusion of 4 clandestine Trotskyist organizations with the student movement Libelu, all outlawed by the authoritarian military junta at the time. In this article, Paulo Moreira Leite, founding editor of O […]

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DEMOCRACY HOUSING MOVEMENTS SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Social Movements March on Brazilian Finance Ministry

A coalition of 6 urban social movements demands the resignation of Paulo Guedes who was recently exposed in the Pandora Papers as profiting personally from his policy of devaluing the Brazilian Real. On Monday, October 4, I arrived at the Belém metro stop in São Paulo and met members of one of hundreds of community […]

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DEMOCRACY PROTEST SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Nationwide Anti-Bolsonaro Protests Marked For July 24

Leftist unions and social movements promise to put hundreds of thousands on the streets of 400 towns and cities. by Brasil de Fato This past Tuesday (22nd), the group that unifies organizations seeking the impeachment of president Jair Bolsonaro, scheduled new acts of protest for the 24th of July under the banner “Bolsonaro, Out”, but […]

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AUTHORITARIANISM Coronavirus PROTEST SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

The Beginning Of The End: #29M Anti-Bolsonaro Protests

On Saturday May 29, 2021, Brazil saw its biggest public mobilisations since the Coronavirus pandemic began. Hundreds of thousands of protesters, organised in 213 cities nationwide, took to the streets against the Bolsonaro-Guedes regime. Amongst the visible messages, anger was directed specifically at its mishandling of the pandemic, with demonstrators demanding vaccines, emergency payments, and indignant […]

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Coronavirus PROTEST SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

May 29 Protests: Horror At Bolsonaro Beat Fear Of The Virus

By Tereza Cruvinel This is what they were saying on Saturday as hundreds of thousands of people came to the the streets across the country: Bolsonaro is worse than the virus. It was time to overcome fear and, taking the necessary cautionary measures, show that the majority of the Brazilian people (57% according to a […]

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SOVEREIGNTY

Lula’s brother Frei Chico: “Class struggle is the greatest of struggles”

Frei Chico, the brother of Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, shares a personal account of Lula’s early political formation, his history in the trade union movement, achievements in government, and the class struggle he overcame to get there. Now leading all polls for the 2022 election, Frei Chico sees the same dominant […]

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AUTHORITARIANISM LAND REFORM SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

The Pau D’arco Massacre: A History of Impunity, Persecution and Death

By Nathalia Urban On May 24, 2017, nine men and one woman were shot dead by civilian and military police in a camp of landless rural workers located on the Santa Lúcia farm, in the Pará municipality of Pau D’Arco.  The police claimed that the workers had an arsenal of weapons.  During the investigations, forensics […]

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DEMOCRACY POLITICS RACIAL EQUALITY SOCIAL INCLUSION SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Benedita da Silva’s 50 year fight for racial justice

The veteran congresswoman and civil rights leader speaks about her role in the 2020 municipal elections and  the record number of newly elected Afro-Brazilian city councilors and mayors. By Brian Mier Brazil’s 2020 municipal elections were marked by huge loses for the far right, big gains for the center right and moderate gains for the […]

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DEMOCRACY INTERVIEW POLITICS RACIAL EQUALITY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Interview: Bruna Rodrigues and the fight against necropolitics

When we say that black lives matter we are saying that we can no longer accept the fact that 83 young black men die every day in Brazil Interview by Brian Mier On December 8, 2020, two members of Rio Grande do Sul’s military police entered the house of black rights movement activist Jane Beatriz […]

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DEMOCRACY POLITICS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

No Comparison: Walesa and Lula are different as night and day

Unlike Walesa, Lula never lost his class consciousness or political commitment August 31st marks the 40th anniversary of the end of the Gdansk shipyard wildcat strike, led by Lech Walesa, who went on to become Poland’s first post cold war president, collaborating with US intelligence officials and Breton Woods institutions to transforming his nation into […]