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ECONOMY ENERGY HISTORY NEOLIBERALISM POLITICS SOVEREIGNTY

Bolsonaro’s Eletrobrás Privatization Buries Vargas Era

The 2016 coup, which started with the delivery of Petrobras, culminates with the privatization of the state electric company, Eletrobrás. By Leonardo Attuch* In December 1994, on the eve of his presidential inauguration, then-Senator Fernando Henrique Cardoso took the podium to say goodbye to parliament. The speech went down in history because it announced what […]

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ARMED FORCES FOREIGN POLICY HISTORY

Celso Amorim on Brazil/Minustah occupation of Haiti

During a guest appearance on Brasil 247’s Globalistas, a web TV program which I co-host with Nathalia Urban,  former Brazilian Foreign Affairs Chancellor Celso Amorim spoke about Brazil’s role in Minustah, the multilateral UN occupation of Haiti which began in 2004. With the goal of contributing to the debate of the current political conjuncture in […]

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP AUTHORITARIANISM CULTURE DEMOCRACY HISTORY MOVIES

Love it or leave it: Brazil’s reactionary parallel reality

In October 1969 General Emílio Garrastazu Médici assumed the Brazilian Presidency. Whilst measured at that time by a specious economic “miracle” which failed to touch the majority of the population, his tenure would be the most brutal phase of 1964-85 Military rule, marked by a surge in political repression, torture, summary execution and censorship. At […]

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AUTHORITARIANISM ECONOMY FASCISM HISTORY UNITED STATES

Myths about Pinochet’s Chile persist in Brazil today

It is customary among neoliberal economists to praise Pinochet’s Chile and consider it an economic model to aspire to, however they have it all wrong. Português By José Luís Fiori. It is customary among neoliberal economists to praise Chile and consider it an economic model to aspire to. Moreover, in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, it is increasingly […]

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP ARTS CULTURE HISTORY MUSIC UNDERSTANDING BRASIL UNITED STATES

Bossa Nova, Modernity and Empire

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP HISTORY PATREON ONLY PETROBRAS SOVEREIGNTY UNDERSTANDING BRASIL UNITED STATES

Getúlio’s Long Shadow

The plot against Getúlio Vargas is often considered to be a purely internal Brazilian affair. This was contradicted by his own suicide note, in which he refers specifically to an alliance of international capital and local elites, of roughly the same composition that would go on to support the Coups of 1964 and 2016. The suicide […]

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EDITORIAL EDUCATION HISTORY SOVEREIGNTY UNDERSTANDING BRASIL

Workers Day 2013: Brasil’s Cancelled Future

Six years ago today, President of the Republic Dilma Rousseff made her customary televised Workers Day address to the Brazilian people. With towering public approval, up to 79%, exceeding that of her predecessors Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula da Silva, Brazil’s first female President looked unassailable in her push for re-election in the coming year. […]

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP ARMED FORCES AUTHORITARIANISM COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS DEMOCRACY EDITORIAL FASCISM HISTORY SOVEREIGNTY THINK TANKS UNITED STATES

31/3/1964: Brasil’s Zombie History

On March 31, extreme-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has called for the Military to commemorate the Coup of 1964, a Coup which he insists was nothing of the sort. Such commemorations were outlawed under Dilma Rousseff in 2011, and for the Brazil of 2019 to celebrate the anniversary in any form is horrific. It is also unsurprising, […]

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP ARMED FORCES AUTHORITARIANISM DEMOCRACY FASCISM HISTORY UNDERSTANDING BRASIL

AI-5 and the forbidden future of Brasil

On the 50th anniversary of Institutional Act 5, the 1968 “coup within the coup” which ushered in an even more brutal and repressive phase of the Military dictatorship, historian Fernando Horta explains how its malign influence never went away, and is now again casting a shadow over Brazilian society. by Fernando Horta. It has been said […]

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ACADEMIC AUTHORITARIANISM DEMOCRACY ECONOMY ELECTION 2018 FASCISM HISTORY LAWFARE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS UNDERSTANDING BRASIL UNITED STATES

Saad-Filho: Fascism In Brasil, A Tragedy In Four Acts

Brazil elected its new President on 28 October 2018 – the improbable, unspeakable fascist former army captain Jair Bolsonaro won against the affable unimpeachable democratic candidate of a left alliance led by the Workers’ Party (PT). Can a sophisticated young democracy, in the largest country in Latin America, commit suicide in front of our eyes? […]