ADDED 11/13/2018
FROM 11/13/2018 | Brasil Wire
BY GABRIEL DESLANDES
Massive corruption in Rio de Janeiro’s disastrous Public/Private transportation partnerships brought an end to decades of MDB party hegemony, but the power vacuum that it opened was filled by neofascists. When the June, 2013 protests against bus fare hikes and lack of quality public transportation rocked Brazil, protesters in Rio de Janeiro had a clear […]
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ADDED 11/13/2018
FROM 11/12/2018 | Mondo Weiss
BY Jonathan Ofir
A week ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told Likud officials that “occupation is nonsense”. This is a continuation of a right-wing spinning of history that says that Israel is not an occupying power. Then Netanyahu went further, to speak with clear fascist eliminationist undertones: “Occupation is nonsense. Empires have conquered and replaced entire populations and no one […]
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ADDED 11/12/2018
FROM 11/07/2018 | Intercepted
BY Jeremy Scahill
POLITICIANS LOVE TO tell us every election is the “most important of our lifetime.” With Donald Trump in power, it rings true for many voters. This week on Intercepted: Journalist Chris Hedges has spent the past 15 years trying to ring the alarm about the dangers of the U.S. political system and the impact of a […]
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ADDED 11/12/2018
FROM 1/01/2018 | Jacobin
BY BRANKO MARCETIC
The line between the far right and “mainstream” conservatism is rapidly crumbling. But the two were never very far apart in the first place. If you go by most of what you see in the media, you would think politics is governed by some strange version of Newtonian physics. “Both sides” are perennially to blame, […]
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ADDED 11/02/2018
FROM 11/01/2018 | BrasilWire
BY Bryan Pitts
The United States has spent over a century meddling in Latin America. Recent crusades against corruption in Latin America are only the latest chapter. Today Brazil is on the front lines of the US battle to re-establish its hegemony in the region. When you study Latin American history, as I have for well over a […]
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ADDED 11/01/2018
FROM | Venezuelanalysis
BY Cira Pascual Marquina
Born in 1938, Julio Escalona began his revolutionary activity at an early age in the MIR (Left Revolutionary Movement). Later he helped to found the urban guerrilla OR (Organization of Revolutionaries) and its political arm the Socialist League. A professor of economy in Venezuela’s Central University, he has also been part of Venezuela’s UN delegation. Today, while […]
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ADDED 11/01/2018
FROM 10/30/2018 | GQ
BY Drew Magary
Here are two awful things in a vast timeline of awful things: Over the weekend, Brazilians elected aspiring dictator Jair Bolsonaro to be their next president. You can find plenty of explainers online as to why Bolsonaro is a monster (naturally, President Trump offered him warm congratulations on his victory), but I can go ahead and give you a […]
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ADDED 10/29/2018
FROM 10/17/2018 | Letters and Politics
BY Mitch Jeserich
A conversation with Professor of History Arthur Eckstein about how democracies and republics fell apart into chaos or despotism in the ancient western world. A history that recounts the current state of the rise of despotic demagogy in the White House. Guest: Arthur Eckstein is Distinguished Scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park. He specializes in the history of […]
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ADDED 10/29/2018
FROM 10/29/2018 | Mint Press
BY Rob Urie
With Jair Bolsonaro’s electoral victory in Sunday’s runoff election for president of Brazil, a global resurgence of the radical right is indisputable. Mr. Bolsonaro is a particularly ugly representative of this movement, both politically repressive and culturally intolerant. The question being asked in the bourgeois press is: what psychological malady is taking hold that could […]
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ADDED 10/27/2018
FROM 10/27/2018 | Common Dreams
BY William E. Connolly
Neoliberalism is not fascism. But the fact that many famous neoliberals have been moved to support fascism to protect a regime from social democracy or socialism does give one pause. Hayek, Friedman, von Mises, among others, took such a turn under duress. They also had highly expansive views of what counted as a “socialist” threat. […]
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ADDED 10/21/2018
FROM 10/21/2018 | BrasilWire
BY Brian Wier
Bolsonaro’s illegal slush-fund financed social media campaign appears too sophisticated for his tiny political party to be doing on its own. On the Friday before the October 7 Brazilian presidential elections, Brasil Wire ran two articles that proved to be prophetic. In the first I warned that the integrity of the election was being compromised by presidential […]
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ADDED 10/18/2018
FROM 10/18/2018 | Open Democracy
BY Tom Junes
A review of John Feffer’s Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of 1989, one could be forgiven succumbing to pessimism following the news coming out of Eastern Europe. Apart from the alarmism about a resurgent and aggressive Russia, it is the “rise of illiberalism”, for instance, in […]
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