One other American who attended was a young guy who went to Russia originally to teach English. He is now working for RT in Moscow and spoke quite well at the conference. He was critiquing the US 'progressive movement' and offering suggestions. I was impressed with him.
The three men who came from Brazil were wonderful folks - one of them had once been an orchestral director and was constantly singing and waving his arms. They are all terrified about the future of their nation after the last couple years of corporate directed coup that threw out progressive leadership.
The newly elected Jail Bolsonaro's (above photo) first official statement was "We cannot continue to flirt with socialism, communism, populism and extremism of the Left." Bolsonaro was a military officer who worked with field artillery and parachutist units. His job is now to be the heavy duty hit man. Big money is at stake.
The unit of measure anywhere these days is resource extraction - how much can Wall Street make if they control the Brazillian government? It's like the good old days of Chiquita brands in Central America where they ran the show and put a banana in billions of homes around the world.
Brazil today produces oranges for Minute Maid orange juice - the company owned by Coca Cola Corp. based in Atlanta, Georgia where free elections are still not allowed.
Brazil also happens to inhabit the Amazon forest. National Geographic reports:
[Balsonaro] wants to carve more mines and pave new roads. He wants fewer penalties for cutting down trees, and he has promised to halt growth of a network of indigenous forest reserves. By merging the nation's agriculture and environment ministries, he hopes to make it easier for Brazil's powerful soy and cattle industries to transform more native jungle into pasture and farms.
"We are already in a very critical situation in terms of climate change," says Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, a native Brazilian who studies tropical forests at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. She's the lead author on a study published this month showing that the mix of tree species across the forest is already shifting in response to rising temperatures.
"If we mess up with the Amazon, carbon dioxide emissions will increase so massively that everyone will suffer," she adds.
Bolsonaro's brand of fascism (defined by Mussolini as the wedding of corporations and government) is not wasting anytime. The new 'Trump from South America' is turning loose the dogs on the opposition.
It has been reported by Rodrigo Castriota, in Brazil: "More than 20 Brazilian universities were invaded by police in the past days. They confiscated material on the history of fascism, interrupted classes due to 'ideological content', removed anti-fascist banners and posters claiming that it was electoral propaganda."
This is how it goes on modern corporate Earth. Reminds me of Central America in the 1980's when the US ransacked the region and put death squads into power. Washington is doing the same thing today in Ukraine, Brazil, and beyond. No wonder thousands are fleeing Honduras toward the US as they try to hold Washington accountable for its crimes in 2009 when Hillary Clinton - as secretary of state at the time - pushed for new elections, rather than the return of President Manuel Zelaya, whom she considered a leftist troublemaker in the mold of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.
In office Zelaya oversaw modest economic and social reforms. He introduced a minimum wage, gave away energy-saving light bulbs, and pledged to finally resolve longstanding land conflicts between peasant farmers and agribusinesses.
In June 2009, Zelaya called a referendum to decide whether an extra vote should take place in November – alongside the general election – to reform the constitution. If approved, the reform would have allowed presidents to stand again for re-election.
Two days before the vote, the army refused to deliver the ballot boxes. Zelaya tried to push on with the vote, but on the night of 28 June he was forced – still in his pajamas – on to a military plane and taken to Costa Rica. Zelaya was replaced with a brutal dictator who has been erasing his opposition.
Corporate globalization means Wall Street has no love for country - only total domination. Wealth and resource extraction is the primary goal - accomplished at any cost to human or environment. It's neo-feudalism - fascism - authoritarianism - evil. Global slavery is their goal.
We must expand the internationalization of our resistance movements. Last weekend's international conference in Dublin, Ireland of the Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases is a great example of this kind of needed organizing. (I'll do a report on the conference which I was unable to attend soon here on the blog.)
It's not just about changing the leaders in our capitals anymore - we've got to figure out a global strategy to take down corporate power.
Bruce
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