Re: <nettime> nettime-l Digest, Vol 133, Issue 3

[Cassiano Gobbet <trivela@gmail.com>]

My two cents here, following the contributions of Andre and Brian;

Bolsonaro is everything that media has been writing about it and it’s one of those developments in History that when they are long gone, seem irrational borderline primitive. However, I feel that the dispute is being shown one a simplistic and biased way.

To understand the Bolsonaro phenomenon, you must have in mind four elements:

1) the default conservative of Brazilian voters, especially those of middle class (who has been the only part of the pyramid that hasn’t been graced by Lula and PT mandates

2) a 4-years recession that was blatantly visible far, far back, much before the exponential growth Brazil; went through following Fernando Henrique and Lula governments

3) a corrosion of the institutions, with virtually all protagonists publicly involved in corruption, but with almost all of them denying any wrongdoing and saying they were victims of political opponents (wit Lula in primis to state the justice was being manipulated)

4) an adoption from basically all parties of a denialism regarding corruption and extremely aggressive towards the adversaries (with PT and Bolsonaro followers being the angriest and nastiest)

Lula arrived to the power with the most progressivist forces in Brazil, if not with him, very close. However, during his government, his popularity went so high that he did not felt it was useful to do everything he could to keep all of them. Marina Silva was his environment minister and she was fired vy pressure of the agribusiness industry (she resigned, once she saw she had been given to the wolves). 

So, basically the majority of PSOL (the most relevant progressive opposition party in Brazil) came from PT, disillusioned with the shift Lula has done towards the establishment. Every single former PT follower has been lashed out by PTists when they tried to win elections and take PT from power. Marina Silva in 2014 has been sordidly attacked the she was ahead of Dilma in the polls. Helio Bicudo, a legendary jurist, PT founder, who left the party following a dispute with Lula, has been labelled senile. The list is long, but one things wraps it all: PT and Lula followers do not recognise absolutely no one as a fair critic. If it’s not an ally, it’s an enemy. Luiza Erundina, Cristovão Buarque and many others alike.

Bolsonaro has been a mediocre right winger politician for years, but his whole ascension has been powered by the trail of disenchantment PT left behind (as well with its tactics). There would not be Bolsonaro if PT had been true to its roots and had accepted defeat when another progressivist party or political figure won it in elections. Add to that the fact that Lula has discredited any Justice decision against it as persecution.

Now the surreal/gloomy situation we’re at. We have an ignorant, stupid right-winger preaching hate to gays, death to murderers and communists at one side (that will not win only by a miracle); at the other side, we have a very decent candidate, great person and almost nothing tainted by PT, but who committed the mistake of not letting PT go and found a true opposition along other centare-left forces like Marina, Ciro Gomes, Luiza Erundina, some parts of PSOL and others). 

If PT wins, there is going to be conflict, because Bolsonaro is what he is’ if Bolsonaro wins, we’re f**cked because 1) he is an idiot, 2) he is ignorant, 3) he preaches authoritarism and will do God know what.

It’s not a fight of good and evil. It’s evil against evil. Haddad, even if in coma,  is by far better than Bolsonaro, but PT will be his doom. God help us because we’ll need it. 

On 10 October 2018 at 10:04:06, nettime-l-request@mail.kein.org (nettime-l-request@mail.kein.org) wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. elections in Brazil / media (Andre Mesquita)
2. Re: elections in Brazil / media (Brian Holmes)
3. >~?\#{Manifesto:: Implode?Suburbia?lism :: ?\??%+]&/?
(Alexandre Carvalho)
4. Support Macao in Milan! (Geert Lovink)


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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2018 16:19:54 -0300
From: Andre Mesquita <andrelmesquita@gmail.com>
To: nettime-l@kein.org
Subject: <nettime> elections in Brazil / media
Message-ID:
<CAMAH8GmF7kRUS5OkPAeMcjV7eWuu6GdEAWbY6swmOEMWj-z9yg@mail.gmail.com">CAMAH8GmF7kRUS5OkPAeMcjV7eWuu6GdEAWbY6swmOEMWj-z9yg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

This is terrible, friends, unfortunately

*How Brazil?s Jair Bolsonaro used Trump tactics to move to 2nd round of
presidential race*

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/08/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-used-donald-trump-tactics-presidential-race/1565689002/

Best
Andre
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2018 15:48:00 -0500
From: Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>
To: nettime <nettime-l@kein.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> elections in Brazil / media
Message-ID:
<CANuiTgyBJa-MO+_FWXi05oOfK9Vw4aOxC1dJF16E7qEvtBKQFw@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 2:21 PM Andre Mesquita <andrelmesquita@gmail.com>
wrote:

> This is terrible, friends, unfortunately
>
> *How Brazil?s Jair Bolsonaro used Trump tactics to move to 2nd round of
> presidential race*
>
> It's devastating. The upsurge of the extreme right is global in scope.

Andre, what are the causes are in your view? Yes, Bolsonaro used Trump's
rhetorical tactics - but those have ever been available. In the totally
incomplete picture I have, two additional factors stand out:

First, the legal and legislative coup by Brazilian capital (which fractions
beyond agriculture, I don't know) that removed Dilma from office and then
imprisoned Lula to prevent him from from running again.
Second, the perception by large sectors of the middle class of extreme
personal insecurity, motivating their vote for an otherwise despicable
law-and-order candidate.

When capital allies with the military and security forces, it's fascism in
the classic sense of the word. We are headed there in the US too. It's not
something I say lightly.

I have never been clear on how much corruption can really be ascribed to
the Workers' Party. Nor is the security issue really possible to grasp from
a distance. You know, even from up close it is hard to gauge. In Chicago I
am anti-cop because of real, proven institutional racism. But meanwhile
three people have been killed just a block from me in the past three years
and about fifteen shots were fired a couple weeks ago into a house three
doors down the street. Why do I think this level of violence is OK? Has
there been any change in the levels of street violence in Brazil?

Chicago where I live is continually used by Trump as a scarecrow for
security panic. If the cop who killed a black teenager named Laquan
McDonald had not been rightfully convicted for murder just days ago we most
likely would have had a giant riot in this city, which could have set the
national stage for previously unthinkable things. Elements on the right are
waiting for exactly such an event. We are walking a tightrope in this
country, like everywhere.

The left should never abandon its minority focused social-justice agenda,
but it needs to couple that with universal welfare and security policies as
well as climate-change mitigation strategies that can achieve corporate
buy-in. Of course those things are contradictory, but the job of politics
is resolving contradictions. Those who think that fascism is finally a
chance to fight the real system, unmasked, have not taken a very good look
at what happened in the 1930s and 40s. Militarized regimes can be
instituted under whatever ideology. That's exactly what killed the
progressive/socialist movement in the US, from Roosevelt's third term
onward.

We need a workable vision. It has to be both idealistic and calculable,
buildable, institutional, productive and enforceable. These things don't
just spring full-blown from charismatic leaders, nor are they spontaneously
generated at the grassroots. Progressivism was an urban, middle-class
movement that grew out of the ruins of late-nineteenth century agrarian
populism. Socialism of the kind that inspired the welfare state grew out of
a mix of communist idealism and unionist pragmatism. All that stuff had to
be created. Even at its most idealistic, it was always coupled with real
universalist plans developed to solve complex problems. We are so far from
that right now, it's tragic.

I am devastated by this news from Brazil. Courage and fortitude to all.

Brian
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2018 01:01:16 -0400
From: Alexandre Carvalho <tudoflui@gmail.com>
To: Nettime <nettime-l@kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> >~?\#{Manifesto:: Implode?Suburbia?lism ::
?\??%+]&/?
Message-ID:
<CAHR65y2EkH_OiV6GOKP2v=tDozjT2bVS_ScXhvUHMbp2jC8oYA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

lately the question of what is to be done
when one is a mom
a dad
or both
leaves me awake

throughout,, autocrats are taking power
climate is going to shitz
and what the fuck are we - mom?s and dad?s of the world, doing?

is working, modeling behavior, recycling, voting, writing papers, setting
art expositions, occasional spurts of activism... IT?

ad nauseam
suburbialism

is taking arms and dying in the front the goal, too?

there is not even a front anymore, comrades
just a thousand ways to live or die

the struggle is hologram
up to each and their own to find
and we do better when we loom together

what is to be done so they dont
inherit
.extinction
--
Sent from my subjectivity
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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2018 10:00:42 +0200
From: Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>
To: a moderated mailing list for net criticism
<nettime-l@mail.kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> Support Macao in Milan!
Message-ID: <76E5E827-195A-433A-A3C8-B7675F27B2A4@xs4all.nl">76E5E827-195A-433A-A3C8-B7675F27B2A4@xs4all.nl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

SIGN THIS CALL WRITING TO: macao.workshop@gmail.com <mailto:macao.workshop@gmail.com>

MACAO, an autonomous center for art, culture and research is now in danger. In recent days the alt-right Salvini government decided to foster the repression against migrants and squatters with a new extremely fascist decree.

Meanwhile the local government of Milano is going to vote in the municipal council to privatize the building in which Macao is based, conferring the property to BNL, a real estate fund. The bank will auction the building, resulting in the eviction of Macao.

For years Macao has generated an extremely productive cultural program, generating and producing thousands of groups and projects. It is a symbol of art production as anti-gentificration, and is recognized as an international hub for research into the urban commons from legal, economic and theoretical perspectives.

Macao has strongly promoted and developed municipalism. This has been combined with developing an alternative economic ecosystem and civil rights through a transfeminist prospective.

Regarding the building, where Macao has grown up, we have been discussing different solutions with the municipality over the last 6 years (as "civic use?; an exchange with renovation investment; and finally even offering to buy, turning the property asset into a common) with the aim of fostering an innovative solution for the future of the space, according to a positive urban plan. During August, the city government put the building quite secretly into a fund owned by the bank BNL, in order to have liquidity for the yearly economic budget of the municipality and cover their debts.

In this political moment in which there is apparently no alternative to alt-right aggression and neoliberal left cruelty, it is more important than ever to have autonomous infrastructures and to build alliances that cannot be broken by authoritarian repression.

We really need the support of all international actors who share with us a different political vision based on: Anti-nationalism and an active resistance to neoliberalism and fascism, in which we fight for social justice, solidarity economics, and the free circulation of knowledge.

Fighting together for radical municipalism, organizing solidarity networks, and fostering a real European alternative, means now a concrete step of solidarity to MACAO from you!

Sign this call writing to: macao.workshop@gmail.com <mailto:macao.workshop@gmail.com> or make your one statement
Thanks!

http://macaomilano.org/spip.php?rubrique151 <http://macaomilano.org/spip.php?rubrique151>


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