One of the most disturbing trends in “left” politics is the glibness of political analysis about extremely momentous events. There is often no depth to analysis, a tendency to rely on academic celebrities who have no experience in social movements, a prepossession with electoral politics. At heart, what is going on is a disinterest in working people who are viewed as brute beasts to be led.

That is manifesting right now in reports about the massive demonstrations going on in Brazil against president Dilma Rousseff. An estimated 3 million people from every corner of the country are in the streets demanding her resignation over corruption charges. Such protests have been going on since 2013 when at least a million people took to the streets, set off by fare increases on mass transportation.

The corruption of her regime & fare increases are only the ignitions for these protests. What is at issue is the entire panoply of neoliberal austerity policies imposed for the past several years on working people in Brazil, coming down with particular devastation on indigenous tribes. Rousseff, who has been in office since 2011, is an integral part of the process as administrator of these policies for the Brazilian oligarchs.

When massive protests erupted in 2013, it was after years of isolated protests by indigenous tribes whose lands were being violently expropriated by multinational agribusiness & mining corporations. Those neoliberal projects included the Belo Monte Dam, a hydroelectric dam complex that would destroy the environment & involved extreme human rights crimes against indigenous peoples being displaced to urban slums.

There were also constant protests by organizations of homeless people, many of them displaced farmers, farm workers, & indigenous people. There were constant pitched battles between slum dwellers & Brazilian riot police protecting bulldozers as they tore down slums for neoliberal gentrification schemes.

As the Brazilian regime prepped the country for the 2014 World Cup & 2016 Olympic games, the favelas (urban slums) were occupied & administered, & in some cases forcibly cleared under a state of martial law. In one of the ugliest scenes, displaced Guarana Indians living in an abandoned museum near a sports venue were militarily evicted with no place to go.

Brazil had become notorious for the tens of thousands of homeless children & for vigilante assaults & murder of them, & had become a preferred destination for the sex tourist industry preying on children.

When the 2013 protests erupted, they were in some places led by indigenous peoples who for the first time in decades were not marching alone. Brazilian working people had an entire legal & human rights brief against the regime. But immediately left demagogues began promoting the idea on social media that the protests were taken over by fascists. The same charges were made by left demagogues about the 2011 popular uprising against the dictatorial Assad regime in Syria, against the 2014 Hong Kong protests, & against protests in other countries.

Now we hear from the same political sources that the 3 million people marching in Brazil are the privileged elite who oppose Rousseff’s so-called egalitarian policies. There are reports that the US Koch brothers are bankrolling rightwing forces in Brazil to bring down Rousseff. Of course they are–& the CIA is there too, probably along with Mossad agents & Brazilian agents provocateurs.

Those multinational corporations invested in agriculture, mining, & hydroelectric dams have billions at stake in Brazil & will pull every dirty trick in the book to hijack popular protests & give them a rightwing dynamic to render political support to the status quo of neoliberal austerity at the expense of working people. That does not invalidate those protests one iota but shows the necessity for international solidarity against Rousseff’s corruption & policies.

This contingent of protesters among the 3 million are auto union workers at General Motors in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. They are carrying inflatable effigies of Rousseff & a Brazilian senator. The banner has pictures of Lula da Silva & other politicians. Lula da Silva, president prior to Rousseff, was involved in implementing neoliberal policies & is now part of her regime. The banner reads, “Out all of them, General Elections now!”.

If left demagogues want to claim these protests are fascist & rightwing, they will have to demonstrate that Rousseff’s policies have benefited working people. They can begin with explaining all those sports venues built for the elite sports games while favela dwellers, indigenous tribes, & homeless people are being forcibly evicted & assaulted.

(Photo by Roosevelt Cassio/Reuters)

It would be touching that Angelina Jolie showed up in Syria to advocate for refugee rights–& it cannot be denied her brief statement was pro-refugee–but she does so only to more effectively promote military action, as she has more than once, including at the UN, for US military intervention into Syria; in her film about Bosnia titled “In the Land of Blood & Honey”; & in Libya.

Jolie, who is politically conservative, is a shill for humanitarian wars & uses her celebrity for that purpose. Why has she never spoken out against US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or US drone bombing in Pakistan & Yemen? Why does she only show up in countries to promote intervention under the guise of humanitarianism?

Bernie Sanders has declined to speak at the AIPAC conference next week. There isn’t a whole lot to get excited about here & one hopes Palestinian supporters have a circumspect response to the news. He didn’t say, ‘I decline because of AIPAC’s bludgeoning role in promoting Israeli apartheid & colonialism & its stone-cold reactionary politics toward immigrants & Muslims.’ He said, “I would very much have enjoyed speaking at the AIPAC conference….Unfortunately, I am going to be traveling throughout the West & the campaign schedule that we have prevents me from attending.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal is in a prison hospital seriously sick with Hepatitis C. As a cogent voice for Black liberation, he’s been kept in jail for 30 years in an unspeakable miscarriage of justice. He’s not the only Black activist framed-up & jailed, just one of the most prominent.

Please take a moment to sign & share this petition from his brother to get him the medical care he needs to survive.

http://iam.colorofchange.org/petitions/life-saving-treatment-now-for-mumia-abu-jamal

This so-called tender moment is what you call war propaganda: a US woman Marine in Afghanistan sharing a cookie with an Afghan child. That doesn’t mean every US soldier should be demonized but let’s face it–going through combat training with guns & rifles, learning to drink cobra blood in jungle survival maneuvers, & being part of an occupying army does not bring out your maternal instincts.

The worst part of this rubbish is how brutally occupation has fallen on women & children in Afghanistan. What they’re not showing is the rest of the Marine battalion engaged in mortar & missile battles, the constant airstrikes, or the harassment of villagers for suspicion of harboring Taliban. It isn’t any less brutalizing if done by a woman than a man Marine.

Sunday, March 20th, is the Palestine solidarity march in Washington, DC. The Palestinian struggle is one of the most important anti-colonial struggles in the world today. That can be partially judged by the vehemence against BDS & because the most powerful forces of neoliberal barbarism are aligned against them. That is certainly not because they give a rat’s ass about the welfare of Jews. Those who stand against persecution of Jews also stand in support of Palestinians because that is where justice lies.

This is little Mona Emad, five-years-old, from Hasakah, Syria, now living in a refugee camp in Jordan. She wants to go back to Syria but her dad wants to go to the US. Odds are, they won’t be leaving that refugee camp for quite a while unless they have substantial resources & can buy their way past racism & xenophobia.

Immigration is a human right. What’s the basis of that in law? Who gives a damn!? It’s a claim just because one is human. Open the damn borders.

(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen)

Muhammed Muheisen, the Palestinian photojournalist, is renowned for his portraits of Afghan refugee children in Pakistan. He has now done a series of portraits of Syrian refugee children at makeshift refugee camps in Jordan. Palestinians fleeing bombing in Syria are barred from entering Jordan & the country is now only partially opened to Syrians. (That’s part of an answer to the knuckleheads who keep blithering about Arab countries accepting refugees & asking why should Europe have to.)

L’Oreal Paris has extensive business ties with Israel & is included in the boycott of Israel. Indian media house NDTV has forged a partnership with L’Oreal in a campaign called “Women of Worth” in India. Palestinian solidarity activists in India have laid out a full program to build BDS, including this petition demanding NDTV sever its partnership with L’Oreal & appealing to the nominees of “Women of Worth” to dump the honorific. Supporting apartheid makes one so damn worthless.

The regrettable hybrid of farce & fascist politics: a supporter of Drumpf in Palm Beach, Florida.

(Photo by Erik S. Lesser/EPA)