At Pluralistic, Cory Doctorow comments on libertarian elitists like Bryan Caplan and Jason Brennan, who argue for restricting the franchise because most people “Just Don’t Understand Economics”:  When you compare the views of the average person to the views of the average PhD economist, you find that the public sharply disagrees with such obvious truths…

Click here to donate now. cw: skip first paragraph for mentions of graphic anti-LGBTQIA violence It has been a brutal week for LGBTQIA communities in Brazil. A queer Brazilian friend is heartbroken over the murders and suicides of 3 people close to him in just the last 4 days. The stories of these deaths are…

Di Ruairi McCallan. Originale pubblicato il 5 dicembre 2018 con il titolo Bolsonaro, Brazil & the Dangers of Free-Market Myopia. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Quando Jair Bolsonaro è stato eletto presidente del Brasile, molti hanno reagito prevedibilmente: choc, orrore, e incredulità per l’ascesa al potere di uno come Bolsonaro, un uomo che elogia apertamente il…

When Jair Bolsonaro became president-elect of Brazil, the reaction from many was as expected: shock, horror, and questions over just how Bolsonaro — a man who openly praised Brazil’s past dictatorship — came to power.  Less expected was the ringing endorsement of Bolsonaro from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Praising Bolsonaro’s ability to give progressives,…

BACKSTORY Brazil is the country with the highest rate of travesti/trans* murders. In 2017, Brazil accounted for 52% of the deaths registered by International Transgender Europe (TGEU): 179 travesti/trans* people were murdered in 2017.  Alarmingly, the new political scenario is contributing to a further rise in violence against vulnerable populations. (Note: Travesti is a Latin-American…

120 anni dopo il massacro di stato in Brasile Di Rodrigo Lima. Originale pubblicato il 20 gennaio 2018 con il titolo Echoes of Canudos: The Brazilian State Massacre 120 Years Later. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Ad ottobre scorso ricorreva il 120º anniversario del più grande massacro compiuto dallo stato brasiliano, la Guerra di Canudos, che…

This past October marked the 120th anniversary of Brazil’s biggest state-sponsored massacre. The War of Canudos took place between 1896 and 1897 and took the lives of 35,000 people, including men, women, and children. Amidst the civilians killed, at least 500 indigenous Kiriri died. According to the anthropologist Edwin Reesink (with whom I spoke over…

The following practices determine whether a state activity can be categorized as genocide according to the United Nation’s Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of…

Recent events in Brazil have been framed as something of a morality play by both sides. For partisans of Dilma Rousseff and the Workers Party, her impeachment and the installation of Michel Temer as acting President was a neoliberal coup by corporate and landed interests in Brazil, backed by Washington. For those supporting her impeachment,…

The next few hours are going to define how Dilma Rousseff will leave office (the later vote in the Senate, if called upon, will be pro forma), but the rule of the Workers’ Party in Brazil undoubtedly has come to an end. The result of impeachment vote is of little importance: we already know that…

The repeated denunciations of the “coup media,” which supposedly favors the impeachment (a “coup,” in the government’s supporters language), is interesting because it shows how short everyone’s memories are (“Novos discursos, o mesmo golpismo“, Carta Capital, April 4; “Deputado Paulo Pimenta publica roteiro de golpe jurídico-midiático em 13 passos“, Jornal do Brasil, March 25). Nobody…

Last Sunday (March the 13th) I attended the protests against president Dilma Rousseff in Rio — and all was not well. My friends and I were violently antagonized by a subset of the protesters and the police had to intervene for our safety.  This is my side of the story, accompanied by my thoughts on what…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Eduardo Lopes‘s “Not New Recife: The Old Collusion, The Old Elitist Left” read by Erick Vasconcelos and edited by Nick Ford. Only civil disobedience, squatting of state and otherwise unused land, and the protection of occupations can soften the effects of the state monopoly on land. Only the dissolution of the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Erick Vasconcelos‘s “Let’s Abolish Government Debt” read by Erick Vasconcelos and edited by Nick Ford. It’s a radical idea, but debt should be abolished. Today. Over time, it not only morphed into a system that generates increasing debt and that channels money from the individuals to banks’ and capitalists’ pockets, but government…

Primo, è tempo di annullare il debito pubblico. Lo stato non deve avere la possibilità di emettere debito e chiedere prestiti. Vietato. Il debito pubblico, che in pratica non è che debito da ripagare in futuro con tasse pagate da terze parti, non ha alcuna giustificazione. A pagare sono le persone: voi ed io. L’ex…

Let’s get this out of the way first: it’s time to abolish government debt. The state should be unable, effectively prohibited to issue new debt and take loans. There is no justification for government debt, which essentially boils down to contracting debt to be covered by future taxes paid for by third parties. By the…

On Thursday (18), Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court minister Gilmar Mendes agreed to hear the arguments challenging drug criminalization in the country. The lawsuit should be judged only in the second semester, but his actions finally signal the political wear of the drug war. The fight against drugs is one of the few constants in the…

On Monday (May 4), the City Council of Recife, Brazil, approved the urban plan authorizing construction consortium New Recife to develop a project of the same name in the area of the José Estelita Dock — which includes the construction of 13 skyscrapers that may reach 38 stories. In a concerted move to pass the…

Un articolo pubblicato nello stato di San Paolo in Brasile (“Brasil que se vire com arenas vazias, diz FIFA. ‘O problema é de vocês’”, Estadão Esportes, 21 marzo) nota come la Fifa abbia perso interesse per il Brasile: gli inutili stadi costruiti per la Coppa del Mondo del 2014 non sono un problema loro; ad…

A story over at Estado de S. Paulo (“Brasil que se vire com arenas vazias, diz FIFA. ‘O problema é de vocês’”, Estadão Esportes, March 21) notes that FIFA isn’t at all interested in Brazil anymore, and that the useless stadiums the 2014 World Cup left us are not their problem and should be dealt…