#Latin American Politics

[deadpresidents]

A decade ago, the world had a brief fascination with José Mujica. He was the folksy president of Uruguay who had shunned his nation's presidential palace to live in a tiny tin-roof home with his wife and three-legged dog.

In speeches to world leaders, interviews with foreign journalists and documentaries on Netflix, Pepe Mujica, as he is universally known, shared countless tales from a life story fit for film. He had robbed banks as a leftist urban guerrilla; survived 15 years as a prisoner, including by befriending a frog while kept in a hole in the ground; and helped lead the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world's healthiest and most socially liberal democracies.

But Mr. Mujica's legacy will be more than his colorful history and commitment to austerity. He became one of Latin America's most influential and important figures in large part for his plain-spoken philosophy on the path to a better society and happier life.

-- Here's a gift link from me to bypass the paywall and read this wonderful New York Times interview of lifelong activist, revolutionary, and former Uruguayan President José "Pepe" Mujica, who is still trying to pass along his hard-earned wisdom and political philosophy even as he's likely dying from cancer.

[lais-a-ramos]

no one summarized this tiktok ban better than Brazilian leftist federal deputy (low house congressman) guilherme boulos tbh

[image description:

tweet by Brazilian low house congressman guilherme boulos that says:

"A liberdade dos EUA é assim:

NÃO PODE Regular Twitter, Facebook e Instagram no Brasil e mundo afora para combater fake news

PODE Banir o TikTok nos EUA pra evitar concorrência (uso do emoji de cara de palhaço 3 vezes)"

the translation goes like this:

"freedom in USA is like this:

YOU CAN'T regulate Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in Brazil and the rest of the world to combat fake news

YOU CAN ban TikTok in USA to avoid competitors (use of the clown face emoji 3 times)" ]

when we try to combat fake news that are helping to de-stabilize our democracies, we are treated like savages and threatened with a revival of the Big Stick ideology (which basically served to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine throughtout multiples interventions in Latin America) , which never truly left if we remember the way that the 20th century military dictatorships here were financed and endorsed by US at the time and foreign companies keep collaborating with our local elites to try to instate coups here almost on a daily basis

so, in other words, IMPERIALISM

BUT, when it's to preach about US ultranationalism and protect the interests of big tech bros like elon musk and mark zuckerberg, everything is justified to these ppl

this is just to give a bit of context on what's going on in the rest of the world, and also explain the difference between what's going on right now in the US and the attempts from Brazil, the Europe Union, Australia etc to hold twitter accountable in order to control the damage caused by the fake news and combat fascism

[atlxolotl]

Origins of punk music and Latin America

[phoebosacerales]

Smoke clouds and deforastation in Brasil - Mundane Astrology

Disclaimer: This post was mostly written in the beginning of September 2024. It was a very scary time and I just couldn't finish it until now that I'm better.

I don't know if you got the news that South America got covered with smoke clouds since at least the beginning of August, as huge areas in the Pantanal and the Amazon are burning. I promised to make posts based on the suggestions some of you made, but this is all that's been on my mind lately, because I'm smelling fire every day even as I live in a coastal city that's nowhere near them. I have a bit of a cough since June when I had a cold and then the cough persisted. Some days it was gone, but since the smoke clouds it's been consistent. I've never seen anything like it, an entire country and neighboring countries covered in smoke. To be clear, the fires are not natural, they are criminal acts, they are started for land grabbing and also probably as retaliation for the environmental protection policies of our current left-leaning government. This is also greatly done on indigenous lands. It all started after months of brutal attacks on the Guarani Kaiowá in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, all the while threats like the Time Frame thesis are still being pushed. It's making me feel like how we all felt in those days in the beginning of the covid pandemic, when we thought we were just going to stay home for 15 days, but a sense of doom was slowly creeping, because that number just kept getting bigger until we didn't know anymore. It's been making me feel sad, angry and fearful.

Smoke in São Paulo and Goiás. The Sun looked like that for days in my town as well.

I won't talk about Brazil's chart in depth¹, but it's important to talk a little bit about the ruler of that chart, which is Saturn in Taurus in the 4th house and the Moon with Aldebaran, the star of the bull's eye. This country is marked by its agrarian issues and the inequality in the distribution of land ownership in Brazil is one of the most pronounced in the world. The largest portions of land remains in the hands of a very tiny portion of the population, who are the richest and major producers of agribusiness, while they destroy forests and invade indigenous territory. That Saturn in Taurus in the 4th shows how the project for this country at the declaration of independence was still a perpetuation of colonization, and also how we were supposed to be a peaceful people, just meant to work, to be enslaved and tame like our cattle. Brazil still has a reputation of being very festive, happy and peaceful, even as we are built on so much violence².

From outside people mostly see Rio de Janeiro and beach culture as the postcard of the country, but that disguises the greater countryside culture of deep Brazil, which is incredible but not as marketable for tourism, and it's actually hard not to see it tainted with the violence of agribusiness. As it's obvious from our very strong barbecue culture, Brazil is a leader in the export of meat and soy, and the latter is actually because it's greatly used for cattle feed. When you hear about deforestation in the brazilian part of the Amazon, or about the destruction of any natural area of this country, it's always criminal fires started by powerful landowners trying to expand their areas of ​​agribusiness, especially for soybean plantation and for livestock, perpetuating the genocide of indigenous people, who are the most interested in protecting nature, but still don't have their lands demarcated and their rights protected without the threat of extermination.

Because of all of that, whenever we see the 4th house greatly activated for the year it's scary. The 4th house is about the forests, land and indigenous peoples. Looking at the Solar Ingress into Aries for Brasília, the country is ruled mainly by the Sun and has Mercury as the co-ruler this year.

The Sun was scorching the earth in the 4th house. In 2020 we also had the Sun in the 4th house and that was a historic year in terms of huge fires and deforestation too, when a third of the Pantanal biome was burned, so it checks out that the Sun in the 4th unfortunately signifies these things for this country in these times. Besides, Mars is the 4th house ruler, and it's in the 2nd house affecting resources, and we'll definitely see a rise in food prices because of what's happening pretty soon, which are already high. I consider its placement in Aquarius important, as Ísis notices often the recurrence of air signs in charts for fires, because they help it spread and thrive, especially the fixed air sign. The Moon in another fire sign in the 8th house doesn't help at all.

However, the IC is in Pisces with Venus and Saturn, while Mars will eventually reach them. Three weeks after the Solar Ingress, Mars met Saturn at 14° Pisces. One of the most important conjunctions to watch for in Mundane Astrology is the Mars-Saturn one, which is famous for signifying calamity and disease. Soon after the conjunction, the Full Moon in Scorpio came with those two in the 4th house. That's when we had the historic floods in Rio Grande do Sul, one of the most horrible environmental disasters we've seen. I've written about it here. The mix of fire and water signified a year with one of the worst floods and at the same time one of the worst droughts ever.

But now we're in the winter, thus we need to open up the chart for the Cancer Solar Ingress. It has the same rising sign, but this time Saturn is much more angular, and also stationary and about to go retrograde. Saturn on the IC is the co-ruler for the winter trimester.

Saturn is closer to the IC, making it a lot more powerful. He's stationary and about to go retrograde. Pretty soon he'll reach 15° Pisces where the fixed star Achernar is at and where it had its conjunction with Mars earlier in the year. Achernar is the alpha star of the constellation of the river Eridanus, which tells the myth of Phaethon, who drove the sun god Helios' chariot too close to the Earth and burned it. He gets striked by Zeus with his lighting bolt and his body falls into the river Eridanus.

Mars is still ruling the 4th house representing land and forests. He's in Taurus with the fixed star Hamal, the head of the Ram, which has his nature. So even though it's in Taurus, Mars is still very much himself. If we imagine the planets moving through the chart, we soon understand that Jupiter is going to square Saturn at some point, and Mars will do the same.

After the New Moon in Leo is when the fires got really wild and we got the smoke cloud covering almost the entire continent. On August 14 there was one big trigger for this: the Mars-Jupiter conjunction at 16° Gemini squaring Saturn. Nothing more symbolic of a continent-sized cloud of smoke above our heads than Mars-Jupiter in an air sign on top of the MC. As I've said, these are not wild fires, they're being coordinated, some were on caught on camera, that's why we see the 12th house activated, as it indicates hidden enemies and criminal activity.

Things got worse with the Full Moon, which was at 27° Aquarius, the exact degree of that Mars of the Aries Ingress chart. And this is where we're still at. I'm still smelling fire most of the time, especially at night for some reason, because I guess at night the air changes or something, I don't think anyone is trying to explain this enough. The sky looks like it's completely clouded, but the Sun is orange and its light is direct. I'm still coughing.

Aftermath

This is a very scary thing to just throw at you, so for anyone who cares about environmental issues I'll leave some more links about research that were made, measures that are being taken until now, things you could look up, follow or read about, etc.

278.3 thousand fire outbreaks registered in 2024;

The government strategies that are being taken;

Mídia Indígena - An indigenous communication collective from Brazil;

Articulação do povos indígenas do Brasil, an association of entities representing indigenous people;

About the struggle for land in Brazil and MST , the largest popular movement in Latin America, which is aimed at land reform;

Ailton Krenak, legendary indigenous leader of the krenak people, environmentalist and author of "Ideas to Postpone the end of the World", "Ancestral Future", "Life is Not Useful" etc;

Davi Kopenawa, yanomami political leader and author of "The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman";

Marina Silva, the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change, a very important politician in our environmental politics;

Ministry of the Indigenous Peoples, presided by Sônia Guajajara.

-----

¹ We mostly use the 1822 chart of the Declaration of Independence, although there are other important ones.

² Zé Ramalho captured our Taurean project pretty well in song: Admirável Gado Novo.

[allthegeopolitics]

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro warned Wednesday that he will not hesitate to call on the population for a “new revolution” if forced by what he calls “North American imperialism and fascist criminals.”

Maduro’s comments come amid deadly protests across the country following its disputed presidential election victory, which the US and several other countries have refused to recognize.

“I would not like to go to other ways of making revolution, I say it solemnly from political power, we want to continue the path that [Hugo] Chavez outlined,” Maduro said in Caracas during a press conference with international media.

“But if North American imperialism and fascist criminals force us, my pulse will not tremble to call the people to a new revolution with other characteristics,” he added. [...]

Continue Reading.

[guavagyal]

Residente's song & music video for "This is Not America" is waaaaaay better than Donald Glover's song & music video for "This is America."

I just think "This is America" got more popularity bc it came out during Trump's 1st administration (2018) where he ignored racial violence & police brutality, and that made everyone with a brain and heart pissed tf off. "This is Not America" came out in 2022 when there weren't a lot of big events happening in Latin America that a lot of USians would hear about.

[cccrrrfu]

"Dictator Barbie" (July 19, 2023)

Protester in Peru against Dina Boluarte's regime, who rose to power in December 2022 amidst the controversial deposition of president Pedro Castillo. Since Boularte was appointed president, over 60 people have been murdered by police forces for exercising their constitutional right to protest. Many of the people murdered were not even protesting, just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, including minors. Police also attacked (and murdered) medical professionals who were providing first aid to injured protesters.

People are taking the streets calling for Boluarte to resign, since a government that murders people for protesting is not a democracy at all, but a dictatorship. Boluarte claims she "cannot understand" why people are protesting.

[rendakuenthusiast]

been enjoying this crazy-ass moments in latin american politics twitterposting lately

[iamnothinginmysoulifnotobsessive]

Patético, eu bati o olho e vi que era falso

Brazil just had the biggest false flag "communist" terror attack since the military dictatorship lmao

[in4newz]

See more on Threads

[elbiotipo]

When you think about it, the real horror of "necromancy" is subdued in modern interpretations. Like sometimes you might even wonder when playing, say some RPG, what's the big deal, like lol why do people hate the funny wizard that makes skeletons walk. You don't really have the context on why exactly this should be so feared or hated.

But when you think about real life, historical ways on how people have disrespected and desecrated the dead (and yes, it still happens today), you begin to understand the horror behind it.

[lais-a-ramos]

finally back home from watching "i'm still here" at the movies

i still gotta, like, sit down and think of a longer, more detailed meta on my impression on the movie, especially to organize my thoughts and explain for ppl outside Brazil the context of the time period and stuff

but, just to sum it up, WHAT A MOVIE!!!!!

"i'm still here" is amazing.

the performances, the settings, the costumes, props, everything is perfect

i'm glad that the world now knows the story of eunice paiva and the paiva family, even if they are just one in many families destroyed by the far-right military dictatorship allied of the US government and were an upper class family with enough conditions to rebuild after rubens paiva was kidnapped to never be seen again

i don't know if the movie is gonna win the oscars or not, but few movies this year speak so much to the times we're living, with the rise of the far right and fascists all over the world, as that movie does

it's definetely a must watch

[pinkrosylux]

this is different from what i normally post, but still I feel the need to speak on it. if you disagree, feel free to unfollow, thank you.

if you stand by the mass deportations issued by president trump, I hope you stay awake at night, just knowing the pain you've inflicted. with that one vote, you've managed to separate families, you've managed to strip daughters of their mothers, son's from their fathers, you've managed to instill a country-wide fear that disgusts me to even consider. no family should be separated. no person should have to go through something as traumatizing as the deportation system, period.

if your reasoning sounds somewhat like "they're taking our jobs" or "they're criminals", you are one brainwashed fuck, because Mexicans and Latinos in general, have been doing the jobs none of the Americans have wanted to touch. they do your work for you. they make your food. they make your clothes. and yet you complain. so instead, I encourage you to fully stick with your opinion if you wish. but never again do I want to see you dance to our music, eat our foods, wear our clothes, vacation in Mexico, none of it. live with the god-awful decision you've made. and please, if you're here undocumented, know your rights. educate yourself on what can be done. as a child from a family of immigrants, I can't tell you how hard It is to watch the acts surrounding me. ice swarming schools, it sickens me. i pray that a change will be made so soon. america is a fucking mess. chinga la migra; respect the people who feed you. respect the people who make your precious material products. trump-supporting Americans have been behaving so ungrateful, and it stops now.

if you agree, please reblog to spread the word, thank you for reading and ily all. ❤️🤍💚

[confuselibrarian]

The hypocrisy of american keyboard warriors never ceases to amaze me. These are the same people who will criticize the USA-centric way of thinking but are the first to throw under the bus people of other nationalities, especially those from the global south, just to signal virtue. If I remember correctly about two years ago, when a right-wing candidate won in the Philippines, all the American twitter activists with nose piercings and anime avatars got together to boycott Filipino artists for the crime of being born in a country that was unfortunately going through a conservative wave, under the excuse of not supporting facism. Where are these people now? They were feeling very brave about destroying the livelihoods of many Filipino queer artists, so many who needed money to survive in such a difficult time in their country. I wonder if they'll get the same treatment now that Trump has won? If you're part of the bunch of assholes who participated in this ridiculous boycott, don't even waste your time playing progressive, just admit once and for all that you hate the rest of the world and get on with your life.

[herecomesthementalmeltdown]

some people ask me why, as a brazilian, i post so much about US politics.

the answer is that i'm standing under the bald eagle, and i don't particularly like the thought of wiping bird shit off my face.

[allthegeopolitics]

NEW YORK - The former chief of the Honduran National Police was sentenced Thursday to 19 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in a conspiracy to protect shipments of cocaine destined for the United States.

Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares, 64, better known as "El Tigre" or "The Tiger," was a member of the Honduran National Police for decades before becoming its leader for a year in 2012.

He rose to power by enabling cocaine trafficking on a massive sale and using violence, including murder, to protect the drug trade, prosecutors said in a presentencing brief. They had asked that he be sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The sentence in Manhattan federal court was announced by Judge P. Kevin Castel. [...]

Continue Reading.