System Fail #18: Democracy and its Discontents

As the gears of recuperation churn popular energy towards supporting a heavily sanitized list of politicians in the US, the people of so-called Brazil are dealing with the aftermath of a hotly contested election. Despite widespread reports of voter suppression and vote buying, right-wing incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, has lost by a narrow margin to neoliberal centrist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva better known as Lula. Bolsonaro supporters are taking the news particularly poorly and have attempted to shut down the country but have been faced with fierce resistance from Brazil’s working class, antifascists and football ultras. Meanwhile in Sainte Soline, France, 7000 protesters have removed the police from land slated to become a reservoir for monoculture corn production while many have stayed behind to continue to defend the land. Finally in Italy, anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito has launched a hunger strike to protest his indefinite detention. Comrades in Italy are calling for solidarity