U.S. continues its century-long embrace of the dark side in Latin America
OpEdNews Op Eds 12/21/2018 at 20:18:50
U.S. continues its century-long embrace of the dark side in Latin America
By Brian Cooney
We can book-end 120 years of U.S. intervention in Latin America with two events. The first is the career of Major General Smedley Butler (USMC) as he described it in his 1935 book War Is A Racket. Butler's awards included two Medals of Honor, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Brevet Medal. Here's what he had to say about his 33 years of service:
I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. . . .I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. "I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.
The second book-end is National Security Advisor John Bolton's visit on Nov. 29 with Jair Bolsonaro, the fascistic president-elect of Brazil. Bolsonaro is an avowed homophobe, racist, sexist, advocate of torture and admirer of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. As he said in 2008: "The only mistake of the dictatorship was torturing and not killing."
After the meeting, Bolton tweeted: "We enjoyed a broad and productive discussion with the president-elect of Brazil and his security team." Although Bolton made no press statement after this meeting, we can guess what his message was from his speech to a group of Cuban-Americans in Miami earlier in November.
More:
https://www.opednews.com/articles/U-S-continues-its-century-by-Brian-Cooney-American-Capitalism_American-Empire_American-Foreign-Policy_American-Hypocrisy-181221-53.html
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Carnival party named after dictatorship torturers called 'insult to Brazil'
Prosecutors seek to stop the event named after a police intelligence agency that tortured dissidents during the 1964-1985 military regime
Sam Cowie in São Paulo
@samcowie84
Thu 8 Feb 2018 01.30 EST
Billed as “Brazil’s largest anti-Communist block party”, the carnival event “Dops Basement” is named after the Department of Political and Social Order, a police intelligence agency that tortured dissidents during the 1964-1985 military regime.
. . .
The online flyer bears the images of the Dops chief Sérgio Paranhos Fleury and the army colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who were accused of commanding torture and death squads under the dictatorship.
During Brazil’s dictatorship, hundreds of political activists were killed or disappeared. Thousands more were tortured, including the former president Dilma Rousseff, who at the time was a Marxist urban guerrilla.
A 2014 report from Brazil’s Truth Commission found that torture was widespread under the military regime, including the use of electric shocks, beatings, crucifixion and sexual abuse.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/brazil-sao-paulo-carnival-party-dictatorship
Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016222286
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What the Brazilian Dictatorship Did to My Family
The death of my father sheds light on what Brazil’s future may now hold.
By Marcelo Paiva
Mr. Paiva is a Brazilian writer.
Oct. 29, 2018
Leer en español
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Jair Bolsonaro, an ultraright wing populist, was elected president on Sunday. As I processed this new reality, I looked out my window and watched the celebratory fireworks illuminate the night sky. In the distance, I made out one of Mr. Bolsonaro's supporters holding up a sign that said, “Ustra Lives.”
It was a chilling reminder of our past. From 1970 to 1974, Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra was the head of the DOI-CODI, the intelligence agency responsible for stamping out critics during military rule. He oversaw the torture of political dissidents while they were detained by the secret police.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s rise has been driven by people’s anger and disillusionment, stemming from a huge multiyear corruption probe that has upended the country, a homicide rate that is sky high and a flailing economy. It didn’t matter to many that his inflammatory rhetoric denigrated women, as well as gay, black and indigenous people, or that he spoke fondly of torture and dictatorships. Indeed, an estimated 43 percent of the population is in favor of the military intervening in government affairs. I think Brazilians have forgotten what it means to be ruled at gunpoint.
My father was a congressman for the State of São Paulo and a socialist. The military junta revoked his mandate after the 1964 coup d’état, and he went back to work as a civil engineer. I was 11 when he was arrested, along with my mother and my sister. It was a sunny morning in January in Rio de Janeiro in 1971, and we were getting ready to go to Leblon beach, which was across the street from our house. Suddenly, six armed men dressed in plain clothes entered through the back door into the kitchen, pointing machine guns. Outside, more men surrounded the house.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opinion/what-the-brazilian-dictatorship-did-to-my-family.html
Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016222294
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Marcelo Rubens Paiva
Marcelo Rubens Paiva.
Marcelo Rubens Paiva (born 1959 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian writer born in São Paulo, Brazil. He is the son of Rubens Paiva, who disappeared during Brazil's military dictatorship in 1971.
When jumping off a waterfall, Paiva fractured his spine and became tetraplegic. In 1983, after extensive physiotherapy, he gained the movement of both arms and hands and wrote Feliz Ano Velho (Happy Old Year), an autobiographical recollection of these events and his entire life.
Marcelo Rubens Paiva has also written Blecaute (1986), Ua:brari (1990), As Fêmeas (1992), Bala na Agulha (1994), Não és Tu Brasil (1996), Malu de Bicicleta (2004) and O Homem que Conhecia as Mulheres (2006).
Since 2003, he has been writing a blog for the Brazilian newspaper Estadão
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcelo_Rubens_Paiva
