A summary of the speech by the National Coordinator of the Black Socialist Movement and leader of the Marxist Left [Esquerda Marxist] of the PT, José Carlos Miranda, during the Public Hearing of the Brazilian Supreme Court about racial quotas held on 5 March 2010, and videos of original speech in Portuguese.

A few weeks ago an article was published in the leading bourgeois newspaper in Brazil O Estado de Sao Paulo, attacking both Chavez and Alan Woods. The latter answered these attacks and his reply was published and widely circulated in Venezuela, where it provoked a lot of comment and controversy. This has now resulted in an editorial article that appeared on the front page of TalCual, a prominent Venezuelan opposition newspaper on March 2.

On January 24th, the US Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, ruled to remove the remaining spending limits on corporate involvement in elections. The ruling has been criticized by many as a dangerous encroachment by the wealthiest corporate interests and an undermining of free, democratic elections. But even before the court’s decision, corporate cash remained a prime mover of both capitalist parties in Congress and the White House. The influence of the big banks, corporations and the wealthiest will always be a controlling feature of formal democracy under capitalism.

Flaskô is the last surviving factory of the Occupied Factories Movement of Brazil, after the heavy police intervention put an end to the almost five-year occupation at Cipla and Interfibra. The workforce has been demanding that the Lula government nationalises the plant, but with no serious reply. But recently Lula took up the question in the press. Here is the reply of the Flaskô workers.

We have received the following message from Honduran activists of the National Front of Peoples' Resistance against the repression of the Porfirio Lobo government. His government was installed through fraudulent elections organised by the coup regime, despite massive abstention of the masses and harsh repression. The repressive attitude of the Lobo government uncovers its pretence of being democratic. The International Marxist Tendency declares its full solidarity with the Honduran workers and youth who continue to struggle and are suffering the repression, killings.

A highly influential – and right-wing Brazilian bourgeois commentator wrote an article for O Estado de Sao Paulo attacking Chavez from the right, tracing his evolution from his early days to his latest turn to the left. In doing so the author names the editor of Marxist.com, Alan Woods as one of the main influences responsible for Chavez’s move to the Left. Here we publish the original article and a reply from Alan Woods.