Australian economy heading into recession

Nick Beams

The Australian national accounts figures released yesterday show the economy is as close to a recession as it can be without being officially designated as having reached that point.

In fact, if output per head of population is taken as a more accurate measure of the state of the economy, it has been in a recession for some time, because this figure showed its sixth consecutive quarterly decline.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said the economy grew by just 0.2 percent in the June quarter following a 0.1 percent rise in the three months to the end of March. GDP per capita was down by 0.4 percent.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Western Australia, September 2, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/jim4rankin]

Annual economic growth fell to 1 percent in June, compared to 1.3 percent in March. Outside of the onset of the COVID pandemic, this is the lowest growth rate since the recession of the early 1990s, and well below the average of 2.7 percent over the past 20 years.

Household spending rose by just 0.5 percent in the 12 months to June, well below the average annual growth of 2.5 percent in the decade before the pandemic.

Other figures released earlier this week by the ABS show the downward trend. Annual growth in private sector wages was 5.3 percent, down from the figure of 6.6 percent in March. It was the lowest result in two years.

But this figure by no means captures the real decline in workers’ living standards, which have been hit by the escalation of mortgage payments. More than 80 percent of home buyers are on variable interest rates leading to cuts in disposable income of anywhere between $300 and $500 a week.

According to analysis of figures prepared by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Australian households have experienced the largest cut in disposable income of any of the countries in the grouping of major economies.

This is reflected in the hospitality sector—taking the family out for a meal is one of the first items to be cut when incomes go down—where consumer spending fell by 3.1 percent in the 12 months to June.

Retail sales volumes fell by 0.3 percent in the three months to June, according to ABS data.

The release of the latest data was preceded by a war of words following the declaration by Labor treasurer Jim Chalmers that interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) were “smashing” the economy.

Responding to estimates by economists that growth would come in at a very low figure—chief National Australia Bank economist Alan Oster said there was a “serious chance” the number could be negative and there was “no momentum” in the economy—Chalmers tried to get on the front foot.

He declared: “With all this global uncertainty on top of the impact of rate rises, which are smashing the economy, it would be no surprise at all if the national accounts … show growth is soft and subdued.”

This set off a hail of denunciations of Chalmers for attacking the RBA, something he would not have expected because he had said similar things previously.

In June, he said rate rises were “hammering the economy” and later that month that they were “hammering consumption.” At the beginning of July, he said discretionary spending had been “absolutely hammered by higher interest rates.”

Backing his treasurer last Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “The treasurer’s comments were nothing new.”

The reason for the outrage on this occasion is the shift in the interest rate landscape following indications by the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conclave of central banks last month that a rate cut is on the table at its meeting later this month.

The representatives and spokesmen of finance capital in Australia want the RBA to follow suit so they can get their hands on cheaper money.

But they are concerned this will not take place because RBA governor Michele Bullock has said there is no prospect of a cut this year, as demand is still too high relative to supply and this will continue to push up inflation. Bullock even indicated that at its last meeting the RBA had given “very serious consideration” to another rate rise on top of the 13 hikes since the present cycle began in 2022.

Her stance was backed by RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser after his return from the Jackson Hole meeting.

In an interview with the Conversation, Hauser said: “Sadly, at the moment Australian inflation has been a bit stickier than it has been in the US. We’re not as confident as [Powell] is in the US, that inflation in Australia is back on a sustainable path back to target. And therefore we have to hold rates where they are for the time being.”

The central thrust of the barrage over Chalmers’ remarks was that government spending had to be cut.

The head of the financial firm Wilson Asset Management, Geoff Wilson, was one of the first into the fray denouncing the “appalling behaviour” of Chalmers in comments to the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper.

He quickly got to the essential demand of all sections of finance capital claiming that stimulus measures in the last two federal budgets had hindered the efforts of the RBA to bring down inflation through its interest rate cuts.

“If [the government] weren’t running expansionary budgets, then [the RBA] wouldn’t have that problem,” Wilson said.

In fact, the Labor government’s budgets have made real cuts in vital social services while increasing spending on the military, but the demand is for more.

The Murdoch press then wheeled out former Prime Minister John Howard to deliver the same message in an opinion piece published yesterday.

He said it was a “well accepted fact” that if government spending was too high this exerted upward pressure on interest rates. “There is little argument that the Albanese government has lost control of expenditure.”

Back in May, the RBA said government spending was one of the factors leading to higher inflation. In deference to the problems this caused for Chalmers, Bullock pulled back slightly saying it was not the “main game.”

But she maintained that the RBA board “does remain concerned about the degree of excess demand in the economy.” With the economy essentially flatlining, that means it should be driven into recession and government spending cut before interest rates can be reduced.

The issue of government spending was raised in comments by the head of the ABS national accounts department, Katherine Keenan. The latest data showed that federal government spending hit a high of 11.8 percent of GDP in the June quarter, around the same level as at the start of the pandemic. And she indicated what the target for cuts should be.

“The rise in June was due to continued strength in social benefits programs for health services. State and local expenditure also contributed to growth with a rise in employee expenses,” Keenan said.

While not making their demands specific, in order to try to preserve a veneer of neutrality, the economic organisations of the capitalist state are making clear the class orientation of their policy demands—cuts to social services as well as the further suppression of wages.

In the controversy leading up to the release of the data, Chalmers insisted he was not attacking the RBA but was simply “telling it like it is.”

“We’ve got different responsibilities, but we’ve got the same objective,” he said.

That much is true. The objective of the RBA in its so-called fight against inflation has been to ensure that workers’ struggles against the most significant cuts to living standards in the post-war period are suppressed. It has sought to do this through the 13 interest rate increases since May 2022.

The Labor government is pursuing the same objective as it relies on the trade union apparatus to impose sub-inflationary wage agreements on workers. At the same time, it has tried to maintain a certain political equilibrium by promoting the illusion that its tax cuts, largely benefiting the wealthy, plus power subsidies are alleviating cost-of-living pressures.

But the dictates of finance capital are relentless. It is demanding that even these entirely inadequate measures be eliminated, and deep cuts be made to essential social spending.

The efforts of the Labor leadership to maintain support have failed as poll numbers indicate that its support has fallen below even the levels it received at the last election. But significantly, this has not translated into increased support for the Liberal Party and its leader Peter Dutton.

A recent opinion poll asked whether inflation would be higher, lower or the same under a Dutton-led government. Only 24 percent said it would be lower, 41 percent said it would be the same and 18 percent thought it would be higher.

Opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate measures of political consciousness and understanding. But the response does indicate the widespread hostility in the working class and among the youth to the entire political establishment, as well as the growing realisation that deeper processes are at work and the mounting social and economic problems they confront cannot be resolved within the existing political framework.

US-organized police-military “stabilization” force deploys in Haiti

Félix Gauthier

Haiti remains mired in a profound social crisis and escalating criminal gang violence, as a US-organized, United Nations’ sanctioned, police-military “stabilization” force continues to roll out its deployment in the Western hemisphere’s poorest country.

In a flimsy attempt to portray the mission as motivated by “humanitarian” concerns, not imperialist interests, the United States and Canada pushed for Kenya’s right-wing government to take the leadership of what is officially known as the UN Multilateral Security Support Mission to Haiti.

Police officers, part of a UN-backed multinational force, drive past residents in armored vehicles on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

Between late June and mid-July, 400 Kenyan National Police Special Forces personnel arrived in Haiti, substantially short of what had been a promised 1,000-strong contingent. They are to be joined by 1,500 troops recruited from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, and Benin, and will work with the notoriously corrupt Haitian National Police to re-establish “law and order.”

The police-military mission has been organized and is principally financed by the United States. It has provided $380 million to fund the mission and in recent weeks has delivered 80 Humvees, 35 MaxxPro vehicles, sniper rifles, and drones to Port-au-Prince.

Canadian imperialism is also playing an important role, and to a lesser extent France and Spain. Ottawa has contributed more than C$80 million, some of it in the form of armored vehicles, and has provided training in Jamaica to some of the units deploying to Haiti.

The fraudulent character of the claims that the imperialist-organized intervention force is deploying to Haiti to protect its people and salvage “democracy” were exposed by the events occurring in Kenya, as officers drawn from its Special Forces police were deploying to Haiti.

The Kenyan government of William Ruto used National Police, and particularly the Special Forces, who are notorious for their thuggery and criminality, to violently suppress mass protests against IMF-dictated austerity measures. Last month, the Ruto government indefinitely banned protests in Nairobi’s Central Business District, invoking the manifestly trumped up pretext of potential violence by “criminal groups.”

In Haiti, Kenya’s police are carrying out the same role they do in Kenya. Their purpose is to terrorize the Haitian people into submission, so as to prevent the gang crisis from triggering a mass exodus of impoverished refugees to the US and Canada or destabilizing the broader Caribbean region, which Washington has long viewed as its backyard.

Over a century of imperialist occupation, regime-changes and plunder

After plundering Haiti for over a century, leaving death and destruction in their wake, the imperialist powers are only concerned with preventing the Haitian population’s desperate attempts to survive from becoming an international “disturbance.”

The US has a long, bloody record of intervening militarily in Haiti, stretching back over a century. In the past three decades, they have repeatedly been joined by Canadian troops.

There are several reasons that the North American imperialist powers have chosen to outsource responsibility for establishing “order” in Haiti to Kenya and several other African and CARICOM nations, rather than deploying their own troops. First, US and Canadian military resources are focused on supplying Ukraine and preparing for direct war with Russia and China. There is also an acute awareness of the Haitian population’s hostility towards the imperialist powers. There have been repeated demonstrations in Port-au-Prince denouncing the role not just of Washington, but also of Canadian imperialism. Finally, there is a recognition that suppressing the gangs, who have intimate ties to and are sponsored by rival factions of the venal Haitian bourgeoisie, could cost considerable blood and treasure.

Since the beginning of the year, the situation in Haiti has been widely described as teetering on the brink of total collapse, with extreme violence and want having become the norm for a great portion of Haiti’s population.

Already burdened by over a century of imperialist occupation and oppression, Haiti suffered further devastation in a 2010 earthquake, from which it has never fully recovered. The imperialist led “humanitarian” efforts which followed the earthquake turned into systematic pillage. Repeated rounds of IMF imposed austerity, then the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the ongoing collapse of Haitian society.

Armed gangs have taken control of much of Haiti, severing supply routes and isolating the capital from the rest of the country. The gang control has also restricted access to vital goods, including food, medicine, and fuel, making basic necessities a luxury. It is estimated that gangs control approximately 80 percent of Haiti’s capital.

According to a UN report issued late last month, some 578,000 people have been displaced and forced onto the streets, where killings, lynchings, and sexual assaults take place on a regular basis. Only a quarter of the country’s dilapidated hospitals are functioning, 1.5 million children have been shut out of school, and approximately half of Haiti’s population is in need of humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, with more than 8 months of the year already over, the UN’s Haiti 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan, has raised just $162.5 million from member states or just 33 percent of a budgeted $674 million.

The desperate situation in Haiti is causing a migration crisis, some of the consequences of which were tragically illustrated last month when a fire broke out on a boat carrying migrants off the coast of the island nation, resulting in at least 40 deaths and multiple injuries, according to a United Nations agency.

Social tensions are at a high point, as the population is facing increasing shortages of essential goods and services. It was reported on Wednesday that Haiti’s largest hydropower plant, Peligre, was shut down after protesters stormed the facility demanding access to electricity. The country has been grappling with energy shortages, as the authorities prioritize the capital, Port-au-Prince, over other regions. The Peligre plant, with a capacity of 54 MW, represents nearly all of Haiti’s hydropower output. Hydrocarbons are also in short supply due to Venezuela halting oil exports to Haiti in 2019 amid US sanctions and declining oil production.

The tragedy now engulfing Haiti is first and foremost a product of imperialist oppression and predation.

US Marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 to ensure “stability.” This was a euphemism for guaranteeing that Haiti’s debts to American banks were repaid, and that a peasant uprising was crushed. The national army, shaped and trained by the US occupation forces, became the backbone of the Duvalier dictatorship, which imposed a reign of terror and torture for three decades. During this time, Washington staunchly supported the regime, seeing it as a critical Cold War ally in the Caribbean. Even after the overthrow of “Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1986, the US maneuvered to maintain its grip on the country amidst a popular uprising.

The cycle of intervention continued with US and Canadian troops occupying Haiti in the 1990s and again in 2004 to remove democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, partnering with far-right factions linked to the old Duvalier regime. Following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, the imperialist powers returned under the guise of humanitarian aid, pushing for the country’s neoliberal economic restructuring to further exploit Haiti’s resources and toiling masses.

American and Canadian imperialism and the sponsors of gang violence

On Aug. 20, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Michel Joseph Martelly, a far-right figure connected to the Duvalierist bourgeoisie who served as the President of Haiti from 2011 to 2016. According to a statement from the US government, Martelly was involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, and supported several Haitian gangs of the kind that currently control 80 percent of the nation’s capital, and plunder, and terrorize its population.

Martelly’s corruption and gang involvement were widely known, yet in his years in power he enjoyed staunch US support. As a recent Foreign Policy article noted, “Despite the long-standing allegations against Martelly, the United States maintained a warm relationship with him for years.” It goes on to explain that the sanctions against Martelly are the product of immediate political concerns—that Martelly’s plans for a political comeback could destabilize the transitional government of “national unity” the US-stitched together earlier this year to provide a fig-leaf of popular Haitian support for the foreign police-military intervention it was organizing.

As was shown by the release of emails under the Freedom of Information Act in 2016, Hillary Clinton’s US State Department intervened heavily in the 2010-2011 presidential election in Haiti and effectively ensured the victory of Martelly. Once in power, Martelly’s presidency saw corruption, suppression of local democratic processes, and the reestablishment of the Haitian army.

In 2015/16, the Obama administration and the newly elected Trudeau government manipulated Haiti’s election process to install Martell’s protégé, Moïse, as president. With the imperialists’ support, the latter imposed yet further IMF austerity, while trying to arrogate additional powers, and refusing to call new elections.

Protesters calling for the resignation of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry run after police fired tear gas to disperse them in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

Following Moïses assassination in 2021, in what appears to have been a settling of accounts among rival bourgeois factions and criminal gang-sponsors, Washington, backed by Canada and the other imperialist powers—the so-called Core Group—imposed Ariel Henry as the un-elected head of Haiti’s government and de facto dictator.

However, in February, the US turned on Henry, having concluded he had become a liability and removed him from office. It effectively kidnapped him as he returned from Kenya, having signed the security agreement that allowed for Kenya forces to lead the current police-military stabilization mission.

Henry has been replaced by an imperialist-sponsored “Transitional Council,” another unelected body, created with representatives from Haiti’s elite and civil society, including forces which formerly presented themselves as opponents of imperialism, like Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas. This Transitional Council is now tasked with organizing new elections by early 2026, which will no doubt once more be closely “supervised” by the imperialist powers.

According to recent Haitian media reports, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Haiti in the next few days to hold meetings with Edgard Leblanc Fils, the Chairman of the Transitional Council, and Prime Minister Garry Conille.

Whatever political constellation results from the “transitional” process, it can be certain its members will be beholden to imperialism and the Haitian bourgeoisie and have corrupt links to the criminal gangs.  

Last Tuesday, Haiti’s anti-corruption agency launched a new crackdown on government corruption, accusing high-ranking officials of crimes such as illicit enrichment and abuse of office. The investigations revealed significant misuse of funds and resources, including cases where food meant for public school students was diverted and government fuel was used for personal benefit. Among the accused is the former minister of planification and external cooperation, Aviol Fleurant. There can be no doubt that this largely demonstrative crackdown only represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Haitian elite’s criminality.

Haiti’s crisis is an extreme and highly concentrated manifestation of the crisis of capitalism as a whole. There is an intrinsic and direct link between the weak Haitian bourgeoisie’s incapacity to rule within the bounds of democratic legality, and its complete dependence on imperialism to maintain its rule and safeguard its ill-gotten wealth.

4 dead, dozens wounded in Georgia high school shooting

Kevin Reed

A 14-year-old shooter killed two students and two teachers on Wednesday morning with an AR-15 style rifle at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, before he was taken into custody by law enforcement.

A medical helicopter is seen in front of Apalachee High School after a shooting at the school Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Winder, Ga. [AP Photo/Mike Stewart]

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) confirmed the shooter’s name as Colt Gray, a student at the school, and that nine others had injuries requiring hospitalization. Apalachee High School is part of Barrow County Schools, has about 1,900 students and is located approximately 45 miles east of Atlanta.

GBI Director Chris Hosey told news media that Gray opened fire around 10:20 a.m. and was rapidly confronted by a school resource officer and surrendered immediately. Hosey said the shooter will be charged with murder and tried as an adult. The victims have not been identified as of this writing.

A total of 30 individuals have been reported with injuries from the incident. Two gunshot victims were taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow and one gunshot victim was taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Gainesville. The injuries sustained by these three were not considered life-threatening.

CBS News reported that some patients came to hospitals with anxiety symptoms and some were experiencing panic attacks. A spokesperson for Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta said staff had received one gunshot wound patient from the high school.

Students who spoke to the media described the chaotic and terrifying scene when the shooter opened fire in a classroom. Marques Coleman, 14, spoke to CBS affiliate WANF and said he was inside the classroom when the shooting began. He said, “I see a kid with a, he had like a big gun,” and just started shooting. “I got up, I started running, he started shooting like, like 10 times. He shot at least 10 times,” Coleman said.

The teenager said he dove behind the desk and his teacher got in front of him, “My teacher started barricading the door with desks.” Coleman told WANF he saw “one of my classmates on the ground bleeding so bad,” another girl shot in the leg and a friend shot in the stomach.

A heavy police presence on the high school campus followed the shooting. By 11:00 a.m. dozens of ambulances had responded. Police officers and a medical helicopter gathered in the parking lot and on the green outside of the building. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dispatched agents to the scene, where they were coordinating with local law enforcement.

Some news media is reporting that there had been an online warning earlier in the day that a shooting was going to take place in the school district. Very few details about this fact have been released so far.

The FBI reported Wednesday evening that its National Threat Operations Center had received several anonymous tips in May 2023 of threats online to commit a school shooting at a “unidentified location and time,” which included pictures of guns. The threat was traced to Georgia and the Jackson County Sheriffs Office was alerted by the FBI and proceeded to interview Colt, then 13 years old, and his father. Colt denied making the threat and it was decided at the time that there was no reason to make an arrest or take other legal action.

Responding in template form to another in a long list of horrific school shootings in the US, President Biden said he and his wife Jill were “mourning the deaths” that were caused by “more senseless gun violence.” Biden said that what is needed is for Congress to pass “common-sense gun safety legislation,” including a ban on “assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” and require “safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers.”

Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris called the Apalachee High School shootings “a senseless tragedy,” providing no coherent reason for the epidemic of school shootings in America, many of which are being carried out by teenage students. Adding to the hand-wringing of the entire US political establishment, Harris said, “We’ve got to stop it. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Fascist Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump weighed in with his own vicious response, referring to the shooter, only 14 years old, as “a sick and deranged monster.” Georgia Republican Party governor Brian Kemp and Democratic Party mayor of Atlanta Andre Dickens came together to promote the presence of local, state and federal law enforcement in and around schools.

In contrast, Socialist Equality Party candidate for US President Joseph Kishore issued a statement on the shooting at Apalachee High School that provided the only explanation of its root cause and the way forward out of the violence for the working class.

The response from the political establishment was entirely predictable. As after every mass shooting, there is no effort to explain what it is in American society that produces such horrors on such a regular basis. 

Little information is available about the shooter or the possible motives. No doubt more information will come out in the coming days. But the source of an explanation for the epidemic of school shootings lies not at the level of individual psychology, but rather social pathology.

Kishore referred to the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, since which school shootings have become a constant feature of American life:

There has been a dramatic increase over the past three years, with 73 school shootings in 2021, 79 in 2022, 82 in 2023 and 45 so far this year. 

And it is not only school shootings. On Monday, a man in Chicago allegedly opened fire on a commuter train, murdering four individuals. On average, 117 Americans die every day from gun violence, 67 percent by suicide and 30 percent by homicide.”

He quoted from the World Socialist Web Site at the time of the Columbine massacre which called attention to the social warning signs, the indications and indices of social and political dysfunction which create the climate that produces such bloody events.

“Vital indicators of impending disaster might include: growing polarization between wealth and poverty; atomization of working people and the suppression of their class identity; the glorification of militarism and war; the absence of serious social commentary and political debate; the debased state of popular culture; the worship of the stock exchange; the unrestrained celebration of individual success and personal wealth; the denigration of the ideals of social progress and equality.”

Kishore continued by elaborating on the development of these tendencies over the past three decades, and their implications:

Over the past quarter century, these social indices, these “vital indicators of impending disaster,” have only increased. The American ruling class and its state has, over the past year, armed, financed and politically justified a genocide in Gaza that has killed as many as 200,000 Palestinians. The Biden-Harris administration is escalating a global war, including the US-NATO war against Russia, that threatens nuclear annihilation.

The normalization of mass death in the pandemic has been a defining experience for young people, with more than 1.4 million deaths in the US alone due to the willful rejection of basic public health by the American ruling class. Police in the United States kill more than 1,000 people every year.

The political system is in an advanced state of degeneration, with one of the parties of the ruling class, the Republicans, led by a fascistic demagogue who attempted to overturn the constitution, and the other, the Democrats, focused entirely on the escalation of war. The entire official political climate and culture wallows in muck and filth, centered on the glorification of wealth, amidst deepening economic and social crisis for the broad mass of the population.

Social services have been starved to pay for war and bank bailouts. The ruling class insists that there is no money for education, mental health services, basic healthcare or any semblance of a social safety net.

The growing mood of resistance in the working class, however, must and will bring with it a radical change in the political, intellectual and, indeed, moral climate of the country. The source of the social pathology of the United States lies in the capitalist system. Therefore, it must be overturned. This is the basic issue confronting workers and young people in this election and beyond.

According to EverytownResearch.org there have been 133 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in the US, resulting in 38 deaths and 81 injuries, so far in 2024. This number is on track to surpass the total of 158 shootings and, 45 deaths and 106 injuries in 2023.

The number of school shootings has risen sharply since EverytownResearch.org began collecting data in 2013, when there were 51 instances of school shootings, 28 deaths and 37 injuries. The data shows that school shootings are taking place in every state in the US, in urban centers, suburban communities and rural districts.

The organization highlights the fact that gunfire in schools “is just the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the exposure of children to gun violence. The research shows that “every year, more than 4,000 children and teens are shot and killed and over 17,000 more are shot and wounded. An estimated 3 million children in the US are exposed to shootings per year. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens.”

Inside Brazil’s X Ban: How Elon Musk Started–and lost–a Fight With Brazil’s Judiciary

Brian Mier

Photograph Source: MINISTÉRIO DAS COMUNICAÇÕES – CC BY 2.0

Millions of Brazilians woke up on August 31 in a country without X, after the Supreme Court ordered the national telecommunications agency to block the social media platform. This move culminated over a year of X’s refusal to follow Brazil’s telecommunications laws, particularly those requiring deplatforming of suspects in internet crime investigations. In a single day, X lost 22 million users, while alternative platform Blue Sky gained 2 million new Brazilian users in just three days. The order to ban the platform initially came from Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes, a figure vilified by the Bolsonaros and the international far right, and was ratified by a 5-0 vote in the Supreme Court’s 1st working group three days later.

The Court order came 12 days after Elon Musk closed X’s Brazilian offices to avoid liability for criminal charges against the company. With X owing R$9 million in fines, the Supreme Court froze the Brazilian assets of Musk’s company Starlink—a minor player in Brazil’s internet service provider industry, serving 250,000 clients in a country of 220 million. After the ban, a furious Musk used his own social media platform to attack one of Brazil’s 11 Supreme Court Ministers, Alexandre de Moraes, inadvertently doxing allies by publishing court documents containing their personal data.

Hailed as a victory for sovereignty while criticized by the far right as an affront to U.S. free speech principles, the X ban is the latest chapter in over a year of conflicts between Brazil and the world’s richest man

To understand how Brazil reached this point, we must go back to October 18, 2018, between the first and second rounds of Brazil’s Presidential elections. That day, investigative journalist Patricia Campos Mello published an article in Folha de São Paulo exposing a group of Brazilian businessmen for spending R$12 million to slander presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro’s rival, Fernando Haddad, on Meta’s WhatsApp platform. Using illegally acquired personal data, the group microtargeted segments of the population with disinformation. For instance, evangelical voters were bombarded with doctored photos falsely claiming that, as mayor, Haddad distributed baby bottles with penis-shaped nipples to São Paulo pre-school students. As a result, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court—comprising 3 Supreme Court Justices, 2 Superior Court Judges, and 2 lawyers—immediately launched an election fraud investigation.

This led to a surge in threats against judges in the Supreme and Superior Electoral Courts, extending to their families and calling for a military coup to shut down the Supreme Court. Among those making the call was Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Congressman Eduardo, who recorded a YouTube video seen by hundreds of thousands, saying, “All you need to shut down the Supreme Court is a single soldier or corporal […] Do you think anyone will protest in its defense?”

Unlike some countries, the Brazilian judiciary lacks its own police force. According to the 1988 Constitution, judiciary police duties are assigned to the regular police. The system’s failure to adequately address threats against Supreme and Superior Electoral Court judges prompted Chief Justice Dias Toffoli to issue a decree on March 14, 2019, allowing Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes to directly supervise a federal investigation into these threats.

As a result, Moraes became the main target of a hate campaign by Bolsonaro’s allies, who argued that, as a victim, he was unqualified to investigate his aggressors. Meanwhile, online threats against the judiciary intensified.

On October 29, 2021, the Superior Electoral Court announced the results of its investigation, with 5 of its 7 Justices confirming that the Bolsonaro campaign had used social media to commit election fraud in 2018. Unable to determine the fraud’s impact, the Court issued no punitive measures. However, Justice Moraes, set to take over the Presidency of the Superior Electoral Court six weeks before the 2022 presidential elections, announced that they now understood the scheme and that anyone using similar tactics in 2022 would “go to jail for attacking elections and democracy.”

Moraes, a conservative appointed to the Supreme Court by coup president Michel Temer in 2017, was already a target of Bolsonarista claims of a “communist dictatorship of the toga.” His upcoming role as head of the electoral court during the presidential election drove the Brazilian far-right into a frenzy.

As destroying the Supreme Court and installing a military dictatorship became the Bolsonarista rallying cry, de Moraes ordered several preventive arrests. These included Congressman Daniel Silveira for abusing his authority by repeatedly urging the army to shut down the Supreme Court while defying court orders. Sara Giromini, who styled herself as Sara Winter after the English fascist leader, was also arrested. She set up an Azov-inspired paramilitary camp outside Brasília, then led followers to camp out in front of the Supreme Court, launching increasingly large fireworks at the building for three days while making online threats against de Moraes and his family.

Clearly inspired by U.S. events—especially since Eduardo Bolsonaro attended the January 5 Washington DC “war council” meeting before the Capitol attack—the Bolsonaros began crafting their own “stop the steal” narrative, drawing more allies from the international far-right. As this campaign grew, Glenn Greenwald joined the attacks on Moraes, using elements of U.S. law that resonated in the Global North but were irrelevant in Brazil’s legal context.

After months of claiming “communists” would steal the elections, and deploying his federal highway police to suppress voting in pro-Lula districts on election day, Bolsonaro lost and fled the country before his term ended, leaving the presidency to his Vice President, General Hamilton Mourão.

In the last 60 days before Lula took office, two Bolsonaro supporters were arrested for attempting to detonate a bomb at Brasília’s airport, while another group staged a violent attack on Brazil’s Federal Police headquarters. Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters camped outside military barracks, demanding the shutdown of the Supreme Court.

A week after the inauguration, on January 8, a crowd invaded the National Congress and Supreme Court. Their goal, according to a detailed coup plan found in Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister Anderson Torres’ house, was to pressure Lula into declaring a state of siege, which would have handed national security to the armed forces. Lula refused to fall for the trick, relying on his federal police to disperse the rioters. Meanwhile, high-tension electrical towers were sabotaged nationwide.

Two months after the capitol riots, a series of school massacres terrorized the nation. Investigators uncovered dozens of neo-Nazi cells targeting children on social media, attempting to incite them to commit school massacres on April 20 in honor of Hitler’s birthday. The Justice Ministry summoned social media representatives and provided a list of accounts requesting deplatforming. X initially resisted. Etela Aranha, then Secretary of Digital Rights, recalls:

“I told them, ‘I’m talking to you because there are profiles of actual terrorists. They use the names and faces of school massacre terrorists, posting videos with songs saying, “I’m going to get you kids, you can’t outrun my gun.” There are clips showing the terrorist’s picture followed by real school massacres.’ The Twitter representative said this didn’t violate their terms. After strong pushback from the justice minister and social pressure, Twitter changed its policy and cooperated with the investigation.” It was one of the last times the company would respect a request from the Brazilian government.

Fast forward to April 3, 2024. A libertarian pundit and former PR operative named Michael Shellenberger tweeted excerpts from emails by X executives, dubbed “Twitter Files Brazil,” alleging crimes by  Alexandre de Moraes. Shellenberger claimed Moraes had pressed criminal charges against Twitter Brazil’s lawyer for refusing to turn over personal information on political enemies. Elon Musk quickly shared the tweets, which went viral and were embraced by the international far right, delighting former President Bolsonaro and his supporters.

Aranha soon exposed the flaws in this narrative. The only criminal charge against Twitter Brazil mentioned in the leaked emails came from the São Paulo district attorney’s office after the company refused to provide data on a leader of Brazil’s largest cocaine trafficking organization, the PCC. Shellenberger had cut an email section about the São Paulo investigation and mixed it with unrelated complaints about Moraes.

Pressed by Brazilian reporters, Shellenberger said: “I regret my mistake and apologize. I don’t have evidence that Moraes threatened to file criminal charges against Twitter’s Brazilian lawyer.”

Three days later, Elon Musk announced his company would stop obeying court orders in Brazil and reinstate accounts of those deplatformed, including Alan dos Santos, a fugitive hiding in the U.S. On X, Musk tweeted a series of insults against Moraes, demanding he “resign or be impeached.”

That night, Moraes ordered X to be included in an ongoing obstruction of justice investigation related to the January 8, 2023, coup attempt and announced a series of fines for refusing to comply with court orders, which have now risen to R$9 million.

Tension continued to mount and on August 7, Musk threatened to close X’s offices in Brazil, claiming court orders to remove accounts of suspects in an online election fraud investigation amounted to “censorship.” His statements were immediately praised by Bolsonaro and allies in the  international far right but had no basis in Brazil’s free speech laws.

Like other nations such as Germany and France, Brazil views the right to free speech as fundamental but not absolute—a right that must coexist with other essential rights. According to Brazil’s constitution, no fundamental right can be used to deny another. This principle allows Brazil to ban actions legal in the U.S., like inciting pedophilia or practicing Nazism. In the case of the digital militia investigation, the court ruled that the right to free expression cannot be used to undermine the right to free and fair elections, another fundamental right in Brazil.

On August 17, Musk fired 40 workers and closed X’s offices in Brazil, leaving behind debts and criminal charges but pledging to keep the platform operational. This violated Brazil’s telecommunications laws, which require any media company operating in the country to have a legal representative. The Supreme Court froze Starlink’s assets until Musk settled his debts, and Moraes warned that if X didn’t appoint a legal representative, the platform would be banned. Instead of complying, Musk escalated his attacks on Moraes and President Lula, sharing an AI-generated image of Moraes behind bars with his 195 million followers.

On August 29, Moraes gave X  24-hours to comply with Brazil’s laws. When X missed the deadline, he ordered Anatel, the national telecommunications agency, to instruct all internet service providers to block X.

With X now offline in Brazil, on Monday, September 2, the Supreme Court held a plenary session to rule on Moraes’ order, upholding it by a vote of 5-0 in the Court’s 1st working group.

Justifying his vote, Minister Flavio Dino stated that a foreign company cannot operate in national territory “and expect to impose its own view on which laws it believes are valid or should be enforced […] Economic power and the size of a bank account do not grant immunity from jurisdiction.”

The Court has made it clear that X can reopen in Brazil by complying with the nation’s laws. Whether Musk will do that is another story. On Monday, September 2, Brazilian news outlets reported that Musk sought help from the Biden administration’s U.S. Embassy in Brasília to develop a strategy to overturn the Supreme Court ruling.