In the first days of May 2024,
the territory occupied by the state of Rio Grande do Sul
was hit by the biggest climate catastrophe in its history.
Over a week of intense rainfall
caused several rivers to overflow,
sweeping away dozens of towns
and destroying everything in their path,
and then flowing into the Guaíba River,
causing the biggest flood ever recorded
in the Greater Porto Alegre region and other cities in the state.
Hundreds of people died.
Thousands lost everything.
Hundreds of thousands were left homeless.
More than a million were affected.
Entire towns were practically wiped out. #
Chaos and destruction.
As well as having a direct responsibility for the devastation of the planet,
producing more and more catastrophes,
at the heart of the horror
we see the complete inability of the state
and capitalism
to take care of our lives. #
On the one hand, the state at all levels
has made it clear that its priority is not and never has been
to protect our lives.
For decades, the Brazilian state
has ignored the warnings
about the dangers of environmental destruction and climate change,
and has failed to take effective measures
to prevent catastrophes like this one.
But more than that, it has been an active agent of destruction
- sometimes devastating at a slower pace,
sometimes ravaging the land more vicously.
Under Bolsonaro's neo-fascist government,
this contempt for life and hatred of nature was on full display.
...
But even social-democratic regimes,
including the governments of the Worker's Party (PT),
have contributed heavily to global warming,
promoting the automotive industry,
oil extraction
and other sources of energy with a high environmental impact
to boost economic growth.
At state and municipal level,
the state's negligence is repeated
with an even more direct and immediate impact on our lives.
Despite repeated warnings from meteorological systems,
the state has failed to draw up adequate
evacuation plans and warnings.
On the contrary,
it has not invested the minimum required in preventing
and protecting the population.
The current governor, Eduardo Leite, from the right wing party PSDB,
has weakend the state's environmental legislation,
to favour business
and reduced the budget for civil defense
during his government.
- There are these studies,
that somewhat alerted us,
but the government also has other agendas.
And the floodgates that protect Porto Alegre
have failed due to lack of maintenance
and errors in their closure. #
What happened was worsened
by the fact that the municipal water and sewage department
had accumulated the demands
of the Rainwater Sewerage Department
- the body responsible for the system of dykes,
floodgates and pumping stations
that protect the Rio Grande do Sul capital from flooding,
and not received enough resources in the last administrations
of Porto Alegre city hall.
According to experts,
the city would not have flooded if the system had been properly maintained
and managed. #
It gets worse.
The mayor of Porto Alegre, Sebastião Melo,
only decreed water rationing
after 85% of the city
already had no access to drinking water.
And the population of some neighborhoods
was only informed of the disconnection of the pumps
that prevented flooding of their homes
after they had been turned off,
giving them no time to evacuate. #
The city government also got in the way of volunteers
who had organized donation centers in ceded spaces
and kept them running for weeks,
by making agreements with the property owners
so that they would take over the operations
that until then had been self-organized by the volunteers,
who were then excluded and criminalized.#
This that is happening...
I shouldn't be worrying about this now.
I should be loading trucks
and making deliveries.
In fact, in the vast majority of neighborhoods,
aid to those affected by the flood
was provided by communities themselves
and by volunteer supporters who worked together
to guarantee supplies of water,
food, clothes and blankets.
One example was the Quilombo dos Machado,
in the Sarandi district of Porto Alegre,
which, with the support of other urban quilombos in the city,
organized these operations for weeks
without any support from the state.
- This support that the state should be providing...
In fact, the community itself, we, by ourselves, for ourselves,
are doing.
When they asked governor Eduardo Leite for help, he replied:
- The state doesn't has enough
resources to cover everything.
In addition, he left incarcerated people stranded in prisons in the region,
without access to water, food or hygiene items.
It was up to inmate's the families, also affected by the floods,
to organize themselves to bring these basic items
to avoid even greater suffering
by those kidnapped by the state.
It's always good to remember that this is not a case
of inaction or failure on the part of the state.
These situations are part of the ongoing extermination project. #
Not only is capitalism at the root of the climate change
that threatens all life on earth,
but the actions of corporations and big capitalists
have done little to help with rescues
and alleviate the suffering of the population.
On the contrary, they have made the situation even worse.
Capitalists failed to keep
the supermarkets that were still operating stocked,
because since they were interested in profit
they allowed richer people
to stock up on water and groceries.
At the same time, dozens of stores were
flooded with their entire stock of water,
food and other essential items for the population
locked inside
under the protection of police and security guards armed with rifles.
Companies and the state were more
interested in protecting this merchandise
than letting people have access to the items they needed most.
- C'mon, man, drop it. C'mon!
Even if those items were later to be disposed of
or compensated by the insurance company.
While volunteers rescued
tens of thousands of dogs, cats and horses from rooftops,
setting up and organizing spaces to shelter them,
with veterinary care and food,
pet stores abandoned
fish, birds and mammals in their cages
inside the flooded stores,
even though there was plenty of time
to transfer them to safe spaces.
Animals sold as objects
and abandoned to drown,
highlighting the logic of this system:
for capitalists, life is just another commodity
that'll be covered by insurance.
The little support that the big companies
offered was derisory.
Grendene, one of the largest shoe producers in the world,
suggested that its workers donate
items from the food packages they receive monthly
to those affected by the floods.
Ambev, the world's largest brewery,
whose annual profits are twice the size of the city of Porto Alegre's budget,
has put drinking water into aluminum cans,
in what constitued more a marketing stunt
than any form of real solidarity.
FIERGS, the organization that represents the industries of Rio Grande do Sul,
has requested R$100 billion in aid from the federal government
for the recovery of companies hit by the floods.
Making it clear that when capitalists talk about a minimal state,
it's only when it comes to the interests of the less well-off,
but they want a strong state to support and defend the interests of the rich.#
Defenders of capitalism praised the actions of billionaires and businessmen
who donated small fractions of their fortunes
to help the flood victims.
That's when the good deeds weren't complete lies,
like the image showing billionaire Luciano Hang's helicopter
rescuing stranded people,
which was actually an image generated by artificial intelligence. #
Meanwhile, ordinary people, including some who have lost everything,
have shown much more solidarity and willingness to help,
donating proportionally much more of their resources than the super-rich.
A solidarity livestreamed gig by a rock band
raised more money than the donations from the US government
and the egocentric billionaire Elon Musk combined.
Not to mention that capitalists profited directly from the catastrophe,
like the supermarkets that sold all their
stocks of bottled water to desperate people,
often at abusive prices,
and had record sales with the generosity of ordinary people
who bought items to donate to those who lost everything.
And they will continue to profit as long
as the people affected and those solidarizing with them
are struggling to rebuild what has been lost. #
The municipal and state governments
intend to build temporary cities
for the tens of thousands of displaced people,
until the neighborhoods where they lived are rebuilt,
if possible,
or it is decided where they will live.
But these temporary buildings are totally unnecessary.
Porto Alegre alone has more than 100,000 empty homes.
In the city center, 30% of homes are vacant.
This is 10 times more
than the number of temporary homes planned in the city.
This plan is nothing more
than another way of generating profit for developers
and for politicians to boost their popularity
through populist and ineffective measures
that don't tackle the roots of suffering and inequality.
Worse than that,
it is an attempt to displace the poor and black population
away from areas coveted by the state and developers,
These people in shelters,
they shouldn't live where they live.
paving the way for the appropriation of their former homes
by predatory construction companies.
For politicians and capitalists, reconstruction is an opportunity.
Huge quantities of building materials
will be needed to rebuild the infrastructure
and homes destroyed by the water.
And capitalists will profit from producing
and selling these materials.
Companies will be hired through hastily put together tenders.
And, as with any action by the state allied
to capitalism, there will be delays, corruption,
overbilling, embezzlement #
and favoritism.
Let's not kid ourselves, because not even
supposedly left-wing governments, such as the PT's federal government,
have the courage and power to attack capitalism
and its mob of reactionary defenders head-on.
No matter which party was or will be in government,
from the PT's democratic center-left
to Bolsonaro's lunatic far-right,
the Brazilian state is intrinsically connected to capitalism,
to the enrichment of an elite,
bargaining away the future of life on the planet in exchange for governability.
The tragedy that devastated the territory occupied by the state of Rio Grande do Sul
was not simply an unavoidable natural disaster.
It is yet another in a series of extreme
climatic events happening
with increasing frequency and intensity.
And they are the result of decades of destruction and exploitation of the planet,
ignoring warnings from scientists
and repressing the resistance of social movements and indigenous peoples,
in the name of economic growth.
A brutal system where state and capitalism
come together to plunder the earth and exploit our bodies. #
We feel the consequences of a global problem.
The same capitalism that causes floods in Rio Grande do Sul
causes droughts in the Pantanal wetlands and in the Amazon rainforest,
commits genocide in Gaza
to control natural gas reserves
and oppresses students who rise up against this massacre;
contaminates water, violates indigenous territories
and sinks entire neighborhoods to extract coveted minerals,
destroys forests, oceans, mountains and deserts
to secure profit for a handful of privileged people,
while condemning billions to suffering and precariousness.
If, on the one hand, state and capitalism
have once again shown that their priority
is not the well-being of the population or life in general,
- Can't you help?
Fuck off, asshole!
on the other hand we have seen that solidarity springs up spontaneously
and we are able to support each other,
even overcoming serious ideological differences. #
Thousands of people took the lead
and organized rescues, using their own resources,
risking their own lives
to save those of other people, human or not.
The creation of shelters and support points
such as donation distribution centers
and solidarity and emergency kitchens,
which produce thousands of meals a day
for the displaced,
transported by volunteer drivers.
All maintained by a massive network of solidarity,
which extended beyond the regions affected by the disaster,
spreading throughout the territory occupied by the Brazilian state
and other countries.
When disaster struck,
the meritocracy and individualism of capitalism
were quickly cast aside by the majority of the population,
who dedicated their time to helping other people
without asking themselves if they deserved it
and without expecting any reward for it.
Who used their own money
to ensure that other people had something to wear and something to eat.
Who shared their material resources
without demanding a financial exchange.
Who put their lives at risk to ensure the survival of another.
In the midst of the catastrophe,
people had the chance to realize that we are all in this together.
That money is of little help
when there is no more water to sell on the market.
The state and capital will do everything
in their power to take over and centralize
the actions of self-organized solidarity.
Whether it's forcibly taking control of operations,
requisitioning the buildings used to resume classes or work,
coercing people to return to their jobs
or formalizing and institutionalizing the organizations that remain.
Our self-organization and unrestricted solidarity
are a real threat to the state and capital,
because they depend on our disunity, our indifference and inaction
in the face of other people's suffering.
To prevent capitalism from using this and future catastrophes
to advance its destructive projects,
we need to continue mobilizing and coordinating.
It's up to us to organize ourselves
to seize and occupy idle and abandoned buildings
and ensure that they are used for the benefit of our communities.
Make sure that church buildings
are used to support people in need
and not to spread hatred and intolerance.
Fight to ensure that no one profits from the tragedy,
so that resources are distributed to those in need.
If we need to rebuild our lives and our cities,
let's make sure we build something better, more just. #
If what we call humanity has a future,
it will be collective.
Or it won't be at all.