21:54 - They were in the process of legalizing the deeds for them when the military came to power and the military wouldn't be tolerating any peasant unionization at all, no matter what they were calling themselves then. I think after the democratization, these peasants from Galileia finally got their deeds.
27:30 - Many people got shit scared when the military came cracking down on everybody in 1964 and many turned to the faith to distance themselves even further from being associated with Communists, who were mostly atheists then.
38:16
We have all kinds of people who say this about the dictatorship. But the thing is, Brazil between 1930's and 1970's, was the country that grew and developed the most in the western hemisphere, it was a time of industrialization and urbanization. Many people climbed the social ladder getting good jobs in the industry and going to the public Universities that were being founded by the government. For example, the University which I go to is a Federal Institute and University that provides 100% free superior education, from bachelor degree to doctor's degree. Many people say the military government wasn't that bad, it was because it was not that bad from the economical point of view. If you were not a leftist and a guy not mixed in politics, you'd probably do fine. But if you were not... they would come for you to kill, torture you, whatever.
1:13:09
Exactly, legislative privilege. In Brazil some politicians' chairs give you legal immunity to certain stuff if you hold a position in some positions in the legislative power. It's allegedly there for reasons of national security, like assuring the politicians protection if he's into defending stuff against powerful interests. But in reality, we know these mofos use this for their very personal and crooked purposes. Nowadays, Assemblymen like this don't have this kind of privilege anymore, but members of the Federal Executive(like the President) and members of the federal legislative power (like Bolsonaro's two sons, Flavio and Eduardo) also have immunity. Bolsonaro and their sons are up to their neck with criminal shit waiting to fck them up if they lose their chairs. There some people seriously speculate that Bolsonaro won't risk losing the election to Lula and losing this immunity, because 100% he's going to jail.
1:15:32
Please be aware of the date here, 1965. Two military policemen on trial for killing a leftist peasant leader. For the government then that was not even considered a crime, killing communists was literally fair game in 1965, if you wanted to be a civilian and create paramilitary groups to kill communists, you could and people did so. This trial certainly was a farce controlled by the military then, 100%.
1:39:00
The paranoia of those days can be shown here. The thing about Cuba is that after Joao Pedro was assassinated, Cuba's government offered a grant to one of his sons to study medicine there, which they accepted. And once Elizabeth accepted an invitation of the Cuban government to go there and visit the sons and talk about agrarian reform, all of this was before 1964. After that visitation to Cuba, she was immediately thought to be a Cuban or Soviet agent working to an armed revolution with the peasants, total Cold War paranoia bullhit. And yes, not only they, but the US government then(hello Lincoln Gordon) were feeding the military with information(or misinformation) corroborating this shit.
1:50:25
The death squads were groups of extremist policeman and military members who got together to do the brutal actions that a govenrment that was trying to look legit couldn't do, like murdering two people who just got released from questioning by the police.
2:16:56
Jucurutu is literally the region that most of my family comes from, our ancestors came from Portugal and stayed in this region since the 1770's, more or less. I still have family in Jucurutu, one of my mother's uncles is a local politician, the whole thing. It's a tiny tiny town close to Caicó, in the dry backlands of Rio Grande do Norte.
2:19:54
This was filmed in 81 and released in 84 when the military government was pretty much on their way out. But this union leader had the balls to say this on camera in 81... If that was released in 81 or someone snitched on this guy on behalf of this, he would be in deep shit and he knows this. Balls on this guy.
2:23:46
Elizabeth Teixeira is considered a hero by leftists in Brazil still to this day, but today the peasant and classist movements are not very popular in Brazil, it's still too dangerous and not as well-regarded by the media as other leftists agendas present in the US Democratic Party, like ensuring more rights and protection to minorities. But if you type "Elizabeth Teixeira" on google, you'll still see recent newspaper news and interviews with her, she's still alive, actually.
2:34:05
I personally think that's why 80% of the Brazilian intellectual elite is leftist or even socialist. The political right wing in Brazil in general, are reactionary rabid dogs. Since the 30's with the Integralist Action(Brazilian Fascist movement) we've been dealing with these people, who are savages that don't tolerate even the moderate right wingers who support them on their way to power. For example, General Olympio Mourão Filho who's mentioned in The Day That Lasted 21 Years as the first general to riot was a notorious member of the Integralist Action in the past, and was already persecuting Communists in Brazil since the 30's, these guys are the old brazilian political right-wing, some barbaric savages.
2:40:38
Some parts of the catholic church had socialist and communist influenced groups and the same with some protestant groups, but both of the mainstream churches firmly supported the military coup against the “atheist communism” that the military was allegedly fighting against.
2:45:00
I think you nailed it in this comment. This movie is all about the cost of the struggle these people were involved in and the price they had to pay being a poor family fighting against people much larger than them. That’s why communists in Brazil reject the Democratic Party’s agenda of promoting reforms in capitalism to benefit specific sectors of the repressed masses. In Brazil the class violence you suffer from being a poor person can not even be compared to the racial violence many certainly suffers severely. In Brazil if you are a black wealthy person, the only violence you can be subject of, is symbolic one, not being considered part of the pack of the old elite. On the other hand, the violence you are victim of as a poor person(class violence) is the threat of hunger, unemployment, lack of access to basic rights. I’m absolutely not saying that this agenda is the same in the US as it is in Brazil, I know that the US has a different and specific reality as far as race goes, something already much discussed in the academia. But as a socialist individual who lives in Brazil, I think it’s important to make sure that people know that if you’re a poor working man, it doesn't matter which color you are, you’ll suffer severely based on your class.
