Brazil General Discussion 2019: It's Slammer Time!

[buritobr]

In the official Twitter account of the PSDB, yesterday, we could read that the primaries of the party would share the attenction with the final of the Libertadores da America tournment. The relevance of this primary, won by João Dória against Eduardo Leite, was overrated.
PSDB candidates poll no more than 5%.
According to a 2019 Datafolha poll, Flamengo has the preference of 20% of the brazilians. Palmeiras has the preference of 6%. So, the game yesterday had the interest of ~1/4 of the Brazilian population.

[buritobr]

Now, it is official: Bolsonaro became a member of the Partido Liberal. This party has the same name of the Trudeau's party, although they are very different.

[buritobr]

Covid denialist and Bolsonaro ally Olavo de Carvalho died of virus, says daughter

Rightwing radical was a towering figure in Brazil who was adored and abhorred in equal measure by millions of followers and foes

Olavo de Carvalho, the coronavirus-denying mentor of Jair Bolsonaro and Brazil’s radical right, has died in the United States, with one of his children citing Covid-19 as the cause.

“The family … asks for prayers for the professor’s soul,” relatives said on Twitter after announcing the death of the 74-year-old polemicist – a towering figure in contemporary Brazilian politics who was adored and abhorred in equal measure by millions of followers and foes.

The statement did not say how Carvalho – a former astrologer who repeatedly trivialized Covid as the “moronavirus” – had died. However, his estranged daughter, Heloísa de Carvalho, said coronavirus was the cause.

“He has blood on his hands,” she told the magazine Veja, blaming her father’s “denialist ideas” and dissemination of fake news for the Brazilian government’s delay in purchasing Covid vaccines. “But I do not celebrate his death.”

Bolsonaro – whose shock 2018 election was turbocharged by Carvalho’s extreme and often expletive-ridden teachings – lamented the loss of “one of the greatest thinkers in our country’s history” and declared a national day of mourning. “Olavo was a … beacon for millions of Brazilians,” Brazil’s ultraconservative president claimed.

The president’s son, Eduardo, also celebrated the pipe-smoking septuagenarian whose influence was such that he reputedly named several members of Bolsonaro’s cabinet despite having lived in the US since 2005.

Progressive Brazilians – disgusted by the leading role they claim Carvalho played in poisoning their country’s social and political life and spreading life-threatening misinformation about Covid – rejected such eulogies.

Before his death Carvalho continually minimized coronavirus – which has killed nearly 625,000 Brazilians and 5.6 million people globally – peddled conspiracies about its origins, and attacked those trying to slow its spread. It is unclear if he had been vaccinated.

In May 2020, as Covid pummeled South America, Carvalho tweeted: “The fear of a supposedly deadly virus is nothing more than a little horror story designed to scare the population and make them accept slavery as they would a present from Father Christmas.”

Carvalho branded containment measures “the most enormous and sordid crime ever committed against the entire human species” and once alleged the global health emergency “simply doesn’t exist”. On another occasion he said only “a perfect fool” would believe the spread of the “Chinese virus” was accidental.

“Does the moronavirus really kill people or does he just help them become statistics?” he wondered last January as Brazil’s death toll rose to over 200,000.

When Twitter deleted one of Carvalho’s posts for violating its rules on spreading harmful or misleading information about Covid, he told the company’s then president Jack Dorsey: “You can stick your network up your” buttocks.

Felipe Neto, one of Brazil’s top online influencers, tweeted: “The far right will now try to turn Olavo de Carvalho into a martyr, a hero. Olavo is one of the main culprits for the sea of mud into which we have sunk.”

Journalist André Fran wrote: “My condolences to all those whose relatives have fallen victim to the Bolsonarista hatred and denialism that Olavo did so much to a disseminate.”

Carvalho’s daughter also had harsh words for her father, who was reportedly diagnosed with Covid on 16 January. “May God forgive him all the evil he has done,” she tweeted, recalling losing a friend to Covid on the day her father falsely claimed the world had not seen a single confirmed death. “She was a widow and left three orphaned children under the age of 10.”

Brian Winter, a Brazil specialist who interviewed Carvalho at his rifle-filled Virginia home, said Bolsonaro’s guru had helped import “a kind of tropicalized Fox News culture focused on gender, guns and anti-globalism”.

Winter said during the first decade of this century – as Brazil flourished under the leftist government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – Carvalho was widely considered a “crazy crank”. However, during the 2010s, as the country sank into profound recession and political turmoil, his intellectual-sounding “profanity-laced vitriol” against the left suddenly gained traction. Bookshops sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his most famous work, The Least You Must Know to Avoid Being an Idiot – a tome Bolsonaro promoted after winning power.

Winter remembered first seeing Carvalho’s name at a 2013 anti-government protest on a poster reading: “Olavo was right.”

“He and Bolsonaro were products of the titanic trauma that Brazil endured during the 2010s: the worst recession in a hundred years, the collapse of the political establishment, corruption scandals everywhere you looked, 70,000 homicides a year. Out of this despair, he and Bolsonaro happened to emerge as the winners because they sounded so radically different from anything that happened before. That was their appeal.”

Many believe that appeal is now fading, with former president Lula seemingly poised to trounce Bolsonaro in October’s election.

“Part of the struggle Bolsonaro is having now is that he’s still going around talking about gun rights and gender and these other Olavista ideas in a Brazil where people just want solutions to the pandemic, hunger and unemployment,” Winter said.

“Bolsonaro is playing the Olavista oldies and most Brazilians want to be hearing something else.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/25/covid-denialist-bolsonaro-ally-olavo-de-carvalho-dies-coronavirus

[T'Chenka]

Covid denialist and Bolsonaro ally Olavo de Carvalho died of virus, says daughter

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[buritobr]

Covid denialist and Bolsonaro ally Olavo de Carvalho died of virus, says daughter

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Probably the direct cause of his death was not the coronavirus. He was already very sick in the last year. The virus might have accelarated some days what was predicted to happen. He had cancer. And he was a denialist of the effects of the tobacco.

[Rat]

Did Marina Silva pass up on running this election?

[buritobr]

Did Marina Silva pass up on running this election?

She doesn't have the intent to run again. There is the possibility of her to become Ciro Gomes's running mate.

[SnowLabrador]

I truly believe Bolsonaro will win reelection.

[Flyersfan232]

I truly believe Bolsonaro will win reelection.

Y

[SnowLabrador]

I truly believe Bolsonaro will win reelection.

Y

Because we live in the darkest timeline.

[CumbrianLefty]

I truly believe Bolsonaro will win reelection.

Y

Because they are addicted to mopium.

[buritobr]

German citizen Nikolai Nerling was sentenced in his birth country for Holocaust denial. He fleed to Pomerode, a citizen in Santa Catarina, southern Brazil, created by late 19th early 20th century German immigrants. In Pomerode, Jair Bolsonaro had 85% in the runoff in 2018
https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/condenado-por-negar-holocausto-influenciador-alemao-de-extrema-direita-se-abriga-no-brasil-segue-com-discurso-de-odio-25381739

[buritobr]

Hot topic in the Twitter in Brazil today:

Monark, a pundit who participates in a podcast, said that there should be a legally recognized nazi party, that it means free speech, and that if someone wants to be anti-jew, someone should have the right to be. Last year, Monark has already said that people should have the right to be racist and homophobic.
Many politicians, academics and even the German Embassy reacted to this disgusting speech. There is an increasing pressure on the sponsors of this podcast.
Nazi propaganda and nazi parties are outlawed in Brazil.
Glenn Greenwald had another view: he considered that Monark was no more than supporting free speech and used the USA as an example, where free speech protects the possibility of nazi organizations and nazi propaganda.
Some right-wing people used their traditional false simetry: "OK, nazism should be outlawed, but communism should be outlawed too"

[Red Velvet]

It depends on whether you think the US approach or the Germany approach to this is the correct one.

I think the Germany one is the more correct one tbh, some stuff (like a Nazi party existing not being something against the law) shouldn’t be allowed for the sake of “freedom of speech” when it’s literally based on erasing the existence of others.

There isn’t a thing such as complete individual freedom, otherwise we would be able walk naked on the street in the name of personal expression and do lots of other stuff.

The argument of US ideology being historically selective on freedom is very good too. In practice, this ends up benefiting more specific groups over more vulnerable ones. And that is tied with a lot of current problems they are facing nowadays, that country isn’t good example to be followed.

That said, I strongly disagree with the people calling Monark a literal Nazi simply for defending that “freedom of speech” argument and demanding that he needs to go to prison.

What he said is no different from dumb bar talk from people somewhat interested in discussing politics and reflecting on concepts they like but not having that much of a well-structured position. Which is irresponsible to be publicly in a podcast, but far from criminal as he was defending the “freedom of speech” argument/concept and not nazism.

Criticism and even getting fired from the podcast (the company can do whatever they want) is fair game, but I think many people are taking their previous dislike of the podcast when defending to take this to the criminal sphere. And also it’s about wanting to set a precedent so that actual Nazis aren’t emboldened, I don’t think they actually believe Monark is an extremist more than they think he’s dumb stoner that is easy target to be used as an example.

Monark is very stupid though. If you want to defend the freedom argument there are lot of ways to do it without saying the phrase “I think a Nazi party should be allowed to exist” publicly just to show that you’re very liberal (in terms of individual freedoms), edgy and deconstructed.

This is literally our version of the Joe Rogan discussion on what people should be allowed to talk about in public regardless of how dumb it is because of how it may affect others or not. I am kinda conflicted though. I do think these influencers should have more responsibility on how they express themselves but I don’t really like the enforcement methods and how people decide so easily what is acceptable to be voiced or not.

I understand people who say that this “justice by force” mentality is something that can turn against society whenever the population mood shifts. Today everyone hates Bolsonaro and wants to condemn right-wing extremism or even the minimal and smallest hint of it. But you know that there will be a time again (just like 2015-2019) where everyone will see communism in everything and will use the same populist arguments to persecute people on the left. And they will also say it’s false symmetry because in their view “Nazism is dead and communism is the real dangerous threat at the moment”.

Speaks a lot to political culture of each place tbh. I don’t like much of the overly paternalistic culture we have around here, such as the “Crime against honor” laws where if you offend the “honor” of anyone you can get sued. But I am not a fan of the US culture where everything is fair game in the name of individual rights either. There must be some kind of balance imo.

[buritobr]

Bolsonaro made his official visit to Russia.
One of his duties was visiting the memorial of the Red Army soldiers who fought in the WW2. Funny!
Unlike Macron and Scholz, Bolsonaro didn't sit in the big table. He sat closer to Putin.

[buritobr]

Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo committed a "technical error": around 12am Brazilian local time, the newspaper announced in its website the death of Queen Elizabeth “at the age of XX”, died “as a result of XXXXXXXX”. The article told “Elizabeth will go down in history as the longest-reigning British sovereign,”.
Few minutes after that, the newspaper recognized the technical error. Probably, many newspapers in the world have a ready obituary of the Queen Elizabeth II. Maybe, an intern wrongly published the obituary, with the XX to be replaced to the age and the cause of the death when the event really takes place.


Dead wrong: Brazilian newspaper ridiculed after saying Queen has died
Folha de São Paulo blames ‘technical error’ for website’s premature obituary for British monarch
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/11/dead-wrong-brazilian-newspaper-ridiculed-after-saying-queen-has-died

[NewYorkExpress]

Two years to the day after George Floyd's death, a mentally ill black man was murdered by police in Umbauba.

Brazilians have responded with outrage to the death of a mentally ill Black man who was bundled into the back of a police car by officers who then released a gas grenade inside the vehicle.

Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, was stopped by the federal highway police in the city of Umbaúba on Wednesday. Video footage of the incident shows two officers in helmets holding the car boot closed on his thrashing legs, as clouds of gas billow out of the vehicle.

“They’re going to kill the guy,” an onlooker can be heard saying, as Santos’s legs go still.

An autopsy report confirmed on Thursday that Santos had died of asphyxiation. HIs death came two years to the day after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis by a white police officer who was later found guilty of murder.


According to his family, Santos suffered from schizophrenia, for which he took medication.

Santos’s nephew Alisson de Jesus, who witnessed the incident said he had warned the police that the man was unwell before they released what he described as a teargas grenade. “It was a torture session,” he told the local press.

The horrific death has produced shock in Brazil, where lethal police violence is commonplace and disproportionately affects the country’s Black population. According to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, police killed 6,416 people in Brazil in 2020. Almost 80% of the victims were Black.

https://twitter.com/renatasouzario/status/1529831608030732290

https://twitter.com/renatasouzario/status/1529842587594633219

[buritobr]

Fears for safety of British journalist missing in Brazilian Amazon
Dom Phillips disappeared on a trip to one of the remotest corners of the Amazon days after receiving threats

Fears are growing over the safety of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert who have disappeared in one of the remotest corners of the Amazon just days after receiving threats.

Dom Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian in Brazil, was last seen over the weekend in the Javari region of Amazonas state – a vast region of rivers and rainforests near the border with Peru.


https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/06/dom-phillips-british-journalist-missing-brazil-amazon

[buritobr]

No hope anymore.
Journalist Dom Philips and indigenous activist Bruno Pereira were murdered. They were traleving in a boat in the middle of the Amazon forest when they were shot. Dom was traveling to that region in order to write an article about illegal gold mining in the Amazon forest. Bruno had the intent to meet with indigenous leaderships. That land was a reservation for indigenous people, but it was invaded by illegal gold miners and drug dealers.
Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were not the first and unfortunately they won't be the last to be murdered trying to defend the Amazon forrest against different kind of people who have profit in deflorestation.
The rubber workers's union leader Chico Mendes, murdered in 1988, and american missionaire Dorothy Stang, murdered in 2005, were notorious examples.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/16/dom-phillips-and-bruno-pereira-police-find-bodies-of-two-men-in-search-for-missing-pair

[buritobr]

The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, had plan to have lunch with the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro. But since Sousa also scheduled a lunch with the candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro decided to cancel his lunch with Sousa.
So, Sousa will have lunch only with Lula.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, had plan to have lunch with the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro. But since Sousa also scheduled a lunch with the candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro decided to cancel his lunch with Sousa.
So, Sousa will have lunch only with Lula.

[Mike88]

Bolsonaro's actions in this "incident" are just evidence 4,682,027 on why he should lose the next election and be removed from office. A head of state cannot have childish attitudes or tantrums towards another head of state. However, Marcelo and his team knows how Bolsonaro is and works, and they could have perfectly managed meetings with both men, Lula and Bolsonaro, secretly to avoid issues. But, President Marcelo has a habit of planning his moves with surgical precision, so this could also be a response to that lunch, last year, where Bolsonaro mocked Marcelo and Portugal, and Marcelo wanting Bolsonaro to have a taste of his own medicine.

[Red Velvet]

It was totally a provocation to be meeting with Lula in an election year but:

A) Bolsonaro and his team/family loves to provoke basically every leader, from the Argentine president for the fact of his son being a drag queen to the French president by endorsing comments that his wife Brigitte is ugly. That naturally opens door for leaders to dislike and disrespect you as well. Marcelo didn’t seem concerned about losing the lunch meeting with Bolsonaro and still went to meet with Lula this Sunday and why wouldn’t he? Everyone in the world knows at this point that Bolsonaro isn’t a serious leader.

B) There are diplomatic ways to react to this stuff in order to not make it bigger news. No one knew the Portuguese president was visiting our country and Bolsonaro by cancelling the meeting and openly saying it’s because of Lula, creates more headlines and reinforces the idea about foreign leaderships loving the hell out of Lula while Bolsonaro is toxic for the country image. You basically give Lula the position of being the main political figure receiving foreign chiefs of state while he’s currently unelected instead of showing you can do that job just as good.

C) If there was a tension because of this political matter, you create even bigger tensions by making this be a big deal and cancelling the lunch. Story is that the Portuguese would send a big political team for the 200th anniversary of Brazil’s independence happening this September, from president Marcelo to prime minister Antonio Costa, alongside other officials. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was canceled (Either by Brazil or Portugal or both) now because of the awkwardness involved, as it would be weird meeting between Portuguese and Brazilian officials to say the least.

[Red Velvet]

This shouldn’t come as a surprise though. Lula is way more popular than Bolsonaro in Europe. They love the hell out of him over there.

Lula had a tour early this year in Germany-Belgium-France-Spain and had a relevant agenda in all of them, making a speech in the European Parliament while in Belgium and having official meetings with Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sanchez. The reception in France was particularly good, where he was received with chief of staff honors even if he’s not currently occupying any government position or is elected for anything, almost like as if he was the actual president (wouldn’t doubt that Macron also enjoyed sending some shade to Bolsonaro considering their personal beef).

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro never got a meeting with any of those leaders. The only European leaders that are willing to be seen with him are Viktor Orban of Hungary (because it’s the same brand of politician) and Vladimir Putin of Russia (mostly because of strategic BRICS convenience, but also some allignment with Bolsonaro social conservatism).

[CumbrianLefty]

The only European leaders that are willing to be seen with him are Viktor Orban of Hungary (because it’s the same brand of politician)

Two peas from the same pod, indeed.