Sunday, January 08, 2023

The Populism of truth telling, decency in policy, and equality for all is winning elections.

Some allies and advisers (click here) want the Brazilian president to contest his election loss to Lula. Others want a global fight over free speech.

Steve Bannon loses another one to democracy. He and his associates are national security issues globally. They make their living putting extremist right wing politicians into office, regardless, the harm it does to the people, their economy, national security and global stability.

Bannon is a master at corruption and dangling millions and billions as the enticement for donations to his campaign. That is what Bannon practices ardently, corruption. His campaigns, even Trump's campaign, was nothing but the promise of corruption's profiteering.

Bannon has no regard for law or constitutions. He does like free speech to a point, but, only to the point where he can craft an alternate reality that brings anger and declension. All free speech is not his forte.

January 8, 2022
By Anthony Faiola and Paulina Villegas

Brasilia - Thousands of radical supporters of Brazil’s former far-right president (click here), Jair Bolsonaro, stormed and vandalized the country’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential office building on Sunday before being pushed back by security forces, in an episode that paralleled the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The attacks in the capital city came only a week after the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in a runoff election in October. They amounted to one of the worst attacks against democracy in Brazil since the 1964 military coup.

A visibly irritated president Lula condemned the “abominable” acts and said all those involved would be investigated and punished “with all the strength of the law.” He also blamed Bolsonaro for encouraging the attacks by repeatedly questioning the integrity of the electoral process....

When cronies get pay offs it is hard to simply walk away from to concede a political loss. The rainforests are important to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There was a referendum on the ballot this year in Brazil. The people want to protect their heritage.

01 January 2023

...The Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA) (click here) has the largest tropical rainforest area, the highest biodiversity and the largest amount of aboveground biomass in the world1,2,3. Since 2000, the Indigenous territories (ITs) and the protected areas (PAs) in the BLA have increased substantially and by 2013 they accounted for 43% of the total land area and covered about half of the total forest area in the region1. ITs and PAs have important roles in forest and biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation in the BLA....

Brazil art exhibition (click here) showcases an Indigenous worldview and poses questions

The greatest economy for Brazil is protecting the Amazon and inviting the world to visit their beautiful and fun cities in the world, Rio de Janeiro. The rainforest provides a home for the indigenous tribes. There are many that live in the rainforest. The indigenous tribes produce crafts of which professional interior designers around the world seek out for their clients. The crafts of these tribes are original and provide an economy for them.  

October 27, 2022
By Andrew Downie

When historians write books (click here) about why so many Brazilians voted for the far-right they will justifiably focus on ideological, political and social issues. But there is another key reason why President Jair Bolsonaro is still competitive as Sunday’s runoff ballot approaches: he’s handing out billions from a government slush fund.

The fund is known as the “secret budget” because there is little or no oversight over where the money goes once it is handed to lawmakers.

Worth 19bn reais a year (£3.1bn), the fund amounts to around one-fifth of the government’s entire discretionary spending.

“It is the biggest corruption scandal on the face of the earth,” said Simone Tebet, the conservative senator who finished third in the first-round ballot on 2 October....

Congratulations to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, truly the people's president.