World Politics

[Mori Chu]

I honestly just don't trust you to recap the situation in Brazil accurately, In2. You've made a whole bunch of posts and linked to several tweets, but you describe it in a way that sounds an awful like your incorrect defenses of Trump and 1/6 in the US. So if the situation in Brazil is similar, you'd presumably mis-assess it in the same way. I haven't taken the time to read about Brazil's current situation myself, but I suspect that the reality is not at all like what you've been posting, given the very questionable sources you've used.

[Mori Chu]

Japanese PM calls out the US (Republicans, really) for failing in our international leadership by not helping Ukraine. He's right.

[In2ition]

I honestly just don't trust you to recap the situation in Brazil accurately, In2. You've made a whole bunch of posts and linked to several tweets, but you describe it in a way that sounds an awful like your incorrect defenses of Trump and 1/6 in the US. So if the situation in Brazil is similar, you'd presumably mis-assess it in the same way. I haven't taken the time to read about Brazil's current situation myself, but I suspect that the reality is not at all like what you've been posting, given the very questionable sources you've used.

Feel free to research this yourself and check my work.

[Nodack]

I did look. Found nothing. The parallels between the US and Brazil are pretty similar. If you are Maga here in the US, then your viewpoint is America is turning into a dictatorship government and all of its institutions are evil and fraudulent. Trump won the last election and now the evil Dems and their evil government are attacking to completely innocent Trump.

Maga in Brazil says the exact same thing. Of course the mainstream media across the globe is covering it all up and suppressing the rightful leader of Brazil Bolsonaro.

[Nodack]

Amnesty 2022 report on Brazil
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/ame ... rt-brazil/
BRAZIL 2022
Racism continued to drive state violence. Mass killings by public security officials were frequent, disproportionately affecting Black people in marginalized neighbourhoods. Cis and transgender women, especially Black women, were targets of various forms of violence. In an election year, the dissemination of fake news and statements by President Bolsonaro incited politically motivated violence, threatened state institutions and undermined the functioning of judicial institutions. Many journalists and human rights defenders were threatened and killed. The social, political and economic situation continued to deteriorate, leading to violations of the rights to food, health, housing, work and social assistance, among others. Investigations into human rights violations documented by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic were shelved. The historic failure of the state to confront structural racism continued to result in Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants being disproportionately impacted by failings in institutional measures and actions.

Human Rights Watch
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/c ... ers/brazil
President Jair Bolsonaro has threatened democratic rule in Brazil by attempting to undermine trust in the electoral system, free speech, and judicial independence. In a forceful response, the Supreme Court in 2021 rejected “threats to its independence and intimidation.”

President Bolsonaro has harassed and tried to intimidate the Supreme Court, which is overseeing four criminal investigations into his conduct, including whether he interfered with federal police appointments to further his personal interests and whether he committed malfeasance in a corruption case involving the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines.

The Bolsonaro administration has pursued prison sentences against at least 17 critics, including by using a military-era National Security Law. Although many of the cases have been closed, such actions send the message that criticizing the president can lead to persecution.

President Bolsonaro harassed and insulted the media and individual reporters 87 times during the first half of 2021, Reporters without Borders, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), reported.

He routinely blocks critics on the social media accounts he uses to discuss matters of public interest, violating their free speech rights. In September 2021, he issued a decree that would have impeded social media platforms from eliminating harmful misinformation. After the Senate rejected the decree and the Supreme Court suspended it, he sent a bill with similar provisions to Congress.

President Bolsonaro continued to flout World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations and to promote ineffective drugs against Covid-19.

[Nodack]

Human Rights Watch 2023
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/c ... ers/brazil
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidential elections in October at a critical time for Brazil’s democracy.

Throughout his term, former President Jair Bolsonaro harassed and insulted Supreme Court justices and journalists. He tried to undermine trust in the electoral system, making unproven claims of electoral fraud. Political violence rose during the campaign season.

Deforestation and human-caused fires ravaged the Amazon rainforest. Indigenous people, community leaders, and others who defended it suffered threats and attacks.

Lula won the October election by a narrow margin. Bolsonaro did not explicitly recognize defeat but allowed the transition, as of November.

Ahead of the October elections, then-President Bolsonaro insulted and tried to intimidate Supreme Court justices and repeated unproven claims of electoral fraud. He said it “appears” that election winners would be those “who have friends” in the Superior Electoral Court. He told dozens of ambassadors in July that Brazil’s electoral system was unreliable. In September, he said that if he did not get 60 percent of the vote, “something wrong would have happened” at the electoral court.

In August, more than one million Brazilians, including prominent businesspeople, former Supreme Court justices, politicians, and artists, co-signed a manifesto defending democracy and the rule of law.

[In2ition]

Are you claiming what I'm showing is fake or made up and nothing is actually happening in Brazil?

[Nodack]

After last year’s riots, Latin America’s most populous democracy tries to piece itself together
https://apnews.com/article/brazil-bolso ... 6b719c51b1
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Congress has everything ready to open an exhibit Monday featuring pieces including a tapestry crafted by renowned artist Burle Marx and a replica of the country’s constitution dated 1988.

The display is notable not because of the rarity of the objects, but because they are the living memory of one of the grimmest episodes in Brazil’s recent history: As unprecedented riots in support of former President Jair Bolsonaro took place on Jan. 8, 2023, in government buildings in the capital Brasilia, the tapestry was damaged and the replica constitution was taken.

Many saw the rioting as part of a failed attempt by Bolsonaro to remain in power following his election loss. A year and hundreds of arrests later, Brazil is still recovering.

“Brazil’s society still doesn’t know how to handle what happened, there’s no consensus,” said Creomar de Souza, founder of political risk consultancy Dharma Politics. “Brazil’s society is now in extreme opposites. And parts of those opposites are in a place that they cannot reconcile with the other.”
Mimicking the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by defenders of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump at the Capitol in Washington, thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court buildings, in one of the biggest challenges to Latin America’s most populous democracy.

Members of the three branches of power in Brazil say democracy and its guardrails have been restored after the trashing of the government buildings. But arrests have led supporters of the former president to say their freedom of speech is being violated and claim they are politically persecuted.

Pollster Quaest said 89% of Brazilians see the events of Jan. 8 negatively. Some 47% believe Bolsonaro was somehow involved in the riots.


Brazilian democracy in the aftermath
of 8 January
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/ ... 354_EN.pdf
SUMMARY
On 8 January 2023, far-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the presidential
palace, the Supreme Court and the Congress in Brasilia. The events, widely acknowledged as
echoing the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, took place only a week after the
inauguration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as President of Brazil for the third time; Bolsonaro, who did
not concede defeat in the October 2022 election, was notably absent from the inauguration.

The European Union has condemned the anti-democratic acts of violence, reiterated its full support
for President Lula Da Silva, and for the Brazilian democratic system, and expressed solidarity with
the democratic institutions targeted by this attack. On 19 January 2023, the European Parliament
adopted a resolution also expressing solidarity with the Lula government and Brazilian institutions
and urging supporters of ex-President Bolsonaro to accept the democratic outcome of the elections.
Parliament also welcomed the investigation to identify and prosecute those involved and
highlighted a recent decision taken by the Brazilian Supreme Court to approve the federal
prosecutors' request to investigate Bolsonaro.

CASE STUDY: BRAZIL
Global State of Democracy 2023 Report
https://www.idea.int/sites/default/file ... report.pdf
On 8 January 2023, Brazil experienced ‘the most serious attack on state institutions since its return to democracy in 1985’ (Souto 2023). In an
assault with alarming parallels to the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol
in the United States, supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings (Sullivan and Glen 2023), claiming the election had been fraudulent. This assault, which came months after Bolsonaro lost the election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has been attributed to Bolsonaro’s spread of election misinformation, toxic polarization and rising extremism (Salomón 2022). Like former US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro frequently cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Brazilian electoral system, claiming without evidence that it was prone to fraud, especially regarding the electronic voting system (Al Jazeera 2022b; Santos 2022; Nicas, Milhorance and Ionova 2022). Bolsonaro issued a statement on social media condemning the riots and rejecting allegations of his involvement (Bolsonaro 2023; Millard 2023).
The 8 January attacks were the culmination of Bolsonaro’s efforts to destabilize democracy during his presidency (2019–2022), which was characterized by attempts to weaken core institutions, including electoral bodies, civil society, the media, and law enforcement agencies.

[Nodack]

Are you claiming what I'm showing is fake or made up and nothing is actually happening in Brazil?

I have been pouring over the internet looking for what you are saying and have come to the conclusion that Maga and Brazil’s Maga are the same. They both have done everything in their power to bring down democracy. They both hate their government institutions and want their one man to rule and aren’t afraid to use force, lies, manipulation to gain their way. They both claim they have been persecuted unfairly by the evil government.

Yes, if you interview either a Maga in the US or Maga in Brazil, they will all say the same thing about their country.

[In2ition]

Are you claiming what I'm showing is fake or made up and nothing is actually happening in Brazil?

I have been pouring over the internet looking for what you are saying and have come to the conclusion that Maga and Brazil’s Maga are the same. They both have done everything in their power to bring down democracy. They both hate their government institutions and want their one man to rule and aren’t afraid to use force, lies, manipulation to gain their way. They both claim they have been persecuted unfairly by the evil government.

Yes, if you interview either a Maga in the US or Maga in Brazil, they will all say the same thing about their country.

So you're claiming it's not happening. Got it.

[Nodack]

I claim that Maga in the US and Maga in Brazil are identical in every possible way. It’s as if Trump and Bolsonaro got together and planned the same exact strategy of undermining Democracy. They both lost and they both claimed they won anyway. They both got their supporters to storm the Capital and destroy things. Of course now they both claim their country’s are completely falling apart because they aren’t the leaders. They and their supporters all claim that they are all being wrongly persecuted by the evil government that is a dictatorship. Both leaders are being investigated and charged crimes.

You are welcome to claim everyone in Brazil loves Bolsonaro and thinks Lula is an evil dictator. I don’t see it. I see Maga making absurd claims like they always do.

[In2ition]

You're claiming that the censorship being reported and the tyranny by the Supreme Court Justice is false and being made up?

[Nodack]

I’m claiming everything Maga in Brazil is saying, Maga in the US is saying.

[Mori Chu]

It sounds like In2 has completely mischaracterized the situation in Brazil.

[Split T]

I read this AP article to try and understand

https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk- ... fbb0edf211

Basically a judge in Brazil ordered X to shut down certain accounts. The accounts were spreading fake news and threats directed at Supreme Court judges and then were trying to overthrow the 2022 election.

The article states that in Brazil, these judges have the power to block accounts like this. Musk is fighting back and I guess threatening to unblock the accounts. Of course Musk himself has censored accounts on X that attack him.

Is the judge justified? Hard to say as the article didn’t say what the accounts were specifically saying…but the actions of the right in Brazil do feel incredibly similar to what the right did here in the USA.

[In2ition]

What did I mischaracterize? Be specific.

Here is a short and condensed summary:
You believe that Bolsonaro was a dictator, I think that is nonsense.

I said he was very popular, which is true. Did you see the millions of people that come out in support for him, before and after the election? The crowds were there for days.

You think he was like Trump. I agree.

The US state department and FBI worked with the Supreme Court Judge on censorship of the Brazilians before and after the election. The US state department even warned Bolsonaro to not dispute the election results before the election even happened. That certainly makes it sound like they had a hand in the outcome.

After the election, the millions of Bolsonaro supporters protested, with no violence. After nearly a week of protest, and the Supreme Court ruling that they couldn't even investigate the election results, some of the supporters broke in the Federal buildings, including the Supreme Court building. There was still no physical harm or violence towards anyone.

Afterwards, the Supreme Court ruled that Bolsonaro could not hold or run for office for quite a number of years. 8 more years, in fact.

Then, they started insisting that social media companies ban people, including politicians in the government, from these social media platforms.

Elon said no, and argued that it was against their own Constitution. The Supreme Court Justice begins fining X, and threatens to arrest X employees. They also arrested politicians and journalists, under made up laws by the Supreme Court Justice to do so.

[In2ition]

I am still not understanding how I mischaracterized this situation.

[TOO]

If Twitter wasn't a hot bed for spreading misinformation, this wouldn't be happening. Spreading lies isn't free speech.

[Mori Chu]

I am still not understanding how I mischaracterized this situation.

I won't be able to convince you, so I'm not going to belabor it.

[In2ition]

So you defame my character by making sweeping statements about me, while I back things up with the words and actions of the Brazilian government. Does that kind of stuff fly in your classroom?