The rise of Jair Bolsinaro and his authoritarian movement is explained better than I have seen anywhere else (and I hold both an MIA and BA in Human Rights and International Relations and from Columbia University, respectively) by Glenn Greenwald, who sat in this week for Jeremy Scahill on the always-excellent Intercepted Podcast.
For whatever it’s worth, I know there are legitimate gripes and grievances here with Greenwald’s editorializing on American politics. But assuming you have followed his serious journalistic work for The Intercept and The Guardian, I don’t need to tell you that Glenn has made unspeakable contributions to our struggle for freedom from oppressive states, particularly with his reporting on the NSA, which climaxed with the 2015 passage of the USA Freedom Act. And this is not just my opinion; this work won him the Pulitzer Prize, the Polk Award, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting, The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award, and earned him a spot on Foreign Policy Magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013.
A civil rights lawyer by educational training, Greenwald has lived for some time in Brazil, and his demonstrated passion for freedom and civil rights/liberties, staunch opposition to authoritarian regimes, and unique skillset for untangling highly complex political puzzles makes him possibly THE best suited English-speaking journalist to cover and understand Brazil’s DRAMATIC, TERRIFYING shift to the extreme right.
PLEASE, I BEG YOU TO LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST, EVEN IF IT MEANS PUTTING ASIDE YOUR PERSONAL FEELINGS AGAINST GREENWALD. IT IS VITAL.
megaphone.link/…
P.S. I will post excerpts of the transcript when available.
Update: Financial Times on the devastating environmental implications:
www.ft.com/...