In an op-ed at The Boston Globe, Naomi Klein writes—The Amazon is on fire — indigenous rights can help put it out:
It was an epic case of projection. Lashing out at the attacks on his Amazon-incinerating policies, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro accused French President Emmanuel Macron of having a “colonial mindset.”
The not even vaguely funny joke is that it is Bolsonaro who has unleashed a wave of unmasked colonial violence inside his country. This is a politician who came to power railing against indigenous people, casting their land rights as an unacceptable barrier to development in the Amazon, where cultures intrinsically linked to the rainforest have consistently resisted mega projects and the expanding frontier of agribusiness. “If I become president there will not be a centimeter more of indigenous land,” he said, while ominously declaring that “we’re going to give a rifle and a carry permit to every farmer.” [...]The Amazon is on fire — indigenous rights can help put it out
Such a powerful sense of impunity has permeated the region that ranchers have held “fire days,” coordinating when they set land ablaze, and attacks on indigenous communities have seen an alarming escalation. This atmosphere of lawlessness, moreover, surrounds Bolsonaro’s entire administration: Many Brazilians consider the 2018 presidential elections to have been stolen from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, by far the most popular politician in the country. Da Silva couldn’t run because he was locked up after a corruption trial that has since been revealed to have been rife with collusion and irregularities, a process presided over by the judge who went on to become Bolsonaro’s own justice minister.
The arsonists of the Amazon are driven by many factors — chief among them the quest for profits from beef, soy, and lumber. But beneath them all is the very thing Bolsonaro accuses his critics of possessing: the “colonial mindset.” [...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—Bush afraid of Congress:
The Bush Administration has ignored calls to build support for the invasion of Iraq at the UN Security Council. The reasons are obvious—the US would be hard pressed to pick up a couple of votes, much less the full support of the council.
For the same reasons, the administration is now trying to claim it doesn't need Congressional approval to invade Iraq.
If Bush felt confident he had the votes, he wouldn't be trying to shirk his duties. Congress is the only national branch of government currently occupied by elected officials (Bush and the Supremes were all selected). As such, Congress is the only branch with the moral authority to commit our youth to possible death. Yet in another example of Bush's disdain for democracy, he's hiding behind his legal team's vapid opinions.
The gist: the 1991 Gulf War resolution and the 9-11 resolution give the president all the authority he needs.
Many observers believe Congress would likely pass a Gulf War II resolution, but with restrictions unpalatable to Bush. For example, the resolution could prohibit a strategy of "regime change," limiting US forces to eliminating Iraq's WMD. There's something to this theory.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Well, it was... a weekend. Trump had to interact with actual world leaders, so that sucked. And there was the nuke the hurricanes thing. Thankfully, we had Greg Dworkin available to cover actual political news. More on the bizarre story of The Epoch Times.