I fear for Glenn Greenwald's well being.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/28/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Glenn Greenwald Sounds the Alarm on Bolsonaro's Brazil
Glenn Greenwald Sounds the Alarm on Bolsonaro's Brazil
The Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald. (Senado Federal / Flickr)
As is so often the case with the commander-in-chief, it wasn’t his words so
much as what they might portend. On Monday, while feting Conan the military
dog for his alleged role in the raid on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi—a ghastly, jingoistic celebration in its own right—Donald Trump
joked that he might sic the canine on a White House reporter. “It’s trained
that if you might open your mouths, you will be attacked,” he quipped. “You
ought to be very, very careful.”
For the time being, these threats remain idle (although the U.S. did crack
the list of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists in
2018). But in Brazil, under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, they’re
being carried out. Writing in The New York Times this week, Glenn Greenwald
argues that a recent incident “illustrates how press freedoms and the
democratic order in Brazil are endangered—not just with words, but
violence—by this authoritarian movement that now wields power in the
world’s
fifth-most-populous country.”
Earlier this month, The Intercept co-founder appeared on the Brazilian
radio
show “Pânico” with conservative columnist-cum-Bolsonaro-loyalist Augusto
Nunes. According to Greenwald, Nunes had responded to a series of Intercept
exposés on Bolsonaro and his administration by asking a federal judge to
investigate him and his partner, Socialism and Liberty Party Congressman
David Miranda, for parental neglect. Because both are working, Nunes
claimed, they are unable to care for their two children.
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“[That] attack on our family did not come out of nowhere,” Greenwald
observes. “President Bolsonaro has long featured anti-L.G.B.T. animus as a
central weapon in his political arsenal and has repeatedly used anti-gay
attacks against me. He and his allies have attacked other journalists and
activists who oppose him.”
When Greenwald confronted Nunes about the cowardice of his accusations,
Nunes took a swing at him live on air. The fight was quickly broken up, but
the message was clear: Criticism of the president and his media enablers
will be met with force. The Brazilian government confirmed as much when the
president’s guru and spiritual adviser, Olavo de Carvalho, as well as two
of
his politician sons, Carlos and Eduardo Bolsonaro, openly cheered Nunes’
conduct—the latter calling it a “legitimate defense of his honor.”
“The Bolsonaro movement, like most authoritarian factions, favors
intimidation and violence over civic discourse — against their adversaries
in general, but especially against journalists they regard as obstacles,”
Greenwald continues. “Predictably, the climate for journalists since the
2018 presidential election has become far more dangerous than before.”
Greenwald notes that such prominent journalists as Patricia Campos Mello,
who writes for one of Brazil’s oldest newspapers, Folha de São Paulo, have
been “targeted with credible threats of violence,” while Globo’s Miriam
Leitão had to a cancel a public appearance after the president targeted her
personally. Following a Globo investigation exposing his family’s ties to
the assassination of City Councilwoman Marielle Franco, Bolsonaro has
followed through on his promise to suspend all public funding of the
newspaper. Greenwald reveals that he himself cannot leave his home “without
a team of armed security guards and an armored vehicle.”
“As long as there is a free press, we are able to not just reveal
corruption
and wrongdoing by the nation’s most powerful actors, but also to ensure
that
history is not rewritten, that the horrors of Brazil’s two decades of
military regime are not whitewashed or forgotten,” he concludes. “That’s
precisely why members of the Bolsonaro movement target us: They know that
transparency and free discourse are the primary obstacles to returning
Brazil back to its darkest days. The more they show their true face, the
more resistance they have encountered. The job of journalists, the purpose
of a free press, is to ensure that this truth remains clear.”
Read Greenwald’s op-ed in its entirety at The New York Times.
Jacob Sugarman
Managing Editor
Jacob Sugarman is the managing editor at Truthdig. He is a graduate of the
Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism whose writing has appeared in
Salon, AlterNet and Tablet, among other…