'Americans Should Know Their Government Had a Hand in the Return to Fascism'
DECEMBER 12, 2018
CounterSpin interview with Brian Mier on Brazil's election
JANINE JACKSON
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Looking back at the recent Brazilian election, it’s hard not to focus on Jair Bolsonaro himself, with his defense of a brutal dictatorship and his encouragement of violence against perceived Others. But journalists should spare some critical attention for the election itself, which saw the leading candidate, former President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva of the PT, or Workers Party, jailed and bumped from the race, under circumstances that warrant more attention than US media have seen fit to provide. You may have heard that Bolsonaro is a Trump admirer, but the relationship between anti-democracy in Brazil and the US goes well beyond that.
Here to help us understand some of this is Brian Mier. He’s an editor at Brasil Wire and editor of the book Voices of the Brazilian Left. He’s a regular correspondent for the radio show This Is Hell, as well as a freelance writer and producer. He joins us now by phone from São Paulo. Welcome to CounterSpin, Brian Mier.
Brian Mier: Hi, how are you?
JJ: When twice-elected Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was being pushed out, in what many called a legislative coup, US readers weren’t reading quotes from the Organization of American States, for example, that was saying that this was not kosher, nor were they hearing about the objections of neighboring countries, some of whom pulled their ambassadors in protest, except perhaps via headlines like USA Today‘s “Leftist Leaders Leap to Defense of Ousted Brazilian President.”
So US readers were set up kind of weirdly for this election. Corruption was associated, if vaguely, with Dilma. And then, when her successor, Michel Temer, was clearly embroiled in stuff, Brazil was dismissed, as the New York Times put it, as just a “turmoil-prone nation.”
More:
https://fair.org/home/americans-should-know-their-government-had-a-hand-in-the-return-to-fascism/
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