I won’t go into the debate about Lula vs Bolsonaro. The corruption at the core of the PT party under Lula’s leadership is extensively reported, both domestically and internationally (with several countries in South America affected by it, leading to the suicide of a former president). It’s deemed one of the largest corruption schemes in history, and parties have been found guilty in several countries, from the US to Chile. Ignoring this is just baffling, it cannot be called journalism.
Instead I’ll focus on a fact: The Intercept is Glenn Greenwald’s. Glenn is married to a MP allied to PT and Lula.
For BoingBoing to replicate The Intercept’s editorial without such disclosure, nor pointing the other side of the coin, is just disappointing to say the least. It’s not right, and it’s not what I’ve come to expect from it, particularly from Cory.
Wow, I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition appearance of Bolsonaro apologists so early!
All that, and we have a new poster who is already disappointed in BoingBoing. Yay!
This does make for some interesting reading, I admit. Especially as it seems governed more by emotions than by anything else. The visceral hatred of Lula that seems to be the only motive the prosecutors have shown. The exposure of the fear and loathing that drives the authoritarians. The sheer incompetence, as @doctorow notes is something Bolsonaro shares with President Biff. The addition of such a polarising reporter as Glenn Greenwald to top it off.
It would make for interesting television series, but the fact that Brazilians have to put up with this tempers my viewing pleasure.
I’ve been a poster / boingboing forever, just didn’t post for a long time because Disqus (their former authentication) had a bad security leak and I nuked my account. But hey, ignore the facts, go straight for straw man. Whatever floats your boat.
Now, before you get too much in a snit, you ought to know that “being disappointed in BoingBoing” and calling it out is a time honoured tradition. And you are not the guy I consider a Bolsonaro apologist.
And you are correct, Glenn Greenwald is the sort of source that makes “poisoning the well” such a powerful tool, even if it is officially a logical fallacy. His role in what happened in 2016 cannot be ignored, he has shown himself to be openly partisan, though in his defence he hasn’t resorted to outright lying. I mean, we all know about Glen, Corey knows about Glen, the guy wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s not like you’re revealing anything new here.
Fair. Quite fair indeed. Just thought it would be useful to shine a light at it, one cannot get more involved/partisan than Glenn on this topic. David Miranda, his husband, is a PT ally as a sitting MP – one that wasn’t even directly elected, he took the seat of a resigning MP who got elected not thanks to his LGBT rights campaigning as they would like you to believe, but by being a reality show star (he was a Big Brother contestant… One couldn’t make this stuff up.)
The corruption scandal Lula spearheaded has been proven in courts beyond doubt, way beyond Brazil, from the NY circuit to Chile; one cannot simply push the fairy tale that he’s an innocent politician caught in the middle of a power grabbing conspiracy. That’s not what happened at all. The prosecutors from Car Wash jailed corrupt politicians, public and private actors from across the spectrum, I can’t think of a major party that wasn’t affected by it. Even the leader of Congress was (and is) in jail; party leaders opposed to PT have been severely implicated as well. As it happens, Lula is the most prominent of them all, but by no means the only nor is the PT party the one that got most politicians jailed. Lastly, Lula’s right arm – Palocci – already corroborated it all in excruciating detail. It’s really impossible to frame Lula as an innocent politician.
Worse of all, by framing it as such, it affords PT a scot-free pass on the responsibility for getting the far right into power. Bolsonaro’s election is a direct counter-movement to PT’s betrayal of their core values. PT and Lula are the engineers of the current situation in every way you look at it, as long as you’re not looking through the lenses of your husband’s interests.
