Brazilian Congressman Jair Bolsonaro is his country’s Donald Trump, with two important differences: 1) he’s an even more extreme hate-monger than his American counterpart; and 2) he has numerous sons who are carbon copies of him and have used their dynastic advantages to get elected to their own political offices throughout the country. As a result, the Bolsonaro family now spearheads a radical, nationwide, proto-fascist, alarmingly growing movement in Brazil grounded in evangelical fervor, über-nationalism, extreme law and order, hostility toward LGBTs, and a longing for restoration of the country’s prior military dictatorship.
So that’s the family patriarch. Another one of his many political sons, Flavio, is a member of the state legislature in Rio de Janeiro and currently running for mayor of the city. Like his other family members, Flavio is a member of the far religious right; his campaign is based on restoring evangelical values and imposing Trump-like themes of authoritarian strength and law and order. Unfortunately for Flavio, his campaign pose as Tough-Guy Strongman has run into several problems, including when he practically fainted from the pressure of the first live-televised debate, while a competing candidate from Brazil’s Communist Party, the physician Jandira Feghali, had to physically prop him up and offer him medical assistance (Flavio’s dad, Jair, refused her help on behalf of his boy).
Flavio’s clean, wholesome, law-and-order image suffered another blow today. The city this week has been engulfed by one of the most horrific crimes imaginable: A police colonel, Pedro Chavarry Duarte, was arrested on charges that he raped a 2-year-old girl, who was found naked and distressed in the backseat of his car. Media outlets subsequently discovered that the police colonel had a history of other suspected crimes involving children.
For obvious reasons, there is unrestrained revulsion and anger over this police official. That’s why many people were so startled when pictures emerged today of Flavio Bolsonaro posing for photos not once, but on two separate occasions with this accused pedophile. The first photo is from a 2012 newsletter of an association of retired police officials reporting on an event they attended together, while the second is of unknown origins:
Standing alone, this would likely not have been a fatal blow to Flavio’s candidacy: After all, politicians take photos with many people, including those they don’t know, and it’s unfair to suggest that one supports or approves of the conduct of someone else simply by virtue of appearing in a photo — or two — with them.
But Flavio ensured that this would become a big news story, and that many people would see these photos, when this afternoon he recorded a bizarre, rattled, unhinged, threatening 80-second video. In it, he called people sharing the pictures “scumbags”; repeatedly boasted that he wants to “chemically castrate” rapists and pedophiles; and, worst of all, threatened to sue anyone and everyone who publishes or shares the above-displayed photos of him standing next to Brazil’s most notorious and hated criminal suspect.
In general, it’s not only unethical and tyrannical — but usually quite counterproductive — to run around threatening everyone, including news organizations, with legal proceedings if they report on or publish plainly newsworthy information about politicians seeking substantial public power. Quite predictably, Flavio’s threats resulted in citizens defiantly publishing the photos over and over on social media. Issuing such threats is highly likely to result in far greater circulation and exposure of the embarrassing information that the politician is seeking, with thuggery, to suppress — particularly when it comes to news organizations devoted to defending the right of a free press in the face of ill-advised threats. This is likely the lesson Flavio will learn from today’s events.
Top photo: Pedro Chavarry Duarte, left, and Flavio Bolsonaro pose for a photo published in a 2012 newsletter of an association of retired police officials reporting on an event they attended together.
“Trump like themes”?? That isn’t journalism, or befitting Greenwald’s accomplishments. Write your piece about this guy in Brazil, or write one about Trump. This guilt by association hit piece is quite a stretch, Glenn.
It’s Soros and Hillary supporters that are using brown shirt tactics, shutting down debate, trying to stop speeches and threatening supporters.
Not a surprise. Nothing shocks me anymore when the topic is Bolsonaro family
Glenn, the judge Moro is in USA again making one more presentation at an American University. Is he in fact a new american idol?
Every country seems to have “its Donald Trump”. Bolsonaro, Orban, Dutarte – The Intercept is continually finding new Trumps. After a while, a lot of Americans will start to wonder why the United States is the only country in the world without a Trump as leader. I fear they may succumb to such massive peer pressure. The Intercept needs to stop digging up these examples of foreign Trumps and start doing stories about the foreign Mrs. Clintons.
Edward Snowden is a hero!
#esiah
What a shame for the pedophile!
I like Flavio. He’s funny.
It’s disgusting what I’ve read in this so called “article”.
I don’t even know how to start pointing out the mistakes. And I won’t. It’s pointless trying to put some sense in this people’s minds.
Lefties being lefties.
I’ll just leave a couple of question:
1) “Should famous people and/or politicians know the background history of every single person who they take photos with?”
2) “Why do you think they talk about the behaviour of people he took photo with, instead of his own behaviour?”
By the way: I will not even start talking about the misconceptions about his father’s ideas.
You are either not knowing what you’re writing about or you are being highly desonest. Either way: Shame on you.
Sorry to learn that you apparently didn’t read/comprehend the article which in fact explicitly addressed your very concerns.
Bolsominions, your rhetoric has no weight outside your diseased circles. Bolsonaro is an authoritarian asshole. Always been. One of his first acts as a senator was to denounce Democracy and ask for the restoration of the Dictatorship.
“I am in favor of a dictatorship,” he bellowed in a speech that rattled a country that only left military rule behind in 1985. “We will never resolve serious national problems with this irresponsible democracy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/25/weekinreview/conversations-jair-bolsonaro-soldier-turned-politician-wants-give-brazil-back.html
He is in favor of violence against children for not showing clear heterossexual behavior, stating that “If your kid is acting gay, just beat him up and he will change his behavior”
He belittles black people. If not by his close association with Marcos Feliciano (who claimed “Blacks were cursed by God”), then in his own admission that dating a black woman would make his sons uneducated and promiscuous.
He uses school charts from PORTUGAL, WELL KNOWINGLY, and attributing them to the Workers Party as a “gay propaganda to turn kids into perverts”.
Finally, he always take pride in going out of his way to demean and assault minorities in occasions dedicated to PROTECT THEM. Like when he climbed to the podium to claim that all the investigations about the crimes of the dictatorships were lies and that they never tortured anyone, it was the “leftists who did it and pinned on the Dictatorship” (despite one of his MOST FAMOUS slogans, repeated by the likes of you, being “The error of the dictatorship is that it tortured, but didn’t kill enough”). Or when he attacked a female congresswomen during a debate about violence against women.
He has ALL the marks of a fascist bastard, but worse of all, he is an idiot too, who can only attract idiots to his base, childish, incessant whining about Gay Nazis.
This article touches obliquely on a subject I have been watching for some time. That is the use by the US – through its spy agencies – of the evangelical movement in Latin America to advance their hegemonic domination and neutralize the opposition. They are natural allies of authoritarianism and an ideal way to work in secret to keep any and all “progressive” political parties out of power.
Source?
A 1984 pastoral letter on ecumenism by the bishops of Panama, for example, cites an article in Vida Nueva that attributes to Nelson Rockefeller the view that “it was very useful for United States policy to strengthen conservative sects” since the Catholic Church had ceased to be a trustworthy ally and guarantor of social stability (needless to say, the 1969 Rockefeller Commission report cited recommended no such policy).
https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/05/002-evangelical-growth-and-politics-in-latin-america
BullSHIT
Glenn,
Are you sure you want to continue living in Brazil? We need you to stay out of prison ‘etcetera’. When you shine the spotlight on these corrupt, scary human beings you never know what kind of behavior it will elicit. Not that I know of an ‘ideal’ safer place to be…but is Brazil, right now, a good choice?
Glenn likely has many enemies in the US as well. Plus there are crazies in the US who kill for political reasons.
What about Lula you fucking maniac ?
@Carlo Graziani
You evince some fundamental confusion, positing a contradistinction that doesn’t exist. First you claim:
So far, so good. But for some reason you think the foregoing is in opposition to your next hypothetical:
Greenwald wrote a story about “an important politician who has launched a dangerous attack on free speech,” and wrote it making clear that this is related to the fact that “this important politician, and all his associates, are the most despicable people. Specifically, they are far-right, proto-fascists, to wit: people extremely likely to assault free speech with blustery threats.
contradistinction
Look at this. First thing in the morning and you’re teaching me new words Mona. Nice work.
:)
Happy to oblige. But I forgot to close the quote after the last use of the word “people.” (My kingdom for an edit function!)
It may be worse than mere GBA. Remember how many cases there are of right wing religious politicians in the USA who rabidly denounce and persecute gays and pedophiles, and then get caught doing the very activities they vilify. In other words, “methinks he doth protest too much”.
I am guessing that Flavio grew up modeling from his family threats against anybody he disliked and probably for the most part got away with it. Apparently he thought he could threaten anybody and everybody on social media. Yah, he could have made this all go away by denouncing the pedophile.
What does Donald Trump have to do with this story. You “scumbag journalist are so disgusting.This is the reason the American Public is finally awakening to your “yellow journalism”.
O/T
Obama whitehouse auctioned off ambasadorships says Wikileaks Guccifer 2.0.
http://observer.com/2016/09/wikileaks-guccifer-2-0-obama-sold-off-public-offices-to-donors/
The guy is asking for sphinctersaysOque.
Why is the third face blacked over here? If there is a public interest in showing one guy’s picture with a pedophile, why isn’t there in showing the other? And what do you mean “unknown origins”? Does that mean an anonymous source, or just you found this spam in your inbox and decided it didn’t look obviously fake so you published it without knowing where it came from, or that you’re not telling us where you got it because we’d see the third face?
To be fair, I don’t see anyone else publishing these pictures *at all* on either Google or Bing, so you may be better than some, even all, other sources … but that’s not good enough. Not when you’re deliberately hiding stuff from us so we only know what you think we ought to.
Because that other person isn’t a public official, isn’t running for office, and didn’t threaten anyone publishing the picture.
Those criteria wouldn’t rule out that he’s the head of a Fortune 500 company, for example. If nobody knows who he is, what harm is there in showing us the face? And I still don’t understand the “origin unknown” part. Was it slipped under your door, you found it on 4chan, what? And what steps if any did you take to make sure it wasn’t a photoshop?
Fuck Flavio and his hypocrisy.
Glenn doesn’t need to be afraid of some scumbag like that. To do physical or financial harm to someone like Glenn for doing their job as a journalist (and particularly someone as well known and an American living abroad), is to give more fuel to the fire, create a martyr out of Glenn, and to probably incite certain Americans to retributive violence.
People like Flavio and his family are at base cowards. Without musclemen, police or the military behind them they’d folk like a cheap tent.
Only one Glenn should really be concerned about is his own country’s intelligence agencies and their henchmen. And so far they seem astute enough not to trying anything as directly stupid as to physically or financially harm Glenn. At some point, to the degree they haven’t already, they will try to ruin him by discrediting him somehow, but Glenn seems smart enough and not have any sort of personal skeletons that could ever give them enough fuel to start that fire. Which would never prevent them from attempting to fabricate such a skeleton, but if they haven’t already it’s probably because they can’t and won’t.
So, let me get this straight: “Guilt by association” is bad, when used by Clintonites to suggest that Russian-associated hacks of the DNC furnish evidence of ties between Trump and Putinism. But GBA is fine, when used to hammer at a political figure you personally dislike?
I mean, what are you suggesting? That Flavio Bolsonaro approves of pedophilia? That he is himself a pedophile? Is that what these pictures establish?
Even stipulating (as I do) that Flavio is a scumbag with scumbag heritage, why exactly are you hanging a story on the fact that pictures exist in which he is in a frame with a worse scumbag? What do you believe this accomplishes, as journalism?
I read what you write, and appreciate the value of what you’ve accomplished in the past few years. But this is bullshit. You’re just crowing over the embarrassment of someone you despise, using the most despicable tool in the armament of the yellow journalist. You should be ashamed.
Liar.
The story is not about the picture. It is about Flavio’s response to the picture being published. Read (sorry, re-read) the third-last-paragraph , wherein the authors say there is no reason to conclude GBA in language accessible to an average fourth grader.
“You should be ashamed” of your reading comprehension.
You’re adorable. That paragraph is clearly a pious cover-your-ass disclaimer. The story, as structured, is obviously designed just to keep those photos front-and-center.
Try this thought experiment: Rebuild the story, except about hypothetical pictures showing Trump and Putin smiling together. The byline is some HuffPost reporter. In the third-to-last paragraph, insert a solemn disavowal of guilt-by-association, asserting that the story is REALLY about Trump’s threat to sue those who publish the photos. But make sure the photos are featured right at the top of the story, and spend a good amound of space detailing the horrific details of Putin’s suppression of journalists, bloggers, dissidents, etc.
Now imagine the story Greenwald would write about that article.
We explicity say that appearing in 2 photos with a criminal isn’t evidence of wrongdoing, and this person comes and attributes to us the exact opposite view.
Sigh. What can one do about such recalcitrant irrationality?
As anyone rational can see, the point here are his threats against a free press – as we stated as clearly as human language permits.
We explicity say that appearing in 2 photos with a criminal isn’t evidence of wrongdoing, yet this person comes and attributes to us the exact opposite view.
Sigh. What can one do in the face of such recalcitrant irrationality?
As anyone rational can see, the point here is the threats he made against free expression and a free press – as we stated as clearly as human language permits.
Yeah, sorry to be “this person”, and I apologize for my irrationality, and my inability to understand maximally clear human language.
I would naively have thought that an article whose purpose was to expose a threat against free expression might have actually have stated as much early in the article, conceivably even in paragraph 1. But I can see now that clear exposition demands that this news be set up first with
(1) Two 100 word paragraphs detailing the iniquity of scumbag senior;
(2) A 127-word paragraph about the comic ineptitude of scumbag junior, who apparently faints on TV programs;
(3) A restrained 73-word paragraph on the lurid exploits of worser scumbag, the baby-raper;
(4) But wait now, photos have emerged of worser scumbag and scumbag junior, together!
(5) The photos themselves! Grainy verite’-style mug-shots.
Then, obviously, is the time to land the real punch, which is that scumbag junior spluttered that he’d like to sue people who publish these photos! The preceding material was not for the sake of letting people’s lying eyes think scumbag junior and worser scumbag are pals. Nonononono! That would be very wrong.
Must be my recalcitrance. I’ll have it treated.
Making your own assumptions, and insulting the intelligence of countless unknown “people’s” by claiming they will share your proposed assumption is not very convincing as a “You should be ashamed” diatribe.
I don’t understand your thought experiement in the initial reply. In your reply to Greenwald, you display a belief that word counts and order analysis are an acceptable replacement for reading comprehension. You are living proof that such a view is unfounded. I read the article and never once thought Greenwald was in any way painting Flavio as pro-child rape, quite the contrary. But yes, your outrage is duly noted, thank you.
OK, let me try again, with a bit less snark.
If a journalist wants to write a story that says “An important politician has launched a dangerous attack on free speech”, that story is constructed in a certain way.
If a journalist wants to write a story that says “This important politician, and all his associates are the most despicable people that you could ever imagine meeting, unless you were a childhood friend of Dick Cheney, and here’s some more evidence”, then the story is written very differently, even if much of the content is the same.
The problem that Greenwald — who is a competent journalist and understands how to write the stories he wants to write — tried to solve with this article was how to write the second kind of story, while preserving his self-image as only virgin in the journalism whorehouse by inserting some perfunctory verbiage to claim that the article is really the first kind of story.
And, for the record, I have TI in my RSS feed, read much of it with interest and approval, share some of the righteous anger, and even own a copy of “No Place To Hide”, which I enjoyed. I just happen think this POS article was way below standard.
Are you, after reading Greenwald’s article, under the impression that Flavio is pro child rape? Or is it that you just think others, less astute than you, took Greenwald’s article to mean that Flavio is pro child rape?
This entire argument turns out to be nothing more than whataboutery.
If you allow, so generously, that authors/journalists understand how to write the stories they want – then why not let them?
I believe that what you are referring to is “subversive subtext that undermines patterns of narrative coherence…” on a purely subliminal and/or visceral level.
It’s in the freaking title!
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
” I apologize for my irrationality, and my inability to understand maximally clear human language. ”
OK. As long as you promise to try to do better …
He must have been dehydrated at that debate.
“He must have been dehydrated at that debate.”
And allergies can wreak havoc on a person, too …
Looked like he had pneumonia to me.
So many seem to be unaware of the Streisand effect. In this day and age, it’s really a pity.
What adds to the fun is that those who have had control of the message for pretty much ever are painfully unaware that social media is the opposite of something they can control. It’s not their toy. This guy is now being, and will continue to be, bombarded, due in part to his inability to understand that he is not in control, as he is so used to being.
I’m reminded of the NYPD posting a hashtag on twitter encouraging people to post cute pictures of themselves with “My NYPD.” That, of course, backfired into countless posts of pictures, videos articles of the NYPD caught in acts of brutality and stupidity, and excoriated by people from NYC and from all over the world for said acts and their lame, clueless belief that their hashtag would result in roses, sunshine and rainbow stories about the cute, paternalistic “Officer Friendly” NYPD.
Thank you for this eye opening article. Absolutely disgusting. What ever happened to honor, integrity and trust in politician’s?
I don’t know if you’re still in Brazil, Glen, but be careful. I worry about your safety.
HE IS BIASED !!!!!! and takes money from the PT party.
http://sem.pt
lol scathing response: “This domain name is listed for sale in the Uniregistry Market. Buy it now before someone else does.”