Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalCLIMATE CHANGEOp-Ed: Election In Brazil Is A Fight For The Planet
Your grandkids need Bolsonaro to lose.
ByJo Borrás
Published 3 hours ago
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been called “the world’s most dangerous climate denier,” “a catastrophe for the environment,” and “the man who broke Brazil.” Believe it or not, that’s by people trying to remain professional while they talk about South America’s s**ttiest political leader. Now, the country is facing a constitutional crisis, and the outcome could determine the fate of the Amazon Rainforest — and with it, the planet.
Earlier this week, neo-fascist Bolsonaro — who said last year that only God would remove him from power — lost a general election to leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who earned 48.4% of the vote compared to 43.2% for Bolsonaro. The result has kickstarted a massive four-week campaign ahead of a runoff vote on October 30th, which will decide which candidate will win.
And it’s essential that da Silva wins.
Bolsonaro’s Campaign Promises Are a Horror Show of Evil
During his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro promised he wouldn’t recognize any indigenous land claims during his term, but would approve a number of new pesticides as he opened up more of the critically important Amazon Rainforest to deforestation.
The prick kept his promises, too. During his first three years as President of Brazil, Greenpeace observed a 52.9% increase in deforestation — but that’s just the tip of Bolsonaro’s evil iceberg. “With more destruction of the environment, comes more violence in the field,” writes Greenpeace’s Diego Gonzaga. “Loggers, miners, and land-grabbers are constantly invading protected Indigenous lands and engaging in conflicts with them — often lethal.”
More:
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/10/04/op-ed-election-in-brazil-is-a-fight-for-the-planet/
Shoeshine Boy, Union Leader, President Of Brazil: A Portrait Of Lula Da Silva
Wednesday, 5 October 2022, 6:06 am
Article: Scoop.me
Lula da Silva grew up in poverty and became president of Brazil. During the military dictatorship, he fought for democracy and workers’ rights. As president, he helped millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Lula was imprisoned by a rigged trial. After his release, he is campaigning against the far-right Bolsonaro for president of Brazil. He won the first round of voting as the candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT) by a margin of 6 million votes. A runoff election will follow on Oct. 30, 2022.
Lula was born Luiz Inácio da Silva in 1945 in the poor northeast of Brazil. His nickname Lula (pet name for Luiz) was given to him by his mother. He stuck to this name, even in his political career.
Difficult childhood: Lula started working at the age of 12
He grew up in poor circumstances. Lula’s father moved to the industrial belt of São Paulo while he was still a child in order to find work. His mother followed her husband a few years later with Lula and his seven siblings. By then, however, Lula’s father already had a new wife and broke off contact with his family. This further worsened the family’s economic situation. Because the family could not afford the school fees, Lula attended school for only a few years. At the age of 12, he started working to support the family. Lula worked in a laundry, as a messenger boy, and as a shoeshine boy.
After a few years, he was able to get a job in a metal factory, as well as complete an apprenticeship as a metalworker in a state vocational school. As a worker in the metal factory, he had his first contact with the trade union movement. The connection to the unions was to shape the rest of his life.
More:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2210/S00024/shoeshine-boy-union-leader-president-of-brazil-a-portrait-of-lula-da-silva.htm
Intricate settlements found in the Llanos de Mojos, Amazonia
25 MAY 2022
Intricate settlements found in the Llanos de Mojos, Amazonia
Newly discovered ancient Amazonian cities reveal how urban landscapes were built without harming nature
A newly discovered network of “lost” ancient cities in the Amazon could provide a pivotal new insight into how ancient civilisations combined the construction of vast urban landscapes while living alongside nature
An array of intricate settlements in the Llanos de Mojos savannah-forest, Amazonia, has been uncovered. Screenshots from a 3D animation of the Cotoca site (Source: H. Prümers / DAI)
A team of international researchers, including Professor Jose Iriarte from the University of Exeter, has uncovered an array of intricate settlements in the Llanos de Mojos savannah-forest, Bolivia – that have laid hidden under the thick tree canopies for centuries.
The cities, built by the Casarabe communities between 500-1400 AD, feature an unprecedented array of elaborate and intricate structures unlike any previously discovered in the region – including 5m high terraces covering 22 hectares – the equivalent of 30 football pitches – and 21m tall conical pyramids.
Researchers also found a vast network of reservoirs, causeways and checkpoints, spanning several kilometres.
The discovery, the researchers say, challenges the view of Amazonia as a historically “pristine” landscape, but was instead home to an early urbanism created and managed by indigenous populations for thousands of years.
More:
https://www.classicult.it/en/intricate-settlements-found-in-the-llanos-de-mojos-amazonia/
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Lidar exposes the remnants of an overgrown ancient civilization in the Amazon
Devin Coldewey@techcrunch / 2:14 PM CDT•May 27, 2022
Image Credits: Prümers et al.
It’s Friday and the world is falling apart, so let’s just take a short mental health break with some interesting news out of the field of archaeology, where tech is enabling some fascinating new discoveries. A new lidar-powered analysis of land in the Amazon basin has provided evidence of a previously unknown urban center of “mind blowing” complexity.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean ancient aliens or long-lost technology, just that it far exceeds the expected levels of organization and population that scholars considered possible for Amazonians of 1,500 years ago.
“Nobody expected that kind of society in that region … pyramids 20 meters high,” said Heiko Prümers, of the German Archaeological Institute, in a video produced by Nature. “The whole region has been so densely habitated during the pre-hispanic time, that’s incredible to believe. There is a new civilization, new culture, waiting for us to study them.”
Until recently it was thought that the Amazon had nothing but smaller tribes until the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese explorers — a typically Eurocentric view increasingly challenged by new scholarship. In this case Prümers was intrigued by mounds called lomas, hidden beneath the vegetation but hinting at something greater. Excavations showed that these were not rubbish dumps (as some thought) but organized areas for graves, rites and other things indicative of a complex, hierarchical society.
But finding bumps on the ground under the canopy of a rainforest is far from easy, so in 2019 they set out to scan the area by helicopter, using lidar to reconstruct the contours of the surface below the trees. This technique has proved highly fruitful recently, with whole Mayan cities and even a kilometer-long artificial earthwork uncovered that way.
Image Credits: Prümers et al.
More:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/27/lidar-exposes-the-remnants-of-an-overgrown-ancient-civilization-in-the-amazon/
WITH LULA IN THE LEAD, BRAZIL'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION HEADS TO RUNOFF
Lula scored 48% of the vote compared to Bolsonaro’s 43%, but underperformed by polling expectations.
BY JAKE JOHNSON
OCTOBER 3, 2022
Leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said late Sunday that “the campaign begins tomorrow” after he fell just shy of clearing the 50% threshold to win the closely watched and globally important Brazilian election outright, setting up an October 30 runoff against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
“Tomorrow we will be on the streets to win the elections. We don’t have a break. We are going to work hard,” Lula said as the results showed a second round would be necessary.
“I love campaigning. And we have 28 more days,” Lula added. “I love doing rallies, getting on a truck. And it will be the first opportunity to have a face-to-face debate with the current president. So that we can make comparisons between the Brazil he built and the Brazil we built.”
Tensions and fears of more political violence in Brazil are likely to remain elevated in the four weeks leading up to another round of voting, with Bolsonaro expected to keep up—and possibly intensify—his attacks on the integrity of the country’s electoral process, rhetoric that has sparked concerns of a possible military coup attempt.
More:
https://therealnews.com/with-lula-in-the-lead-brazils-presidential-election-heads-to-runoff
Artificial Islands Around British Isles Were Used by Elites for Ancient Parties to Show Wealth and P
Artificial Islands Around British Isles Were Used by Elites for Ancient Parties to Show Wealth and Power
By Louise Franco Sep 28, 2022 03:34 PM EDT
Artificial islands surrounding the British Isles in Europe could once be a site of ancient parties held by our ancient ancestors, according to archaeologists.
A new study indicates that ancient elites partied on these man-made islands around what is now Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other islets. Also called a crannog, the anthropogenic islands consist of a lake, wetland, and estuary built thousands of years ago.
Artificial Islands and Ancient Parties
(Photo : Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
In the new paper published in the journal Antiquity on Wednesday, September 28, Antony Brown of UiT Arctic University of Norway and his colleagues confirmed that ancient social gatherings which is equivalent to the modern term "partying" were apparently held in some of the hundreds of artificial islands created in Ireland, Scotland, Wales between the year 4,000 B.C. and the 16th century A.D.
The research team believes that elite people in the social hierarchy living in the British Isles gathered in the crannogs to display their power and wealth through the parties.
If proven, the findings will pave the way for evidence showing one of the earliest form social gatherings never seen before from previous anthropological and archaeological studies, as well as from other fields.
. . .
More:
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/53342/20220928/artificial-islands-around-british-isles-used-elites-ancient-parties-show.htm
It's Time for the Trial of Racism Against the Mapuche
Gloria Naveillan could be stripped of her parliamentary immunity.
September 29, 2022 by Pressenza
By Ximena Soza
In Chile, law 20609 condemns discrimination, whether by virtue of race, ethnicity or gender identity, yet this law has not been widely applied or presented as an argument, let alone met the victims’ need for justice. In the case of the Mapuche people, discrimination and racism have been recurrently evidenced either at a structural level, through the judicial or economic system, among others, and at a symbolic level, through daily acts and hate speech. In the past, despite having been found to be racist, these acts have not been condemned or even identified as such. This situation could be about to change as a Chilean state deputy, Gloria Naveillan, accused of levelling serious slander against a Mapuche Werken, Adán Huentecol, could be on the verge of losing her parliamentary privilege, making it possible for her to be tried on the stipulated charges.
The Mapuche people are an indigenous people living in the south of what is now known as Chile and Argentina. Since the formation of these states, the occupation of Mapuche territory on both sides of the Andes has been an excuse to implement policies aimed at their physical, cultural and spiritual extermination. Invisibilisation, language disappearance, denial of autonomy, imprisonment and murder have been just some of the genocidal strategies used. One of the most frequent and explicit has been the usurpation of their lands, an element that intertwines their worldview and their daily lives. In the struggle for the restitution of territories, many Mapuche communities have resorted to the recovery of their lands, which has been strongly condemned and repressed.
In areas of strong territorial claims and organisation of Mapuche communities, the counter-attack of Chilean or foreign landowners who do not want to lose the privilege of their occupied lands is latent and takes different forms. Organisations such as the Association for Peace and Reconciliation in Araucanía (APRA), which claims to bring together victims of Mapuche violence, in reality cause violence against the Mapuche people, intervening in the processes of self-determination at the expense of the disarticulation of communities, calling for violence and even taking part in false news stories to spread their racist discourse.
One of the leaders of this organisation, Gloria Naivellan, a former member of the Republican Party and now a member of parliament for Araucanía, is being accused of “serious slander and libel” by the Werken (Mapuche authority) Adan Huentecol and his defence lawyer Isabel Figueroa. The Deputy, before taking office, publicly accused the Werken of having made threats against forestry businessman Gerardo Cerda and of being responsible for the burning of machinery on his land. In her statements she also urged that the Mapuche authority be prosecuted. After being charged with the aforementioned offence, she appealed to her parliamentary privilege to have the accusation against her dismissed, despite the fact that the events occurred before she was elected to her seat in the chamber. The appeal filed by Naivillan’s defence was not accepted by the court.
More:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/its-time-for-the-trial-of-racism-against-the-mapuche-people/
Git outta Gloria's country!
Racist Gloria Naveillán with former President Piñera,
Pinochet supporter, whose brother was in Pinochet's cabinet
Gloria, feeling butt-hurt
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02-08-2020
Civilians attack Mapuche community members in the Chilean Araucanía
Dozens of civilians, summoned by far-right groups, violently evicted the Mapuche community members from the municipalities of Victoria and Curacautín, in the Chilean Araucanía, in the center of the South American country, on Saturday night.
Local information media released an audio on the Twitter social network in which Gloria Naveillan, spokeswoman for APRA, a far-right group from Araucanía, calls to act against the Mapuche community members in the municipality of Victoria.
The Mapuche community members had entered the municipalities of Victoria, Curacautín and three more in the Malleco province since last Monday, as a measure of support for their imprisoned companions who are on a hunger strike.
In her Twitter account, the teleSUR correspondent in Chile, Paola Dragnic, published photographs of residents of the Mapuche nation attacked by armed civilians in Curacautín.
"The celebrations for the attack in Curacautín impact, they act like the white supremacists of the United States, ignoring the mestizo origin of the Chilean people," the journalist wrote in another tweet.
. . .
More:
https://www.icslatam.com/civilians-attack-mapuche-community-members-in-the-chilean-araucania
May all the broken hearts and broken people find peace, and shelter from all that hatred.
This Is What Colonialism Looks Like
Hurricane Fiona shows that Puerto Rico is still an American colony, 124 years later.
Jack Mirkinson
51 min ago
On Wednesday, the United States government, in all of its glory, made a benevolent decision: it decided to allow the people of Puerto Rico to have fuel.
From Politico:
The Biden administration moved Wednesday to allow a non-U.S. flagged ship to transport fuel to Puerto Rico, following pressure to waive a rule in the face of a diesel shortage after Hurricane Fiona.
The decision to make came in “response to urgent and immediate needs of the Puerto Rican people in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona ... to ensure that the people of Puerto Rican have sufficient diesel to run generators needed for electricity and the functioning critical facilities,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Wednesday.
This special dispensation from the Biden administration was required because of the Jones Act, a century-old law that mandates that ships carrying goods between American ports must be American-made, American-owned, and staffed by American crews. The law ostensibly applies to the entirety of the U.S., but it disproportionately chokes the economies of island territories like Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Unlike Hawaiians, however, Puerto Ricans cannot elect senators or representatives who could vote to overturn the Jones Act. They can’t choose a president to do it either, and their rights in U.S. courts are limited by the fact that the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, including very recently, that they are functionally second-class citizens.
More:
https://www.discourseblog.com/p/this-is-what-colonialism-looks-like
The Irish Times view on the Brazilian election: time for a change
Brazilians have the chance to correct the error of electing Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency - they should take it
Brazilian president and re-election candidate Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters during a rally in Santos some 60 km from Sao Paulo Brazil on Tuesday. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP
When Brazilians go to the polls in Sunday’s general election they have the chance to correct the mistake they made four years ago, when they catapulted the obscure far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro into the presidency. During nearly four years in office the former army captain has shown himself to be a toxic mix of cruelty and incompetence.
His malevolent nature is perhaps best illustrated by his attempt at the height of a global pandemic that has claimed the lives of almost 700,000 Brazilians to associate Covid vaccines with AIDS. His misogyny and homophobia, not to mention racism in one of the world’s most mixed-race societies, have damaged the public administration of Latin America’s biggest country, reversing decades of hard-won social advances. Under cover of official negligence the most irresponsible and often criminal elements of Brazil’s agricultural and mining sectors have been given license to pillage the environment, with global implications for the fight against climate change.
The true spirit of “bolsonarismo” is the will of the strongest triumphing over the rule of laws which are in place to protect the vulnerable. The latest example of this disregard for rules can be seen in the president’s preparations to challenge the election result. Having claimed to speak in the name of “the people” against the country’s institutions, he is working assiduously to throw Brazil’s highly regarded voting system into chaos if, as every poll predicts, the people now reject him.
The best defence against an attempt to steal the election would be for voters to hand the frontrunner, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, outright victory on Sunday, thus avoiding the need for a run-off round. Another four weeks of campaigning would be highly fraught. The European Union should also make clear to Brazil’s military, which the president is seeking to recruit for his authoritarian adventure, that the country faces isolation should the democratic will of the people be thwarted. For all its shortcomings the world’s fifth-largest democracy deserves to outlive the failed Bolsonaro experiment.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorials/2022/09/29/the-irish-times-view-on-the-brazilian-election-time-for-a-change/
Fact-checking claim about Venezuela sending prisoners to the US southern border
By Maria Ramirez Uribe
September 29, 2022
Republicans have praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent decision to use taxpayer money to fly two planes of Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Florida to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, in Congress, some GOP lawmakers have raised flags about Venezuelan immigrants at the southern border, citing an alleged Department of Homeland Security report saying the Venezuelan government is sending prisoners to the southern U.S. border.
"DHS confirms that Venezuela empties prisons and sends violent criminals to our southern border," Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, tweeted on Sept. 18.
The lawmakers’ letter says, "It has been widely reported that the Venezuelan regime, under the control of Nicolás Maduro Moros, is deliberately releasing violent prisoners early, including inmates convicted of ‘murder, rape, and extortion,’ and pushing them to join caravans heading to the United States."
More:
https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/sep/29/fact-checking-claim-about-venezuela-sending-prison/
Murders of environmental and land activists on the rise globally
Indigenous from nine towns and four states protest against the increase in the murders of indigenous people in Brazil (ANSA)
Murders of environmental and land activists on the rise globally
Global Witness' annual report reveals that some 200 environmental and land defense activists were killed around the world in 2021, a big percentage of them in Mexico.
By Linda Bordoni
54 land and environment activists were killed in Mexico in 2021, that‘s over 20 more deaths of land and nature defenders than the previous year.
This is according to the annual report by the nongovernmental organization Global Witness that found that more than three-quarters of the killings took place in Latin America, where Colombia, Brazil and Nicaragua also proved deadly for land and nature defenders.
The report said that "Most of these crimes happen in places that are far away from power and are inflicted on those with the least amount of power.''
Global Witness also said its data on killings is likely to be an underestimate, given that many murders go unreported, particularly in rural areas and in particular countries.
These are all victims who 'died fighting resource exploitation and in land disputes. Conflicts over mining were tied to 27 deaths worldwide, the most for any sector.
More:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2022-09/environmental-land-activists-report-global-witness-2021.html
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