Bolsonaro's Rainforest Army
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/23/753719345/brazilian-president-bolsonaro-may-send-army-to-combat-amazon-forest-fires
NPR reports on the Bolsonaro administration sending an army to the rainforest. The article leads you to believe that Bolsonaro is changing his agenda due global backlash and mounting pressure. They don't really discuss much else but the backlash for possible reasons he's sending an army, so if you only read this article about it and asked "why is he sending an army?", you most likely will think its because Boris Johnson was upset about Bolsonaro or something along those lines. They take his gesture seemingly at face value as well. They quote a person saying the "prestige and credibility" of Brazil is being ruined from this. They talk about a two step elbow from president Macron to Bolsonaro by him saying he was tricked by Bolsonaro, and because of this is pulling out of a possible trade deal. All this implies there may be a is a new found pressure for him which would make him conform, which seems to be the big narrative in the piece... the outrage will cause change. My biggest gripe with pushing this narrative out is that outrage often doesn't cause change alone. Especially, with far right leaders. We can see this with Trump. People are consistently outraged about Trumps climate crisis approach, his trade wars, his treatment of minorities and LGBTQ community, etc. and he just doesn't seem to care at all. It's possible this narrative of global pressure causing change will come true, but they should of added information to the picture.
They don't explain much of the history of Bolsonaro which would allow readers who aren't aware to create a more informed narrative. He dehumanizes the LGBTQ community, supports military leadership and oppression of opponents, from the get go his campaign was run on not caring about environmental issues, and he completely changed the government through not democracy, but rather being in cahoots with the chief judge in Brazil. He has always been monstrous, and has never really cared what people think. While NPR makes it clear that he likes to trick people, they don't mention that he often doesn't really care if he is found out. The prestige and pressure is meaningless if he's a character that doesn't care about prestige and pressure. So, if we consider the possibility that he simply doesnt care, we are left with the question again "why is he sending an army to the rainforest".
There is the possibility he is sending them in as a PR stunt. It seems unlikely they are going in there to stop people from burning down the rainforest, because he strongly believes they should burn more of the rainforest down and has created policies and a governmental organization based on that. So, one possibility they could of explored is that the army will go in there and play Gin Rummy with each other. There is another possible reason that is far more devious though. Something they never explored, is the policy where the Bolsonaro administration can change what is considered indigenous land, which makes up 15% of the rainforest. No one really know's what the military will be up to in the rain forest. It is very possible he's sending a military in to do more of the same, exploit the rain forest under the guise of not doing so. And not only that, but start clearing indigenous people from their land, which he talked about doing before... a lot. I will support this claim with some quotes by Bolsonaro.
“The Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have culture. They are native peoples. How did they manage to get 13% of the national territory”
“There is no indigenous territory where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into this nonsense of defending land for Indians”
"This unilateral policy of demarcating indigenous land by the Executive will cease to exist. Any reserve that I can reduce in size, I will do so. It will be a very big fight that we’re going to have with the UN"
The biggest thing I take from these quotes is not only that he is morally reprehensible and plans on stripping natives from their home. But, also that he planned on having a fight with the UN. This gives more credence to the narrative that he doesn't care about global backlash.
In denying aid and just being in an expansive rainforest they are unsupervised. They have the appearance of going in there to do good, but aren't help accountable to actually doing something good. The "we don't want aid because we have pride" seems to be a bunch of hog wash. If they really cared about the rainforest, they probably would have accepted the aid as its difficult to manage the Amazon rainforest. They don't care about the rainforest though and I believe they don't want anyone interfering with their exploitative plans. And Bolsanaro, historically, is not one to shy away from actions due to pressure. Of course, it is possible that the pressure is getting to him. This is something that should be considered as well, but NPR was far too locked in on this perspective and didn't give the reader a sufficient scope of what could be going on.
https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3540-Bolsonaro
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/25/americas/brazil-bolsanaro-environmental-record-intl/index.html
NPR reports on the Bolsonaro administration sending an army to the rainforest. The article leads you to believe that Bolsonaro is changing his agenda due global backlash and mounting pressure. They don't really discuss much else but the backlash for possible reasons he's sending an army, so if you only read this article about it and asked "why is he sending an army?", you most likely will think its because Boris Johnson was upset about Bolsonaro or something along those lines. They take his gesture seemingly at face value as well. They quote a person saying the "prestige and credibility" of Brazil is being ruined from this. They talk about a two step elbow from president Macron to Bolsonaro by him saying he was tricked by Bolsonaro, and because of this is pulling out of a possible trade deal. All this implies there may be a is a new found pressure for him which would make him conform, which seems to be the big narrative in the piece... the outrage will cause change. My biggest gripe with pushing this narrative out is that outrage often doesn't cause change alone. Especially, with far right leaders. We can see this with Trump. People are consistently outraged about Trumps climate crisis approach, his trade wars, his treatment of minorities and LGBTQ community, etc. and he just doesn't seem to care at all. It's possible this narrative of global pressure causing change will come true, but they should of added information to the picture.
They don't explain much of the history of Bolsonaro which would allow readers who aren't aware to create a more informed narrative. He dehumanizes the LGBTQ community, supports military leadership and oppression of opponents, from the get go his campaign was run on not caring about environmental issues, and he completely changed the government through not democracy, but rather being in cahoots with the chief judge in Brazil. He has always been monstrous, and has never really cared what people think. While NPR makes it clear that he likes to trick people, they don't mention that he often doesn't really care if he is found out. The prestige and pressure is meaningless if he's a character that doesn't care about prestige and pressure. So, if we consider the possibility that he simply doesnt care, we are left with the question again "why is he sending an army to the rainforest".
There is the possibility he is sending them in as a PR stunt. It seems unlikely they are going in there to stop people from burning down the rainforest, because he strongly believes they should burn more of the rainforest down and has created policies and a governmental organization based on that. So, one possibility they could of explored is that the army will go in there and play Gin Rummy with each other. There is another possible reason that is far more devious though. Something they never explored, is the policy where the Bolsonaro administration can change what is considered indigenous land, which makes up 15% of the rainforest. No one really know's what the military will be up to in the rain forest. It is very possible he's sending a military in to do more of the same, exploit the rain forest under the guise of not doing so. And not only that, but start clearing indigenous people from their land, which he talked about doing before... a lot. I will support this claim with some quotes by Bolsonaro.
“The Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have culture. They are native peoples. How did they manage to get 13% of the national territory”
“There is no indigenous territory where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into this nonsense of defending land for Indians”
"This unilateral policy of demarcating indigenous land by the Executive will cease to exist. Any reserve that I can reduce in size, I will do so. It will be a very big fight that we’re going to have with the UN"
The biggest thing I take from these quotes is not only that he is morally reprehensible and plans on stripping natives from their home. But, also that he planned on having a fight with the UN. This gives more credence to the narrative that he doesn't care about global backlash.
In denying aid and just being in an expansive rainforest they are unsupervised. They have the appearance of going in there to do good, but aren't help accountable to actually doing something good. The "we don't want aid because we have pride" seems to be a bunch of hog wash. If they really cared about the rainforest, they probably would have accepted the aid as its difficult to manage the Amazon rainforest. They don't care about the rainforest though and I believe they don't want anyone interfering with their exploitative plans. And Bolsanaro, historically, is not one to shy away from actions due to pressure. Of course, it is possible that the pressure is getting to him. This is something that should be considered as well, but NPR was far too locked in on this perspective and didn't give the reader a sufficient scope of what could be going on.
https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3540-Bolsonaro
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/25/americas/brazil-bolsanaro-environmental-record-intl/index.html
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