Mark Schmanko

education, thought leads/er, social transforms/er—the love of humankind. ma Harvard•Div•Scho~ PhD candidacy @Rice

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@meelonmuskusa 56

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

BRAZIL IS ON THE BRINK

I’m reporting to you from Brazil, where a dramatic series of events are underway.

At 5:52 pm Eastern Time, today, April 6, 2024, X corporation, formerly known as Twitter, announced that a Brazilian court had forced it to “block certain popular accounts in Brazil.”

Then, less than one hour later, the owner of X, @ElonMusk announced that X would defy the court’s order, and lift all restrictions.

“As a result,” said Musk, “we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.”

At any moment, Brazil’s Supreme Court could shut off all access to X/Twitter for the people of Brazil.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil is on the brink of dictatorship at the hands of a totalitarian Supreme Court Justice named Alexandre de Moraes.

President Lula da Silva is participating in the push toward totalitarianism. Since taking office, Lula has massively increased government funding of the mainstream news media, most of which are encouraging increased censorship.

What Lula and de Moraes are doing is an outrageous violation of Brazil’s constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

At this moment, Brazil is not yet a dictatorship. It still has elections and the Brazilian people have other means at their disposal to confront authoritarianism.

But the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court are directly interfere in those elections through censorship.

Three days ago I published the Twitter Files for Brazil. They show that Moraes has violated the Brazilian Constitution. Moraes illegally demanded that Twitter reveal private information about Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate. He demanded access to Twitter's internal data, violating the platform's policy. He censored, on his own initiative and without any respect for due process, posts on Twitter by parliamentarians from the Brazilian Congress. And Moraes tried to turn Twitter's content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro.

I say this as an independent and non-partisan journalist. I'm not a fan of either Bolsonaro or Trump. My political views are very moderate. But I know censorship when I see it.

The Twitter Files also revealed that Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp and Instagram betrayed the people of Brazil. If such evidence is proven, the executives of these companies behaved like cowards: they provided the Brazilian government with personal registration data and telephone numbers without a court order and, therefore, violating the law.
When Twitter refused to provide Brazilian authorities with private user information, including direct messages, the government attempted to sue Twitter's top Brazilian lawyer.

When I lived in Brazil in 1992, I was very left-wing. At the time, Lula and the PT's slogans were “Without fear of being happy”.

In recent days, I have spoken to dozens of Brazilians, including professors, journalists and respected lawyers. Everyone tells me they are shocked by what is happening. They told me that they are afraid to speak their mind and that the Lula government is complicit in creating this climate of fear.

Brazil belongs to the Brazilians. It is not my country. As such, there are limits to what I am capable of doing.

But I can say things that many Brazilians do not feel safe saying: Alexandre de Moraes is a tyrant. And the only way to deal with tyrants is to confront them. It is up to Brazil’s senators to confront the tyrant. And it is up to the people of Brazil to demand that their senators do so.

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@the_eco_thought It doesn’t get more notable than THAT

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@the_eco_thought @Blake2_0 Crowley, Dante, Manju and the Skydancer echoing nods..

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

Does Reality Bite? Philosophy, Ecology and the "End of the World" https://t.co/nzpLvpdm5P? # via @HuffPostGreen

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@LisaMarieBoothe @the_eco_thought

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@LisaMarieBoothe ‘Hate in your heart will consume you too…’ a father’s words sung to his son, whence penned to a song. But you twitter it out—loud and unpurpose, so the cosmopolis of this humankind of techno-sociality can metabolize that hate from the depths~✨~ sprinkled fecund-tweets 💥

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@holoentropic I cry every day. Begged for food in another lifetime—alms. How are your ah-morphioso of alexander?

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@RachelBros Rachel, you are freaking amazing, as both a person and as Mrs. Maisel. I hope to meet you one day, on a slide, in a playground, maybe with some pigeons flying about :)

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@TheNotoriousMMA fight and beat Khabib and become a legend. don't and you'll be the man who made 100 million. no glory in that.

[Joe Rogan @joerogan]

Incredibly creepy skull-shaped asteroid is going to cruise by Earth next year https://t.co/nU8oiNh2IN

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@NaomiAKlein (continued) If we have a refined understanding and conviction of the manifest reality of neoliberalism infiltrating our lives and communities, then let's make it known in the most skillful and incisive way, and join hands with others making it known in their particular alleyways

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@NaomiAKlein A true statement, but it's defeatist-mounted on the horse of high culture & taken for granted propositions about financial corruption all-the-way-down. We need manifold efforts to patiently & forcefully convey what neoliberalism is, not intellectual hubris, sarcasm & denunciation

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

I liked a @YouTube video https://t.co/WSOqThsiQl What Really Happened (Conor McGregor vs Max Holloway)

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

I liked a @YouTube video https://t.co/lFxeJyJMzy Chris Cornells 12 Yr Old Daughter & One Republic Sing Hallelujah Chris & Chester

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@MightyWife gorgeous!

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

Burn bright and fade away!

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

Building planetary narratives and engaging local politics https://t.co/ukQGtV8Ea3

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@PennyRed - because true liberals are rare birds. All the heavy hitters have a piece in the global market buffet

[Mark Schmanko @mschmanko]

@jdj_tweets what else will you read?