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.
Let’s be clear:
Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, there was the Ayubid Empire, not a Palestinian state. Godfrey IV of Boulogne, known as Godfrey de Bouillon, conqueror of Jerusalem in 1099
-Before the Ayubid Empire, there was the Frankish and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there was the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, there was the Byzantine empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Byzantine Empire, there were the Sassanids, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Sassanid Empire, there was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Roman Empire, there was the Hasmonean state, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Hasmonean state, there was the Seleucid, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Seleucid empire, there was the empire of Alexander the Great, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the empire of Alexander the Great, there was the Persian empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylonian Empire, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Babylonian Empire, there were the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was the Kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the kingdom of Israel, there was the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
-Before the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian statehood.
Actually, in this piece of land there has been everything, EXCEPT A PALESTINIAN STATE!
So many aspects of antisemitism that were abstract to me have become concrete. I never understood how people could justify or rationalize millions of Jews being slaughtered. I never understood Holocaust denial. Until now. I’m seeing it in real time.
Romans 1 (pay attention to the end) explains a lot about godlessness - being irreverent. Handed over to a debased mind. Scary place to be. A lot of what is in the world today.
can't grow when you hang around people at your level or below. can't grow repeating the same patterns. some people are really STUCK and either don't see it or are too hedonistic to do better.
@kevinnbass Sound theological doctrine. If you download the sermon audio app you can test out local churches before attending. Know their values and listen to teachings beforehand. That’s how I found mine and it’s been life changing for me and my LO.