Activists From Brazil

"The interest in the Amazon isn't in the Indian or the fucking tree, it's in the mining. Raoni speaks for his village, speaks as a citizen, [but] doesn't speak for all the Indians, no. He's another one who lives drinking champagne in other countries out there. The world often criticizes the prospector. The cowardice that they do with the environment, as companies from various countries of the world do here in Brazil, no one touches the subject because the bribe, it seems, runs wild."

"I regret that the Brazilian press acts that way. All the time lying, distorting, defaming. Do you want to bring me down? I have hard leather; it's going to be hard. Keep lying."

"I am not going to allow the little flu to knock me down."

"That's life. We're all going to die someday."

"So what? I'm sorry. What do you want me to do? My name's Messiah, but I can't work miracles."

"For my track record as an athlete, if I was infected with the virus, I wouldn't have to worry."

"There is a lot of people in soccer that are favorable to a return because unemployment is knocking on clubs’ doors too. Footballers, if infected with the virus, have a small chance of dying. That's because of their physical state, because they are athletes. [...] The decision to restart soccer is not mine, but we can help."

"I trust in hydroxychloroquine."

"I feel like punching you in your mouth, okay?"

"In the Pfizer contract it's very clear: 'we're not responsible for any side effects.' If you turn into a crocodile, it's your problem."

"If you become superhuman, if a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice, they will not have anything to do with it."

"I had the best vaccine, it was the virus. No side effects."

"Enough fussing and whining. How much longer will the crying go on?"

"It is a new virus, nobody knows if it was born in the laboratory or by some human being [who] ingested an inappropriate animal. But it is there. The military knows that it is chemical, bacteriological, and radiological warfare. Are we not facing a new war? Which country has grown its GDP the most? I will not tell you."

"That must rank amongst the strangest and most chilling encounters I've ever experienced. Bolsonaro is typical of homophobes I've met all over the world with their mantras that gays are out to take over society, recruit children or abuse them. Even in a progressive country like Brazil their lies create hysteria amongst the uneducated from which violence can grow that can end in brutal attacks like the one that killed Alexandre Ivo."

"[...] Bolsonaro is a unique national disgrace. He has a long history of revolting racism, homophobia and other assorted forms of bigotry to be expected of an admirer of military dictatorship."

"A hateful man who perhaps more than any other person exemplifies the backward side of Brazil that is still a huge and tragically worrying presence in this great nation."

"Lula defeated the racist, far right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, an autocrat who made unrestrained Amazon deforestation and the elimination of protected indigenous zones a central pillar of his single-term in office...Bolsonaro has been called the “Tropical Trump,” and, like Donald Trump, refused to concede his election loss, claiming that “only God” could remove him from office."

"these children are ready to deliver their moral verdict on the people and institutions who knew all about the dangerous, depleted world they would inherit and yet chose not to act. They know what they think of Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Scott Morrison in Australia and all the other leaders who torch the planet with defiant glee while denying science so basic that these kids could grasp it easily at age eight..."

"A South American country, a cult leader, a drug and the deaths of thousands of fanatic followers may sound like the tragic story of the . But these details could just as well serve as the introduction to another devastating chapter in Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's administration, as he leads Brazil into chaos amid the coronavirus pandemic. The eerie parallels between the Rev. Jim Jones and Bolsonaro recall the old adage that history repeats itself — first as tragedy, then as farce."

"The mass suicide at Jonestown was the final episode of this tragic story — the end result of a personality cult around Jones, a paranoid narcissist. Jim Jones was enthralling, persuasive and power-hungry. He thrived on attention, adoration and adulation. He was equal parts bully and charmer. Such a description could be equally applicable to Jair Bolsonaro, who maintains the devotion of his base by engaging in inflammatory rhetoric, reactionary policies, and racist dog-whistles — a behavior that echoes a cult mentality."

"The similarities between Jones and Bolsonaro reside in their use of outlets to belittle, mock and bully their opponents. Bolsonaro constantly points new enemies to his fervent followers as a way to keep them united and motivated to fight for him. Anyone that criticizes or disagrees with Bolsonaro is considered an enemy, and every effort to shut them down is justified."

"Just before Jones decreed mass suicide, he told his followers to "stop these hysterics," using the same terminology that Bolsonaro invokes to assail preventive coronavirus measures. But instead of drinking cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid to stop the hysteria, Bolsonaro has been urging people to take hydroxychloroquine, a drug that hasn't been fully tested in , and giving people a false impression of being contagion-safe so they can go back to work. As Brazil's COVID-19 death toll surpasses 600, Bolsonaro is doubling down on his manipulation tactics and motivates his followers to go out in the streets to protest against isolation measures. This brings his own "necropolitics" to a whole new level — in which his political actions are also centralized on the large scale production of the death of his own base — thus setting the stage for a tragedy greater than Jonestown."

"[...] it's devastating to know that someone with so much influence has such a disdain for the queer community."

"Is this the world’s most repulsive politician?"

"Should democracy really have to coexist with someone who threatens it [...]? He uses his immunity to explicitly threaten ending democracy in the country while defending heinous crimes."

"It was in many ways a political marriage between the most radical evangelical and the most controversial militarist, who together hope to conceive a new generation of ultra-right governments. Bolsonaro brings backing from a wealthy Catholic elite to Feliciano’s grassroots campaign network of evangelical churches."

"Such venomous statements might signal the end of a politician’s career in some places. But not in Brazil, where Mr. Bolsonaro’s rising national prominence reflects a veering to the right and growing vitriol as disillusionment with the political establishment grows."

"I support a dictatorship."

"His racist, misogynist and anti-gay statements have been so violently over-the-top that the comparison to Trump – whom Bolsonaro sees as a role model – is almost unfair to Trump. [...] Like Trump, his rise has had help from much of the Brazilian media; and like Trump, this is paradoxical because most of the big media outlets that have helped him don't like him at all."

"Our common flag, as Muslims and Jews, is to bar any form of violence, prejudice and any other element that supports the fascist project of that man and his followers."

"They also talked about the civil war, Columbus Day, and the awesome Jair Bolsonaro, the soon-to-be-elected Generalisimo of Brazil."

"President Donald Trump has led a worldwide phenomenon that has emboldened other countries to elect bold populists as their national leaders. The most hardcore of them all may be Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, nicknamed “Trump of the Tropics,” renowned for his tough stances against cultural Marxism and societal degeneracy."

"There was a strange aftertaste to many of the calls for grand social reform in 2020. As the coronavirus crisis overtook us, the left wing on both sides of the Atlantic, at least that part that had been fired up Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, was going down to defeat. The promise of a radicalized and reenergized left, organized around the idea of the Green New Deal, seemed to dissipate amidst the pandemic. It fell to governments mainly of the center and the right to meet the crisis. They were a strange assortment. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States experimented with denial. For them climate skepticism and virus skepticism went hand in hand. In Mexico, the notionally left-wing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador also pursued a maverick path, refusing to take drastic action. Nationalist strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey did not deny the virus, but relied on their patriotic appeal and bullying tactics to see them through. It was the managerial centrist types who were under most pressure. Figures like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the United States, or Sebastián Piñera in Chile, or Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, and their ilk in Europe. They accepted the science. Denial was not an option. They were desperate to demonstrate that they were better than the 'populists.' To meet the crisis, very middle-of-the-road politicians ended up doing very radical things. Most of it was improvisation and compromise, but insofar as they managed to put a programmatic gloss on their responses—whether in the form of the EU's Next Generation program or Biden's Build Back Better program in 2020—it came from the repertoire of green modernization, sustainable development, and the Green New Deal."

"I sympathize with Fujimori. Fujimorization is the way out for Brazil."

"The Military Police should have killed 1,000 rather than 111 prisoners in the Carandiru massacre."

"I want to show my revolt with the mainstream media, somewhat servile, which strongly criticized the Military School of Porto Alegre just because nine out of 84 students decided to choose between Count Dracula, Hercules, Nostradamus, Queen Catherine, Attila - only FHC was missing -, Hitler as the most admired historical personality. If they had elected FHC, they would logically be electing the father of the most corrupt government in the history of Brazil, because he does not admit that any denunciation of corruption is cleared by this House. He is not an example for youth. A serious school, with the Military School of Porto Alegre, in order to have quality, must have freedom of expression. It should be reiterated that the students - most of them are minors - pay for this magazine, so they are free to write whatever they want. We must respect this youth that begins, from these debates and this matter in the press, to prepare to be, in the future. At the same time, I would like to criticize the Army's Social Communication Center, which announced that it will be aware of the magazine. These boys, among many others, are the children of the military and are really lacking in order and discipline in this country. While our President of the Republic does not give an example of this, they have to elect those who knew, in one way or another, to impose order and discipline, although, as the young student of the Military School who has not been to the Preparatory School of Army Cadets, named Roberto Dias Torres Júnior, we also disagree with the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler."

"Pinochet should have killed more people."

"I'm in favor of torture. You know that. And the people are too."

"Through the vote, you'll change nothing in this country. Nothing, absolutely nothing. We'll only get change, unfortunately, when we go into a civil war here someday and do a work the military regime didn't do, killing as much as thirty thousand people, starting with FHC. It's all right if some innocent people die. Innocent people die in many wars."

"There is no doubt. I would launch a coup on the same day. [Congress] doesn't work and I'm sure that at least 90% of the population would applaud. Congress nowadays does nothing; it votes only for what the president wants. If he's who rules, who decides and who gloats above the Congress, then let the coup be launched, let it be a dictatorship."

"It's my advice and I do it: I evade all the taxes I can."

"I can't even go to Paraguay with my salary."

"He's a hope to Latin America and I would like if that philosophy came to Brazil. I think he's unique. I intend to go to Venezuela and to try to meet him. I want to pass a week there and to try to schedule an audience. I think he'll do what the militaries did in Brazil in 1964, with much more strength. I just hope the opposition doesn't go into a guerrilla warfare like they did here."

"I never hit my ex-wife. But many times I wanted to shoot her."

"I defend torture. A drug dealer who acts on the streets against our children must to be immediately put on a pau-de-arara. There would be no human rights in this case. There would be pau-de-arara, beating. The same thing for kidnappers. The guy must be broken to open his mouth."

"I think execution by firing squad is even an honorable thing to certain people."

"I will not fight against it nor discriminate, but if I see two men kissing on the street, I'll beat them up."

"I would never rape you, because you don't deserve it."

"Competence? It's a problem for each deputy. If I want to hire a prostitute for my office, I'll hire her. If I want to hire my mother, I'll hire her. It'll be my problem."