Nixonian Geisel Audits the Alt.Press to Death

Geisel fez cerco à imprensa nanica: The Estado de S. Paulo on a secret program to use Orwellian tax audits to silence 41 Brazilian alternative press publications between 1976 and 1978.

The cultural wasteland thus created, with the media landscape dominated by the likes of the Folha, Globo, Abril, RBS, and Estado groups, is only just now beginning to fill in, with small, regional publications gaining ground.

Uma operação secreta de uso da Receita Federal para exterminar a imprensa alternativa foi desencadeada entre 1976 e 1978 pelo governo Ernesto Geisel (1974-1979), mostram documentos sigilosos da extinta Divisão de Segurança e Informações do Ministério da Justiça (DSI-MJ) obtidos pelo Estado.

A secret operation that used the federal tax authority to exterminate the alternative press was carried out between 1976 and 1978 by the government of Gen. Ernesto Geisel (1974-1979), according to secret documents of the extinct Security and Intelligence Division of the Ministry of Justice obtained by this newspaper.

A notable veteran of the alt.press from that period now publishes the very fine M&A daily newsletter Relatório Reservado, pretty much the only publication of its kind in Brazil (surprisingly).

Embora notabilizado pela suspensão da censura a jornais, pelo fim da tortura de presos políticos e pela distensão “lenta, segura e gradual”, o general, penúltimo ditador do ciclo militar de 1964, autorizou a ofensiva contra os pequenos veículos em despachos com o então ministro da Justiça, Armando Falcão. O ministro da Fazenda, Mário Henrique Simonsen, concordou com a ação, proposta pelo II Exército – hoje Comando Militar do Sudeste, de São Paulo.

Thought noted for suspending press censorship, ending torture of political prisoners and for his “slow, secure and gradual opening,” the general, the second to last dictator of the military cycle commencing in 1964, authorized the offensive against small publications in private meetings with them justice minister Armando Falcão. Treasury minister Mário Henrique Simonsen agreed with the plan, which was proposed by the Second Army — today, the Southeast Military Command of São Paulo.

Ronaldo the Phat

The Phenom wins one for us fat guys ...

The Folha de S.Paulo reports: Ronaldo the Fat is now Ronaldo the Phat — or Ronaldo the Phenom, if you like.

Graças aos pés de Ronaldo, o Corinthians está prestes a colocar as mãos no Paulista.

Thanks to Ronaldo’s feet, Corinthians is about to get its hands on the São Paulo state championship cup.

I am perfectly aware that spectator sports as mass spectacle is a plot to sublimate the revolutionary energies of the masses, but even so, I got a kick (so to speak) out of watching The Phat shine in a 3-1 defeat of Santos yesterday.

The Welfare Queen Is Alive and Well and Living With Dr. Mengele in Bertioga

Moral panic: Gratuitious argumentum ad Nazium (creative synergies with Buddhist visions of Hell). A Sondhi-powered anti-Thaksin rally, March 2006.

A reader of Luis Nassif notes, regarding media coverage of the Bolsa-Familia income subsidy and a related social program, the ProUni higher education subsidy, here in Brazil:

Reinventaram aquela história dos “bolsa-família” que compraram geladeira ou máquina de lavar.

They have recycled that whole spiel about Bolsa-Familia recipients who bought refrigerators or washing machines.

Ali Kamel, journalism director of the Globo organizations and one of the most intellectually dishonest persons in the Southern Hemisphere, orchestrated a media campaign along those lines last year that was astonishing similar to Ronald Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” campaign meme in 1976.

The neocon playbook tends to migrate discretely to South America like Dr. Mengele to Bertioga (the infamous Nazi medical experimenter died in the São Paulo seaside town on February 7, 1979, under the protection of the generalissimos who ran Brazil at the time.)

As denúncias do TCU, via José Jorge ex-vice na chapa psdb/plf, dão conta de irregularidades num programa que levou 400 mil jovens ao ensino universitário. Qual o teor das denúncias: 39 trinta e nove teriam forjado renda e seriam possuidores de carros zeroKM. Um deles, dono de veículo com valor acima de R$ 90 mil reais.Com estes dados, veio a manchete: ProUni dá vagas a donos de carros 0km.

The federal accounting tribunal (TCU), through Minister José Jorge, a former vice presidential candidate on the PSDB/PFL slate, claims there are irregularities in a program that has provided 400,000 young persons with a university education. And what is the substance of his accusations? That 39 supposedly misstated their income and own brand new cars. One of them owns a car worth more than R$90,000. Using this data, you get the headline: ProUni admits the owners of brand new cars.

“Down With the Dictatorship of Hollywood”

Abaixo a ditadura hollywoodiana: From the weekend cultural supplement of Valor Econômico, Brazil’s principal national-circulation business daily.

I must say that it is very disappointing to move to an exotic tropical nation in another hemisphere only to find that all that cable TV has to offer is the same programming you get from Cablevision in Brooklyn — only badly dubbed.

You might as well as have stayed put on the couch in your Prospect Heights converted tenement condo.

This while all the local artists starve. My wife, a fine short fiction writer, being one of them. And so I come to have quite a bit of sympathy for the ceaseless outcry over Yankee cultural imperialism.

Efforts by Karen Hughes to win hearts and minds in Iraq, for example, with Virgina-based Arabic-language radio stations pumping out, not Umm Kulthoum, but Madonna, to our misguided neocolonial children in Mesopotamia, struck me as among the most culturally tone-deaf diplomatic initiatives in history.

This is what you get when, as the Bush government did, you hire sports marketers, TV programmers, loyal but stupid political smear-campaign radio spot producers, and blog-happy self-designated new media seers to conduct your national public relations.

Whether I would choose to be bombarded by an alt.mediasphere programmed by Uncle Hugo is another matter, of course. Valor provides some interesting data on the televised revolution up there in Hugoland. File under “consent, manufacture of.”

Os enredos carregam mensagens políticas, propagam valores socialistas e homenageiam libertadores da América. Podem ser sutis, como em “Los Bloques”, a tragédia de uma família de classe alta que vê o desmoronamento do pai – um juiz corrupto – e cujo vilão tem o mesmo nome do dono da única emissora de televisão aberta em Caracas fortemente oposicionista. Podem ser escancarados, como em “Comando X”, filme que gira em torno dos planos de um grupo extremista de explodir o maior edifício da capital venezuelana e derrubar do poder um popular presidente de esquerda.

The plots carry political messages, promote socialist values and pay homage to Latin American liberators. They may be subtle, as is the case with “Los Bloques,” the tragedy of an upper class family witnessing the decline and fall of its father, a corrupt judge, whose villian happens to bear the same name as the owner of the only oppositionist TV station in Caracas.

Dantas’ Inferno: Showdown at the Eldorado Corral

“Smile, you’re being manipulated”: commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Globo television network.

Banco Opportunity, founded by MIT-trained convicted briber of federal officers Daniel Dantas, owns a cattle ranch in Pará which the Brazilian federal police suspect may have been used to launder money.

Apparently the capital gains represented by new calves are very hard to document or audit and are therefore useful for money laundering purposes. Stay tuned on that accusation.

The ranch is currently occupied by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, an aggressively civil disobedience-oriented agrarian reform and anti-latifúndio movement known for invading and occupying properties the validity of whose title it questions.

The Globo national network reports: A “gun battle” erupts between members of the MST and “security guards” for the ranch.

In the footage shown by the network — I am waiting for someone to post that to YouTube — members of the MST are not shown firing.

Fact not in evidence. Describing a one-sided massacre as a two-sided “clash” is a classic topos of the viciously slanted Brazilian press, even in this day and age. See also

• “Violent Protest Marks Arrival of Bush”: Veja x The Uninterviewed Eyewitness

The Pando massacre in Bolivia was also described by local press as a two-sided armed “clash,” for example. The OAS begged to differ.

As part of the report, typically, a Globo cameraman is interviewed about his own heroism in continuing to film “in the middle of the crossfire.”

Os repórteres Victor Haor e Felipe Almeida, da TV Liberal, afiliada da TV Globo no Pará, estavam na propriedade. Felipe ficou no meio do fogo-cruzado. “É o objetivo de qualquer repórter cinematográfico que tem no sangue essa coisa de imagem. Você tem que registrar”

Reporters Victor Haor and Felipe Almeida of TV Globo Pará affiliate TV Liberal were on the property. Felipe was in the middle of the crossfire.”It is the objective of any news cameraman who has this thing of getting the shot in his blood. You have to get the shot.”

This is quacking bullshit.

The shooting was all filmed from behind the security guards who were firing. No MST protesters were captured on camera firing. One security guard was reported wounded, and shown briefly, clutching at his neck and grimacing, but the cause of his injuries were not reported.

Self-congratulatory “coverage of the coverage” at the expense of factual accuracy being a hallmark of the Globo Standard of Quality in journalism. This is the basic premise, for example, of Globo’s “Globo Repórter” program.

Globo is endemically fully of shit.

The MST, not interviewed by TV Globo about the incident — balanced coverage and hearing all sides not being part of the Globo Standard of Quality– released its own version of events.

We will translate into the record for the sake of balance, then try to figure out what happened here. You sure as hell are not going to find out watching a Globo newscast. Globo affiliates were handed out to reactionary machine politicians of the old school during the Sarney administration, and it shows.

Em relação ao episódio na região de Xinguara e Eldorado de Carajás, no sul do Pará, o MST esclarece que os trabalhadores rurais acampados foram vítimas da violência da segurança da Agropecuária Santa Bárbara. Os sem-terra não pretendiam fazer a ocupação da sede da fazenda nem fizeram reféns. Nenhum jornalista nem a advogada do grupo foram feitos reféns pelos acampados, que apenas fecharam a PA-150 em protestos pela liberação de três trabalhadores rurais detidos pelos seguranças. Os jornalistas permaneceram dentro da sede fazenda por vontade própria, como sustenta a Polícia Militar. Esclarecemos também que:

With respect to the episode in the region of Xinguara and Eldorado de Carajás, in southern Pará, the MST would like to clarify that the rural workers camped out there were victims of violence at the hands of security guards at the Santa Barbara ranch. The landless workers were not trying to occupy the headquarters of the ranch or to take hostages. No journalists or attorneys were taken hostage by the encamped activitists, who merely closed state highway PA-150 to protest for the freeing of rural workers detained by security. The journalists remained inside the ranch of their own free will, as the Military Police attests. We also clarify that:

Argentine Press Freedom Bill Is An Assault On Press Freedom: Globo

“Smile, you’re being manipulated”: commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Globo television network.

O Globo tells an out and out lie when it describes as “proceeding through congress in secret” a bill that has been widely debated in Argentine society and about which a Google search turns up thousands of mentions. One cannot even begin to fathom the cynicism of Globo.

O Biscoito Fino e a Massa on “democratization of the media” in neighboring Argentina.

Está ouriçada a grande mídia argentina, e particularmente seu maior grupo, o Clarín. Tramita no Congresso desde o dia 18 de março um projeto enviado pelo governo de Cristina Kirchner, que revisa a legislação imposta em 1980, no auge da pior matança ditatorial da história do país. O projeto de Lei de Serviços de Comunicação Audiovisuais limita o poder midiático que um único grupo pode exercer, reduz de 24 para 10 o número de concessões que um indivíduo poderá receber e elimina as restrições à liberdade de informação em nome da segurança nacional contidas na lei da ditadura. Em qualquer sentido que se olhe, ele promove uma democratização ou, pelo menos, as condições para alguma alteração no quadro monopolista de hoje.

The major news media in Argentina, and especially the country’s largest media group, Clarín, is all aflutter. A bill introduced by the Kirchner administration has been working its way through the congress since March 18 that revises the legislation imposed in 1980, the height of the bloodiest dictatorial violence in the history of the nation. The Audiovisual Communications Services Bill limits the power a single group may exercise, reduces from 24 to 10 the number of concessions an individual may receive, and eliminates restrictions on the freedom of the press in the name of national security contained in the dictatorship-era law. Anyway you look at it, the bill promotes a democratization of the media, or at least provides the conditions for altering the monopolist situation that prevails.

Foi o suficiente para que O Globo fizesse uma matéria que, sob a manchete “Casal K faz nova investida contra a imprensa”, conseguia ser ao mesmo tempo sexista – a presidenta é Cristina – e factualmente falsa. Não há, ao longo de todo o projeto, uma linha que atente contra a liberdade de expressão ou informação, muito pelo contrário – ele elimina as que havia na lei de 1980. O projeto de Cristina Kirchner limita, sim, a “liberdade” de que um único grupo controle 70% do mercado.

All of which was enough for O Globo to run a story which, under the headline, “Kirchner Couple Attack The Press,” managed to be both sexist — the president is Cristina Kirchner — and factually false.

Ecce Globo, eternal font of nasty, self-serving, quacking nonsense that it is.

Brazilian Broadband: Beyond Good and Evil

“The impression one gets is that the broadband operators are beyond good and evil.”

Banda larga brasileira está longe de ter qualidade razoável: Maria Inês Dolci of the Folha de S. Paulo posts a podcast on the astonishingly poor quality of service and sociopathic, usurious pricing of Brazilian broadband Internet providers.

The thing about podcasts is that by the time you finish listening to the person speaking the words, you could have read the same words five times over. The eye-brain nexus is still the most efficient semantic processor going.

Os serviços de acesso à banda larga brasileira estão longe de ter qualidade razoável. São caros, instáveis e não entregam o que prometem. A falta de qualidade deveria ser duramente cobrada pela Anatel Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações, diz Maria Inês Dolci, coordenadora institucional da Pro Teste, colunista da Folha e responsável por um blog da Folha Online.

Brazilian broadband Internet access services are far from offering reasonable quality of service. They are expensive, unstable, and don’t deliver what they promise.

This has been our experience, too, even with NET Serviços cable broadband, which you wind up paying through the nose for because its two-nines quality of service is about the best you can get around here.

Na última semana, milhares de assinantes do Speedy tiveram problemas para se conectar à internet devido a falhas no sistema da Telefônica. Segundo Dolci, nenhuma ação ocorre para melhorar esses serviços. Ouça outros podcasts com a participação da advogada.

Last week, thousands of Speedy subscribers had problems connecting to the Internet due to system failures at Telefônica. According to Dolci, no action is taken to improve these services. Listen to other podcasts featuring the lawyer.

See also

• Speedy Sputters Under Hack Attack!

Speedy Sputters Under Hack Attack!

Vigilante consumerdom: angry Argentines spank the Spaniards. Source: Iconoclastas.

EXAME magazine (Editora Abril, Brazil) notes another chapter in the saga of Speedy, Telefonica’s so-called Sambodian broadband Internet service.

After crashing the entire São Paulo state government last year thanks to a misconfigured router (or so they tell us), Speedy seems to have once again proven itself vulnerable to hack attack.

See also

• “Telefônica Crashes 911 And Can’t Get It Running Again”
• “Risk of More Internet Blackouts in Brazil”: Universalization Guru

A Telefônica informou em nota à imprensa que desde segunda-feira (06/04) sofreu cinco ataques externos que causaram instabilidades no funcionamento do Speedy.

Telefonica said in a press release that it suffered five external attacks since last Monday that caused instability in the functioning of its Speedy service.

Desde a noite de quarta-feira (08/04) a operadora informou que não observou outros ataques e que já iniciou conversas com a Anatel e os órgãos de defesa do consumidor para descontar da fatura dos assinantes o período em que o Speedy ficou fora do ar. Veja a íntegra da nota:

The operator says it has observed no further attacks since April 8 and has begun conversations with Anatel and consumer defense agencies about discounting the time the service was off the air from customers’ bills. The press release in its entirety:

Happy Baixada Massacre Day

VivaFavela notes the fourth anniversary of the Baixada Massacre.

Corrupt military policemen cruising down the highway in downstate Rio de Janeiro, blasting human beings at random, after delivering a message to fellow troopers investigating them: rolling severed human heads into the station house like hairy hand grenades.

Severed.

Human.

Heads.

29 pessoas foram mortas em Queimados e Nova Iguaçu no caso que ficou conhecido como Chacina da Baixada no ano de 2005. Quatro anos depois, amigos e familiares ainda buscam justiça e convivem com o medo de represálias por parte dos acusados.

29 persons were killed in Queimados and Nova Iguaçu in the case that became known as the Baixada Massacre in 2005. Four years later, friends and relatives still seek justice and live with fear of reprisals by the accused.

Passados quatro anos, a polícia ainda não deu uma versão oficial do que realmente aconteceu naquele dia. São duas as hipóteses investigadas: que os policiais integrariam grupos de extermínio da Baixada e por isso escolheram suas vítimas aleatoriamente. O intuito era causar terror, medo e pânico. A outra possibilidade era a insatisfação com a “Operação Navalha na Carne”, que investigava PMs envolvidos com o assassinato de dois homens, alguns dias antes da chacina. A corporação queria demonstrar sua insatisfação com a mudança do coronel do 15º Batalhão de Duque de Caxias.

Four years later, the police have yet to provide an official version of what really happened that day. Two theories are being investigated: First, that the policemen were members of local death squads and for this reason chose victims at random. Their objective was to cause terror, fear and panic. The other possibility was dissatisfaction with a police operation investigating military policemen involved in the assassination of two men a few days before the massacre. The troopers wanted to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the change of command at the 15th Battalion of Duque de Caxias.

Relief for Nassif: Permission to Say That Veja Sucks

Luis Nassif gave Veja grief.

Brazilian online journalist and multimedia economics pundit Luis Nassif is being sued by the editors of Veja magazine (Editora Abril) for having argued — not to put too fine a point on it — that the magazine’s journalism sucks outrageously.

I believe he may have referred to it as a “journalistic sewer,” in one of the more purple passages from his series on the quality of journalism at the glossy neo-Lacerdist weekly.

A careful argument, based on case studies and generally accepted standards and practices, and a persuasive one. I, for one, from experience, have long been convinced that Veja sucks big-time. Nassif’s series really only reinforced that belief.

Selected chapters from Nassif’s “Veja Dossier” that I have translated:

• “The Face of Veja”
• “The Ecce Veja Way With the News: How Fiction Came to Replace Journalism”
• Ecce Veja: “Not a single journalist in Brazil respects the journalism Veja does”

I should gather those together and produce a unified translation. One of these days. Then again, I am a lazy sod.

Reproduced in the Observatório da Imprensa is the following report by the Agência Carta Maior on Nassif’s recent victory in a SLAPP suit filed by Veja’s editors. There are many more such SLAPP suits to come, one hears.

I translate, in haste, pra inglês ver.

Algo importante aconteceu na blogosfera brasileira quando o jornalista Luis Nassif começou a publicar reportagens a respeito da revista Veja: o debate mudou de plano. O que Nassif batizou de dossiê analisa, com farto material, o jornalismo praticado pela publicação semanal. Nesta semana, o juiz Carlos Henrique Abrão, da 42ª Vara Cível do Foro Central de São Paulo, julgou improcedente a ação de danos morais movida pelo e diretor de redação Eurípides Alcântara contra Nassif.

Something important happened in the Brazilian blogosphere when journo Luis Nassif began publishing articles about Veja magazine: the debate moved to another level. In what Nassif calls his Veja “dossier,” he analyzes, with plenty of examples, the kind of journalism practiced by the glossy newsweekly. This week, Judge Abrão of the 42nd São Paulo Civil Bar threw out a defamation lawsuit filed against Nassif by Veja editor in chief Eurípides Alcântara.

“O maior fenômeno de anti-jornalismo dos últimos anos foi o que ocorreu com a revista Veja. Gradativamente, o maior semanário brasileiro foi se transformando em um pasquim sem compromisso com o jornalismo, recorrendo a ataques desqualificadores contra quem atravessasse seu caminho, envolvendo-se em guerras comerciais e aceitando que suas páginas e sites abrigassem matérias e colunas do mais puro esgoto jornalístico”, é o que se lê logo no primeiro parágrafo do visualmente simples blog de Luis Nassif.

“The greatest example of antijournalism in recent years has been what has happened with Veja magazine. Brazil’s biggest weekly has gradually devolved into a libelous rag without the slighest commitment to journalism, launching personal attacks against anyone who crosses it, involving itself in commercial disputes and allowing its pages and Web sites to harbor articles and columns containing pure journalistic sewage,” Nassif wrote in the first paragraph of his visually unsophisticated blog.