As Brazil Burns, Northern Media Deploy a Strategy of Deflection view post on FAIR.org by Brian Mier NASA image of smoke from fires over the Brazilian state of Rondonia. I spent last week in the Brazilian Amazon in Porto Velho, Rondonia, on the edge of what is called the arco do incendios. The “arc of fires” is a region stretching along the yet-to-be-paved highways 319 and 230, between the towns of Humaitá and Apui in Southern Amazonas, a state that still had 98% of its virgin rainforest intact as of last year. It is a place where soy farmers and cattle ranchers connected to international corporate supply chains are ripping down and intentionally burning forest at record rates. Humaitá, where a group of ranchers and farmers in 2017 set fire to the headquarters of IBAMA, the environmental protection agency, has a new soy terminal in its river port. Soy production for foreign markets, coupled with far-right government of President Jair Bolsonaro’s gutting of environmental protection agencies, are two drivers of the current, catastrophic increase in fires and deforestation. Minnesota-based Cargill corporation, which the environmental organization Mighty Earth recently called the Worst Company in the World, appears to be a main catalyst in this process. Former President Lula, who reduced deforestation by 70% during his tenure, was arrested and removed from last year’s presidential race as part of a US Department of Justice–backed investigation, with no material evidence,while he was leading the election polls with double the support of Bolsonaro. Shortly after his arrest, Cargill announced it was building a new soy terminal port in Porto Velho on the edge of highway 319 on the Madeira river, expanding its soy export capacity there from 3.5 million to 6 million tons per year. It appears that increased rainforest devastation is calculated into Cargill’s business plan. After helping develop cattle production in the Amazon during the 1970s and 1980s, US companies are no longer the major importers of Amazonian beef; that’s now China and the European Union. Amazon deforestation still generates billions of dollars a year for mining, energy and agribusiness corporations that spend a lot of advertising money, though, and there is constant pressure to beat back against the information provided by environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace, and to reframe it to make it appear less threatening. As the world’s attention focused on the fire crisis last week, media companies employed several strategies to deflect attention from its root causes. As coverage shifts to other events such as Hurricane Dorian, it is important to remember that there is no end to the fires in sight. Continued fighting is needed to stop an environmental catastrophe, and to do this, we need to focus on causes and how it can be stopped. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be happening. The following are a few examples of how media are working to please their advertisers by deflecting and confusing their information consumers. 1) Resuscitating the ‘Conservation vs. Development’ trope Bloomberg‘s Mac Margolis (8/24/19) blames rainforest fires on a strategy of “demonizing instead of assisting farmers and ranchers.” On August 26  I appeared on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News to talk about the Amazon fires. I welcomed it as an opportunity to speak to a lot of people “outside the bubble,” and try to put some cracks into their narrative on the fires on live TV. I doubt they will invite me on again. After attempting to steer the conversation into Brazilians’ supposed apathy over the deforestation—something that recent polling data and a wave of protests prove is blatantly untrue—the newscaster asked me the following: President Bolsonaro is prioritizing economic opportunities for Brazilians over protecting the environment. And Brazil…has huge poverty. How much do people care more about the economy and their own livelihoods, because it’s simply a priority over the environment? This was a loaded question built on the false assumption that destroying the environment for short-term capitalist gain benefits society as a whole. Sky wasn’t the only company pushing this narrative. In Bloomberg (8/24/19), Mac Margolis raised a similar argument, disconnecting the ranchers and plantation owners setting the fires from the international supply chain, and suggesting that further ranching and monoculture production will lower poverty in the region. Brazil is a country with a 500-year history of monoculture and mining commodity boom-and-bust cycles, which has always produced high levels of income inequality and poverty. This pattern only began to be broken under Workers Party President Lula, through the implementation of redistributive socioeconomic polices, most importantly through massive minimum wage and pension payment increases, which lifted 29 million people above the poverty line. It is absurd to imagine that a monoculture production-based approach tied to the international supply chain, using low labor-intensity activities such as cattle ranching and soy farming on indigenous reservations, will make up for the setbacks caused by the post–2016 coup’s dismantlement of successful poverty-fighting policies and gutting of labor laws, which have plunged millions of people into extreme poverty. Furthermore, development vs. conservation is not an either/or issue. Rondonia’s neighboring state of Acre has generated billions of dollars through preserving its rainforest and focusing on renewable forest resources such as rubber, brazil nut and açai, becoming a world reference in sustainable development. Unfortunately, Acre’s governor recently declared a state of emergency, due to fires resulting from new incursions by international beef, mining and soy supply chain actors into the rainforest. 2) Focus on social media bickering between Bolsonaro and Macron The New York Times (8/26/19) covers the Amazon disaster as a presidential spat. The Rondonia state political apparatus is now ruled over by Bolsonaro’s PSL party and supported by the big ranchers and plantation owners. The state environmental protection/policing agency, IBAMA, has not had a superintendent since February and is completely paralyzed. Restoring functionality to IBAMA, which lost half its funding after the 2016 coup and has been further gutted by the Bolsonaro administration, should be a top priority now. All that Bolsonaro’s action of sending 400 air force personnel with picks and shovels to put out a few of the fires for the TV cameras will do is cause his support base to wait for a few days to start new fires—something that I witnessed beginning last week in Rondonia when, as the international journalists began to leave town, the city of Porto Velho found itself covered in smoke once again. Instead of focusing on this, as the fires raged on last week, Bolsonaro’s bickering with French President Emannuel Macron on Twitter over Brazil’s refusal to accept the EU’s laughably low offer of 20 million euros to “put out the fires” began to crowd out headline space from articles about the roots of the crisis. 3)  Socialism is destroying the rainforest The Independent (8/27/19) attempts to shift blame from Brazil to Bolivia. According to recent articles in the Guardian, Independent and New York Times, it is the brush fires underway in the semi-arid Chaco biome in lowland Bolivia, and not the destructive policies currently being pushed by the Bolsonaro government, that are the real cause of the destruction of the Amazon. “The World Believes the Amazon Is in Trouble Because of Bolsonaro. Instead, They Should Look to Bolivia,” declares a recent op-ed piece in the Independent (8/27/19). On September 2, the Guardian ran an article labeling Bolivian President Evo Morales as a “murderer of nature.” In the New York Times (8/30/19), Simon Romero—a key actor in the character assassination campaign against Dilma Rousseff during the lead-up to the 2016 coup—failed to give equal time to Morales while quoting US- and agribusiness-backed right-wing opposition candidate Carlos Mesa: “These fires were caused by Evo Morales and his policies.” Putting the situation in Bolivia on par with Brazil constitutes a false equivalency. First of all, the fires raging in Bolivia are not actually taking place in the Amazon jungle. Second, at a time when Bolivia, which has a GDP 50 times smaller than that of Brazil, has invested heavily in fighting the fires, and Morales has called for a UN Assembly to address the crisis and is using better equipment to fight it, Bolsonaro’s congressional allies pushed an amendment through the Congressional Justice Committee which will legalize destruction of 11.5% of the remaining Brazilian rainforest. The attempted deflection of the issue from Brazil to Bolivia  seems more tied to Northern geopolitical objectives in the region than addressing the crisis—coming as it does during a Bolivian election campaign in which the US government has been accused of funding the conservative opposition candidate, as part of its project to roll back the “pink tide” of left and center-left governments that came to power in Latin America during recent decades. Bolsonaro’s encouraging international supply-chain actors to rip down the rainforest is driving the crisis. There is no sign of any end to these fires in sight. Instead of handwringing about the tragedy while trying to shift the blame, or acting like these devastating fires will somehow fight poverty, journalists should work harder to explain the role Northern business groups have in the process, and encourage boycotts against companies like Cargill that have a financial stake in destroying the rainforest and the people who live there. The future of our children and grandchildren depends on it. Featured image: National Geographic depiction (8/23/19) of fires in Rondonia.

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FOCUS: Frank Rich | Are Foreign Countries Benefiting From Jared Kushner's Security Clearance?

02 March 19

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FOCUS: Frank Rich | Are Foreign Countries Benefiting From Jared Kushner's Security Clearance? 

Frank Rich, New York Magazine 

EXCERPT: 

Within a day of Representative Mark Meadows sidetracking the end of the Cohen hearing to argue that he was not a racist, at least three videos have surfaced of him pushing birtherism on the campaign trail, promising to send President Obama “back home, to Kenya or wherever it is.” Will there be a political price for those comments now?

There will be no political price for Meadows among his voters any more than for any other racists harbored by the Republican Party, whose voters are almost entirely loyal to a president who did far more to promote birtherism than a Meadows or Steve King could ever do. Let’s never forget the fact that the GOP has tolerated and exploited racism since its 1964 presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, voted against the Civil Rights Act. In recent years, especially in the aftermath of America electing its first black president, the party has been pursuing wholesale minority-voter suppression efforts, including phony campaigns against nonexistent election fraud. (The only proven case of major fraud, we now know, was undertaken on behalf of a Republican congressional candidate, Mark Harris, in Meadows’s own state of North Carolina.) 

This toxicity poisoned the GOP well before Trump became a Republican, and unless and until the party starts exorcising it instead of denying it, it will remain in place after he’s gone.

Rich writes: "Surely you are not suggesting that Jared resign before he unveils his Middle East peace plan! In any case, there may be no way to force any of these grifters out of the White House short of handcuffs."
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Noam Chomsky: Alternative Media Is Extraordinarily Useful, but It's Under Attack From Silicon Valley's Advertising Model

23 February 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News YOUR WONDERFUL AND INDISPENSABLE WORK: I am in full support of RSN and have found it immensely helpful in keeping abreast of our body politic from a perspective which is not driven by money but by the appeal to truth and accountability among all the institutions of our government as well as among all of us who are citizens of this country and world. I have sent what is for me a significant contribution to you. RSN at the end of this calendar year. I hope that your cause will not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead, because I for one am fully convinced that we as citizens need what you provide. Thank you. / Donovan L., Ph. D., RSN Reader-Supporter Sure, I'll make a donation! Noam Chomsky: Alternative Media Is Extraordinarily Useful, but It's Under Attack From Silicon Valley's Advertising Model  Robert Hackett, National Observer Hackett writes: "In recent years, Chomsky has turned his prodigious mind to the existential threat of global warming, a 'threat to the perpetuation of organized human life,' on par with nuclear war." READ MORE Michael Cohen, center, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, leaves federal court after pleading guilty to charges related to lying to congress in New York on November 29, 2018. (photo: Justin Lane/EPA) Cohen Gave Prosecutors New Information on the Trump Family Business Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times Excerpt: "Michael D. Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, met last month with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, offering information about possible irregularities within the president's family business and about a donor to the inaugural committee, according to people familiar with the matter." READ MORE Bernie Sanders and Carmen Yulín Cruz in Puerto Rico. (photo: André Kang) San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz to Co-Chair Bernie Sanders 2020 Campaign Suzanne Gamboa, NBC News Gamboa writes: "Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of San Juan, an adversary of President Donald Trump, has signed on to be one of four national co-chairs of Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign." READ MORE Leslie McCrae Dowless, the man who made election fraud talk come to life in North Carolina. (photo: Travis Long/Getty Images) GOP Finally Has Documented Case of Election Fraud - Committed by Republicans Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine Kilgore writes: "The irony is pretty rich. For years, and with ever-increasing intensity, Republicans have claimed with virtually no evidence that our democracy is menaced by election fraud." READ MORE Pro-choice activists rally in support of Planned Parenthood. (photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Trump Admin Cuts Off Planned Parenthood From Federal Family Planning Funding Axios Excerpt: "The Trump administration issued a rule Friday barring Planned Parenthood and other groups that offer abortions or abortion referrals from participating in the $286 million federal family planning program, reports the Washington Post." READ MORE Young Saudis in front of a poster of Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, the capital. (photo: Fayez Nureldine/Getty Images) Trump's Cronies Are in Secret Talks to Sell Nuclear Tech to Saudi. The Risks Are Clear Simon Tisdall, Guardian UK Tisdall writes: "The idea that the US might sell state-of-the-art nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, potentially enabling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's reckless regime to build nuclear weapons, sounds so far-fetched as to be almost grotesque." READ MORE Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, one of the plaintiffs in the Juliana v. US climate lawsuit, speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017. (photo: Robin Loznak/Our Children's Trust) The Kids Suing the Government Over Climate Change Want to Halt Fossil Fuel Extraction Umair Irfan, Vox Irfan writes: "The attorneys representing young people who are suing the federal government in a major climate change lawsuit recently took the unusual step of filing an injunction to stop all new leases for fossil fuel production." READ MORE Contribute to RSN Update My Monthly Donation

Andy Borowitz | Bezos Says Amazon Drones Ready to Deliver Mueller Report to Every American Household

22 February 19

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WE ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE ON DONATIONS - A very serious problem is evolving due entirely to a blind eye to funding. We can’t do this. Wish we could but we can’t. As long as most of you ignore the fundraising. The problem will mount. The situation is quite serious now. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Andy Borowitz | Bezos Says Amazon Drones Ready to Deliver Mueller Report to Every American Household 

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "Amazon drones stand 'ready and waiting' to deliver copies of Robert Mueller's official report, free of charge, to every American household as early as next week, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, confirmed on Wednesday."
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Paul J. Manafort arriving at court in Washington, D.C., in 2017. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Manafort Faces New York Prosecution That Could Bypass Any Trump Pardon
William K. Rashbaum, The New York Times
Rashbaum writes: "The Manhattan district attorney's office is preparing state criminal charges against Paul J. Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, in an effort to ensure he will still face prison time even if the president pardons him for his federal crimes, according to several people with knowledge of the matter."
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Senator Bernie Sanders joins with others during an event to mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 2018, in Memphis, Tennessee. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty)

$6 Million Later, Bernie Sanders' Powerful Return Reveals the Strength of a Base in Waiting
Cheyenne Haslett, ABC News
Haslett writes: "Just 24 hours after he began his 2020 bid with a low-key, early-morning announcement on a Vermont public radio station, Sen. Bernie Sanders's new campaign was rolling in $6 million in cash - more than triple what his closest Democratic opponent, Sen. Kamala Harris, raised after her much-splashier campaign kickoff."
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Voters wait in line to cast their ballots. (photo: Getty)

Trump's 'Election Integrity' Experts Ignore Actual Election Fraud in North Carolina
Josh Israel, ThinkProgress
Israel writes: "The Pence-led group found no proof of widespread voter fraud, but seems unconcerned by actual Republican election fraud."
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Sudarshana Sengupta, right, sits with her husband Sadhak, left, and son Josh, center, at their home in Sharon, Massachusetts. (photo: Jessica Hill/Getty)

90,000 Immigrant Spouses Could Soon Lose Work Authorization, Thanks to Trump
Elham Khatami, ThinkProgress
Khatami writes: "The Trump administration's crackdown on documented immigration moved one major step forward Wednesday, when the Department of Homeland Security sent to the Office of Management and Budget a proposed rule to ban employment for the spouses of H-1B visa holders."
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A mural honoring Hugo Chavez in Caracas, Venezuela. (photo: Juan Barreto/Getty)

US Media Erase Years of Chavismo's Gains in Venezuela
Gregory Shupak, FAIR
Shupak writes: "Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, which took off with the election of President Hugo Chavez in December 1998, frequently and even quite recently received praise for its social gains from the United Nations, international humanitarian organizations and economists."
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Power plant smokestacks. (photo: AP)

EPA Adopts Fringe Science Claim That Small Doses of Pollution Are Healthy
Sam Nickerson, EcoWatch
Nickerson writes: "The proposed change came just two weeks after a top EPA official contacted toxicologist Ed Calabrese, whose claim that low doses of carcinogens and radiation are healthy stressors akin to physical exercise that activate the body's repair mechanisms has been panned by more mainstream researchers."
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Jeffrey Toobin | Harold Koh's Verdict on Donald Trump vs. International Law

21 December 18

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The Futility of "Emergency Only" Contributing | We are blessed with supporters, readers, community members who sustain Reader Supported News month in and month out. But for some reason, only when it becomes clear that the organization is absolutely desperate. That’s something that we really want to move away from. For the sake of the organization and the community that we serve. In solidarity. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Jeffrey Toobin | Harold Koh's Verdict on Donald Trump vs. International Law 

Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
Toobin writes: "A friend recently challenged Harold Hongju Koh to sum up his new book, 'The Trump Administration and International Law,' in three words. Koh paused for a minute and said, 'He's not winning.'"
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Senator Mitch McConnell. (photo: Mark Wilson/Getty)

Trump Warns Shutdown Could Last 'Very Long Time,' Urges McConnell to Go 'Nuclear' and End Filibuster
Liz Johnstone and Dartunorro Clark, NBC News
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump on Friday said the chances of a partial government shutdown were 'very good' after meeting with Senate Republicans at the White House."
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Andrea Elena Castro, daughter of Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-TX, holds a U.S. flag during a Rally For Our Children event on May 31 to protest the 'zero tolerance' immigration policy that has led to the separation of families. (photo: Eric Gay/AP)

Judges Check Trump's Immigration Cruelty
Editorial Board, The New York Times
Excerpt: "The courts make clear that Trump's policies go beyond the law."
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Grocery store. (photo: iStock)

Trump's Food Stamp Cut Will Hit His Single, White, Male Base the Hardest
Justin Rohrlich, Quartz  

EXCERPT:

What Trump may not realize is that ABAWDs tend to match the profile of his core constituency. According to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington DC think tank, 55% of low-income ABAWDs are male, and 48% are white. (Given the millions of women with children who are also in the program, men make up only 38% of adult SNAP participants overall.)

Here’s what the rest of SNAP’s demographics look like:

Rohrlich writes: "Nearly 800,000 people could lose their access to food stamps if US president Donald Trump gets his way. And many of them will be single, white men."
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Investigators are scrutinizing whether North Carolina GOP congressional candidate Mark Harris knew a campaign operative may have used improper tactics. (photo: Chuck Burton/AP)

NC Election Officials Sounded Alarm About Alleged Election Fraud to Federal Prosecutors in January 2017
Amy Gardner and Beth Reinhard, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "North Carolina state election officials told federal prosecutors in January 2017 that they found evidence of efforts to manipulate the absentee ballot vote in rural Bladen County in the 2016 election and warned that such activities 'will likely continue for future elections' if not addressed, according to correspondence obtained Friday by The Washington Post."
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Kevelin, center, holding a sign that reads 'trans women belong here.' After the march, Arcoíris 17 held a press conference in front of the border fence in Nogales, Sonora. (photo: María Inés Taracena)

The Caravan of Resistance
Maria Ines Taracena, NACLA
Taracena writes: "For Central Americans fleeing homophobic and transphobic violence, heading North is an act of resistance."
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A Polar bear in Kaktovic, Alaska. (photo: Getty)

Trump Administration Takes Another Step Toward Oil Drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Steven Mufson, The Washington Post
Mufson writes: "The Trump administration took another step toward allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by issuing a draft environmental impact statement outlining four development alternatives, one of which would set some modest limits to protect caribou that use the area as a critical summer calving ground."
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