Today's Place to Daydream About: Itatiaia National Park

Itatiaia National Park is is Brazil's oldest, established in 1937. It straddles southeastern Brazil’s Mantiqueira Mountains, its eastern border in lush rainy lowlands, its western side in dry hill country. The diverse tropical terrain makes it a hotspot of biodiversity, with at least 400 native bird species and thousands of plants.

Views of the coastal rainforests.

And the uplands.

Itatiatia was founded to protect the wildlife that lives there,and these creatures are its real glory.  Rare muriqui monkeys.

And birds. Like the frilled coquette.

The Atlantic royal flycatcher.

Birds, birds, birds. 

Flowers.

So wherever you are, you can imagine that instead you are walking a trail through forest or Alpine meadow at Itatiaia, wondering what wonderful creature will show itself to you next.

Fake Pandemic News in Brazil

Vanessa Barbara reports in the Times that Brazil is still awash in fake news stories about the pandemic. Despite hundreds of debunkings of hydroxychloroquine, many people still believe:

After all, just the other day a friend’s cousin forwarded a headline on WhatsApp claiming that all I.C.U. beds in the city of Miracatu are empty because the mayor adopted President Jair Bolsonaro’s “early treatment” — consisting of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and azithromycin — for Covid-19. OK, Miracatu does not have a hospital. But still: How can we be sure?

That’s just one of dozens of fake news stories about Covid-19 treatments circulating on social media — including one that advocates “nebulized” hydroxychloroquine, Mr. Bolsonaro’s new obsession. Well over a year into the pandemic, false claims still swirl. Is it true that face masks reduce the flow of oxygen to the lungs and can cause cancer? Is the coronavirus a biological weapon created by China? What about the involvement of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros?

Even now, after the death of half a million citizens, Brazilians are forwarding delirious claims that hospitals are empty and people are being buried alive to inflate coronavirus statistics. Last year, as daily deaths soared, stories about empty coffins and staged burials abounded. It’s almost as if Brazilians couldn’t — wouldn’t — accept that things could really be so bad and took refuge in paranoia, suspicion and conspiracy. In this, of course, they had a guide: Mr. Bolsonaro, at every turn, has sought to spread mischief and misinformation.

In my better moods I believe the US will survive the flood of false news stories on social media. The real danger is in other places; after all, India and Sri Lanka have already seen flash mob attacks on innocent people accused on Twitter of kidnapping and the like. Could there one day be a flash mob revolution, inspired by a fake story, that succeeds?

Awesome plot for a thriller, anyway. Too bad I'm busy writing a different one.

Los Confederados

In the Washington Post, Terrence McCoy calls our attention to the growing ferment over the commemoration of Brazil's Confederate past:

To Marina Lee Colbachini, it was a family tradition. Each spring, she would join the throngs who descended on a nondescript city in southern Brazil, don a 19th-century hoop skirt and square dance to country music.

The theme of the annual festival: the Confederate States of America.

It’s one of history’s lesser-known episodes. After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Southerners came to Brazil to self-exile in a country that still practiced slavery. For decades, their descendants have thrown a massive party that now attracts thousands of people to the twin cities of Americana and Santa Bárbara d’Oeste to celebrate all things Dixie. The Confederate flag? Everywhere. 

At least 8,000 former Confederate citizens, some say 20,000, emigrated to Brazil after 1865. They sought cheap land, distance from the hated Yankees, and above all to own slaves again and bring back the world they had just lost. The newspapers called it “Brazilian fever.” The exodus ceased in 1888, when Brazil abolished slavery.

Brazil has different racial traditions than the US, and of course Los Confederados were a lot less important in Brazil than they had been in the US. So the issue of their flag has been pretty much ignored. Until now:

Brazilians in recent weeks have demanded the removal of the notorious statue in São Paulo of a 17th-century settler who enslaved indigenous people. Protests for black equality have rumbled through several cities. And in Americana and Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, the cities founded by the Confederates, Brazilians who have never been to the United States are increasingly asking questions piercingly familiar to Americans: Where should the Confederacy be remembered — on a flagpole, or in a museum?

Interestingly one activist told McCoy that she began to think about the flag after the murders committed by Dylan Roof, which led to the flag being taken down in South Carolina. The argument over the flag is just getting under way, so there is no resolution, but I think it an increasingly globalized world it is not likely to remain flying on public property anywhere.

Brazil: When Elected Politicians Fail

Brian Winter has been in Brazil, where a nationwide truckers' strike that has shut down much of the economy is the latest sign of political failure. The president, elected (of course) on a platform of fighting corruption, is under indictment for corruption, drug gangs have taken over whole neighborhoods in  the big cities, and nobody has much faith in politics:

Then I saw it. A huge banner, spanning the entire avenue, carried by a group of protesters:

“SUPPORT FOR THE TRUCK DRIVERS. MILITARY INTERVENTION! ARMED FORCES, URGENT!”

And that was the start of a week where I saw and heard things I never believed I would in Brazil.

The Brazil of mid-2018 is a frightened, leaderless, shockingly pessimistic country. It is a country where four years of scandal, violence and economic destruction have obliterated faith in not just President Michel Temer, not just the political class, but in democracy itself. It is a country where there will be elections in October, but most voters profess little faith in any of the candidates. Given that vacuum, many Brazilians – perhaps 40 percent of them, according to a new private poll circulating among worried politicians – believe the military should somehow act to restore order. Amid this week’s strike, the clamor became so loud that both Temer and a senior military official had to publicly deny the possibility of an imminent coup.

Honestly the main thing keeping the army from taking over is that the generals have no clue what to do, either. It's a sad state for a country that a decade ago seemed on a strong upward path.

It's also a sign of the short memories that trouble humanity so often, since the last military government left office in disgrace after mismanaging pretty much everything.

In a Lawless Place

In Rio's Favelas, the militias founded to fight the drug gangs look increasingly like them:

In their current form, militias were established in Rio de Janeiro in the late ’90s and early 2000s, under the pretext that they were protecting residents from drug traffickers. Although more civilians are joining, the militias have been dominated by active-duty and retired police officers, who essentially assume control of suburban slums, or favelas, under the guise of defending them.

Once they have a foothold in the community, militia members extort money from residents and shopkeepers (in other words, they demand payments that are partly for protection against themselves). They also control local unlicensed public transportation, since city buses are scarce or nonexistent in remote areas. They offer illegal internet and television connections, charge commissions on real estate deals, and control the supply of gas and water. In the Gardênia Azul favela, for example, militia members collect money from street vendors and even popcorn carts.

It’s a kind of mafia, with Brazilian peculiarities.

One of them is irony. After careful deliberation with their accountants (at least that’s what I imagine), and in the name of business diversification, some militias have entered the field of drug trafficking. Others have decided to work with their former rivals from drug gangs, selling them weapons and recruiting members from their ranks. In 2015, according to the newspaper O Dia, a militia “sold” the area of Morro do Jordão to a drug gang for three million Brazilian reais, or about $800,000. So much for the righteous excuse of vigilante justice.

According to the news website G1, two million people in the Rio metropolitan area live in territories controlled by militias. A 2013 academic report concluded that of the roughly 1,000 favelas in the city, 45 percent are controlled by militia organizations and 37 percent by drug gangs. The main difference is that police brutality is less common in militia-controlled neighborhoods, probably because those groups have strong ties to the official state security apparatus.

Where government cannot maintain order, somebody else will. And it is just a libertarian fantasy that unofficial police forces would be less burdensome than the official kind.

Incidentally, Rio's most powerful militia is called the "Justice League."

Brazilians are Unhappy; But About What?

The more I read about the protests in Brazil, the less I understand them. People carry signs that say things like "You cannot stop an idea" but don't say what the idea is. Or, "Sorry for the inconvenience, we're changing the country." Changing it how? It reminds me of the World Bank protests in the 90s, when protesters said things like "I hate the way the rich run the world."

The Times is running one of their Room for Debate features about the protests, and I read my way through the whole thing. What a torrent of vague rhetoric. People say things like this:

Certainly the protests indicate an important change -- from an attitude of passivity and alienation to a demand for participation. There is a diversity of groups and claims in the streets, but with one common goal: a demand to be heard and to participate in decision-making processes.

Great. What does that mean? How about this:

After many years of passivity, Brazilians are occupying the streets in a quest for justice and meaning. Traditional actors, like unions and students organizations, coopted by 10 years of a left-wing government, remain unseen. The street warriors are others. As we say in Brazil: all “tribes” are there. “The people have awakened” is their song.

Ok we're all awake. Now what?

Of course, the “movement” as such does not exist, or does not yet exist. It is in the making, and it comprises distinct agendas and projects. This week, after the government retreated on the bus fare increase, the immediate response on social networks was that the protests must go on. Now that the 20-cent battle has been won, larger political disputes will find room to unfold. In which direction and to what end, we have yet to find out.

And if that was too specific for you, try this:

What all have in common: they heard the call to fight for a better and fairer society and express a dissatisfaction with government. From political parties to parliament, from mayors to state governors and the president – all are held responsible for the awful public services provided to Brazilians, the growing corruption, the inequalities and privileges.

I understand that Brazilians have grievances. Government corruption is rife, especially at the local level; The police are thuggish; many schools in poor areas are awful; same for public health care. Instead of focusing on these bread and butter issues, the government is trying to raise Brazil's international profile by hosting the World Cup in 2014 and then the Olympics, at a cost that approaches $30 billion. But in the bigger picture, Brazil has improved as quickly over the past 30 years as any country has ever improved. Demanding that the government make things even better, faster, feels to me like an act of hubris. Sure, we would all like a better, fairer society, but that's a hard thing to legislate. One of the biggest complaints is over the traffic in the big cities, and there just isn't much the government can do about that at all.

And if you want the government to improve public transit, maybe you should start by not vandalizing bus stops. Rioters who tear up their own neighbors have always mystified me. If you are upset about how other people treat you, wouldn't it make more sense to go tear up their neighborhood?

The only Room for Debate contributor who even mentioned the underlying economics of this is Jerry Dávila, who said,

The demonstrations in Brazil echo the student strikes in Chile. In the decades since these countries emerged from military rule, center-left coalitions have come into national office on pledges to both fight poverty and continue the free market reforms of their predecessors. Protesters in Brazil and Chile alike pose a question: Can these commitments really be balanced?

Right. The free market reforms in both countries created surges of growth that allowed subsequent center-left governments to enact welfare state reforms, which have made both societies more equitable without slowing growth. Now the free lunch created by that very rapid growth is ending, and Brazil faces the sort of balancing act familiar in Europe and the U.S. Further welfare state action to improve the lot of the poor can only be financed by raising taxes on the rich, who of course don't like that idea, and more regulation to protect workers or the environment poses a threat to the industrial growth that made all this possible in the first place.

But all that economic calculus is tedious compared to making cool signs and marching to protest injustice.

Hydropower in the Amazon

While the US dismantles dams, Brazil has big plans for more, including what would be the world's largest hydroelectric project (11,000 megawatts) in the Tapajos Basin. Click on the map above (from Nature) to see the existing and planned dams.