10/05/18 10/05/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> kavanaugh has got to go! amy: more than 300 protesters are arrested on capitol hill urging senators to vote against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. we will speak to play right eve ensler. she just wrote an open letter to "white women who support brett

kavanaugh." and then the nobel peace prize goes to nadia murad and congolese doctor denis mukwege for fighting sexl violence. there i s just ting care of -- i srted to k mysf, what is this anhow we c fight rate.t the root cause of amy: they will talk about their campaign against central -- sexual violence. and glenn greenwald on sunday's election in brazil. the current presidential front runner is a far right former army officer who is openly present -- praised brazil's military dictatorship. all of that more, coming up.

welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the senate will vote this morning on whether tend debate on the nomination of brett kavanaugh to the u.s. supreme court, setting up a confirmation vote as early as saturday. key republican senators, including susan collins of maine, jeff flake of arizona and lisa murkowski of alaska, have yet to announce their position on the vote. on friday, both senators flake and collins said that the recent fbi background report into kavanaugh was thorough and did not corroborate accusations against the nominee. democratic leaders said the report, which was withheld from the public and was made available in a single copy to senators on thursday, was incomplete. this is ranking member of the senate judiciary committee senator dianne feinstein. >> the most notable part of this .eport is what is not in it

as we noted by the white house, the fbi did not interview brett kavanaugh, nor did the fbi .nterview dr. blasey ford what we heard from numerous people over the last few days seeking to provide information to the fbi. we have seen even more press reports of witnesses who wanted to speak with the fbi, but were not interviewed. saidah ramirez's lawyers he was unaware of any corroborating witnesses who were interviewed. amy: meanwhile, the national council of churches has called for kavanaugh's nomination to be with drawn, saying he showed extreme partisan bias during last week's senate hearing into sexual assault allegations by christine blasey ford against him. the group represents some 45 million churchgoers at 100,000 u.s. churches. op-ed pieceedented in "the wall street journal,"

judge kavanaugh argues he has the judicial temperament to join the high court, writing -- "i was very emotional last thursday, more so than i have ever been. i might have been too emotional at times. i know that my tone was sharp, and i said a few things i should not have said." on thursday, retired supreme court justice john paul stevens told an audience of retirees in florida that though he originally supported kavanaugh, he now opposes his confirmation. >> i changed my views for reasons that have really no relationship to his intellectual ability or his record as a federal judge. he is a fine federal judge and he should have been confirmed when he was nominated. but i think his performance during the hearings caused me to change my mind. amy: the showdown over judge kavanaugh's confirmation came as thousands of protesters

converged on washington, d.c., thursday, where nearly 300 people were arrested at a loud, peaceful sit-in in the atrium of the hart senate office building. among those arrested was comedian and actress amy schumer. also, a group of women confronted utah republican hatch, challenged him over his support for kavanaugh. senator hatch told the women to grow up, waving them off as he boarded an elevator in the hart building. >> why aren't you brave enough to talk to us? don't you wait your hand at me. i waive my hand at you. how do you talk to women that way. how dare him. amy: thursday, thousands marched from capitol hill to a protest

outside the supreme court. after headlines, we'll have more on judge kavanaugh's nomination with award-winning playwright and author eve ensler. in yemen, tens of thousands of people rallied in the streets of taiz, yemen's second largest city, thursday, protesting the collapse of yemen's economy amid a u.s.-backed, saudi-led bombing campaign. three-quarters of yemenis -- some 22 million people -- are dependent on international aid, with an estimated 8.4 million people on the brink of starvation. this is protester shehab mohamed. >> we are starving and our children are dying. the cities are under siege and there is unemployment. we want to tell the regime in the saudi-led coalition, hunger is the engine for these people. discussions collapse. the only solution is supplying a loaf of bread. amy: thursday's protest came as the head of a team of u.n. investigators accused saudi arabia and the united arab emirates of interfering with his investigation. kamel jendoubi says all sides in

yemen's conflict have committed human rights abuses, with the u.s.-backed saudi-led coalition responsible for war crimes including widespread arbitrary detention, rape, torture and the conscription of children as young as eight years old. in august, republican senator richard shelby of alabama blocked an amendment by connecticut democrat chris murphy that would have cut off u.s. taxpayer support to the saudi-led war in yemen. bloomberg is reporting that china inserted microchips into servers used by major tech companies, such as apple and amazon, that give backdoor access to data. the miniscule, "grain-of-rice" sized chip would allow hackers to bypass security and remotely access the networks of these companies. both apple and amazon are denying the claims in the report. meanwhile, vice president mike pence accused china of interfering in the u.s. midterm elections in order to undermine president trump and his agenda.

vice pres. pence: the american people deserve to know in response to the strong senate president trump has taken, beijing is pursuing a comprehensive and coordinated campaign to undermine support for the president, our agenda, and our nation's most cherished ideals. amy: pence's warning to beijing comes amid a growing u.s.-china and as the pentagon is , reportedly planning a massive show of force in november, with warships and planes set to carry out exercises near china's territorial waters in the south china sea and taiwan strait. meanwhile, the justice department has indicted seven russian agents for conspiring to hack the computers of anti-doping officials who uncovered a massive ring of state-sponsored cheating by athletes ahead of the 2016 olympics in rio de janeiro. u.s. attorney scott brady said thursday the seven agents have ties to the gru, russia's military intelligence body. he said they went on to attempt hacks against other targets.

targeted westinghouse, a nuclear power company based in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. it's applied nuclear fuel to the ukraine. they targeted the ordination for the prohibition of chemical weapons, which was investigating the use of chemical weapons in area and the poisoning of a former gru officer and his daughter in the u.k.. and they targeted a lab in switzerland that analyzed the nerve agent used in that poisoning. amy: the -- the finished -- defense ministry said they broke up a hacking attempt by the russians a set tempted to break into a merit hotel wi-fi from a parking lot in the hate. the dutch said the russians had a receipt showed they took a taxi ride from the headquarters of the gru, russia's military intelligence service, to moscow's main airport. russia has rejected the indictments, calling them part of the disinformation campaign. the trump administration is warning india it could face

sanctions over its decision to purchase a $5 million missile defense system from russia. it came as indian prime minister narendra modi welcomed russian president vladimir putin to new delhi on thursday. u.s. weapons makers lockheed martin and boeing are seeking contracts worth billions of dollars to replace india's aging fleet of russian-built warplanes. brazilian voters head to the polls on sunday in a hotly contested presidential election that could have major repercussions throughout the country and the region. the frontrunner is far-right leader jair bolsonaro who has praised brazil's military dictatorship and made numerous racist, homophobic, and sexist remarks. his primary opponent, former president and head of the workers party luiz inacio lula da silva, dropped out of the race from prison, where he has been since april on what many consider to be trumped up corruption charges. his handpicked successor fernando haddad is currently placing second in most polls. we will have more on brazil with journalist glenn greenwald later

in the broadcast. in oslo, norway, officials of the peace prize committee have named this is recipients. hashe nobel committee decided to award the nobel peace denis mukwege to and nadia murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. amy: dr. denis mukwege founded the panzi hospital in the democratic republic of congo in 1999. the clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery as a result of sexual violence. nadia murad is a 25-year-old yazidi kurdish human rights activist from iraq. thewas ki kidnapped by islamic state and held for a sex life are a must for years. later in the broadcast, we'll talk with eve ensler who has worked extensively with dr.

mukwege. nobel prize-winning physicist leon lederman died wednesday in an idaho nursing home at the age of 96. in 1988, lederman won the nobel physics prize for his pioneering work on subatomic particles. in recent years, he began suffering from dementia; in 2015 lederman sold his nobel prize medal for $765,000 in order to pay for his mounting medical and nursing home costs. and the 2018 macarthur fellows were announced thursday, recognizing leadership and dedication in a range of fields including the arts, science, and human rights. this year's recipients include pastor and activist reverend william barber, who helped spearhead the moral mondays movement in north carolina, which protests issues related to voting rights, discrimination, and environmental rights. reverend barber was being arrested as the fellowship was announced as he joined a protest

in chicago demanding mcdonald's increase the minimum wage. other fellows include ken ward, an investigative journalist documenting the effects of resource extraction in west virginia, and becca heller, a human rights lawyer working on behalf of refugees. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. more than 300 protesters, mostly women, were arrested thursday during a massive sit-in on capitol hill against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by multiple women. the senate is planning to hold a key procedural vote on his confirmation this morning at 10:30 eastern. this comes just one day after senators were given their first chance to see the fbi's new investigation into kavanaugh. democratic senator jeff merkley of oregon blasted the fbi probe as a horrific cover-up on thursday. a final vote on kavanaugh's confirmation is expected on the decision rests on four saturday. senators who have not yet

announced how they will vote -- republican senators susan collins of main, jeff flake of arizona, and lisa murkowski of alaska, as well as democrat joe manchin of west virginia. on thursday, democratic senator heidi heitkamp announced she would vote against kavanaugh. opposition to kavanaugh is growing across the across the country. former supreme court justice john paul stevens, a lifelong republican, said kavanaugh does not belong on the high court following his partisan remarks during last week's hearing. the editorial boards of "the washington post" and "new york times" also both came out against kavanaugh. this marks the first time "the washington post" has opposed a supreme court nominee in over 30 years. the last was robert bork in 1987. meanwhile, judge kavanaugh himself has published an unprecedented op-ed piece in "the wall street journal" defending himself. in the column, he vowed to be an

independent and impartial judge but admitted he said a few things last week you should not have said. we are joined now by eve ensler, award-winning playwright and author of "the vagina monologues." she also is the founder of v-day, a movement to end violence against women and girls. she just published "a letter to white women who support brett kavanaugh in time magazine." just after we talk about this, we're going to talk about today's announcement of the nobel peace prize. but ,eve, you have dedicated your life to fighting sexual violence. thousands of mainly women what to protest on capitol hill, not just yesterday. there have been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of arrests over the last few weeks since the beginning hearings at the beginning of september of judge kavanaugh. your thoughts? >> i think we are in the middle of a gender war. trump is essentially declared a

war. i think the fact that all of this -- i was just listening to the speed at which is is all being done, the language they're talking about, plowing at three, ramming it through, getting it through. it all feels like this culture of rape. that we're doing things so quickly that people don't have time to breed or think or feel. i am hearing from many, many activists and survivors throughout the country. women are outraged. women are in trauma. women feel like what has happened of them, their experiences, their bodies, their histories, their stories are not being taken seriously. that this is a decimating experience. it is also bringing women to rage and to react. i feel like if the senate moves forward with brett kavanaugh and is not listening in the same way orrin hatch yesterday dismissed that group of women and told them to grow up -- to grow up to a group of survivors, who were asking him -- amy: let's go to that clip.

this was thursday. once again, as happened with jeff flake, women saw a senator going to an elevator. this one was utah senator orrin .atch they came up to him at the elevator. >> why are you brave enough to talk to us in exchange with us? don't you wave your hand at me. i wave my hand at you. >> grow up. >> how dare you talk to women that way. how dare you. amy: he said "grow up" and then waved at them as the elevator door closes. >> the level of pet visitation, the level of absolute dismissal and indifference, i mean, in the way that the republicans and the true crying racist trope have reverse this and made themselves the victims, is really quite

astonishing. amy: fascinatingly, heidi heitkamp, she and joe manchin were consider the democrats that .ight vote for judge kavanaugh she was interviewed on local television in north dakota. this is what she said. folks theost important thing you can tell a victim, if you in fact do, is that you leave them. the process has been bad. but athe end of the day, you have to make a decision. and i have made that decision. >> and that decision will be what, senator? >> i will be voting no on judge kavanaugh. amy: she came close to tears as she said, this may not be politically expedient. she is in a very tough race with republicans. but she said she could not, given her own background, vote for judge kavanaugh. >> thank god a woman listened to her deepest voice. we know one out of three women in the world will be beaten or raped. we know thousands, millions of survivors across this country are feeling that they are not

being believed, that they are not being listened to, that their concerns are not being taken seriously. this after years and years and years of work. it feels like something that is just totally unaccountable. amy: you have written so many books, the most recent "in the body of the world." you wrote a letter in "time magazine." can you share it with us today? and talk about why you particularly address white women. >> one of the main reasons is the statistics. the statistics they must wightman support kavanaugh, 45% of white women support him. hispanic women. the left percent of african-american women. amy: the number of african-american, something like more than 80% of african-americans are opposed to judge kavanaugh. >> and only 11% believe -- are supporting him. i was astonished by this. i'd just went into my soul and i

felt like i wanted to reach out to those women to talk to them, so i wrote them this letter. "dear white women who support brett kavanaugh, last night when i saw donald trump mock dr. christine blasey ford, i couldn't help focusing on the women behind him who cheered and laughed. i felt like i was falling into a familiar nightmare. it compelled me to reach out to you. when i was a child my father sexually abused and beat me. my mother did not protect me. she sided with my father, just like these women sided with donald trump, and i understand why. she sided with him because he was the breadwinner. she sided with him because of her need to survive. she sided with him because the reality of what was happening in front of her was so terrible, it was easier not to see. she sided with him because she was brought up never to question a man. she was taught to serve men and make men happy. she was trained not to believe women. it was only much later, after my father died, that she was able to acknowledge the truth of my childhood and to ask for my forgiveness. it was only then, too late, that

she was able to see how she had sacrificed her daughter for security and comfort. she used those words. i was her "sacrifice." some people when they look at this video of women laughing at dr. ford, will see callousness. i see distancing. i see denial. i have worked on ending violence against women for 20 years. i have traveled this country many times. i have sat with women of all ages and political persuasions. i remember the first performances of my play "the vagina monologues in oklahoma city, when half the women in the audience came up to tell me they had been raped or abused. most of them whispered it to me, and often i was the first and only person they had told. until that moment, they had found a way to normalize it. expect it. accept it. deny it. i don't believe you want to have to choose your sons and your husbands over your daughters. i don't believe you want the pain that was inflicted on us inflicted on future generations. i know the risk many of you take

coming out to say you believe a woman over a man. it means you might then have to recognize and believe your own experience. if one out of three women in the world have been raped or beaten, it must mean some of you have had this experience. to believe another woman means having to touch into the pain and fear and sorrow and rage of your own experience and that feels unbearable sometimes. i know because it took me years to come out of my own denial and to break with my perpetrator, my father. to speak the truth that risked upending the comfort of my very carefully constructed life. but i can tell you that living a lie is living half a life. it was only after telling my story that i knew happiness and freedom. i know the risk others of you face who have witnessed those you love suffer the traumatic after-effects of violence and those who worry for both your sons and daughters that may someday face this violence i write to you because we need you, the way i once needed my mother. we need you to stand with women who are breaking the silence in spite of their terror and shame. i believe inside the bodies of

some of those women who laughed at that rally were other impulses and feelings they weren't expressing. here is why i believe you should take this stand with me. violence against women destroys our souls. it annihilates our sense of self. it numbs us. it separates us from our bodies. it is the tool used to keep us second-class citizens. and if we don't address it, it can lead to depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, overeating and suicide. it makes us believe we are not worthy of happiness. it took my mother 40 years to see what her denial has done and to apologize to me. i don't think you want to apologize to your daughters years from now. 40 stop the ascension of a man who is angry, aggressive, and vengeful and could very well be a sexual assaulter. time is short. call your senators. stop laughing and start fighting. with all my love, eve."

amy: eve ensler, award-winning playwright and author of "the vagina monologues." founder of v-day. , before we go to break and then talk about this remarkable day of the nobel peace prize and what it means for everyone, i want to ask you about the significance, just as you said you started to perform "the vagina monologues" and so many women came out and said they had been abused or raped, this week and in these last weeks, so many women have spoken out about their sexual assaults against them for the first time. it is as if the whole country is suffering from ptsd. >> i want to say to all of those survivors, your pain matters. your experience matters. the trauma that you have faced matters. and there are many of us, many of us supporting you, loving you, holding you as you try to heal from this experience.

that that mass of conglomerate patriarchal misogynistic white men do not reflect so many people in this country. amy: the senate judiciary committee, the republicans on it, are all white men and there has never been one republican woman on the senate judiciary committee in all of u.s. history. >> i think the fact that 55% of the gop has said that a person being a sexual assaulter should not prevent them from being on the supreme court is an indication of how entrenched, how deeply entrenched sexual violence and misogyny is in the republican party. amy: we come back, the nobel peace prize goes to two people, one man and one woman whom eve ensler has worked with, fighting sexual violence. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "break the chain." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. turn now to the nobel peace prize. officials announced this year's recipients earlier today in oslo , norway. hashe nobel committee decided to award the nobel peace prize for 2018 to denis mukwege and nadia murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. amy: dr. denis mukwege founded the panzi hospital in the democratic republic of congo in 1999. the clinic receives thousands of

women each year, many of them requiring surgery as a result of sexual violence. nadia murad is a 25-year-old yazidi kurdish human rights activist from iraq. she was kidnapped and held by the islamic state for almost three years. during her captivity, she was repeatedly raped, held as a sex slave, she said. in 2009, denis mukwege appeared on democracy now! along with eve ensler. i asked him to talk about how he got involved in fighting sexual violence. is a particularly difficult situation. for the past 10 years, at the hospital we have women that are not only raped, but have been tortured and their genitals have literally been destroyed. young.y are often

they are at the beginning of their youth. conditione in such a fecals are and coming out. it is hard to take care of those women. but we are here because we have hope. we have hope that the world can listen. it is unacceptable. it is unacceptable that women are treated this way. amy: who is committing these crimes? >> these crimes are committed by armed groups. for the past 10 years, the congo has been occupied by seven armies. and each army -- each armed including the congolese

armed forces, each group commits its own atrocities. and i think it is a very big deal because women have no hope. even those who are supposed to protect her, abuse and torture her. amy: talk more about the city of mukwege. >> when we take care of women at arehospital, these women wooded physically, but also traumatized profoundly. it is not possible, just like that, to cure them. it takes time. sometimes a lot of time.

we cannot kick them out of the placeal, so we needed a where women can stay, to be taking care of. them to reenter socially, and to give them the possibility and the ability to take care of themselves and to able to fight in life because they do have the capabilities. i have seen amazing transformations. there is an enormous potential and women that i did not imagine. they arrive completely destroyed , and they fight. they fight between life and death. but afterwards, they have an incredible strength. the city of joy will give them the possibility to say what

happened to them, to tell people have tried to destroy them but we can tell them that they are strong and can fight. amy: that is dr. denis mukwege almost a decade ago on democracy now! today he won the nobel peace prize. nadia murad, 25-year-old yazidi kurdish rights activist, also won. this is her speaking in 2016. >> before isis came to my village, there was more important to me than my dignity, then my mother -- my dear mother. and although she is now gone, my dear mother is with me here and in spirit. she, along with my brothers and so many others, left this world too soon. as a simple farm

girl is gone forever. the dreams and hopes of my whole community are gone. night ofve heard, the august 3, 2015, everything changed. daesh give to kidnap, to murder, to rape. this was genocide. it is that simple. in a matter of days, if not were, thousands of yezidis killed and thousands of women and children were taken just because they were yezidis. others.ken with i was used in the way they wanted to use me. i was not alone. and perhaps i was the lucky one. as time passed, i found a way to escape where thousands of others

could not. they are still captured. amy: nobel peace prize winner nadia murad through a translator at the u.n. and dr. denis mukwege. we continue with eve ensler committee award-winning playwright, author. you just got off the phone with dr. denis mukwege, speaking to him at the hospital in the congo. you have worked with nadia murad as well. talk about the doctors work and the work you both time together in the congo. >> i want to sacral young one said surviving this entry will be holding two opposite thoughts at the same time. i'm thinking we have thcapital hearings and dr. denis mukwege winning. what i want to say is it is so fantastic their chosen both a doctor who is been fighting to end rape as a weapon of war and a survivor of that and they have honored them together because it is such a model of how men and

women should be working together on these issues across the world. i met dr. denis mukwege in 2006 when i was asked to interview him for the u.n. when i met him, i was overwhelmed by the fact his eyes were so bloodshot witnessing all of the atrocities and horrors he had seen. he invited me to come to the democratic republic of congo so v-day could support his work. i remember the first day i arrived at the hospital and there are hundreds and hundreds of women. all had been tortured and raped, many of whom had been operated on, all were in the hospital under his care, under his love, radiants magnificent energy. i stood there and i thought i had arrived at the end of the world. but there was this man, this towering man of grace and dignity and commitment and devotion, literally sewing up vaginas as fast

as the militias were destroying them. desperately to get out about the , where militias are desecrating villages, having husbands rape daughters and sons rape mother so they destroyed the families. the militias take over the mines. they are proxies for those who take it back to us to go into our cell phones and computers. i saw this man who i had never seen a man like before. i never seen a man who was literally giving his life to sexualape, to end violence, to call attention to what rape is a systematic tool of war was doing to the women of congo and would be doing if it were not curtailed, to many more women throughout the world and many more countries. i watched simple stop i've had the privilege of traveling with him across this country, across the world -- africa, where i

watched him tell his story over and over at the u.n., the white house for european parliament, telling it and telling it, risking authorization, risking -- risking his life. there was an assassination attempt on him a thing for years ago were they almost murdered him and murder the driver who worked with him, kidnapped his daughter for 20 minutes, and now he is living literally under security at the hospital, no longer living in his home. he is a man of devotion. at this moment he is modeling a is of being as a man who standing with survivors, with us. he said to me this morning, he said, this award is not just my award. it is an award f every survivor in this world. every woman who has been working for years to end this. he said we don't just need recognition. we need reparations. impunity. end

because impunity is allowing this to continue and continue. as we are seeing in the supreme court, if there is no justice, if there is no accountability, this is how rape spreads. amy: there was also its of discussions in the shortlist and dr. denis mukwege has been on that list for a number of years. he was even the nobel prize -- the nobel prize officials were even asked, why this year? among the other people whose names were being bandied about for this award today was president trump because of the north korea issue in resolving that war. you could only think, imagine perhaps, someone said, a look at 16 women have accused him of sexual assault. the nobel committee is dealing with its own controversies around sexual assault and rape. they went in the other direction and honored dr. denis mukwege and nadia murad v, who-day is also supported. of the mostone extraordinary, brave, grace filled women. we had the

pleasure of working with her and supporting yezidi women. she is so young. she has been through some of the worst atrocities, but she has turned her life, devoting it to not only saving the women in speaking out against the genocide against the yezidi people, but becoming an incredible spokesperson and model for ending this gorge of sexual violence used as a weapon of war in armed conflict. i think this award, hopefully, will signal to the world, particularly to men, that there is a different way of being. that we have to honor survivors, honor women like nadia murad, and say to men, there is a way you can devote your life to ending violence against women. you can devote your life to working with an standing beside us. you don't become less of a man. you become more of a man and more of a human. you'll have to meet dr. denis mukwege to see the light, to see

that radiance, to see the love, to see the beauty that pours through that man who has given his life to the women of his country. the today ,eve, also marks first anniversary of the explosive expose in "the new york times" around harvey weinstein, the beginning of the , though it was formulated well before that. how far have we come? as you point out, the irony of this day, the nobel peace prize goes to those who fight sexual violence and to sexual violence survivors, and today the vote of the senate, the first vote, the second supposedly as early as tomorrow -- not clear -- on whether brett kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault by several women, will be confirmed to the supreme court? >> it is a good question because it seems like the white man in power, that republican judiciary

committee and the republicans are not getting it, are not looking up, are not feeling it, are not into it. at the genie is out of the bottle. women are out of the bottle. they are never going back in. i think whatever happens with the kavanaugh hearing, it will never sit right with women of the country. it will never sit right -- amy: there are elections within a month. >> not only elections, but i believe a fury is being unleashed in women, fury and determination that we will never turn back from this point. i just want to say to all survivors and women out there, this is our crucible moment. we need to come after whatever happens here, we need to make sure the window that has been opened never closes again. he can't. , thank you for being with us, award-winning playwright, author of "the vagina monologues" and so many other books , founder ofv-day. we will link to her letter to white women against brett

kavanaugh, her opposition to brett kavanaugh, but her letter to white women who are supporting brett kavanaugh at democracynow.org [captioning made possible by democracy now!] when we come back, we had sell to brazil or major elections are taking place this weekend. we will speak with pulitzer prize-winning journalist glenn greenwald. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: the brazilian musicians. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. voters in brazil head to the polls on sunday in an election that could reshape the political landscape of south america. polls show the current frontrunner is the far-right jair bolsonaro, a former army officer who has openly praised brazil's military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. bolsonaro has a long history of

making racist, misogynistic, and homophobic comments. he has encouraged police to kill suspected drug dealers. most polls show bolsonaro winning on sunday, but failing to win enough votes to avoid a runoff election on october 28. he has risen to the polls since september 8 when he was stabbed while campaigning. bolsonaro also directly benefited from the jailing of former president lula ignacio da silva in april, who had been leading all presidential polls. lula remains in jail on what many consider trumped up corruption charges to prevent him from becoming president. lula, the head of the workers party, was then forced to drop out of the race. lula's handpick successor fernando haddad is currently placing second in most polls. on saturday, tens of thousands of people took part in women-led rallies in rio de janeiro, sao paulo, and other cities on saturday to protest bolsonaro. the theme of the protest "not , him." books and here because bolsonaro

is dangerous. he represents hatred for our country, because he represents the loss of the few rights people have. torepresents a threat democracy in our country, a democracy that we are still building. amy: joining us in rio de janeiro is the pulitzer prize winning journalist glenn greenwald who co-founded the intercept. can you talk about the significance of what is happening right now in brazil, particularly on sunday, the election? we begin with a significance that brazil is a country of 200 10 million people, so it is the fifth most populous country in the world right behind the united states, second largest in the hemisphere, and the most influential in all of latin america. it is also the seventh-largest economy in the world with major oil reserves. and what the western media has often been doing and talking about bolsonaro is calling him

result trump, which drastically and radically understates the case. he is much closer to duterte in the philippines are even general el-sisi in egypt, both in terms of what he intends to do and wants to do, and what he is able to do, given the fragility of brazil -- which is a democracy that exited a military dictatorship only fee years ago and therefore does not have the same kind of institutions to limit what someone would want to do the way, say, the united states or the u.k. would. it is an extremely dangerous moment for this country. polls do show he is unlikely to win in the fst round on sunday, but there is a possibility he might. he could get 50% of the vote and avoid a runoff entirely. but even if he does make a runoff, the signs are really showing that he is likely to win affixes susser because of how much animus has been built up by the media and in theiness class

country. amy: can you talk more about just exactly what bolsonaro reprents, his homophobic comments, his anti-women comments, his support of the brazilian military dictatorship? >> you can go through the whole list of shocking comments. he once said in an interview he would rather to hear that his son died in a car accident than here that his son is gay. he told a colleague in the lower house of congress where he served for 30 years, when she accused him of defending torture and rape -- which he did during the dictatorship -- that she need not worry because in his words, she did not deserve to be raped by himmeaning she was too ugly to deserve and merritt his rape. there's a whole slew of comments like that about black people, the indigenous. at the much more worrying

aspects are not these comments, but the policies that he has explicitly endorsed. his model for how he wants to deal with crime are the world's worst dictators. people like pinochet. he is advocated that we do things like in the philippines where we just in the military and police to just indiscriminately slaughter whoever they think is a drug dealer or criminal without trials. he believes in military rule. he does not regard the military coup of 1964 in the 21 year resulting military dictatorship as a coup or as a dictatorship. he regards it as something noble and wants to replicate it. he has the entire top level of the brazilian military supporting him and behind him. so you really don't have institutions the way you do in the u.s. like a strong supreme court or a deep state of the cia and the fbi or political parties in whatld constrain him

he wants to do. especially given how much popular support there is now behind him. there's a substantial part of the country that is genuinely terrified about what he intends to do and intensity rather quickly and probably can do, namely, bringing back the worst abuses of the kinds of dictatorships that summarily dissidents, shut down media outlets," versus that we thought was a thing of the past in latin america, but now is on the verge of returning to its most important and largest country. amy: last month, the world noamned dissident chomsky visited with love. spking outde the pson afr a visi noam chsky condemned theight-winmedia in brazi rivilegefareat

spding an ur with lula. one of theoints he emphasid waduring his ente tenuren offi, there s a consnt ood of aacks froall of t mea. constant. thousas of attacksrom ever diction, wch ofourse confes andnderminepublic opion. so t answer your questn someing is nded to count the conctratedower of right-ng media, ich rticular in latiamerica, just overwhelms everybody. amy: so that is noam chomsky. glenn greenwald, how is the media allowed to cover noam chomsky visiting lula in prison, and also the significance of what happened to lula and then who the person, the handpicked lula is? to

>> i met with noam chomsky after that meeting. we talked a lot lula about the dynamics brought up to this point. this brought us to this point. the dynamic is so similar to what is happening in the u.s., the u.k., and in western europe where you see this spread of extremism and this rise of right-wing fanaticism. the media outlets in the establishment factions that have laid the groundwork for its rise refused to take in a responsibility. and that is definitely the case here in brazil, where a very allegorical media is in the hands of a small number of very rich families. has created the climate in which bolsonaro's victory is possible. even though these journalists themselves are afraid of a notonaro win and are supporting him, they continue to endorse the narrative, which is

the biggest asset bolsonaro for, which is the idea that the workers party and bolsonaro are opposite sides of the same coin. you left and right wing dictatorships and both are equally bad. pt ran this country for 14 years. whatever mistakes they made, you certainly had a very free and open press that constantly attacked in a peach one other president up with the other one in prison. so the idea it is dictatorship on par with what bolsonaro wants to do is grotesque from a but it is something that is normalizing bolsonaro. hasthe thing that bolsonaro done it is probably the smartest, he is chosen the person he said he was going to put in charge of the economy, a kind of classic, right-wing university of chicago, neoliberal economist that the international market and the oligarchical class absolutely adores. it is kind of does it has neutralized what would happen the opposition to them. what they have done to lula, not

just putting him in prison when he was leading the polls, but since and what they have done is they have banned all media outlets from even being able to interview lula. we have tried. others have tried. there is a restraint order on the part of the supreme court to prevent lula from being able to speak out at this crucial moment. it is not enough to put them in prison to stop him from running when people want him to be president, they have censored him that applies not only to him, but to all of us in the media. the brazilian institutions and establishment there's a lot of blame, just like u.s. institutions do for the rise of trump, british institutions do for brexit, and just the general globalization policies of europe does for the rise of right-wing extremism and that part of the world as well. amy: i want to turn to former brazilian president or the former brazilian president lula himself, front runner until he

was jailed. i spoke to him right before he went to jail. he was talking about the presidential candidate jair bolsonaro. he is a member of the federal congress. he was an army captain in the brazilian army. the information we have is he was expelled from the brazilian army. behavior is far right wing fascist. he is very much prejudiced against women, against blacks, against indigenous persons, against human rights. he believes that everything can be resolved with violence. so i don't think he has a future in brazilian politics. he has the right to run. .e speaks

image to please a part of the society that is of the extreme right. but i don't believe the brazilian people have an interest in electing someone with his sort of behavior to serve as president of the republic. amy: do you think he was happy with marielle's death? >> i think so because he is preaching violence every day. he preaches violence. he believes those who defend human rights are doing a disservice to democracy. he thinks that those who defend women's rights are doing a disservice to democracy, likewise those who defend the rights of black communities. that isainst everything discussed when one is talking about human rights. amy: that was lula da silva democracyn march on

now! at the end he was talking about marielle franco. your comments on what he said, as we begin to wrap up? >> just the last part about the assassination of marielle f ranco, which i've spoken about on your show before. just this week, two candidates from bolsonaro's party, one of whom is running for congress and ran as the ice mayoral candidate of bolsonaro's son who read for mayor of rio to years ago, took a sign and broke it in half and wearing shirts that had pistols on them pointed directly at the camera, display it proudly for the camera. in the last line of the post on social media that they wrote to accompany the photo was, "for you scumbag leftist.

when we take over, your days are numbered." as lula said, the climate is one of violence. signature gesture for his campaign is to put his fingers in the position of a pistol. they want to use violence to solve political problems here. they are very explicit and open about that. but unfortunately, everybody who has been in charge of brazilian society, including pt and the establishment, also needs to ask itself what it has done to make this country lose so much hope and faith that it is willing to abandon democracy term to a demagogue and extreme is like bolsonaro. that is the key question that needs to be asked if he ends up winning. amy: we will do democracynow.org part two and post it at line on democracynow.org on a number of issues. in this last issue, you're a constitutional lawyer. your thoughts as you look to the united states, you are an american citizen, on the nomination and possible confirmation of judge kavanaugh to the supreme court?

think there are real due process questions when it comes to accusations about somebody that we ought to take very seriously. at the same time, there's a lot of credible evidence. i think even more important, the behavior that he displayed in the very partisan messages that he has been delivering his whole life and at the hearing make it impossible to imagine him on the supreme court in a way that could be -- have that institution be a credible, a political body. i think that is the real overarching issue. amy: i want to thank you, glenn for being with us. we will do part two and include president trump and vice presidentpence's attacks on china, saying they are the real threat to the midterm elections. the indictment of russian hackers, as well as more on judge kavanaugh and what is happening in the world today. glenn greenwald, pulitzer prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of the intercept. you can go to democracynow.org for our our lula, who is now

imprisoned in brazil. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

>> that's madness. >> maybe so, but it's not half as mad as the idea that brought us to this point. >> is there such a thing as a higher dimension, a parallel universe where otherworldly things can happen?