If that crook Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stays free, he’ll lead the country into a civil war! The Edge of Democracy, protester, Netflix 2019
A country were more slaves died than were born … Where every rebellion was brutally crushed. ibid. commentary
When I was born you couldn’t vote for president. The military dictatorship was completing its 20th year. ibid.
We all know that around the world workers never got anything without struggle, without perseverance, and without fighting until the end. ibid. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
I voted for Lula with the hope that he would ethically reform the political system. And here he was repeating practices that he had always criticised and forming alliances with Brazil’s old oligarchy. But at the same time I was seeing twenty million people leaving poverty. ibid.
October 31 2010: They just announced that Dilma was elected president! ibid. Lula
He was leaving office with an 87% approval rating. ibid. commentary
The foundation of democracy itself will begin to crack. ibid.
The people who were ever more isolated from power: far from public pressure the political class perpetuated an age-old system of corruption. ibid.
She challenged the bankers, reducing the interest rate. But contrary to her expectation, the economy starts to slow down and the protests have a damaging effect on the government. ibid.
Once the businessmen start talking, politicians of several parties begin to be arrested including members of the Workers Party. ibid.
The spectacle of Lula being taken by force by police creates an impression of guilt. ibid.
From this point on, the country divided into two irreconcilable parts. ibid.
Our destiny was being decided behind closed doors. ibid.
Our mistake was not realising that right-wing supremacy was growing. ibid. Dilma
It’s also the story of a broken country we’re inheriting. ibid. commentary
The proceedings against the president are now authorised. ibid. Impeachment declaration
Prevent Lula’s Arrest! Defeat the Coup! ibid. protesters
Generals closed the congress, occupied the TV stations, and everyone knows what happened. ibid. commentary
6 months later Bolsonaro is elected president. ibid. caption
Judge Serio Moro is named Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister. Lula remains in prison. ibid.
Democracy can’t work. Dogs devour each other if there’s no whip. Gomorrah s2e8: Divide et impara, Pietro, Sky Atlantic 2016
Voting is about our capability to change the way the government works by changing the people who make the decisions. And have a peaceful transfer our power when the people have made their choice. Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, Harri Hursti, election security expert, Sky Documentaries 2020
You understand how fragile everything is … Everything is hackable, always. ibid.
Most 20th-century voting stations are little more than mechanical adding machines. Often, the only electronic component was the electric light. Today, computers are in charge – even in precincts that use paper ballots. ibid.
‘There’s no national election system. No agency. And all this is left up to the counties.’ ibid. Sue Halpern
In 2005, using only a memory card, Hursti demonstrated how easy it is to change votes on a digital voting machine. When Hacking Democracy was released, the manufacturer called the hack a sham and attempted to stop the film’s distribution. ibid. caption
After two years of negative publicity, Diebold Election Systems was sold, ultimately to a Canadian company called Dominion Voting Systems. The same machine that Hursti hacked in 2005 is slated for use in 20 states for the 2020 election. ibid.
If you don’t believe that there is this kind of room [Las Vegas hacking convention] in Russia running 24/7 you are kidding yourself. ibid. Hursti
DEFCON reported that every piece of equipment in the Voting Machine Village was ‘effectively breached’. ibid. caption
A federal court banned the use of Accuvote voting machines in Georgia beginning in 2020. ibid.
Democracy and social justice are widely regarded as prerequisites to any civilised society. Yet, the nearly 500 million citizens of Europe are increasingly at the mercy of unelected European Commission officials, who have themselves been subject to several corruption charges, as well as to the power of big corporate lobbyists. The European Parliament stands as the one token to democracy but its legislative powers are weak and it has not surprisingly been characterised by some as a powerless talking shop. The Lisbon Treaty is the EU’s next attempt at constitutional reforms following the outright rejection of the constitution during referenda in Holland and France in 2005. To exclude any European citizen from a right to vote this time around would be to deny European citizens one of our most fundamental rights. Dr Robert Verkerk, executive director of Alliance for Natural Health
The European Commission already increasingly resembles the old Soviet Politburo in both its structure and its proceedings. Ensuring that citizens of the EU have the right to vote in referendums would therefore help to ensure that the Commission does not become the new Politburo for Europe. Scott Tips, National Health Federation
Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people ... The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it ... By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each. Anthony Kennedy, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 558 US 310 2010 obiter
‘Between 1920 and 1922 Belfast is the most violent place in Ireland. It is really the epicentre of revolutionary violence. What we see again and again is violence in one part of Ireland leads to violence in another part.’ The Road to Partition s1e1, historian, BBC 2021
On 22 June 1921 King George V and Queen Mary arrived in Belfast for the first official opening of the Northern Ireland parliament. Fearful for their lives, they had come to a city scarred with sectarian division. The occasion marked the creation of the new state of Northern Ireland. ibid.
This is the story of the dramatic events that led to the partition of Ireland. A story that continues to reverberate to the present day. And dominate the relationship between the islands of Britain and Ireland. ibid.
For Britain, the loudest and most strident demands for self-determination came from very close to home, from a country that it had ruled for centuries: Ireland. Prior to the war, and in response to long-standing demands from Irish nationalists, Britain had been preparing to devolve some powers to a Dublin-based parliament, through so-called home-rule. But home-rule was fiercely resisted by Unionists, particularly in Belfast and large parts of Ulster, where for centuries the population had been impacted by migration from Scotland and England. ibid.
By the end of the nineteenth century Ulster’s distinctiveness was marked by its status as the most industrialised part of Ireland. ibid.
The outbreak of the First World War averted to threat of a violent confrontation between Ulster Unionists and the British government, and home rule was suspended. ibid.
Nine weeks after the Easter rising, on the western front the men of the 36th Division made a very different blood sacrifice. In July, during the first two days of fighting at the battle of the Somme, the Division suffered an appalling five thousand, five hundred casualties. Men fighting for Britain … ‘The battle of the Somme was absolute slaughter particularly for Ulster Unionists.’ ibid.
As Ireland went to the polls in December 1918, voters had a choice between Sinn Fein and the Irish Parliamentary Party, and between two radically different visions of Ireland’s future. ibid.
Both Unionists and Republicans would take advantage of another political force that emerged for the first time in 1918: Women. They had become more politically engaged before the war, and were voting now for the first time. They included the members of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council. ibid.
‘Sinn Fein took matters into their own hands and formed an independent though illegal parliament in Dublin … the Dail is rapidly backed by force which is rapidly known as the IRA.’ ibid.
Republicans in favour of taking up arms had already done so. On the same day as the Dáil sat in Dublin for the first time, two members of the Irish Royal Constabulary were killed in an IRA ambush in County Tipperary. The first shots of the Irish War of Independence had been fired. ibid.
Lisburn: Loyalists went on the rampage in the town, looting and burning Catholic homes and businesses. ibid.