Author of one of the most influential political blogs on the web, with an average of 140,000 hits per day, Reinaldo Azevedo, one of the most controversial commentators on the Brazilian public scene, presents readers with a new collection of articles and essays published between 2009 and 2012 on his blog at Veja Online and in the print magazine. After the notable success of *O país dos petralhas* (2008), the journalist—who coined the term *petralha* to designate, with fine irony, the Workers' Party (PT) members in government—returns in *O país dos petralhas II – O primeiro primeiro é o mesmo* (The Country of the Petralhas II – The Enemy Now Is the Same) his caustic and relentless texts, which reflect the country's contradictions and touch on culture, politics, economics, and religion. A fluent read, this new volume is the best snapshot of the country of the mensalão scandal—an inescapable portrait of a period in which the institutions of the Republic and the values of representative democracy, at the same pace but in the opposite direction to national economic growth, regressed. At once rigorous and dynamic, the texts are both unapologetic and unforgiving. Controversial (ironic) and enlightening; provocative and reflective, the texts gathered here critically address—using a perspective that departs from common sense and invests in the free debate of ideas, the fundamental exercise of divergence, and the pleasure of disagreement—the main Brazilian (and global) issues of the early 21st century. And they unravel, through prose of rare precision, the composition of what history will one day define as "era." Topics such as abortion, homosexuality, religion, Lula's power, the Dilma government and the Workers' Party (PT), Bolsa Família, the "Truth Commission," public safety, racism and racial quotas, environmentalism and the Forest Code, the "marijuana march" and drug decriminalization, Obama and the United States, Israel, Palestine and the "Arab Spring," among many other subjects, are interpreted, articulated, and stitched together by Reinaldo Azevedo, always in a way that unconditionally defends the Constitution, republican institutions, the fundamental rights of the individual, representative democracy, and, therefore, above all, freedom.
