Speaker 1: Welcome to make it Happen Here a podcast about things
Speaker 1: falling apart and then maybe kind of putting them back
Speaker 1: together again sort of. Uh, this this this is this
Speaker 1: is a special episode about the thing that happened. Where
Speaker 1: a thing that happened is the Brazilian election. And with
Speaker 1: me to talk about this is Garrison Hello and James Hello.
Speaker 1: So I think I think people probably know by now
Speaker 1: Louis Nacio Lula is Silva, better known as Lula, has
Speaker 1: defeated JR. Bosonaro in a absolutely terrifying squeaker of a
Speaker 1: presidential election. Um. This is like, by far the closest
Speaker 1: election that Lula there is, a former two term president
Speaker 1: of Brazil, has ever won. Um. Part of this is
Speaker 1: a campaign of last minute voter suppression that Bolsonaro own
Speaker 1: his supporters did where like like basically like the Brazilian
Speaker 1: federal police started setting up like they set up like
Speaker 1: fifty roadblocks to stop people in the little strongholds from voting.
Speaker 1: There's like the assaulted people. Um it wound up not
Speaker 1: mattering and right now, as as a time of recording,
Speaker 1: which is uh one pm, one third pm Pacific. On Halloween,
Speaker 1: Bolsonaro was missing in action. There's no like, no one's
Speaker 1: seen him. The only the only thing, the only sign
Speaker 1: of life that there has been from him is he
Speaker 1: unfollowed his wife. Amazing stuff. It's it sounds like he
Speaker 1: just locked himself in the presidential palace and turn and
Speaker 1: turn all all of the lights off. Yeah, he's she's
Speaker 1: missing and no nobody's seen or heard from him. Um.
Speaker 1: So by the time this episode comes out, there's like
Speaker 1: a small chance there's been a coup. There's like a
Speaker 1: small chance he's died from COVID. I don't know, probably
Speaker 1: neither of those have happened. But you know, so Lula
Speaker 1: won his election like he won like like fifty point
Speaker 1: eight percent of the vote roughly. And okay, so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of voter suppression. But even voters suppression cannot
Speaker 1: explain why Lula, who won his last elections with respectively
Speaker 1: sixty one and sixty percent of the vote, was reduced
Speaker 1: to like fifty point eight percent this time. And okay,
Speaker 1: so that this begs two questions, who is Luis sa
Speaker 1: Nacia Lula da Silva and how did we get to
Speaker 1: this election? So the first episode of this is going
Speaker 1: to be answering The first question, and the second episode
Speaker 1: is largely the second question. Okay, so who who actually
Speaker 1: is Lula? Lula is born in actually his birthday is
Speaker 1: a few days ago UM to a desperately poor family
Speaker 1: in Brazil's northeast Um and this family moves from the
Speaker 1: northeast to what became known as the a PC region
Speaker 1: of Brazil, which is to Andre su Bernard sent sorry
Speaker 1: Santo Andre sal Bernard, who who can't say names of Brazil?
Speaker 1: Now this this is not a famous name. This is
Speaker 1: sal Bernardo. Wait are you conflating Brazil and Argentina, which
Speaker 1: are famously not the same country, different languages. The thing,
Speaker 1: if this wasn't Spanish, I could do this and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it. I can make this claim here. All
Speaker 1: my pronunciations to this are based on my terrible knowledge
Speaker 1: of Spanish. The problem is Brazil famously speaks Portuguese, a
Speaker 1: language that is not Spanish. So yeah, but okay, so
Speaker 1: there there's there's things of the ABC region, because there's
Speaker 1: three cities there that are abc UM. As part of
Speaker 1: this sort of mass migration, which is is popularly remembered
Speaker 1: as like this mass migration of people from the northeast
Speaker 1: to sub Hollo, but the sort of the actually that
Speaker 1: that that's a popular memory of the actualities that millions
Speaker 1: of people flow into sub Hollo, like from all across Brazil. Um,
Speaker 1: the ABC region becomes the Brazil sort of industrial heartland.
Speaker 1: Like every story you read about this, we'll call it
Speaker 1: like Brazil's Detroit. And that's kind of true and kind
Speaker 1: of not true. Like I don't know, every everyone who
Speaker 1: writes about Brazil is like, how can we make this
Speaker 1: the US? And like god, Fibida out of countries have
Speaker 1: their own realities. Yeah, and like okay, like there is
Speaker 1: an extent to which Brazil is also like the ex
Speaker 1: slave colony thing right, but no, like Brazil bizil is
Speaker 1: its own country. Um, however, come up. The ABC region
Speaker 1: becomes the core of Brazil's massive metalworking industry. Um. In
Speaker 1: this industry is just like from the fifties of the eighties,
Speaker 1: just like purely expanding. Um. The historian J. D. French
Speaker 1: knows that the ABC's population increased by eight from the
Speaker 1: so Lulu rives in the middle of a veritable industrial revolution. Um,
Speaker 1: this is going to end in one of history sort
Speaker 1: of great built industrial working classes. But he's there, that's
Speaker 1: kind of not what's happening or the other thing, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned about this region is that when I say
Speaker 1: metal working, so there's a the reason there's so many
Speaker 1: Detroit comparisons is that this is this is a reason
Speaker 1: that is massively involved in Brazil's auto industry, which in
Speaker 1: this period is expanding. It is very large. Um. I
Speaker 1: think I think I've actually talked about this in the
Speaker 1: Neoliberalism episodes. Um a little bit. But yeah, so Lula
Speaker 1: like leaves school in fifth grade to basically find whatever
Speaker 1: work he can in the street. And this is another
Speaker 1: sort of very famous thing that everyone talks about about
Speaker 1: Lula Alkio, Like he has like a grade school education,
Speaker 1: and that's like sort of true, Like it is true
Speaker 1: that he never like like graduate, like you know, he
Speaker 1: never went to school past like fifth grade. Mostly. I
Speaker 1: thought we'll get to some other stuff that he did later. Um.
Speaker 1: What happens basically is that his his mom is able
Speaker 1: to get him into this this metal this this government
Speaker 1: metal working sort of apprenticeship program that is teaching like
Speaker 1: young people how to do how to basically become skilled
Speaker 1: metal workers. And this also is an education, right like
Speaker 1: you know, the people people in this there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of very interesting sort of like theory stuff about
Speaker 1: this about how these people like are are also kind
Speaker 1: of worker intellectuals, because in order to like be a
Speaker 1: metal worker and to do all this stuff, you have
Speaker 1: to know a ship ton of stuff. You have to know.
Speaker 1: You have to know a bunch of typtical stuff about
Speaker 1: how metal works. You have to know that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's very highly skilled, very high like degree of
Speaker 1: knowledge you have to have. So you know, he he
Speaker 1: gets this kind of education, Um, and he becomes a
Speaker 1: very very good metal worker, and he's he's part of
Speaker 1: a a like a highly skilled and the academic literature
Speaker 1: will call it highly paid, although like, okay, this is
Speaker 1: highly paid compared to like someone like someone who is
Speaker 1: a worker, but who's not like a metal work like
Speaker 1: one of the sort of skilled quote unquote metal workers. Um,
Speaker 1: they're not like these people aren't like lawyers right like
Speaker 1: they're they're they're so closer to the actual sort of
Speaker 1: working class than you know, so some almost like people
Speaker 1: who are sort of like auxiliary parts of the ruling class.
Speaker 1: And he enters, you know, he enders the sort of
Speaker 1: manufacturing boom as part of what's called the Brazilian miracle. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so he he's there a bit before the sort of
Speaker 1: Brazilian miracle starts. But there's this period u of the
Speaker 1: militaryed kattership wh sake power where they kind of like
Speaker 1: luck into a functioning economy. Although I should I should
Speaker 1: mention this now, um okay, So in this period in Brazil,
Speaker 1: like inflation being good and under control is inflation is
Speaker 1: like when inflations everything is considered fine and when it
Speaker 1: goes up from it's like, oh no, we've lost control
Speaker 1: of inflation. And this this kind of like this is
Speaker 1: a survivable thing because people's wages are short of indexed
Speaker 1: to um like that their index to constant living increases
Speaker 1: to some extent, which is the thing that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would never happen here. Yeah, well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess if if you do the kind of stuff these
Speaker 1: guys do, you can probably get some of this. But yeah, so,
Speaker 1: but the sort of interesting thing about what's happening here
Speaker 1: is you have a very large industrial working class, but
Speaker 1: it's not really very militant for most of the time
Speaker 1: Lula's in it, except for sort of right around the
Speaker 1: military like Kuive, Lulas sees some of kind of like
Speaker 1: the old radicalism like he he talks about like you know,
Speaker 1: like watching people like storming factories because they're on strike. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Brazilian working class does. There's a lot of fun
Speaker 1: stuff that they do. Like they do things like, okay,
Speaker 1: so that everyone will show up to a protest with
Speaker 1: like a bunch of like pockets full of marbles, and
Speaker 1: when when a calvary recharge starts, still just roll the
Speaker 1: all rolling marbles down the street and the person fall.
Speaker 1: It's an o G Battle of Cable Street. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my absolute favorite one. This is just like like
Speaker 1: pure looty tune ship. Um. They do this thing where okay,
Speaker 1: so they'll string piano wire up like between light posts
Speaker 1: and then they'll bait cavalry units and the charging at
Speaker 1: them and then the thing and the guys will just
Speaker 1: get sucking close. Look that's so good. Yeah, that's pretty great.
Speaker 1: Horse cups You didn't in America but no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: well they you see them sometimes, like I have seen
Speaker 1: some horse cops. Portland's horse cops only like stop existing
Speaker 1: a few years ago. Yeah. Yeah. In the UK until
Speaker 1: very recently they used them to police protest. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was fwenty of people getting run over by horses
Speaker 1: in the States. Yeah, yeah, they do this. Yeah, fucking
Speaker 1: sucks there. Actually, okay, I think the most famous police
Speaker 1: horse you latest story in the US is a Philly
Speaker 1: sports fan. I think it like en punching a police horse.
Speaker 1: What a city. Yeah, the most famous British police horse
Speaker 1: thing is that the horse humping the cop. Critical support
Speaker 1: to the Yeah, it's quickly copy the image into the
Speaker 1: chat so you can all enjoy it. I'm okay, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that we've taken this episode in this direction. My
Speaker 1: holy sh it, that oh my god. Okay, it was graphic.
Speaker 1: Do you know what else will take a cop and
Speaker 1: bend it over and nope? Alright, well promise that Garrison.
Speaker 1: Here's some advertisements, and we're back with other things. That
Speaker 1: old scar bite soul forever boy. Up until sort of there,
Speaker 1: there has been a kind of left wing government in
Speaker 1: Brazil and then the military q like just overthrowst it,
Speaker 1: and the left is kind of just like annihilated from this.
Speaker 1: And it's not just from the pure political repression which
Speaker 1: forces like like all of the communist parties are forced
Speaker 1: underground like um, but one of the one of the things.
Speaker 1: Like one of the real things that sort of like
Speaker 1: really shatters the Brazilian left is that, like the coup
Speaker 1: happens and the left, you know, the left sort of
Speaker 1: noses a cue coming, right, but they expect that when
Speaker 1: the coup happens, there's going to be strikes and like
Speaker 1: the working class is gonna fight them and they're gonna
Speaker 1: beat it, and everyone kind of just like in the
Speaker 1: factories kind of just shrugs and nothing happens, and they
Speaker 1: just get rolled over. And this is the start of
Speaker 1: this period of sort of like you know, this kind
Speaker 1: of like the workers movement, like nothing is happening in
Speaker 1: there's some sort of radical student groups trying to do stuff,
Speaker 1: but like I know, there's a Brazilian version of sixty eight,
Speaker 1: but mostly what happens there was like one factory gets
Speaker 1: occupied and then the army shows up with guns and
Speaker 1: they get owned and it's really grim, and you know
Speaker 1: you have these sort of like like tiny like actually okay,
Speaker 1: you're these tiny catholic maoist groups who these mauist student groups.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, we just right through that. It's
Speaker 1: it's nuts um normal, totally normal. Yeah yeah. And then
Speaker 1: you know they're trying who trying to do like drill
Speaker 1: in certainty stuff, and the army just sort of like
Speaker 1: kills them all. Um, they're horribly destroyed. So for almost
Speaker 1: a decade and a half, like you have a very
Speaker 1: deep politicized industrial politaria. And and and Lula's part of this,
Speaker 1: right like from from from like when he enters the
Speaker 1: workforce ntil like the late seventies, he is not political
Speaker 1: at all. Are they doing the thing under the dictatorship
Speaker 1: where they have like pet unions? I guess when it's
Speaker 1: like one man day ted union for the industry. Actually,
Speaker 1: I was about to talk about this, um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the Brazilian libor system and the thing is, so this
Speaker 1: wasn't set up under this military stipetatorship. It was kind
Speaker 1: of set up under like a previous one. But this, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still sort of a thing. All of the unions
Speaker 1: have to register with the state. And when they're doing
Speaker 1: contract negotiations, right, they're not negotiating with the corporations to
Speaker 1: negotiating with the state. And so this means that like
Speaker 1: the state is setting wage Rage's gonna become important later.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a really interesting sort of problem here
Speaker 1: because there's this entire class of basically sort of like
Speaker 1: government union guy who's like basically a bureaucrat, and it's
Speaker 1: like really corrupt, and yeah, well and and this is
Speaker 1: something like and like like a lot of people just
Speaker 1: hate them because like that, like you know, because because
Speaker 1: they like literally what these people are are, like they're
Speaker 1: a guy who's doing this job to get ahead, and
Speaker 1: then their job is to sort of like like you know,
Speaker 1: technically it's like mediate the class struggle, right, but like
Speaker 1: what that actually means is like make sure that like
Speaker 1: there isn't actually sort of like like make sure the
Speaker 1: union isn't actually sort of a source of class conflict.
Speaker 1: And then this, this is this is the whole sort
Speaker 1: of thing behind this because before like still had this
Speaker 1: really really built and like labor movement, they had a
Speaker 1: bunch of anarchists, like the anarchistractor over the government a
Speaker 1: couple of times, maybe he's huge general strikes. There's the
Speaker 1: communist parties like a real thing. And then the government
Speaker 1: tries to bring all of like you know, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna bring all the unions under our control. And it's
Speaker 1: still also true that these are like they're still technically unions,
Speaker 1: So there are people who are sort of doing union
Speaker 1: organizing in them, right, like they still do some regular
Speaker 1: union stuff. And yeah, we're gonna talk about this a
Speaker 1: bit more later, but there's I don't know, these unions
Speaker 1: are fucking weird, like they're not like unions anywhere else
Speaker 1: have ever seen. Yeah, but so okay, So the other thing,
Speaker 1: like lu Lula in this point, like it's a political
Speaker 1: right people, people keep trying to talk to him about politics,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I just want to play soccer and
Speaker 1: light chase girls. And he talks about this like changing
Speaker 1: like it speeches a lot. But his brother, who's known
Speaker 1: as Frey Chico, is a Brazilian Communist Party buility for
Speaker 1: like his entire life and being being a PCB militant
Speaker 1: in like the cities and seventies, this is like life threatening.
Speaker 1: The party is outlawed. Everyone is so clandestine that like
Speaker 1: Fried Chico's own wife doesn't know that he's a communist
Speaker 1: and finds out that he's a communist when he gets arrested,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's this, this is this, this is like
Speaker 1: this is like the level of like clandestine shit that
Speaker 1: everyone that that that like, you know, the sort of
Speaker 1: communist parties that are working on under here um. But
Speaker 1: Freschico is also like an open union activists and everyone
Speaker 1: knows he's like he's a leftist basically because you know,
Speaker 1: the even even the sort of like the unions are
Speaker 1: sort of like split between like there's sort of left
Speaker 1: factions that are like trying to actually do union stuff,
Speaker 1: but like for towards sort of leftist goals. There are
Speaker 1: like more moderate people who are like bread and butter
Speaker 1: trade unionists, and then there's also just like a bunch
Speaker 1: of people who are like just the corruption faction. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like Lula doesn't like Lula like doesn't care
Speaker 1: about the union at all, Like he's not even in
Speaker 1: the union until Free Chico, like his brother just like
Speaker 1: like literally just drags him, kicking and screaming into running
Speaker 1: for an elected position in the union because I like
Speaker 1: he needed a guy to run on a slate, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't run himself because everyone knew he was a leftist.
Speaker 1: So he was like, Okay, I'm gonna your brother, you run.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're not like openly a leftist. You can
Speaker 1: actually win this and this is you know, and then
Speaker 1: this works and he gets elected, and this is where
Speaker 1: Lula like learns politics. Um from the book Lula and
Speaker 1: His Politics of Cunning quote. Lulu would have to master
Speaker 1: the mundane aspects of union life, including bureaucratic routines, budgets, services,
Speaker 1: and preparing union assemblies. Lula would also undergo a gradual
Speaker 1: politicization through relationships with fellow directors, union lawyers and staff,
Speaker 1: and activists central to the union's turbulent internal politics. Finally,
Speaker 1: Lula would need to learn about the repressive dimension of
Speaker 1: working class life unto military rule, including close supervision and
Speaker 1: surveillance by police, employers and labor ministry officials. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting about this story is like every one around him
Speaker 1: when he joins this union, including basically he's boss and
Speaker 1: the unions a guy named Vidal who's a very powerful
Speaker 1: union leader, um, like you know, his brother to like
Speaker 1: everyone thinks he's going to be this sort of like
Speaker 1: compliance like obedient fingerhead. And instead what they have done
Speaker 1: is they have created arguably the greatest politician of the
Speaker 1: twenty first century. Um. What are the things that's important
Speaker 1: to note here is that like, okay, so like the
Speaker 1: unions are are like fucked up, right, and everyone kind
Speaker 1: of says they're sucked up. These are still probably the
Speaker 1: most like, like, these are probably still the most competitive
Speaker 1: democratic collections that are happening in Brazil. Like Brazil technically
Speaker 1: has elections that there's these sort of like two official parties.
Speaker 1: So okay, so it's kind of weird that the military
Speaker 1: like is in power, but like they have this sort
Speaker 1: of veneer that they're not and theydeically they technically sometimes
Speaker 1: have a civilian president. They have these sort of like
Speaker 1: parties that are kind of real. But you know, the
Speaker 1: the Union actually has like there are like leftist slates,
Speaker 1: there are conservative slaves. Like there there's actually sort of
Speaker 1: politics going on, and Lula is actually able to sort
Speaker 1: of like make his mark through through his abilities just
Speaker 1: like make friends with people on both the sort of
Speaker 1: like radical and moderate side of the Union um Union
Speaker 1: sort of political aisle. And this is because Lula, like
Speaker 1: Lula is just it's funny. He loves playing soccer, he
Speaker 1: loves just like dancing and hanging out. And this lets
Speaker 1: him like win his election slate like pretty easily, because
Speaker 1: you know, she's she's just she's just very popular. So
Speaker 1: these are things that like I don't know, like the
Speaker 1: other workers in the factory a lot of times don't
Speaker 1: care that much about union politics, but they do care
Speaker 1: about like that you care about soccer a lot. And
Speaker 1: so Lula was able to build a bunch of support
Speaker 1: and this lets him sort of easily take a position
Speaker 1: in a union system that, like I it's basically a
Speaker 1: miniature state. Like the unions have their own welfare programs,
Speaker 1: they have they have their own education system, and you know,
Speaker 1: this is part of the thing that people talking about.
Speaker 1: Lula is like completely uneducated. Like no, it's not like
Speaker 1: he spends a bunch of time like in classes that
Speaker 1: like the the the union like puts on basically like
Speaker 1: university and academic classes right for for its workers and
Speaker 1: for other people short affiliated with him. So he spends
Speaker 1: a bunch and this is like, you know, part of
Speaker 1: where he'd learned sort of politics and where he larned
Speaker 1: political economy is like is through the through these classes
Speaker 1: the union has and he sorry, the union also like
Speaker 1: you know I talked about like they run welfare programs, right,
Speaker 1: So he's like he's like a social worker, right, trying
Speaker 1: trying to sort of like help workers and pensioners with
Speaker 1: his job he gets this position that like everyone hates,
Speaker 1: like he has this position basically like running running there
Speaker 1: sort of like like welfare program and like nobody wants it,
Speaker 1: but he like does it and he doesn't really well.
Speaker 1: And this makes him really popular because he's the guy that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're like a pensioner, right, like he's
Speaker 1: the guy you go to you to figure out pension bullshit,
Speaker 1: and he's the guy you just go to in order
Speaker 1: to sort of get stuff done. And yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: this means he's spending a bunch of time doing paperwork
Speaker 1: and like negotiating with government bureaucracy. And he this makes
Speaker 1: him a very very effective politician. Ums from lueless politics
Speaker 1: and cutting again, but Lula also gained access to an
Speaker 1: even larger constituency. At the union headquarters, a working class
Speaker 1: public sphere. Do you know how many people passed by
Speaker 1: the union daily? He asked a journalist in ninety nine,
Speaker 1: at minimum fift hundred. Those frequenting the union did so
Speaker 1: for many reasons, often for various sorts of assistance or sistencia,
Speaker 1: which I think is yeah, like government union assistant stuff,
Speaker 1: but also to complain about work, shoot the breeze or
Speaker 1: catch up with friends. Some union directors often arrived late
Speaker 1: to the headquarters and we're always busy when they did.
Speaker 1: The gregarious Lula, by contrast, maintained an open door policy
Speaker 1: and his office became a gathering point for rank and
Speaker 1: file workers, factory activists, and fellow directors still linked to production.
Speaker 1: And this is everything that's sort of important about this
Speaker 1: is that like, okay, like once you reach like a
Speaker 1: certain position in the union, like you're just a full
Speaker 1: time a union guy. And so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people who like join the union and become like union
Speaker 1: people because it means like it takes you off the
Speaker 1: shop floor. And this you know, the government does as
Speaker 1: deliberately right, because it means, you know, you create your
Speaker 1: they're they're they're they're. The thing they're trying to do
Speaker 1: is create a certain democratic mayora between the working class
Speaker 1: and like their union. But Lula's like still really connected
Speaker 1: to what's going on the shot floor because he's just
Speaker 1: like talking to everyone all the time. And the product
Speaker 1: of this is that Lula is becomes a very very
Speaker 1: like he comes to trade union leader, becomes a very
Speaker 1: very powerful one. He who rapidly becomes the president of
Speaker 1: his union after some like Vidal, who's like his boss
Speaker 1: had there's this whole thing where he's trying to stay
Speaker 1: in power, but he doesn't run for president of the
Speaker 1: union because of some complicated political maneuvering, and so Lula
Speaker 1: ends up as the head of the union. Fadells like,
Speaker 1: it's fine, I'm still going to be a control here.
Speaker 1: And that's not what happens. You You you have just
Speaker 1: you have just given the presidency to like like a
Speaker 1: a a genuinely truly singular like political figure. Um. But
Speaker 1: but there's not There's something that's very very important about
Speaker 1: Lula that you need to understand. You figure to like
Speaker 1: to understand anything that's about to happen here, and basically
Speaker 1: says Lula is not a communist. This this is this
Speaker 1: is very important. Um. He could not have done what
Speaker 1: he's about to do, which is, you know, become literally
Speaker 1: like the living symbol of one of the largest strike
Speaker 1: waves in Brazilian history. He could not have done this
Speaker 1: if he was a communist. The military, if he was
Speaker 1: a communist military would have you know, tortured and possibly
Speaker 1: executed him like they done with thousands of other communists.
Speaker 1: His brother Frey Chico was kidnapped and tortured horribly by
Speaker 1: the military, although he like he will insist that he
Speaker 1: didn't have it as bad as like a lot of
Speaker 1: other people did, which is true, but also like they
Speaker 1: tortured the ship out of him, and it was fucking horrific.
Speaker 1: And the fact that like every single person like and
Speaker 1: the fact that every single fucking member of the military
Speaker 1: dictatorship was not fucking like taken out behind a shocking
Speaker 1: shed shot and had their like corpses fed to dogs
Speaker 1: is like genuinely one of the reasons why we're here
Speaker 1: right now. The stuff is awful. It is a theme
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Yeah, yeah, but what to do with
Speaker 1: dictated you know, and Lula Lula and she's wife eventually
Speaker 1: able to sort of get him released because he's not
Speaker 1: like a very high like he's in the PCB, like
Speaker 1: he's in the Communist Party, like his brother like, but
Speaker 1: he's not like a high ranking guy. And you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of cruel irony of it is like they
Speaker 1: knew that he didn't know anything that they didn't already know,
Speaker 1: but they just tortured to share to him. Anyways. Um,
Speaker 1: but one of the important things that happens here is
Speaker 1: his brother, like under torture, like insists that Lula is
Speaker 1: not a communist, and like continues to insist this because
Speaker 1: he isn't and you know, and like people who are
Speaker 1: like that and and and people in the military careship
Speaker 1: like believe this, right because like the like they're you know,
Speaker 1: they have a really extensive sort of intelligence network, like
Speaker 1: at this point that they've basically like they've they've basically
Speaker 1: destroyed the Brazilian Communist Party and they've like captured and
Speaker 1: killed most of her cadre. And because he's not a communist,
Speaker 1: Lula is able to stay in the labor movement, even
Speaker 1: if in the short term after his brother gets the
Speaker 1: rest of he loses his job in the union, because
Speaker 1: and he's able to do this because like beyond his brother,
Speaker 1: who like his brother has literally been like saying communist
Speaker 1: stuff at him for decades and he Lul has just
Speaker 1: been like, I don't care um, and like a couple
Speaker 1: of other people who's just quite kind of friends with
Speaker 1: like Lula like has no connection to the organized left,
Speaker 1: like he's he's not sort of like like he he's
Speaker 1: not like a leftist right like in in that sort
Speaker 1: of conventional sense like he's he's not tied to one
Speaker 1: of sort of the old left political factions, and this
Speaker 1: means that he can stand in as a kind of
Speaker 1: sort of labor leader that the more moderate fashions than
Speaker 1: military dictatorship have been looking for, which is this sort
Speaker 1: of like non communist like quote unquote genuine trade unionist.
Speaker 1: And Okay, so like talking about like a moderate faction
Speaker 1: of a military dictatorship is always kind of fraud because
Speaker 1: you know, it's a military tattership, but like, like all
Speaker 1: these people suck. It's also true that there were there
Speaker 1: were factions within the military dictatorship who so there's a
Speaker 1: fashion called like the dungeon, which is like the people
Speaker 1: torturing all these people to death. There were other people
Speaker 1: in the enty tatorship who are like this is really
Speaker 1: fucking ghost, Like why are you guys doing this? Like
Speaker 1: this makes us look bad? Also why are you torturing
Speaker 1: these people? And those guys look at Lula and they
Speaker 1: they're they're willing to work with him because like what
Speaker 1: what what they think they're doing is creating this sort
Speaker 1: of like authentic non communist labor movement that will like
Speaker 1: work with them the stop communism like sort of like
Speaker 1: the a fl CIA like specifically talking about this like
Speaker 1: in the in the way that the a f l
Speaker 1: C i OH does in the US work working is
Speaker 1: in the communist force. They they think that they can
Speaker 1: get Lula to do this, and Lula does a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that like looks like collaboration to the sort
Speaker 1: of like surviving leftists around him. He develops like literally
Speaker 1: like personal relationships kind of friendship. It's not really friendships,
Speaker 1: but like the personal relationships and professional relationships members of
Speaker 1: the regime. And you know, again, it like it looks
Speaker 1: like he's collaborating, but that's not that's's that's not what's
Speaker 1: actually happening. What's actually happening is that he's holding these
Speaker 1: negotiations in order to sort of increase the power of
Speaker 1: the union and build this like safety network be like that.
Speaker 1: Because he has these personal relationships with people in the regime,
Speaker 1: it means that he's not going to get disappeared and
Speaker 1: his people are going to get disappeared. And this has
Speaker 1: happened to a lot of even a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of other regular union activists who didn't have this kind
Speaker 1: of connection just like get vanished and the people are
Speaker 1: able to build connections with like keep him from being
Speaker 1: like vanished and keep his trade unis and being slaughtered.
Speaker 1: And you know, like the people in like in the
Speaker 1: military kadership like really think that, like, Okay, they've they've
Speaker 1: they've gained you know, they they're they're getting an ally
Speaker 1: and defeating communism. Uh. The thing they are actually doing, uh,
Speaker 1: it's progressing their own grave diggers um. And okay you
Speaker 1: know before yes, you know who else is creating their
Speaker 1: own grove grave diggers garrison. Uh, the advertising industrial complex. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have produced us Wake and Dream unbelievable. Well in
Speaker 1: the meantime, So inside inside the New Batman game, you
Speaker 1: play as the four sidekicks after Batman UM allegedly dies.
Speaker 1: And the weirdest thing is that they because three of
Speaker 1: the side Kicks don't usually have capes. They you know,
Speaker 1: they don't do any kind of massive gliding feature for
Speaker 1: city traversal. Instead, you have a really slow bat cycle
Speaker 1: and then you have an almost spider Man like grappling
Speaker 1: hook and it's it locks onto anything around you. It's
Speaker 1: really confusing. And are we back? Okay, okay, and we're back.
Speaker 1: We should we should leave in like just like two
Speaker 1: minutes of Batman talking was completely bowled. So, okay, is
Speaker 1: the everything about Lula just as a person is that
Speaker 1: fundamentally he's a negotiator. Like his style is almost like
Speaker 1: biden Esque in the sense of like Biden sort of
Speaker 1: believes like talking to everyone across the political etcet etcetera.
Speaker 1: Except like, Okay, the key difference here is that Lula
Speaker 1: is actually charismatic. M hm. Yeah, but like you know,
Speaker 1: he will just sit there like with people across the
Speaker 1: aisle and like talk things out and negotia with them.
Speaker 1: He'll talk with employers, will talk with members of the
Speaker 1: military dictatorship. But you know, there were differences that like, Okay,
Speaker 1: So Biden is like is a constant politician, right, Like
Speaker 1: when he when he talks about like talking with people
Speaker 1: across the aisle, he means like strum Thurman. Right when
Speaker 1: Lula is talking with people, he's talking with everyone, like
Speaker 1: he like literally everyone who runs the class. He's talking
Speaker 1: with random people at like union halls and meetings, at
Speaker 1: picket lines, at like soccer games, at bars. And because
Speaker 1: he spends all of this time talking people constantly, he
Speaker 1: gains this just like incredible ability to read crowds and
Speaker 1: like Taylor message messages for them and like figure out
Speaker 1: what sort of like like what what sort of things
Speaker 1: will work with whatever person is saying. And he gains
Speaker 1: this like absolutely incredible ability to sort of charm people,
Speaker 1: and it works on people, even even on people who
Speaker 1: fucking hey him, Like there were there were like journalists
Speaker 1: who will spend literally their entire careers trying to destroy
Speaker 1: him and who but when they're asked about them, they're like, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, like it was a person and he's really charming,
Speaker 1: like he's a nice guy, and but you know, so
Speaker 1: part part of what he's doing in this period this
Speaker 1: this is this is this is the late seventies um
Speaker 1: going into the earladies. He's playing this like this very
Speaker 1: specific like game of respectability politics of like not directly
Speaker 1: criticizing the government and like so that there are these
Speaker 1: like there are these strikes that start happening because Okay,
Speaker 1: so it turns out that the military government has been
Speaker 1: trying to get inflation, like the whole sort of economic
Speaker 1: system they've been doing starts to fall apart, and inflation
Speaker 1: starts to come back, and they start doing these like
Speaker 1: measures to combat inflation and the unions originally no one
Speaker 1: believed them. But the union has like has like a
Speaker 1: like they have like a think tank kind of right.
Speaker 1: They have like a social sort of like center with
Speaker 1: a bunch of sort of like sociologists and economists, and
Speaker 1: they figure out that the union has been lying and
Speaker 1: that's why that the government has been lying about inflation,
Speaker 1: like how bad inflation is. And then the I m
Speaker 1: F in the late seventies confirms is that that that
Speaker 1: the military tatiship has been lying about how bad is
Speaker 1: inflation is by doing subsistical stuff. And this matters because
Speaker 1: they've been setting costs of living adjustments by a lower
Speaker 1: level of inflation. That that that that was actually happening,
Speaker 1: and this pisses everyone the funk off because they're like,
Speaker 1: literally the government is robbing us, like they've been lying
Speaker 1: by how bad inflation is like like third and it's
Speaker 1: it's this is like this is like a thirty percent
Speaker 1: income drop right for these workers. And this pisses everyone
Speaker 1: the funk off. And suddenly there's these massive like protests.
Speaker 1: There were like hundreds of thousands of people, Like a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people will show up to a soccer stadium
Speaker 1: as part of a strike. Like, but you know, Lula
Speaker 1: has to make sure that everyone doesn't get murdered, and
Speaker 1: so he does these things like he'll like he avoids
Speaker 1: directly criticizing the government. He has this whole thing about
Speaker 1: how like he wants to negotiate directly with the employers.
Speaker 1: He like kicks out like left to student groups. You're
Speaker 1: like trying to like distribute like communist students. You're like
Speaker 1: trying to distribute pamp us the rallies. Because he's trying
Speaker 1: to make sure that the strikers aren't seen as like
Speaker 1: communist subversives and instead is sort of like they're seen
Speaker 1: as like good, upstanding, hard working citizens. And yeah, here's
Speaker 1: here's from the book again. Given the diverse outlooks, Lula
Speaker 1: represented himself as a thoughtful, righteous man who disparaged riotous
Speaker 1: behavior as unworthy and counterproductive like all honest workers. He
Speaker 1: called for the strikers to be disciplined and counseled against
Speaker 1: classes with the police. He continually framed their fight as
Speaker 1: one with the companies, not the government or the policeman.
Speaker 1: And this like works because any more radical action probably
Speaker 1: is going to get everyone killed and I mean like
Speaker 1: that when it's actually going on, there's like like they're
Speaker 1: they're getting buzzed by helicopters. There's like fucking army trucks everywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, he manages not to get everyone killed.
Speaker 1: And the result of this is that Lula immediately becomes
Speaker 1: the most famous worker in Brazil. He's like on TV,
Speaker 1: he's leading strikes everywhere, Like there's the massive rallies, and
Speaker 1: you know there's some really like there's some really like
Speaker 1: genuinely adorable stuff that's happening where like when he when
Speaker 1: he's giving his first speech to one of these rallies,
Speaker 1: it's like it's fucking raining. The soccer stadium is just mud,
Speaker 1: Like his podium is literally sinking into the bodies he's
Speaker 1: trying to speak, and this is just like the first
Speaker 1: time he's addressed the crowd, this loud and he's nervous
Speaker 1: and people start leaving and they're doing this. One of
Speaker 1: over things I learned about this is how old, how
Speaker 1: old the crowd mike is, So they're doing this thing
Speaker 1: that becomes own as the crowd mike, where like you
Speaker 1: don't have a microphone or you can't reach every one
Speaker 1: so each so okay, so some of the speaker says
Speaker 1: like a sentence, and then each person in the crowd
Speaker 1: says the sentence and it just sort of moves back
Speaker 1: through the crowd up from everyone repeating it. And she's
Speaker 1: trying to give the speech is not going great, and
Speaker 1: like the workers in the front row start like yelling like, hey,
Speaker 1: you can do this, Lula, don't worry, you got this,
Speaker 1: and then he like and then and then this is
Speaker 1: like absolutely adorable moment and then he sort of like
Speaker 1: like you know, gets better at it, and like by
Speaker 1: like the second one of these like people are just
Speaker 1: like in love with him. He is unbelievably popular, refusing
Speaker 1: and edible speaker. He's like you know, and it's very easy.
Speaker 1: And you see writing about this at the time that
Speaker 1: are like that look at him and are like, well,
Speaker 1: this guy like this guy is literally like like people
Speaker 1: people are like calling him literally the messiah of the
Speaker 1: working class right like that this is the kind of
Speaker 1: sort of like like a claim that he has, like
Speaker 1: there are there after one of his speeches, like the
Speaker 1: entire crowd literally carries him on their shoulders from one
Speaker 1: end of the soccer stadium to the other like there
Speaker 1: are like like there there there are people like walking
Speaker 1: on stage and calling him like father and saying him
Speaker 1: Mary's like it's it's fucking wild. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: but like and like when when when when like sort
Speaker 1: of rich and educated people look at this, They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: these people are like blindly obedient to him. They're like
Speaker 1: they have this client page and relationship. He's like manipulating
Speaker 1: the mass, and that's not what's happening like that, that's
Speaker 1: just that's just not what's happening. Like he actually, like
Speaker 1: the union votes against him like a couple of times,
Speaker 1: like because because she's she's trying to do negotiations, right,
Speaker 1: and there's there's a there's this thing where if I'm
Speaker 1: standing the story, right, I think what happened is that
Speaker 1: he's trying to like negotiate like people coming back to works,
Speaker 1: negotiations can continue. It's like a show of good faith
Speaker 1: or whatever, and the unions like, funck no, we're not
Speaker 1: going back to work, and just like votes him down.
Speaker 1: And so like this kind of stuff happens right like that,
Speaker 1: you know, like people respect him enormously and he he
Speaker 1: is like literally in some sense, he's like the avatar
Speaker 1: of the industrial working class. Like working class people look
Speaker 1: at him and like and they see themselves in him,
Speaker 1: and they see they see the power that he's able
Speaker 1: to sort of how many people he's around there, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, ship, the union is strong, Like we
Speaker 1: are strong. We can actually sort of fight back. But
Speaker 1: it's not like a sort of client patron thing he's
Speaker 1: it's just like he's at the head of a workers
Speaker 1: movement that is a force in and of itself and
Speaker 1: has its own agency and capacity to act, and Lula
Speaker 1: has to like negotiate with that and like he has
Speaker 1: to sort of like rebuild their trust after he you know,
Speaker 1: is taking a sort of more moderate line. He he
Speaker 1: eventually gets like arrested nineteen eighty, although he gets released
Speaker 1: after like a month, and from there he gets to
Speaker 1: work founding like every important leftist organization like the last
Speaker 1: forty years, um so in at eighty he's one of
Speaker 1: the people who found the Workers Party. In eighty three
Speaker 1: he founds the cut or to the English translation of
Speaker 1: it's it's a Unified Worker Central, which like to this
Speaker 1: day is Brazil's like National Trade Union Center. Like it's
Speaker 1: like it's like their big Union Federation and this is
Speaker 1: illegal at the time, but you just like fuck it,
Speaker 1: we're doing anyways. Like these people are losing the the
Speaker 1: tatorship losing control. Um. In the cut like plays a
Speaker 1: huge role in how the dictatorship loses power. Um so
Speaker 1: does the PT did something that like the PT the
Speaker 1: PT like as a party are powerful enough that like
Speaker 1: they're involved in drafting the constitution. He's there for the
Speaker 1: founding the land this workers movement, which is a social
Speaker 1: movement that like sees his land that's not being used
Speaker 1: in readership, is it the workers. He's heavily involved in
Speaker 1: the campaign to start of force the military out of
Speaker 1: power and you know, as a military tatorship like kind
Speaker 1: of falls apart in democracy like kind of like fully
Speaker 1: returns to Brazil in he goes like full intelectoral politics.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that like he's he's he's kind
Speaker 1: of too early for his politics. Um. He he spends
Speaker 1: like the entire nineties just like getting his ass handed
Speaker 1: to him in elections over and over again. And part
Speaker 1: of what's happening, you know, part of by part of
Speaker 1: literally what he's doing in the nineties is rebuilt. It's
Speaker 1: like he's like rebuilding the entire Latin American left like
Speaker 1: from ground zero after the fall of the Berlin ball
Speaker 1: Wall in the sort of like global defeated left in
Speaker 1: the eighties. Um, he's one of the founders of the
Speaker 1: foremost of South Polo, which is the first of this series.
Speaker 1: Are sort of like meetings of leftists from Latin America
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean, which is trying to figure out like okay,
Speaker 1: like hey, what what what is socialism now that like
Speaker 1: the Berlin Wall is down and everything is sort of
Speaker 1: going to ship and in that's a really bleak prospect,
Speaker 1: Like neoliberalism is completely ascended. Nationalism has destroyed socialism, like
Speaker 1: every sort of former social states following apart, like capitalist
Speaker 1: a running rampant across the globe. Like literally like entire
Speaker 1: communist parties are just like disbanding and all of the
Speaker 1: sort of cadre are becoming liberals. But you know, as
Speaker 1: an ideas go on and people actually have to sort
Speaker 1: of like live under this, they increasingly realize that it
Speaker 1: sucks ass and that I you know what what living
Speaker 1: under natalizabism means is like I m F structural adjustments
Speaker 1: and like like the economy, like there's there's there's the
Speaker 1: Asian market collapse. There's a bunch of other market collapses,
Speaker 1: and you know, as f after the zappetits to sort
Speaker 1: of go on the like the first like part of
Speaker 1: the left to really go on the offensive after their
Speaker 1: uprising in the left kind of starts to put itself
Speaker 1: back together. And this Left, like I I think, like
Speaker 1: this version of Left, it's kind of dead now, but
Speaker 1: like I think there are people who are old enough
Speaker 1: to remember it or like remember sort of like what
Speaker 1: it used to be. Like the slogan of this sort
Speaker 1: of whole like like left, Like one of the big
Speaker 1: slogans is another world as Possible, which is sort of
Speaker 1: like the Anti, Like the Anti it's a response to
Speaker 1: like Thatchers, there is no alternative like another world as
Speaker 1: possible is this is the sort of like alter globalization Left,
Speaker 1: Like this is a left that does the Battle of Seattle,
Speaker 1: and Lula is there for like all of it, Like
Speaker 1: after Seattle, he helped after the Battle Seattle, like he
Speaker 1: helps found the World Social Forum, which is just like
Speaker 1: giant meeting plays for like international social movements, um and
Speaker 1: you know, and and so you know, through through this
Speaker 1: whole period, like the Left is sort of gathering his
Speaker 1: strength everywhere, like well, okay in Latin America and also
Speaker 1: like I mean, it isn't a lot of places right,
Speaker 1: like in India. Um, it's like Indoniesia, somethings in the US,
Speaker 1: although the US has this problem that n Lefton happens
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's a ship show. Yeah, it's amazing how
Speaker 1: that this movement existed almost everywhere else, but not to
Speaker 1: my knowledge, is as significantly here. Yeah. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: we had we had we had, we had Seattle, right,
Speaker 1: but then when that leven happened, that the big unions
Speaker 1: like pulled out of doing any direct action ship and
Speaker 1: then it kind of everything kind of got eight by
Speaker 1: the of the anti war movement, which and then and
Speaker 1: then the Green Scare. Yeah, then that led to Adbusters
Speaker 1: doing and the stuff that occupied Well Street and then yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. I would say this, I think there's
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a break here, Like I
Speaker 1: think I think occupy is when that kind of politics died,
Speaker 1: because when when occupies the under And this is the
Speaker 1: sort of iron of this and we'll get you next episode,
Speaker 1: is that, like you could there's a good argument that
Speaker 1: the place that politics actually died was in Brazil when
Speaker 1: the Workers Party fucking like tear gas and rubber bulleted
Speaker 1: the absolute ship out of a bunch of protesters who
Speaker 1: had been who were like the Brazilian Wave of sort
Speaker 1: of like that series of protests, and they crushed the
Speaker 1: ship out of them. It is horrible, like this is
Speaker 1: one of this is like one of like my foundations
Speaker 1: and political memories. Is like fucking tanks rolling down the street,
Speaker 1: people shooting rubber bullets at people like seven year olds
Speaker 1: getting tear gassed. It is a it is a fucking
Speaker 1: ship show. But and and she thousand too, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that we have we haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 1: Like even the sort of like most in nicol Trotsky
Speaker 1: I like can't imagine the fucking pig rolling tanks through
Speaker 1: the favelas, which is what they're gonna be doing in
Speaker 1: twelve years. And Briton we had that was when I
Speaker 1: can't requite remember when Tony Blackman There's nightty seven, but
Speaker 1: like the British Tony Blair right like represented this other
Speaker 1: vision for the last well and everything is like people
Speaker 1: like like one of those everything was like people talk
Speaker 1: about Obama as being like the end of the same wave,
Speaker 1: except Obama is sort of like the like even more
Speaker 1: so than any of the other politicians when we're talking
Speaker 1: about is sort of like recuperation of this right, Like
Speaker 1: he's the guy who takes out energy and is like yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and okay, so we're we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: like the negative side of all of this ship next episode.
Speaker 1: But like in some sense, Lula does play a similar
Speaker 1: role in Brazil, and we will get there, but right now,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, So there's another part of this that
Speaker 1: like doesn't get talked about that much, which is that
Speaker 1: in the nearly two thousand's in Latin America, it's not
Speaker 1: just like the left is winning elections, Like there are
Speaker 1: open revolutions going on, Like I mean, there's there's there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. There's a like like arguably like
Speaker 1: the last communist revolution, like ever happens in uh like
Speaker 1: the last sort of like the last gas of the
Speaker 1: classical workershop what happens in Argentina in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: there's this huge revolt against the I M. F and
Speaker 1: astarian like this is this is the last time like
Speaker 1: in world history that like people occupy factories and then
Speaker 1: attempt to like like take them over and use them
Speaker 1: as a way of seizing amazing production. People occupy factories
Speaker 1: in Bosnian has A go Vi and just fourteen. But
Speaker 1: like by that point, like like those guys are occupying
Speaker 1: factories and then having like occupy meetings in them, they're
Speaker 1: not like attempting to sort of like seas production. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, like like these there's are real revolutions, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's there's there's a coup against Hugo Travis
Speaker 1: that gets overturned by another popular revolution. Um, there's the
Speaker 1: water and gas wars in Bolivia, which culminate in like
Speaker 1: literally deep like the capital is like entirely blockaded off
Speaker 1: from the rest of the country and surrounded by roadblocks,
Speaker 1: and the fucking government is five. The government is like
Speaker 1: fucking imploding. The military has fallen apart, like you know,
Speaker 1: like they like and this this this is this is
Speaker 1: this is the sort of chain of events that brings
Speaker 1: you rallies into power, but like they very nearly just
Speaker 1: destroyed the entire believing government. The cycle sort of ends
Speaker 1: with the Wahaka uprising in two thousand and six, were
Speaker 1: like like the people of Wahaka just fucking take the
Speaker 1: city and hold it for like like a few months
Speaker 1: and like running through democratic assemblies and then like the
Speaker 1: army shows up and they get Yeah. But like you know,
Speaker 1: like like there there is a point like that that
Speaker 1: was like I think, like like in my lifetime, like
Speaker 1: the workers of a city fucking just took it over.
Speaker 1: This is stuff that like you know, like I think
Speaker 1: now we're we kind of like we have problems, Like
Speaker 1: I think most people have sort of forgotten about this
Speaker 1: stuff like this, This was a moment in which like
Speaker 1: like revolution of the destruction of capitalism was on the table. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like of it. I'm not sure, but I lived
Speaker 1: in Venezuela for some of this time briefly, but it
Speaker 1: felt very possible in a way that like it probably
Speaker 1: hasn't since, right, Like, yes, it was fascinating to see, like,
Speaker 1: and the cooperation between those countries was very real, right,
Speaker 1: Like obviously Cuban and Cuban Cuban doctors are sucking everywhere,
Speaker 1: right if you travel resource saying there, But it was
Speaker 1: fascinating to see like people from here coming here and
Speaker 1: they think they had that Sal Paolo Forum right where
Speaker 1: they would where these ideas would be exchanged and it
Speaker 1: it Yeah, and that was very formative for me. It
Speaker 1: genuinely felt like it was possible for something as a
Speaker 1: result of this, like ghoul ish I m F policy
Speaker 1: that we've had for the previous twenty years, people like, no,
Speaker 1: funk this, we're doing it our way, and yet didn't. Okay,
Speaker 1: but this is this is this is what's really weird
Speaker 1: about Lula because Lula is running and she doesen't too,
Speaker 1: and he's watching all of this happen, and his strategy
Speaker 1: his response to this is basically the analysis because he okay,
Speaker 1: so she spent the entire nineties lose rotting leftist campaigns
Speaker 1: and losing right, and his strategy in two two is
Speaker 1: he's going to move the PT, the Worker's Party, to
Speaker 1: the right both of hers a messaging and in policy
Speaker 1: so it's not too sort of like scare voters. And
Speaker 1: he finally convinces the rest of the PT to do
Speaker 1: something he's been advocating for for like decades, which is
Speaker 1: allying with sort of like liberal or conservative like non
Speaker 1: leftist parties, which they do in this election. And we're
Speaker 1: going to see how that goes later because oh, boy.
Speaker 1: But you know, okay, so like why why why why
Speaker 1: are they sort of doing this. There's a few reasons.
Speaker 1: Partially it's because Lula has been like losing elections and
Speaker 1: being like, okay, we have to do something different. Partially
Speaker 1: it's because the PC is a product of the collapse
Speaker 1: of like, okay, the PT, like in the two thousand's,
Speaker 1: like the base that had formed that party is basically collapsed,
Speaker 1: right that the PT is like it. It's core constituencies
Speaker 1: are sort of like leftist groups. There's like like left
Speaker 1: wing Catholic groups and the sort of like the giant
Speaker 1: sort of like trade union stuff that like the giant
Speaker 1: workers trupment that Lulu is a part of it, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't too. Like the Catholic Church has swung back
Speaker 1: to the right. Like the sort of the sort of
Speaker 1: left Catholic people are on the retreat. There's very few
Speaker 1: of them left. Um, there's and we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: this more later. But the sort of giant industrial unions
Speaker 1: that like Lula had been ahead of, like and that
Speaker 1: you know, Lua's career and the PT itself comes from,
Speaker 1: have been shattered by sort of like the by by
Speaker 1: the industrialization and the collapse of sort of Brazil's industrial economy,
Speaker 1: and the product of this is that with without its
Speaker 1: sort of social basis, like Lula keeps losing elections. So
Speaker 1: he goes, okay, so it's solution to this, and the
Speaker 1: the PC understands this right, like they're they're aware of
Speaker 1: the fact that, like part of what's happening with them
Speaker 1: is that, like they've they've you know, they're they're losing
Speaker 1: parts of their working class base because that that working
Speaker 1: class literally doesn't exist anymore. They're gaining a bunch of
Speaker 1: sort of middle class like leftist activists, but they need
Speaker 1: to find a way to sort of broughten their appeal.
Speaker 1: And so like he promises, like openly gives us like
Speaker 1: speech about how he's not going to do like a
Speaker 1: rupture with the economy, which is what this party have
Speaker 1: been compaigning on, because you know, the PTR leftist right,
Speaker 1: the whole point of another world is possible is we
Speaker 1: don't have to live a capitalist anymore. Lula is like, no, no, no, no, no, guys,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, I didn't I didn't mean that, like,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do a rupture. And instead what Lula
Speaker 1: does is pledges to and like stays in the Brazil's
Speaker 1: commitments to the i m F, including like fucking insane
Speaker 1: ship like maintaining primary budget surpluses, which is nuts, and
Speaker 1: you know, and he instead of like yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: stays in the end. And you know, so Argentina famously,
Speaker 1: like argentina solution to the sort of uprisings that are
Speaker 1: happening is that they default on our death to the
Speaker 1: i m F. And they're like, fuck you, we're not
Speaker 1: paying and Lula is like, now we're paying, Like it's fine,
Speaker 1: We'll just keep paying it. And like the PT itself
Speaker 1: is like what the funk is going on? Like what
Speaker 1: what is happening here? Why is this happening here? Like
Speaker 1: why why is he doing this? And you know, it
Speaker 1: is just like, well, okay, we need to take power,
Speaker 1: we need to do this, take power, and so we does.
Speaker 1: And weirdly, in the middle of this cycle of sort
Speaker 1: of like the resurrection of the left, he's running increasingly
Speaker 1: to the right. And you know, okay, part of what's
Speaker 1: happening here is that there's an inherent problem that leftist
Speaker 1: governments have when they take over the state, especially when
Speaker 1: they take over a capitalistate by winning an election, which
Speaker 1: is that if you are in control of the government, right,
Speaker 1: if your control the state, your job is now to
Speaker 1: keep the economy running. And in theory this isn't incompatible
Speaker 1: with leftist police. But if you stop, if you stop
Speaker 1: and think about what this actually means. For a second,
Speaker 1: keeping the economy running means keeping the economy growing, and
Speaker 1: economic growth right means that capitalists have to keep making
Speaker 1: more money every year when they did last year. Like that.
Speaker 1: That's what economic growth is, right, And this is a
Speaker 1: real problem if you are a leftist taking power, because
Speaker 1: if you don't do this, you will a lose elections
Speaker 1: because regular people will get piste off because when capitalists
Speaker 1: don't make more money, they start firing people and be
Speaker 1: the bourgeoisie who only ever grudgingly accepts the left is
Speaker 1: sort of like a legitimate power in the first place.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're if they're if they're not getting
Speaker 1: more money every single year, they will overthrow you. And
Speaker 1: you know, Lula knows this, right. But the solution to
Speaker 1: this problem that these they sort of like pink tight
Speaker 1: governments come to is basically to let a faction of
Speaker 1: the sort of national bourgeois either sort of national capitalist
Speaker 1: class of people who are like capitalists domestically, like they
Speaker 1: let them into this project of sort of like not
Speaker 1: this nationalist developmental project. And so what this means essentially
Speaker 1: is you are like you are buying you are buying
Speaker 1: a section of the ruling class off right. You are
Speaker 1: giving them ass to state contracts. You're doing state investments
Speaker 1: infrastructure that helps them like expand things like mining so
Speaker 1: they can you know, take some of the profits from it.
Speaker 1: You're giving them preferential access to government contracts and exchange.
Speaker 1: We started supporting you. And there's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: this can look like the m A s and Bolivia,
Speaker 1: for example, starts bringing these e leits directly into the
Speaker 1: party with the sort of developmentalist faction UM. In Brazil,
Speaker 1: it looks like an alliance is something called the Centro,
Speaker 1: which is like thorow, sorry my portues is not good. UM,
Speaker 1: which is this like this sort of like every present
Speaker 1: force in Brazilian politics, which is like the corruption faction.
Speaker 1: It's like this this series of sort of parties that
Speaker 1: are like kind of loosely knit, you kind of vote together,
Speaker 1: but you don't like they don't their parties nominally have
Speaker 1: ideology but like their ideology is I am I am
Speaker 1: like a local political like powerful political person, and you
Speaker 1: are going to pay me or you will not be
Speaker 1: able to pass literally any bill ever. And okay, so
Speaker 1: they have to form an alliance with sort of these parties.
Speaker 1: And the other thing they start doing is that they
Speaker 1: are just literally but like they just literally start buying
Speaker 1: people off. And this leads to sort of like a
Speaker 1: bunch of corruption scandals that we're gonna get you next episode, um,
Speaker 1: but will While Lula is an office, this seems like
Speaker 1: it's working really well. Um He's able to sort of
Speaker 1: pay off the bourgeoisie and fund these social welfare programs
Speaker 1: for the Brazilian working class. And this has a massive impact, right,
Speaker 1: Like this lists something like twenty million people out of poverty,
Speaker 1: and okay and I I and other people will argue
Speaker 1: about what it means to like lift people out of
Speaker 1: poverty and how poor they still are, but you know,
Speaker 1: it is true. These people have a massive increase in
Speaker 1: quality of life, like people are getting running water in
Speaker 1: their homes for the first time, like people are having
Speaker 1: electricity for the first time. Um. It's it's also with
Speaker 1: pointing out that Lula, who is white, spends a fucking
Speaker 1: ship ton of time fighting like fighting against racism and
Speaker 1: fighting for educational job opportunities for black people, even though okay,
Speaker 1: there's like an asterisk next to that that has to
Speaker 1: do with the police that back saying yeah it's it's
Speaker 1: fucking oh boy it it is worse than you can
Speaker 1: possibly imagine. Um who you know, like he's trying to
Speaker 1: end hunger. He has this very famous program called the
Speaker 1: Bosa Familia, which is basically like if you're pouring off
Speaker 1: and you agree to send your kids to school and
Speaker 1: get the vaccinated, like the government will just give you money.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's also a micro loan part of this,
Speaker 1: which is my dot dot dot. Uh, this won't go
Speaker 1: oh yeah not nothing bad will happen from the Brazilian
Speaker 1: government attempting to get a bunch of people to take
Speaker 1: micro loans. Um this, this does not lead us into
Speaker 1: fascism at all. But you know, okay, like this works, right,
Speaker 1: Lula is able to grow the economy, like Brazil's economic
Speaker 1: growth this period just like seven percent, which is sucking nuts,
Speaker 1: like year on year. Um he leaves office, was I've
Speaker 1: seen it, ultimately said, it's like an eighty five or
Speaker 1: ninety cent a proof of rating. He's unbelievably popular, and
Speaker 1: you know, so every everything like looks good, right kind
Speaker 1: of from inside Brazil, it looks like the PC has
Speaker 1: succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of everyone. They've been like
Speaker 1: they've been a successful social democratic party and that they've
Speaker 1: lifted a most people out of poverty. There's like people
Speaker 1: who are alive because like who are alive today who
Speaker 1: would not be because the PT was in power, right
Speaker 1: and you know, like there are people who don't starve,
Speaker 1: there are people who don't go hungry, there are people
Speaker 1: who have opportunities, like educational opportunities to opportunities to them,
Speaker 1: so the first time ever, and it's a successful capitalist
Speaker 1: government too, because again seven percent year und of your growth, right,
Speaker 1: like this is fucking nuts, Like this is this is
Speaker 1: a kind of economic growth that is like unimaginable in
Speaker 1: in most parts of the world. However, Comma, if this
Speaker 1: at all actually worked, we wouldn't be here right now
Speaker 1: with I, you know, the fascist president going into like
Speaker 1: hiding and so next episodes, you know, March I've been
Speaker 1: to I've been talking about grave diggers sort of this episode. Right,
Speaker 1: there's there's a famous part of the Communist Manifestory talks
Speaker 1: where where Mark talks about like capital like capitals in
Speaker 1: producing its own grave diggers, and capitalism has never done that,
Speaker 1: right like like to to to this day right now,
Speaker 1: capitalism has as yet to produce his own grave diggers.
Speaker 1: Social Democracy has Bruce's own grave diggers in every single
Speaker 1: fucking country anyone's ever done it. And the next episode,
Speaker 1: in next episode, we're going to watch the pt brduce's
Speaker 1: own grave diggers, and we're going to watch them attempt
Speaker 1: to bury Louise and Nasio, Lula da Silva and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Brazilian working class a live. Oh good,
Speaker 1: You want to do a Bolsonara update because he's apparently
Speaker 1: left the building. Oh ship, okay, yeah, Bolsonara up the weight.
Speaker 1: Bolsonara has left the building. Hold on breaking breaking news.
Speaker 1: He left the palace finally, Yeah, in a convoy of
Speaker 1: black SUVs. Hope he's expected to break the silence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm looking at Benjamin fogelh he's pretty good on this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's expected to break the silence, but not to congratulate
Speaker 1: Lula on winning. Jesus Christ is I have lost good bye. Okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah, there might be a if I don't know
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do, if there's a coup in between
Speaker 1: in between this episode and the next episode, hopefully not,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I want one thing that,
Speaker 1: like I will say and that I think we we're
Speaker 1: gonn talk a bit about next episode. Is it? Like
Speaker 1: part of what's happening right now that's very important is
Speaker 1: that Biden is an office in the US. And I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: so the Brazilian military is a long history of doing coups,
Speaker 1: but usually when they're doing coups, they're doing cous with
Speaker 1: the backing of the US government. And Biden, like just
Speaker 1: on a personal level, fucking hates Bullsonaro. And there is
Speaker 1: a there is a very real chance that this is
Speaker 1: a significant factor in why we haven't seen a coup.
Speaker 1: Is literally, the President of the United States personally does
Speaker 1: not like the vastiest president of Brazil. And this is
Speaker 1: a fucking batshit state of affairs, right, Like the fact
Speaker 1: that like the like personal inclinations of the President of
Speaker 1: the United States has as much of an impact on
Speaker 1: like the politics of an entire country is nuts. And
Speaker 1: this happened in the other direction for a while, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's I guess not personally, just a nine connection
Speaker 1: of the president in that case. Yeah, well there's weird
Speaker 1: things here too, because like like Lula was really friendly
Speaker 1: with it with Bush, which I think is why part
Speaker 1: of why he never like they never tried to cut him,
Speaker 1: who called him the devil? Yeah, just friends, right, Travis
Speaker 1: gives the speech about how like everyone has the road
Speaker 1: like at the at the social form gives how everyone's
Speaker 1: existing in their own like conditions. So you can't expect, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't expect Lula to be Travis, you
Speaker 1: can't expect Raaves to be Castro like stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's it's weird. Hopefully Bill Snarow fucking leaves office.
Speaker 1: If not, I don't know, But either way, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Things are the history of Brazil dream. This period is
Speaker 1: also kind of bleak, but after this period is way
Speaker 1: the funk bleaker. So yeah, we're gonna talk about that
Speaker 1: tomorrow and yeah, we'll update you if there is a
Speaker 1: Q it could happen. Here is a production of cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit
Speaker 1: our website Cool zone media dot com or check us
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Speaker 1: It could happen here, Updated monthly at cool zone media
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