The Brazilian Election Part 1: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

In part 1 of our series on the recent Brazilian election we talk about the origins and career of one Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to make it Happen Here a podcast about things
falling apart and then maybe kind of putting them back
together again sort of. Uh, this this this is this
is a special episode about the thing that happened. Where
a thing that happened is the Brazilian election. And with
me to talk about this is Garrison Hello and James Hello.

(00:29):
So I think I think people probably know by now
Louis Nacio Lula is Silva, better known as Lula, has
defeated JR. Bosonaro in a absolutely terrifying squeaker of a
presidential election. Um. This is like, by far the closest
election that Lula there is, a former two term president

(00:51):
of Brazil, has ever won. Um. Part of this is
a campaign of last minute voter suppression that Bolsonaro own
his supporters did where like like basically like the Brazilian
federal police started setting up like they set up like
fifty roadblocks to stop people in the little strongholds from voting.
There's like the assaulted people. Um it wound up not

(01:13):
mattering and right now, as as a time of recording,
which is uh one pm, one third pm Pacific. On Halloween,
Bolsonaro was missing in action. There's no like, no one's
seen him. The only the only thing, the only sign
of life that there has been from him is he

(01:33):
unfollowed his wife. Amazing stuff. It's it sounds like he
just locked himself in the presidential palace and turn and
turn all all of the lights off. Yeah, he's she's
missing and no nobody's seen or heard from him. Um.
So by the time this episode comes out, there's like
a small chance there's been a coup. There's like a

(01:55):
small chance he's died from COVID. I don't know, probably
neither of those have happened. But you know, so Lula
won his election like he won like like fifty point
eight percent of the vote roughly. And okay, so there's
a lot of voter suppression. But even voters suppression cannot

(02:16):
explain why Lula, who won his last elections with respectively
sixty one and sixty percent of the vote, was reduced
to like fifty point eight percent this time. And okay,
so that this begs two questions, who is Luis sa
Nacia Lula da Silva and how did we get to
this election? So the first episode of this is going

(02:37):
to be answering The first question, and the second episode
is largely the second question. Okay, so who who actually
is Lula? Lula is born in actually his birthday is
a few days ago UM to a desperately poor family
in Brazil's northeast Um and this family moves from the
northeast to what became known as the a PC region

(02:59):
of Brazil, which is to Andre su Bernard sent sorry
Santo Andre sal Bernard, who who can't say names of Brazil?
Now this this is not a famous name. This is
sal Bernardo. Wait are you conflating Brazil and Argentina, which
are famously not the same country, different languages. The thing,

(03:22):
if this wasn't Spanish, I could do this and I'm
gonna make it. I can make this claim here. All
my pronunciations to this are based on my terrible knowledge
of Spanish. The problem is Brazil famously speaks Portuguese, a
language that is not Spanish. So yeah, but okay, so
there there's there's things of the ABC region, because there's
three cities there that are abc UM. As part of

(03:45):
this sort of mass migration, which is is popularly remembered
as like this mass migration of people from the northeast
to sub Hollo, but the sort of the actually that
that that's a popular memory of the actualities that millions
of people flow into sub Hollo, like from all across Brazil. Um,
the ABC region becomes the Brazil sort of industrial heartland.
Like every story you read about this, we'll call it

(04:07):
like Brazil's Detroit. And that's kind of true and kind
of not true. Like I don't know, every everyone who
writes about Brazil is like, how can we make this
the US? And like god, Fibida out of countries have
their own realities. Yeah, and like okay, like there is

(04:28):
an extent to which Brazil is also like the ex
slave colony thing right, but no, like Brazil bizil is
its own country. Um, however, come up. The ABC region
becomes the core of Brazil's massive metalworking industry. Um. In
this industry is just like from the fifties of the eighties,

(04:50):
just like purely expanding. Um. The historian J. D. French
knows that the ABC's population increased by eight from the
so Lulu rives in the middle of a veritable industrial revolution. Um,
this is going to end in one of history sort
of great built industrial working classes. But he's there, that's
kind of not what's happening or the other thing, as

(05:10):
you mentioned about this region is that when I say
metal working, so there's a the reason there's so many
Detroit comparisons is that this is this is a reason
that is massively involved in Brazil's auto industry, which in
this period is expanding. It is very large. Um. I
think I think I've actually talked about this in the
Neoliberalism episodes. Um a little bit. But yeah, so Lula

(05:33):
like leaves school in fifth grade to basically find whatever
work he can in the street. And this is another
sort of very famous thing that everyone talks about about
Lula Alkio, Like he has like a grade school education,
and that's like sort of true, Like it is true
that he never like like graduate, like you know, he
never went to school past like fifth grade. Mostly. I
thought we'll get to some other stuff that he did later. Um.

(05:56):
What happens basically is that his his mom is able
to get him into this this metal this this government
metal working sort of apprenticeship program that is teaching like
young people how to do how to basically become skilled
metal workers. And this also is an education, right like
you know, the people people in this there's there's a
lot of very interesting sort of like theory stuff about

(06:16):
this about how these people like are are also kind
of worker intellectuals, because in order to like be a
metal worker and to do all this stuff, you have
to know a ship ton of stuff. You have to know.
You have to know a bunch of typtical stuff about
how metal works. You have to know that. You know,
it's it's very highly skilled, very high like degree of
knowledge you have to have. So you know, he he
gets this kind of education, Um, and he becomes a

(06:38):
very very good metal worker, and he's he's part of
a a like a highly skilled and the academic literature
will call it highly paid, although like, okay, this is
highly paid compared to like someone like someone who is
a worker, but who's not like a metal work like
one of the sort of skilled quote unquote metal workers. Um,
they're not like these people aren't like lawyers right like

(06:59):
they're they're they're so closer to the actual sort of
working class than you know, so some almost like people
who are sort of like auxiliary parts of the ruling class.
And he enters, you know, he enders the sort of
manufacturing boom as part of what's called the Brazilian miracle. Well, okay,
so he he's there a bit before the sort of
Brazilian miracle starts. But there's this period u of the

(07:19):
militaryed kattership wh sake power where they kind of like
luck into a functioning economy. Although I should I should
mention this now, um okay, So in this period in Brazil,
like inflation being good and under control is inflation is
like when inflations everything is considered fine and when it

(07:41):
goes up from it's like, oh no, we've lost control
of inflation. And this this kind of like this is
a survivable thing because people's wages are short of indexed
to um like that their index to constant living increases
to some extent, which is the thing that like, yeah,
it would never happen here. Yeah, well, I mean, I

(08:02):
guess if if you do the kind of stuff these
guys do, you can probably get some of this. But yeah, so,
but the sort of interesting thing about what's happening here
is you have a very large industrial working class, but
it's not really very militant for most of the time
Lula's in it, except for sort of right around the
military like Kuive, Lulas sees some of kind of like

(08:26):
the old radicalism like he he talks about like you know,
like watching people like storming factories because they're on strike. Uh,
the Brazilian working class does. There's a lot of fun
stuff that they do. Like they do things like, okay,
so that everyone will show up to a protest with
like a bunch of like pockets full of marbles, and

(08:46):
when when a calvary recharge starts, still just roll the
all rolling marbles down the street and the person fall.
It's an o G Battle of Cable Street. Yeah. Yeah,
my my absolute favorite one. This is just like like
pure looty tune ship. Um. They do this thing where okay,

(09:06):
so they'll string piano wire up like between light posts
and then they'll bait cavalry units and the charging at
them and then the thing and the guys will just
get sucking close. Look that's so good. Yeah, that's pretty great.
Horse cups You didn't in America but no, no, no, no,
well they you see them sometimes, like I have seen

(09:31):
some horse cops. Portland's horse cops only like stop existing
a few years ago. Yeah. Yeah. In the UK until
very recently they used them to police protest. Yeah. Yeah,
there was fwenty of people getting run over by horses
in the States. Yeah, yeah, they do this. Yeah, fucking

(09:51):
sucks there. Actually, okay, I think the most famous police
horse you latest story in the US is a Philly
sports fan. I think it like en punching a police horse.
What a city. Yeah, the most famous British police horse
thing is that the horse humping the cop. Critical support

(10:14):
to the Yeah, it's quickly copy the image into the
chat so you can all enjoy it. I'm okay, I'm
glad that we've taken this episode in this direction. My
holy sh it, that oh my god. Okay, it was graphic.

(10:35):
Do you know what else will take a cop and
bend it over and nope? Alright, well promise that Garrison.
Here's some advertisements, and we're back with other things. That

(11:00):
old scar bite soul forever boy. Up until sort of there,
there has been a kind of left wing government in
Brazil and then the military q like just overthrowst it,
and the left is kind of just like annihilated from this.
And it's not just from the pure political repression which

(11:21):
forces like like all of the communist parties are forced
underground like um, but one of the one of the things.
Like one of the real things that sort of like
really shatters the Brazilian left is that, like the coup
happens and the left, you know, the left sort of
noses a cue coming, right, but they expect that when
the coup happens, there's going to be strikes and like

(11:43):
the working class is gonna fight them and they're gonna
beat it, and everyone kind of just like in the
factories kind of just shrugs and nothing happens, and they
just get rolled over. And this is the start of
this period of sort of like you know, this kind
of like the workers movement, like nothing is happening in
there's some sort of radical student groups trying to do stuff,

(12:03):
but like I know, there's a Brazilian version of sixty eight,
but mostly what happens there was like one factory gets
occupied and then the army shows up with guns and
they get owned and it's really grim, and you know
you have these sort of like like tiny like actually okay,
you're these tiny catholic maoist groups who these mauist student groups.

(12:24):
Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, we just right through that. It's
it's nuts um normal, totally normal. Yeah yeah. And then
you know they're trying who trying to do like drill
in certainty stuff, and the army just sort of like
kills them all. Um, they're horribly destroyed. So for almost
a decade and a half, like you have a very

(12:45):
deep politicized industrial politaria. And and and Lula's part of this,
right like from from from like when he enters the
workforce ntil like the late seventies, he is not political
at all. Are they doing the thing under the dictatorship
where they have like pet unions? I guess when it's
like one man day ted union for the industry. Actually,
I was about to talk about this, um. Yeah, so
the Brazilian libor system and the thing is, so this

(13:06):
wasn't set up under this military stipetatorship. It was kind
of set up under like a previous one. But this, yeah,
it's still sort of a thing. All of the unions
have to register with the state. And when they're doing
contract negotiations, right, they're not negotiating with the corporations to
negotiating with the state. And so this means that like
the state is setting wage Rage's gonna become important later.
But yeah, there's a really interesting sort of problem here

(13:26):
because there's this entire class of basically sort of like
government union guy who's like basically a bureaucrat, and it's
like really corrupt, and yeah, well and and this is
something like and like like a lot of people just
hate them because like that, like you know, because because
they like literally what these people are are, like they're
a guy who's doing this job to get ahead, and

(13:47):
then their job is to sort of like like you know,
technically it's like mediate the class struggle, right, but like
what that actually means is like make sure that like
there isn't actually sort of like like make sure the
union isn't actually sort of a source of class conflict.
And then this, this is this is the whole sort
of thing behind this because before like still had this
really really built and like labor movement, they had a

(14:09):
bunch of anarchists, like the anarchistractor over the government a
couple of times, maybe he's huge general strikes. There's the
communist parties like a real thing. And then the government
tries to bring all of like you know, okay, we're
gonna bring all the unions under our control. And it's
still also true that these are like they're still technically unions,
So there are people who are sort of doing union
organizing in them, right, like they still do some regular

(14:31):
union stuff. And yeah, we're gonna talk about this a
bit more later, but there's I don't know, these unions
are fucking weird, like they're not like unions anywhere else
have ever seen. Yeah, but so okay, So the other thing,
like lu Lula in this point, like it's a political
right people, people keep trying to talk to him about politics,
and he's like, I just want to play soccer and
light chase girls. And he talks about this like changing

(14:51):
like it speeches a lot. But his brother, who's known
as Frey Chico, is a Brazilian Communist Party buility for
like his entire life and being being a PCB militant
in like the cities and seventies, this is like life threatening.
The party is outlawed. Everyone is so clandestine that like
Fried Chico's own wife doesn't know that he's a communist

(15:12):
and finds out that he's a communist when he gets arrested,
Like it's it's this, this is this, this is like
this is like the level of like clandestine shit that
everyone that that that like, you know, the sort of
communist parties that are working on under here um. But
Freschico is also like an open union activists and everyone
knows he's like he's a leftist basically because you know,
the even even the sort of like the unions are

(15:33):
sort of like split between like there's sort of left
factions that are like trying to actually do union stuff,
but like for towards sort of leftist goals. There are
like more moderate people who are like bread and butter
trade unionists, and then there's also just like a bunch
of people who are like just the corruption faction. Um.
But yeah, like Lula doesn't like Lula like doesn't care

(15:54):
about the union at all, Like he's not even in
the union until Free Chico, like his brother just like
like literally just drags him, kicking and screaming into running
for an elected position in the union because I like
he needed a guy to run on a slate, but
he couldn't run himself because everyone knew he was a leftist.
So he was like, Okay, I'm gonna your brother, you run.

(16:14):
You're you're you're not like openly a leftist. You can
actually win this and this is you know, and then
this works and he gets elected, and this is where
Lula like learns politics. Um from the book Lula and
His Politics of Cunning quote. Lulu would have to master
the mundane aspects of union life, including bureaucratic routines, budgets, services,
and preparing union assemblies. Lula would also undergo a gradual

(16:37):
politicization through relationships with fellow directors, union lawyers and staff,
and activists central to the union's turbulent internal politics. Finally,
Lula would need to learn about the repressive dimension of
working class life unto military rule, including close supervision and
surveillance by police, employers and labor ministry officials. And what's

(16:58):
interesting about this story is like every one around him
when he joins this union, including basically he's boss and
the unions a guy named Vidal who's a very powerful
union leader, um, like you know, his brother to like
everyone thinks he's going to be this sort of like
compliance like obedient fingerhead. And instead what they have done
is they have created arguably the greatest politician of the
twenty first century. Um. What are the things that's important

(17:21):
to note here is that like, okay, so like the
unions are are like fucked up, right, and everyone kind
of says they're sucked up. These are still probably the
most like, like, these are probably still the most competitive
democratic collections that are happening in Brazil. Like Brazil technically
has elections that there's these sort of like two official parties.
So okay, so it's kind of weird that the military
like is in power, but like they have this sort

(17:42):
of veneer that they're not and theydeically they technically sometimes
have a civilian president. They have these sort of like
parties that are kind of real. But you know, the
the Union actually has like there are like leftist slates,
there are conservative slaves. Like there there's actually sort of
politics going on, and Lula is actually able to sort
of like make his mark through through his abilities just
like make friends with people on both the sort of

(18:03):
like radical and moderate side of the Union um Union
sort of political aisle. And this is because Lula, like
Lula is just it's funny. He loves playing soccer, he
loves just like dancing and hanging out. And this lets
him like win his election slate like pretty easily, because
you know, she's she's just she's just very popular. So
these are things that like I don't know, like the

(18:24):
other workers in the factory a lot of times don't
care that much about union politics, but they do care
about like that you care about soccer a lot. And
so Lula was able to build a bunch of support
and this lets him sort of easily take a position
in a union system that, like I it's basically a
miniature state. Like the unions have their own welfare programs,
they have they have their own education system, and you know,

(18:47):
this is part of the thing that people talking about.
Lula is like completely uneducated. Like no, it's not like
he spends a bunch of time like in classes that
like the the the union like puts on basically like
university and academic classes right for for its workers and
for other people short affiliated with him. So he spends
a bunch and this is like, you know, part of
where he'd learned sort of politics and where he larned
political economy is like is through the through these classes
the union has and he sorry, the union also like

(19:09):
you know I talked about like they run welfare programs, right,
So he's like he's like a social worker, right, trying
trying to sort of like help workers and pensioners with
his job he gets this position that like everyone hates,
like he has this position basically like running running there
sort of like like welfare program and like nobody wants it,

(19:29):
but he like does it and he doesn't really well.
And this makes him really popular because he's the guy that, like,
you know, if you're like a pensioner, right, like he's
the guy you go to you to figure out pension bullshit,
and he's the guy you just go to in order
to sort of get stuff done. And yeah, you know,
this means he's spending a bunch of time doing paperwork
and like negotiating with government bureaucracy. And he this makes

(19:51):
him a very very effective politician. Ums from lueless politics
and cutting again, but Lula also gained access to an
even larger constituency. At the union headquarters, a working class
public sphere. Do you know how many people passed by
the union daily? He asked a journalist in ninety nine,
at minimum fift hundred. Those frequenting the union did so

(20:12):
for many reasons, often for various sorts of assistance or sistencia,
which I think is yeah, like government union assistant stuff,
but also to complain about work, shoot the breeze or
catch up with friends. Some union directors often arrived late
to the headquarters and we're always busy when they did.

(20:32):
The gregarious Lula, by contrast, maintained an open door policy
and his office became a gathering point for rank and
file workers, factory activists, and fellow directors still linked to production.
And this is everything that's sort of important about this
is that like, okay, like once you reach like a
certain position in the union, like you're just a full
time a union guy. And so there's a lot of
people who like join the union and become like union

(20:53):
people because it means like it takes you off the
shop floor. And this you know, the government does as
deliberately right, because it means, you know, you create your
they're they're they're they're. The thing they're trying to do
is create a certain democratic mayora between the working class
and like their union. But Lula's like still really connected
to what's going on the shot floor because he's just
like talking to everyone all the time. And the product

(21:15):
of this is that Lula is becomes a very very
like he comes to trade union leader, becomes a very
very powerful one. He who rapidly becomes the president of
his union after some like Vidal, who's like his boss
had there's this whole thing where he's trying to stay
in power, but he doesn't run for president of the
union because of some complicated political maneuvering, and so Lula

(21:39):
ends up as the head of the union. Fadells like,
it's fine, I'm still going to be a control here.
And that's not what happens. You You you have just
you have just given the presidency to like like a
a a genuinely truly singular like political figure. Um. But
but there's not There's something that's very very important about
Lula that you need to understand. You figure to like

(22:01):
to understand anything that's about to happen here, and basically
says Lula is not a communist. This this is this
is very important. Um. He could not have done what
he's about to do, which is, you know, become literally
like the living symbol of one of the largest strike
waves in Brazilian history. He could not have done this
if he was a communist. The military, if he was
a communist military would have you know, tortured and possibly

(22:22):
executed him like they done with thousands of other communists.
His brother Frey Chico was kidnapped and tortured horribly by
the military, although he like he will insist that he
didn't have it as bad as like a lot of
other people did, which is true, but also like they
tortured the ship out of him, and it was fucking horrific.
And the fact that like every single person like and
the fact that every single fucking member of the military

(22:43):
dictatorship was not fucking like taken out behind a shocking
shed shot and had their like corpses fed to dogs
is like genuinely one of the reasons why we're here
right now. The stuff is awful. It is a theme
of the podcast. Yeah, yeah, but what to do with
dictated you know, and Lula Lula and she's wife eventually

(23:04):
able to sort of get him released because he's not
like a very high like he's in the PCB, like
he's in the Communist Party, like his brother like, but
he's not like a high ranking guy. And you know,
the sort of cruel irony of it is like they
knew that he didn't know anything that they didn't already know,
but they just tortured to share to him. Anyways. Um,
but one of the important things that happens here is

(23:24):
his brother, like under torture, like insists that Lula is
not a communist, and like continues to insist this because
he isn't and you know, and like people who are
like that and and and people in the military careship
like believe this, right because like the like they're you know,
they have a really extensive sort of intelligence network, like
at this point that they've basically like they've they've basically
destroyed the Brazilian Communist Party and they've like captured and

(23:47):
killed most of her cadre. And because he's not a communist,
Lula is able to stay in the labor movement, even
if in the short term after his brother gets the
rest of he loses his job in the union, because
and he's able to do this because like beyond his brother,
who like his brother has literally been like saying communist
stuff at him for decades and he Lul has just
been like, I don't care um, and like a couple

(24:08):
of other people who's just quite kind of friends with
like Lula like has no connection to the organized left,
like he's he's not sort of like like he he's
not like a leftist right like in in that sort
of conventional sense like he's he's not tied to one
of sort of the old left political factions, and this
means that he can stand in as a kind of

(24:28):
sort of labor leader that the more moderate fashions than
military dictatorship have been looking for, which is this sort
of like non communist like quote unquote genuine trade unionist.
And Okay, so like talking about like a moderate faction
of a military dictatorship is always kind of fraud because
you know, it's a military tattership, but like, like all

(24:49):
these people suck. It's also true that there were there
were factions within the military dictatorship who so there's a
fashion called like the dungeon, which is like the people
torturing all these people to death. There were other people
in the enty tatorship who are like this is really
fucking ghost, Like why are you guys doing this? Like
this makes us look bad? Also why are you torturing
these people? And those guys look at Lula and they

(25:13):
they're they're willing to work with him because like what
what what they think they're doing is creating this sort
of like authentic non communist labor movement that will like
work with them the stop communism like sort of like
the a fl CIA like specifically talking about this like
in the in the way that the a f l
C i OH does in the US work working is
in the communist force. They they think that they can
get Lula to do this, and Lula does a lot

(25:36):
of stuff that like looks like collaboration to the sort
of like surviving leftists around him. He develops like literally
like personal relationships kind of friendship. It's not really friendships,
but like the personal relationships and professional relationships members of
the regime. And you know, again, it like it looks
like he's collaborating, but that's not that's's that's not what's
actually happening. What's actually happening is that he's holding these
negotiations in order to sort of increase the power of

(25:57):
the union and build this like safety network be like that.
Because he has these personal relationships with people in the regime,
it means that he's not going to get disappeared and
his people are going to get disappeared. And this has
happened to a lot of even a lot of sort
of other regular union activists who didn't have this kind
of connection just like get vanished and the people are
able to build connections with like keep him from being

(26:18):
like vanished and keep his trade unis and being slaughtered.
And you know, like the people in like in the
military kadership like really think that, like, Okay, they've they've
they've gained you know, they they're they're getting an ally
and defeating communism. Uh. The thing they are actually doing, uh,
it's progressing their own grave diggers um. And okay you

(26:41):
know before yes, you know who else is creating their
own grove grave diggers garrison. Uh, the advertising industrial complex. Yes,
they have produced us Wake and Dream unbelievable. Well in

(27:04):
the meantime, So inside inside the New Batman game, you
play as the four sidekicks after Batman UM allegedly dies.
And the weirdest thing is that they because three of
the side Kicks don't usually have capes. They you know,
they don't do any kind of massive gliding feature for

(27:26):
city traversal. Instead, you have a really slow bat cycle
and then you have an almost spider Man like grappling
hook and it's it locks onto anything around you. It's
really confusing. And are we back? Okay, okay, and we're back.
We should we should leave in like just like two
minutes of Batman talking was completely bowled. So, okay, is

(27:51):
the everything about Lula just as a person is that
fundamentally he's a negotiator. Like his style is almost like
biden Esque in the sense of like Biden sort of
believes like talking to everyone across the political etcet etcetera.
Except like, Okay, the key difference here is that Lula
is actually charismatic. M hm. Yeah, but like you know,
he will just sit there like with people across the

(28:12):
aisle and like talk things out and negotia with them.
He'll talk with employers, will talk with members of the
military dictatorship. But you know, there were differences that like, Okay,
So Biden is like is a constant politician, right, Like
when he when he talks about like talking with people
across the aisle, he means like strum Thurman. Right when
Lula is talking with people, he's talking with everyone, like
he like literally everyone who runs the class. He's talking

(28:33):
with random people at like union halls and meetings, at
picket lines, at like soccer games, at bars. And because
he spends all of this time talking people constantly, he
gains this just like incredible ability to read crowds and
like Taylor message messages for them and like figure out
what sort of like like what what sort of things
will work with whatever person is saying. And he gains

(28:53):
this like absolutely incredible ability to sort of charm people,
and it works on people, even even on people who
fucking hey him, Like there were there were like journalists
who will spend literally their entire careers trying to destroy
him and who but when they're asked about them, they're like, well,
I mean, like it was a person and he's really charming,
like he's a nice guy, and but you know, so

(29:14):
part part of what he's doing in this period this
this is this is this is the late seventies um
going into the earladies. He's playing this like this very
specific like game of respectability politics of like not directly
criticizing the government and like so that there are these
like there are these strikes that start happening because Okay,
so it turns out that the military government has been

(29:35):
trying to get inflation, like the whole sort of economic
system they've been doing starts to fall apart, and inflation
starts to come back, and they start doing these like
measures to combat inflation and the unions originally no one
believed them. But the union has like has like a
like they have like a think tank kind of right.
They have like a social sort of like center with
a bunch of sort of like sociologists and economists, and

(29:58):
they figure out that the union has been lying and
that's why that the government has been lying about inflation,
like how bad inflation is. And then the I m
F in the late seventies confirms is that that that
the military tatiship has been lying about how bad is
inflation is by doing subsistical stuff. And this matters because
they've been setting costs of living adjustments by a lower
level of inflation. That that that that was actually happening,

(30:19):
and this pisses everyone the funk off because they're like,
literally the government is robbing us, like they've been lying
by how bad inflation is like like third and it's
it's this is like this is like a thirty percent
income drop right for these workers. And this pisses everyone
the funk off. And suddenly there's these massive like protests.
There were like hundreds of thousands of people, Like a
hundred thousand people will show up to a soccer stadium

(30:41):
as part of a strike. Like, but you know, Lula
has to make sure that everyone doesn't get murdered, and
so he does these things like he'll like he avoids
directly criticizing the government. He has this whole thing about
how like he wants to negotiate directly with the employers.
He like kicks out like left to student groups. You're
like trying to like distribute like communist students. You're like
trying to distribute pamp us the rallies. Because he's trying

(31:01):
to make sure that the strikers aren't seen as like
communist subversives and instead is sort of like they're seen
as like good, upstanding, hard working citizens. And yeah, here's
here's from the book again. Given the diverse outlooks, Lula
represented himself as a thoughtful, righteous man who disparaged riotous
behavior as unworthy and counterproductive like all honest workers. He

(31:23):
called for the strikers to be disciplined and counseled against
classes with the police. He continually framed their fight as
one with the companies, not the government or the policeman.
And this like works because any more radical action probably
is going to get everyone killed and I mean like
that when it's actually going on, there's like like they're
they're getting buzzed by helicopters. There's like fucking army trucks everywhere. Um,

(31:47):
but you know, he manages not to get everyone killed.
And the result of this is that Lula immediately becomes
the most famous worker in Brazil. He's like on TV,
he's leading strikes everywhere, Like there's the massive rallies, and
you know there's some really like there's some really like
genuinely adorable stuff that's happening where like when he when
he's giving his first speech to one of these rallies,
it's like it's fucking raining. The soccer stadium is just mud,

(32:09):
Like his podium is literally sinking into the bodies he's
trying to speak, and this is just like the first
time he's addressed the crowd, this loud and he's nervous
and people start leaving and they're doing this. One of
over things I learned about this is how old, how
old the crowd mike is, So they're doing this thing
that becomes own as the crowd mike, where like you
don't have a microphone or you can't reach every one
so each so okay, so some of the speaker says
like a sentence, and then each person in the crowd

(32:31):
says the sentence and it just sort of moves back
through the crowd up from everyone repeating it. And she's
trying to give the speech is not going great, and
like the workers in the front row start like yelling like, hey,
you can do this, Lula, don't worry, you got this,
and then he like and then and then this is
like absolutely adorable moment and then he sort of like
like you know, gets better at it, and like by

(32:53):
like the second one of these like people are just
like in love with him. He is unbelievably popular, refusing
and edible speaker. He's like you know, and it's very easy.
And you see writing about this at the time that
are like that look at him and are like, well,
this guy like this guy is literally like like people
people are like calling him literally the messiah of the
working class right like that this is the kind of

(33:14):
sort of like like a claim that he has, like
there are there after one of his speeches, like the
entire crowd literally carries him on their shoulders from one
end of the soccer stadium to the other like there
are like like there there there are people like walking
on stage and calling him like father and saying him
Mary's like it's it's fucking wild. Um. But you know,

(33:36):
but like and like when when when when like sort
of rich and educated people look at this, They're like, oh,
these people are like blindly obedient to him. They're like
they have this client page and relationship. He's like manipulating
the mass, and that's not what's happening like that, that's
just that's just not what's happening. Like he actually, like
the union votes against him like a couple of times,
like because because she's she's trying to do negotiations, right,

(33:57):
and there's there's a there's this thing where if I'm
standing the story, right, I think what happened is that
he's trying to like negotiate like people coming back to works,
negotiations can continue. It's like a show of good faith
or whatever, and the unions like, funck no, we're not
going back to work, and just like votes him down.
And so like this kind of stuff happens right like that,
you know, like people respect him enormously and he he

(34:18):
is like literally in some sense, he's like the avatar
of the industrial working class. Like working class people look
at him and like and they see themselves in him,
and they see they see the power that he's able
to sort of how many people he's around there, and
they're like, oh, ship, the union is strong, Like we
are strong. We can actually sort of fight back. But
it's not like a sort of client patron thing he's

(34:39):
it's just like he's at the head of a workers
movement that is a force in and of itself and
has its own agency and capacity to act, and Lula
has to like negotiate with that and like he has
to sort of like rebuild their trust after he you know,
is taking a sort of more moderate line. He he
eventually gets like arrested nineteen eighty, although he gets released
after like a month, and from there he gets to

(35:00):
work founding like every important leftist organization like the last
forty years, um so in at eighty he's one of
the people who found the Workers Party. In eighty three
he founds the cut or to the English translation of
it's it's a Unified Worker Central, which like to this
day is Brazil's like National Trade Union Center. Like it's
like it's like their big Union Federation and this is

(35:21):
illegal at the time, but you just like fuck it,
we're doing anyways. Like these people are losing the the
tatorship losing control. Um. In the cut like plays a
huge role in how the dictatorship loses power. Um so
does the PT did something that like the PT the
PT like as a party are powerful enough that like
they're involved in drafting the constitution. He's there for the

(35:44):
founding the land this workers movement, which is a social
movement that like sees his land that's not being used
in readership, is it the workers. He's heavily involved in
the campaign to start of force the military out of
power and you know, as a military tatorship like kind
of falls apart in democracy like kind of like fully
returns to Brazil in he goes like full intelectoral politics.
But the problem is that like he's he's he's kind

(36:07):
of too early for his politics. Um. He he spends
like the entire nineties just like getting his ass handed
to him in elections over and over again. And part
of what's happening, you know, part of by part of
literally what he's doing in the nineties is rebuilt. It's
like he's like rebuilding the entire Latin American left like
from ground zero after the fall of the Berlin ball
Wall in the sort of like global defeated left in

(36:29):
the eighties. Um, he's one of the founders of the
foremost of South Polo, which is the first of this series.
Are sort of like meetings of leftists from Latin America
in the Caribbean, which is trying to figure out like okay,
like hey, what what what is socialism now that like
the Berlin Wall is down and everything is sort of
going to ship and in that's a really bleak prospect,

(36:51):
Like neoliberalism is completely ascended. Nationalism has destroyed socialism, like
every sort of former social states following apart, like capitalist
a running rampant across the globe. Like literally like entire
communist parties are just like disbanding and all of the
sort of cadre are becoming liberals. But you know, as
an ideas go on and people actually have to sort
of like live under this, they increasingly realize that it

(37:13):
sucks ass and that I you know what what living
under natalizabism means is like I m F structural adjustments
and like like the economy, like there's there's there's the
Asian market collapse. There's a bunch of other market collapses,
and you know, as f after the zappetits to sort
of go on the like the first like part of
the left to really go on the offensive after their
uprising in the left kind of starts to put itself

(37:36):
back together. And this Left, like I I think, like
this version of Left, it's kind of dead now, but
like I think there are people who are old enough
to remember it or like remember sort of like what
it used to be. Like the slogan of this sort
of whole like like left, Like one of the big
slogans is another world as Possible, which is sort of
like the Anti, Like the Anti it's a response to

(37:57):
like Thatchers, there is no alternative like another world as
possible is this is the sort of like alter globalization Left,
Like this is a left that does the Battle of Seattle,
and Lula is there for like all of it, Like
after Seattle, he helped after the Battle Seattle, like he
helps found the World Social Forum, which is just like
giant meeting plays for like international social movements, um and
you know, and and so you know, through through this

(38:19):
whole period, like the Left is sort of gathering his
strength everywhere, like well, okay in Latin America and also
like I mean, it isn't a lot of places right,
like in India. Um, it's like Indoniesia, somethings in the US,
although the US has this problem that n Lefton happens
and yeah, that's a ship show. Yeah, it's amazing how
that this movement existed almost everywhere else, but not to

(38:43):
my knowledge, is as significantly here. Yeah. Well, I mean
we had we had we had, we had Seattle, right,
but then when that leven happened, that the big unions
like pulled out of doing any direct action ship and
then it kind of everything kind of got eight by
the of the anti war movement, which and then and
then the Green Scare. Yeah, then that led to Adbusters

(39:03):
doing and the stuff that occupied Well Street and then yeah,
and that's okay. I would say this, I think there's
I think there's a there's a break here, Like I
think I think occupy is when that kind of politics died,
because when when occupies the under And this is the
sort of iron of this and we'll get you next episode,
is that, like you could there's a good argument that

(39:26):
the place that politics actually died was in Brazil when
the Workers Party fucking like tear gas and rubber bulleted
the absolute ship out of a bunch of protesters who
had been who were like the Brazilian Wave of sort
of like that series of protests, and they crushed the
ship out of them. It is horrible, like this is
one of this is like one of like my foundations
and political memories. Is like fucking tanks rolling down the street,

(39:47):
people shooting rubber bullets at people like seven year olds
getting tear gassed. It is a it is a fucking
ship show. But and and she thousand too, like you know,
it's not that we have we haven't gotten there yet.
Like even the sort of like most in nicol Trotsky
I like can't imagine the fucking pig rolling tanks through
the favelas, which is what they're gonna be doing in
twelve years. And Briton we had that was when I

(40:08):
can't requite remember when Tony Blackman There's nightty seven, but
like the British Tony Blair right like represented this other
vision for the last well and everything is like people
like like one of those everything was like people talk
about Obama as being like the end of the same wave,
except Obama is sort of like the like even more
so than any of the other politicians when we're talking
about is sort of like recuperation of this right, Like

(40:29):
he's the guy who takes out energy and is like yeah,
and and and okay, so we're we're gonna get into
like the negative side of all of this ship next episode.
But like in some sense, Lula does play a similar
role in Brazil, and we will get there, but right now,
you know, Okay, So there's another part of this that
like doesn't get talked about that much, which is that

(40:50):
in the nearly two thousand's in Latin America, it's not
just like the left is winning elections, Like there are
open revolutions going on, Like I mean, there's there's there's
a bunch of them. There's a like like arguably like
the last communist revolution, like ever happens in uh like
the last sort of like the last gas of the

(41:11):
classical workershop what happens in Argentina in two thousand and one,
there's this huge revolt against the I M. F and
astarian like this is this is the last time like
in world history that like people occupy factories and then
attempt to like like take them over and use them
as a way of seizing amazing production. People occupy factories
in Bosnian has A go Vi and just fourteen. But
like by that point, like like those guys are occupying

(41:34):
factories and then having like occupy meetings in them, they're
not like attempting to sort of like seas production. Yeah,
but you know, like like these there's are real revolutions, right,
Like there's there's there's there's a coup against Hugo Travis
that gets overturned by another popular revolution. Um, there's the
water and gas wars in Bolivia, which culminate in like
literally deep like the capital is like entirely blockaded off

(41:58):
from the rest of the country and surrounded by roadblocks,
and the fucking government is five. The government is like
fucking imploding. The military has fallen apart, like you know,
like they like and this this this is this is
this is the sort of chain of events that brings
you rallies into power, but like they very nearly just
destroyed the entire believing government. The cycle sort of ends
with the Wahaka uprising in two thousand and six, were

(42:19):
like like the people of Wahaka just fucking take the
city and hold it for like like a few months
and like running through democratic assemblies and then like the
army shows up and they get Yeah. But like you know,
like like there there is a point like that that
was like I think, like like in my lifetime, like

(42:40):
the workers of a city fucking just took it over.
This is stuff that like you know, like I think
now we're we kind of like we have problems, Like
I think most people have sort of forgotten about this
stuff like this, This was a moment in which like
like revolution of the destruction of capitalism was on the table. Yeah,
and like of it. I'm not sure, but I lived

(43:01):
in Venezuela for some of this time briefly, but it
felt very possible in a way that like it probably
hasn't since, right, Like, yes, it was fascinating to see, like,
and the cooperation between those countries was very real, right,
Like obviously Cuban and Cuban Cuban doctors are sucking everywhere,
right if you travel resource saying there, But it was

(43:23):
fascinating to see like people from here coming here and
they think they had that Sal Paolo Forum right where
they would where these ideas would be exchanged and it
it Yeah, and that was very formative for me. It
genuinely felt like it was possible for something as a
result of this, like ghoul ish I m F policy
that we've had for the previous twenty years, people like, no,
funk this, we're doing it our way, and yet didn't. Okay,

(43:47):
but this is this is this is what's really weird
about Lula because Lula is running and she doesen't too,
and he's watching all of this happen, and his strategy
his response to this is basically the analysis because he okay,
so she spent the entire nineties lose rotting leftist campaigns
and losing right, and his strategy in two two is

(44:08):
he's going to move the PT, the Worker's Party, to
the right both of hers a messaging and in policy
so it's not too sort of like scare voters. And
he finally convinces the rest of the PT to do
something he's been advocating for for like decades, which is
allying with sort of like liberal or conservative like non
leftist parties, which they do in this election. And we're
going to see how that goes later because oh, boy.

(44:33):
But you know, okay, so like why why why why
are they sort of doing this. There's a few reasons.
Partially it's because Lula has been like losing elections and
being like, okay, we have to do something different. Partially
it's because the PC is a product of the collapse
of like, okay, the PT, like in the two thousand's,
like the base that had formed that party is basically collapsed,

(44:56):
right that the PT is like it. It's core constituencies
are sort of like leftist groups. There's like like left
wing Catholic groups and the sort of like the giant
sort of like trade union stuff that like the giant
workers trupment that Lulu is a part of it, but
he doesn't too. Like the Catholic Church has swung back
to the right. Like the sort of the sort of

(45:16):
left Catholic people are on the retreat. There's very few
of them left. Um, there's and we're gonna talk about
this more later. But the sort of giant industrial unions
that like Lula had been ahead of, like and that
you know, Lua's career and the PT itself comes from,
have been shattered by sort of like the by by
the industrialization and the collapse of sort of Brazil's industrial economy,
and the product of this is that with without its

(45:38):
sort of social basis, like Lula keeps losing elections. So
he goes, okay, so it's solution to this, and the
the PC understands this right, like they're they're aware of
the fact that, like part of what's happening with them
is that, like they've they've you know, they're they're losing
parts of their working class base because that that working
class literally doesn't exist anymore. They're gaining a bunch of

(45:59):
sort of middle class like leftist activists, but they need
to find a way to sort of broughten their appeal.
And so like he promises, like openly gives us like
speech about how he's not going to do like a
rupture with the economy, which is what this party have
been compaigning on, because you know, the PTR leftist right,
the whole point of another world is possible is we
don't have to live a capitalist anymore. Lula is like, no, no, no, no, no, guys,

(46:22):
hold on, hold on, I didn't I didn't mean that, like,
we're not gonna do a rupture. And instead what Lula
does is pledges to and like stays in the Brazil's
commitments to the i m F, including like fucking insane
ship like maintaining primary budget surpluses, which is nuts, and
you know, and he instead of like yeah, yeah, he
stays in the end. And you know, so Argentina famously,

(46:43):
like argentina solution to the sort of uprisings that are
happening is that they default on our death to the
i m F. And they're like, fuck you, we're not
paying and Lula is like, now we're paying, Like it's fine,
We'll just keep paying it. And like the PT itself
is like what the funk is going on? Like what
what is happening here? Why is this happening here? Like
why why is he doing this? And you know, it

(47:04):
is just like, well, okay, we need to take power,
we need to do this, take power, and so we does.
And weirdly, in the middle of this cycle of sort
of like the resurrection of the left, he's running increasingly
to the right. And you know, okay, part of what's
happening here is that there's an inherent problem that leftist
governments have when they take over the state, especially when
they take over a capitalistate by winning an election, which

(47:26):
is that if you are in control of the government, right,
if your control the state, your job is now to
keep the economy running. And in theory this isn't incompatible
with leftist police. But if you stop, if you stop
and think about what this actually means. For a second,
keeping the economy running means keeping the economy growing, and
economic growth right means that capitalists have to keep making

(47:47):
more money every year when they did last year. Like that.
That's what economic growth is, right, And this is a
real problem if you are a leftist taking power, because
if you don't do this, you will a lose elections
because regular people will get piste off because when capitalists
don't make more money, they start firing people and be

(48:09):
the bourgeoisie who only ever grudgingly accepts the left is
sort of like a legitimate power in the first place.
If you're if you're if they're if they're not getting
more money every single year, they will overthrow you. And
you know, Lula knows this, right. But the solution to
this problem that these they sort of like pink tight

(48:30):
governments come to is basically to let a faction of
the sort of national bourgeois either sort of national capitalist
class of people who are like capitalists domestically, like they
let them into this project of sort of like not
this nationalist developmental project. And so what this means essentially
is you are like you are buying you are buying
a section of the ruling class off right. You are

(48:51):
giving them ass to state contracts. You're doing state investments
infrastructure that helps them like expand things like mining so
they can you know, take some of the profits from it.
You're giving them preferential access to government contracts and exchange.
We started supporting you. And there's a lot of ways
this can look like the m A s and Bolivia,
for example, starts bringing these e leits directly into the
party with the sort of developmentalist faction UM. In Brazil,

(49:12):
it looks like an alliance is something called the Centro,
which is like thorow, sorry my portues is not good. UM,
which is this like this sort of like every present
force in Brazilian politics, which is like the corruption faction.
It's like this this series of sort of parties that
are like kind of loosely knit, you kind of vote together,
but you don't like they don't their parties nominally have

(49:32):
ideology but like their ideology is I am I am
like a local political like powerful political person, and you
are going to pay me or you will not be
able to pass literally any bill ever. And okay, so
they have to form an alliance with sort of these parties.
And the other thing they start doing is that they
are just literally but like they just literally start buying

(49:53):
people off. And this leads to sort of like a
bunch of corruption scandals that we're gonna get you next episode, um,
but will While Lula is an office, this seems like
it's working really well. Um He's able to sort of
pay off the bourgeoisie and fund these social welfare programs
for the Brazilian working class. And this has a massive impact, right,

(50:15):
Like this lists something like twenty million people out of poverty,
and okay and I I and other people will argue
about what it means to like lift people out of
poverty and how poor they still are, but you know,
it is true. These people have a massive increase in
quality of life, like people are getting running water in
their homes for the first time, like people are having
electricity for the first time. Um. It's it's also with

(50:39):
pointing out that Lula, who is white, spends a fucking
ship ton of time fighting like fighting against racism and
fighting for educational job opportunities for black people, even though okay,
there's like an asterisk next to that that has to
do with the police that back saying yeah it's it's
fucking oh boy it it is worse than you can
possibly imagine. Um who you know, like he's trying to

(51:03):
end hunger. He has this very famous program called the
Bosa Familia, which is basically like if you're pouring off
and you agree to send your kids to school and
get the vaccinated, like the government will just give you money.
And you know, there's also a micro loan part of this,
which is my dot dot dot. Uh, this won't go
oh yeah not nothing bad will happen from the Brazilian
government attempting to get a bunch of people to take

(51:24):
micro loans. Um this, this does not lead us into
fascism at all. But you know, okay, like this works, right,
Lula is able to grow the economy, like Brazil's economic
growth this period just like seven percent, which is sucking nuts,
like year on year. Um he leaves office, was I've
seen it, ultimately said, it's like an eighty five or
ninety cent a proof of rating. He's unbelievably popular, and

(51:50):
you know, so every everything like looks good, right kind
of from inside Brazil, it looks like the PC has
succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of everyone. They've been like
they've been a successful social democratic party and that they've
lifted a most people out of poverty. There's like people
who are alive because like who are alive today who
would not be because the PT was in power, right

(52:13):
and you know, like there are people who don't starve,
there are people who don't go hungry, there are people
who have opportunities, like educational opportunities to opportunities to them,
so the first time ever, and it's a successful capitalist
government too, because again seven percent year und of your growth, right,
like this is fucking nuts, Like this is this is
a kind of economic growth that is like unimaginable in
in most parts of the world. However, Comma, if this

(52:35):
at all actually worked, we wouldn't be here right now
with I, you know, the fascist president going into like
hiding and so next episodes, you know, March I've been
to I've been talking about grave diggers sort of this episode. Right,
there's there's a famous part of the Communist Manifestory talks
where where Mark talks about like capital like capitals in

(52:57):
producing its own grave diggers, and capitalism has never done that,
right like like to to to this day right now,
capitalism has as yet to produce his own grave diggers.
Social Democracy has Bruce's own grave diggers in every single
fucking country anyone's ever done it. And the next episode,
in next episode, we're going to watch the pt brduce's
own grave diggers, and we're going to watch them attempt
to bury Louise and Nasio, Lula da Silva and the

(53:18):
rest of the Brazilian working class a live. Oh good,
You want to do a Bolsonara update because he's apparently
left the building. Oh ship, okay, yeah, Bolsonara up the weight.
Bolsonara has left the building. Hold on breaking breaking news.
He left the palace finally, Yeah, in a convoy of
black SUVs. Hope he's expected to break the silence. Yeah,

(53:40):
so I'm looking at Benjamin fogelh he's pretty good on this. Yeah,
he's expected to break the silence, but not to congratulate
Lula on winning. Jesus Christ is I have lost good bye. Okay,
So yeah, there might be a if I don't know
what we're gonna do, if there's a coup in between
in between this episode and the next episode, hopefully not,

(54:02):
I don't know. I mean I want one thing that,
like I will say and that I think we we're
gonn talk a bit about next episode. Is it? Like
part of what's happening right now that's very important is
that Biden is an office in the US. And I mean, okay,
so the Brazilian military is a long history of doing coups,
but usually when they're doing coups, they're doing cous with
the backing of the US government. And Biden, like just

(54:25):
on a personal level, fucking hates Bullsonaro. And there is
a there is a very real chance that this is
a significant factor in why we haven't seen a coup.
Is literally, the President of the United States personally does
not like the vastiest president of Brazil. And this is
a fucking batshit state of affairs, right, Like the fact
that like the like personal inclinations of the President of

(54:47):
the United States has as much of an impact on
like the politics of an entire country is nuts. And
this happened in the other direction for a while, right,
Like it's I guess not personally, just a nine connection
of the president in that case. Yeah, well there's weird
things here too, because like like Lula was really friendly

(55:09):
with it with Bush, which I think is why part
of why he never like they never tried to cut him,
who called him the devil? Yeah, just friends, right, Travis
gives the speech about how like everyone has the road
like at the at the social form gives how everyone's

(55:29):
existing in their own like conditions. So you can't expect, like,
you know, you can't expect Lula to be Travis, you
can't expect Raaves to be Castro like stuff like that. Yeah,
but it's it's weird. Hopefully Bill Snarow fucking leaves office.
If not, I don't know, But either way, I don't know.
Things are the history of Brazil dream. This period is

(55:55):
also kind of bleak, but after this period is way
the funk bleaker. So yeah, we're gonna talk about that
tomorrow and yeah, we'll update you if there is a
Q it could happen. Here is a production of cool
Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit
our website Cool zone media dot com or check us

(56:17):
out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or
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It could happen here, Updated monthly at cool zone media
dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.