The Brazilian Election Part 3: The Sowers Reap, The World Burns

In our final episode on the Brazilian elections we look at the US backed crusade against the PT and talk about the nature of corruption.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It could happen here. It's it's it could happen here.
It's the podcast that's happening right now. Um yeah, it's
it's about things that you know about. It's there are
our third and final episode about the Brazilian elections. It's me, Chris,
It's it's I'm here with James Stout. Hello, Hi Chris.
So we have we have an update on on this situation,

(00:26):
which is that j R. Bosonaro Okay, he's still he's still.
I don't think has publicly announced defeats, but he apparently
told the Supreme Court quote it's over. So he seems
to have committed defeat, which has not stopped a bunch
of his followers from calling for a military coup. Yeah. People,

(00:47):
I still seem to be blocking roads, right, Yeah, it's happening.
I don't know. I yeah, it's it's it's sort of
uncleared in me to what extent his followers are going
to back down. I don't think there's really much chance
for a military coup at this point, Like they seem

(01:08):
to have just lost. I read something earlier about Bulsonaro
making plans to like so it's like there's like a
like a sash thing you're supposed to hand over to
the next president, and he was making plans to not
be in the country when Lula took office. I was
gonna have his vice president handed over instead, which is
like this is like the most whiney baby ship I've
ever seen, which is like, God, what a loser. Holy fuck,

(01:33):
Like first as as tragedy, and then as fast and
then as fast, yeah, and continually as fast like that
that's how the right operates, right, Yeah. I actually almost
had that, Like I I actually almost started the Lula
episode with that quote, and then I was like, well
his return. I was like that, that's that's too mean

(01:54):
to say about Lula, Like it hasn't been first yet,
Like yeah, but Bulsonaro is so boy, Yeah, he's going
to go and spend more time with the novel Coronavirus. Yeah,
it's withdrawing from politics, you know. I heard that. There's
a great line in one of the things I was
talking about that Milton's in the fog piece from illabow
yesterday where they they talked about like I meet their

(02:16):
exact quote it was something like but Boston, it wasn't
It's not just that Bolsonaro failed the like failed to
respond to coronavirus, is that he was a vector for
the for coronavirus. And I was like, yeah, this is
this is both literally and metaphorically true, Like several of
the outbreaks are just from Bolsonaro. Absolutely amazing. Yeah, real,

(02:39):
real piece of shit. Um yeah yeah, So today we're
gonna talking about the very specific so we we we've
been last episode talking about sort of like the the
enormous army of grave diggers that the PT had sort
of built around them, and this episode is going to
be about like how their grave was actually sort of

(03:00):
built and then filled in. Um so I talked about
in episode one. Um there was in twous five. I
think I might have actually accidentally said us six in
the original episode, but it dealsn't five. There's just a
giant corruption scandal involving the Workers Party that like shakes
all up Brazil. And basically, the the short version of

(03:22):
it is that a bunch of senior members of the
PET were accused of bribing members of the Central sent Throw,
who is like Brazil sort of like perennial elite corruption faction,
to like buy their votes to get bills passed, which
honestly like I'm okay with this, like that we're gonna
talk about some corruption later that like does suck. Uh,
This I think is fine, Like I'm I am, I

(03:43):
am okay, Like I I'm gonna put this on the
record at me, Christopher Wong, I am okay with literally
just buying the votes of like weird corrupt right wingers
to get them to vote for legislation that's actually good.
Like whatever, I don't care about this, like this is bullshit,
Like who cares um? But that that said, I okay,

(04:06):
So this entire episode, like well, ok at the first
like three quarters episode, this is this is this episode
is like a lot about corruption, and before we need
to go any further, like we need to talk about
like what corruption actually is and about the politics of it.
So okay, I want to say this as someone who
lives in Okay, So I think most our listeners understand

(04:29):
that Chicago is notoriously corrupt. I didn't grew up in Chicago.
I grew up in Chicago's even more corrupt suburbs. Like
I literally watched a mayor sell physically sell city Hall
to the highest bidder, Like she actually literally physically sold
city Hall Like this this is the kind of ship
you get out in the suburbs, Like it is fucking

(04:52):
mind boggling, right, like that that that that that wasn't
my town, but like I have seen some ship, right,
And Okay. The thing, the thing I can say about
government corruption is that there are two kinds of people
in the world. There are people like Chicagoans who understand
that every single politician, no matter, like every single politician whatsoever,
is going to rob you blind because they're all corrupt.

(05:12):
And you know, there's a sort of like a more
analytical culinary to this, which is that, like corruption, corruption
is just a structural tendency of the state, right. It's
it's a product of state officials like having access to
the state's enormous supply of resources. It's a product of
the kind of structural incentives that like being in a
state produces. And it's a it's a product of the
fact of the state, you know, acquires resources through violence.

(05:33):
And you know, Okay, so there's people who understand this
on various levels, right, Like I mean, this is genuinely
the thing about scocos, Like everyone gets it, Like you
don't have to convince people. And then there's a bunch
of people, like like the other category of people are
people who genuinely think that like politics is about people
debating political principles and that like if we just make
slightly better arguments and like have slightly better land use policies,

(05:56):
and politicians who literally spends all day taking bribes and
develop brutual like somehow end homelessness or something that like
somehow like like like corruption is a matter of political principles,
Like no, no, they're all that they're all doing this
to you, Like you guys, you kind of understand of this. Yeah,
It's it's very funny, and it's like we don't get

(06:16):
enough credit for ourruption san Diego for like right, yeah,
and run by the Sea as San Diego. But it's
very funny to see people being like, oh, there can't
be corruption because identity politics this or because not Donald Trump.
Right then, like this is the nature of the state,
especially the state under capitalism, especially state under capitalism in

(06:38):
the United States, is that like you don't get funk
all unless you pay for it. Yeah, although I will
say this corruption is a policy of the state is
essentially trans ideological, like the reddest communist, brown is fascist
and the most bleeding heart red, white and blue capitalists
all take bribes, they all give contracts to the family,
and they all steal money from the government. Like you
can tell this by the fact that the US is

(06:59):
literally like, the US just made it legal to give
like they made it legal for a corporation to give
money to a candidate in order to have the vote
a certain way. This is legal. Nazi Germany corrupt a ship.
The USS are famously insanely corrupt like this. This is
not this is not actually a productive ideology. It's it's
it's it's it's just it's just a sort of structural
like tendency of the state. And it doesn't meant like
the military kiaderships are corrupt like the fun like the

(07:22):
like the parliamentric democracies are corrupted, like this is this
is just this is just like how the state works,
right um and and the like. So political corruption genuinely
isn't that interesting, right, like the actual politics of it,
Like it's not that interesting, Like it's just people just corrupt, right,
What is interesting is anti corruption politics. And we need
to get this out of the way immediately. It is

(07:43):
simultaneously true that like almost no one openly supports corruption
like it's it's it's it's like almost impossible to find
anyone who will come out on the record and say
their pro corruption, like like you can't do it right
And it's and it's also true that like every single
one of these people on the across the entire political
spect is corrupt and you know, and and and the

(08:04):
you know and no, no politician is actually anti corruption.
This this is something that's very very important to understand.
None of these people are sucking anti corruption. This. This
is sort of this is one of the lessons of Chicago,
which is that all of the sort of anti corruption
crusaders are like just as corrupt as people they're replacing.
But this is part of the way, Like uh, and
I want to go extreme marcusa but like the like
this idea, this false choice, right, the corruption and in

(08:26):
itself creates a means for another person who is equally
corrupt to enter simply by claiming to be anti corrupt, right,
like and then this weekend just kind of continually one
up each other and claiming to be different and doing
the same ship and people will embrace his fucking false choice. Yeah,
and you know, we're gonna see this in this story
later on, I will give you a preview of where
this is going. So Sergio Morrow, who is this judge?

(08:48):
He was like Brazil's like great anti corruption crusader, uh,
turns out to have been funding is quote unquote anti
corruption investigations by selling illegally selling information to the FBI
and then getting paid and find and uh find money
collected by the have some successful corruption prosecutions. She also
is going to like very blatantly and pretty openly take
a job as the as Brazil's justice minister in exchange

(09:13):
for putting Boston's political opponents in prison. Magnificent. Okay, yeah,
and and you know, so okay, what's the thing that's
important about this, right is that anti corruption is not
a real politics, right, Like it's not it's not an
actual real sense of political political positions. Right. What it
is is the set of politics ukn roubs with. But

(09:35):
it turns out is really really good at conning rooms
because people really fucking hate corruption. And and that the thing,
the thing, the thing that being like an an anti
corruption quote unquote candidate does is it lets anyone like
appear to be the sort of like populous champion of
the people against the corrupt elite. And this is really
useful to the right into sort of not just so
the rime, it's really useful to sort of like bourgeois

(09:56):
like capitalist politicians in general, because there are a lot
of times where in order to sort of protect their interests,
you know, or protect the interests of like their specific
faction of the ruling class, they need to win an election,
and they need to win the sort of hearts of
minds of the people who see that the world sucks
and like reflectively hate quote unquote the establishment because they
know they're getting screwed. And the easiest way to sort
of con these people is to take up the politics

(10:17):
of anti corruption. It's it's it's it's it's it's it's
like the absolute picture perfect neoliberal politics, right, Like Rudy Giuliani,
for example, Um, god is start going after the mob
in New York and you know, and what what heither,
right really because he goes off to the mob because
the anti coruption guy, and then he replaces them with
like even more efficient and extractive neoliberal bureaucratic parasites. Yeah,

(10:39):
and it's perfect, Like, yeah, in terms of near liberalism
right in terms of completely avoiding a class analysis, because
you can you can appeal to people who are genuinely
oppressed and marginalized by the system, right by saying, I'll
go against this corrupt system which is oppressing in Mogetizes
and you, but also to the boigeoisie, cause you can say, oh,
the reason you're fucking business is not a successful he
doesn't wanted his corruption, so just vote for me and

(11:01):
we'll sort that out, and you can continue explaining the
workers who I'm also appealing to. Yeah, and and you know,
like Giuliani specifically, like he is his name is just
literally a punchline now, right, like it's it's not it's
not even worth talking about him fucking like chomping on
a cigar doing an ad for a cigard company the
middle melody, right like like but but but you know

(11:22):
they're selling flip flops now, isn't that something like that?
But but that's the thing, Like the anti corruption stuff
was really really good for his career. And you know,
this is the poll does anti corruption is the politics
at the Brazilian right finally figures out as like the
only thing that goes out the Workers Party drug or
not now Like in and five, the corruption case brings
down a whole bunch of sort of like high profile

(11:43):
PT party members, but it doesn't touch Lula himself, who
is like he has this rep like he basically similar
to Reagan, is just like the teflon president. Everything just
bounce off of him. But you know, the rights and
five really thinks that they've got him, and they're like, Okay,
we're to crush him this next election, everything's gonna go
back to normal. And then you know, and it is

(12:04):
true that from two compared to two thousand two, Lula
does have less support than two six. He goes from
of the vote to a whopping sixty percent of the vote. Yea,
So okay, so this didn't work right, But the right
still sees it like this is the only thing they've
been able to come up with. It like actually damages

(12:25):
the PT at all. And and and she's also fourteen a
judge named Sergio Morrow, who have we've our Morrow? Who
again we have given you the spoiler This is like,
this is one of the most corrupt dudes, and like
the history of Brazilian politics. But he he goes after
he finds like a different corruption ring to go after
that he's not a part of. And and I think
it's it's important to understand sort of from the outside
of this, right that like this anti corruption stuff is

(12:49):
essentially like a newer faction or like a slightly different
faction of the Brazilian ruling class going after another faction
of the Brazilian ruling class. So he finds he's this
thing that that becomes known as Lava Jatto or Operation
car Wash UM. And what moral is going after is
this legitimately genuinely enormous corruption rings surrounding Petro Boss, which

(13:12):
is brazil state owned oil company UM. And the investigation
leads to the arrests of an enormous number of government officials.
Like there's like some of the richest people in Brazil
go to jail, like and it is true that like,
like there is an enormous amount of corupt like there
are billions and billions of dollars that are that are
being sort of stolen from the oil company right through

(13:32):
sort of like contracts and like payoffs and stuff. UM.
But we also get to some real like lepers eating
people's faces party ship here as well. Where Okay, so
it has in thirteen deal with russef signs a law
that massively expands police powers that includes, in particular, allowing
them with no strings attached, to offer plea bargains of

(13:53):
people to get there, they confess the stuff and like
give the cops information they want to hear, which is,
like Jenny Winely, really unethical because for a lot of reasons, right,
like the whole plea burgaining system is like the reason
like one of the reasons the whole U S just
system is completely sucked up because everyone just fucking please
out instead of going to trial because they know they
know they're like every everyone is pretty sure they're gonna lose,
and so people, you know, people will just pleading ship

(14:14):
they didn't do because they have no chance of winning
the case. It's completely fucked up. And Russo's like, nah, yeah,
fuck it, like we're gonna sign this, like you know,
And I like, I get that, like she she was
responding to like the protests, and I get that she
thought it would mostly be used against like fucking protesters
or some ship, But like, who did you think this

(14:34):
was going to be used against? Yet? Why come on,
like seriously, just it's like it is simultaneously true that
there was like an incredibly coordinated, sophisticated like like a
joint American Brazilian like intelligence and like justice state operation

(14:57):
to bring down the PT. It's also true that the PT,
like like the reason they were able to be decapped
so like so easily is that like they'd spent the
last like six years like firing rounds over and over
again into their own knees. So like, Okay, these things
are both through at the same time. But okay, and
so the loveto like eviscerates an enormous part of the

(15:18):
sort of a section of the Brazilian ruling class. But
it very quickly becomes clear that it's being used as
a political weapon against Muse and the PT, despite the
fact that like literally every Brazilian Paul like party is
involved with this. Like I think the pso L might
be like the only major Blizilian political party who wasn't

(15:38):
involved in this, and like that's because I don't think
they had anyone who was senior enough to do it,
so like you know, but but but you know, everyone
instead like just is using this to go is like
very clearly using this to go off to the PT.
The problem is that like and this is this is
gonna be a perennial problem with these investigations is that

(16:02):
they can't actually directly dale Delma Russof or Lula with
doing anything that they have real problems with this. Um.
You know, Delma wins re election to US in fourteen,
but he also fifteen there are these as Lava was
like going and there's this enormous fucking press fury around it. Um,
there are these massive sort of anti corruption protests demanding

(16:24):
that like she resigned. That's ripped up by like again
like the right wing media goes just completely batshit in
this period. Um, and you know, okay, so again morals
running into this problem that he can't find anything that
Dylan Russof did that was illegal, so he starts relying
on political theater instead. He and and uh, he starts

(16:45):
stages these this like enormous series of raids on like
Lula's house as nonprofit, like he's like like his brother's business,
and you know, with the entire press court like they're
right like with other stage for all these raids, they
d agg him off to like jail for questioning. But again,
like they don't really have anything they kind of like
invent this case, but Lula based on some convoluted shit

(17:09):
about a property that he didn't own. It's like, you know,
the the thing here basically is that, like as with
all crocer scandals, right, this is this is a fight
between parts of the ruling class. Right, Like the actual
details of who's taking money from who are essentially irrelevant
because that's not what actually matters, right, What matters here
is that like the sort of rooting prosecutors have decided

(17:30):
they're going to destroy the PT, and you know they're
the PT has helped them do it at every step. Um,
It's not just the prosecutors right there. It's like there's
there's like press plus prosecutors plus plus a bunch of
political parties too. It's so not to draw a comparison
where it's not necessarily entirely valid, but like, look at
the United Kingdom, right, we have Boris Johnson like monumentally

(17:52):
fucking up the COVID response, tons of people die, and
it's not that that brings him down. It's that he
had a suitcase of wine in a carrier a key
party like because at some point, but it's the appearance, right,
It's this political theater of accountability, like, but you're not
actually accountable to the people who you let down on
the people who you lied to your accountable to, like
seventeen media editors Murdoch, right, and every brazil has its

(18:16):
own versions of Murdoch who are like it's yeah, I
can only imagine like people people to who if I
if I said my actual opinions on them, like the
the FCC would specifically start regulating podcasts because like, oh boy,
all these people should redacted parody, etcetera, etcetera. Have like

(18:38):
a five minute bleep here Christmas. So okay, but but
again so okay. They have this problem again which they
can't really get del Maroussa for anything, and so what
happens instead is that the Brazilian Senate is sort of
like scrambling for something they can use and what they
eventually impeached Delmi to for is this like accounting procedure

(19:02):
thing basically that like everyone does. And when I say
everyone does, like almost every previous president like every every
like every single like like uh what's it called? Like
every single like uh, why am I blanking? Governor? Is
at the right word? Yeah, Like the people who are
like the heads of states. Yeah, I think like all

(19:23):
the governors do this, like fucking literally everyone in Brazilian
politics does is, including some of the people who are
signing like the fucking i uh impeachment thing. But they
remove her from this and okay, so like a part
of the like the sort of sort of like like
decrepit and despise neoliberal right takes power. But the normal

(19:47):
part thing here is that she's Dylar Russaf is impeached
by her own allies, right, she is impeached like Michael Timer,
the guy who replaces Russaf like winds up as presidents
because dil maroussof bade him her VP. Like it's just
like you know, and this this is this is dating

(20:08):
back to like this this is like really old sort
of pet political maniver stuff dating back to like Lula
finally winning out over the sort of pt basis in
two thousand two, right, where he's able to convince them
to like have a sort of like conservative guy like
be his running mate. And here this this is this
is where this finally goes to ship because the pt
IS making alliances were sort of like set the right

(20:29):
parties and all these corruption parties and it's like, okay,
you allied yourself, Like I understand the reason they were
doing this was that the sort of central which is
like the sort of corruption parties have enough votes that
you kind of have to work with them. But also like,
what did you expect was gonna happen? Like did you
did you really not expect that the leverage We're going

(20:50):
to eat your face? Like okay, it's you know, like
it's really like okay, like you let a mosquito into
your house and you are now like fun Pikachu facing
because they because the mosquito bait you. It's like really
like you know, and this all comes back to sort
of like the things I've been talking about in last
two episodes about like the inherent contradiction of being a

(21:12):
leftist and happy to having to keep the state and
having to run a state. We have to keep the
economy going, right, which again it means that you have
to make sure that capitalists get money. And Lulu could
just pay these people off like literally or figuratively, because
he was he's benefiting from the commodity boom, right, But
then when the Chinese economy goes under and suddenly the
money dries up because the quality boom is over and
the Brazilian economy starts to collapse, like you know, there
there's nothing to pay off the boorgeoisie with and you know, deliverselves,

(21:37):
like she's trying to pay them off, but you know,
in order to fund it. Now, now she's doing austerity
and that's sapping her and that's sapping her base because
you know, okay, you have to choose one or the other.
But she's not. But again, but she's also not able
to pay off enough of the bores you to stop
this from coming, and so they off her and you know, okay,

(21:58):
So the PT peach supporters will describe what happens like
that this impeachment as a coup, which is like true,
like as far as it goes like it is true
that like a bunch of absolute like psychopaths, like just
like overthrew the democratically elected president on for bullshit. Um.
I actually think it's less of a coup than the
next the next thing we're gonna get to. Um. But yeah,

(22:22):
so okay, so the product of this is that Michael Timer,
who was it like just an unfathomable neoliberal goool, like
I really like, oh god, like it's really one of
the worst people ever. Um who again rusself picked us
her VP, becomes President Intel spent the next two years
like so if Draco Malfoy grew up, this is what

(22:47):
he would look like. Yeah, no, it's it's it's really incredible.
Yeah you you you you do owe it to yourself
to look up. Yeah, it's manage Yeah, very streamlined, but otherwise, yeah, remarkable.
He just like he just looks like like exactly who
he is. Yeah, yeah, I cannot believe this guy succeeded

(23:08):
in politics when he looks like, yeah, an evil snake. Yeah.
I think he also got arrested for being even more
like Okay, so like like there is corruption going on
in the PT timer is the corruption party, right, Like
he actually goes down eventually. He is like unfathomably corrupt.

(23:31):
Like he goes down for like he took like it's
a bribe from a meat packer, right guy, Yeah, that
was one of these he funneled like a hundred and
eighty million dollars into like his politically like into like
his friends, and it's like unfat like okay, and this

(23:51):
stuff genuinely sucks, right, like it actually does suck that
literally hundreds of millions of dollars are being just like
fucking stolen by these ghouls, right, um, yeah, especially in
a country where like people genuinely struggled to get by
every single Yeah, and and and and I think it's
worth mentioning, like, like the level of poverty that we're

(24:12):
talking about here is like like again, like people who
don't have running water, people who live in deserts and
like don't have water at all, Like it is really
really bad. And you and and then you know, you're
you're you are watching just this bullshit happening, right like

(24:33):
this fucking like guy who God, just this is like
absolute fucking demon just stealing a hundred, like fifty billion dollars,
right Yeah, it's just like rich people playing monopoly with
your fucking future and your children's future. Yeah, but you know,
but but again, like tver, nobody, nobody fucking voted for

(24:55):
this guy, right like, and he's just immediately starts implementing
unfathomable atrocious austerity, and he like he has a seven
percent of rating. Everyone is called this is this is
the second lowest is the second lowest group of ready
I've ever seen for for a ruling politician. After Kim

(25:15):
Jung Pill, who I think got down to three percent
one day, I'm going to do an actual Kim junk
Pill episode. I feel like if you're within the error
margin of any polling, once you get into the single digits,
no one like you, like literally, like like remember like
people like people from his own party want him to resign, right,
and he just doesn't ges days in power because there's

(25:36):
no one, no one can do anything about it. Because
but you always get that right when you when you
engage in this politics of corruption, the like sort of
palace coups and internicing backstabbing will necessarily happen because like
that is how you further your own career and therefore
benefit more from the corruption. Right Like again, see the
cluster funck that is the United Kingdom. Now do you

(25:57):
know who else doesn't benefit from corruption? Like the rest?
I don't think we can say that with any degree
of certain decres. It's it's the products and services that
support this podcast. Okay, and and we're back, um and Okay,

(26:25):
this I think is a good at a time as
any to mention that, like, okay, so Lava Jotto is
going on this entire time. Right, this this thing is
going on for years and years and years and years,
and it's reiterating that Lava Jotto is being illegally backed
by the American just Department, Justice Department, the SEC, the

(26:46):
FBI probably all I think also the CIA, although weirdly
this is okay, And and this is where things get
very strange because this, like from the documents that we've seen,
there is some evidence the CIA handed them ship. The
thing we have the most events for is actually the
FBI running this coup. Weird, Yeah, it's very weird. What

(27:07):
was happening basically is that Okay, So, the way American
corruption laws work is that like if any money passes
through like an American bank account, the FBI has the
authority to go after them. And the FBI and the
Justice Department fucking hate the PT and they're they're they're
looking at Petro Boss and they're going like, this is
so much fucking money we can get if we go

(27:27):
after these people, and also we hate them, and and
it's also worth nothing. Okay, So, uh, Sergio Morrow is
like he's a Harvard guy, right, He's a Harvard guy.
He was trained by like a bunch of American police
people like he he is, like he's like one of
these sort of like he's he's a Nazi cool basically, right,
but like he's like the the law version of a
nax at cool and so the the entire like and

(27:50):
again it's it's funny like the FBI in theory is
not supposed to be Like the FBI is supposed to
be a domestic agency, which does not make them any better,
by the way, but like they're they're not supposed to
be going after like they're not supposed to be fined
overthrow the president of Brazil, but you know they are.
And again, like they are taking down the black panthers,
increasing anti Semitism, just the normal standard domestic Yeah, shooting anarchists,

(28:11):
shooting like possibly assassinating m ok um, Yeah yeah, that's
from them. Yeah. Not they're not supposed to be be doing
the four in trees, that's the CIA job. But they're
they're muscling into the CIA's territory here. Um. It's it's
it's worth mentioning as well that like the Obama administration

(28:32):
is heavily involved in this, right, Um. And you know
it turns out that by the time you get to
sixteen Trump ministrate tries amte trumsministrations of power. They love
this ship because it's Trump. It's like wow, damn who
could have guessed? Yeah that is wow. Yeah yeah and
and as and this is gonna come out, It's gonna
come out later. Um by this okay, this is the
second time that Glenn Greenwald is just handed like one

(28:55):
of the biggest news stories of the decade, like literally
dropped on his lap and he gets to like right
about it is that Yeah, it comes out that like
this stuff is being politically like very obviously politically motivated.
Like sorry, Morrow's like openly cutting deals with Bolsonaro to
the political persecutions. Uh there's again again, the stuff about
how he's being paid by He's literally getting like the

(29:17):
task Force is being funded by the FBI through these
slush funds of of find money collected from Petro boss.
Like it's unbelievably shady shit. Um. Now the entire time
this is going on, Serge to Morrow has been like
illegally wire tapping Lula's conversations and leaking them to the
press to like destroy Lura and politically it's and you

(29:42):
know and like like operation car Washed, like prosecutors are
just like going on TV and telling the entire Brazilian
public like, no, Lula is guilty, there's no doubt about it.
And then and she wasn't. Seventeen Morrow has Lula convicted.
Now Lula appeals as on the grounds that like this
is incredibly obviously a show trial. Like but by the
because there's a lot of you will read a lot

(30:02):
of like like the sort of liberal press in the
US like fucking loves this ship and like he doesn't
fourteen doesn't he's on sixtees somebody seventeen but like but
she doesn't seventeen. Even the sort of American liberal press
is like, hey, you're running these trials too fast, Like
these don't look like real trials anymore. Like he's like
there there's there's like it really is like they stopped

(30:24):
having even the pretense that it's not being show trials
are just like convicting people, convicting people, convicting people, convincing people,
and like you know, in the Luta case, there's some
interesting stuff, which is that like, Okay, Morow doesn't have
the legal jurisdiction to prosecute Lula here, like the crimes
that were supposedly committed, aren't committed in a place where
where Barrow has any jurisdiction at all, Like it's another

(30:45):
state and he just doesn't anyways because he's just like
fuck it, like whatever. And so it's more of a
vibe when youreal city government. Yeah. Well, and and again
like this is the thing, like people people get really
really really hung up about legal technicalities and that ship
and as we're about to see in that in in
this case, right like that ship does not matter, right,

(31:06):
this this is entirely about sort of power, about power
brokering and sort of like where where where the Brazilian
elite is in a particular time, who's backing what Lula
puts in a petition? If he puts in a rid
of habeas corpus, that's like, hey, there's stuff in the
constitution that's like I shouldn't be put in prison until
my appeals are done. And this goes to the Supreme Court,

(31:26):
at which point a fucking Brazilian general who apparently be
this this this apparently was planned by fifteen other generals.
Uh who I I got a guy named Edward at
edwardo Vilas Bolas like literally sorts threatening the Supreme Court
on Twitter and like he's like he starts employing and

(31:47):
this tweet is read on Globo, which is like the
fucking like like big, big, biggest news network in Brazil.
They like read out this tweet, like the subtext of
which is, if you don't put Luley in jail, we
are going to do a coup. So they dragged Lula
off to prison and they put him in solitary for
five and eighty days, which is like yeah, yeah, they

(32:10):
they they are like they are torturing the shoot out
of him, um Jesus yeah, yeah, yeah, living out there
like fucking like you know, like previous generation of coups
against Latin American like chopping Victor Halla's hands off fantasy. Yeah,
And like I said, you know, I would say that's

(32:31):
like Lula. Lula has was arrested by the military dictatorship
in the eighties, right, But even the military tatorship only
held him for thirty days and then let him go nothing.
The neo liberals they're they're like they're trying to put
him in prison. The fourth things like it's originally seven
years in the sixt end of the twelve years, um,
and there's this whole thing. But like she's also like
not allowed to speak to the press during this time.

(32:51):
And the reason this is happening is that if you're
in prison, you can't run for president, and ins an eighteen,
if Lula's run allowed to run for president, even with
all the press ship, he is going to fucking stop
literally anyone in the field. Yeah and yeah, so this
is going up. But before we talk about the election
a little bit and then sort of wind down, there's

(33:11):
one more thing I want to talk about, which is
that four days before Lula is arrested, Mariella Franco, who
is a incredibly radical City City councilor and real dejan Narrow,
is assassinated by death squad. Um. There there's a lot
of coverage of like who she was sort of like
there's a lot of coverage of her story about how
she's a black, lesbian woman who came who like was

(33:33):
from an incredibly for poor family and the favelas and
how she sort of like worked a way out to
your politician, but like they don't talk about you know,
people will sort of obliquely mentioned her human rights work,
or they'll talk a bit about how she's part of
the PSOL which is his leftist party that like, Okay,
so I'm still I supose it. I'm looking I'm so
kind of hazy about their exact serty. I think what
happened was there was a group of ptole of of

(33:56):
PT like politicians who were used to vote for an
austerity package the PT was trying to push through and
they got kicked out of the party for it, and
they found at the PSOL um and you know, they
they'll talk about sort of this stuff. What what they
won't cover really is what she was actually doing. And
I think this is like, this is incredibly important because

(34:19):
the thing she was actually doing was a bunch of
very radical and unbelievably dangerous anti police activism. Um So,
in TuS eight, this is again under Lula's Pizza government,
that there was a re orientation of police strategy and
the favelas tours. This new program called Pacifying Police Units
u p p s, and the idea was in instead
of doing constant raids and the favelas and then leaving them,
they were just gonna put them under like constant police occupation.

(34:43):
And you know, like there's something like four hundred thousand
people at a time are just living under these occupations.
And in the beginning, it's supposed to be tied to
like so like there's supposed to be like an expansion
of like social services into the favelas and supposed to
be like community policing, and that just doesn't happen. And
but he hasn't thirteen, They just like give up the
pretense of doing any social work, and they found this

(35:06):
thing called Tactico groups of proximity police, which very quickly
turned into just like fucking desk squads. But they're but
they're they're they're both desk squads, and they're also doing
like stopping frisk ship and just like carassing random black people.
There's they're just murdering people on the streets um on
a scale that is like it's worse than has been before,
like that there were individual police unit. There's an individual

(35:26):
police unit becomes a hundred and seventeen people in a
year like it is. It is fucking horrible, right, And
this is what I was talking about about the Brazilian
police killing killing at a rate that's eleven times tire
in the American police like it is. It is fucking atrocious. Um.
And there are some incredible videos of yeah, like it's
fucked um and they're war with parts of their own population. Yeah.

(35:50):
I mean I say this like this is this is
one of those things about fascism, right where like fascism
like always kind of has we're in the system of
alliances between sort of like the police paramilitaries who are
sort of tied to the police, and organized crime, and
you know, like that there is an extent to which
there are a bunch of gangs and the police are

(36:11):
finding them. There's also an extent to which like everyone
involved is just shaking down all of these fucking like
unbelievably poor uh largely black, like working class people who
are just getting fucking robbed every day. It's horrible. Um. Yeah.
And it's that where it might be a bit of
a side by that we we don't like we need

(36:32):
to fit in here, but in this case we can
distribute it. But there's a I know that one of
the big Brazilian prison gangs is like ostensibly leftist. They're
like they called Red Command, right, Yeah, I think I
think is it really it's command at Yeah, so they
they used to be yeah, so so okay, Red Command

(36:55):
used to be like an m L group that was
like a sort of like alliance between like regular people
in prison and like left us people who've been put
in prison. Yeah, and it it does a similar thing
to like like there are parts of the farc that
go like this. There's a lot of there's a thing
that happens when you're dealing with sort of armed groups

(37:17):
like this, which is that. Okay, So like a lot
of the things that you do to get money as
an armed group are things that are away to get money,
So things like kidnapping, things like entering the drug trade.
And there's a lot of groups to start out ideological
that just cease to be ideological and the people well,
which is in the drug right now, And this is
kind of what happens here with these people. But okay,
there's actually this actually does tie into this because so

(37:40):
Marilla Franco like spends her entire life like fighting these people.
She she gets she gets a sociology degree, and like
what she's doing and like while she's doing sociology stuff
is she's like making reports and like like telling everyone
like what these people are doing, like what what what
the funding police are doing? And when she dies, like
there's a fucking judge who's like, actually, uh, what happened

(38:02):
was that she was she was she was working with
Red Command and she got behind her debt payments and
they killed her. And it's like this is some fucking bullshit,
like like she so we think is we actually still
don't really know much about like who killed her? Right,
we know that one of the one of the people
who's being tried for the getaway driver was like pictured
with Bolsonaro's there's a bunch of weird ties to like

(38:24):
Bolsonaro's brother, because Bolsonaro's very, very heavily tied into a
bunch of arm paramilitary groups. It works well for everyone
to have these groups that they campaign as like the
Great Satan, right Like the police can be like we're
com back to the gangs, and gangs can be like,
well you all hate the fucking police, right like, and
then they, yeah, they could just blame anyone else whenever
there is and it's like the self supporting structure. Yeah.

(38:46):
But then but every once in a while you get
some and that that's like Arriolar Frank, Like she's a
very very rare kind of person, like she she winds
up as a city council. Right, she's she's a very
very rare kind of politician who like everyone liked like anes,
Like everyone on the left likes, like you're even you're
sort of like like most hardcore like fucking guy in

(39:07):
like like it was your most like hardcore guy in
like a tiny mL sect and like your most hardline anarchists.
Like everyone likes her because she's doing she's doing like
she's every day putting her life in danger trying to
stop the police. And you know, and when when you
get someone like that who is not part of this
sort of like it's not part of either of these factions, right,
and who was a genuine threat to both of them,

(39:28):
because she is unbelievably popular. She she gets the fifth
most votes of anyone. Like who's who's running for city
counselor and she's doing it again running for the PSOL.
Who's like they have like five seats I think in
in the Senate or something like that, Like like they're
not like they're not like that. They are a kind
of large party, but they're not like one of the
party is ever gonna like win a national election, right

(39:48):
like and but you know, but she she is an
incredible threat to them, and so they have her killed.
We know that the bullets that were at that that
she was killed by were part of a batche that
was sold by the police. We know that from from
another one of the batches that was in that sequence. Uh,
there's a bunch of other people who were killed by
the police. And this is also like wait, sold to

(40:09):
the police, are sold by the police, sold by the police,
magnificent good Yeah, yeah, there, you know. And there's a
lot of stuff going on here too, which is like
there are a lot of activists in Brazil who get killed,
like this is this happens all the time. There are
a lot of digits activists, you get killed. There a
lot of black activists to get killed or are just
like if you piss off the wrong person, like you
can just get executed. And this assassination is one of

(40:31):
the symbols of it because like she was a city councilwoman, right,
Like she was part of a major political party and
they just fucking shot her. Yeah, and no one's been
held accountable. Yeah, it's it's fucking horrible. Um I I yeah,
I don't really have I don't have any sort of
like clever thing to say here, it's just it's just
fucking awful. There's one more thing I need to mention,

(41:03):
which is that Okay, so the thing she was doing
like like literally literally she was at a conference, like
she she was killed, like driving home from a conference, right,
And the thing she was doing like literally in the
days leading up, like leading up to her assassination was
um so, Michael Timer has this thing called the call
the qute unquote federal intervention, which was apparently like extremely
popular in Brazil, which is like a sign of how

(41:26):
fucked up everything is, which is that he just like
it was like, fuck it, We're going to hand control
of quote unquote security and real desannarrow to the army
and let them like go to war with the gangs. Yeah, fucked,
unbelievably fucked. And she she is too, takes an incredibly
bold chance against us and is trying is trying to
fight it, and then she is mysteriously assassinated. Yeah, it's
a bit like you know how like you obviously people

(41:49):
will say that fascism is like the return of colonials
into domestic policy, right, colonial colonial methods in the metrooral
instead of in the colonies, and like this is similar here, right,
Like what you're seeing is just they're doing a colonialism
but just to pull people. Yeah, although I should mention
a lot of us and that analysis has developed in

(42:09):
like like is developed for Europe, and the Brazilian context
is not the same thing as that because like Brazil
was also doing all of this stuff to its own population,
because again Brazil has a mass like like like Brazil's
settler colony that was also a slave state, right, so
all of this violence is just it's the same thing

(42:29):
that they've been doing since they got there. Like, yeah,
I mean, and this is something actually Lula talks about
a lot, which is like the people who have been
in power for five years are still in power. But
I think it's important to understand, like part of how
boll scenario is able to do what he does is
that everyone is already like everyone is already so primed
to just like back the fucking army coming in and

(42:51):
like right, like there's so much racism. There's so much
just like like there there there's this whole set of
law and ordership thing that's going on. And the sort
of product of all of this is in the Natian election,
the PT put in basically some right. I mean he's
not some random guy like he he was like like
he was like a kind of prominent politician. But they

(43:12):
basically run like some guy and he gets clawbball scenario.
And part of this is there's a lot of stuff
that happens here that's like very similar to sort of
US different just information campaigns, like there's all these like
Telegram groups going around where like yeah, his name is
Fernando Haddad. There's this whole thing about how he's gonna
like turn your kids gay and like he's a Satanist. Um, yeah,

(43:34):
so and then yeah, think it's interesting right because I
think people, um, there's this analysis like we have to
see everything through the lens of American politics, like the
Batonaro is the American the Brazilian Trump but like it's
and minority. This is not deep, but like it strikes
me that he embraces Catholicism to a degree that is

(43:57):
like much greater than like did religion. I mean it's interesting.
So like the London American context has, you know, it
has this like thing I think you think you know about,
which is like it's there there's this sort of right
wing Catholic evangelical alliance. Yeah, that is happening here. And
you know because like a whole bunch of of of
Bilsonaro's base is a ship ton of evangelicals. But he

(44:17):
he's like there's this sort of shared language around especial
specifically like around anti abortion stuff, around opposing gender ideology
and like feminism and stuff like that, where it's like, yeah,
you can you can do this sort of dog like
not even dog wasn't you can just sort of like
whistle at them and you know, and like it works.
And this is sort of like you know I and like, okay,

(44:39):
like if if I had any energy left in me,
I would probably do another episode that was like like
two three. I could do like a fucking year of episodes.
But everything that happened to their Billsonaro, Um, yeah, I'm
just gonna sort of hit some of the like low lights,

(45:00):
you know what you call it, like Bolsonaro. Okay, but
Bolsonaro managed to kill less people than Trump did, but
and also then Biden did. But Comma, he also killed
a fucking unfathomable number of people with COVID, Like he
refused to buy vaccines. He like it was like really

(45:21):
into the classic Cory Clean stuff like it started and
stuff like he like personally spread COVID to a bunch
of people, Like there's like one I think one of
the one of the most famous things that people know about,
like the sort of Bostionar regime is that the Amazon
was fucking burned because they're always like a huge part

(45:43):
of his base are us like basically legal loggers and
Bolsonaro just like fuck it, go like destroy all, destroy
all of this indigenous land, fucking killed the people on it,
and they've been just like annihilating the Amazon. Didn't He
also and I may again be completely off based on this,
didn't he breaks down a lot of the like from
Fu and I it's the Brasilian National Organization that, among

(46:05):
other things, does some sometimes problematic but protection of indigenous
people's didn't he like a dismantle a lot of the
structure of that and try and defend Yeah, and it did,
like Trump right, like it will take years to I
do this bullshit. It might never be on it like
and that that's like we're running out of sucking time,
right we didn't have Yeah, Well, and this this is

(46:26):
one of the things where like we have to hope
Lula actually fucking hold up to his word here, because like, okay,
so the PAC record of deforestation is way, way enormously
better than Bosonaro. But it's also true that a lot
of the sort of legal framework that Bosonaro has been
using to push this stuff like is stuff from the
PT And you know, I Lula has pledged to stop deforestation,

(46:47):
like I hope he does, or sucking everyone is going
to die. Yeah yeah, I mean there there's you know,
like everything that was like that I've talked about that
was bad before got enormously worse under boson The police
violence got worse and military violence got worse. Um, there's
just like he's able to sort of like do this
like enormous anti communist fervor um. But the problem is

(47:10):
that he kills like he kills too many people. That's
as much he's killing hselfterbas he is. But like the
thing is like he really just destroys the entire Brazilian
economy like his nukes it. And this costs him the
support of a bunch of the ruling class. And this

(47:32):
is actually the thing that this is like ultimately what
defeated Bolson Arrow is um like in as far as
we could even talk about a being what if he
did Bolsonaro personally is the fact that like he like
he loses it off for the ruling class that when
Lula appeals, like with Lula's actual case appeal goes to
the s Freme Court, they throw it out and say

(47:53):
Morrow like turns on him for a bit, although Morrow
and it comes back and endorses Bolsonaro in the election
because he's a piece of ship. But like, yeah, there's
he he loses a bunch of sort of the support
of the ruling class, and there's this kind of This
is the thing I think is kind of disturbing about
this election, even the Lula one, is that Lula did

(48:14):
this like giant United French strategy, right, like he pulled together,
like he was recognized by sort of everyone who post
poson arrows, like he's the only person who could stop him.
But this means that he's drawing a bunch of support
from the right. His his running mate in this election
is a guy named Gerda. I mean, yeah, this is
a guy that Lula beat by twenty points in an

(48:38):
election or thirty points something like that. Like this is
literally like a right wing guy Hulula fucking destroyed an
election and he had, and Lula brings him on as
a running mate because he's trying to sort of appeal
to like disaffected, Like he's he's running the sort of
like Biden suburban strategy, right, Like he's doing the like

(48:59):
an appeal to sort of or it voters thing, and like,
I mean, like and this is going on to the
point where like he's telling people like not to like
bring PT flags or like wear PT colors to rallies
because they're trying to downpl Yeah, because they're trying to
downplay the certified communism thing. And it doesn't really work
because like Bolsonarro's just calling him. Everyone's just calling him

(49:19):
a communist anyways, right, And and he like squeaks by
this fucking election, right, Like I mean, he probably wanted
by he probably would have wanted by a couple more
percent than the actual vote total shoulder hadn't been voter suppression,
but like it was close. And the other thing that's
really really bad about this is that I like the right,
like Bilsonaro's party like controls the Senate, so and and

(49:44):
this is the everything, right, if Bolsono's party can cut
enough deals and like jettison Billsonaro like bolson is um
like as a force is still there right like this
this this this sort of like fascist right has consolidated
as his own political force. And you know there's a
non zero chance that they just impeach Lula, right and
this we literally to watch this entire fucking cycle that
has happened again like right, like that this kind of
ship like this could happen. Um. Yeah, so things are

(50:09):
still not great, and yeah, Lula's actual hand to do
stuff here is very contruct I should also mention that
like I don't know, like there was literally like partying
in the streets in like like they were like they
were parties in the streets of cities that like he
didn't even win like like this this is like he

(50:30):
I don't know, like the fact that he won is
genuinely very good. Um, I have I don't know what
can be done to actually sort of defeat boll scenarios
and as a structural force because again, like he won
like of the vote, right, like that's still there, killing

(50:51):
like like a tens of thousands of his population and
being a general ship head. Yeah so yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't know what's the like I don't know, like
the like actual structural things have to change about both
the Brazilian political system, like the Bison political system, the police,

(51:13):
the military, and the economy have to structurally change or
we're or like we're gonna get gonna get another most
SNAr like this is what's happening in the US right,
Like there hasn't actually been a sort of structural shift
in like in the American playal systems that we're just
gonna get another Trump. Maybe it'll be actual Trump. Who knows,
like like like maybe this is the thing like until
until fascism is sort of like class base and based

(51:35):
in the state is destroyed, like and and it's it's
sort of ideological basin in sort of like righting constructions
of the family. It's religious based like a particular like
we're just we're gonna be back here and we're gonna
be sort of like continuously teetering between fascism and something
that's not fascism but has no way to oppose it,

(51:56):
and yeah, yeah that fucking sucks, um, but we keep
doing it, like we keep trying to defeat fascism by
running like closer and closer to fascism to pull away
like the marginal fascist. Okay, so here here's the thing.
I one thing, one thing I will give to Lula
is that like, okay, his way of doing this was
that a bunch of people found pictures of Bolsaaro and

(52:18):
illumin like like with a bunch of a lot, like
a bunch of like in Freemason robes, with a bunch
of Freemasons. And this I think genuinely may have cost Bolsonaro,
like like there's an argument this cost Bolsonaro like a
bunch of electric points with his own base because people
found this. There's another thing like like the day, like
a couple of days before the election, like an old

(52:38):
TV clip turned up of Bulson arms out of nowhere
saying quote, I would eat an Indian. Yes, yes, this
starting to acounabism. I mean this is like so like
this is really about his racism, right, but he's tarting
to a whole cannibalism thing. The Supreme Court ruled, like
I think incredibly cowardly because he did say this is
court ruled that he couldn't run, that Lula couldn't run
as calling him a cannibal. But you know, like there

(53:00):
was something like this like we're like like suddenly that
like there were like I don't know, like this is
and I will applaud at it for this, like he
hasn't really like he could have run an election where
he just fucking through his entire base under the bus
and was like insanely racist and was like no, I
hate queer people and I hate women, and like he
he could have he could have run a camp. You

(53:20):
could have run a Boston Our compannity. He didn't, right,
and and in so far as he was tapping into
right wing ship, he was tapping into hey, this guy
is a fucking this guy's in Freemason robes. It was
sort of it was sort of funny ship that like
it's probably not great that this is where the political
sphory is, but like like you know, okay, Bossolaro literally
said he would eat a human being. Is like I

(53:42):
would rather that be the kind of insane right wing
thing that's going around then, like I don't know, queer
people are going to murder your children or something, which
is like the normal ship that you hear. Yeah, and
it's in twenty sixteen. It's not like he said it
when he was eighteen six years ago. Like, yeah, I
think he said it's like a journalist as well, right, Jim, God, yeah,

(54:07):
it's a fucking terrible guy. You can imagine Donald Trump
saying he'd eat someone probably I think I think Donald Trump,
you'd have to prompt Bosonaro just unprompted. There was no
connection here. He was just like fuck it, No, I
am so racist. I'm just gonna say this. I don't know.

(54:27):
I wish, I yeah, I wish. I wish good luck
and good fortune and yeah, like victory to everyone in
Brazil who is fighting. Yeah Bosonaro, I help all these
I hope he fucking dies of COVID finally. Um yeah,
And I hope, I hope, but I really do hope
the Bosonarios can be defeated. Um yeah, I don't know,

(54:50):
like make better choices, pt please God, we can't do
this again. Yeah, I have bother people in Brazil would
continue to be impacted by this. This bullshit can have
better meaningful improvement to the lives and the selection, you know.
I mean, I will say like like this is proof
that like bull scenarioism isn't isn't undefeatable, right, Like it's

(55:13):
like the fact that he wasn't able to pull off
a military Q right, like, it is beatable. It's just
it's very very hard, and yeah, I mean and then
that this is true or fascist and everywhere. Right, it's
hard to beat, but it can be stopped, and we
are going to because the alternative is the fucking annihilation
of the earth. So yeah, fuck them, We're gonna win. Mhm.

(55:40):
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