The Brazilian Election Part 2: The Gravediggers of the Working Class

In part 2 of our series about the recent Brazilian election we look at how imperialism, the police, shifts in class composition, and PT collaboration with capitalists doomed the Brazilian working class

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
God is dead and the woke left have killed him.
Welcome to it could happen here the podcast where we
celebrate the destruction of JayR. Bolsonaro and the concept of
Christianity and the human soul, both of which happened recently
in Brazil. As as far as I understand from skimming

(00:26):
the news on Twitter. Um, how's everybody else doing today?
Utterly exhausted? But you know, such as such as, such
as such as the world without Christ destroyed. Yeah, that's
what That's what the woke mob did. Speaking of woke mobs,

(00:47):
what are we what are we doing today? What are
we talking about? We are talking more about the Brazilian elections.
I guess we should start with our with our perennial
update about what seems to be happening there right now.
So okay, currently is what eleven am specific time recording
this on Yeah that sounds right? Yeah, yeah that one.

(01:11):
So as of right now, bolson like still so he
he's appeared, but he still hasn't conceded the election. Um hasn't. Yeah,
And okay, so the other thing that's been going on
is that there's been okause one of the sort of
perennial Boston Bolson Arrow things is that he has a

(01:33):
bunch of support among a bunch of sort of like
like a bunch of different sort of like kinds of truckers,
And there's been a bunch of this before. He's been
setting up a bunch of barricades. I okay, from from
talking to people on the ground and from what I've
seen from it, I I don't know. It's hard to

(01:54):
get It's hard to gauge like how serious these like
actually hard blockades. I've seen videos of some that involved
several dozen vehicles. Yeah, I mean they have a lot
of vehicles, like as as the thing. Okay, so the
Supreme Court has ordered the police to like clear the barricades,
and as best I can tell, they're kind of just

(02:17):
getting their asses kicked, like they're not really resisting like
particularly hard. And so I I don't know if this
is like yeah, it's I mean, it's the kind of
thing that it will present perhaps a model for other
people in the future, if there's any efficacy to it.

(02:38):
It certainly could be part of an effective coup, like
locking down the roads in this way, Like this is
how like the against end started. For example, if both
Signaro and his in the military don't both go in
a d percent right now, basically, um than than what

(02:59):
these suckers are doing will not be it much more
than like an annoyance. You know. It's the same thing
as with with January six. If Trump when they breached
the capital, if Trump had declared I'm remaining president, everybody
rise up, well, then a whole thing might have happened. Um,
but he didn't, and so the momentum that might have

(03:20):
kind of led into a more thorough takeover of the
government fizzled out with a bunch of guys getting you know,
into fist fights with the Capitol police and ship. Yeah.
And and there's an aspect I think to a sort
of important of like so these are like Wilson Row
Like this whole sort of like Trucker's blockade thing, like
this has been going on in various forms for like

(03:43):
the entire time he's been in office, and like he
sort of turned them into these motor caides that he
would do. But they're really weird in that Like, okay,
so if they are blocking roads, but a lot of
it is kind of pure spectacle. There's this whole wave
of sort of right wing candidates like like basically, but
like there's there's a whole winks with the greating politicians

(04:03):
who like got their start from like doing Instagram videos
from like or like TikTok like ship like whatever, like
basically like from these blockades. So like, I don't know,
they don't they don't seem to be like as of
right now. I don't think they're like an incredibly serious
fighting force. But you know, I mean, it's not good
this is happening. Um, it's also not good that the

(04:26):
police was like initially cooperating with them, and that the
police set up their own roadblocks to stop people voting.
So I don't know. The situation is not good, but
it's not as bad as it could be. And yeah,
and I you know, I want to reiterate that, like
the US has recognized that Lula has won the election,
which I think makes it like infinitely harder. Yes, the

(04:47):
fact that and this is this is one of those
things when people on the left talk about like is
there a harm reduction point and voting, Well, this is
harm reduction, right, because if Trump had been in office,
he would have backed Bolson Yarrow and Lula would be
in prison again and Uh, there would be absolutely no
hope for stemming the destruction of the rainforest. Not that

(05:09):
things could still be a nightmare. And don't get me wrong,
but we've we've at least avoided the most obvious way
things could have been a disaster. Yeah, although I I
do want to point out that the Obama administration had
a huge role in like this entire ship. It should
be fair. The administration I don't think was trying to

(05:31):
put Bollsonarow in power. They were trying to put the
nee liberal rules in power. But they definitely we'll get
into that next episode, but they definitely helped get us here. No,
I mean that's true, and it also follows in the
continually building story that like Biden's actually a much better
precedent than Barack Obama. Yeah, low bar, but I mean

(05:55):
indibly low bar, because Barack Obama led directly to Donald
Trump for of a iety of reason. There you are.
This is this is a weird world that we live in. Yeah,
and it's it's also like people are now starting you know, rightfully,
so I know we're gonna be talking about a bunch
of funked up stuff about Lula um most recently, kind

(06:17):
of bringing up his very bad takes on Ukraine. But
it's also like I don't care, Like, obviously, I think
I would always like for people to have if they're
going to have a representative democracy, better leaders. But at
the end of the day, like the rainforest being destroyed,
at the rate it's being destroy it's an existential, existential

(06:37):
threat to all life on Earth, and Lula has a
proven track record of reducing defores station in the Amazon.
So like what I like, I don't care that he
has a bad take on you. I just don't like it.
It doesn't matter really, Yeah, yeah, I like I saw,
I saw I saw articles that were like Lula like
supports democracy in Brazil but supports authoritarianism abroad. It's like,
I guys, shut up, like holy shit, Jesus Christ, Like

(07:00):
I can I if I go back to two thousand,
like seventeen, I can find all of you like writing
pulled fucking probos and our articles, So like shut up.
So okay, So let's get to how everything went to ship.
So the last episode we sort of left the pt
like writing high. Lula's out with like a like approve

(07:24):
of rating. He's done like an economic miracle. He's pulled
one of people out of poverty. I and you know,
if things that continued like that, we wouldn't be here
right now. So obviously something happened. And to understand what happens, unfortunately,
we have to do some materialism. Um okay, so bear

(07:44):
with me. Through the materialism, my promise, we're going to
get to a bunch of like absolutely horrific crimes against humanity.
But first we needed you a bit of my love
crimes against humanity. Yeah, yeah, there it's there. There are
lots of criming there. There, it's Oh boy, I'm I'm
already hard. Wait, maybe I shouldn't have said it that way, moving,

(08:06):
moving swiftly on. So okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna quote
here from one of the sort of more famous marks
quotes formation through beare Uh. That is genuinely a very
good way of understanding history, which is, men make their
own history, but they do not make it as they
please do. They do not make it under self selective circumstances,

(08:28):
but under circumstances are existing, already given and transmitted from
the past. So okay, what what what are the circumstances
that like two thousand two Lula is inheriting um. Lula's
sort of social democratic plan is able to sort of
grow the economy and also pay off the ruling class
to be able to stay in power at the same

(08:48):
time because of something called the commodity boom. UM. A
commodity boom broadly is this like it's a large spike
across the board in the prices of commodities over a
sort of period of time where we're using this sort
of like mainstream bourgeois definition of commodity, which is like
primary commodity is and it's stuff you can like pick
up off the ground, dig up or harvest. So it's

(09:11):
things like soybeans, like copper, iron, horses, lead um, condoms. Yes,
we understand what commodities are. Yes, the look Brazil condom tree.
I don't know, I got nothing, So okay Lula Lula
like takes office and leaves power like almost exactly perfectly

(09:32):
to take to take advantage of the peak of the
commodity boom. Right, Lula comes into power. Well, okay, so
you wouldn't seals in two election he takes obviously ausn't
three um the commodity boom. According to a Cambridge to
Cambridge is a handbook of primary commodities in the global economy.
Took off a two thousand four and ended in about
two thousand fourteen. But it's slowing by ten just eleven
ish and Lula exits office and he doesn't tend to

(09:55):
the two term limit, which means he never has to
deal with the consequences of the downturn. And let's stop
here for a second. How do term limits work in
the Brazilian system, because it's not the same as here here,
like a term limit means you get your two as
president and then you're done. Yeah, so I I okay,
so the way I think it works, and I could
be wrong about this, but I'm sure the way it works. Okay,

(10:17):
So you can have two terms and then you can't
run again in a row, but if if like someone
else comes in, you can then run again after that.
It's just that you can only do two in a row.
I mean, I'm happy that he's beaten Bolson Naro, but
that is a very silly way to do it. Yeah. Well,
and I will say something about this is something about
Lula that, like, I think, kind of infuriates a lot

(10:39):
of the people who like don't like him politically and
want to sort of screaming, but his authoritarianism or whatever,
like he he was always like like mostly really scrupulous
about the sort of like democratic norm stuff. Like he
a lot of other sort of like pink tied leaders
in the same position. Like this is actually how even
moralies originally gets in trouble is that he tries to

(11:01):
seek a third term and Lula, it's just like not
I'm out, I'm fuck it, Like which is which is good? Yeah,
I mean it kind of like on the one hand,
and so in theoretical terms, this is sort of like
good for Brazilian democracy, etcetera, etcetera. In practical terms, it's
kind of a disaster. I mean it's it's good because

(11:24):
I think that it's always good when popular leaders acknowledge
like absolute limits. But yeah, I mean the timing wasn't ideal. Yeah,
and you know it, but you know, okay, so like
the but the reason that he's able to sort of
like you know, like if he if he if like
if the constitution had allow him to run for a
third term, he would have just like like he would

(11:46):
have clabbored everyone. There's there's just not even like any
remote competition to him and the reason he is able
to do this again, it's like boom, guy he got
he got like ten percent less of the vote this time.
I mean, yeah, but what was that? Yeah? Okay, like
this election was like really close. You think about this

(12:08):
most recent one about back then? Yeah, yeah, lu Lula
back then like literally unstoppable political very very popular at
this point. Yeah. But but this is because of the
commodity boom, and we need to in order to understand
what is going to happen to the PT, we need
to understand why the commodity will happen in the first place. Um,
this turns out to be very important. There's there's a
lot of causes technically that have to do with a

(12:30):
lot of complicated macro economic stuff. The single most important cause, um,
for us, and I think generally, the one that is
like is credited with the reason that these commodity prices
are increasing, is the skyrocketing growth of the Chinese economy
in two thousand's um. And I mean when I say
a sky rockey and growth, like we are talking like
double digit GDP increases every year. This is like when

(12:53):
they have that Olympics where they have all the drummers,
and you have that Newsweek article about how scary China is.
Maybe it's um yes, and and you know, and the
sort of the massive increase industrial production like they are
the CCP is like like Chinese industrializing on a scale
that is I think like almost either too unimaginable. And

(13:17):
this means, you know, there's an enormous increase in demand
for primary commodities. But this boom was only sustainable as
long as the Chinese economy can maintain something like double
digit GDP growth. But the problem is after shels eight,
the Chinese economy starts too slow and sort of in
response to this, and she does nine, the CCP does
like one of the largest stimulus projects ever and they

(13:38):
spend four trillion R and B on like infrastructure and
welfare programs to stave off a recession, and it works.
But you know, like they this is this is like
the largest like stimulus program ever and it can't really
keep the economy growing like every ever since two every

(14:02):
single year well okay, I excluding the weird rebound stuff
in one, but like like every every single year, like
year on your growth or the rate of growth of
the Chinese economy, has been decreasing, right, and okay, well
the commodity boom you know is produced by by feeling,
you know, by by increased Chinese demand. But okay, what

(14:25):
happens but when that you know isn't true. Um, but
but you know, okay, so in in in the two
in the two thousand's like this, this is great that
these are the sort of material conditions that make loopless
like politics possible. Right, you have enormous economic growth and
it bring and this economic growth is happening in sectors,
like in a very important sectors to presuli an economy

(14:46):
to the extent that is able to provide a revenue
a stable revenue base for the state that allows it
to fund welfare programs like and pay off the bourgeoisie,
which is you know, this is sort of like like
papering over this sort of like fundamental contradiction of of
the pt S base, right, which at they have they
have to like, they have to keep the economy running,
so they have they have to pay off a bunch
of sort of like incredibly corrupt dudes and also just

(15:07):
sort of like Brazilian capitalists, they also are trying to
sort of do the welfare programs. But you know, the
commodity boom collapses and suddenly there's only enough money to
either pay the capitalists or pay the workers and not both,
and the project becomes to collapse. And and this this
happens across Latin America. Um like that, Like I would
make the argument that like the end of the commodity boom,

(15:29):
like is the reaper that came from the Latin American left.
It is at least as important, if not more so,
in the collapse of the sort of the pink tide
over over the course of the dozen tends. Like then
the actual CIA, like the CIA is very heavily involved
in this. But the commodity boom just sort of like
just nuking all of these economies like coming to an

(15:49):
end like that that is an enormously important, uh sort
of like like element of this entire story. And there's
all there's so there's another thing that we should note,
which is that there's a problem them with organizing your
economy to be sort of like in a way that's
reliant on sort of like primary commodity like export production.

(16:10):
A Handbook of Primary Commodities and the Global Economy specifically
notes quote brazil significance and coffee, cotton, iron ore, sugar,
and tobacco, and Chile has a dominant exporter of coffee.
So okay, Brazil exports like eleven percent of the world's cotton,
twenty percent of the world's iron oreft of its coffee,
it's sugar, and eighteen percent of it's tobacco um and

(16:31):
also has an enormous cattle industry, has got like a
bunch of soybean farming, which is actually really important because
it turns out as trying to get it turns people
into into into soy boys. Yeah. It also makes soy sauce,
which is are are very important for it. I mean
more importantly, are reserves of of beta coc energy would

(16:53):
be disastrously low if if we didn't have Brazilian soy.
So thank you Jay your bolton yaro for keeping the
say flowing. Yeah, well, I mean this this is sort
of like like this is a joke, Like this is
this is sort of the issue with this, right, Like okay,
so politically this is a There's also a massive timber
industry which has been literally destroying the entire planet. But like, okay,

(17:15):
so like she just thinking if you know anything about sugar, coffee, cotton,
and tobacco. You know those are slavery crops and you know,
like these are these are like the primary exports of
plantation economy, and the people who run those kind of
like like economies. The people who are like those plantation
owners are like the scariest people who have ever lived anywhere,

(17:37):
like at any time on Earth. And you know, in Brazil,
these people have been in power for five years. And
unfortunately this is like a big part of what sort
of lose economic miracle is resting on and and and
this this isn't really like a base that produce of socialism,
Like if your economic base is relying on these like

(17:58):
like unbelievably psychotic racist like planter oligarchs, like you're economic
based something that creates fascism. However, Comma Robert, do you
know what else produces fascism? UM? The products and services
that support this podcast? Ding ding ding ding ding That
something like it's art fascism just directly so true. Yeah, yeah,

(18:21):
the Gold the Gold people probably would be would be
the main example of the UM. But we also are
sponsored by big Fascism dot org. Calm goshh it I don't.
I don't know, I don't just roll the fucking ants. Ah,

(18:50):
we're back, boy. That was a good ad pivot. I
hope everybody is happy. Chris, why don't you continue talking
about Lula? Yeah, so speaking of fascism, but do do do?
Do do? I was doing a yeah not not not well,
this is it's hard to hard to We'll we'll have

(19:13):
Daniel fix that up in post. Yeah, okay, So, so
speaking of creating fascism, yet, let's talk about that time
Lulu invaded Haiti. Al Right, well, okay, to be fair,
whoms among us hasn't invaded Haiti. This is true. That's true.
I've never made Haiti. However, the US and Canada also

(19:34):
and the UK that is more what I was saying. Okay,
like it's yeah, so okay. So in two thousand four,
a CIA backed coup Haiti's democratically elected leftist presidents Jane
beached aristide and initially okay, so the initial sort of

(19:54):
occupation force a sent in by the U N is
a US is like an American, French and Canadian force
UM and they're sent in like ostensibly under the sort
of guys of like restoring stability or whatever. Um, because
when I think about who can make Haiti stable, it's
France in the United States, Yeah, stability and Canada. Now

(20:18):
glad you guys, are you know, getting getting involved in
in your big brothers uh crimes against humanity? Yeah, I'm
wondering for the Canadian stuff. How how do they ship
all all of all of the mounties all the way
to Haiti? Okay, so they took theirs over the water,
Garrison built the land bridge. Yeah, allowed him to write

(20:43):
you know. Okay, So, but the thing about this force,
right is that like, okay, so even to like the
most casual observer having literally France in the US and
also Canada, which is like it's just the US, but
there's also a French part of it. It like literally
weird fucking sausage soup on their goddamn French fries. Like

(21:09):
like the optics of these people just militarily occupying Haiti
is really bad. Um. So okay, you want to trying
to figure out like a permanent force. And initially Lula
like opposes Brazil getting involved in this, which is good,
but that would make sense when I think about change,
When I think about whether or not Brazil should be

(21:31):
involved in places Haiti would not be the top of
my list. You know, this is always this is always
just like a really sad thing of sort of like
just like the history of Latin America of like how
many countries like, oh their existence to Haiti over and
over and over again, like sending them troops and ships
and weapons, and then every single one of these countries
are like, fuck you Haiti. So Lula like it's basically

(21:56):
Lola becomes convinced that like this is this is like
his big opportunity need to like build the influence of
Brazil and the international stage. And so Brazil just like
takes over the occupation or the auspices of the United
Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which has the like utterly
impronounceable acronym minished or something. God damn it, guys, you

(22:22):
know how to do an acronym. You have enough money, Jesus,
you would think. However, Comma, no, it's this bullshit and Okay,
so apparently this is part of a plan to try
to get US and French support for a bid to
get Brazil a permanency in the UN Security Council. If
you google who is currently on the UN Security Council.

(22:43):
You will see how this went, which is to say,
it did not work. And ship starts going horrifically badly
almost immediately, um busy like at the outside of the occupation,
Brazilian chiefs and Haiti launched an attack on a quote
gang leader. And note, by the way, here the terminology
that he's used to describe this operation and the people,

(23:05):
the people that they're fighting is exactly the same way
as the paramilitary forces in Haiti are described like right
now by the U S and the U N. As
the US tries to stage another invasion, this time with
the backing of Mexico is nominally leftist president. I'm low
so uh yeah, real sort of legacy of people who

(23:25):
Americans think are leftists doing imperialism and Haiti. Good job, everyone, well,
everybody does a little bit of imperialism and Haiti, you know, okay,
as a treat I mean, this is the thing, right right,
every every single country in Latin America is bound and
determined to prove that you actually cannot do I contrary
to contrary sort of popular opinion about this, you actually

(23:47):
can't do social democracy without imperialism. And every single time
someone tries to do a social democracy, they have to
invade Haiti. It's just sort of like it's it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's.
It's in the contract here, okay. And so they they
the the un the sort of light. And by the way,
I should point out that the u N Force is
commanded by a Brazilian general. Like the entire basically wants

(24:08):
the Brazilians take over. It's commanded by Brazilian generals the
entire time. Um. And they seem nice. Yeah, okay, So
they go after this guy, and they fired twenty two
thousand rounds of ammunition into basically just like apartment buildings. UM.
To this day, nobody knows how many people they killed,
but from my winnings reports, we know they killed babies,

(24:29):
they killed children, they killed pregnant women. It is it
is Vietnam ship. It is absolutely awful. Um. Augusta Helano,
who I guess the Heleno. I don't know how this
guys name. He's the guy who leads this operation. Becomes
the head of bolson Naro's Institutional security Bureau. Um. Here
here here's a headline from Potato three sixty from last week. Quote.

(24:53):
It is not possible to admit the return of the
Red Gang, says Hellano. And by the Red Gang he
means Lula. He's calling Lula communist. And this is fine
and good from a guy who again is the head
of the Institutional Security Bureau. Um, all right, this guy
like sucks so much. Um. And when you were retiring

(25:16):
in two thousand eleven, Helano defended this is from Bruters.
And when he retired in two thousand eleven, Helano defended
Brazil's sixty four military dictatorship as a bulwark against the
communist quoted the communization of the country. Sure and okay,
so like we we we can say that as as
much as sort of Brazil's like fascism, his home grown

(25:36):
and this is absolutely true, they're also just like eating
the assend if you pose boomerang, because all of the
fascism that they're about to do is exported Tahiti before
it comes back. Um, here's some Wriuters. This is talking
about Bolsonaro's cabinet, his proposed his proposed defense minister, former
General Fernando Alvarezi Silva, served under Helano as a as

(25:58):
an operations chief. Bulsonario's incoming Infrastructure Minister tar Cisio free
TOAs was a senior UN military engineer in Haiti, arriving
shortly after Hellano left. In two thousand five, retired General
Carlos Alberto does Santa Cruz, Brazil's next government minister, led

(26:18):
UN troops in the Caribbean nation two seven. All of
those guys, by the way that this was written before
the election, um, all of those guys took office, uh
to Fully two of of Bulsonaro's secretaries of government were
part of this occupation. So yeah, this this obviously it
went great for Lula, Like yeah, okay, a good job

(26:41):
you you you you sent the magic colonial troops to
occupy Haiti, and then all of the generals came home
and we're like, let's fucking do fascism here too. Yeah.
So in this episode, which we're talking a lot about
sort of the Brazilian fascism because you know, this is
a britil episode, but I don't want to minimize like
what this did to Haiti, where like to this day
Lula is like fucking despised um for you know, like

(27:04):
betraying the Haitian people and fucking occupying the country with
troops like there's there's this whole thing where like he
Lula goes to Haiti and he has this whole thing
about how like he has he's playing like a soccer
match and he's like, Okay, we're going to show the
world there's an alternative to bullets. And meanwhile, this soccer
stadium is literally surrounded by the by the Brazilian army
and it's oh boy, um, I love I love showing

(27:27):
the world there's I mean, there is an alternative to bullets.
And it's just threatening people with your guns because they
know you've shot enough people that you'll use them if
and drones too, by the way, this is this is
where this is where the UN learns how to do
drone warfare. Um the everything is happening here is this
is this occupation is where the UN starts to like
fight quote like hybrid wars for the first time, you know,
the like the wars that they're that they're doing these

(27:49):
sort of peacekeeping operations quote unquote, Uh, they're starting they
starting to do kind of insurgency ship where like they
animate can be mixed in with the population and you
know that they kill a ship ton of people. Are
is rampant rape and sexual assault, because it turns out
that when you when you send troops to another country
to occupy it, this is what happens, um and when

(28:09):
when when when this force eventually pulls out, shesn't seventeen,
they just like leave a ship ton of fither of
those babies behind because the people who you know, did
all this ship like fuck it, We're just gonna leave,
like leave the children behind, um I think most famously. Okay,
so there's there's a giant earthquake in Haiti and justn't
ten and this leads to this like enormous sort of
redoubling of the occupation and troops are brought in from

(28:33):
other parts of the world, including there's a contisition from Nepaul.
And the results of this is that definitely Haiti seems
like a place Nepalese soldiers debate this is this is,
by the way, like this this is like the new
revolutionary governments in Nepal that is like finally defeated the
monarchy after like god decades decades. It's like we all

(28:55):
looked at the British Empire and we're like, well, that's
clearly fucked up. But what if we did in a
decentralized way, right, Like what if what if it wasn't
just the British, what if everyone was sending Nepalese shock
troops and to crack down on popular insurgencies. Well, and
you know, and the thing that the thing that particularly
goes wrong with with the Nepalese troops is that the

(29:15):
Nepolice troops would bring colerade to Haiti. And Okay, well again,
who hasn't you know? Okay, there's the thing. The defeat
of choleraade. This is like one of the few genuine
victories we have had over sort of like like the
last two years over the forces that have caused like
human misery and suffering for like this time of memorial
is that we defeated cholera and then we brought it

(29:36):
back the fucking you had occupation brings like this is
the this is the first lower scale color outbreak in
modern times, um eight hundred thousandations. Get christ. Yeah, it's
it's not hard to not spread cholera. Yeah, we success,
Like even if you're looking by the standards of military occupations,

(29:58):
like the Russians didn't haven't spread cholera in Ukraine. It's
not hard to not Vietnam now, like we didn't create
a cholera epidemic in Afghanistan. Ad right, it is not
hard to not create a cholera epidemic, to be to
be fair, the s the Saudis have managed to create
one and create one in Yemen now too, but that's
probably worse than this one. But that more just reinforces

(30:20):
my point that most imperialist occupations are able to not
cause epidemics. It's hard and okay, you know, and and
obviously right, like, okay, you you've now created your colonial army.
The colonial army is gonna come home and literally these
same troops go back to Brazil and launch a war

(30:40):
in the favelas um like like under under under Gioba
Russo's PT, like the fucking army is literally occupying the favelas.
And you know, this is all part of the pats
like massive campaign to sort of buy weapons and modernize
the army, which you know, and by like, I I
think currently they're involved in like okay, okay, I I'm

(31:03):
not entirely sure about my dates on this. I I'm
not entirely sure if they're if they're currently involved in
nine unpc CO operations. You're sixteen, but there are like
there are there are I Brazilian troops like all over
the world. I still doing this bullshit. And you know, again,
as we've talked about, like literally the people who are

(31:24):
in Haiti like are the people who are going to
help put in prison and put Bolson Umber in power.
So you know, this is some I this is some
fucking enormous like creating your own grave diggers ship. Okay,
so okay, well we we've now we've now gotten through
one of the sort of sets of grave diggers that

(31:46):
the PTS building for themselves, um. But also back in
back in Brazil, things are also like you know, not
going great for them, which and the way that this
is specifically not going great is that like even even
you know, so in the hour of triumph triumph of
the Workers Party, right Lulas and Dent etcetera, etcetera, there
is a massive fissure opening under the feet of the

(32:07):
Brazilian left, and that fisher is the gig economy. Um.
We we have talked like literally add daus um on
this show about how the economy is bad for workers, um,
for for our purposes. The thing that's kind of important
here is that doing this kind of gig work, right,
like becoming an independent like an independent contractor. UM, it

(32:31):
has a profound social and political effect, and it creates
a sort of profound social political animization. Right. It breaks
down the sort of social bonds that like built the
workers who have been the PT and transport and and
and instead of instead of the sort of like you know, massification, right,
like the conversion of people into sort of like these
these these these like like concrete mass social entities who

(32:52):
can like take collective action. You get these neo liberal
subjects who are incredibly atomized, incredibly isolated and vulnerable to
sort of like you know, fascist projects that promise like
community and unity like this new organic hall and you know,
guests or bolcenario draws support from Oh wait, it's a
it's a newly evangelical section of the working class. UM.
And And to to be clear here, the informal sector

(33:15):
in Brazil has always been massive, but the way that
PC runs their welfare programs makes everything just exponentially worse. UM.
We talked about this a bit last episode, but one
of the big things that the PC's welfare programs do
is they're about getting given people access to micro credit.
And Okay, so in the short run this is technically

(33:36):
incredibly effective at combating poverty. But it had another effect,
which was to sort of like deeply, infirmly like sort
of like like ingrained vast sections of Brazilian workers into
the banking system and tournament to micro entrepreneurs. And okay,
so being a social democratic party and on purpose constructing

(33:57):
an entire class of micro entrepreneurs is like maybe the
single best example of producing your own grave diggers that
I've seen since like the military dictatorship cooperating with Lulu
in the first place. This is a terrible idea, but
you know, okay, so I I think I think I
think it's worth asking, like why is the PT doing

(34:17):
this ship? Right? Like this is this is something that
is like otherwise absolutely incomprehensible. Um And the answer is
that the PUT was never quite the party that people
think it is. Um Here here is from a Brazilian
anarchist writing and crime think. The rulers linked to the
realization of mega events cheaply re political rewards for FIFA
and its corporate CRONI is not coincidentally the same companies

(34:38):
that finance the electoral campaigns of the PT. The benefits
were financial profits stretched into the billions, under written by
public resources, and guaranteed by police oppression. The PC could
not have done this alone. It was the party that
received the largest total of private donations in recent years
seventy five millions dozen thirteen. Well other parties like the PSDB,
the Social Democratic Party and PMDB Party of Democratic Movement,

(35:03):
the biggest and oldest party in Brazil, mostly center right
and conservative politicians, only managed forty six million dollars altogether.
In two thousand fourteen, the year of Dilma Russo's re election,
the PT received forty seven million dollars, some contractors facing
lawsuits and investigations, while the PMDB got thirty eight million
the ps dB got twenty eight million. This demonstrates the

(35:24):
symbiosis between the Workers Party and those who control the
flow of capital in the country, a connective tissue of
economic and political power. So this is not good. Um
and and you you can sort of ask what was
the PC really doing here, right, Like why, okay, why
are they doing micro loans? Why are they taking all
of this money? Um And there's a really really good

(35:46):
pair of articles from a Brazilian group called militants in
the Fog that was published at ill Will called work
and revolt in Brazil's dead Ends, and I'm going to
read from some of it. A bank accounts, a smartphone
with access to the internet, and a pro file in
an app. The means to collect emergency A, which is
emergency aid is um part of this is talking about
Bosonaro stuff. So I Bolsonaro implements this policy called emergency A,

(36:10):
which is like it's it's it's kind of the equivalent
of like the US is like the stimulus checks that
we got, but slightly difference. But the means required to
collect emergency aid or are the same required to create
an account for uber a sign that we are facing
fundamental parts of this quote new way of working. Years ago,

(36:31):
it was already possible to identify the Bolsa familiar program,
which is that giant um pt like workers Party cash
transfer program that we talked about last episode, whose dimensions
were small in the face of fancial aid program. The
the objective of forming a unified workplace more deeply subjugated
to capitalist relations. The quote bank ification promoted by the

(36:55):
program contributed to the expanding contributed to expanding the reach
of micro credit systems, a process of financialization of informality
which was deepened in recent years with the dissemination of
increasingly agile and easy payment terminals and electronic payment systems
such as picks at tax Free, a quicker and tax
free money transfer method. The phenomenon reached unprecedented intensity due

(37:18):
to the emergency A. The state owned bank Taxia Economic
and Federal absorbed thirty million customers in ten days, and
it was what was possibly the fastest bankification process of history,
thus reaching a record profit in two Access to credit
is essential for the emergence of a precarious workforce to
which capital, costs and risk are transferred. Well. Interest rates

(37:39):
introduced a new level of productivity to the old. Okay,
this is a Portuguese word that oh boy via carro,
which is like getting by, which is this sort of
like it's a sort of slaying term for kind of
like doing stuff in the informal economy to like survive, yeah,
which is now directly connected to global financial markets. Thus,

(38:00):
the focus of these income policies would be less on
expanding consumption capacity for the beneficiaries, as in the Kinzian
distributive model and more on expanding their investment capacity, financing
the acquisition of work instruments, and quote self valuing their
human capital. Enthusiasts of such programs claim that financial the
financial cushion provided by basic income can represent enough stability

(38:20):
for people to be able to spend their own savings
or other capital starting a business. So, okay, what's happening here?
Um and the militants of fog is arguing this after
the work of the Brazilian academical named Ludmilla Abilio is, Okay,

(38:41):
what's happening here is is the real subsumption of the
formal economy, which okay, so like what what what does
that mean? We need to take a step back, do
you like a little bit more marks? So Marx makes
this distinction between what he calls formal and real subsumption. Subsumption.
Is this like the whole philosophy thing I'm not gonna
get into here, but basically what he's talking about his
stuff getting like subsumed by capitalism, right, like becoming a

(39:02):
part of the of the sort of capitalist like process
and system. And this comes in stages, right. The first
is foremal subsumption, where Okay, so say you have a peasant, right,
Formal subsumption is where the peasant like enters the market
for the first time and suddenly be instead of being
a peasant, is now like a wage worker, right, and
you know, in in in this phase, right, capitalism has

(39:23):
entered induced fhere, Right, someone who was a peasant who
was like not doing capital stuff before, right, who was
going for self production and had like fetal dues and obligations,
is now a wage worker. But you know, and then
they're selling the goods of the market. But the actual
process of production, which is like, okay, so like how
a peasant is like how how how you your former
peasant new agriculture worker like grows their crops and what

(39:44):
crops they grow, and like when they decide to work
in in this first stage, this is still the peasant's choice.
Um that ends with real subsumption, where all control over
the workplace that like workers had had is completely destroyed
and you're just you know, okay, this this is this
is what like we think of as a regular job. Right.
We're like, okay, the way the job works as your
boss sells you want to do, I your your entire

(40:07):
labor process has been like fully integrated into into into
this sort of like broader capitalist production processes that you
have no control over. And this is what's been happening
in the informal economy of the past few decades in Brazil.
It's a real subsumption, right, like and and you know
what like it stuff that had formerly been you know,
like people taking wadge labor, but the sort of structure

(40:28):
of how people do the jobs that they're doing right
was still up to them. Uh, this has been ending,
and the way it's been ending is through basically the
degree of control offered but two employers by apps like
uber of Like, yeah, the control of these apps give
you over the informal economy, and the results have been
absolutely Catastrophicum. On the one hand, the sort of limited

(40:49):
autonomy that the formal economy like that the informal economy
used to give you has been crushed by sort of sorry,
has been crushed by algorithmic control from gay economy apps
that you know, like track where you are and tell
you where you need to go and how how fast
you have to get there, and like what lights you
have to run in order to get there, and also increasingly, Uh,

(41:09):
these big workers are being squeezed by a new level
of middle management who work basically the same way as
like gang like the old gang bosses that control Chinese labor,
and return to the twentieth century, where you have these
guys who act as like private recruiting companies and foremen
for workers who okay, so you go to this place, right,
These people are like, okay, I will give you a job,
and they negotiate. There are people who negotiate directly with

(41:31):
the company and take money from the company and then
use that money to sort of like pay the employer.
And this this you know, this sucks, right because on
the one hands, you have all of the bad parts
of a regular job, which there's a guy who tells
you what to do, and if you don't do what
he tells you, like, you get fired. And then you
have all the bad parts of an informal sector job,
which is that you don't have any legal protections that

(41:53):
like workers with formal contracts have, and you know, the
the the the effect of this has been to create
super hell for like vast, vast swass of of the
Brazilian working class. And this has been a just unbelievably
catastrophic sort of disaster for for Brazilian politics. But okay,

(42:16):
you know what else is creating super hell for the
Brazilian working class. I mean not the products and services
that support this podcasting the American working class. Now now yeah, okay,
here's sucking as ah, We're back. Wow. I for one

(42:46):
think everything's gonna be fine. The fact that Lula won
this resounding victory over j R. Bolsonaro by by nearly
a whole percentage point is going to mean none of
these problems that you're talking about our every things again yea, no,
And you know, okay, so speaking speaking of reasons why

(43:07):
this will not be a problem again, the sort of
like financialization bullshit. This this this doesn't just like stick
in sort of labor process like this stuff spreads to
the like to social movements as well, which are in
a lot of cases, like very old and powerful Brazilian
social movements are reduced to these sort of like state
back financialized husks of them form ourselves where like you know,
you have like you have social movements that are literally

(43:29):
like issuing bonds to like fund their their members businesses.
You have social movements that are like okay, if if
you show up to assemblies, you can like earn points
so that you can get access to like be put
on a waiting list for like a government rent stabilized
department or something like. It is a ship show. And
and this whole process sort of leads to the hollowing
out of the Brazilian left, and you know, and and

(43:52):
and as as as as the left is sort of
like being sort of like torn apart from the inside out.
And as you get into sort of like two eleven
and twelve dozen thirteen is the Presilian a comedy begainst
the slow I you get Brazil's version of the sort
of like movement of the squares like two thirteen uprisings,

(44:13):
which is going to be waged against a hostile wall, okay,
a pretty hostile pt governments. Like there there's a sort
of public show by Delmo Roussofter like yeah, no, I
support the protests when they're not violent, and we're gonna
do stuff. But okay, this goes badly very quickly. So
these protests start over these like raises in public trends

(44:34):
and in the cost of public transportation, like the fair
cost raises in a bunch of cities, and very quickly
there are like three million people in the streets. Um.
The sort of conventional narrative about what happened here is that,
so the protests started off leftists, right, but then the
leftists get run out as as the protests sort of

(44:57):
keep going by these sort of like foe a political
conservative nationalists that like take them over and turn them
from this sort of like leftist call for like a
more egalitarian society and for like the right to the
city and like stopping evictions and stuff like that to
this sort of like anti corruption crusade against PT, against
the PT, against them LaRussa, and against sort of like
the left itself. And Okay, this is true, like as

(45:20):
far as it goes, Um, we'll be talking more about
the impeachment campaign like next episode. But there's more going
on here. And the more going on here is that
just isn't thirteen. There are massive protests, like eight hundred
thousand people, um protest a Confederation Cup, which is which
is like the soccer tournament hosted by like that that
that's prece like it's one of the things that precedes

(45:43):
the World Cup. I don't know, I'm not a soccer nowher,
but yeah, and there's his massiveproaches against them, and they
are just unbelievably brutally suppressed, Like fifty four thousand cops
are sent out to like stop this ship and they
beat the aps lute shit out of everyone. And to
understand why these movements were crushed and how the right

(46:05):
was able to take power, we need to talk about
the Brazilian police. So I think you know most of
our listeners you to me, like we we are familiar
with the American police, right, Like, if you're listening to
the show, odds are decently good. You have seen them
beat your friends to bloody pulpe. You have seen them
taste the parents of children locked into building with the
mass shooter. You have seen them slaughter men, women and

(46:26):
children in the street for no other reason than they
can because they're a fascist desk squad fused with organized
crime outfits, funded by putting guns to the heads of
the American working class, their descendants of slave catchers, working
each and every day to keep the American racial hierarchy
firmly intact. Okay, we can put it that way. It
sounds bad, but I don't know, Like I like law
and order, so like the TV show, Yeah, you know

(46:50):
that they have. You've never watched Law and Order SVU.
You're missing out on all of the law and Order. Uh,
that is that the one with the goth chick and
it I honestly don't know. There's like forty different Law
and Order shows. It's impossible to keep track of them.
But there is that. There is that one goth chick

(47:13):
that they brought in because our grandparents would think she
was hot. Yeah. I think. I think the power of
goth chicks to extend the police budgets. Yeah, it's it's
it's fun and good and Okay, you know, like we
we we know how bad the US police are. Um,
I'm gonna read this from the l A Times quote
Brazilian cops kill at nine times the rate of US

(47:36):
law enforcement. Nine times. Well that's pretty bad. Yeah, you know,
and it's worth pointing out here that Brazil was the
last country in this hemisphere to evolve slavery, like they
abolished it like twenty years after the fucking US did, right,
And so you know, when when you're thinking about what

(47:58):
the Brazilian police is, take every thing you know about
the American police and understand that the Brazilian police, right Okay,
So with the American police, right, the murder dial goes
up to eleven. With the Brazilian police, that murder dial
goes up to and that's where they've franked it to.
Um here, here's some crime think. In two thousand fourteen,
Brazil's prison population became the third largest in the world,

(48:20):
with five hundred and seventy thousand prisoners, just like six
hundred something thousand prisoners today, most of whom are black.
During the PT administration, this figure increased by six hundred
and twenty cool. Yeah, like and this this, this is
a part of the PT that people really sort of

(48:43):
tiptoe around, which is that they preside over like a
a regime of mass executions and mass incarceration that is
like utterly atrocious and and as an assis here, um okay,
So like there are probably some of our listeners whose
things that they want to go into electoral politics. And

(49:06):
if you are doing this, you have one job, like solely,
you have one responsibility, and your job is to fucking
annihilate the police. Your job is to destroy them so
utterly and completely that their very name is sped as
a curse in the street by people who make the
sign of cross for protection every time they think about them, Like,
by the end of your first term, these people need
to be living in fucking hovels in the woods without

(49:26):
access to a weapon that even as deadly as at
two by four. And every time they attempt to enter
a town, people need to be like chasing them and
throwing rocks at them. And if you do not do this,
you will live like Lula has to see literally everything
you have ever done crumbled beneath the way to way
fascism that is too terrible to imagine, and you will
also experience in your lifetime. And instead of doing this,

(49:47):
the PT is like, fuck it, no, we're going to
use the police to stamp up protest against the mega
events that they're they're putting on. The police refreshion around
the World Cup is like arguably worse than the stuff
a Confederation Cup. In order to prepare for the World Cup,
the PT stage is this like massive social cleansing campaign.
We talked about this in our sports episode. Like they

(50:09):
they carry out mass evictions against both like regular people
and also against like like there's there's a bunch of
sort of leftist also sort of just like regular people
who squat in Brazil, right, Like up, a huge part
of the social events have been about seizing property and
building like building stuff on its seasoning about buildings and yeah,
this stuff all gets evicteds that can be replaced World
Cup businesses. It's you know, like what what is happening

(50:30):
here is it's like all the violence gentrification. But in
the span of like a year, right, the PC are
literally rolling German tanks to the favelas because like, you know,
subtlety is something that happens to other people, not like
to reality. And you know, as we talked about before,
they're putting them under literally military occupation with colonial troops
who were like fighting in Haiti, right, evict two hundred

(50:53):
and fifty thousand people for this fucking tournament. Um here
here's some other ship they did. This is from a
series of pieces by Brazilian anarchist group called Fictional Faction.
In twelve, the federal government and FIFA signed the General
Law of the World Cup to ensure that the country
would quote uphold FIFA standards of organization during the two

(51:13):
Confederation Cup and the two fourteen World Cup. This agreement
constituted an enormous legal offense to the Brazilian people, entailing
the suspension of mote of many constitutional rights and norms
that are already precarious for most. For example, a court
established to rule within fourty eight hours on strikes that
occurred within the World Cup. Workers lost the right to

(51:33):
strike or fight for improvements. While FIFA avoided paying taxes
on businesses within Brazilian territory, a special secretary to public
security for great events was created, breaking the laws stipulating
that justice may not have special sponsors or clients you
demand priority. The privatization of public space was legitimized by
the creation of exclusive streets for FIFA and as partners,

(51:56):
in which even local businesses were required to keep your
doors was within the exclusion zone around the stadium. The
laws allowed fifatage intervened directly in the market without the
oversight of the state. FIFA was able to stipulate the
price to charge for tickets, suspending the usual half price
for students and any application of consumer production code. In addition,

(52:17):
more than twenty thousand people were allowed to work as
unregulated volunteers during the World Cup. These volunteers did not
receive the protections of basic labor rights and operated outside
of constitutional norms in a situation, in situations analogous to slavery.
According to Brazilian law, these exceptions to safety and labor
the Labor and Stity Law are supposed to be limited

(52:38):
to volunteer work for nonprofit institutions that have a quote civic, cultural, education,
recreational and social assistance purposes, which hardly described FIFA. The
state even overlooked the use of child labor and activities
related to the games, such as the role of ball Boy,
which had been banned in Brazil since two thousand four.
So this goes great um and and the thing you know,

(53:00):
so this happens, he doesn't fourteen under delmar roussof but
it's worth noting like this is Lula's project fund the beginning,
right like he he has been fighting to get Brazil
the World Cup, like sense sent sense like the opening
for applications to get this World Cup in Brazil to happen.
And what you know, this this, this campaign to get
the World Cup takes the form of a literally all

(53:23):
out war against leftist protesters, squatters, workers, people living in
favela as people who are literally all of those at
the same time. Who are you know, supposed to be
the PT space. And this is what the PT spends
literally the rest of its time and power doing, right,
like Jilma Roussof implements much of austerity measures like this,
the spending police powers like this is the ship that

(53:44):
the PT is doing, like literally as the grim reaper
is coming to their door. Like two months before de
la Roussef is impeached, she passed a pair of a
pair of anti terrorism laws targeted at protesters. And Okay,
we're gonna we'll go into the impeachment next episode, but
I want to close on this was preventing this from happening, right,

(54:08):
Preventing the Party of Workers from fucking rolling tanks through
the streets in in in in in fucking working class neighborhoods,
like this is the actual sort of beating of of
And this is this is the actual sort of principal
politics of anti capitalism like that, this this is why
there is a sort of rigid anarchist opposition to the state. Right,
this isn't just ideological purity, is the concrete knowledge that

(54:30):
any other path is death because we literally cannot continue
to do as the PT has been doing for the
past twenty years. To produce our own grave diggers. Literally,
the ecosystems we draw our life from will not survive
if we keep doing this. It does not matter how
many people you live you lift out of poverty. If
you do not actually destroy the class system, capitalism and
fascism will force them back into poverty. All of the poverty,

(54:51):
like almost all the poverty gains that Lula gained during
this entire time in Officers, were destroyed in four years
of will scenarrow. Every day that the state is allowed
to exist, every day the class system is allowed to exist,
it creates a thousand more bull scenarrows. It creates a
thousand bull scenarrows. And the police that creates them, of
the armies, it creates them, incorporations, it creates them on
the streets, and they have to be destroyed or this
world will fucking burn. And in the next episode we

(55:13):
are going to watch a thousand person Pullsonarros burn the
entire country. And that that is my incredibly angry response
to this absolute fucking bullshit. That is the reason like
our are are a lot of the reasons why everything
is completely fucked cool. Well, everybody, have a happy start

(55:40):
of November. And hopefully Brazil isn't in a state of
civil war by the time you listen to this episode. Yeah,
I update at the end of the episode. I don't
think there's been any chance. Remember, Remember, folks, if you
somehow take control of the political apparatus in Brazil, dismay
until the police in the military. Um, that's that. That

(56:03):
should be. That should be a lesson for you. I
know a lot of you are on the verge of
taking power in Brazil, so hopefully, hopefully that message will
get out. Yeah, and I media in general, don't fund them, like,
don't give them more money, don't spend a bunch of
money buying them. German tanks like, well what do you do? Okay?
Like why what? Why are we focusing on German tanks?

(56:24):
They make fine tanks. Okay, here we go here. Can
you name a single good thing a German tank has
ever been used for? Yeah, I'm guessing yeah, they did
some communists probably, I don't. I don't know. Um, let's
have anyway killed a lot of Englishmen anyway and Canadians.

(56:50):
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