[New post] October 30 2022 Victory in Brazil: “We are going to live new times of peace, love and hope” vows Brazil’s New President Lula as He Begins the Restoration of Democracy
jayofdollhousepark posted: " We celebrate a Forlorn Hope vindicated and become glorious in the victory of the peoples of Brazil and their champion Lula, with dancing in the streets and running Amok beyond the boundaries of the Forbidden.  " Torch of Liberty
We celebrate a Forlorn Hope vindicated and become glorious in the victory of the peoples of Brazil and their champion Lula, with dancing in the streets and running Amok beyond the boundaries of the Forbidden.
A monster and tyrant has been driven from his castle, and this is always cause for celebration. We will always have this moment of triumph, and the hope it holds for our future, regardless of the trials to follow. Whether such hope is a gift or a curse is up to each of us to live and make real; but things are now possible which yesterday were not, and this I call victory.
With the words of Glinda to Oz I congratulate Lula and the peoples of Brazil; 'We've waited a long time for you, Wizard." And we really need you to be the Wizard we hope you are.
A great work now begins, as like Biden in America, Lula in Brazil leads the Restoration of Democracy in a nation whose systems, structures, institutions, values, and ideals have been damaged by fascist subversion, disruption, and fracture, but whose people emerge from the crucible of their forging unconquered and renewed.
One day we will be a United Humankind and a free society of equals, and Lula like Biden will be remembered for as long as there are human beings as among the founders of a new humanity and civilization, whose vision will shape our being, meaning, and value, inform our choices about how to be human together for millennia, and motivate our discover of the limitless possibilities of becoming human.
Let us each do what we can to make the dream of democracy real.
As written by in The Guardian, in an article entitled Lula stages astonishing comeback to beat far-right Bolsonaro in Brazil election: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former leftist president, has reclaimed the leadership and vowed to reunify his country; Brazil's former leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has sealed an astonishing political comeback, beating the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in one of the most significant and bruising elections in the country's history.
With 99.97% of votes counted, Silva, a former factory worker who became Brazil's first working-class president exactly 20 years ago, had secured 50.9% of the vote. Bolsonaro, a firebrand who was elected in 2018, received 49.10%.
Addressing journalists at a hotel in São Paulo, Lula vowed to reunify his country after a toxic race for power which has profoundly divided one of the world's largest democracies.
"We are going to live new times of peace, love and hope," said the 77-year-old, who was sidelined from the 2018 election that saw Bolsonaro claim power after being jailed on corruption charges that were later annulled.
"I will govern for 215m Brazilians … and not just for those who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people – a great nation," he said to applause. "It is in nobody's interests to live in a country that is divided and in a constant state of war."
A few streets away on Paulista Avenue, one of the city's main arteries, ecstatic Lula supporters gathered to celebrate his victory and the downfall of a radical rightwing president whose presidency produced an environmental tragedy and saw nearly 700,000 Brazilians die of Covid.
"Our dream is coming true. We need to be free," beamed Joe Kallif, a 62-year-old social activist who was among the elated throng. "Brazil was in a very dangerous place and now we are getting back our freedom. The last four years have been horrible."
Gabrielly Soares, a 19-year-old student, jumped in joy as she commemorated the imminent victory of a leader whose social policies helped her achieve a university education.
"I feel so happy … During four years of Bolsonaro I saw my family slip backwards and under Lula they flourished," she said, a rainbow banner draped over her shoulders.
Ecstatic and tearful supporters of Lula – who secured more than 59m votes to Bolsonaro's 57m – hugged and threw cans of beer in the air.
"This means we are going to have someone in power who cares about those at the bottom. Right now we have a person who doesn't care about the majority, about us, about LGBT people," Soares said. "Bolsonaro … is a bad person. He doesn't show a drop of empathy or solidarity for others. There is no way he can continue as president."
There was celebration around the region too as leftist allies tweeted their congratulations. "Viva Lula," said Colombia's leader, Gustavo Petro.
Argentina's president, Alberto Fernández, celebrated "a new era in Latin American history". "An era of hope and of a future that starts right now," he said.
Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commemorated what he called a victory for "equality and humanism".
Joe Biden issued a statement congratulating Lula on his election "following free, fair and credible elections".
"I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead," the US president said.
Justin Trudeau said: "The people of Brazil have spoken. I'm looking forward to working with @LulaOficial to strengthen the partnership between our countries, to deliver results for Canadians and Brazilians, and to advance shared priorities – like protecting the environment. Congratulations, Lula!"
Brazil's former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who governed before Lula's historic election 20 years ago, tweeted: "Democracy has won, Brazil has won!"
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Lula's election "kick starts a new chapter in Brazil's history" while Spain's president, Pedro Sánchez, called Lula's triumph a move towards "progress and hope".
The speed of the international reaction reflected widespread fears that Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has spent years attacking Brazil's democratic institutions, might refuse to accept defeat. In the lead up to the election he indicated he would contest a result he considered "abnormal".
At Lula's celebrations the mood was very different as the veteran leftist vowed to wage war on hunger, racism and to combat environmental destruction which has soared under Bolsonaro. "We will fight for zero deforestation in the Amazon … Brazil and the planet need the Amazon alive."
"We are going to restart the monitoring and surveillance of the Amazon and combat any kind of illegal activity," he vowed. "We are not interested in a war over the environment but we are ready to defend it from any threat."
As I wrote in my post of September 7 2022, Brazil Celebrates Her Bicentennial of Independence, and Bolsonaro Uses It To Weaponize Patriotism in Service to His Regime In A Trumpian-Nuremberg Rally; On this glorious and joyful celebration of two centuries of Independence in Brazil, which signify freedom from imperial colonialism and feudal aristocracy, the shadows of our history threaten to re-emerge and seize us once again in a tyranny of systemic unequal power and elite hegemonies of wealth and privilege.
And this we must resist. Let us give to fascist tyranny the only reply it merits; Never Again.
Bolsonaro quoted Richard Nixon to his Trumpian-Nuremberg rally; "I'm no crook."
As with all Big Lies, a criminal is exactly what he is.
Of my connection with Brazil and her peoples, stamped into my soul by the trauma of my near-execution by police while rescuing abandoned street children whom they were bounty hunting for the wealthy aristocratic elite, I have written in my post of July 15 2022, Let Hope Overcome Fear: Lula 2022; Among my personal role models in antifascism and revolution is the fictional character of Harry Tuttle played by Robert de Niro in the film Brazil, whose line "we're all in this together," echoes through forty some years of my life and adventures.
Let me place this in context; Brazil was my first solo foreign travel experience, flying to Sao Paulo when I was fourteen, in the summer of 1974, to train with some fellow fencers for the Pan American Games which were planned to be held there, though later the venue was moved to Mexico. I had some newly learned conversational Portuguese, an invitation to stay at the home of a boy my age I knew from the fencing tournament circuit with whom I could discover the local mischief, and visions of beach parties.
So it was that I entered a world of courtly manners and white-gloved servants, gracious and brilliant hosts who were local luminaries and threw a magnificent formal ball to introduce me, and a friend with whom I shared a mad passion for martial and equestrian sports, but also a world of high walls and armed guards.
My first view beyond this illusion came with the sounds of rifle fire from the guards; when I looked from my balcony to see who was attacking the front gate I discovered the guards were firing into a crowd of beggars, mostly children, who had mobbed a truck carrying the weekly food supplies. That day I made my first secret excursion beyond the walls.
What truths are hidden by the walls of our palaces, beyond which it is Forbidden to look? It is easy to believe the lies of authority when one is a member of the elite in whose interest they claim to wield power, and to fail to question one's own motives and position of privilege. Terrifyingly easy to believe lies when we are the beneficiaries of hierarchies of exclusionary otherness, of wealth and power disparity and inequalities systemically manufactured and weaponized in service to power, and of genocide, slavery, conquest, and imperialism.
Always pay attention to the man behind the curtain. For there is no just authority, and as Dorothy says in the Wizard of Oz, he's "just an old humbug", and his lies and illusions, force and control, serve no interests but his own.
Being a naïve American boy, I felt it was my duty to report the incident; but at the police station I had difficulty making myself understood. They thought I was there to place a bet on my guard in an ongoing monthly contest for which police officer bagged the most street children; there was a chalkboard on the station wall for this. This was how the elites of Brazil had chosen to solve the problem of abandoned street children, fully ten per cent of the national population. Another betting game called "the Big One", was for which policeman kicked the most pregnant girls in the stomach and ranked among the top ten causes of death in Brazil for teenage girls, invariably living within slum zones containing the most impoverished and most Black of citizens; this in a city founded by escaped African slaves as a free republic.
I learned much in the weeks that followed; above all I learned who is responsible for these inequalities; we are, if we do not challenge and defy tyranny and unjust systems.
During the nights of my adventures beyond the walls and actions to help the bands of child beggars and obstruct the police bounty hunts I had a traumatic near death experience, similar to the mock executions of Maurice Blanchot by the Nazis in 1944 as written in The Instant of My Death and Fyodor Dostoevsky by the Czar's secret police in 1849 as written in The Idiot; fleeing pursuit through a warren of tunnels with an injured child among others and trapped in the open by two police riflemen who took flanking positions and aimed at us while the leader called for surrender beyond the curve of a tunnel. I stood in front of a boy with a twisted leg who could not run while the others scattered and escaped or found hiding places, and refused to stand aside when ordered to do so. This was reflexive and a decision of instinct beneath the level of conscious thought or volition, where the truths our ourselves written in our flesh are forged and revealed. Asked to let someone die to save myself, I simply said no. When thought returned me from this moment of panic or transcendence of myself, I asked how much to let us walk away, whereupon he ordered his men to fire. But there was only one shot instead of a demonstration of crossfire, and that a wide miss; he had time to ask "What?" before falling to the ground.
And then our rescuers revealed themselves, having crept up on the police from behind; the Matadors, who might be described as vigilantes, a criminal gang, a revolutionary group, or all three, founded by Brazil's notorious vigilante and criminal Pedro Rodrigues Filho, infamous for avenging his mother's savage murder by killing his father and eating his heart, who had been arrested the previous year after a spectacular series of one hundred or more revenge killings of the most fiendish and monstrous of criminals, powerful men beyond the reach of the law who had perpetrated atrocities on women and children. Into this fearsome brotherhood I was welcomed, with the words; "You are one of us," and in the streets of Sao Paulo that summer I never again stood alone.
"We can't save everyone, but we can avenge"; so they described themselves to me, and this definition of solidarity as praxis or the action of values remains with me and shadows my use of the battle cry Never Again! As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, Act III, scene I; "If you wrong us, shall we not avenge?"
From the moment I saw the guards of the aristocratic family with whom I was a guest firing on the crowd of homeless children and beggars swarming the food supply truck at the manor gate, naked and skeletal in starvation, scarred and crippled and misshapen with diseases unknown to any people for whom healthcare and basic nutrition are free and guaranteed preconditions of the universal right to life, desperate for a handful of food which could mean one more day of survival; in that moment I chose my side, and my people are the powerless and the dispossessed, the silenced and the erased; all those whom Frantz Fanon called the Wretched of the Earth.
Join us, for a United Humankind cannot be enslaved, conquered, dehumanized, falsified, or commodified, nor can tyranny stand against liberty when the people refuse to submit.
For we are many, we are watching, and we are the future.
As written by Marcia Reverdosa and Rodrigo Pedroso, with reporting by Camilo Rocha,in CNN, in an article entitled As Brazil's military rolls out the tanks for Independence Day, Bolsonaro tells fans to 'make a stand' ; "Every year, September 7 in Brazil is a day of colorful parades, military demonstrations and national pride, as the country celebrates gaining its independence from colonial Portugal. But as Brazil heads toward presidential elections next month, President Jair Bolsonaro appears to be twisting the national holiday toward partisan ends.
Along with first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, the president attended a military parade in the capital Brasilia on Wednesday morning, greeting large crowds of supporters as the pair rode in a vintage Rolls-Royce convertible before the beginning of the event.
"The Brazilian people today are taking to the streets to celebrate 200 years of independence and eternity freedom. What is at stake is our freedom and our future. The population knows that it is the one that guides our decisions," Bolsonaro said in an interview with a Brazilian state television channel ahead of the parade.
Though Independence Day is supposed to be a nonpartisan national holiday, the president has often referred to it as a key milestone in his re-election campaign, telling supporters to prepare to "give their lives" on that day -- an escalation in rhetoric even for the outspoken populist leader.
"I call on all of you, on September 7, to take to the streets for the last time ... All of you here have sworn to give your life for your freedom. Repeat with me: I swear to give my life for freedom," Bolsonaro said, as he accepted the Liberal Party's presidential nomination on July 23.
More recently, Bolsonaro told fans to show up to Independence Day celebrations in Rio, where he will be speaking, to "make a stand" and "fight for your freedom" -- vague injunctions that critics warn could be interpreted as incitement to unruly behavior.
"(September 7) is the time to fight for your freedom.. let's go make a stand," the president told viewers during the live address on social media Thursday.
"If someone is accused of an undemocratic act, I want to pay myself for their (legal) defense," he added, using the same term for attacks on Brazilian institutions and democratic norms of which he himself has often been accused.
Bolsonaro's campaign team organized hundreds of political rallies to coincide with Independence Day and the president was expected to give a speech later on Wednesday at a political rally in Brasilia, and then join a military celebration and a rally in Rio de Janeiro in the afternoon.
Bolsonaro supporter Paulo Roseno, a former military sergeant who is helping to organize one such rally in Sao Paulo, told CNN he is expecting millions of people to be gathered on the city's Paulista Avenue in support of Bolsonaro's candidacy.
The president's calls to action have been widely interpreted as echoing the election-denying rhetoric of former US President Donald Trump, whose convocation of supporters in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, preceded a riot on Capitol Hill.
"Bolsonaro and Trump share the same authoritarian populist playbook," says Guilherme Casarões, professor of political science at Getulio Vargas University and coordinator of Brazil's Far Right Observatory.
"Both indicated they would refuse to accept an electoral result negative to them, both talk about fraud in the ballots. They both also keep a permanent incitement of their radicalized base."
He told CNN that that he foresees a "real risk" of a Jan. 6-type event in Brazil if Bolsonaro's leftwing rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, eventually claims victory at the polls.
"I don't think we're going to have a coup in the classic sense with the military on the street, like what happened in 1964," he said, referring to the historic overthrow that led to two decades of military dictatorship in Brazil.
"What I think is more likely to happen is an attempted coup, some kind of subversion of democracy ... or any attempt to delay the electoral process by introducing doubts about the legitimacy of the process."
As written by Katy Watson for the BBC; "He began the celebrations in the capital, Brasilia, where he took part in a military procession.
He then travelled to Rio de Janeiro, where he flew over tens of thousands of people on Copacabana beach.
Mr Bolsonaro faces a strong challenge in October from leftist ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
He told his supporters in the capital that the polls showing that he was trailing his rival were "a lie". The latest poll from Datafolha shows Lula with 45% of the votes against Mr Bolsonaro with 32%.
"We know we are facing a battle of good versus evil," he told the crowd in Brasilia. "The people are on our side - the side of good."
Ahead of the celebrations marking 200 years since Brazil's independence from Portugal, the president - and presidential candidate - had called for his fans to come out on to the streets in support of him. Many more thousands gathered in other cities across Brazil.
Supporters started arriving at Copacabana early in the morning. There was an official airshow and a paratroop display and once the official duties were done, Mr Bolsonaro then addressed the crowd once more.
"We needed to wake up from the lethargy, from the lies, the pretty words but also of the cheating of our population," he said in a direct dig at rival Lula and his Workers' Party. "I'm not educated, I swear, but I am not a thief."
The crowd of supporters cheered loudly - a sea of green, yellow and blue. Everyone dressed in the colours of the Brazilian flag, the colours now most associated with Brazil's far right.
"Bolsonaro is our freedom," said supporter Tania Moura. "I'm here because for a long time, we haven't had a democracy."
On the water, navy ships were in the distance and closer to the shore, dozens of jet skis gathered - many waving the Brazilian flag - in support of the president.
"We are celebrating because we are going to win, democracy is going to win here," said Henrique Vendrini. "We don't accept the polls, we believe what we can see here, a lot of people just celebrating Brazil, celebrating democracy, and celebrating the new re-election."
Lula responded to the personal attacks by Mr Bolsonaro by comparing how he handled Independence Day as leader.
"I never used the national day, the day for the Brazilian people, the most important day because of independence, as a political campaign tool," he said.
While Bolsonaro supporters gathered on the beach, in the centre of Rio de Janeiro, a smaller crowd came out in protest. A parallel event known as the Cry of the Excluded, designed to give a voice to those often forgotten by the state, this year's event was particularly pointed.
"We are here to fight for democracy, to get back our colours of our flag," said Constância Laviola, dressed in a yellow and green T-shirt and hugging a cardboard cut-out of Lula.
"This should be a day of pride, but some of the politicians are trying to kidnap our day, because this is the day of the nation, of the people, and not for a political campaign."
Brazil's first round of elections will be held on 2 October. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, a second round will be held at the end of October."
As written by Tom Phillips and Caio Barretto Briso in The Guardian; "Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has staged a thumping display of political strength on his country's most famous beach in a bid to energize his stagnant re-election campaign.
Tens of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters flocked to the sands of Copacabana on Wednesday to celebrate 200 years of Brazilian independence and their populist leader, who is battling to win a second term in October's vote.
"I'm not particularly polite. I use swear words – but I'm no crook," Bolsonaro told a sea of yellow-clad supporters in the conservative seaside neighbourhood.
The Copacabana rally is part of a bid to jumpstart the president's campaign with less than a month until 156 million Brazilians cast their votes.
The favourite to win is the former centre-left president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who most polls give a comfortable, although not necessarily unassailable lead, over the rightwing firebrand. Bolsonaro's attempts to win poor voters over with billions of dollars of welfare payments have so far fallen flat.
But from early on Wednesday, Bolsonaro devotees poured on to Copacabana's beachfront Atlantic Avenue to denounce what they called Lula's "communist" threat and champion the president they call the "Mito" (Legend).
"For me he represents freedom," said Jenivaldo Afonso, a 40-year-old carpenter who wore a T-shirt featuring Bolsonaro's face and the phrase: "No soldier has given up the battle. We're with you until the end."
Of Lula, Afonso said: "He's a bum and a crook who needs locking up."
Marcelo Cunha, an 85-year-old lawyer, came with more than a dozen doomsaying placards decrying the supposed far-left threat to his homeland.
"If you want fetuses thrown in the rubbish bin, vote for the left," said one.
A second proclaimed: "If you're a psychopath, thick, naive or shameless, vote for the left."
Cunha pointed to the packed streets around him – buzzing with Bolsonaristas of all ages wearing bright yellow Brazil jerseys – and claimed more than a million people had turned out.
"The polls indicate Lula's going to win [but] I don't believe them. I can't believe it seeing all this," Cunha said.
Experts said Bolsonaro's beachside fiesta was designed to mobilise his base by conveying the idea that he, rather than Lula, was on course to win the 2 October vote.
"It's an attempt to deny what the polls are showing and to pre-emptively deny the election result in case he loses," said Bruno Boghossian, a political commentator for the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. "The clear subtext of this is that he has more support than Lula."
Lula, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, condemned what he called Bolsonaro's hijacking of a day of national celebration for political gain. "7 September should be a day of love and union for Brazil. Unfortunately, that's not what is happening today. I have faith Brazil will recover its flag, its sovereignty and its democracy," Lula tweeted.
A recently published French book calls Bolsonaro – whose handling of coronavirus and the Amazon has caused international outrage – the "Cauchemar brésilien" (Brazilian Nightmare).
In a 16-minute address – which followed a spectacular aerobatic display from the air force and an ear-splitting 21-gun salute – Bolsonaro claimed his re-election was essential if Brazil was to avoid becoming a Venezuela or Nicaragua-style dictatorship under his "gangster" rival.
Bolsonaro at the opening of the National Agro Meeting on Wednesday. Polls suggest Bolsonaro will lose to Lula in either the first or second round.
Staring out toward Rio's Sugar Loaf Mountain, Bolsonaro said the likes of Lula needed "eradicating" from public life. He belittled a recent pro-democracy manifesto – signed by more than a million citizens – which warned Brazil's young democracy was facing a moment of "immense danger" because of Bolsonaro's authoritarian tendencies.
Fears of turmoil, or even a military coup or uprising, failed to materialize during the carnival-like event, although anti-democratic banners could be seen hanging from sound trucks or being carried by protesters.
One urged Bolsonaro to deploy the armed forces to ensure next month's election was not rigged. Another demanded a "clean-out" of the supreme court and congress."
We are by now sadly familiar with such strategies of tyranny and the subversion of democracy. On the other side of the coin of fate now spinning in the air as elections loom and the people of Brazil choose between futures, what might a Brazil free of plutocracy and the theft of public resources, the carceral police state of brutal repression, and of inequalities of race and of patriarchal sexual terror look like?
As written by Tom Phillips in The Guardian, in an article entitled Citizens' manifesto declares Brazilian democracy facing 'immense danger',
Declaration comes amid fears Jair Bolsonaro could attempt January 6-style coup to retain power if voted out in October; "Brazilian democracy faces a moment of "immense danger", a manifesto signed by almost a million citizens has warned amid growing fears president Jair Bolsonaro could refuse to accept defeat in October's election.
The declaration – whose backers include major figures in business, politics, science and the arts – comes after Bolsonaro escalated his attacks on Brazil's voting system and summoned hardcore supporters to hit the streets "for the last time" before the 2 October vote.
Bolsonaro's actions have fueled fears the radical far-right populist may seek to emulate his political idol, Donald Trump, by contesting the election result or inciting a January 6-style insurrection in a bid to retain power. Polls suggest Bolsonaro will lose to the leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in either the first or second round.
The manifesto, which is inspired by a historic 1977 declaration denouncing Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship, says the country is facing "a moment of immense danger to democratic normality". Any attempt to incite violence or promote "a rupture with constitutional order" would be "intolerable", it warns.
"We recently saw how authoritarian follies put the United States' centuries-old democracy at risk. There, efforts to disrupt democracy and people's faith in the reliability of the [electoral] process did not succeed, and nor will they here," says the document, whose signatories include three former presidents and musicians such as Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento and Brazil's biggest pop star, Anitta. She has described October's election as a battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore, with Bolsonaro representing JK Rowling's Dark Lord.
On Thursday morning hundreds of pro-democracy campaigners assembled at the University of São Paulo's law school to hear the manifesto – which Bolsonaro has belitted as "some little letter" – read publicly for the first time.
Simultaneous readings took place in cities across the country, including Belo Horizonte and Rio, as well as at foreign universities such as King's College London. Hundreds of acts and protests were planned.
Large crowds of students, activists and academics packed Rio's Catholic University to hear the pronouncement, flanked by banners reading: 'Democracy is life'.
"Brazil is facing a critical moment. We are under threat from the far-right … this is perhaps the most important election of our lifetimes," said Carlos Fidelis Ponte, a 64-year-old researcher from Brazil's Fiocruz research institute.
"Bolsonaro's re-election would be a total disaster. I feel I am living in a country that has been hijacked," Ponte said.
"This is something historic. It is an important moment to resist," said Maria Clara Walcacer, a 22-year-old psychology student who had come wearing a lilac sticker that read "Bolsonaro out!"
The former Brazil footballer and longtime democracy advocate Walter Casagrande said he hoped the "anti-coup" manifesto would prove a historic turning point comparable to the Diretas Já movement which helped usher out the dictatorship in the 1980s.
"[Bolsonaro] claims he is defending democracy and wants freedom. He doesn't want anything of the kind. On the contrary. He wants to be a dictator," said Casagrande, although he predicted Bolsonaro would fail to achieve that goal.
Another signatory, the singer-songwriter Nando Reis, said he had signed to protest the "terror and destruction" Bolsonaro had inflicted on South America's largest democracy since taking office in 2019. "We have been through three years and eight months of hell with this man in the presidency."
Reis voiced hope citizens would vote out Bolsonaro but, like many, fears he will not go quietly: "If he loses the election it is very likely that he will contest the vote. Everything he says is paving the way for this."
Bolsonaro's posturing, which included summoning foreign ambassadors last month to denigrate his own country's electronic voting system with false information, has also caused international alarm.
The former US ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, said: "I'm very concerned by the effort of president Bolsonaro and his team to undermine the credibility of the institutions and the processes by which elections are conducted in Brazil. For me that can only have one purpose, which is to try to prevent an election from happening or change their course or outcome."
"Bolsonaro and his team have looked very closely at what happened on January 6 trying to understand why it was that a sitting president failed in his effort to overturn election results," added Shannon, who called the pro-democracy mobilization an important step towards convincing Bolsonaro to rethink any possible intervention.
If Bolsonaro realized none of the major political institutions and the armed forces would support a bid to halt or meddle in the vote "then he might decide for his own well-being that there's nothing he has to do but let the election play out".
"But if he thought there was a way he could intervene – to intervene successfully – he would," Shannon warned."
As I wrote in my post of June 3 2021, Brazilians Seize the Streets to Demand the Resignation of Bolsonaro; The horrific death toll of Bolsonaro's inept and corrupt handling of the Pandemic, the campaign of ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, the plunder of public wealth and natural resources by a plutocratic elite, the vast precariat of a nation poised on the edge of collapse; all these and one thing more have brought the people of Brazil into the streets this week to demand the resignation of the tyrant Bolsonaro; the brutal repression of a kleptocratic fascist regime of force and violence.
The use of force and violence fails at the point of resistance and refusal to submit, and power is a fragile and hollow illusion which may be dispelled by exposure and challenge of authority, for who cannot be controlled is free. Regardless of the death squads and sexual terror, of the enormous military might of the government of Brazil as a host structure of racist elite hegemony, a people who do not recognize the authority of the state and who meet repression with disobedience cannot be subjugated.
Every Brazilian in the streets today who challenge and defy state terror has won their freedom, for they cannot be enslaved by those who would be our masters. So begins the end of tyranny in Brazil; we can help the people of Brazil liberate themselves and establish a true democracy as a free society of equals by shaping our policy to such ends.
The people of Brazil have spoken; how shall we answer them?
As I wrote in my post of March 11 2021, Brazil Reclaims Its Heart: the Return of Lula da Silva, Champion of the People; Lula da Silva, Champion of the People, has had the false corruption charges against him overturned and is now free to challenge Bolsonaro for the Presidency of Brazil once again.
This is a historic example of class war, which pits labor leader da Silva directly against capitalist kingpin Bolsonaro, whose regime creates wealth for elites by the de facto enslavement of Blacks and the precariat and the plunder of resources from indigenous peoples, and whose government is controlled from within by a network of some six thousand military officers who enforce his kleptocracy with brutal repression.
Racism, patriarchy, oligarchic and plutocratic wealth, de facto military rule; Brazil today meets all the criteria of fascist tyranny. I look now to Lula to change the balance of power and restore democracy in Brazil.
As written by Benjamin Fogel in Jacobin; "Yesterday, Brazilian Supreme Court judge Luiz Edson Fachin ruled to annul all of former president Lula da Silva's convictions. Fachin said that the court that convicted Lula in the southern city of Curitiba did not have the legal authority to convict Brazil's first Workers' Party (PT) president. As such, he must be retried by a federal court in the capital city of Brasília.
The most important effect of the overturning is that it restores Lula's political rights, allowing him to run in next year's presidential election. Under Brazil's Ficha Limpa ("Clean Slate") law — ironically passed by the PT government — politicians convicted of crimes or impeached are unable to run for elected office.
Lula was convicted of money laundering and corruption in 2016 for receiving improvements to a beachfront apartment he never lived in and served 580 days in prison before being released on appeal in November 2019.
The case against Lula was always weak, but it didn't stop him from getting convicted due to the fact that Sergio Moro, the judge hearing the trial, was illegally colluding with prosecutors to make a case against the former labor leader. His conviction was the crowning achievement of Brazil's historic Operação Lava Jato ("Operation Car Wash") investigation, but we now have clear evidence that prosecutors and judges conspired to imprison him explicitly to prevent him from competing in the 2018 elections, which saw the election of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. "
"The elephant in the room is how the Brazilian military will respond. In a recent book, former Armed Forces head Eduardo Villas Boâs admitted that he and other senior generals attempted to exert pressure on the Supreme Court through Twitter the night before a ruling that would determine if Lula would be imprisoned and ineligible to run in the 2018 elections. Lula was leading all the polls at the time by a significant margin over Bolsonaro."
As I wrote in my post of November 23 2020, Triumph and Struggle in Brazil; Though the influence of the Pentecostal churches which form the backbone of Bolsonaro's influence, puppets of American imperialism and the plutocratic elites whose rapacious eye ogles the immense wealth of Brazil with a covetous gaze, this month's elections have dealt a blow to his fascist tyranny and to the hegemony of power and privilege of which it is an instrument.
Most hopeful of all is the rise of a Socialist Mayor in Sao Paulo, the nations most populous city and a vast warren of poverty and crime I can only compare to the old Forbidden City of Kowloon. This was the city of the birth of my political awareness, my first solo foreign travel in the summer before I began high school and my first experience of the living conditions of much of humankind outside of my own social sphere and of the borders of America. The details are unpleasant, but I have always retained a deep sense of kinship with the people of Brazil since that summer of my thirteenth year.
From the moment I saw the guards of the aristocratic family with whom I was a guest firing on the crowd of homeless children and beggars swarming the food supply truck at the manor gate, naked and skeletal in starvation, scarred and crippled and misshapen with diseases unknown to any people for whom healthcare and basic nutrition are free and guaranteed preconditions of the universal right to life, desperate for a handful of food which could mean one more day of survival; in that moment I chose my side, and my people are the powerless and the dispossessed, the silenced and the erased.
May we all be granted the gift of vision of our interdependence and the universality of our humanity, and wounds which open us to the pain of others.
As written by Ana Carvalhaes in Jacobin; " The political situation in Brazil remains quite reactionary, even after Jair Bolsonaro's party lost ground in Sunday's election. But the far-right president's violent agenda took a hit — and that's worth celebrating.
"the Brazilian electorate has replaced the extreme right with the more traditional right. Right-wing mayors who "followed the science" were returned to office, or at least made it into the second round. These conservative mayors enacted various measures such as closing down schools and gyms, encouraging the use of masks, and enacting social distancing orders, all of which Bolsonaro opposed vigorously with threats of prosecution, crude public pronouncements, and even the firing of his own ministers. In the open conflict between Bolsonaro and state governors over the pandemic — which has killed 165,000 Brazilians and infected more than 5 million — the far right has suffered a blow."
"The idea of diversifying political representation — that is, running more women, black, indigenous, and transgender working-class candidates, has gained traction on the Left."
"Looking ahead to the 2022 elections, the most likely development is that the progressive electorate — with its concern for social, environmental, anti-racist, and feminist demands — will coalesce around an openly anti-Bolsonarist identity and pressure the Left parties (PSOL, PT, PcdoB) to seriously consider an electoral alliance capable of defeating the Right. The absence of the Left in Rio's second round will only reinforce this dynamic. In order to cohere this bloc, it will be necessary to negotiate an alliance that doesn't take for granted the PT's dominance.
Perhaps even more important, the Left must use this campaign's victories (both large and small) to act as raindrops fertilizing the ground, reviving people's willingness to join resistance struggles against Bolsonaro's plans as well as those hatched by all right-wing, neoliberal governors and mayors. The pressure for unity among the Left is coming mainly from below, from the social movements and communities, and we must achieve it in order to defeat Bolsonaro's violent agenda."
30 de outubro de 2022 Vitória no Brasil: "Vamos viver novos tempos de paz, amor e esperança" promete o novo presidente Lula ao iniciar a restauração da democracia
Celebramos uma Esperança Desamparada vindicada e nos tornamos gloriosos na vitória dos povos do Brasil e de seu campeão Lula, dançando nas ruas e correndo descontroladamente além dos limites do Proibido.
Um monstro e tirano foi expulso de seu castelo, e isso é sempre motivo de comemoração. Sempre teremos esse momento de triunfo e a esperança que ele reserva para o nosso futuro, independentemente das provações que virão. Se tal esperança é uma dádiva ou uma maldição, cabe a cada um de nós viver e tornar real; mas agora são possíveis coisas que ontem não eram, e isso eu chamo de vitória.
Com as palavras de Glinda a Oz felicito Lula e os povos do Brasil; 'Esperamos muito tempo por você, feiticeiro. E nós realmente precisamos que você seja o Mago que esperamos que você seja.
Um grande trabalho começa agora, como Biden na América, Lula no Brasil lidera a Restauração da Democracia em uma nação cujos sistemas, estruturas, instituições, valores e ideais foram danificados pela subversão, ruptura e fratura fascistas, mas cujo povo emerge do cadinho de seu forjamento invicto e renovado.
Um dia seremos uma Humanidade Unida e uma sociedade livre de iguais, e Lula como Biden será lembrado enquanto houver seres humanos entre os fundadores de uma nova humanidade e civilização, cuja visão moldará nosso ser, ou seja, e valor, informar nossas escolhas sobre como sermos humanos juntos por milênios e motivar nossa descoberta das possibilidades ilimitadas de nos tornarmos humanos.
Vamos cada um fazer o que pudermos para tornar o sonho da democracia real.
7 de setembro de 2022 Brasil comemora seu bicentenário de independência, e Bolsonaro o usa para armar o patriotismo a serviço de seu regime em um comício Trump-Nuremberg
Nesta gloriosa e jubilosa celebração de dois séculos de Independência do Brasil, que significam a libertação do colonialismo imperial e da aristocracia feudal, as sombras de nossa história ameaçam ressurgir e nos tomar mais uma vez em uma tirania de poder desigual sistêmico e hegemonias elitistas de riqueza e privilégio.
E a isso devemos resistir. Demos à tirania fascista a única resposta que ela merece; Nunca mais.
Bolsonaro citou Richard Nixon em seu comício Trump-Nuremberg; "Eu não sou bandido."
Como em todas as grandes mentiras, um criminoso é exatamente o que é.
Da minha ligação com o Brasil e seus povos, estampada em minha alma pelo trauma de minha quase execução pela polícia ao resgatar meninos de rua abandonados que estavam caçando recompensas para a rica elite aristocrática, escrevi em meu post de 15 de julho de 2022, Deixe a esperança vencer o medo: Lula 2022; Entre meus modelos pessoais no antifascismo e na revolução está o personagem fictício de Harry Tuttle interpretado por Robert de Niro no filme Brasil, cuja frase "estamos todos juntos nisso", ecoa por quarenta e poucos anos de minha vida e aventuras.
Deixe-me colocar isso no contexto; O Brasil foi minha primeira viagem solo ao exterior, voando para São Paulo quando eu tinha quatorze anos, no verão de 1974, para treinar com alguns colegas esgrimistas para os Jogos Pan-Americanos que estavam planejados para lá, embora mais tarde o local tenha sido transferido para México. Eu tinha um pouco de português de conversação recém-aprendido, um convite para ficar na casa de um menino da minha idade que eu conhecia do circuito de torneios de esgrima com quem eu poderia descobrir as travessuras locais e visões de festas na praia.
Foi assim que entrei em um mundo de maneiras corteses e criados de luvas brancas, anfitriões graciosos e brilhantes que eram luminares locais e deram um magnífico baile formal para me apresentar, e um amigo com quem eu compartilhava uma paixão louca por esportes marciais e equestres , mas também um mundo de muros altos e guardas armados.
Minha primeira visão além dessa ilusão veio com os sons de tiros de fuzil dos guardas; quando olhei da minha sacada para ver quem estava atacando o portão da frente, descobri que os guardas estavam atirando em uma multidão de mendigos, a maioria crianças, que assaltaram um caminhão que transportava os mantimentos semanais. Naquele dia fiz minha primeira excursão secreta além das muralhas.
Que verdades estão escondidas pelas paredes de nossos palácios, além das quais é proibido olhar? É fácil acreditar nas mentiras da autoridade quando alguém é membro da elite em cujo interesse eles alegam exercer poder e deixar de questionar seus próprios motivos e posição de privilégio. Mentiras terrivelmente fáceis de acreditar quando somos beneficiários de hierarquias de alteridade excludente, de riqueza e disparidade de poder e desigualdades sistematicamente fabricadas e armadas a serviço do poder, e de genocídio, escravidão, conquista e imperialismo.
Sempre preste atenção no homem atrás da cortina. Pois não existe autoridade justa, e como Dorothy diz no Mágico de Oz, ele é "apenas um velho farsante", e suas mentiras e ilusões, força e controle, não servem a nenhum interesse além dos seus.
Sendo um menino americano ingênuo, senti que era meu dever relatar o incidente; mas na delegacia tive dificuldade em me fazer entender. Eles achavam que eu estava ali para apostar na minha guarda em um concurso mensal em andamento para o qual policial pegasse o maior número de crianças de rua; havia um quadro-negro na parede da estação para isso. Foi assim que as elites do Brasil escolheram resolver o problema das crianças de rua abandonadas, dez por cento da população nacional. Outro jogo de apostas chamado "o Grande", foi aquele em que o policial chutou a barriga das mais grávidas e ficou entre as dez maiores causas de morte no Brasil para adolescentes, invariavelmente vivendo em zonas de favelas que abrigam as mais pobres e negras do mundo. cidadãos; isso em uma cidade fundada por escravos africanos fugidos como uma república livre.
Aprendi muito nas semanas que se seguiram; sobretudo aprendi quem é o responsável por essas desigualdades; somos, se não desafiarmos e desafiarmos a tirania e os sistemas injustos.
Durante as noites de minhas aventuras além dos muros e ações para ajudar os bandos de mendigos infantis e obstruir as caças de recompensas da polícia, tive uma experiência traumática de quase morte, semelhante às execuções simuladas de Maurice Blanchot pelos nazistas em 1944, conforme escrito em The Instant de Minha Morte e Fiódor Dostoiévski pela polícia secreta do Czar em 1849, conforme escrito em O Idiota; fugindo da perseguição por um labirinto de túneis com uma criança ferida entre outros e presos a céu aberto por dois fuzileiros da polícia que tomaram posições de flanco e apontaram para nós enquanto o líder pedia rendição além da curva de um túnel. Fiquei na frente de um menino com uma perna torcida que não podia correr enquanto os outros espalhavam uma e escapou ou encontrou esconderijos, e se recusou a ficar de lado quando ordenado a fazê-lo. Isso foi reflexivo e uma decisão do instinto abaixo do nível do pensamento consciente ou volição, onde as verdades que nós mesmos escrevemos em nossa carne são forjadas e reveladas. Pediram para deixar alguém morrer para me salvar, eu simplesmente disse não. Quando o pensamento me fez sair desse momento de pânico ou transcendência de mim mesmo, perguntei quanto nos deixaria ir embora, e então ele ordenou que seus homens atirassem. Mas houve apenas um tiro em vez de uma demonstração de fogo cruzado, e isso foi um grande erro; ele teve tempo de perguntar "O quê?" antes de cair no chão.
E então nossos socorristas se revelaram, tendo se aproximado da polícia por trás; os Matadors, que podem ser descritos como vigilantes, uma gangue criminosa, um grupo revolucionário, ou todos os três, fundados pelo notório vigilante e criminoso brasileiro Pedro Rodrigues Filho, famoso por vingar o assassinato selvagem de sua mãe matando seu pai e comendo seu coração, que havia sido preso no ano anterior após uma série espetacular de cem ou mais assassinatos por vingança dos criminosos mais diabólicos e monstruosos, homens poderosos fora do alcance da lei que haviam perpetrado atrocidades contra mulheres e crianças. Nessa temível irmandade fui acolhido, com as palavras; "Você é um de nós", e nas ruas de São Paulo naquele verão nunca mais fiquei sozinho.
"Não podemos salvar a todos, mas podemos vingar"; assim eles se descreveram para mim, e essa definição de solidariedade como práxis ou ação de valores permanece comigo e obscurece meu uso do grito de guerra Nunca Mais! Como Shakespeare escreveu em O Mercador de Veneza, Ato III, cena I; "Se você nos ofender, não devemos nos vingar?"
A partir do momento em que vi os guardas da família aristocrática com quem eu era hóspede atirando contra a multidão de crianças sem-teto e mendigos que fervilhavam o caminhão de alimentos no portão da mansão, nus e esqueléticos de fome, cheios de cicatrizes, aleijados e deformados com doenças desconhecidas a qualquer povo para quem os cuidados de saúde e a alimentação básica sejam gratuitos e pré-condições garantidas do direito universal à vida, desesperados por um punhado de alimentos que possam significar mais um dia de sobrevivência; naquele momento eu escolhi o meu lado, e meu povo são os impotentes e os despossuídos, os silenciados e os apagados; todos aqueles a quem Frantz Fanon chamava de miseráveis da terra.
Junte-se a nós, pois a Humanidade Unida não pode ser escravizada, conquistada, desumanizada, falsificada ou mercantilizada, nem a tirania pode se opor à liberdade quando o povo se recusa a se submeter.
Pois somos muitos, estamos observando e somos o futuro.
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