 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with CodePink, common frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast Thursdays at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern right here on YouTube Live. You can find us on YouTube channels for the ConvoCouch, Popular Resistance, and CodePink. Post-broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, and at radindimedia.com. And now, as of today, you can find our podcasts at popularresistance.org as well. Today's episode, Brazil's Lula da Silva, a victory of an immense democratic movement. Our guest today, and I'm really so excited to introduce all of you to him. I've been wanting to work with this gentleman for a long time. So today's guest is Michael Fox. He's an independent journalist and the host of the podcast, Brazil on Fire, which is a NACLA and Real News production. So welcome, Michael, an honor to have you with us. Thank you so much, Teri. It's an honor to be here. So we are both, for our audience, Michael and I are both talking to you from Mexico, me in Mexico City this evening, and Michael from Oaxaca, but Michael has been in Brazil and just returning since the elections on Sunday the 30th. So let me give all of you just a quick background as to what happened on Sunday the 30th, and then we'll have Michael join the conversation. So Luiz Anasio Lula da Silva was elected the next president of Brazil in a stunning comeback, following a tight runoff race on Sunday, October 30th. His victory is one of an immense movement returning democracy to Latin America's largest country after four years of Yair Bolsonaro's far-right administration. The 76-year-old politician's win represents the return of the left into power in Brazil and concludes a triumphant personal comeback for Lula after a series of corruption allegations led to his imprisonment for 580 days. The sentences were later annulled by the Supreme Court, clearing his path to run for re-election, and that's a perfect example I'll just throw in here for the audience of law fair and that's a whole other subject. But here's what Lula said in response to all of that on Sunday, they tried to bury me alive and here I am. He will take the reins of a country plagued by cross, by, excuse me, by gross inequality that is still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 9.6 million people fell under the poverty line between 2019 and 2021. Literacy and school attendance have deteriorated as well. He will also be faced with a deeply fractured nation and urgent environmental issues, including rampant deforestation of the Amazon. This will be Lula's third term after previously governing Brazil for two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2010. So welcome, Michael. And maybe for our audience, we should maybe first start with deconstructing exactly what happened on Sunday the 30th because it was a very close race. And we should probably talk about that and that has kind of led to why there are people still in the streets saying this is not who I voted for. That's right. Well, it was a very close race and the election itself, it kind of got off without any hiccups, although there were a series of concerns about voter suppression where the federal police was stopping buses. They had 500 different operations happening at roads and highways around the country, slowing down people's ability to get to the polls. And of course, this was from what we hear from reports, this was done in conjunction with the Bolsonaro, the executive branch. So that was concerning. The Supreme Electoral Court said it wasn't that big of an issue, everyone still got to vote. And in fact, voter participation actually increased from the first round to the second round. That doesn't happen. So that was important. And Lula won with just over two million votes, just under 2% ahead of Bolsonaro. And I was in Sao Paulo, I was actually on Paulista Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare in Sao Paulo. As they announced that Lula had just overtook Bolsonaro, and people just exploded. I mean, they just exploded. And what you had from that point on for the next six hours, I mean, it still gives the hair stand on the back of my neck thinking about it. It's so powerful and exciting, but just tens of thousands of people just rolled into the street and parting like they haven't parted in years. I asked one guy, when was the last time you felt this excited for something? He said, I think it was Lula's first election exactly 20 years ago. So 20, wow. That he was out. And, you know, so it was just, it was a momentous occasion, so important for so many people talking about, you know, the return of democracy, the return of hope. Everyone said the return of hope. And the possibility to take steps in the right direction away in recent years of attacks on democracy, the authoritarian attacks, attempts to undercut Congress and the Supreme Court and just so many other things that the Bolsonaro government has done. So, you know, a very big election and really important for Brazil because of so many things that Lula faced in order to get elected, including, you know, allegations of vote buying by Bolsonaro himself, but also by more than, there were more than a thousand denunciations of business owners trying to coerce their employees to vote in favor of Bolsonaro. That's five times more than what we saw in 2018. And the use of the state institutions in order to, you know, in sort of influence people away and then disinformation and fake news through the roof like no one has ever seen before in Brazil. And so it was massive and Lula still won. So lots of hope in Brazil, lots of hope in the region. Well, he did overcome a lot of, and I remember distinctly hearing reports back from the first round elections, the fake news and the real, the first round really being focused on who's less corrupt than the other, unfortunately, even though the whole prosecution of Lula was trumped up to keep him from running again. That whole law fair, as I mentioned in the introduction of the show, there is, I also heard that and correct me if I'm wrong, the Brazilian budget is set up by program and under Bolsonaro, many programs became part of a discretionary budget, which is not how their constitution defines their budget, the national budgeting process. And a lot of that discretionary budget was used, not necessarily to overtly buy votes, but to influence, like to make investments into communities, schools, whatever, yeah. No, absolutely. No, absolutely. Well, it's what we call in Brazil the secret budget and it was approved by Congress and Bolsonaro in late 2019. And it was originally, like the reasoning behind this was that at that point, there was this, there were these impeachment pushes to try and get Bolsonaro power. He did not have the support amongst the Centro, the more centrist, center-right parties in Brazil kind of always go with whoever the president is or they can shift. And that's what we saw with Dilma Rousseff. That's why Dilma was impeached in 2016 because they were kind of wrapped up with the right. And so it looked like there was actually movement for a potential impeachment and this was a way for him to shore up votes by sending these kind of pork barrel pet projects and funneling money into people's and just to put this in context, what this secret budget did was it allowed the head of the lower house in conjunction with Bolsonaro basically just to send money or money for projects into local municipalities without having any sort of paper trail, without having any sort of transparency of who it was going to, how much money it was. And there was one statistic that 140 congressional representatives in the first round were elected and 60 of them in Bolsonaro's camp, tightly in Bolsonaro far-right camp and then the rest of them being kind of centrist and center-right camp. 140 of them were elected and they received a total of $1.2 billion in pet projects, money funneled into their municipalities and whatever else, which again, it wasn't overt, like we're giving you this because we're going to get this, but the way of pushing these projects and then saying, look, we got this from the federal government and Bolsonaro's the best and it's a way of shoring up that support amongst the centrists, right. And this is like, you know, this is what corruption looks like. It's always looked like in Brazil and yet Bolsonaro, because of the fact that nothing is transparent then he has this way of kind of saying, oh, it's not me. And Bolsonaro said, I have nothing to do with that. It's just a Congress thing which is just completely not real, but that was a huge source of funds and that's just that $1.2 billion US dollars, just a small piece of the total amount of funds available this year that the money has been funneled through. So it's extremely concerning and that's how come Simone Tibet who was this third party candidate, she won the third most amount of votes in the first round which was still only 3% and then she backed Lula but she's calling this very possibly the largest corruption scandal in the entire planet right now. So it is a massive thing that really hasn't been talked about as it should be because everyone's just so focused on everything else and Bolsonaro has been pushing his campaign of faith, holy war in order to get people on his side because that's what he can win, right? He can win over evangelical vote, family values, moral values, try and tell people that this is about preserving the patriarchy and paternity. Of course, of course, of course. And then when the pastors come on every Sunday morning, whatever, telling people, listen, you have to vote for this guy because it's your duty and he's good and the other one's evil and if the other one wins, he's going to steal your private property and he's persecuting churches, then people are afraid and they go for it. And now today, a third of the country's evangelical and evangelicals voted two thirds in favor of Bolsonaro and using these scare tactics was just massive fake news. So anyway, that's important what you bring up though about one third being evangelical and the role of the Catholic Church to because I think for those of us that tend, you know, to lean left of center, this is important for us to understand that culturally, Brazil is pretty conservative. Absolutely. Which doesn't mean but that doesn't mean politically they are and we're not always so good at understanding that. And a lot of things and because of that, I think there's a lot of things from the global north that are considered progressive desires, needs, definitions of rights get put on some of these other countries that don't necessarily have the same cultural relationship to it. But that doesn't mean their politics aren't progressive. That doesn't mean they don't want a progressive economy. To help raise people out of poverty and educate and health care all of those things. And that's a really important factor that does not often come up with Brazil if they are relatively culturally conservative. Not just evangelical although that's an important role too. That's a whole that's a whole another episode. That's right. Absolutely. Yeah. And particularly going forward in Brazil that's going to be more and more important. But no, absolutely. Yeah. And the culturally conservative and that and that plays a very important role in particularly around this these questions of faith and these questions of how people are going to vote for it particularly when Bolsonaro is hammering this question of family values and morals. And, you know, because he can't win like you mentioned the very top he can't win on the on poverty figures. He can't win. Oh no, it's a disaster. It's never been. So he's got to nail it on another place. I was in I was in this rally two weeks ago, Terry, with first lady, Michelley Bolsonaro, Bolsonaro's former head of the Ministry of Human Rights, Women and Family, who is a devout evangelical. And I mean, their whole thing was, I mean, the amount of disinformation and fake news that was there. And it's just it just hammered home because Michelley was doing this tour all around the country speaking to women and speaking to evangelicals. It was called the movement of women for Bolsonaro with the idea of really shoring up that vote for her side and for women. And no, it's just it's it's very concerning with the what the future may hold, but but also very exciting, you know, that Lulu was still able to beat all of this and still was able to, you know, still live with it. So earlier you mentioned there's two things earlier that you mentioned centrist that this was about which Bolsonaro and Lula competing for the center of the country. Lula got the majority of it, obviously put him and you also you also used the term port barely. That's a U.S. term. And I think we should just make it clear that when we were talking about how Bolsonaro used the budget, the national budget, which is a program to find budget and turned it into a discretionary budget, we call them port bearing in the U.S. It's the same thing. That's right. You know, we're talking about buying votes in Brazil. I would argue it's the exact, you know, same thing in the states. No, absolutely. No, very, very true. And, you know, this question of the centrist is very important. Lula's campaign was all about unity. It was about democracy and unity. It was from the very beginning. And it's important to remember and keep in mind that his vice presidential, you know, his running mate, Geraldo Alckmann, was his most avid enemy back in 2006. He actually ran against Lula for the presidency in 2006. He was from the PSDV party. But these other parties, they kind of disintegrated with Bolsonaro's rise. And they've all joined more of the center. And so they're, so in order for Lula to come to power, to build this large coalition, he did that back in 2003. He's always built large coalitions. That's how he governed earlier. And that's how he was able to really bring people together. But that's who it is. He's the great negotiator. He's the great Democrat, right? And that's how come... And he comes from a labor movement. He comes from a movement. Completely. Completely. No, I mean, he is the icon of the Brazilian left. A, he's the icon of the working class. And look, the people who won this election, the people who voted overwhelmingly for Lula, 70% for Lula, were the folks in northeastern Brazil, which is the poorest section of the country. It's where Lula is actually from. He was born in Pernambuco, in Pernambuco, and then his family emigrated into Sao Paulo. Like so many people when he was seven. And so this is a return of hope. Like I was, you know, on Sao Paulo Avenue, all these people who originally were from northeastern Brazil, who are now living in Sao Paulo, I interviewed just everyone's in the streets. He represents me, you know? And this is the area northeastern Brazil is the area that's always been persecuted against. It's always been discriminated against by all the rest of the country. And so, you know, it's all the more that that's that pride of Lula being able to win, being able to actually have another go. And then, you know, the first thing that Lula says, the most important thing that he wants to do in office is to again battle hunger, to again re-institute the poverty alleviation programs that help lift tens of, you know, tens of millions of people out of poverty. And, you know, that's something he's going to hold true to, obviously, because that's where his heart is. You mentioned unity that he's a voice and a man of unity. What is happening with the unity this week in post-election day? We see the Bolsonaro voters, not all of them, but quite a few of them in the streets, blocking roads. Bolsonaro finally spoke Tuesday. He did not speak at all on election day. He finally appeared in the media Tuesday, November 1st, and spoke to the people of Brazil. He didn't overtly concede. Of course, he is still, he does still hold office until, you know, the 1st of January, but he didn't overtly concede. No, he didn't. So there's several things there just to unpack. The first thing is that he didn't overtly concede, but he authorized the very man who came in that press conference right after him is his chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira, and he walks up and says, I've been authorized to begin the transition process with the incoming government and we're going to fulfill that. So in fact, Bolsonaro had met with the Supreme Court before he actually spoke in kind of a secret meeting. No one knows what he talked about. So what Bolsonaro is doing right now is he is he is politicking. He's totally trying to play the game. First, he doesn't want to appear weak to his supporters. So he doesn't want to come out and tell them, don't protest, don't do that, because that would make them be like, you for four years, you've been telling us that we're going to win this going to be a fraud and we need to get in the streets. Now you're going to say, no, so he doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to feel like, you know, he still wants to be the guy in charge. But at the same time, he understands that, look, the elites, everybody understands that this was a democratic election. There was no fraud and that center elite, they are on. And the military is extremely important to understand this. It's very clear that the military was not going to be on board. It wasn't going to battle back with Bolsonaro because they didn't have enough support in society, even if Bolsonaro's, 10 to 15 percent of the population or 20 percent of the population of the avid Bolsonaro supporters think they do have a majority. And so he kind of wanted to make himself feel strong and at the same time be like, is a nod to like, yeah, I get it. I get it. We're going to go on with it. That's how I understand where things are. And in fact, the day after, you then saw all these, but yesterday, you saw all these Bolsonaro protests both by Bolsonaro supporters in front of military barracks calling for military intervention. And it was the same day that Bolsonaro, he actually came out, told people to stop the blockades in the highways. That's what he said yesterday. He said, that's not helping. It's not cool to do that. You can stop that. So what's what's going on here? And this is really important to understand. For the last four years, Bolsonaro has been telling his people that the army and the military are the last ones who are in charge. He's been talking about, eliminating and closing Congress, the Supreme Court. I mean, Bolsonaro has been talking about that for 20 years, even when he was a congressman. He's been attacking these other institutions and putting all this faith in the military. So he's been telling his supporters essentially that, hey, before something's to worse, you can get out there and the military is going to save us. Which is just not true, but that's what his supporters believe. The other thing that supporters believe, and listen, over the last month, I've been in six different states. I've been reporting all over the place and been speaking with, I mean, hundreds of people everywhere from every walk of life and in terms of Bolsonaro supporters, everyone told me almost the same thing. They said, we are in the majority. We know that because we had these big protests back in September 7th. If you remember, that was Brazil's bicentennial independence day celebrations where Bolsonaro turned it into a big campaign rally for him. And a lot of people turned out in the streets. Yes, it's true. Not millions of people, maybe a million, maybe a million and a half, maybe a Navy, they were as big. I don't think they were even as big as the big a million across the entire country. Right, exactly. Which is a very small percentage of Brazil's population. Look, the percentage, right. It's less than 1 percent. You know, it's less than 0.5 percent. So that's an important perspective. But for these people, they believe they're in the majority because they saw people got in the streets. And in fact, what many, every single one said, and you know what, if we don't win, that means something was wrong with the election because I know we're the majority because we protested. So that's the idea. But this is the same system that Bolsonaro won under before. He won his presidency. Not just his presidency. He's won every election he's ever ran on in going all. He was a congressman for more than 20 years. So it's not the same. The system works when I win and doesn't work when I don't. Exactly, exactly. And that's the thing. There are no claims. They don't know. No one's come out and said, oh, this is the proof of fraud. No one has it. So who's been talking about fraud is Steve Bannon, far-right folks in the States who are trying to push that narrative. And folks in Brazil are talking about, it's a coup. It was fraudulent. But no one can say anything because look, this is a world-class voting system. They've been using electronic voting since the 1990s. Never had any issues. So this is not something that anyone has ever been worried about until they start to, Bolsonaro has been pushing the fraud narrative for the last four years, backed by and supported by Bannon and folks in the States with that same idea of this. We're going to use this fraud narrative to try and win later on. But the thing is, is he kind of had the rug pulled out from under him because, A, it was so clean. It was so close. And when the first round was so close, he said, you know, I might actually be able to win this. And then he runs on it. And then it's just, there's nothing to say. There's nothing you can do. But his people have come out because they believe that they are in the lead. And the thing is, is that the question of faith, and this is why it's so important, that question of faith and evangelical and the deep connection with Bolsonaro. Many people believe of his supporters. You know, Bolsonaro's middle name is Messias, Messiah. And many people actually believe that he is there because God gave him the mission to rule. Like that's what his first lady, his wife, Michelle, he said to everyone in the audience that I was there in that rally. So when they come out and they say, when they see that he's lost, well, that's something wrong. It goes against that question of faith. It goes against the question that God has given him, has ordained him to lead. And so then something must be wrong. There's a reason why it's not. So there's all these other questions that doesn't, it's not just, we're not playing on the same field. It's not a democratic debate, right? It's all about culture war. It's about, and that's what I talk a lot about in my podcast is about the culture war that's been implanted in large part from the United States over the last 20 years in Brazil. So this is Michael's podcast, Brazil on Fire. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Very important. And so that's kind of what's going on. People who are out protesting actually believe that the military is going to come out or potentially could come out and save them. And the fake news is, is telling them that, that, you know, we can win this still. So, you know, listening to you describe this to us, it sounds to me almost like planting the seeds of a color revolution. Or, you know, kind of, yeah. Well, don't forget that. We kind of saw that in Brazil already. Back, you know, just a few years ago with A, the big protests that happened, that kind of blew up in 2013. And then the big libertarian student marches against the Marussef and the growth to try and take her out of power because she was leftist and using kind of the, this parliamentary coup as an impeachment tool. And so, I mean, what's scary is, is absolutely, this is sowing the seed. Absolutely, this is going to be difficult for Falula coming, you know, when he, you know, takes office next year, very similar to the way hardcore Trump supporters are right now in the United States. I mean, that comparison is just, it's, it's, it's, it's a parallel. It's an exact parallel, right? So, but the color, the color revolution is something that Brazil has seen recently, unfortunately. So, these are, these are, they're crazy times. They're very crazy times. That's going to be a tenuous, you know, three months. Right. The, the, the two plus months. Yep. The two months that we have. So, the inauguration is on January 1st. So, just under two. And, and, you know, everyone's just really, you know, people are excited and a lot of people I've been speaking with and social movements are saying, listen, the biggest thing we need to do right now is focus on what comes next. Not pay attention to the people in the streets. Not pay attention to them trying to shut things down. They want us to pay attention to that. The more that we can focus on Lula's victory, the more we can focus on the positive and where we're going with this, the more we can continue to build mass popular movement from below in order to be able to help Lula in these coming months. I mean, that's one of the things that the MST, the, the landless workers movement, which is one of the largest social movements in the America, is the largest social movement in America is together with urban housing movements. They founded somewhere between five and seven thousand popular committees in local poor communities. As a way to continue to mobilize in these, in these kind of grassroots communities and to build organizing capacity in a way that we haven't really seen in a while. And that's one of the things that's been really interesting from below that also hasn't gotten talked about a lot. So, but it's going to get. Social movements is something that comes up almost every episode certainly since maybe a fall of 2020 when this whole string of elections throughout the Americas began with Brazil, October of 2020. I was fortunate enough to witness or serve as an observer in eight countries between fall of 2020 and tried to get into Colombia in May of 2022 and couldn't. But that's a whole, we did a whole episode on that. But this, can you speak just a few minutes as to the importance that social labor movements are going to be? We have, we've talked about this extensively in one episode fully dedicated to the importance of movements. Because just because a person is in power, is holding the presidency, is in the power of the presidency, doesn't mean she or he has power. And the movements, like you said, you've been defining, you've been describing movements that are in community, building capacity, political formation, all of it from the ground up. How important is that going to be for Lula come January 1st? Well, between now, probably even more important between now and January 1st. It continues to be. And look, it is important to remember that these same movements are important now. And these are the same movements that united on mass against the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the coup. And that's really where they began to rise more than even ever before and really organized around the left. These movements, they've been they've been organized for forever. And one of the things that we saw kind of in the Lula governments back in the early 2000s was that when he came to power, a bunch of different members of the MST and different movements kind of joined his government and they lost some of that organizing capacity in a way because they were kind of gained to support the government within the institutional space of the government. And that's one of the things that I know that a lot of people are talking about the need to remain that organizing tool from below now to be able to push from the outside as well. Joao Stegil, who's one of the, you know, the founders of the MST going back into the early 80s. And I was with a press conference with him or in a press conference with him back just before the first round. And that was one of the things he talked about. We need to be able to pop your mass movement from below that can continue to push for our needs. Because of the fact that, look Lula, he was able to get things done when he was, you know, in the 2000s, he'll be able to do it again. Much of his rule at the time was by decree. That's how he was able to push forward many of the things he was able to do and poverty alleviation programs and things like that. But of course, the legislature in Congress is going to be complicated because Bolsonaro's party won many, many seats, 99 seats in the lower house. And so he's going to need to be pushed from below. And the good thing is that Brazil has really strong popular movements. The Cooch, the labor movement that Lula comes from is completely all on board with Lula. And that's who he represents that's where he comes from and that's where his heart is. So this isn't someone who's just going to turn his back and say, no, I don't want that. At the same time, as Lula is a negotiator, you're always going to see him trying to bring people in and trying to make agreements and, you know, let's lift all boats and stuff like that. But that's where he comes from, which is why so many people believe in him and his ability to make change even amidst all the odds against him, right? Well, let's talk about Lula as a changemaker and as a coalition builder. We're hopeful for what he can bring back to Brazil. What, how about for the region as a whole? Just for the audience's edification today was the UN vote on lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba, 185 countries voted to lift the embargo. Who voted against the United States and Israel? And two abstained, Ukraine and Brazil. Of course, this is Bolsonaro's ambassador to the UN. But how do you see the region post January 1? Well, it will be foreign policy into Brazil will be a complete shift back to what we saw under Lula in the 2000s. He's already talked about that. He's already been talking at length about the need to go back to regional integration, south-south ties, the importance to redevelop kind of the, you know, a lot of these regional integration mechanisms that were founded in the Pink Tide part one and, you know, CELAC, the Latin American kind of, what do you call it, the Latin America Organization of American States excluding the United States, UNASUR, you know, the Union of South American Nations. CELAC excluded Canada and the United States. That's right. Can everyone brought it to you? But you guys, and so he thought that's going to be key. What's important to remember is that Brazil historically before Lula had this idea of a foreign policy as Brazil being sort of a sub-hegemon to the United States in the region. So it was the United States and then there was Brazil who would try and do what it could and would often follow the line of the United States. Not always, even during the military dictatorship of the 1960s and 70s, Brazil took its own independent course. But when Lula came into power it was a complete reversal of that. It's 180 degrees. We're going to flip that on its head and we are going to be for the South. We are going to build South Arab religions. Lula in Brazil was and I wrote a book called Turbulent Transitions the Future of 21st Century Socialism Together with Roger Burrback and Fred Fuentes back about a decade ago. And so it was all about 21st Century Socialism. Oh thank you very much. And the whole and we included Brazil and we included Brazil in that because you know Brazil wasn't the revolutionary radical Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia. It wasn't Cuba. It wasn't Nicaragua. But what Brazil offered was the ability to support all these other radical and more revolutionary struggles in a way that was really important. Why is Brazil like that? Well look, Brazil makes up literally half of South America in terms of population, in terms of territory, and in terms of GDP. So it's all the like the GDP of Brazil is equal to all the other countries in South America combined. Right. And so it's a huge economy extremely important for the region. And that's why it has this ability. And then there's Lula who is just this amazing charismatic guy. Look, you know, Obama called him the man, Ocata. Right. And he didn't do that for just anything. Like Lula can walk in there. He was able to broker the Iran nuclear deal. Like this is something and which Obama hated the fact that he walked and he's able to make these deals. And so that's what he wants to get back to. Lula was a founding member of the BRICS. This is something we're going to see. And look, Bolsonaro was the B in BRICS. That's right. Exactly. It was the very first country there. And Bolsonaro as when he came to power. And of course, after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and Temer came into power, it was Brazil aligned with the United States. U.S., you tell us what we need to do when we're going to do it. And then even more so with Bolsonaro and even more than being aligned with the United States, it was aligned with Trump. Right. Bolsonaro visited the U.S. four times while Trump was president. And in fact, Bolsonaro was the first Brazilian president to visit the CIA. He visited the CIA in Langley before he visited the Secret Service in Brazil. Okay. So I'm not wrong in saying these are the seats of a color revolution. I have no idea you visit the CIA. I'm sorry. It is ridiculous. He visits the CIA. And I believe he actually visited the CIA. And look, I don't don't quote me on this. I believe I believe he said, visited the CIA with former judge, Sergio Moro, who of course was the judge who jailed Lula and then became Justice Minister under Bolsonaro. Right. So it's just, it's just, it's just insane. So the ties between Bolsonaro and Trump are huge. And what we're going to see come Lula is a complete reversal. This is Pinktide 2.0. And and that's what he's talking about. It is extremely important. And the possibilities are really important for what's possible for not just for Brazil, but for the region with all of these, these, these left governments. You know, some more, some less, but with all these, these, you know, potentially progressive or more progressive governments coming to power across the region. Yeah, I would, I mean, I, I agree. It's a, it's a Pinktide 2.0. But to varying, it's a spectrum, right? I mean, like I mentioned earlier, it's, and some of the audience I've shared this with before that, you know, in all the elections that occurred in the hemisphere beginning fall of 2020 all the way through these elections in Brazil. And then of course, we have presidential elections in Argentina next year too. But for me, as an observer, what I could say across the board, what people voted for, national sovereignty, national sovereignty, despite U.S. intervention, well, as a result of U.S. intervention, economic intervention, specifically, they voted for national sovereignty, they voted for natural resource sovereignty, which is the Amazon and many other resources in Brazil. And they also voted for governments that were offering an economic plan beneficial to the majority of citizens. And that's everything from one step to the left, social democratic, you know, governments with capitalist economy and a social democratic government to, you know, revolutionary. Solutions. It's a spectrum that we've seen emerging. It's not one uniform policy. No, absolutely. It's a spectrum. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, to a certain extent, that's what we saw, you know, in the first Pink Tide wave, you know, where you had, say, Tabarevasques, and then Mujica and Uruguay, which were, you know, more, hey, we're here. You know, this is really important and they're good, but they're not like, you know, trying to just shake up the system and saying they're going to implant socialism. But, but definitely to an extent, that is, that is absolutely what we're seeing now today. And it is that, that is really important to understand kind of what this means and what do policies mean for the region? How does this all lay out? It's not just, you know, oh, this is a model that's going to fit in this one country or another that just doesn't work like that, you know, but, but it is definitely a spectrum. Well, Lulo be the man to find the common ground. Between all the countries. While respecting everyone's national sovereignty and individual history and culture. This is what he's so good. He is so, he is so good, you know, and this is why of all the people, even at a moment right now where Bolsonaro supporters are, you know, protesting the streets and, you know, and it seems like of all the people that to arrive and say, listen, I'm going to bring unity. I'm going to bring democracy. We're going to do our best. And we're going to do that on an international stage and we're going to try and do it on a local stage too. Remember this, and this is really interesting. When Lulo left this in 2010, January 1st, 2010, he had an approval rating of 87 percent. What president can say that? Nobody 87 percent. That's like unheard of. And that's because he lifted tens of millions out of poverty and he also lifted the business class. They, they, they did find that's because when he opened up embassies abroad, it helped Brazilian businesses to go and to grow and help financial capital to grow, which is something that a lot of people were critical of, but that's just who he is. That's what he wants to do. He wants to lift all boats for better or for worse. And that's, you know, that's what he's going to be doing again. Well, this is so encouraging. We're like, still like dancing in the streets here. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It was, it was a party on Sunday night. So exciting. I'm so jealous that you were there. But I'm so grateful you were there. And I'm so thankful that you had time to join us this evening. Before I let you go, is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to be sure is said regarding the elections on Sunday and what's to come? I want to be sure I'm going to plug your podcast again, Brazil on Fire. Thank you. Thank you. That is a nice in depth series for our audience. Yes. Well, and that's one thing I will say is that it's, it's for those people trying to understand what Bolsonaro's government, what Bolsonaro did or tried to do, what he unleashed and why people are still in the streets right now. It's a great deep dive into that. And I kind of take people on a journey across the country over the last four years to understand what went down. And you can find it anywhere you get your podcasts. But the one thing I would say is that the big challenge, there are many challenges going forward. Of course, disinformation, fake news is going to continue to organize and rally Bolsonaro's people. That's going to be a huge challenge in the same way that we, that we see Trump's folks, you know, still out in the streets and continue to get organized. But that's, I think that's going to be a big challenge for, for Lula. The positive on the positives, you know, over 90 governments at this point, almost 100, according to the last time I looked, have now recognized Lula's win. And the elites are all, are on board. And as far as I understand, as far as things look right now, this, he's going to take office on January 1st, although it's going to be a bit tumultuous until then. And then the other, the other big challenge, and I know that everyone's talked about it, but it's so important is the question of the Amazon. It's something that, you know, Lula has said that he wants to get the deforestation zero. And his former minister of the environment Marina Silva, who helped to implement, I mean, look, when Lula came into power back in 2003, Amazon deforestation was worse than it is today. And they were able to cut it in half within two years because they implemented all of these, this landmark legislation of fines and regulations and monitoring, but also tracking systems following where wood was going and meat was going to make sure that it wouldn't go and be sold in, you know, illegally, those illegal products could be sold in international markets. And it was like that. So, it was insane and amazing what he was able to do. And Marina Silva, his environment minister was very important. They had a falling out. She split, she ran against the workers party in 2010, ran against them in 2014. And she's now back in his coalition. And just to put into context like what that unity means, I actually met with her very, very briefly, right before the first round vote. And she said, she had already given him this dossier, this report saying what is necessary to get to deforestation zero. So the fact that he, and she was, and you've seen her at all these rallies together because she's also evangelical. So she brings that along with her. And the fact that she's back. And that was like, there were major critiques in terms of she was like the third party candidate. People wanted her. She wasn't as progressive. She was more conservative, evangelical vote, but obviously all for the environment. And, you know, that's not to say that she's going to be an environment minister. I'm not saying that. We don't know he hasn't picked anybody yet. But the fact that she is there along with him for this ride is very important. It's going to be a challenge because things are, although deforestation isn't as bad right now as it was back in 2003. The illegal groups that Bolsonaro unleashed are more powerful today than ever. And they're in cahoots with Norco trafficking groups. They're very, very powerful groups in the region that's going to make his job. Trying to push back that much harder. Also because what Bolsonaro did when he came to power was gut the environment and the indigenous agencies. And basically unleashed, right, these illegal groups to be able to do what they want. And that's going to be that's going to be a hard fought battle. But what Lula said on the night of his inauguration speech was, look, he's more than willing to have international support with this. He would love to talk with other folks if they want to help with, you know, protect the Amazon and find out how international communities can. So it's a complete about face from Bolsonaro talking about how everyone else in the world is trying to steal the Amazon and stay away and, you know, focus on your own country. Here's Lula just to open up to the possibility. So that is going to be an important thing for people to watch going forward. And the one thing I would like to say also that is kind of we oftentimes hear, particularly from the mainstream press about, oh, Lula now he's in this kind of lukewarm coalition and the legislature is really conservative. So he's really not going to be able to get that much done and whatever else. I just I want to push back on that narrative and I want to mention it here because it's something that we hear everywhere even from progressive sources oftentimes. So there's a couple of things. First off, this was fascinating. The PT, the workers Lula's workers party won in the first round vote the same amount of seats that they held back in 2014. Now this is huge because back in 2014 was before the lavajato scandal. Right. So he is back to where they were before. That's huge. The car wash scandal. The car wash scandal. Exactly. Before this whole lawfare thing and the whole idea was tanking the workers party and destroying Lula before all that they're now back up to the same number of seats in the lower house they had and the smaller left parties included the PESOL and other stuff. They also picked up more seats than they had before. So that of course the coalition is still smaller than Lula's than Bolsonaro's PL party which has 99 seats but it is substantial and it's a voting block that's going to be important. And again Lula has always embraced those from the center. He's always brought people into his coalition. He's done it again. He's always been able to rule by decree in a lot of cases and he's going to push for those poverty alleviation programs that were so important back in 2000 it's going to continue to be the other things that are more radical he's not going to be able to do. He in fact he in a letter to the evangelicals just a couple weeks ago he said because he was forced to do that because of all the fake news and he said listen I believe that family is sacred. I personally don't believe in abortion and I don't think that this because there was this whole attack job saying that Lula wants to convert all bathrooms into unisex bathrooms and whatever else is a way to kind of get people afraid of what was going on. He says this whole unisex bathroom thing just get over it. So you know the more identity politics issues of you know trying to you know push against anti-abortion whatever else like that he's not going to be able to do other things that he might like want to do but he's going to be able to do many things that he would and it's just important to understand that this is a huge victory. It's a huge victory and it's a huge victory for the people of Brazil and for the rest of the hemisphere and for the world. For the United States for the world and because look the fact that the country and look it's scary that he only won by two million votes that is scary but the fact that they were able to win and defeat Bolsonaro despite the machine that Bolsonaro was employing whether the fake news the vote buying and everything else and they were able to come back and push Bolsonaro back was extremely important expect for you know for the rise of the far right and we know that Steve Bannon has been watching this so closely because even last year Steve Bannon came out he was talking about this Brazil the elections the most important elections next year watched for these elections and then he was talking about how there was all these fraud and election this is the day after the vote he's not even there he has no idea but like he just makes up stuff right but but this was really he likes to control the narrative he likes to control the narrative and he's very good at it and this is so the fact that that despite all of that this was a pushback on on the far right it's it's still it's not it didn't end this doesn't end the the growth of fascism it doesn't end for instance the the number of neo-nazi cells in in brazil grew by 60% Bolsonaro's first three years in power that sense of the white supremacist genie has been let out of the bottle and this pushes it back down a little bit but it's not going to go away and that was the challenge actually just define Nazi you bring that up I think you know for for people in the States there's a more of a political identity with that and we typically you know it's you know white christian conservatives in south america latin america as a whole south america specifically nazi means nazi defend descendants of people like eichmann who left europe during world war two end of world war two and you know we're given a political asylum in south america they were given you know jobs and stuff in the united states like nasa research and all of that but nazi in south america means descendants of well-known names from world war two it means the both it means an absolute human descendants and and remember that in brazil brazil had the largest nazi party outside of germany it was founded 1928 just outside of the town of blumenau oh i didn't know that absolutely and it was also when they founded the brazil's own fascist nationalist party the integralistas that was founded in 1932 and southern brazil was extremely important for that they grew to have at least 1.5 million members and the reason why the integralistas was important at the time was because the only people who could join the nazi party were german descendants and there's a huge you know german population particularly at that time there was a massive german population of descent people that had come over in the late eight 1800s early 1900s in santa catarina which is the the state where i lived for many years which were flotinopsis spaced that in the hills in fact there's a whole area that's called the european valley and in this area at the time in the early part of the 1900s language education everyone just spoke german they didn't speak portuguese it was like all the schools were in there was no simulation until until this moment of the interwar period and then right before world war two that's when they started to actually come out and and uh and take nazis or german brazilians and put them into concentration camps in brazil which is part of the reason why it then got this idea that nazism was good because they were then being attacked by the by the brazilian government it's a fascinating history that's the story that i wanted to work on for it's like that's the story that i want to do and that's that's your next podcast oh my god it's it's uh it's an amazing amazing history but long story short this is this is they still have the nazi history and what what nazis mean in that region it's still disputed in fact i spoke with the archivist in this small german town and and i had gone there to interview her about the nazi past this was four or five years ago right before right after bolsternado had won but before he took power and and when she heard oh you want to talk about nazis no i i can't talk about that right now because there's too many interests there's too many issues there's too many interests that are still there today she ended up sitting down and giving me the whole history and things like that but not to talk about the present current day thing in this same town and then where we get into the connection with the neo nazis of today not all so you have the nazis and then you have the neo nazis so not all neo nazis are of course descended from this past but i met in this same small town a black lawyer by the name of marco antonio who outside of his home neo nazis had put up these posters of kkk posters telling him that they were watching him now the kkk means nothing in brazil except for a symbol that comes from the united states right and this symbol and i mentioned this in the podcast as well because it's such an important image of understanding how deep this level of fascism has grown how much has expanded how how how deep these neo nazis are and how much they've grown themselves and how concerning this is for brazil and the future of brazil and how much bolsonado unleashed kind of this white not just bolsonado but donald trump one of the things that marco antonio said when i spoke with him just recently and back then again was that kkk was a representation for him of donald trump donald trump represented the kkk he was backed by the former clans member and so his election for people here kind of was like this unleashing of oh well look he's now at the states they're doing it states are doing it now now we can do it too bolsonado would not have won in brazil if it wasn't for donald trump and and of course i'm understanding this so much better you know this also listening to you describe this history really puts a whole greater emphasis on the fact that lula will be a voice for black and indigenous people in brazil it puts a whole another layer of understanding on that when brazilians say that yeah absolutely no in fact i i i i went to i was a week and a half ago fly three four or five days before the election and i met with kilumbola communities urban kilumbola communities which are black traditional communities in brazil in but i met with them in port alegar which is the town it's it's it's the southernmost capital it's the town with the highest number of urban kilumbola communities and kilumbola communities these black traditional things are actually recognized under the 1988 constitution so in the same way the indigenous communities and indigenous land is recognized and so these communities are are afro-descendant communities afro-descendant communities some of them are actually we're like originally kind of see my home communities of runaway slaves but it's also been incorporated this identity and this idea that it's almost like this this form of justice for the for slavery in a way whereas these communities lived and consolidated in certain areas and they said well this is where we've lived for centuries for years you know since the end of the abolishment of slavery and we deserve the right to have our own land and our own territory and and they've they've acquired it in I think more than 200 communities up and down the country and Portland Lake is one of the places where you have the highest percentage of urban kiln balls and of course speaking with them literally it was one week ago today and talking about the attacks on their communities the attacks of people trying to buy a land owners B people trying to move into their property speculators to try and push them off and their battle and of course what Bolsonaro represents what he's at what what his government is represented white supremacy of attacks on their communities Bolsonaro promised not one center me of land for indigenous communities and kiln Bola communities and he fulfilled that promise but that's one of the things that Lula is has already said he wants to undo and bring back the demarcations of territories for for native peoples and black people this is just going to be a fascinating presidency to watch unfold it is with all of the complications and and and you know all the pushback and stuff it is it's a huge it's hope it's hope it's hope it's hope that's what it is it's hope it's hope yeah it's yeah thank you Michael so much for sharing all of your knowledge and I so hope you come back of course of course I want you to do that other podcast me too me too that's like a fascinating history and and I hope you can come back and we can check in and see how you know the new government is unfolding in Brazil because it like you mentioned it's going to be important for all Brazilians but also for for the hemisphere as well completely and and it would be a pleasure let me know when thank you so much why don't you tell our audience how they can find you on social media and and again where they can find your podcast Brazil on Fire wonderful so you can find me on Twitter M F O X M Fox underscore US and then Brazil on Fire you know it's co-produced by NACLA and the real news so you can find it at the NACLA and real news or if you go to anywhere you get your podcasts and search for Brazil on fire and you can find it there it's six episodes and then I have been doing I've done one update from when right after the first right after the first round election and I'm working on another update of kind of what went down from the streets how people were feeling what's the reality now Steve Bannon everything else so that's what I'm working on right now but but it's it's good it's been it was a labor of love it was you know I've been trying to get it out there for years and was just I'm just so happy with it so happy with it so I hope I hope all of you enjoy it a great educational resource for our audience so thank you again and I want to thank all of you for viewing this evening and this has been what the F is going on on Latin America and the Caribbean a popular resistance broadcast you can find us next week 7 30 p.m. Eastern 4 30 p.m. Pacific on YouTube live and that includes the Convo couch Code pink and popular resistance YouTube channel so thank you everyone we look forward to seeing you next week and thank you again Michael just a real pleasure to have your time today thank you so much Terry it's been a pleasure for myself as well