The right, the big media, and the elites have created this propaganda that Lula, the elected president, is only the lesser of two evils. But, as I said, it’s just propaganda. Lula is not perfect, but his political and personal trajectory is nothing short of legendary.

He started his political career as a union man after losing a finger in a steel mill at 17 years old. He ran a worker’s party during the military dictatorship, was arrested more than once for fighting for worker’s right and democracy. After democracy was reinstated here, he ran for presidency in 1989, and lost to a typical right-wing rich playboy, whose campaign involved the propaganda of “Lula is communist, he will take your savings, he will put strangers into your house”. He lost, and the guy who won, Collor, took people’s savings himself and had to be impeached out of power after 2 years. His first two mandates were from 2003 to 2010, and he helped 33 million Brazilians out of hunger, and also grew the economy from half a trillion US dollars to 2.5 trillion US dollars. His government coasted through the 2008 global economic crisis. Among many other positive achievements.

But during his government, he also gave free rein and power to the federal police to investigate corruption, and there were multiple corruption scandals. Not because there wasn’t corruption before, it’s just that previous governments wouldn’t investigate it, so people knew, but it never made arrests and the news.

The right has used those corruption scandals (that also involved Lula’s party) to slander Lula, but he himself, neither his direct successor, Dilma, have ever been found guilty of any real corruption.

In contrast, his adversary bought multiple mansions in live cash (yes, cash), and has been a close associate of three guys who are involved in a money laundering scheme for drug dealers that has laundered more than a billion dollars. Plus his father, president from 2018 to 2022, literally had a plan for a coup printed inside the drawer of his fucking desk in the presidential office in case he lost the election, with plans to assassinate several of the supreme justices of Brazil, and his adversary, Lula himself.

These fuckers are the kind of rich spoiled brat that have, for their entire lives, been pampered. They’re not used to anyone saying no to them. They have never learned that they are not the center of the world.

No burning the Amazon. But now we have to worry if trump won’t try to repeat what he did in Venezuela here.

A man who has been opposing the far right in Brazil since the 70s. He became a union leader after a workplace incident and medical negligence caused him to lose his little finger at 17 years old working in a steel mill, as he had been working there during the nights to be able to afford living. From union leader, he spent many years fighting the far-right USA-backed military dictatorship in Brazil, ending up in prison more than once, and also suffering torture. In 1989, when Brazil recovered its democracy, he ran for president against Collor, a rich asshole from the far right, and then lost because of the far right propaganda of “He is a Communist, he will take your pension money and savings from you!!”. What ended up happening though was that Collor himself had that plan, his right-wing government froze the savings accounts of middle class people, and then confiscated it all. A few years later, in 2002, Lula finally won the presidency, and his first and second turns (2003-2010) were the fastest Brazil has ever grown and developed, we went from 12th to 6th economy in the world, and cruised unscathed through 2008 economic crisis. On top of all that, his early government is responsible for saving millions of people from hunger and misery, and for the first time ever Brazil had left the world’s hunger map. And then he was reelected back in 2022 and had to repeat the same feat of saving people from hunger and misery yet again, because of what the previous two far-right governments did.

A whopping 10 million more people voted for Lula in this second turn of the election, and he had a 4 million voters lead on Flávio. That’s not a bad number. Now our job is to push the government in prosecuting all the mayors and secretaries involved in undermining the election.

Lula won with some 4 million votes advantage. Democracy here still lives.

“”““glitches””“”

I really like this interpretation of it.

I have this discussion with a lot of people from the left, who often say they need to occupy those spaces and not let them be only a cesspool for conservative spiel. However, what they don’t seem to understand no matter how fucking much I tell them, is that you cannot win a game your opponent controls the rules. The only solution to traditional social media is to pressure the government to ban it. Not regulation, bans are the only way.