Joe Higgins TD appeals for support.

by Reverend Sun Myung Moon Tue Jan 25, 2005 12:15

a few hectares at a price.

by girl from brazil Tue Jan 25, 2005 13:07

I've a pre-1950 atlas, could some kind other reader tell me when and how and why and by who Brazilia was built? I've checked my local dvd library and can't get any answers there either. I think Lula is very brave and has brought his people a long long way against huge personal odds, I agree with Joe Higgins who has brought his people a long long way against huge personal odds, that now is the time that the landless be given land.

by NotLulaNotJoe Tue Jan 25, 2005 13:31

In 2002, left-winger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidential election. Since then, his administration has simply imposed policies identical to its right-wing predecessor (and using the traditional discourse of conservative Brazilian elites to defend them). Ironically, Lula's greatest accomplishment has been the implementation of the very policies against which his own party (the Workers Party, or PT) was created.

Founded in by a new generation of union leaders, it was initially a party to the left of traditional Communist parties. It soon drew in sectors of the progressive Catholic Church, social movements, independent intellectuals, and the non-Communist Left. It's internal democracy was impressive, with its congresses deciding everything from the party's program to the composition of its directorship. Successes in the mayoral races in the 1980s and 1990s soon followed, making it the most widely voted party in urban Brazil.

Lula stood for president three times before winning. By the 2002 election, it was decided that "realism" was required by the PT in order to win. Radical policies were abandoned. For example, foreign debt, considered in 1989 as illegitimate, became in 2002 something that had to be paid. Once in power this betrayal of principles became the norm. Internally, the party's democracy eroded along with its principles. From a perspective which argued that politics should not be the toy of oligarchies, the party has (d)evolved into bureaucratic and technocratic organisation. A caste of bureaucrats exercises real power, despising internal party democracy.

After two years in power the PT has reformed the pension system in a way undreamt of by the 1990s neoliberals. It voluntarily raised (without concessions) the share of Brazil's GDP offered to pay down interest on the foreign debt. It has concentrated economic decision making powers in the hands of the Central Bank, which now determines economic policy. Unsurprisingly, the Bank has pursued exactly the same monetarist orthodoxy of the past, focusing on inflation to justify policies that favour finance capital. A presidential decree authorised the planting of GM soybean seeds.

Rather than use his popular mandate to pursue social justice, Lula has governed for the rich. Not a single social indicator has significantly changed during this time, nor is there any indication that they will in the future. Damningly, Lula's administration may be beaten by the previous right-wing ones in matters of literacy, infant mortality and poverty rates. The government celebrates, however, the achievement of "inflation goals" and the maintenance of an economic "stability" that favours the rich. It also introduced a Public-Private Partnership law (which, needless to say, profits capital).

To force through these measures, the PT has turned its internal democracy into a hollow shell. The resolutions of the PT congresses have no a say in how the country is run. Party activists have been expelled (or left in disgust). While Lula's government continues to boast of its high the levels of approval, a closer look suggests that its highest approval ratings are obtained from the wealthiest sectors.

This "Tropical Blairism" comes as no surprise to anarchists. Perhaps some radicals will still hold illusions that the Lula administration will change its track, but more realistic people will seek alternatives. Faced with yet another betrayal by a left-wing party against its founding principles perhaps people will start to reconsider the anarchist alternative of direct action and solidarity outside of bourgeois politics, of self-managed self-organisation in our workplaces and communities. Only pressure from below can force politicians to consider the interests of people, not profit. And only such a social movement can realise in the streets and workplaces that which politicians can never achieve in Parliament -- Social Justice and Freedom.

by o brien Tue Jan 25, 2005 13:36

are you telling me the grandchildren of Brazilia are being ruled by a tropical Blair?
Oh well then, you know what to do.
help them out of room 101.

by iosaf other press background info - "all together now!" "remember and learn" Tue Jan 25, 2005 14:11

yesterday signed an accord during the visit of ZP to that country marking a change in Spanish foreign policy focus in the South American continent.
The accord focusses on joint efforts to end hunger, protect the poor and children from the negative effects of globalisation, to end the enslavement of the indiginous communities of the Amazon and to confirm the support of Spain for other security concerns in the Northwestern frontier area.
Spain's economy will work with and help build on the upswing in Brazilian economics which will it is estimated by 2025 place Brazil on an economic ranking with China and India as the strongest newest economies of the planet.
This might surprise some, as Brazil the largest country of South America doesn't actually speak spanish but rather portuguese, and that might fox a few of you simple imperialists heads. Ronaldhino though is Brazilian by birth and speaks Catalan and plays for Barça FC and is officially (coz the Swiss IFA say so) the best footballer in the world. & I agree.

Today Pressie ZP is in Argentina. (Pressie Lula used the new presidential jet "Lula 1" to attend the meeting the with the Spanish Government in Brazilia. Its very big very swish very secure and Euro-made not a bong bong boeing.) where he'll be talking to Mr Kirchner about things in Argentina which involve Spanish companies.
He's also mediating in a long standing dispute in neighbouring Uraguay and Paraguay which is on a jobs for the boys type scandal thing. He won't however be visiting Venezuela to the north north west of Brazil which is currently having diplomatic difficulties with Colombia to the north west west of Brazil. Coz he's very sensitive to the message he'd be sending.

Pressie ZP's soundbytes for the visit to Brazil were-
"Zero Hunger" and "Light for all".
He also confirmed that "we are all very proud of Lula". For those of you interested in money, the initial gift is in the order of several hundred million euros to local community projects.

http://www.lavanguardia.es/web/20050125/51175004130.html
http://www.swissinfo.org/ses/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5489717
http://www.2001.com.ve/avance_online.asp?registro=39733
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/nota.asp?nota_id=673800

by ren Tue Jan 25, 2005 17:36

Just wondering if these are the same group of indigenous folk i have previously heard of called Kaiowas, the article says many see suicide as the only alternative, which sort of lessens the impact if it is the same group who felt mass suicide was the only form of protest left to them, and committed suicide. Obviously not everyone committed suicide but their society and culture suffered immeasurably. Which paints a slightly more bleak picture of their position from their point of view than a suicide problem amongst the disaffected.

by hs - sp Tue Jan 25, 2005 20:09

the points about lula are interesting but until we see some form of anarchist or socialist mass movement which offers an alternative to electoral politics the electoral process has to be an important (but not sole arena of struggle) especially in a country with a non militant union movement ( let alone socialist or anarchist organisations in the factories!)and a very small activist layer, to say now in ireland to ignore electoral politics with no alternative won't allow us to raise political awareness and conciousness, but leaves us preaching to the few converted intellectuals. And we won't even be noticed by wider society.

by hmmm - 101 years on. Tue Jan 25, 2005 22:14

but _do_ remember "Que se vayan todos", and "yo mango" and "la plata por la calle". And all those other mass movement chants that brought people on to the streets of Brazil and Argentina when the banks closed, the debt was suspended, the petrol stations ran dry, the electricity turned off and the rich bought generators and the "middle classes" bought up all the candles and the poor just died.
Do remember it, coz it happened in the last five years.
And it was shit. Very shit. So give people in Brazil and Argentina a break for trying to work with their system and keep the poorest from dying coz there is no electricity in the winter, no gas to bring the farm yard stuff to the market, and no money coming out of the kitty. Coz all of them didn't have the opportunity to take over their local factories and run exemplary anarcho-collectives such as Brukmann and not all of them had the opportunity to catch flights to Europe (to spain as it happens and live out two years on average till the economic conditions were right to return) and not all of them were "owed big time" by the "old boys network" established oh i dunno when, back then, when most people in Europe were recovering from the trauma, and getting used to the curtain, and waiting on Lemass, and wondering would the kibbutz thing work out, and then came along MASH and sure that was followed by reds under the beds and the kymer rouge and the year zero, and then you got colour telly, your ma and your da remember the first one on the street and the lovely photo of JFK and De Valera and wasn't it a shame what happened to him, and was it Oswald? and did Hitler only have one ball? and did you say Peace did you say Peace did you say it's not fecking bloomsday, you're not wearing a dress, did you smash the bank system, did you say you dçont want your ma to have electricity in winter, did you say your da has grown the veggies and potatoes for the spring and you'll be allright, allright I say allright, allright, no I say no, I say war I say peace I say walk that walk, Lula we're proud of you.