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Walter Lippmann | 1 Oct 2006 01:44
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Lula Leads in Polls a Day Before Brazil Election

The most eloquent reasons to vote for Lula were spelled
out by Frei Betto, the Brazilian liberation theologian and
long-time supporter of the Cuban Revolution in his recent
interview published in Latin American Perspectives which
had been taken from the Landlest Peasants Movement of
Brazil. 

Frei Betto, who quit Lula's government over a range of
differences, still feels it's imperative that he be re-elected:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/55403

This would be in addition to what Alaron told Tom Hayden:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20060829_tom_hayden_alarcon/

Walter Lippmann
======================================

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit

Radio Havana Cuba
http://www.radiohc.cu

Lula da Silva Leads in Polls a Day Before Brazilian Presidential Election

Brasilia, September 30 (RHC) - An estimated 126 million Brazilians Sunday
will vote in the presidential poll with current President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva widely expected to return to power.

Polling stations are scheduled to open at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday in the areas
where most of Brazil's over 180 million people are concentrated, and up to
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Louis Proyect | 1 Oct 2006 01:55
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Re: Lula Leads in Polls a Day Before Brazil Election

Walter Lippmann wrote:
>The most eloquent reasons to vote for Lula were spelled
>out by Frei Betto, the Brazilian liberation theologian and
>long-time supporter of the Cuban Revolution in his recent
>interview published in Latin American Perspectives which
>had been taken from the Landlest Peasants Movement of
>Brazil.

I don't think he will be on the ballot here in November. What should I do?

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Walter Lippmann | 1 Oct 2006 02:27
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RE: Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar

This was a fascinating story and thanks for posting this. I took the time 
to read it all the way through to the end. Because these Chinese have
the legal permission to work and earn abroad, and because they aren't
encouraged by a complex series of legal and political arrangements to
defect, they don't have the need or desire to do so. 

This year four Cuban musicians have been nominated to receive Latin
Grammy awards. They will not be permitted to come to the U.S. to be
present at the awards ceremony. Cuban athletes routinely are denied
permission to travel to and play in the U.S. The World Baseball Classic
was an exception to the general rule in this respect. It would seem to
me, then, that having had a socialist revolution gave China, as it later
gave Cuba, the possibility of harnessing its national resources in ways
that served the national interests of China and Cuba, and helped raise
those countries to world power status, each in their own way, of course.

Here in the United States, individualism, and, in particular, the right
of every individual to make as much money as they can, is enshrined as
part of the national ideology. Most people buy into the notion that the
making of money, lots and lots and lots of money, is what, in the end,
life is really about. This individualism is one of the most difficult
things for socialists and Marxists to confront, as it is so very deeply
rooted in the culture of the United States. But individualism, like the
private property/capitalist system, is only a social construct, not an
aquisition rooted in nature itself. 

The author of the article proceeds from the vantage point which most
writers from the United States begin: money-making is the prism through
which life must be measured. INDIVIDUAL money-making, to be precise.
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dwalters | 1 Oct 2006 05:02
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Lula Leads in Polls a Day Before Brazil Election

I read the interview, I'm not impressed. I think you don't get 'reasons' to vote
for 'Lula', you get 'rationalizations'. He "hopes" that the mass movement
pressures Lula; he "expects" Lula to turn against neo-liberalism, etc. Lula has
broken the few promises he made to the working class and fulfilled every one he
made to Wall Street and the IMF. However...

Betto does make an interesting analysis of the forces inside the PT that people
should pay attention to. The PT is not like the post-Blair Labour Party...where
democracy was crushed and the party turned over to US-Democratic Party oriented
yuppies, he mentions the different forces that are at play.

Unlike Walter, I don't attempt to give a reason to vote for Lula or against him.
I don't, even using Nestero's methodology, see how Lula manifests at all any
sort of movement for national liberation or Latin American integration that
isn't some capitalist (Brazilian) scam. Does Lula lend support for anti-Bush
diplomatic efforts? Yes, he has, like with Venezuela. But quite frankly, if the
Cardozo-clone who runs against Lula wins it hardly make that much of a
difference for the Brazilian or any other working class in Latin America. I
just don't see it. I see workers voting for Lula for the same reason many voted
for Kerry or Clinton: because he's less bad than the other guy.

David

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Louis Proyect | 1 Oct 2006 05:56
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Re: Lula Leads in Polls a Day Before Brazil Election

David Walters wrote:
>Unlike Walter, I don't attempt to give a reason to vote for Lula or 
>against him.

I sometimes wonder how much discussion there would be of Lula if 
Walter didn't insist on promoting his reputation here. In an odd way, 
Walter simply takes the sectarian Trotskyist methodology of 
denouncing movements/governments in other countries and turns it on 
its head. I wonder if Yoshie ever would have gotten a terminal case 
of Ahmadinejaditis if she hadn't been exposed to Walter's 3 year 
boosterism for every Latin American politician who the WSJ editorial 
page has badmouthed.

I find this endless speculation over Lula's merits or lack thereof 
quite sterile. It would be far more useful for comrades to present an 
analysis of Brazilian capitalism, which is a much more relevant topic 
for a Marxism list.

Back in 1971, when I was working at a bank in Boston, the Harvard 
educated project manager I was reporting to, and who had received a 
tip-top anti-Communist education there, was always going on and on 
about how Brazil would soon enter the ranks of the developed world. 
This was at a time when trade publications like Datamation had 
articles in nearly every issue about the Brazilian challenge to IBM. 
Brazil was the China of that time, in other words.

There is really no point to comparing Lula to Kerry or to 
Chavez-lite. This just goes around in circles. When I have taken the 
time to write about a Latin American country, I try to do some 
background reading on the history and social composition. This takes
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Joaquin Bustelo | 1 Oct 2006 07:02

RE: Leftists against Lula -with rightist positionsre: Bolivia

 Nestor says, in reference to his denial that Brazil is a "nation": 

"As to practical politics, in Southern Latin America at least, when 
you say 'Patria Grande' everyone knows what you are talking about." 

But they also understand when you say "patria chica" also.

Joaquin

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Joaquin Bustelo | 1 Oct 2006 07:17

RE: Let's agree to disagree, Lou!

Nestor writes: 

"I can argue again, with a South American example (somehow -and not a matter
of chance- related):  what if the Dutch had 'ceded' Surinam to Brazil once
they left the place?  I would have thought it a progressive step, whatever
the regime in place in Brasília."

This leaves out of consideration the most important factor: what do the
people of Surinam want? What is their history, what is their political
(national) identity? Have they been fighting for integration into brazil or
for independence or do they have a movement at all?

The "subjective" factor -- the actual movement if it exists -- is absolutely
decisive, but it is precisely that which you leave out of your calculations.

A war by Brazil to impose itself against a rebellious population of a
neighboring country would do much more harm to the cause of Latin American
unity than the independence of the neighboring country. You cannot bring the
blessings of continental unity on bayonnets.

Joaquin

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Tony Lawless | 1 Oct 2006 10:24
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RE: Let's agree to disagree, Lou!


Does anyone happen to know what currency is used on East Timor? I'm curious about this.

Tony
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Nestor Gorojovsky | 1 Oct 2006 11:54
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Unity and disunity

Jscotlive: 

> Lenin once wrote on the National Question apropos of this precise 
> issue that the objective should be 'disunity for unity'. 
> 

Yes, but disunity from the Czarist Empire. We Latin Americans were 
disunited (already in the Iberian Peninsula during the 17th Century, 
in fact).  Now we must unite.

Este correo lo ha enviado
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro <at> fibertel.com.ar
[No necesariamente es su autor]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
"La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
Aparicio Saravia
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

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Nestor Gorojovsky | 1 Oct 2006 11:54
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OK, I admit it: it was a provocation, but...

> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 20:02:18 -0400
> From: Fred Feldman <ffeldman <at> bellatlantic.net>
> Subject: [Marxism] re: Brazil (response by Nestor and a few comments
> by me) 
> 

> Nestor [with] his sweeping and
> categorical rejection of Brazilian nationhood raised all the things
> that bother me in relation to these trends. 

I admit now, having raised the temperature of the list higher than I 
expected, that my rash and absolute denial of "Brazilian nationhood" 
was _partly_ a provocation.

However, what I want to begin with is the idea that there is a 
"Brazilian, Argentinean, Mexican, whatever 'nationhood' harking back 
to some moment in the past" such as can be traced in the histories of 
the great imperialist nations.  This is a misconception, when not 
false. 

Nothing in the past of our peoples pointed to our current splintering.

Latin America was splintered _so that it would not become 
a united Latin America_.

This said, and thus set the limits to any pretense to singular 
"nationhood" for any of the constitutive parts of the Latin
American nation, I will go ahead and say that:

Our "nationhood" is _still to be made_ and every particular struggle
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Gmane