Coverage of the Brazilian election on Democracy Now! yesterday highlighted the fact that Brazil no longer has a true rightwing party at the presidential level. And being in Latin America, it's not even that surprising that two of the top three presidential candidates in Sunday's first round of presidential elections were women--accounting for almost 70 percent of the vote. Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party fell just a few percentage points short of 50 percent, necessitating a run-off, while Marina Silva, a former high Workers Party official lead the Green Party to its strongest showing ever, roughly 20 percent. She did not make the run-off, but the Social Democratic Party candidate, José Serra, himself with some progressive credentials, can't realistically run right and gain much support from Silva's backers in the run-off.
Although I've long been accustomed to thinking of Lula's Worker's Party government as a disappointing sell-out for its acceptance of neoliberal international finance & trade relations, it has still made dramatic progress towards improving the lives of the poor, and raising record numbers out of poverty. My perspective is still much more closely aligned with the social movements out of which he originally emerged, and he has moved away from them in a trajectory somewhat similar to that of Barack Obama moving away from his early community organizer roots, though not as extreme. So I'm glad that the Workers Party has opposition on the left. But even what passes for its opposition on the right this time around is more properly described as modestly center-left on domestic policy, while supporting the US line in foreign affairs. This came into focus though the comments of one guest, Greg Grandin, author of Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism and Fordlandia presented a very different slant on things, one in which Brazilian elections this time were a three-way race between different center-leftish parties, all somewhat pressured by more militant social movements. Here's what he said:
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah, it's remarkable. Here's a country, the most populous country in Latin America, the largest economy, by far, in the Americas, short of the United States and Canada, you know, one of the most strongest growing economies in the world, and 70 percent of the population voted either for an ex-Marxist urban guerrilla [Rousseff] or an Afro-Brazilian rubber tapper [Silva] who broke with the Workers' Party to run on the Green Party ticket. The Green Party got 20 percent of the vote. It would be interesting to know if that's the highest-compare it with Germany, for instance-if a Green Party won 20 percent of the vote, that's a remarkable-that's a remarkable turnout....
GREG GRANDIN: Well, what's remarkable is that Serra and Dilma share a remarkable overlap of agendas. I think that this speaks to the success of Lula, both for Brazil, leaving Brazil a much stronger country, but also leaving Latin America a much stronger country. I think, you know, not only were these two women of the left women of the left, the opposition candidate was not a man of the right. I mean, he was a Social Democrat. In some ways--
AMY GOODMAN: José Serra.
GREG GRANDIN: You mentioned in your introduction his contribution to challenging the international pharmaceutical regime, and in a lot of ways the Social Democratic party--government before Lula put into place a lot of--increased social spending that Lula was able to capitalize on. Serra agreed, and he actually tried to run in the shadow of Lula, you know, as the true heir of Lula. But that obviously didn't work to a large degree.
What's interesting is that Serra is actually more progressive on one issue, and that's finance interest rates. He wants--Lula has actually kept interest rates fairly high, lowered them a little bit during the recession as a way of a kind of stimulus. But for the most part, he's been quite orthodox, keeping the bond markets and the international bankers happy. Serra represents, I think, a certain kind of industrial sector within Brazil that wants lower interest rates. I think domestically what he would do, he'd probably be more willing to also to try to impose some kind of neoliberal reform on labor law, which Dilma won't do. I think, you know, part of the Workers' Party will not--they won't go for that kind of structural reform.
So none of these is a real left party, both the Workers Party and the Social Democrats have elements of conformity to neo-liberalism, as well as divergences, and the Greens represent more pressure on the left But there is no traditional right, at least not now at the presidential level. The Social Democratic candidate has taken positions friendly to Washington on foreign affairs, but even these have been somewhat muted.
With the 40th anniversary of Earth Day just around the corner, a renewed sense of activism and attention is cast around the present state of our natural environment. What started as a local grassroots effort to increase environmental awareness and provoke action from our political leaders has not only led to significant policy changes, but has also developed into an international celebration of our planet. As we remember what this day first meant, it is important we not only look back on our past with a critical eye, but also look at our world with the hope that is needed to make the future better than today. We, along with our partner Rainforest Alliance, are calling on you to take the action needed to help make that dream a reality. Because as the recent events involving the rainforest show us, we hold the power for both tremendous improvement and colossal destruction.
So the United States lost to Brazil in the final of the FIFA Confederations cup, in that thrilling but painful tale of two halves, with the U.S. up 2-0 only to see Brazil roar back (or rather dance and prance and glide with balletic ferocity) and win 3-2. All I can say is, thank god.
For the past sixty years, the powerhouses of international soccer (a.k.a. football) either have been empires past their prime and on the decline or countries that dream fruitlessly of empire - England, France, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, and Spain. To bestride the world as a soccer power is to not bestride it as an economic or military power. In its period of global hegemony, the United States was manifestly not a global powerhouse in soccer. It was mighty in everything but the sport that is played by more people in every corner of the world than any other. And so if the United States had magically defied the odds and the gods and beaten Brazil, it would have been the final sign that American is indeed in decline.
The current economic crisis has claimed many victims, but what has changed most is the way that the United States is viewed, perhaps permanently. That isn't ideology; it isn't declinism; it's a fact. For all the talk in past year about the shifting balance of power globally, until now it has been just that, talk. Saying that the emerging world of China, India, Brazil and the rest have assumed a new place is like saying that a new army is well-equipped with sharp uniforms and cutting-edge weapons. That doesn't mean it can fight. Until tested in battle, it's just a guess. The economic crisis of the past two months has been such a test, and the results are clear: talk of the emerging world as the wave of the future isn't just speculation; it's a permanent reality.
Needlenose: It can be hard to remember in an abundant modern city, far from the extraction or production of the resources consumed in it, that supplies are finite. It might strike home a bit more to know that we're even using up the supplies that make our electronic things work, let alone our agricultural resources. I have a whole new level of belief in the need to recycle old computers:
... For example, if we continue to consume the following minerals at current rates, we'll exhaust:
* iridium (LCDs) - 13 years
* hafnium (computer chips) - 20 years
* silver (catalytic converters) - 29 years
* tin (cans, solder) - 40 years
* uranium (power) - 59 years ...
The Farm Bill contains Enron levels of corruption and rural Americans know it. It'd be a huge political coup for the candidate willing to try and get it into the conversation. Subsidies, as the diarist notes, are a symptom of the problems and not the cause.
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