It's Lula (like duh....)

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, yes, of course it's Lula, but as the saying goes, it ain't over till
it's over and the fat lady sings. Which it is and she has done.

As of 8:40 PM CNN en Español was reporting Lula with  61.5% of the votes in
the 94% of the precincts that have been counted. Serra has called Lula and
conceded.

We can expect, of course, the bourgeois press to stress Lula's
respectability and so on and so forth. He's going to get pretty much the
same treatment Chávez got in 1998: tons of "thumbsuckers" on how it isn't
realy such a bad thing, he's been terribly moderate and anyways no one else
has enough support to impose the strong medicine the economy needs and all
that other neoliberal crap.

And they'll stress how moderate this cabinet member is and how that one
studied economics in Chicago. But before we conclude so-and-so is a
dirty-dog reformist, remember Lenin's argument to the ultralefts in his Left
Wing Communism pamphlet: that it was *necessary* for the masses to go
through the actual experience of having petty-bourgeois reformist forces in
power before the masses could turn decisively towards a revolutionary
course.

The boruegois commentators will reassuringly point to, I'm sure, all the
other "workers parties" like British Labour and so on that are perfectly
respectable bourgeois parties. But there is a very great difference between
those long-established components of bourgeois 2- and 3-party systems and
the Brazilian PT, which arose as the *political* expression and
generalization of mass struggles by workers who through their own experience
found they needed to act politically as a *class.*

Keep this in mind: Even Peter Camejo is being painted as a "moderate" by
some in the California press, despite his assertions that he's really a
"watermelon" (green on the outside, red on the inside). And that a few days
ago, some bourgeois reporter tried to nail Lula into saying whether or not
he was a Marxist. And Lula answered, "I'm a machinist."

CNN domestic, of course, was unimpressed by Lula's victory, staying with its
new format, "all speculation all the time" around the sniper case. But all
the other CNN feeds --to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Asia, North and
South America as well as the Spanish feed-- were in "breaking news" as soon
as the polls closed with live reports about the exit poll projections and
the wild street celebrations that immediately broke out.

As to whether it makes any difference here in the USA, I was this afternoon
at a meeting at a place called the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the
Green Party. About 75 people were there, perhaps 2/3rds Blacks, and one of
the biggest rounds of applause came when the first initial exit poll
projections from Brasil released at 3 PM eastern were announced. The other
big round of applause went to the report by a young white, a Teamster, who
went on the demonstration in D.C. the day before.

The event was called as a Town Hall meeting and Speak Out on "The War &
Issues and Priorities for our Community" focusing on South Dekalb County.
Much of the discussion centered on what I would call the need for
information and coordination, for political centralization, and on the need
for independent political action by working people. There are all sorts of
groups and formations and committees and organizing efforts underway, and
quite a few were represented there. From their comments, it is clear that
there is a generalized pickup in independent political organization and
activity, and this has led to the question of information exchange,
coordination, overcoming narrowness and localisms of all types being posed
with increasing urgency.

José


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