Yoshie wrote:
All examples you bring up are those from the West, though, namely France and the USA. What makes sense at the core of the multinational empire doesn't always make sense at the periphery -- even a relatively richer part of it like Brazil -- and vice versa.
I have no idea what you mean by making sense. I have Marxist principles about voting for capitalist parties, even if they are in the South Pole. Lenin advocated voting for a social democratic party in a situation where it has not ever come into power and when workers still have illusions in its candidates. He advocated that approach in order to allow the revolutionary party to get a hearing without creating artificial barriers. This was never intended to be a permanent orientation, especially for parties that have been elected like Lula's. If it is unfashionable to adhere to Lenin's ideas about electoral politics, so be it. I have never been a creature of fashion except for bell-bottom jeans in the 1960s.
I'm sure neither Emir Sader nor Joao Pedro Stedile would back Lula if a revolution were happening in Brazil and Lula were standing in the way.
This is the classic maximalist-minimalist cleavage.
What are the revolutionary left to do, though, when people are, well, not really revolutionary? Yoshie
Build parties like the PT of the early 1980s. If Lula is not interested in such a party and prefers to create a Brazilian version of New Labour, then it will be up to some other people to recreate a most promising electoral formation. It was a good idea at the time and still is.
