Brazil Looms Larger

[Catherina]

13. I was hoping you'd weigh in

I recognize it's a complex issue and that to win the game, you have to play it. I also recognize revolutions aren't won overnight or with just a few players.

"There's no way a country can establish its own rules and ignore the global context. It's suicide."

Agreed. With distress and under duress.

This is not a anti-capital movement.

To the regret of many on the Left however, everyone on the Left also realizes that the first step to moving to the Left s getting the imperial boot off your neck. This is why I have no problem watching right wing countries like Guatemala become members of PetroCaribe. Things happen in steps and the seeds you lay today may bear fruit tomorrow. It's also why I don't jump and thrown boulders at Chavez for playing with the private sector, though I will, at every opportunity, remind his opposition that he was more patient and tolerant of them than any socialist revolution required. Personally, I think that was very very smart. And it shouldn't be forgotten that Chavez, naively enough, started out as a neoliberal until he understood what that game was.

I tried not to be too harsh in my statement about Brazil's outsourcing for the same reason I won't attack countries striving towards socialism for any mistakes, or better yet deviations, they make. Hah lol my friend. I'm actually counting on Brazil, on Dilma, to keep its head and out-google-dimensional-chess countries that seek to ruthlessly exploit. As long as she keeps caring for her citizens and moving things to the Left, I'm not only happy but grateful.

What you wrote about how "China has literally destroyed our textile industry".. I hear you. And I am trusting people like Dilma to take a little of that poison to turn it into a vaccine while understanding that China didn't do it at gunpoint. They muscled in using the debt the US holds to them.

"going to the dance floor, but chosing his partners"

No complaints there. If anything, just applause for this necessary step in a transition. I understand where Brazil is going with all of this and I support it as long as,down the road, after Dilma is gone, the mechanisms that Brazil puts in place to advance equality, aren't used to exploit.

That's the big danger.

However, I trust Dilma, with the support of ALBA, CELAC, UNASUR, to also implement the necessary trigger mechanisms to prevent that.

The worst part to getting to your destination is all the steps it takes. And sometimes, many times, the shortest distance between two points isn't a straight line, especially when there are minefields and obstacles in between.

Brazil has my *pragmatic* and sincere support. It's going to take all of them, together in solidarity, to get there. I see how the imperial powers have been trying to fracture that solidarity and how there are weak links. I don't think Dilma is one of those weak links- she's been anything but! I have reservations, hopefully unnecessary ones, about Bachelet but that's a whole other thread.

It's a delicate, deadly dance. Right now, I trust Dilma to keep those horny boys at charming, laughing arms distance so the more serious boys have a chance. As long as she dances *with them who brung me*, like I believe she will, I'll keep fiddling