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The European Union is witnessing a full-blown social revolt. Governing political parties and their economic policies are held in open contempt as public protests and strikes escalate across multiple countries.

Protests, mass marches, and industrial strikes are spreading across the EU in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and other countries. The grievances are various, from students and teachers over woeful education services, to healthcare professionals and transportation workers denouncing crumby wages and pension cuts.

But at the core is a warmongering, dehumanizing system of capitalist inequality.

Unbearable living costs for basic needs, from food to housing, are driving millions onto the streets in desperation and anger at the lack of adequate political response to their concerns. As one French student said: “Too young to be listened to, old enough to be tear-gassed.”

The entire political system is being brought into disrepute for its dysfunction and indifference towards meeting rudimentary human needs. Then, infuriating all the more, are lies from the elite rulers and their propaganda media about “national defense and threat of war from Russia.”

In Spain this week, an 87-year-old frail woman known as Maricarmen died in hospital after she was evicted from her Madrid home because she could not pay the extortionate rent increase. Her plight has come to galvanize a nationwide protest against Spain’s housing crisis, a crisis that is repeated across every European country. Protesters shouted furiously that the pitiful old woman was “murdered by the state and corporations.”

In France, the brutality of police against student protests has shocked the nation and the world. Nearly 7,000 young people have been arrested, as riot police tear gas and shoot at largely peaceful rallies. Students gathering at the Place de la Bastille in Paris and other cities vow that they will not back down. One student had his hand blown off by a police stun grenade while another teenager lost an eye from a rubber bullet fired at close range.

The Place de la Bastille is where the French Revolution manifested in 1798 against a hated aristocracy amid abject misery. Today, the tensions are boiling towards another momentous rebellion, this time inspiring again similar movements across Europe.

These protests and the inhumane suffering that underlie them are channeling uprisings all over the EU.

There is a palpable sense that populations en masse have had enough of decades of inequality and chronic deprivation inflicted by capitalist policies that enrich a few and are enforced by governments slavishly serving the interests of capital over the needs of the citizen majority.

Western media reports talk about “cash-strapped” governments under pressure from bond markets to reduce record debt levels while workers, students and pensioners demand more public investment and relief from economic hardship.

That is a misleading partial portrayal of the problem. Omitted is the crucial backdrop that European governments are directing vast economic resources towards militarism and the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. That is what is causing the “cash-strapped governments.” In other words, their declared fiscal straits are a policy choice, not some mysterious dilemma.

The social crisis sweeping across Europe is also seen in the United States and other Western-aligned nations. The background is a failed economic system that no longer provides a modicum of acceptable living conditions. The problem has been decades in the making from growing inequality and diminishing political representation. Today it is even questionable if Western states are democracies, controlled as they are by corporate oligarchies.

Nevertheless, the social crisis that is unfolding across Europe has been intensified and amplified by European political rulers operating in a relentless war mode against Russia.

The European Union has pumped hundreds of billions of euros into Ukraine over the past four years to prop up a NeoNazi regime run by a corrupt dictatorship – all for the objective of defeating Russia. The EU leaders – many of them unelected, like Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and António Costa – are driven by an obsessive Russophobia. But that is only part of the explanation.

Other elected leaders and parties like France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz are also despised for their elitism and delusions of grandeur. Merz declares that he wants to make Germany the strongest military in Europe, in total tin-ear deafness to his nation’s economic and social problems and the sinister historical connotations of resurrecting Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, as his government suffers electoral defeat after defeat, European elites deprecate German voters as being blind because they dare to choose parties that are opposed to war with Russia.

There are many grounds for the Europe-wide contempt of ruling parties. Inequality, poverty, unemployment, soaring living costs, declining wages, deteriorating public services. Uncontrolled immigration amid the pressure on inadequate public resources is another cause for grievance. Europe’s complicity in the Israeli genocidal war on Palestinians, and Europe’s complicity in Trump’s aggression towards Iran, Yemen, Cuba, and so on, are other factors.

However, the bogus narrative that governments are “cash-strapped” is a cause for immense public disgust. There are plenty of economic resources to meet public needs. It’s a question of those resources not being permitted to create just and humane societies under the prevailing capitalist system with its priority of enriching a tiny elite class.

The conditions of “tight budgets” and “austerity for the masses” are created by deliberate policies of militarism and fuelling a proxy war in Ukraine.

European “leaders” and their NATO lobbyists like Mark Rutte demand hundreds of billions of euros to boost military industries while at the same time calling for draconian cuts in public spending and social welfare in order to pay for this reckless militarism. The EU is “lending” an additional €90 billion over the next two years alone just to prop up the corrupt regime in Kiev so that it can keep fighting a futile war with Russia. The perverse priority is driven by the military-industrial complex and its corporate investors. It is also driven by an ideological, propagandized mindset that demonizes Russia as an enemy. President Putin and other Russian voices have repeatedly stated that they do not want war with Europe. They say the conflict in Ukraine has root causes that can be resolved through diplomatic engagement. Why are European politicians implacably opposed to peace?

A major factor is covering for internal political and economic failure of the European system. The EU’s economies, as with those in the U.S. and other Western states, are bankrupt dystopias in terms of delivering on social and democratic needs. The failure has been compounded by the costs of war in Ukraine.

That failure is criminal and fatal for the politicians and governments who have overseen the policies. Thus, the political class, including the propaganda news media, cannot admit their criminal policies.

In the face of their own internal contradictions, the European political elites are seeking a solution by externalizing Russia as an enemy. This is the same modus operandi that European rulers have used for the past century and more, unleashing two world wars as a result.

These criminal politicians and their dysfunctional economic system are again pushing war as their escape plan for survival at the expense of millions of lives and at the risk of starting a third world war, one that this time around could involve catastrophic nuclear nemesis.

It is damning of virtually every European government, including primarily the British, that there are no calls for diplomacy and political settlement with Russia. They are committed to waging war on Russia to absolve themselves from the social devastation they are responsible for.

One positive thing, though, is that increasing numbers of people can see through the chicanery and lies. A German student placard summed it up: “We won’t fight your wars… Education not bombs!”

A day of reckoning is imminent. Criminal political leaders and their warmongering system are exposed like never before and in a way that demands total revolt as a proper solution. The consequences are not to be externalized this time. Chickens are coming home to roost, as Malcom X once said.

School ceilings keep falling on students’ heads across the country in the last couple of days, where such incidents are being reported on a daily basis. Shortly before classes ended for the weekend, a large piece of plaster fell from the ceiling injuring a 14-year-old student. The boy at Thermi Gymnasium by Thessaloniki was hit […]

The post School ceilings keep falling on students’ heads, injuring minors during classes appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

An interactive event in Warsaw explored how artificial intelligence, platform algorithms and commercial interests influence young people’s digital experiences — and why their voices should matter in decisions about technology. MEDIA-SOCIETY.COM // WARSAW, 9 October 2026 — What does a teenager actually encounter when opening a social media app? And how much of that experience […]

A powerful explosion at Motor Oil Refinery on Friday morning injured two workers very seriously and another three lighter. The explosion occurred in the premises of the refinery in Agioi Theodoroi in western Attica. According to reports, two men aged 43 and 50, were initially transported to the Corinth General Hospital where they were intubated […]

The post Powerful explosion at MOTOR OIL Refinery: One dead, one intubated in ICU appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

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In the previous article, I discussed general aspects of the political testament left by the greatest science communicator of the 20th century: Carl Sagan (1934–1996). I showed that his Epicurean worldview leads him to portray life on Earth as the result of an extremely ephemeral convergence of causes, that humanity must artificially sustain to prevent our species from going extinct. This maintenance requires a global pact governed by scientists. Scientists are special beings because they are, supposedly, the only ones who strive to foresee catastrophes. Sagan artificially divides humanity into two groups: Enlightenment atheists who embrace science, and religious obscurantists who reject it. Therefore, for the species to survive, the former must prevail over the latter.

In his political testament, Billions and Billions (1997), the causes he champions are environmentalism and abortion. Today, I aim to show that these two causes are, in fact, one and the same: Neo-Malthusianism.

It is easy to prove that Carl Sagan was a Neo-Malthusian. Here is what he says in the chapter “The Persian Chessboard”: “Exponentials are also the central idea behind the world population crisis. […] As the English clergyman Thomas Malthus pointed out in 1798, a population increasing exponentially— Malthus described it as a geometrical progression— will outstrip any conceivable increase in food supply. No Green Revolution, no hydroponics, no making the deserts bloom can beat an exponential population growth. There is also no extraterrestrial solution to this problem. […] Even if it were possible to ship everybody on Earth off to planets of distant stars on ships that travel faster than light, almost nothing would be changed— all the habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy would be full up in a millennium or so.”

There is no caveat regarding the error of Malthus’s prophecy, nor any consideration of the inhumanity of his recommendations. Malthus is portrayed as a scientific hero. And, with surprising dogmatism, Sagan dismisses—without argument—the idea that technological improvements could solve the food problem. Mind you: Sagan takes it for granted that, even on different planets, humans would continue to procreate exponentially, when fertility rates historically differ even between rural areas and the urban middle class! And a thousand years is far too short a timeframe for humanity, with all its astronomical development, to solve a problem!

Instead of openly proposing that the poor be denied charity, like old Malthus, Sagan proposes birth control and technological apartheid. Instead of helping the poor, then, we must prevent them from being born and deprive them of technology—except for birth control technology, which, it seems, is entirely immune to causing unforeseen environmental damage. Moreover, while old Malthus had England’s poor in mind, Sagan broadens his scope to include the world’s poor nations—nations that keep growing and adopting technology, something supposedly responsible for significant environmental damage.

Were he to state these things explicitly, he would clearly appear as a villain. Thus, in the same chapter, the issue of birth control is wrapped in the language of humanitarianism and feminism: “There is a well-documented worldwide correlation between poverty and high birthrates. In little countries and big countries […] in almost all these cases, exponential population growth slows down or stops when grirfcling poverty disappears. This is called the demographic transition. It is in the urgent long-term interest of the human species that every place on Earth achieves this demographic transition. […] One of the central issues in the world population crisis is poverty.”

Correlation does not imply causation, yet Sagan argues as if it did. People are not poor because they have children; rather, they have children because the cost of raising them is low and is offset by the utility of their labor: in an underdeveloped setting, all farmers need to provide their children is food—which the land itself yields—and within a few years, the child begins to assist the family with work. A sterile couple would not become wealthy simply by virtue of having no children; they would merely save on food that might well otherwise rot, while failing to multiply their workforce. If matters stood as Sagan claims, sterility would be a blessing in agrarian societies, yet reality demonstrates the opposite.

He continues: “The exceptions to the demographic transition are interesting. Some nations [which he does not name] with high per capita incomes still have high birthrates. But in them, contraceptives are sparsely available, and/or women lack any effective political power. It is not hard to understand the connection.” At no point in the book does he explain what criteria must be met to say that women possess real political power within a society. This is regrettable, given his assertion that women held such power during the Pleistocene (!!) but do not today. Thus, since Sagan cites no sources for this information, one can only conclude that he is fabricating a series of pretexts to advocate for contraception, tailored to whatever reality the reader faces: if women enjoy favorable material conditions yet continue to bear children, we cannot simply leave them be; this is framed as a symptom of a lack of political power—a power women supposedly possessed in prehistory while dancing in circles on full-moon nights under the influence of hallucinogens.

In “The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?”, after discussing the unexpected consequences of CFCs, he laments: “The inhibitions placed on the irresponsible use of technology are weak, often half-hearted, and almost always, worldwide, subordinated to short-term national or corporate interest. We are now able, intentionally or inadvertently, to alter the global environment. […] Maybe the products of science are simply too powerful, too dangerous for us. Maybe we’re not grown-up enough to be given them. Would it be wise to give a handgun as a present to an infant in the crib?” After comparing the weapon to science, he adds “one further complication: Imagine that when you pull the trigger on a handgun, it takes decades before either the victim or the assailant recognizes that someone’s been hit.”

The implication throughout is that CFC-based refrigeration, including for food, should not have been made available to the world’s population, even though it greatly improves human quality of life. It is an essentially peaceful technology. Yet, shortly thereafter, he once again advocates for birth control, as if millions of pills containing artificial hormones were, with absolute certainty,incapable of causing environmental harm in the long run. What Sagan tacitly proposes has a name: technological apartheid.

Observe how he concerns himself not only with the population growth of the Third World but also with its access to technology, in the chapter “Escape from Ambush”: “The biggest CO₂ emitter on the planet is the United States. The next biggest CO₂ emitter is Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union. The third biggest, if we combine them, is all the developing countries together. That’s a very important fact: This isn’t just a problem for the highly technological nations— through slash-and-burn agriculture, burning firewood, and so on, developing countries are also making a major contribution to global warming. And the developing countries have the world’s largest population growth rate. Even if they don’t succeed in achieving something like the standard of living of […] the West, these nations will constitute a steadily increasing part of the problem.”

The Third World is in the wrong if it doesn’t use much technology, and it is in the wrong if it grows food. A single country, the USA, leads the problem that needs to be tackled, yet it is the Third World, taken as a whole, that must be controlled through a reduction in birth rates. Why not curb consumerism in the United States instead of forcing the Chinese and Indians to have fewer children? Sagan offers no answer, nor does he ever address the issue of consumerism—a topic any serious environmentalist ought to tackle.

The path Sagan proposes to avert CO2-induced global warming is to gradually abandon fossil fuels and… live off solar panels and wind power, because Chernobyl supposedly “proved” that nuclear energy is unsafe, and because its technology could be converted for weapons production. It is as if the manufacture of solar panels caused no environmental damage, and as if those panels lasted forever without ever becoming waste. The impact of wind farms on bird populations is not considered either. It is as if the sun and wind generated energy with no environmental cost to the humans seeking to harness it. By 1996, Sagan was already an electric car enthusiast; he predicted they should be the preferred choice—not for their engine power or top speed (which he assumed were lower than those of gasoline cars), but to save the human species.

So, humanity must generate less energy and, especially in the Third World, reproduce less, magically becoming wealthier in the process; yet, it must not have access to technology—save for solar panels, windmills, and contraceptives, which supposedly cause no harm to the environment. Is it too bold to assume that the campaign to abandon reliable energy in favor of intermittent sources like solar and wind stems precisely from the fact that they are intermittent—thereby compromising access to technology and increasing mortality? All to save the human species.

This subject naturally leads to the most drastic method of birth control: abortion. In the United States, the issue has been framed since Roe v. Wade (1973) in terms of “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” with positions falling along a spectrum: the pro-choice extreme advocated for elective abortion up until the moments before birth, while the pro-life extreme advocated for the criminalization of abortion in all cases. With Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court compelled U.S. states to legalize abortion prior to “fetal viability”—that is, before the fetus is capable of surviving outside the mother’s body.

In the piece “Abortion: Is It Possible to Be Both ‘Pro-Life’ and ‘Pro-Choice’?”, first published in 1990, Sagan offered a “scientific” defense of Roe v. Wade. According to Gallup, 1996 was precisely the year when the extreme pro-choice position declined. Sagan begins his argument by stating that “a newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth.” However, throughout the text, he promotes the literal dehumanization of embryos and fetuses, as for him, what matters is whether the being differs from an irrational animal. To Sagan, the fact that lungs are ready or a heart is beating does not justify banning abortion, because we kill animals with these characteristics without it constituting murder. Thus, the point at which a baby is considered human is precisely when it acquires the specific human characteristic: thought. He believes thought likely emerges during the third trimester of pregnancy, implying that Roe v. Wade is sound.

Even so, the fact remains that, at least in practice, the ruling permitted abortion right up to the moment of birth; indeed, this remains the case in Alaska to this day, even after the ruling was overturned. Regarding this, Sagan states—without citing sources—that “as a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation).” Was this reversal of the extremist trend in the interest of the abortion-rights agenda, serving to forestall a backlash?

Yet, in the very same paragraph where he offers this reassuring statement for the average U.S. reader, he also asserts that “perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth.” Perhaps there isn’t thought in the womb — and perhaps newborn babies do not think, nor are full persons. That is essentially Peter Singer’s line of reasoning in defense of infanticide. Sagan defends the prevailing U.S. position with a very poor argument, one that leaves the door open to the institutionalization of infanticide should scientists present “proof” that babies do not think, or that they think less than an adult dog.

Let us consider the dehumanization involved. Through comic-book-style illustrations of pregnancy stages, we read that at three weeks the human embryo “looks a little like a segmented worm”; at the fifth week, “the face, seen here in profile, has a distinctly reptilian aspect”; at the seventh, “the face is mammalian but somewhat piglike”; at the eighth, “the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human.” Could all this really be the sincere opinion of a serious scientist?

Well, much of Sagan’s sophistry stems from confusing “human” as a noun with “human” as an adjective. Human cells are human, but they are not human individuals—human persons. HeLa cells (named for Henrietta Lacks, not Helen Lane as stated in the book) are human cells, but they are not a person. The adjective “human” applies even to feces.

The question should not be whether a human embryo is human, but whether a human embryo is a person. If an embryo is a living being, how can one deny that a person’s life begins at its formation—that is, at conception?

Sagan knew this. In his final text, written on the verge of death, he lamented not being able to “meet unconceived grandchildren.” His grandchildren would never be worms, reptiles, or piglike.

Le elezioni presidenziali anticipate del 18 settembre hanno consegnato a Marat Kambolov una netta vittoria. Il voto si inserisce però in un processo più ampio, segnato dal nuovo trattato con Mosca e dalla crescente integrazione politica, economica e istituzionale russo-sudosseta.

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Le elezioni presidenziali anticipate tenutesi il 18 settembre in Ossezia del Sud hanno sancito la vittoria di Marat Kambolov, figura proveniente dall’apparato statale russo e divenuta in pochi mesi il principale protagonista della politica sudosseta. Secondo i risultati ufficiali della Commissione elettorale centrale, Kambolov ha ottenuto 27.922 voti, pari all’84,95% dei partecipanti al voto, mentre l’affluenza ha raggiunto l’82,65% dei 39.768 elettori registrati. Molto distanziati gli altri candidati: Murat Valiev, sostenuto da «Patrioti dell’Alania» (Patrioty Alanii, Патриоты Алании), si è fermato al 3,82%; l’indipendente Kazbek Kodoev al 2,52%; Zurab Kokoev, esponente di «Unità» (Edinstvo, Единство), all’1,48%. Infine, un ulteriore 4,90% degli elettori ha scelto l’opzione «contro tutti».

Il risultato, per la sua ampiezza, ha lasciato poco spazio all’incertezza sul passaggio istituzionale. Kambolov ha prestato giuramento il 30 settembre a Tskhinval, assumendo formalmente la presidenza e chiudendo così una transizione iniziata oltre tre mesi prima con le dimissioni di Alan Gagloev. Nel discorso di insediamento il nuovo presidente ha indicato il miglioramento delle condizioni di vita della popolazione come obiettivo centrale della propria amministrazione, ribadendo nello stesso tempo il carattere strategico del rapporto con la Federazione Russa.

Lungi dal rappresentare un episodio isolato della politica interna sudosseta, le elezioni sono state il punto di arrivo provvisorio di una trasformazione accelerata dei rapporti fra Tskhinval e Mosca, avviata formalmente il 9 maggio scorso con la firma del Trattato sull’approfondimento dell’interazione alleata tra la Federazione Russa e la Repubblica dell’Ossezia del Sud. Il documento si colloca a sua volta nella continuità degli accordi sottoscritti dopo il riconoscimento russo dell’indipendenza sudosseta nel 2008 e del trattato di alleanza e integrazione del 2015, ma ne approfondisce in maniera considerevole la dimensione istituzionale ed economica.

Il testo firmato il appena cinque mesi fa prevede infatti una cooperazione crescente in materia di politica estera, difesa, sicurezza e controllo delle frontiere, insieme all’armonizzazione delle norme giuridiche e alla creazione di condizioni favorevoli alla libera circolazione di capitali, merci, servizi e forza lavoro. Particolarmente significativa è la disposizione che consente ai cittadini di ciascuna delle due parti di ricoprire incarichi statali e municipali nell’altra, nei termini stabiliti dal trattato. È una norma che riduce concretamente le barriere fra i rispettivi apparati amministrativi e che ha assunto quasi immediatamente un significato politico attraverso l’ascesa dello stesso Kambolov.

Ancora più profonde sono le disposizioni economiche. Le parti si impegnano alla progressiva formazione di uno spazio economico comune e all’unificazione di settori della legislazione che disciplinano le attività economiche, compresi il diritto civile e quello tributario. Il trattato contempla inoltre il progressivo avvicinamento degli indicatori sociali e macroeconomici e, secondo la documentazione relativa alla ratifica russa, l’integrazione delle reti energetiche, dei sistemi di trasporto, delle telecomunicazioni e delle procedure riguardanti investimenti e indebitamento estero.

Proprio l’attuazione di questo accordo ha costituito la porta d’ingresso di Kambolov nella politica sudosseta. Nato nel 1965 nell’Ossezia Settentrionale-Alania, Kambolov ha svolto gran parte della propria carriera nelle istituzioni della Federazione Russa. Ha lavorato nel Comitato statale per la politica antimonopolistica e nel Ministero per le nazionalità e la politica regionale, è stato vicedirettore dell’Agenzia federale per la scienza e l’innovazione e, tra il 2010 e il 2014, viceministro russo dell’Istruzione e della Scienza. Successivamente ha ricoperto incarichi di vertice presso il Centro nazionale di ricerca «Istituto Kurčatov». Il 27 maggio, infine, è stato nominato consigliere di Stato del presidente sudosseto con il compito specifico di seguire l’attuazione del nuovo trattato nei settori economico e sociale.

Il passaggio successivo è avvenuto nel giro di poche settimane. L’8 giugno Gagloev ha proposto Kambolov alla guida del governo e il 16 giugno il Parlamento ne ha approvato all’unanimità la nomina, con il voto favorevole dei 32 deputati presenti su 34. In quella stessa occasione Gagloev definì il trattato del 9 maggio come l’apertura di una nuova fase nelle relazioni con la Russia e come il quadro destinato a orientare i processi di integrazione nei principali settori della vita della repubblica.

Soltanto una settimana più tardi lo scenario politico cambiò nuovamente. Dopo un incontro con Vladimir Putin, Gagloev annunciò le proprie dimissioni e la volontà di lavorare al fianco del presidente russo all’attuazione del trattato. Nel messaggio rivolto alla popolazione il 23 giugno, lo stesso Gagloev collegò esplicitamente il nuovo accordo a una prospettiva storica più ampia, quella del superamento della divisione del popolo osseto e del ricongiungimento con l’Ossezia Settentrionale e con la Russia. In base alla Costituzione sudosseta, la presidenza ad interim passò quindi a Kambolov, allora presidente del governo.

La sequenza degli avvenimenti rende evidente quanto la consultazione del 18 settembre sia stata collegata alla ridefinizione del rapporto russo-sudosseto. Il passaggio da Gagloev a Kambolov non ha rappresentato una rottura dell’orientamento strategico precedente: al contrario, ne ha rafforzato la continuità. La differenza principale riguarda piuttosto il profilo del nuovo presidente. Con Kambolov, Tskhinval affida l’attuazione della nuova fase di integrazione a un dirigente formatosi quasi interamente nell’amministrazione e nelle strutture scientifiche della Federazione Russa, con una lunga esperienza nell’apparato pubblico di Mosca.

Sebbene questo dato non implichi automaticamente che l’Ossezia del Sud stia per essere incorporata formalmente nella Federazione Russa, la prospettiva dell’unificazione del popolo osseto rimane comunque presente nel discorso politico locale. L’Ossezia costituisce infatti uno spazio nazionale diviso dalla frontiera russo-sudosseta: a nord si trova la Repubblica dell’Ossezia Settentrionale-Alania, soggetto della Federazione Russa, mentre a sud si trova la Repubblica dell’Ossezia del Sud, la cui indipendenza è riconosciuta da Mosca e da un numero ristretto di altri Stati, mentre il resto della comunità internazionale continua a considerarla come parte integrante del territorio georgiano. Per la maggioranza della classe politica sudosseta, il rapporto con la Russia non viene quindi presentato semplicemente come un’alleanza fra due Stati, ma come parte di un più lungo processo di ricomposizione nazionale.

Al di là della controversia internazionale, per la nuova leadership rimangono problemi interni molto concreti. L’economia sudosseta continua a dipendere in misura significativa dal sostegno finanziario e infrastrutturale russo, mentre la scarsità di opportunità occupazionali, l’emigrazione giovanile, le difficoltà dei servizi pubblici e la necessità di modernizzare strade, reti energetiche e sistema produttivo costituiscono questioni centrali per la popolazione. L’integrazione con la Russia viene presentata dalla nuova amministrazione anche come la principale risposta a questi problemi.

Lula falhou em atender às demandas do povo – e agora enfrenta as consequências.

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O primeiro turno das eleições presidenciais brasileiras terminou com o candidato Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) na frente de Lula da Silva (PT) por 47% a 45%. Nas eleições parlamentares, o PT e a esquerda sofreram derrotas esmagadoras em todo o país, indicando uma crescente rejeição da esquerda entre os brasileiros comuns. Agora, nas últimas semanas restantes antes da decisão final sobre quem governará o país a partir do próximo ano, a questão permanece aberta: que fatores serão considerados pelos eleitores na escolha do presidente?

O governo Lula tem tomado várias medidas consideradas “desesperadas” para reverter sua crise de impopularidade e retomar apoio na reta final das eleições. A ampliação de programas sociais é uma dessas medidas, mas sua eficiência política é cada vez mais contestável. Após décadas de redistribuição de renda nos governos PT, sem que isso representasse qualquer mudança real na situação dos trabalhadores, a avaliação dessas políticas tem se tornado cada vez mais negativa.

O problema central para Lula é que uma parcela significativa do eleitorado parece estar menos interessada em novas medidas paliativas e mais preocupada com problemas que permanecem presentes em sua vida cotidiana. Segurança pública, emprego, renda, inflação e qualidade dos serviços públicos têm impacto muito mais direto sobre a população do que os grandes debates promovidos pelo governo.

A segurança talvez seja o exemplo mais evidente. O avanço das organizações criminosas, a expansão territorial do crime organizado e a sensação de impunidade transformaram a violência em uma das principais preocupações nacionais. Para milhões de brasileiros, a questão deixou de ser uma discussão abstrata sobre políticas de segurança. Trata-se de uma realidade cotidiana que determina onde as pessoas podem morar, trabalhar, circular e até mesmo abrir um negócio – ainda mais especialmente nos grandes centros urbanos, como o Rio de Janeiro, onde o crime organizado já controla algo entre 60% e 70% do território total da cidade.

Nesse contexto, propostas associadas à agenda cultural progressista também podem produzir custos eleitorais importantes para a esquerda. O debate brasileiro sobre questões de gênero, identidade, educação e direitos de minorias passou a reproduzir cada vez mais conflitos políticos originados nos Estados Unidos e na Europa. Uma parte considerável da população, porém, não se identifica com essa agenda e considera que o Estado deveria concentrar seus esforços em problemas materiais mais urgentes.

Isso ajuda a explicar por que o segundo turno provavelmente será decidido muito mais por questões domésticas do que pela política externa – que é a parte mais elogiada do governo Lula na comunidade internacional de especialistas. Os BRICS, a Palestina ou a posição brasileira diante dos Estados Unidos podem mobilizar setores politizados da sociedade, mas definitivamente não constituem as principais preocupações do eleitor médio quando ele decide seu voto.

A política externa possui importância estratégica para o Estado brasileiro. O cidadão comum, entretanto, tende a avaliá-la através de seus efeitos concretos sobre a própria vida. Uma política externa considerada bem-sucedida não compensará, por si só, uma percepção de insegurança, desemprego ou deterioração dos serviços públicos. E à medida que o governo Lula evita combater o problema do crime organizado diretamente, cresce naturalmente a popularidade de uma direita que elogia os EUA por considerarem as facções criminosas brasileiras terroristas.

O mesmo vale para os já mencionados programas de transferência de renda. Esses mecanismos podem até possuir uma função social importante em um país marcado por desigualdades profundas, mas sua utilização como principal instrumento de política social apresenta limitações graves. Transferir renda pode aliviar uma situação de pobreza, mas não cria automaticamente empregos qualificados, não aumenta a produtividade e não reconstrói a indústria nacional. Pelo contrário, cria uma massa de precarizados dependentes de ajuda governamental. Quando a assistência se transforma em substituto permanente para políticas de desenvolvimento, o problema estrutural permanece.

É justamente nesse ponto que a disputa eleitoral entra em uma fase decisiva. O eleitor terá de escolher entre propostas diferentes para enfrentar problemas que não desapareceram durante os últimos anos. A capacidade de apresentar respostas convincentes para segurança, emprego, renda e ordem social poderá pesar mais do que discursos sobre grandes projetos geopolíticos.

O resultado do primeiro turno também demonstra que a direita brasileira conseguiu transformar o descontentamento doméstico em força eleitoral. A vantagem de Flávio Bolsonaro e a composição do novo Congresso indicam que existe uma demanda significativa por mudança. Isso não significa que todos esses eleitores compartilhem uma mesma visão sobre economia, política externa ou questões culturais. Significa, sobretudo, que existe uma insatisfação suficientemente ampla para alterar o equilíbrio político nacional.

Nas semanas restantes da campanha, portanto, a questão fundamental será saber se o governo conseguirá convencer o eleitorado de que suas políticas oferecem soluções duradouras ou se prevalecerá a percepção de que foram adotadas medidas paliativas para administrar problemas que continuam sem solução.

Falar sobre gênero, direitos humanos ou Palestina definitivamente não ajudará Lula a se reeleger.

By Mike ELK

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

There are still three weeks until the next round, and Lula could still win, but it’s gonna take a massive fight. Part of that fight is changing how the international media covers things.

With the Brazilian presidential election headed to a runoff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is down 47% to 45% and faces a massive fight ahead. I wanted to give a quick analysis of what happened and where things are going next.

Lula Could Still Win if He Can Consolidate Support from Third Parties

Lula lost by only 2%, and several third-party candidates, who took a combined 8% of the vote, have publicly indicated they would not endorse Flávio Bolsonaro in the second round.

Likewise, 29 million Brazilians did not vote in this round of the runoff and may be persuaded to vote for Lula in the second round if they fear Bolsonaro.

While Brasil defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022, it swung right again, much like the United States. Voters are upset, and they are taking it out on the party in power.

On Tuesday, the Brazilian Senate is scheduled to vote on a measure that would shorten the Brazilian workweek from six days to five days. Bolsonaro has opposed this measure, and Lula could use the vote to mobilize workers’ support against the Bolsonaro team.

It’s a tough road ahead for Lula, but not impossible.

What Hurt Lula in the First Round?

Three primary factors hurt Lula in the first round. First, Lula’s age and the fact that the Workers’ Party (PT) has held the presidency in Brazil for 18 of the last 24 years.

The second is that the Brazilian corporate media constantly manufactured scandals against Lula.

Finally, the role that US President Donald Trump played in training and validating the right-wing in Brasil, while not decisive, provided critical support. Here’s what went wrong for Lula.

1. Lula is 80 & His Party Ruled Brasil for 18 of the Last 24 Years

Like former US President Joe Biden, one problem Lula faces right now is that he is 80 years old. He doesn’t look as sharp as he used to, while Flávio Bolsonaro is nearly half his age—45 years younger.

Additionally, Lula’s party, the Workers’ Party (PT), has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Lula and Dilma, both members of the Workers’ Party (PT), held the presidency from 2002 to 2016. Lula was reelected in 2022 for his record third term. No Brazilian has ever won a third term.

Although the PT has rarely controlled Congress, it is seen as the ruling party because it has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Voters are likely to associate any problems in the country with the PT, which has held the presidency for so long.

While Brasil defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022, it swung right again, much like the United States. Voters are upset, and they are taking it out on the party in power.

Even worse, Lula failed to recruit young candidates, who may have excited voters to turn out in tight races. In what should have been a competitive Senate election in Rio de Janeiro, the PT recruited 84-year-old Bendedita da Silva, who lost in a landslide to Bolsonaro allies.

Last week, Lula skipped the presidential debate; so did Bolsonaro and its unclear how much this decision might have hurt him.

Lacking excitement, nearly 29 million Brazilians did not vote despite it being obligatory in Brasil.

2. Brazilian Media Manufacturing Scandals Against Lula

The Brazilian media market is extremely consolidated, and the heads of major networks like Globo have been going after Lula hard. They have been accused of manufacturing scandals against Lula.

Last November, the financial institution Banco Master collapsed amid allegations of massive fraud. The bank was being run like a Ponzi scheme, resulting in the largest financial collapse in Brazilian history, with nearly $8 billion in investors’ funds lost.

Despite Banco Master CEO Daniel Vorcaro being a very vocal Bolsonaro supporter, the Brazilian media has repeatedly tried to link the scandal to Lula’s Workers’ Party, as Vorcaro cultivated political ties on both sides of the aisle.

Every attack on Lula by the Trump administration generated headlines in Brasil and validated the wild claims made by Bolsonaro allies of a flawed Brazilian justice system.

Lula’s son, businessman Fábio Luís da Silva, commonly known as “Lulinha,” was scrutinized over large bank accounts worth millions of dollars. For months, Lulinha has offered to open his books and has claimed that he received no special favors from Banco Master. Still, the media repeatedly raised questions about Lulinha’s alleged impropriety.

At one point, media giant TV Globo made a giant infographic web with arrows, showing a complex network linked to Lula. Other reporters widely ridiculed the conspiracy theory map, and TV Globo eventually had to apologize publicly on air.

Then, in May, The Intercept Brasil released a WhatsApp message from Flávio Bolsonaro to Vorcaro, asking him for more than $26 million to fund a strange English-language biopic named Dark Horse, about his father. In the film, Jair Bolsonaro is portrayed by right-wing American actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.

Polling throughout the spring and summer showed Lula leading as the scandal remained fresh in people’s minds. Then, the Brazilian corporate media went into high gear to attack Lula. They went after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the prosecution that jailed Bolsonaro.

Moraes has accused Brazilian Supreme Court Justice André Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee, of failing to follow proper procedure in his handling of the Banco Master scandal, leaking information to the press on Lula’s political allies while hiding information on Bolsonaro’s allies.

Moraes asked the Brazilian Federal police to investigate Mendonça’s violation of federal investigation procedures and for selectively leaking information to the press that would make Lula allies look bad while suppressing information on Bolsonaro allies.

Moraes accused Mendonça of attempting to “steer the production of evidence toward falsely accusing Supreme Court justices of crimes, expressly naming Justices Gilmar Mendes, Dias Toffoli, Luiz Fux, Alexandre de Moraes, and Nunes Marques, as well as the prosecutor general and the director-general of the Federal Police.”

3. Trump Trained and Emboldened Bolsonaro Allies

While I don’t want to underestimate the strength of fascists within Brasil, it’s important to note that Trump and his operatives did help the Bolsonaro family pull off an impressive comeback.

In March 2025, Eduardo Bolsonaro fled to the United States rather than face prosecution in Brasil for his role in trying to orchestrate a coup, and he was granted permanent residency status in July. While in the United States, Eduardo Bolsonaro has worked closely with Trump officials, including Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell, to oust Lula from power.

“It was a privilege to speak with Ambassador Richard Grenell at President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” Eduardo Bolsonaro wrote on Instagram following a meeting with Grenel in 2025. “The conservative movement is global—and we are just getting started.”

Eduardo Bolsonaro worked closely with top Trump aides like Brad Parscale, Trump’s director of digital strategy, to learn the social media strategy that led Trump to win reelection.

As president, Trump worked hard to attack Lula. He placed punitive tariffs on Brazil for convicting Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo’s father, for attempting to assassinate Lula and overthrow his government in 2022. These tariffs hurt Brasil’s economy.

More importantly, Trump’s constant denunciation of the jailing of Bolsonaro validated conspiracy theories of right-wingers that the justice process was flawed. When Alexandre de Moraes, who led Bolsonaro’s conviction, was implicated in the Banco Master scandal, it only reinforced these conspiracy theories.

Ahead of the Brazilian presidential election, the Trump administration has labeled Brasil as a major distributor of cocaine and attempted to paint Lula as weak on taking on drug gangs.

In June, the Trump administration labeled two gangs as “terrorist organizations,” something which the Lula administration has repeatedly resisted because of fears of how the Trump administration could intervene in law enforcement and military matters in Brasil.

Still, every attack on Lula by the Trump administration generated headlines in Brasil and validated the wild claims made by Bolsonaro allies of a flawed Brazilian justice system.

On Friday, the Trump administration closed its embassy in Brasil and all of its consulates in a move that many saw as a scare tactic designed to interfere once again in the Brazilian presidential election.

The same day, the Brazilian federal police and intelligence service ABIN were warning of a possible US coup attempt. It was already known that Trump operatives were training operatives in Brasil, and the Brazilian federal police report described in depth how much Trump’s intervention had shifted things in Brasil.

International Media Failed to Check Brazilian Media

Finally, the international media completely ignored the Brazilian presidential election, allowing corporate media within Brasil to dominate the conversation without any accountability from the international media.

There are still three weeks until the next round, and Lula could still win, but it’s gonna take a massive fight. Part of that fight is changing how the international media covers things.

Payday Report can help play a small role in getting the US press more involved. The Washington Post once cited Payday Report in a front-page story for changing the way the pandemic strike wave was discussed, and maybe we can play a small role in getting American reporters to pay attention.

Original article:  www.commondreams.org

Why did the machines suffer a kind of breakdown, if they had been rigorously tested?

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The counting of votes in the first round of Brazil’s general elections was the subject of great controversy. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, was ahead of Lula in the official count, with 49.6%, against 42.2% for the president seeking re-election.

64.8% of the polling stations had been tallied up to that point. But the count was halted for more than an hour. Strangely, the votes for governor, senator and deputies continued to be counted normally. Only the presidential count was halted.

And, even more strangely, when the presidential count resumed, Flávio Bolsonaro’s upward trend and Lula’s downward trend were reversed. The opposition candidate’s votes plummeted, while those of the current president rose. Flávio Bolsonaro was less than 0.5% away from the victory that would hand him the presidential sash. He lost more than 2%, ending with 47.03%, while Lula gained almost 3%, ending with 45.16%.

It seemed that Flávio Bolsonaro would dethrone Lula right in the first round. But, after more than an hour of halted counting, Lula managed to recover and the race will only be decided in the second round.

The count was halted at 7:06 p.m. (Brasília time), with 64.8% of the ballots tallied. Only at 8:08 p.m. were the new results presented, already with 84.96% of the ballots tallied.

The official justification was given by the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Kassio Nunes Marques, who is also a justice on the Supreme Federal Court (STF). “What happened was a data congestion. In every election, we are surprised by some incident, which is natural for those who deal with complex and highly varied systems,” he said. “At first, it is not known whether this was derived from another problem. What our IT found was a flow [of data] above the normal level, and that congestion caused a delay,” he added.

There is an aggressive propaganda campaign in Brazil, spearheaded by the Electoral Justice, to convince citizens that elections are 100% clean. The main focus of this propaganda is precisely the electronic voting machines. Judicial institutions and media outlets give wide dissemination to the Electoral Justice’s claims about the total reliability of the electronic voting machines, even highlighting that they are tested before the election and then sealed so that no one can access them.

So why did the machines suffer a kind of breakdown, if they had been rigorously tested? Well, the oh-so-wise TSE has full knowledge of the number of eligible voters and of the number of votes that can be recorded in the machines, including in each polling station. The Electoral Justice’s propaganda tells the public that the machines are fully prepared in advance to record and tally voters’ votes perfectly.

No flow of data “above the normal level” that would lead to system congestion should occur, because the most varied data and statistics regarding vote recording are known and the calculations are perfectly feasible. The infallibility of the electronic voting machines requires that all possible outcomes be predictable and that, therefore, there be no anomaly whatsoever.

So how is it possible, then, that such a perfect system – as it is portrayed by the institutions of the Brazilian State – suffers a failure which, once supposedly resolved, so radically changed the trend of the presidential votes?

It may be a coincidence that Flávio Bolsonaro plummeted and Lula rose after the voting machines failed. But who knows? The TSE president acknowledged that the electronic voting system is “complex.” Only highly qualified specialists, from the TSE itself and from technology companies, can access it and understand it, according to the Electoral Justice. Thus, the fate of an entire country for the next four years rests in the hands of these specialists – 150 technicians unknown to the public. The tally of votes from the machines is fully automated; it passes through no human being. An even more select number of 22 employees access the automated vote totalization.

This means that 214 million Brazilians need to trust those 150 or 22 Egyptian priests to interpret that occult science. They must be the most enlightened beings on planet Earth – 100% honest, upright, immaculate and virginal. Even the STF justices, who over the past 15 years have been presented as impeccable, virtuous and chaste individuals, now appear embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s recent history, yet those anonymous specialists deserve citizens’ most absolute trust.

It was for reasons such as these that the Supreme Court of Germany declared electronic voting unconstitutional: “every citizen must be able to understand and verify the central stages of elections in a reliable manner and without any prior specialized technical knowledge.”

The verdict, dated 2009, concludes:

“An electoral procedure in which the voter cannot reliably understand whether his or her vote was recorded in an unfalsifiable manner and included in the tally of the election result, and how the total of votes cast is assigned and counted, excludes central elements of the electoral procedure from public scrutiny and therefore fails to meet constitutional requirements.”

The Brazilian judicial system is mired in its greatest crisis in history and is living through a true Wild West, with partisan feuds interfering in the functioning of its work. Partisanship, in fact, has contaminated most of the judiciary, including the TSE. In the final stretch of these elections, decisions by the Electoral Justice, backed by the dominant wing of the STF, favored Lula.

It is evident that this dominant wing (represented by justices Alexandre de Moraes, Gilmar Mendes and Flávio Dino) does not want a victory of Bolsonarismo, for it is their declared political enemy. These justices have acted, in recent years, as true vigilantes against Bolsonarismo. Now that they themselves have been caught in extremely promiscuous dealings with a banker who corrupted countless high-ranking state officials, their bureaucratic careers are threatened. Lula’s continuity is a hope of salvation for these gentlemen, for the president is beholden to them and cannot break that commitment without risking his own neck, given the level of dependence Lula has contracted toward the STF’s top brass. Meanwhile, a Flávio Bolsonaro victory would tend to lead to a clash with the heads of these institutions – although the opposition candidate himself has shown little willingness to confront them, because those who control elections in Brazil (international financial capital) demand moderation and pacification, otherwise they will make life difficult for anyone elected president.

And the people are treated like cattle, victims of a system they cannot understand, so that their exploitation may be perpetuated through the staging of the “festival of democracy.”

Lula has failed to meet the demands of the people and is now facing the consequences.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The first round of Brazil’s presidential election ended with candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) ahead of Lula da Silva (PT), 47% to 45%. In the parliamentary elections, the PT and the left suffered overwhelming defeats across the country, indicating growing rejection of the left among ordinary Brazilians. Now, with only a few weeks remaining before the final decision on who will govern the country from next year onward, the question remains open: what factors will voters take into consideration when choosing the president?

The Lula government has taken several measures considered “desperate” attempts to reverse its popularity crisis and regain support in the final stretch of the election. Expanding social programs is one such measure, but its political effectiveness is becoming increasingly questionable. After decades of income redistribution under PT governments, without this producing any real transformation in the situation of working people, public perceptions of these policies have become increasingly negative.

Lula’s central problem is that a significant portion of the electorate appears less interested in new palliative measures and more concerned with problems that remain present in their daily lives. Public security, employment, income, inflation, and the quality of public services have a much more direct impact on the population than the major debates promoted by the government.

Security is perhaps the clearest example. The expansion of criminal organizations, the territorial growth of organized crime, and the perception of impunity have made violence one of the country’s main concerns. For millions of Brazilians, this is no longer an abstract discussion about security policy. It is a daily reality that determines where people can live, work, travel, and even open a business – particularly in major urban centers such as Rio de Janeiro, where organized crime is estimated to control between 60% and 70% of the city’s total territory.

In this context, proposals associated with the progressive cultural agenda may also carry significant electoral costs for the left. Brazilian debates over gender, identity, education, and minority rights have increasingly reproduced political conflicts originating in the United States and Europe. A considerable portion of the population, however, does not identify with this agenda and believes that the state should concentrate its efforts on more urgent material problems.

This helps explain why the runoff will likely be determined much more by domestic issues than by foreign policy – which is the aspect of the Lula government most frequently praised by the international expert community. BRICS, Palestine, or Brazil’s position toward the United States may mobilize politically engaged sectors of society, but they are unlikely to constitute the main concerns of the average voter when deciding how to vote.

Foreign policy has strategic importance for the Brazilian state. Ordinary citizens, however, tend to evaluate it through its concrete effects on their own lives. A foreign policy regarded as successful will not, by itself, compensate for perceptions of insecurity, unemployment, or deterioration in public services. As the Lula government avoids directly confronting the problem of organized crime, support may naturally grow for a right-wing camp that welcomes the United States’ designation of Brazilian criminal factions as terrorist organizations.

The same applies to the aforementioned income-transfer programs. Such mechanisms may have an important social function in a country marked by profound inequalities, but their use as the principal instrument of social policy has serious limitations. Transferring income can alleviate poverty, but it does not automatically create skilled employment, increase productivity, or rebuild national industry. Instead, it can contribute to the emergence of a large precarious population dependent on government assistance. When welfare becomes a permanent substitute for development policies, the structural problem remains.

This is precisely where the electoral dispute enters a decisive phase. Voters will have to choose between different proposals for addressing problems that have not disappeared in recent years. The ability to present convincing answers on security, employment, income, and social order may carry greater weight than speeches about major geopolitical projects.

The first-round result also demonstrates that Brazil’s right was able to transform domestic discontent into electoral strength. Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead and the composition of the new Congress indicate significant demand for change. This does not mean that all these voters share the same views on the economy, foreign policy, or cultural issues. It means, above all, that dissatisfaction has become sufficiently broad to alter the country’s political balance.

In the remaining weeks of the campaign, therefore, the fundamental question will be whether the government can convince voters that its policies offer lasting solutions, or whether the perception will prevail that it has adopted temporary measures to manage problems that remain unresolved.

Talking about gender, human rights, or Palestine will definitely not help Lula secure reelection.

Mesmo uma vitória de Lula, hoje improvável, não fará mais que dar uma sobrevida e prolongar a agonia num falso senso de estabilidade.

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A perspectiva sobre as eleições brasileiras após o 1º turno é unânime: Lula e o Partido dos Trabalhadores foram varridos e humilhados, e as perspectivas de uma virada nas eleições presidenciais é mínima.

Flávio Bolsonaro, filho do ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro, recebeu 56 milhões de votos, ou aprox. 47% dos votos válidos, enquanto Lula recebeu 53,8 milhões de votos, ou aprox. 45% dos votos válidos – o resultado leva ao 2º turno, a ser realizado no dia 28 de outubro. O problema para Lula é que o eleitorado dos candidatos que ficaram em 3º, 4º e 5º têm uma maior tendência para votar em Flávio Bolsonaro do que no próprio Lula.

Lula só tem como puxar votos tentando converter os que não foram votar, ou os que votaram nulo. São 30 milhões de eleitores nessas condições, portanto não é pouca gente. Mas historicamente, a tendência é que essa fatia do eleitorado aumente do 1º para o 2º turno, em vez de diminuir.

O revés de Lula, porém, não é apenas em sua própria disputa com Bolsonaro.

Em número de governadores estaduais, o seu partido, o PT, cai de 4 para 3 governadores. E o partido até conseguiu preservar seus assentos no Senado e somar 1 deputado federal a mais na Câmara, mas os seus rivais bolsonaristas do PL ganharam mais 13 cadeiras no Senado e 21 cadeiras na Câmara. Em outras palavras, mesmo que Lula ganhasse, não conseguiria governar.

A reação do partido de Lula e de seus militantes é a pior possível: responsabilizam o povo por “não saber votar” ou por “ser fascista”, os candidatos de micropartidos de esquerda por não terem desistido de suas candidaturas, alegam narrativas fantasiosas de “manipulação” por parte dos EUA e das redes sociais – tudo, menos admitir que o governo de Lula padecia de problemas sérios e foi incapaz de dialogar com a população e entender as suas demandas.

Pior: abraçam uma ilusão na qual o governo de Lula teria sido, na verdade, excepcional e no qual todos os índices econômicos seriam maravilhosos, e “os pobres” deveriam agradecer a Lula de joelhos e votar nele para sempre.

A realidade, porém, é que excetuando na região nordeste, onde Lula nasceu, o PT virou o partido da classe média progressista e dos centros urbanos, enquanto as cidades pequenas e médias e uma parte significativa dos setores populares abraçou o bolsonarismo. E por que?

No que concerne a economia, a percepção de melhora é falsa. O governo Lula criou ou aumentou mais de 30 impostos e taxas de todos os tipos, voltados em sua maioria contra a classe média e trabalhadora. Para piorar, apertou a regulamentação dos microempreendedores, dificultando a sua vida no que concerne questões tributárias.

Os empregos criados foram principalmente no setor de serviços e no extrativismo, para não falar nos trabalhos autônomos e precários. Em contrapartida, o governo multiplicou ao infinito os “benefícios sociais”, concedidos principalmente para a camada lúmpem da sociedade, parasitária e odiada pelos setores positivos. Aliás, apenas os setores mais ricos ligados às finanças receberam tantos benefícios quanto o lumpemproletariado no governo Lula. E não casualmente, as classes de apoio ao PT foram a classe A e a classe E, as duas pontas do sistema parasitário e improdutivo, que esmagam as classes produtivas (B, C e D) por cima (através da usura) e por baixo (através da criminalidade).

Não se pode subestimar ademais, o problema da segurança pública, para o qual temos alertado há muito tempo. O discurso de Lula sobre soberania é vazio quando ¼ da população brasileira (segundo estudo da Cambridge University Press) vive em território controlado por organizações narcotraficantes. A tolerância do brasileiro por essa situação acabou.

Mas a leniência do governo não. Ao contrário, o Brasil vive a situação esquizofrênica de ser suave com criminosos perigosos e extremamente repressivo contra quem diz coisas politicamente incorretas na internet. Tornou-se corriqueiro no Brasil que pessoas comuns seja presas e condenados por “crime de ódio” ao recusarem a entrada de alguma pessoa “trans” num banheiro feminino.

E num erro de julgamento crasso, o PT decidiu associar a própria sorte ao STF, exatamente o núcleo de poder liberal que garante a implementação de todas as pautas globalistas no Brasil e que opera um aparato draconiano de repressão e silenciamento. Lula se esqueceu de que ele próprio foi perseguido e preso pelo Judiciário brasileiro, e decidiu se aliar a este setor para tentar impor a mesma sina a Bolsonaro.

O tiro, porém, saiu pela culatra. A disputa de Lula é com Flávio Bolsonaro. Mas quem venceu essa eleição, estando condenado, preso, adoecido e censurado é Jair Bolsonaro.

Especulações sobre “interferência estrangeira” nas eleições são fúteis e pueris posto que desnecessárias. Todas as causas da derrota de Lula estão em seu próprio governo.

Nem na política externa – área mais elogiada pelos colegas estrangeiros – escapamos das contradições: condenação da Nicarágua no Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU, veto ao ingresso da Venezuela nos BRICS e deslegitimação da reeleição de Nicolás Maduro, aliança tácita com a França de Macron, Acordo UE-Mercosul, colaboração da ABIN com as inteligências da França e da Alemanha, pressão para tentar desacelerar o crescimento dos BRICS, e poderíamos continuar longamente.

É por isso que dentro do Brasil, o elemento da política externa não pode ser visto, nessas eleições, da maneira “dualista” como ele é visto de fora para dentro (em que se tem o mito de um “Lula multipolarista” e um “Bolsonaro atlantista”). Na verdade, tanto Lula quanto Bolsonaro jogam com os dois lados do campo geopolítico, são apenas seus discursos que são levemente divergentes. Naturalmente, os propagandistas de ambos os lados jurarão que não é assim, mas é o que a análise fria dos fatos aponta.

No fim das contas, estamos às portas do “fim da Era Lula”, e dos momentos finais de uma carreira política que marcou a história do Brasil, que teve seus altos e baixos, seus pontos positivos e negativos, mas que termina de um modo agridoce, pela ausência de um projeto de nação e pela obsessão oportunista de se perpetuar no poder a qualquer preço – inclusive ao preço de trair os princípios da época da fundação do Partido dos Trabalhadores.

Lula deixará o PT órfão. Não houve preocupação com formar um sucessor à altura de Lula. Pior: a práxis do PT o levou a esmagar os partidos de esquerda menores e a absorver seus principais quadros para podá-los e controlá-los antes que eles pudessem se tornar maiores que Lula.

Nesse sentido, com o fim da carreira política de Lula morre a esquerda. Ou pelo menos UMA esquerda. A esquerda liberal-progressista da Sexta República e da Constituição de 88. Resta saber se o que triunfará na inevitável disputa por seu legado é uma esquerda ainda mais radicalmente progressista, ou se retornará uma esquerda nacionalista, tal como já existiu no Brasil em outras épocas.

Mesmo uma vitória de Lula, hoje improvável, não fará mais que dar uma sobrevida e prolongar a agonia num falso senso de estabilidade. Não só da esquerda, mas também do Brasil.

A British tourist’s hike in the Imbros Gorge in Sfakia turned into an adventure with a happy ending Tuesday afternoon. The 73-year-old decided to walk through the gorge, with his last contact with his wife taking place on Sunday afternoon, October 4, 2026. Since then, there had been no signs of life, and his wife, […]

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Considerações realistas sobre as eleições brasileiras.

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As eleições presidenciais brasileiras estão chegando. E com elas estão chegando também as controvérsias, os debates e os diferentes pontos de vista sobre o que esse evento representa para o Brasil, para os BRICS e para o futuro do mundo multipolar.

Em um artigo recente, o respeitado analista político brasileiro Valdir Bezerra advogou a tese de que as eleições de 2026 representam um ponto de inflexão na história brasileira, podendo definir o papel do Brasil no mundo. Para Bezerra, a eleição opõe, de um lado, a vertente “autonomista”, representada por Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, e, de outro, a vertente “ocidentalista”, representada por Flávio Bolsonaro.

Demostrando todo o devido respeito ao trabalho de Bezerro, que é um dos analistas mais bem conceituados no debate político russo-brasileiro, gostaria de apresentar aqui uma visão crítica sobre sua opinião. Não tenho como intenção “refutar” a posição de Bezerra, mas apenas expor as razões pelas quais não considero essa oposição entre autonomismo e ocidentalismo como um pressuposto válido para analisar a atual disputa eleitoral. Ademais, gostaria também de explicar por que não considero a eleição de 2026 como um momento decisivo na definição do papel internacional do Brasil.

Flávio é um ocidentalista, mas Lula não é um autonomista

Os termos guarda-chuvas usados para definir estas duas “tradições” da política brasileira não parecem minimamente aplicáveis na realidade atual. Os termos nos quais muitos pensadores brasileiros definiam a oposição entre aqueles que apoiam a soberania e o desenvolvimento nacional e aqueles que advogam por uma posição subordinada em relação ao eixo atlântico há muito tempo se tornaram obsoletos na alta política institucional brasileira – onde não há hoje qualquer figura digna do título de “autonomista”.

Não é preciso comentar aqui sobre a natureza ocidentalista de Flávio Bolsonaro, que, como seu pai antes dele, defende uma política externa de alinhamento total aos EUA e a Israel, ademais de uma agenda hostil aos BRICS e às plataformas multipolaristas. O ponto central, porém, é tentar entender em que posição, entre ocidentalistas e autonomistas, está Lula.

O atual presidente do Brasil governou o país em três ocasiões e protagonizou alguns dos eventos mais marcantes da política internacional no século XXI. Foi cofundador dos BRICS, articulou alianças com governos soberanistas nas Américas (Venezuela, Bolívia, Cuba) nos anos 2000, manteve laços amigáveis com o Irã e, mais recentemente, estreitou parcerias com a Rússia em pleno regime de sanções imposto pelo Ocidente, além de condenar abertamente o genocídio em Gaza.

Tudo isso é extremamente louvável, mas, para uma análise justa de Lula, é preciso apresentar o outro lado de sua figura: Lula nunca foi um “multipolarista”, apenas um articulador habilidoso no âmbito do multilateralismo da era Obama nos anos 2000. Isso se soma ao fato de Lula ter sido descaradamente apoiado pelo establishment Democrata nas eleições de 2022. Aliás, o terceiro governo Lula foi marcado por controvérsias dignas de um líder “ocidentalista” clássico: Lula não reconheceu as eleições venezuelanas, iniciou tensões com a Nicarágua, vetou o acesso da Venezuela aos BRICS, escanteou as negociações de um acordo Mercosul-China para priorizar um pacto de livre-comércio com a Europa extremamente negativo para os países sul-americanos (um acordo até mesmo neocolonial, pode-se dizer, colocando os países do Mercosul como exportadores de commodities e importadores de tecnologia). Isso tudo para não falar nas relações próximas, quase de alinhamento total e irrestrito, com o regime Macron na França.

Lula certamente teve vários acertos, mas, se formos voltar um pouco no tempo, o próprio ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro também os teve: se recusou a sancionar a Rússia e a condenar a Operação Militar Especial (ao contrário de Lula, aliás, que repetidamente a condenou), fortaleceu as parcerias com a China, preservou a estrutura dos BRICS e abandonou o alinhamento à política externa estadunidense pós-Trump, se tornando um alvo de Joe Biden.

No fim, acertos por acertos e erros por erros, ambos os lados parecem muito distantes de qualquer ideal “autonomista”.

Então, como definir Lula e Flávio?

Podemos resumir este tópico em uma única frase: tanto Lula quanto Bolsonaro são, cada um a seu jeito, ocidentalistas.

Em diversas outras ocasiões comentei em minha coluna sobre como vejo a Sexta República brasileira (o atual regime constitucional fundado em 1988) como uma espécie de “revolução colorida permanente”. De um lado, uma direita liberal abertamente pró-EUA e pró-Israel, de outra uma esquerda liberal institucionalista, ligada ideológica e financeiramente a um grande lobby internacional que vai desde os Democratas estadunidenses até a União Europeia.

As tensões atuais parciais que ocorrem agora entre Lula e Trump não são uma novidade. Bolsonaro se tornou uma figura extremamente incômoda nas relações entre Brasil e EUA assim que Biden chegou ao poder. O que muitos analistas falham em perceber é que as relações entre Brasil e EUA se definem pela dialética entre esquerda e direita no Brasil e Democratas e Republicanos nos EUA. Lula era amigo de Biden, como Bolsonaro era amigo de Trump. Se Lula vencer as eleições de 2026, terá muitos problemas – pelo menos até um eventual retorno Democrata nos EUA. Se Flávio vencer, Brasil e EUA estarão em alinhamento total – mas apenas enquanto Trump estiver na Casa Branca.

É essa dinâmica que permite aos EUA manter a política brasileira sob controle de forma estável. Washington não precisa fazer um Maidan no Brasil. Aliás, a fórmula “golpe + ditadura” não tende a funcionar em países continentais e diversos como o Brasil – e a maior prova disso é a própria experiência brasileira de regime militar, que foi inicialmente patrocinada pelos EUA, mas posteriormente se tornou um regime autônomo não-alinhado após um autogolpe interno entre os militares. Não por acaso, os EUA endossaram a redemocratização do Brasil, ajudando a criar precisamente o regime político atual.

De um lado, uma direita que apoiada pelos Republicanos, por Israel e pelo lobby neocon transnacional; de outro, uma esquerda que obedece aos Democratas e aos europeus. Lula foi um grande multilateralista numa época em que Washington, com Obama, incentivava esse tipo de verniz à unipolaridade estadunidense; Bolsonaro foi uma marionete aberta dos EUA numa época em que Washington, com Trump, exigia isso. A diferença é muito pouca – ou nula.

E o que a eleição de 2026 realmente representa?

A nível internacional, nada ou muito pouco.

Se vencer, Lula será pressionado enquanto Trump estiver no poder. E Lula ao longo dos últimos quatro anos já mostrou que compensa a hostilidade estadunidense sendo ainda mais aliado aos europeus. Por outro lado, se Flávio vencer, teremos pelo menos algum período de alinhamento total com os EUA, o que pode mudar numa eventual vitória Democrata nas próximas eleições presidenciais. É uma escolha muito clara entre Republicanos-Israel e Democratas-UE. “Autonomismo” não faz parte do jogo.

A nível interno, contudo, muitos fatores estão em jogo.

É no cenário interno que o debate sobre a eleição deve se concentrar. Afinal, nenhum brasileiro vai votar em um candidato ou outro por causa de Palestina ou BRICS – que, embora sejam causas legítimas, são realidades distantes para o cidadão comum. No plano interno, temos um Lula cada vez mais enfraquecido devido aos efeitos colaterais de anos em aliança com o Poder Judiciário (que agora está sendo escrutinado e exposto com o escândalo de corrupção do Banco Master). Do outro lado, Flávio recupera posições que já se julgavam perdidas e hoje ambos aparecem em empate técnico nas pesquisas.

O Poder Judiciário acumulou poderes extraordinários com Lula, a ponto de encarcerar manifestantes pacíficos e idosos sob acusação de “terrorismo” apenas porque participavam de manifestações pró-Bolsonaro. A inimizade entre o Judiciário e o Bolsonarismo não pode ser revertida, exceto por uma vitória de Flávio que culmine na indicação de ministros bolsonaristas para a Suprema Corte – remodelando assim os rumos da própria República.

Podemos resumir que Lula daria uma sobrevida à Sexta República, enquanto Flávio aceleraria seu colapso. Enquanto a Sexta República existir, nenhuma alternativa realmente “autonomista” surgirá no Brasil porque o próprio sistema constitucional brasileiro impede tal alternativa. Mas isso não significa que o colapso iminente deste sistema significará uma “aurora multipolar” no Brasil, já que não há (fora do extremamente “ocidentalista” Bolsonarismo) qualquer movimento político no país com força para erguer um novo projeto de Estado.

A conclusão talvez seja frustrante para os mais otimistas e esperançosos, mas o que parece estar por acontecer no Brasil em 2026 é a absoluta nulidade. Com Lula ou Flávio, pouco tende a mudar. O Brasil continuará sendo uma potência média decadente, politicamente subordinada aos EUA, mas com certa liberdade de engajamento multilateral com as potências eurasiáticas – enquanto domesticamente as instituições da Sexta República se autodestroem.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The perspective on the Brazilian elections after the 1st round is unanimous: Lula and the Workers’ Party were swept away and humiliated, and the prospects of a turnaround in the presidential elections are minimal.

Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, received 56 million votes, or approx. 47% of valid votes, while Lula received 53.8 million votes, or approx. 45% of valid votes – the result leads to a 2nd round, to be held on October 28. The problem for Lula is that the electorate of the candidates who placed 3rd, 4th and 5th have a greater tendency to vote for Flávio Bolsonaro than for Lula himself.

Lula can only pull votes by trying to convert those who did not vote, or those who voted null. There are 30 million voters in these conditions, so it is not a small number. But historically, the tendency is for this slice of the electorate to increase from the 1st to the 2nd round, rather than decrease.

Lula’s setback, however, is not only in his own dispute with Bolsonaro.

In number of state governors, his party, the PT, falls from 4 to 3 governors. And the party even managed to preserve its seats in the Senate and add 1 more federal deputy in the Chamber, but its Bolsonarist rivals from the PL gained 13 more seats in the Senate and 21 seats in the Chamber. In other words, even if Lula won, he would not be able to govern.

The reaction of Lula’s party and its militants is the worst possible: they blame the people for “not knowing how to vote” or for “being fascist,” the candidates of small left-wing parties for not having withdrawn their candidacies, they allege fantastical narratives of “manipulation” on the part of the U.S. and social networks – anything, except admitting that Lula’s government suffered from serious problems and was incapable of dialoguing with the population and understanding its demands.

Worse: they embrace an illusion in which Lula’s government would have been, in fact, exceptional and in which all economic indices would be marvelous, and “the poor” should thank Lula on their knees and vote for him forever.

Reality, however, is that except in the northeast region, where Lula was born, the PT became the party of the progressive middle class and the urban centers, while small and medium-sized cities and a significant portion of the popular sectors embraced Bolsonarism. And why?

Regarding the economy, the perception of improvement is false. The Lula government created or increased more than 30 taxes and fees of all types, mostly aimed against the middle and working class. To make matters worse, it tightened the regulation of micro-entrepreneurs, making their lives harder regarding tax issues.

The jobs created were mainly in the services sector and in extractivism, not to mention autonomous and precarious work. On the other hand, the government multiplied to infinity the “social benefits,” granted mainly to the lumpen layer of society, parasitic and hated by the positive sectors. Incidentally, only the richest sectors linked to finance received as many benefits as the lumpenproletariat in Lula’s government. And not coincidentally, the support classes for the PT were class A and class E, the two ends of the parasitic and unproductive system, which crush the productive classes (B, C and D) from above (through usury) and from below (through criminality).

One cannot underestimate, moreover, the problem of public security, to which we have been alerting for a long time. Lula’s discourse on sovereignty is empty when ¼ of the Brazilian population (according to a study by Cambridge University Press) lives in territory controlled by drug trafficking organizations. The Brazilian’s tolerance for this situation is over.

But the government’s leniency is not. On the contrary, Brazil lives the schizophrenic situation of being soft with dangerous criminals and extremely repressive against those who say politically incorrect things on the internet. It has become commonplace in Brazil for ordinary people to be arrested and convicted of “hate crime” when refusing the entry of some “trans” person into a women’s restroom.

And in a gross error of judgment, the PT decided to associate its own fate with the STF, exactly the core of liberal power that guarantees the implementation of all globalist agendas in Brazil and that operates a draconian apparatus of repression and silencing. Lula forgot that he himself was persecuted and imprisoned by the Brazilian Judiciary, and decided to ally himself with this sector to try to impose the same fate on Bolsonaro.

The shot, however, backfired. Lula’s dispute is with Flávio Bolsonaro. But whoever won this election, being convicted, imprisoned, ailing and censored, is Jair Bolsonaro.

Speculations about “foreign interference” in the elections are futile and puerile since they are unnecessary. All the causes of Lula’s defeat are in his own government.

Not even in foreign policy – the area most praised by foreign colleagues – do we escape the contradictions: condemnation of Nicaragua in the UN Human Rights Council, veto of Venezuela’s entry into BRICS and delegitimization of Nicolás Maduro’s reelection, tacit alliance with Macron’s France, EU-Mercosur Agreement, ABIN’s collaboration with French and German intelligence, pressure to try to slow down the growth of BRICS, and we could continue at length.

That is why within Brazil, the foreign policy element cannot be seen, in these elections, in the “dualist” way it is seen from outside in (in which there is the myth of a “multipolarist Lula” and an “Atlanticist Bolsonaro”). In truth, both Lula and Bolsonaro play with both sides of the geopolitical field; it is only their discourses that are slightly divergent. Naturally, the propagandists of both sides will swear that it is not so, but that is what the cold analysis of facts points to.

In the end, we are at the gates of the “end of the Lula Era,” and of the final moments of a political career that marked the history of Brazil, which had its highs and lows, its positive and negative points, but which ends in a bittersweet way, due to the absence of a nation project and the opportunistic obsession of perpetuating itself in power at any price – including at the price of betraying the principles of the time of the founding of the Workers’ Party.

Lula will leave the PT orphaned. There was no concern with forming a successor worthy of Lula. Worse: the praxis of the PT led it to crush the smaller left-wing parties and to absorb their main cadres to prune and control them before they could become bigger than Lula.

In this sense, with the end of Lula’s political career, the left dies. Or at least ONE left. The liberal-progressive left of the Sixth Republic and the 1988 Constitution. What remains to be seen is whether what will triumph in the inevitable dispute over its legacy is an even more radically progressive left, or whether a nationalist left will return, such as already existed in Brazil in other eras.

Even a victory by Lula, today improbable, will do no more than give a survival and prolong the agony in a false sense of stability. Not only of the left, but also of Brazil.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Brazil’s presidential elections are approaching. And with them come controversies, debates, and different perspectives on what this event means for Brazil, for the BRICS, and for the future of the multipolar world.

In a recent article, respected Brazilian political analyst Valdir Bezerra argued that the 2026 elections represent a turning point in Brazilian history, potentially determining Brazil’s role in the world. According to Bezerra, the election pits, on the one hand, the “autonomist” tradition, represented by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, against, on the other hand, the “Westernist” one, represented by Flávio Bolsonaro.

With all due respect to Bezerra’s work, as one of the most highly regarded analysts in the Russian-Brazilian political debate, I would like to present a critical view of his position here. My intention is not to “refute” Bezerra’s argument, but merely to explain why I do not consider this opposition between autonomism and Westernism a valid premise for analyzing the current electoral dispute. Furthermore, I would also like to explain why I do not consider the 2026 election a decisive moment in determining Brazil’s international role.

Flávio is a Westernist, but Lula is not an autonomist

The umbrella terms used to define these two “traditions” of Brazilian foreign policy do not seem remotely applicable to the current reality. The terms through which many Brazilian thinkers once defined the opposition between those who support national sovereignty and development and those who advocate a subordinate position toward the Atlantic axis have long since become obsolete in the upper levels of Brazilian politics – where there is currently no figure worthy of the title of “autonomist.”

There is no need to comment here on the Westernist nature of Flávio Bolsonaro, who, like his father before him, advocates a foreign policy of total alignment with the United States and Israel, as well as an agenda hostile to the BRICS and multipolarist platforms. The central question, however, is to understand where Lula stands between Westernists and autonomists.

Brazil’s current president has governed the country on three occasions and played a leading role in some of the most significant events in international politics in the twenty-first century. He was a co-founder of the BRICS, built alliances with sovereigntist governments in the Americas – Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba – in the 2000s, maintained friendly ties with Iran, and, more recently, strengthened partnerships with Russia amid the Western-imposed sanctions regime, in addition to openly condemning the genocide in Gaza.

All of this is extremely admirable, but a fair analysis of Lula requires presenting the other side of his political profile: Lula has never been a “multipolarist,” but rather a skillful operator within the multilateralism of the Obama era in the 2000s. This is compounded by the fact that Lula was openly supported by the Democratic establishment in the 2022 elections. Indeed, Lula’s third government has been marked by controversies worthy of a classic “Westernist” leader: Lula did not recognize the Venezuelan elections, initiated tensions with Nicaragua, vetoed Venezuela’s accession to the BRICS, sidelined negotiations for a Mercosur-China agreement in order to prioritize a free-trade pact with Europe that is extremely detrimental to South American countries – an agreement that could even be described as neocolonial, turning Mercosur countries into commodity exporters and technology importers. This is without even mentioning the close, almost fully aligned relationship with the Macron regime in France.

Lula has certainly made several correct decisions, but if we go back a little in time, former President Jair Bolsonaro did as well: he refused to sanction Russia and to condemn the Special Military Operation – unlike Lula, who repeatedly condemned it -, strengthened partnerships with China, preserved the BRICS structure, and abandoned alignment with post-Trump U.S. foreign policy, becoming a target of Joe Biden.

In the end, weighing successes against successes and mistakes against mistakes, both sides appear very far from any “autonomist” ideal.

So, how should we define Lula and Flávio?

We can summarize this point in a single sentence: both Lula and Bolsonaro are, each in his own way, Westernists.

On several other occasions, I have commented in my column on how I view Brazil’s Sixth Republic – the current constitutional regime founded in 1988 – as a kind of “permanent color revolution.” On one side, an openly pro-U.S. and pro-Israel liberal right; on the other, an institutionalist liberal left, ideologically and financially connected to a major international lobby stretching from the U.S. Democrats to the European Union.

The current partial tensions between Lula and Trump are nothing new. Bolsonaro became an extremely troublesome figure in Brazil-U.S. relations as soon as Biden came to power. What many analysts fail to perceive is that Brazil-U.S. relations are defined by the dialectic between the left and right in Brazil and the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. Lula was Biden’s friend, just as Bolsonaro was Trump’s friend. If Lula wins the 2026 election, he will face many problems – at least until a possible Democratic return to power in the United States. If Flávio wins, Brazil and the United States will be in total alignment – but only as long as Trump remains in the White House.

It is this dynamic that allows the United States to keep Brazilian politics under stable control. Washington does not need to stage a Maidan in Brazil. Indeed, the formula of “coup + dictatorship” does not tend to work in large and diverse continental countries such as Brazil – and the greatest proof of this is Brazil’s own experience during its military regime, which was initially backed by the United States but later became an autonomous, non-aligned regime following an internal self-coup among the military. It is no coincidence that the United States endorsed Brazil’s democratization, helping to create precisely the political regime that exists today.

On one side, a right supported by the Republicans, Israel, and the transnational neoconservative lobby; on the other, a left that obeys the Democrats and the Europeans. Lula was a major multilateralist at a time when Washington, under Obama, encouraged precisely this kind of veneer over U.S. unipolarity; Bolsonaro was an open U.S. puppet at a time when Washington, under Trump, demanded precisely that. The difference is very small – or nonexistent.

And what does the 2026 election really represent?

At the international level, nothing or very little.

If he wins, Lula will come under pressure while Trump remains in power. And over the past four years, Lula has already shown that he compensates for American hostility by becoming even more closely aligned with the Europeans. On the other hand, if Flávio wins, we will have at least a period of total alignment with the United States, which could change following a possible Democratic victory in the next presidential elections. It is a very clear choice between Republicans-Israel and Democrats-EU. “Autonomism” is not part of the equation.

At the domestic level, however, many factors are at stake.

It is on the domestic front that the debate over the election should be concentrated. After all, no Brazilian will vote for one candidate or the other because of Palestine or the BRICS – which, although legitimate causes, are distant realities for the average citizen. Domestically, we have a Lula who is becoming increasingly weakened by the side effects of years of alliance with the Judiciary Branch – which is now being scrutinized and exposed in the context of the Banco Master corruption scandal. On the other side, Flávio is recovering ground that was once considered lost, and the two now appear statistically tied in the polls.

The Judiciary accumulated extraordinary powers under Lula, to the point of imprisoning peaceful protesters and elderly people on charges of “terrorism” simply because they participated in pro-Bolsonaro demonstrations. The hostility between the Judiciary and Bolsonarism cannot be reversed except through a victory by Flávio that culminates in the appointment of Bolsonarist judges to the Supreme Court – thereby reshaping the course of the Republic itself.

We can summarize the situation by saying that Lula would give the Sixth Republic a new lease on life, while Flávio would accelerate its collapse. As long as the Sixth Republic exists, no genuinely “autonomist” alternative will emerge in Brazil because the Brazilian constitutional system itself prevents such an alternative. But this does not mean that the imminent collapse of this system would result in a “multipolar dawn” in Brazil, since there is no political movement in the country – apart from the extremely “Westernist” Bolsonarist movement itself – with sufficient strength to establish a new state project.

The conclusion may be frustrating for the more optimistic and hopeful, but what appears to be about to happen in Brazil in 2026 is absolute nullity. With Lula or Flávio, little is likely to change. Brazil will remain a declining middle power, politically subordinate to the United States, but with a certain degree of freedom to engage multilaterally with the Eurasian powers – while domestically, the institutions of the Sixth Republic continue to destroy themselves.

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Traffic bans, closed metro stations and a ban of gatherings and protest rallies are being imposed in the entire center of Greek capital Athens during the visit of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Following a decision of by the head of the Athens Police Directorate, all outdoor public gatherings […]

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On Wednesday (7 October), the largest group in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP), has scheduled a debate on a “European Parliament resolution on the need for an EU strategy to counter Islamist entryism and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network.”

The move follows the adoption of an EPP party resolution that treats Muslim civic engagement as inherently suspect and collective religious practice as a potential threat.

It largely mirrored the German Christian Democratic approach of criminalising Muslim civic engagement.

As Brussels-based EU expert and EUobserver’s columnist Shada Islam put it, the supposed fight against “political Islam” “places Muslim political and civic activity inside an almost exclusively security framework,” and thus “European democracy is hollowed out rather than reinforced when an entire religious or ethnic minority and its civil society are regarded as permanently suspect.”

Also, the resolution protects religious freedom for Muslims only as an individual right, explicitly stating that it seeks to ensure “equality among citizens, rather than collective claims,” leaving the collective expression of Islam unprotected and thus hollowing out the very idea of religious freedom.

As also the to be debated motion shows, it is unclear where protected religious activity ends and dangerous political activity begins.

Islamophobic conspiracies

The notion of “Islamist entryism,” imported from France, has become a way to criminalise Muslim participation in civil society and politics.

The resolution describes it as “a political strategy of influence, progressive structuring, institutional penetration and ideological legitimisation,” which it separates from the “peaceful practice of Islam.”

But how does one tell the “good” Muslims, who engage peacefully in politics and lobby policymakers to stand up for their rights, from the bad? Or is the good Muslim simply the apolitical one, who does not stand up for the protection of their collective human rights?

If “political Islam” is a problem because it is described “as a societal project,” how does it differ from the collective efforts of Jews, Christians, and others, who also “produce collective norms,” as the motion puts it?

And if “Islamist influence operates through a broad and fragmented ecosystem of associations, foundations, cultural, educational, religious, charitable, university, youth, anti-discrimination or social action structures,” something equally true of Christian, Jewish, and other religious groups, then where does the EPP draw the line between peaceful Muslim activity and Islamist activity that has to be banned?

Isn’t the claim that Muslim “community allegiances placed above common law” a typical Islamophobic allegation, familiar from the old mistrust of Jews as more loyal to a global Jewish community than to the nation-state?

Is this the old antisemitism in new “Muslim” clothes?

Indeed, the motion lists a catalogue of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories: “separatist narratives, systematic victimhood, antisemitism, hatred of Israel, conspiracy narratives, challenges to secularism … may constitute markers of ideological radicalisation or Islamist influence.” They may. And what if they don’t?

Guilty until proven innocent

What follows seems to be one of the motion’s primary goals: cutting funds for Muslim and anti-racist civil society organizations such as the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO) and the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), who are both registered in the EU transparency register of Belgium and annually audited.

These CSOs are seen as a manifestation of political Islam per se even though they have denied any those connections.

And it is a form of innocence that cannot easily be proven.

The EPP motion claims that “some Islamist networks are able … to adopt the vocabulary of fundamental rights, inclusion, diversity, intercultural dialogue, anti-racism and the fight against discrimination, while promoting in other spaces logics of separation, community pressure or contestation of democratic principles.” In other words, the better integrated Muslims in Europe are, the more suspicious they may become.

Shaky legal foundations

The EPP’s motion builds on highly problematic bills, legislation and political procedures. It quotes the French ministry of the interior’s 2025 report “Muslim Brotherhood and political Islamism in France,” which has been harshly criticised.

It also cites a resolution of the French National Assembly from January 2026 that urged the European Union to add the Muslim Brotherhood to its list of terrorist organisations and to lobby for it.

The resolution was voted against by 101 members of parliament, some of whom called it “Islamophobic.” The motion also invokes the contested Austrian Symbols Act, which prohibits the symbols of non-violent organisations that are not considered illegal under domestic legislation and lumps them together with those of jihadist groups ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

A further cited motion is from the Dutch parliament in March 2026 and calls for a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood and linked organisations, but it too has no legislative relevance so far.

None of these motions or laws has outlawed “Islamist entryism” or the “Muslim Brotherhood networks.”

Yet the EPP resolution builds on exactly this shaky ground while pretending that its own motion is solid.

More importantly, the way Austria and France treat their Muslims is well documented: from the infamous, massive and racist police raids known as Operation Luxor to the French state’s Systemic Obstruction policy, which resulted in 101 government units nationwide monitoring Islam and Muslims, 24,887 Muslim organizations and businesses placed on a secret blacklist and under strict monitoring, and the closure of 718 Muslim-owned organizations and businesses, with €46m seized. There is nothing here that should be emulated elsewhere.

Crude logic

The EPP’s argument that “Hamas on the EU list of terrorist organisations historically originates from the Muslim Brotherhood movement” rests on crude logic.

Both the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the secular Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), similarly considered a “terrorist organization,” have Marxist origins. Outlaw the S&D as a consequence?

Today, it is Muslims who are being surveilled, monitored and criminalised. Who is it tomorrow? If this resolution passes, life for politically conscious Muslims who are defending their right to exist in Europe will become even more difficult. And tomorrow potentially everybody’s life.

Media-Society.com // Two Warsaw meetings examine human rights across the OSCE region, but their mandates and institutional status are not the same The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting and the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference perform broadly similar work: both bring governments, civil society and international institutions together to examine whether OSCE states are meeting their human-rights […]

Almost 150 European politicians have become targets of AI-generated deepfake pornography, 50 of whom are MEPs. The EU’s Green party has now taken the fight to the upper echelons of EU authority to push a ban on ‘nudifying’ apps.

Research by the think tank Agora Digital Transformation (ADT), published on Monday (5 October), found that 50 MEPs have been targeted by digital platforms able to digitally strip anyone whose picture is uploaded to it. Of these, 46 are women.

Another ADT study published in September found that the chances of becoming a victim of false sexualised portrayals are one in 14 for women, against one in 500 for male politicians.

Most worryingly, a woman has no way of knowing she’s been targeted because “the harm is often unseen until it has spread,” Monday’s study read.

MEPs have rallied behind the Green party in demanding EU leaders take concrete steps to limit the influence of such software, while requiring member states to set up national authorities to roll out an effective ban on ‘nudifier’ apps from 2 December 2026.

The Green party initiated an open letter, which was endorsed by 119 MEPs from the Socialists and Democrats, liberal Renew Europe and the Left, calling on the European Commission and member states to take decisive action against AI deepfakes of women politicians.

The appeal asks to strengthen EU resolutions on AI and digital protection by requesting that the commission guide national authorities on enforcing the ban, and that there be a designated and properly resourced body in every member state ready to implement the ban from December.

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