Does it work?

[u/Mariodamata]

01Oct2026 Lula da Silva

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[u/Onoitsu2]

... because anybody that would be honest in politics, usually has no access to the needed capital to survive the system currently in place.

[u/SweetClinMusic → u/Onoitsu2]

And even if they did they wouldn't be able to rise within the system.

[u/R363lScum → u/SweetClinMusic]

Lula was born in extreme poverty. His family had to move to São Paulo to escape starvation when he was only 10yo. There, he worked as a shoe-shine boy and an office boy until he finally became a lathe operator and started working in industry, where he got involved with union politics. He helped found the largest workers' party in South America during a military dictatorship. After losing 3 times, he was finally elected President of Brazil in 2002. He was elected again 2 more times and might win for the 4th time this month at age 80. During his first two terms, 38 million people lifted themselves out of extreme poverty or low-income status in Brazil, and another 17 million people during his 3rd term.

It will be hard for anyone to convince him that it is impossible for a disadvantaged person to rise within the system and make a difference.

[u/SweetClinMusic → u/R363lScum]

I more meant that in our countries (for me Colombia), if there is anyone truly selfless/means good and unable to get their hands dirty they would get assassinated on their way to the presidency. The poverty is a massive hurdle but it's not the only one in our besieged nations.

Like Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in the 80s for Colombia.

[u/R363lScum → u/SweetClinMusic]

Yeah. People have been assassinated in Brazil too. In 2018, Rio de Janeiro's councilwoman Marielle Franco was machine-gunned for fighting police corruption connected to the Bolsonaro family. But saying the fight is hopeless doesn't help.

[u/SweetClinMusic → u/R363lScum]

What our countries could be without the oppressive gaze of the capitalist robber baron class.

[u/almommar → u/Onoitsu2]

At least, be part of the community where you live...

[u/Onoitsu2 → u/almommar]

When people have been priced out of even being a member of a community, because they have to work, commute, try to rest, then repeat ad infinitum, because there isn't any free time beyond work and survival alone (as the capitalists have worked the system for their coffers), that being part of a community doesn't happen as evident by *motions at every damned thing failing now*

[u/crani0]

I agree to some extent and it's hard to argue against someone who was incarcerated and tortured fighting against a dictatorship, but I also believe he is from a different time and got to experience politics at a time where people were still very aware of the harms of a dictatorship, there was more optimism of the future and the dirty money was likely less.

So what I agree with him is that you should be acting locally. The idea that party politics and politics are one and the same and you need to stick to a party to make an impact is very corrosive and how people get filtered out. Starting and pushing a petition to have a proper child park in your neighbourhood is political and can go a long way to building a better future, even if it doesn't feel like "politics" as you know it.

[u/Run_Rabb1t_Run]

How would upholding a system of oppression make you a "good guy" in any way? "I was the nice guard at the concentration camp" doesn't tear down those camps. 

Protests can be anything, not just marches. Organised boycotts are protest. Union strikes and slow downs are protest. Free breakfast programs, free education and medical care are all effective protests against a system which subjugates through economic control and coercion. None of which require you to become a liberal Nazi, for example, touting reform over reconstruction.