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- cross-posted to:
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Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.
With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.
Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whom Lula defeated to take the presidency in 2022.
Lula’s triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.
Why is it always the right wingers that are the worst losers?
Right wing philosophy boils down to “obey me or else”.
The origin of the words left and right in a political context comes from the French Revolution. Specifically from the events of the Estates General, and the writing of the failed constitution of 1789.
The first vote, “Should the Monarch have an absolute veto over laws passed?” was determined by seating. Those in favor (the nobility and clergy from the richer areas) sat to the right of the speaker’s podium, those opposed (people who wanted democracy, which included the some of the country nobles, country clergy, and the near entirety of the third estate) sat to the left.
This pattern repeated on most questions, those who supported monarchy sat to the right, democracy to the left. The newspapers, which were recently completely freed of censorship, started using left and right as shorthand for the two sides.
The philosophers then stepped in. Tomas Paine and Edmund Burke for two English language examples. Paine actually traveled to France and served in the legislature, despite not speaking French. Edmund Burke stayed in England and wrote about how the masses needed to be controlled by their betters, who should be selected not by birth, but by wealth. Burke was not a noble, but he was rich.
Edmund Burke is the father of Conservatism. He was somewhat explicit that the thing he wanted to conserve, was power over others. Later writers have obfuscated things a bit, but if you look, the message is the same.
So, when a right-winger loses, it’s someone who really wants unchecked control over others being told to fuck off.
Left and right thinking derive from religious context dating back even before Judaism. Left represents living with free will as professed in esoteric ideologies while right represents ideologies professing living under ethical codes. Even within the occult ideologies there is left-hand path and right-hand path. Although, in that context left-hand path represents the worst of all evil.
Yeah, a lot of the ancient occult wisdom was made up in the last couple of centuries. Con artists saturate that space, or rather, they created that space.
But Left and Right in a political context is directly traceable to the French Revolution and the events of 1789, and is well documented because of the removal of censorship on newspapers that I had mentioned.
Left and right handed in context of spirituality dates to tantric origins. Vāmācāra and Dakṣiṇācāra are Sanskrit defining those very terms. I happen to know this based on my years of studies. While it was later reused by occultists in the late 1800s it appears the same is true during the late 1700s as well.
If they possessed the ability to be mature they wouldn’t be right wingers in the first place.
It’s the other way around. Right wing politics and especially fascism are simply an extension of whining and stomping feet. Once you notice the links between the two they are impossible to unsee.
Right wing philosophy is at it’s core a lie. Any validity in the process threatens their ability to accumulate and consolidate power. So they must seek to make the process seem invalid at every turn.
I like to imagine the reaction of different people being told “no.” Like someone who is trying to rob you versus someone who is trying to help you. It’s fury versus disappointment.