I get his (mild) attacks on Bolsonaro make him look better, but he's not done any actual fucking reforms. At all. All he did during his first government was create some means tested welfare programs and keep public funding going, all while not combatting the bourgeoisie's interests. Which in turn, left ample time for fascism to grow, he even funded some of the exponents of it like Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (evangelical cult that is much like US prosperity gospel). Not to mention shooting incarceration rates sky high by kicking off the war on drugs by law in 2006 and invading Haiti on behalf of the UN in 2004
His ministries are all commanded by neolibs, and even far right União Brasil in communications and tourism.
His main deed as of this year has been pushing new fiscal policy for the government which will deepen the already horrible one that was put in by Temer. It even has penalties for "overspending" like forbidding the government from creating new public jobs and such!
Fucking interest in loans is the actual highest in the world at 13.25%! (~9% per year accounting for inflation)
Just because a government doesn't outright support the public sanctions on Cuba, China and the DPRK it doesn't make it a fucking ally, hell, many European countries do the same and I don't see y'all praising it.
Lula is not moving Brazil any, and I mean any, closer to liberation. This job is up for the communists, nominally the Brazilian Communist Party (which is at the moment undergoing a split due to a complacent and persecutory petit-bourgeois central committee that doesn't want to oppose Lula but that's beside the point)
Every time I see Lula praise here one of my neurons explodes with anger
Edit FYI: I am actually organized in the youth of the Brazilian Communist Party. If y'all want any more info just ask (ofc nothing confidential)
He is a major figure for BRICS and was there at the founding. Not sure if he was entirely his idea or not but he deserves a lot of credit for its creation and resurgence.
Yeah, to my understanding he was basically the lynch pin to the whole thing. He was under enormous pressure to not recognize China as a world market and to side with the west in placing world pollution blames on China and he rejected all that pressure and moved ahead with BRIC (at the time South Africa wasn't included).
Could be wrong but that was my understanding.