In a crisis such as the one Brazil is presently experiencing, the analyst should not be satisfied simply with an analysis relating merely to the present moment, but must probe deep into our past, with an eye also to our future. In fact, Brazil is a periphery of centers that have tied us to them since the XVI century: we were colonized, neocolonized and now we are globocolonized. Being honest, we have to say that Brazil does not stand autonomously on its own feet. It lies "eternally resting in a splendid cradle." The majority of Brazil's population consists of the survivors of a never ending tribulation. Surprisingly, the people have been able to keep their good humor, their sense of play, and an indomitable capacity to celebrate and to hope. Prior to Lula's ascendance, we had not experienced the kind of rupture that allows the emergence of a new type of power, capable of effectively capturing the historical scene and of starting to mold Brazilian society in such a way as to accommodate everyone. However, errors and betrayals by some in the leadership of the Workers Party, the PT, have shamelessly wasted this historic opportunity, becoming detestable to the suffering people and to all who throughout their lives have been allied with them. This explains the sacred rage that has taken over the sectors of Brazilian society committed to transformation and to ethics, who have been crucified by an unbridled thirst for power. The behavior of the elite is well known. Chameleon-like, to keep their privileges, they are and always will be on the side of power, whoever that may be. Otherwise the elite conspire. Therefore the game never changes: the same old deck of cards is simply shuffled and reshuffled, as Marcel Bursztyn demonstrates in "O pais das alianças, as elites e o continuismo no Brasil", (1990). (The Country of the Alliances. Elite and Continuity in Brazil.) This situation derives from long, long ago, from the time of the foundation of Brazil, as shown by masters such as Holland's Sergio Buarque in «Roots of Brazil» (1936), Caio Prado, Jr. in, «The Making of Contemporary Brazil» (1945), Simon Schwartzmann in «Basis of Brazilian Authoritarianism» (1982) and Darcy Ribeiro in «The Brazilian People» (1995). Marilena Chaui, with her well known forcefulness, summarized this perverse legacy in a 1993 conference in Portugal: «The Brazilian society is authoritarian and violent. Its economy is predatory of human and natural resources and comfortably co-exists with injustice, inequality, a lack of freedom and with obscene indices of several institutionalized forms (legal or not) of physical and psychological extermination, and of cultural and political exclusion». To govern such a country and to also try to revolutionize it, is a challenge worthy of giants and heroes. This is why we understand the difficulties of the Lula Government. For Brazilian society, and for the organized movements, but especially for the Government, the present crisis presents a crucial test of our ability to dramatically improve the quality of our politics, a leap forward that could redeem us from the past and move the country to a new era. The greatest obstacle is the myopia and reactionary ways of some of the political leaders, most of them in the PFL, who desperately search for facts to justify President Lula's eventual destitution. This would interrupt the process towards the new, opening again the path to the old rule so that the elite may continue milking the State of its resources. Those peoples are even more despicable than the corrupt ones of the PT; for example, the reactionary Senator Bornhausen, who said: «we will finally get rid of this kind of people for at least the next 30 years.» - Leonardo Boff is a Brazilian theologian Translation: Refugio del Río Grande, Texas