The campaign to discredit Marina has already begun.

Emir Sader is a sociologist and supporter of the Workers' Party who also presents himself as a political scientist. He certainly holds a doctorate, which entitles him to such a prestigious title, but I find it amusing to attribute scientific rigor to politics.

To understand the current state of our politics and our professional politicians, Freud and Agatha Christie are the best tools we can offer. To explain past events, historians suffice. And, without possessing statistics on the matter (does anyone have them?), I suspect that the accuracy rate of political scientists' predictions is lower than that of fortune tellers, tarot readers, and shell divinators.

The truth is, I saw no science whatsoever in Sader's analysis regarding Marina Silva's candidacy for President of the Republic, only wishful thinking from someone who fears her and is already fighting against her. Starting with the title: The right wants Marina to be its lifeline (access the article by clicking [here]). here).

In other words, it's necessary to hammer into the heads of the left-wing electorate a non-existent association between Marina and the right, to favor the candidate who, as president of the Republic, never truly confronted big capital, agribusiness, banks, the charlatans who exploit faith, and the military who mock the Truth Commission, among others. And who didn't even have the courage to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, proving to be a much worse creature than her creator, since Lula didn't turn his back on Cesare Battisti.

To preserve his academic respectability, Sader eventually adds this caveat, followed by more venom:

"Fully prepared to definitively bury the weakened Aécio, the voices of the right are excited, between frenzy and anguish at losing this opportunity. It doesn't matter if Marina is not a trustworthy person. That she might scare agribusiness entrepreneurs. That she has her ecological obsessions. What matters is getting the PT out of government. Then we'll see. If she manages to win, she will need parliamentary support and the support of the PSDB governors, she will need the media. If you put some pressure on her, she will give in, especially since she doesn't have her own support."

Errors in agreement and government aside, the truth is that Marina does indeed confront capitalism head-on. And precisely in what is most terrible and threatening about it today: the fact that it is simply leading the human species towards extinction.

If the exploitation of man by man is extremely damaging, and if we should weep tears of blood for the continued existence of so much misery and pointless suffering when the conditions already exist for all human beings to have what is necessary for a dignified survival, then the primary battle of the moment is being fought on the ecological front. Either we disarm the trap in time, or the 22nd century may not exist.

We need to radically change the society we live in, but the first priority is to ensure there will be a tomorrow; otherwise, everything else will be useless. It's that simple. And Marina, with her "ecological obsessions," is right at the center of this discussion, the most important one for humanity when the Leviathan is already looming on the horizon.

Regarding the parliamentary base needed to guarantee governability, it's ironic that Sader brings up this subject, considering that it was precisely this base that led the PT (Workers' Party) to betray so many principles, engage in such reprehensible practices, and associate its image with despicable figures like Paulo Maluf, José Sarney, Fernando Collor, Renan Calheiros, Jader Barbalho, ACM, and others like them.

Marina is an unknown quantity, and Dilma is the certainty that everything will remain as it was before. Will the Acre native have the disposition and determination, if elected, to truly fight against political corruption, instead of adapting to it, even reluctantly and giving in to blackmail, as the PT has done since 2002? Honestly, we can't know now.

Just as Sader has no way of knowing if "a few squeezes will be enough for her to give in, especially since she doesn't have her own support"—an opinion he attributes to right-wingers but, deep down, really wants to plant in the minds of his readers. The unwary may miss such subtleties, but not a veteran journalist like myself.

Finally, to suggest that adversaries belonging to the left are circumstantially useful to the right, without showing any evidence of their consent, is mere gossip—whose arsenal, according to Sader, was already almost exhausted on the right, but seems to be inexhaustible in the camps of a certain left that has learned nothing and forgotten nothing since Stalinism.

Finally, since I am merely a communicator and do not aspire to academic respectability, I will draw a football parallel. After the great goalkeeper of the São Paulo team, failing three times, caused his team's elimination once again, commentator Juca Kfouri advised him to retire: "Rogério Ceni needs to choose whether he likes São Paulo more or himself."

The PT (Workers' Party) also needs to decide if it likes itself so much as to risk the left's continued presence in the Presidential Palace. Because only those who refuse to see it can't see that, in a second round between Dilma and Aécio Neves, the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) will have its chances greatly increased due to the accumulated wear and tear of the incumbent government in three successive administrations, the dismal performance of the Brazilian economy, and the disillusionment that we all perceive and has been surfacing in the streets for over a year.

Meanwhile, the charismatic Marina, personifying change and bringing hope, would remove the ladder from Aécio (anti-PT sentiment), leaving him hanging by a thread.

This is something that members of the Workers' Party should think about before using methods against an opponent that are frowned upon even when used against enemies.