Civil unrest in Brazil

[Redliner]

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-988431


I always felt we, as a population, to be too easy-going.
I am not sure if I am happy we finally rose against the powers that be or sad that things had to become so surreal.

The police is in full "fuck you" mode, giving headshots with rubber bullets to anyone near the protest, even people that were just trying to go home, beating up random people on the street, arresting people for possesion of VINEGAR, and generally being dicks.

There are videos showing the police itself breaking the windows of police cars and setting buses on fire so that they can blame protesters and legitimize the violence.

*sigh*
It?s one of those days I just wish I could go live somewhere civilized. Somewhere I can sleep at night and not worry about my wife getting raped, about getting killed on a traffic light because thieves just find it easier to kill you without warning and nothing will happen to them. I worry about what will be of my kid, what kind of future awaits him here? I?d rather wash dishes for a living somewhere like Finland or Netherlands and feel safe instead of living like this.

Sorry about the rant, but sometimes the feeling of hopelessness is just too much.

[video=youtube;u3-PWM9uuGI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3-PWM9uuGI[/video]

 

[IceBone]

A post from Something Awful forums:

Yeah, quite a deja vu for the Turkey protests thread, eh? Only now, it's happening in S?o Paulo, Brazil! Shouldn't be much of a surprise, though. Most of those teargas canisters being tossed around in Turkey were actually made in my country. What pride!

So what's going on?

Well, this brief article from CNN is a good place to start getting the hang of it: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/12/world/americas/brazil-protests

However, it does make it seem a bit trivial. Like, so what, it's only 10 cents of a dollar. We can afford that, right? Either way, when what you're often getting is this:

(especially when it rains, god help you if you're in S?o Paulo in a rainy spell)

It makes you feel at least a bit pissed off, doesn't it? But there's more behind. This article from El Pa?s ( http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2013/06/12/actualidad/1371000636_370579.html )(there are many Spanish-reading goons right?) goes a bit further and mentions that we're also suffering with inflation and stock market issues.

Then you can also add the fact that, when you're poor (and a good deal of our population earns little more than minimum wage), those extra 20 cents have a heavy weight in your budget. This article ( http://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidian...a-renda-a-pular-refeicoes-e-arrumar-bicos.htm )(in Portuguese) says a lot about it. The title is beautiful: "R$0,20 Bus fare increase forces low income paulistanos to skip meals". A streetsweeper, like the one shown in the article, earns R$755 every month, and, since he has to catch a bus and a subway ride to go to work and back every day, he spends 26% of his salary on public transportation.

When you count up the rampant corruption that's behind our political system and that's ramping up the prices (it's hard to explain, but our public transportation isn't actually public, and the bus companies are among the biggest campaign donors), even this minor increase becomes downright abusive.

But that's only the immediate reason behind the riots here. You see, it was a peaceful protest at first. But then some windows were broken, some buses were spray-tagged, people got arrested and it's getting worse every day as more and more people (including journalists, despite their credentials) are being attacked and arrested by police officers, armed with rubber bullet guns, pepper spray, teargas. Many protesters are being arrested for merely carrying stuff like vinegar, because it can be used as an antidote for teargas. Bail for the people arrested can reach up to R$20,000.00.

And many of them were getting the shit being out of them, just for the hell of it, it seems:

Ah, yes, the classic "Five angry cops beating up an unarmed woman".

Today, 60 people were arrested already (a number that will probably grow before the day ends). To add insult to injury, state governor Geraldo Alckmin (from the right wing PSDB party), who's in Paris right now, not only said that he won't suspend the bus fare increase, despite proposals by the Public Ministry itself that it should be suspended for at least 45 days, but he's also called protesters "vandals" and has put all blame on them for what's happening. And the media seems to be on his side, unsurprisingly. So, what began as a protest against a regular fare increase (and, oh, are they regular. Rio saw it jump from R$0,60 to R$2,95 in the past 8 years) is now becoming a stand for the right to protest.

More images http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil...8dade48c74f3f310VgnVCM4000009bcceb0aRCRD.html and http://blogs.estadao.com.br/estadao...rto-protesto-por-reducao-da-tarifa-de-onibus/

 

[LeVeL]

Here's some good SHTF reading from the Argentinian crisis. Best of luck to you; stay safe!

 

[calvinhobbes]

The police is in full "fuck you" mode

I think that this is a key problem of all these protests: the policemen act too aggressively, from top to bottom of the hierarchy, for whatever reason. Combined with the everpresent "my way or the highway" attitude of so many politicians, this generates the absurd violence against peaceful protesters - including repugnant tactics such as the staged battles between undercover policemen and their uniformed brethren that we've seen in Istanbul.

 

[Redliner]

A post from Something Awful forums:

Thank you.

I think that this is a key problem of all these protests: the policemen act too aggressively, from top to bottom of the hierarchy, for whatever reason. Combined with the everpresent "my way or the highway" attitude of so many politicians, this generates the absurd violence against peaceful protesters - including repugnant tactics such as the staged battles between undercover policemen and their uniformed brethren that we've seen in Istanbul.

After I wrote that, even worse details started surfacing. There was a woman that was forced to take out her t-shirt because it had an anti-police slogan on it and when she was crying while down to her bra, heard the policeman say "Be glad the shirt is the only souvenir I?ll take tonight..."

WHAT
THE
FUCK?

At least it seems protests won?t die down. We had the first game of the Confederacions Cup or whatever and there were some protests there too. The huge expenses on the World Cup pissed off a LOT of people.

 

[anthrax]

^ But funny thing is to protest only now and why not when the country was chosen to host the Cup? Obviously protesting now will get a lot of attention but saying that the main reason is the costs seems a bit dumb, like "Oh, you just woke up now!?"

So today it's the 5th protesting event against the bus fare and it's happening very near my house. As government and protestor's leaders have got to a deal on how to proceed, it's been more pacific.

 

[calvinhobbes]

As government and protestor's leaders have got to a deal on how to proceed, it's been more pacific.

Do you have a link? One in Portuguese is fine.

 

[Redliner]

^ But funny thing is to protest only now and why not when the country was chosen to host the Cup? Obviously protesting now will get a lot of attention but saying that the main reason is the costs seems a bit dumb, like "Oh, you just woke up now!?"

So today it's the 5th protesting event against the bus fare and it's happening very near my house. As government and protestor's leaders have got to a deal on how to proceed, it's been more pacific.

You seem to forget there WERE protests when we were chosen. Nothing that huge, obviously.

You also seem to think this is only about the bus fare or the World Cup expenses.

 

[ChelsDS]

I hope you stay safe Redliner! When I heard about the events down in Brazil I immediately wondered if you and your family are OK. Do you think that these protests will change anything or only make things in Brazil worse after the protests are over?

 

[Redliner]

I hope you stay safe Redliner! When I heard about the events down in Brazil I immediately wondered if you and your family are OK. Do you think that these protests will change anything or only make things in Brazil worse after the protests are over?

We are OK, we are usually home when these things happen.
I think it?s to soon to tell if this will change anything.

 

[calvinhobbes]

Woah. This shows a small group of military policemen sitting down on the ground during a demonstration, to the chants of "Sem viol?ncia!" ("Without violence!") from the protesters.

 

[mpicco]

The world cup, and let's not forget where the 2016 Summer Olympics will be held.

I think Brazil's economy was starting to do well and then they bit more than they could chew. I don't know if it'll get as bad as it did in Argentina (where the entire country defaulted, very hard, and the money suddenly lost 2/3rds of its value). I am very familiar with the Argentine case because I lived there for a long time, and I can see from a distance now, that it's brewing to happen again. The whole of South America is shrouded by a very weird pride-curtain, they wanna seem completely independent and powerful, anti-United States, but their economies are not ready for such a leap.

As an argentine-portuguese, it's easy to consider brazilian 'brothers', and hope the people can come out on top, but the system is really corrupt to the point which I know brazilians living here in Portugal who, despite the bad financial climate we're living in, refuse completely to go back.

Something else which is pissing me off is the Portuguese news is skimming over the unrest like it's nothing much important. I had to go to the internet to get my info, again. Instead, portuguese news choose to run stories like this one, which basically state the E3 is a video games convention for social rejects, who waste too much of their time in front of the TV with games which don't educate them and also are to blame for Columbine and the Norway massacre. This channel is the "most viewed", cos they show stupid soap operas and Big Brothers/Secret Story bullshit 24/7.

[/rant]

 

[Redliner]

Woah. This shows a small group of military policemen sitting down on the ground during a demonstration, to the chants of "Sem viol?ncia!" ("Without violence!") from the protesters.

The police?s reaction has been all over the place and depending a lot on what city things are happening.
On one hand I think they are realizing the protests won?t die down and violence won?t work anymore. On the other hand, I think they might soften the reaction to let the few ones destroying property run loose and later say "See? That?s why we HAD to come down hard!".
I really don?t know what to think of it.

The world cup, and let's not forget where the 2016 Summer Olympics will be held.

I think Brazil's economy was starting to do well and then they bit more than they could chew. I don't know if it'll get as bad as it did in Argentina (where the entire country defaulted, very hard, and the money suddenly lost 2/3rds of its value). I am very familiar with the Argentine case because I lived there for a long time, and I can see from a distance now, that it's brewing to happen again. The whole of South America is shrouded by a very weird pride-curtain, they wanna seem completely independent and powerful, anti-United States, but their economies are not ready for such a leap.

As an argentine-portuguese, it's easy to consider brazilian 'brothers', and hope the people can come out on top, but the system is really corrupt to the point which I know brazilians living here in Portugal who, despite the bad financial climate we're living in, refuse completely to go back.

Something else which is pissing me off is the Portuguese news is skimming over the unrest like it's nothing much important. I had to go to the internet to get my info, again. Instead, portuguese news choose to run stories like this one, which basically state the E3 is a video games convention for social rejects, who waste too much of their time in front of the TV with games which don't educate them and also are to blame for Columbine and the Norway massacre. This channel is the "most viewed", cos they show stupid soap operas and Big Brothers/Secret Story bullshit 24/7.

[/rant]

I agree with you.
Not only that, but progress can only achieve so much before a corrupt system finally implodes. Unless a complete rebuild happens, I don?t see we really going forward.
Regarding people living in Portugal, I am one of those that rather live in pretty much any European country than here. I have friends that tried coming back and in the span of a month got mugged and got their house broken-in, so they went back to Portugal. We got "used to" getting car-jacked, robbed, mugged, harrased by the police, threatened by drug dealers, pay Scandinavia-level in taxes and get Sub-Sahara-level public services, politicians getting paid R$27,000 per month plus benefits while minimum wage is R$700 and so on.

Sorry for the rant.

 

[Redliner]

The President should address the nation during the afternoon.

I am curious to see what she will say and do but I must say I am somewhat scared of what might come out of this uprising.

A coup d`?tat is not an absurd possibility.

 

[calvinhobbes]

A coup d`?tat is not an absurd possibility.

Well, you can revolutionise a country without one. The Italians did so after the "Mani Pulite" scandal and the French avoided a coup narrowly in 1958.

That said, some of the stuff I've received from my Brazilian relatives (well, host family, but that doesn't make much of a difference) has been downright disturbing. One example:

All it took to see right through that was entering those words in a Google search - she never said it. Instead, the one to blame is the governor of the state of Cear?, who is not even in the same party as the president. That got me thinking in yet another direction: if this sort of rubbish is being spread, who is behind it? Who is trying to usurp these protests for their own political advantage? So far, they have been broadly anti-establishment, which AFAIK is essentially the same as being anti-corruption, but I'm certain that at least some people in that establishment are working night and day to figure out how to benefit from them.

 

[Redliner]

We?ll see. Next week will be interesting.