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[gabandre]

I'm brazilian

For those that are not aware, my country in great social unrest, today probably more than a hundred cities saw protests on the streets
A brief description of the situation:
the whole thing was sparked by excessive reaction by the police to a pacific protest against rising bus fares in São Paulo
but the protests that are happening are not about the bus fares, instead are against the long corrupt government of the country
and the excessive expending on the soccer world cup, that are way over the budget. people are frustated that "suddenly" the country had money for such event, while many public services, like public schools and public hospitals(that are free for the people), are in very, very poor conditions(like people dying in the hospital's corridors waiting to be attended(remembers me of DF, sadly in real life)).

edit: also, its different from the arab spring, if anyone saw that in media, the people are not (at least yet) wanting revolution

[Teneb]

To clarify and expand the OP:

Since as far as anyone is able to remember, investments into public health and education have been few, and more than a bit of the money that does get invested is... "lost" among the way. While there have been some complaints, it was always minor and people simply treated it as a fact of everyday life.

Recently, due to the upcoming world cup and olympic games, a lot of money had to be spent on stadiums and other sports-related projects. The government attempted to justify this investment by citing the infrastructed required to host such events as improvements. Thing is, these improvements have only been limited to security and renovation of roads. To top it off, many of the projects went overbudget, costing over twice (and in some case over three times). Meanwhile, health and education have been once more ignored.

In order to try to make up for the lost money, the government increased taxes, especially bus fare prices. This was what sparked protests against the corruption and mismanagement of the country's finances. The protests started in the city of São Paulo, and was initally pacific. Poorly-prepared policemen , when taunted and provoked by attacks and acts of vandals hidden in the crowds, reacted with violence, causing massive confrontation in the city streets, with use of tear gas and rubber bullets from the police and rocks and molotov cocktails from the vandals.

This sparked reactions all across the country with similar protests erupting across all major cities. In some, the protests were completely peaceful, in other the majority of protesters managed to do so in peace with occasional conflicts with vandals and extremists, and in a few places it erupted into open violence.

The number of protests has since been steadily increasing, as has the number of people attending them. Unfortunately, more protests and more people also mean more violence from both sides. Meanwhile, president Dilma, instead of adressing the problems, simply keeps making empty speeches and having meetings with former-president Lula instead of, you know, her ministers or the state governors. Individual mayors have tried to remedy the situation by lowering taxes, but no action has yet to come from the federal government.

[kingfisher1112]

How is it personally over there? Have you been taking part/pressured into taking part?

[gabandre]

I'm not taking part of the protests, and I personaly think the protesters should give the government now a time to react. everything that is being demanded will require at least some time to start to be attended to, but the people want it now.

there is no pressure in taking part in the protests, people are just going becouse they are frustated, there isnt even some central leadership to the protests, they are mostly spontaneous

the media is saying the leadership of the protests is the free fare movement, but they only organized some protests in I think only 2, max 3 cities, while the hundred other cities started protesting on their own

[kaijyuu]

I'm not taking part of the protests, and I personaly think the protesters should give the government now a time to react. everything that is being demanded will require at least some time to start to be attended to, but the people want it now.

If the people stop putting pressure, the government will think "oh, everything's okay now" and not do anything.

It's true that change isn't going to happen immediately, but you need to demand it immediately else you're not placing as much pressure as you can.

[gabandre]

I'm not taking part of the protests, and I personaly think the protesters should give the government now a time to react. everything that is being demanded will require at least some time to start to be attended to, but the people want it now.

If the people stop putting pressure, the government will think "oh, everything's okay now" and not do anything.

It's true that change isn't going to happen immediately, but you need to demand it immediately else you're not placing as much pressure as you can.

Personal opinion:
I agree that there should be pressure, but the government already said it is discussing what to do.
the people should let the government react, but not let it think

oh, everything's okay now

, there should be pressure, but in the long term.
Many politicians already expressed the want to discuss WITH the people what to do

[Loud Whispers]

edit: also, its different from the arab spring, if anyone saw that in media, the people are not (at least yet) wanting revolution

Yup. Couple of lefty-political groups tried to hijack some of the rioting and got their flags torn up.

[gabandre]

edit: also, its different from the arab spring, if anyone saw that in media, the people are not (at least yet) wanting revolution

Yup. Couple of lefty-political groups tried to hijack some of the rioting and got their flags torn up.

it was worse than getting their flags torn up, they were beaten too, by the protestors, not by police

unfortunately "no-parties" became "anti-parties"

note about my previous posts: I completely agree with the motives for the protests (except one, as it comes from misinformation (its none of the major, dont ask, may derail thread)).
what I was trying to say is that its illogical to protest that the government is not doing anything and then not letting the government try to start doing it

[GlyphGryph]

Generally you don't get protests like this unless the government has had a great many chances to do something and has repeatedly failed to do something.

I actually don't know what you expect to change. I very much doubt they have any intent of doing anything except trying to shut down the protests in the shortest-term-way-possible.

Is there any evidence that will actually do something yet? I imagine, like with most protests, they don't actually need to finish anything, they just need to present some evidence that something is going to get better to make the protests stop - have they presented a single iota of evidence to that effect yet?

[misko27]

Generally you don't get protests like this unless the government has had a great many chances to do something and has repeatedly failed to do something.

I actually don't know what you expect to change. I very much doubt they have any intent of doing anything except trying to shut down the protests in the shortest-term-way-possible.

Is there any evidence that will actually do something yet? I imagine, like with most protests, they don't actually need to finish anything, they just need to present some evidence that something is going to get better to make the protests stop - have they presented a single iota of evidence to that effect yet?

It seems like they have been trying to some extent, conceding on the fare issue(Already going farther then in Turkey, as very low a standard as that is) and acknowledging the validity of the protests.


It seems odd though, government have trouble proving they will do something substantial, and the protesters don't seem to want the government evicted yet.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, it's not an easy task, and I think ultimately the government will just have to put up with them until it works some more stuff out. What, exactly, I don't know, not being in Brazil.

Some very public outings of corrupt officials and a "cleaning the house" so to speak would probably do them well.

[ggamer]

PTW the situation, hoping things don't erupt.

[Teneb]

Massive (5 to 10 minutes long, but big when it comes to the situation) pronouncement by the president ended right now. Short version, she said the government was wrong in many aspects, repeated her (pre-protests) idea to bring foreign medics since none of the local ones want to work in the clusterfuck that currently is brazilian public health, she has invited mayors, governos and, most importantly, the protest leadership (there is one, despite what the OP believes) and a promise to invest 100% of all income from oil industry (a lot) in public education. If she fails to do the last one then shit will hit the fan and it won't be pretty for anyone. Her speech did not include any references to the police, as the population is evenly divided in their opinion of that.

Many of the vandals were identified to be either actual criminals that decided to use the protests as cover and member of the most extremist political parties (both right and left-wing).

I also massively disagree with gabandre, but I won't derail the thread with it.

[Tomcost]

I say hello from Argentina to all of you in Brazil. If I had to say something, I would say that you are really lucky. The massive protests here were totally ignored by the goverment while the media closer to it tried to make it appear as a protest from the richer classes.

Either way, I should open my own thread for that.

I'm glad to see that the people were taken into account. But it's also a pity that there were oportunists who only used the protests as a means to commit crime without being identified. If the Brazilian people manage to get a common objective, and the protesters manage to differentiate themselves from the criminals, then it would be very likely that there are going o be improvements.

And have a piece of advice from someone whose country also suffers from corruption: don't ever get used to it. That was the mistake from my country, and now many crimes go unpunished, and nobody really cares. It's like letting the politicians do whatever they want with the country's money.

[gabandre]

Massive (5 to 10 minutes long, but big when it comes to the situation) pronouncement by the president ended right now. Short version, she said the government was wrong in many aspects, repeated her (pre-protests) idea to bring foreign medics since none of the local ones want to work in the clusterfuck that currently is brazilian public health, she has invited mayors, governos and, most importantly, the protest leadership (there is one, despite what the OP believes) and a promise to invest 100% of all income from oil industry (a lot) in public education. If she fails to do the last one then shit will hit the fan and it won't be pretty for anyone. Her speech did not include any references to the police, as the population is evenly divided in their opinion of that.

Many of the vandals were identified to be either actual criminals that decided to use the protests as cover and member of the most extremist political parties (both right and left-wing).

I also massively disagree with gabandre, but I won't derail the thread with it.

I did not see that speech (will try to find it)

That I know of, the free fare movement was only leading the protests in a few cities.
which leadership is the one that the president talked to?

care to PM about what you disagree? (also I'm not 100% percent sure on my position, but I'm not against the protests, I'm against not listening that the government is trying to negotiate, again, not 100% sure)