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[DWC]

Surprised this isn't one of the most busy threads here. Way more interesting then these protests in Turkey.

Frankly, I don't think these protests will change anything. The Brazilian government, the whole entire structure is full of corrupt people, opportunists looking to use their authority to rob people to supplement their income. The protestors are mostly leftists sympathetic with the people they elected into office, who will just quibble and offer some crap sandwich to keep up their hustle.

Brazilians have legitimate complaints with their government. So they rely on the government to provide these services, like health care, education and mass-transit, which in turn levies extremely high taxes, but provides these services as a fucking joke, something that could be managed on a 5th the revenue. Politicians in that country view public office as an opportunity to exploit the situation and enrich themselves and they spout a lot of leftist rhetoric about income distribution to get get voters who also view this public office as an opportunity to exploit. Votes in exchange for promises of hand-outs to enrich them.


Instead of protesting to limit the powers of government, taking away the corrupt and dysfunctional government's control over healthcare or mass transit or education, they want the government to take more money from the tax-payers to try and solve this, to put more money into the quiet corners of government that funnel it into their pockets. Wonder where this ever ends?

[Scoops Novel]

Why was the initial response tear gas and rubber bullets? They were smart enough to retract it, you'd think it wouldn't be standard protocol. I don't want the feeling that the number of revolutions/wide-spread protests is getting convenient to be entirely legitimized.

[XXSockXX]

Surprised this isn't one of the most busy threads here. Way more interesting then these protests in Turkey.

For Europeans events in Turkey are obviously much closer and more relevant. I don't feel as informed about Brazil to comment much on the situation. Guess it's similar for other people and that's why the thread is less busy.

Media reaction here was pretty much: If Brazil protests against a football event, something is seriously wrong.
Though countries have been known to sink huge amounts of money that was much needed elsewhere into sports events. Building football stadiums in the jungle, that cost hundreds of millions and are only needed for a single event seems pretty absurd.

[Tomcost]

Brazilians have legitimate complaints with their government. So they rely on the government to provide these services, like health care, education and mass-transit, which in turn levies extremely high taxes, but provides these services as a fucking joke, something that could be managed on a 5th the revenue. Politicians in that country view public office as an opportunity to exploit the situation and enrich themselves and they spout a lot of leftist rhetoric about income distribution to get get voters who also view this public office as an opportunity to exploit. Votes in exchange for promises of hand-outs to enrich them.

This not only describes the situation of Brazil, but it also illustrates the situation of many countries in Latin America.

[Scoops Novel]

Brazilians have legitimate complaints with their government. So they rely on the government to provide these services, like health care, education and mass-transit, which in turn levies extremely high taxes, but provides these services as a fucking joke, something that could be managed on a 5th the revenue. Politicians in that country view public office as an opportunity to exploit the situation and enrich themselves and they spout a lot of leftist rhetoric about income distribution to get get voters who also view this public office as an opportunity to exploit. Votes in exchange for promises of hand-outs to enrich them.

This not only describes the situation of Brazil, but it also illustrates the situation of many countries in Latin America.

What impact has this been having elsewhere in Latin America?

[Tomcost]

Brazilians have legitimate complaints with their government. So they rely on the government to provide these services, like health care, education and mass-transit, which in turn levies extremely high taxes, but provides these services as a fucking joke, something that could be managed on a 5th the revenue. Politicians in that country view public office as an opportunity to exploit the situation and enrich themselves and they spout a lot of leftist rhetoric about income distribution to get get voters who also view this public office as an opportunity to exploit. Votes in exchange for promises of hand-outs to enrich them.

This not only describes the situation of Brazil, but it also illustrates the situation of many countries in Latin America.

What impact has this been having elsewhere in Latin America?

Not much, really. The goverment in countries where simmilar things happen tend to have a a pre-made rhetoric to blame others. In the case of Argentina, the blamed sectors are the media, the higher classes, the US (in the past, mainly, as our relation with it has improved a little bit) and important loaners who we owe money, but took an exessive advantage over our crisis in the past decade.

As for the media, well, at least here it had been well covered by the media who oppose the current the goverment. But it hasn't been discussed apart from that.

[GlyphGryph]

Surprised this isn't one of the most busy threads here. Way more interesting then these protests in Turkey.

...what? How do you figure? Turkey has a secular democratic population center protesting the rise of a fundamentalist dictatorship. It's got a number of protestors killed by cops, powerful narraratives, clear demands, and the protests have been overwhelmingly nonviolent (on behalf of the protestors, obviously not the enforcers). It's basically everything you'd need for something of this sort to be considered "interesting" nowadays, and the fact that it's happening in Europe of all places just adds to that. Not to demean the Brazil protests, but how are they possibly "way more interesting"?

[Scoops Novel]

Much bigger, and you'd think with the potential to spiral.

[Sheb]

Well, Brazil is bigger than Turkey, and the Turkish protest have a much bigger chance to go awry, the Brazilians ain't even calling for the government to step down.

Now, I actually fail to see what could come out of this. For all the talk, the bus fare increase were actually well below inflation. Splurging money of football stadium may not have been a good idea, but it's plainly too late to do anything about this, they're built already and you're not going to stop the World Cup.

The other demands are pretty vague. Basically, they're fed up with the sucky healthcare and education system, but those are not things that are easily fixed, and it's not a problem that can be solved with cash: the Brazilian already pay a of of taxes, they just don't spend it well.

Since Roussef can't magically improve the education and healthcare quality, the best she can do is some vague promise anyway.

[FearfulJesuit]

The problem is endemic to the country, indeed, to the whole region. You could keep shoveling money at the problem, but much of it will be diverted, and most of the rest will be misspent. I think there was an article a while ago about a senator who wanted Esperanto as a language option in all the country's public schools. Right now, Brazil is Doing Okay- largish middle ($10-15k) class, growing economy propped up by its vast reserves of mineral wealth, and stability, if not peace. But that's a relatively easy point to get too, all things considering. It's much harder to get into the First World, which is the challenge now. The World Cup and Olympics are a sign that Brazil wants to be in the rich kids' club; it now has to earn its way in. I think it's going to happen, but it's going to take an amount of resolve, hardheadedness and cooperation that the country's government and institutions have, historically, had lots of time showing.

[Tomcost]

The lack of infraestructure is a problem, as it has been said, endemic to the region. It's a pity that people only realizes it when it's too late and tons of funds have been wasted or stolen. And the worst problem is that, even if the goverment becames efficient, they will keep complaining and making things difficult, because the repressed anger has to be expressed in some way, and it's usualy in the from of protests even after they have fulfilled their role. But this kind of situation doesn't seem to belong to the third world exclussively, anyway.

[gabandre]

things are calming down here, but probably wont stop at least in the following months

if the soccer world cup continues to be here, expect there will be protests during it, but probably FIFA will censor them
while at it, FIFA is already censoring the people in the confederations cup that have protest banners

the Turkish prime minister said that the protests there and here are caused by a conspiracy to destroy the governments of both countries

interesting, the international media appears to have a better comprehension of what is happening here than the national media

my city had about 8000 people protesting under heavy rain last Thursday(20), probably there were many more people but the official numbers are being manipulated (on the other hand, other events, the ones that improve the international image of the country have their numbers increased a lot)

the medical institutions here are protesting now that they don't want the foreign medics that the president said would bring to help the public health system, the medics here want better conditions to work, not concurrency. On the other hand, there are people that disagree with the medics protesting this because the medics here have a reputation of working for money, not to help people (and many medics actually get a lot of money, but these are mostly private)
Both sides probably are right

[Scoops Novel]

Presuming that they'll reluctantly accept the World Cup, are they likely to focus their efforts on corruption?

[Teneb]

my city had about 8000 people protesting under heavy rain last Thursday(20), probably there were many more people but the official numbers are being manipulated (on the other hand, other events, the ones that improve the international image of the country have their numbers increased a lot)

Uh, no they are not. Why not? Because 1: the only government-owned news network didn't cover it at all, and 2: the news-related corporations have been pretty much anti-government since a few reporters got shot with rubber bullets (one of them was shot in the head and had to undergo plastic surgery).

Presuming that they'll reluctantly accept the World Cup, are they likely to focus their efforts on corruption?

Today the top lawyers of the OAB (independent organization that regulates all lawyers in Brazil) met with the government to discuss the current plans. They managed to dissuade the president from doing something that would be horribly inefficient, and instead go for something better. I don't know the specific details on this one yet, I'll post if I find out.

[gabandre]

I don't know the english words to describe, but I'll try:
the president announced the possibility for a popular voting to create a [assembly that writes a constitution] to review the constitution and make changes to help battle corruption

some politicians already manifested against such voting as it wouldn't be legal and be very complicated to organize.
of course, as the people are wanting changes "for yesterday" these politicians are being criticized and scorned

the president also reintroduced the idea of considering corruption as a heinous crime
this idea is not new and was already rejected a few times in the past both in the congress and in the senate

I think that keeping the people without political education is now backfiring on the government.