The Brazilian Politics Thread

"<looks at the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s> I... think we're just having another round of a larger fight, mate. And, it's been going on for centuries, actually. <shrugs>"

I'm talking about around the world, almost daily since 2010.

Civil rights movement fizzled out in the 70's it is indeed a new era.

Arbiter of Chaos

Civil rights won in the 1970's, decisively, and became part of the norm for most First World societies. What we're fighting now is a rearguard action against the encroachment of the old politics of divisiveness, whilst trying to retain forward momentum to overcome additional barriers.

At least in the United States, civil rights was something of a Pyrrhic Victory, as it energized the reactionary movement and gave them something to focus on, creating the current problem we have today.

Some countries aren't quite caught up with the 70's, though.

edited 18th Jun '13 1:46:11 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Did it?

I'd attribute the reactionary nature of recent US politics to the re-energizing of evangelicals as a political base, which was a creature of the 1980s - the "Moral Majority" (*shudder) was founded in '79, for instance. If one looks at the programs Nixon, Ford, and Carter presided over, they are not very reactionary at all, at least compared to what we have to deal with now. If the EPA didn't exist today, for instance, there isn't a chance in hell the modern Repubs would set it up.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

And now we have vandals looting stores, trying to break into the city hall. Some of the peaceful protesters tried to do a human chain surrounding the hall to stop the vandals but it's not being really effective. The police is pretty much doing nothing.

I find it really funny, there is a really really small number of people breaking stuff and burning cars far away from the main crowd and yet the police don't really try to stop them and most just stay near the peaceful protesters.

This reeks of a ploy to discredit the protest.

Edit: And Facebook is slow to a crawl, down at some points.

Edit 2: Also, the Human Rights Department of Brazil just approved a Bill that allows the psychological treatment of homossexuals to "cure" them. That's a really convenient timing, first they nominate to be the head of the department a evangelic priest who has on record said that blacks and gays are "lesser beings" right after one of the biggest convicts of corruption in the last decades evaded prison and became head of the senate, now THAT happens right in the middle of these protests. Ugh, distraction much?

edited 18th Jun '13 7:01:45 PM by runoeddie

TAKE PHOTOS OF THE VANDALS. If it is a false flag operation you'll want proof.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Holy shit seriously [the homossexual thing]? Oh my God.

This is getting proggresively worse by the minute. It's no longer a protest, it's a war. A war of words and ink, but a war nonetheless.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I'm dead serious. It still has to be approved by some other people, but it's still bad.

And I can't help but think this is just a distraction. I hope it fucking backfires and makes people more willing to go to the streets.

edited 18th Jun '13 8:43:13 PM by runoeddie

It baffles me that this moron managed to stay on power despite how much everyone hates him. They really don't give a shit about what people think.

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

The government of the city of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro just announced that they would rollback the prices of public transportation at the cost of investments to it.

They really are not listening, are they? That's only a 'take this and GO AWAY'. On the other hand, it does show that things CAN happen when we put our foot down.

edited 19th Jun '13 3:25:05 PM by runoeddie

The prices may have lowered, but I still think R$ 3,00 is too expensive. For me, the greatest benefit the brazilians are getting from this will the realization that they can change something if they want to. We live in country where, in the past, the elite always took the decisions for everyone and controled everything, the poor never took a big role in politics and are still not used to it. Our democracy is considerably recent, and people are still learning to protest, to take real part in politics and to develop political conscience.

Thus, what kind of real investments they done to transportation so far? All I have seen are the new bus stops which do nothing new besides looking pretty and showing propaganda.

edited 19th Jun '13 4:16:44 PM by NightChaos

"......Huh?" Myself, 2014.

I can only hope the protesters will not fall for this cheap trick. Like you said, it's just a weak "TAKE THIS AND GO AWAY", trying to make them forget about the larger problems and shut up.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

It would definitely be very disappointing if people cooled down because of this. There are many more important things that are yet to be solved.

Like some have suggested, there should be some form of political reform. The protests seem very unfocused now. People need to give solutions, not merely complain.

edited 19th Jun '13 5:31:43 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

My greatest fear is people cooling down. The Free Pass Movement in SP already achieved their goal and are most likely to go away. The most important thing now is people not getting attached to their temporary leadership and focus on PEC 37 for now.

"......Huh?" Myself, 2014.

Actually, depending on the circumstances, it might be better strategy to declare victory, pull back temporarily, and begin organizing for the next even bigger round of protests...

I'm not so sure if people would remain motivated to continue.

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

The Free Pass Movement announced they will keep going, their objective is still the free pass among other claims.

Specially in Brazil. Brazil isn't known for its population participating in this kind of direct movement. Brazil became independant because the portuguese king and his son saw fit to make brazil independant, Brazil became a Republic because a reclused group of military men saw fit to make Brazil a republic, e.t.c

[Although I see the last example on a lighter note because of Deodoro Fonseca but this isn't the time nor the place to discuss that].

But, even if the protests end here, I think that a partial victory has already been achieved: A message has been sent to the government, that they must take care with their actions from now on.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

The Brazillian government? Not listening to the people?

Do not tell me...

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

FTFY

Schild und Schwert der Partei

*skips the whole thread up to this point*

Did anyone here go to the protests today?

A close friend of mine went. He hasn't returned yet.

I'm starting to get concerned.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I went. In Rio. Just arrived home. It was very weird and worrisome.

It was all fine at first. Lots of people. More than last time and, as far we could tell, absolutely pacific. The goal was the city hall. As me am my friends were closing by, we heard there been some fighting there so we went back. We walked a couple of kilometers and stopped to eat some pizza. Half an hour latter the police exploded pepper gas at the street.

It was very sudden. Some people were leaving the protest by there, but not that many at the time. The street were relatively empty at the time and no confusion at all. Of course, after that people started getting stared. Many people entered the restaurant to get some refuge from the gas. Soon after we saw many police cars passing by.

We obviously decided to leave. By then, a crowd of the protests were taking the street, not as a protest, but just trying to get away from the confusion. However, the police "closed"*

the main street, so everyone, us included, had to take an alternative path. It was then we noticed an helicopter passing close to the ground and even some freaking national guards cars rounding. The guards were with heavy weaponry, which obviously made us all nervous.

In the end, nothing happened were I was. Aside that bizarre pepper gas kilometers away from the protests, I saw no confusion. Just lots of confused and outraged people. I still have to see more news, to get the big picture.

I hope he is fine. I haven't heard from my brother either.

edited 20th Jun '13 7:09:09 PM by Heatth

One of the laws I lived by growing up in South Africa: only worry about them when you know to worry about them, not when you feel you might have cause to worry about them. The short version is "moenie worry nie" — which is smooshed up English and Afrikaans for "mustn't worry".

Sounds dumb, huh? But, the missing often turn up alive (and hungover), rather than in a dead in a police cell.

I went to the protest in Brasília, again, but didn't stay for long. There were a lot more people today.... I was really worried about the jerks setting stuff on fire.

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Thankfully, my friend has shown up just fine. Hope your brother is okay, man.

Which reminds me, my brother is a journalist. I need to talk to him, because we seriously need good journalists to spread unbiased news in this war of information being waged in this protest.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."