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Brazil is also much poorer than the USA. What type of rational person would expect for a country that is poorer to match the levels of one that is richer? Doesn't makes sense!
Err....Scandinavian countries have much smaller economies than the US and their quality of life and services are higher......
From a European P.O.V., I have to admit these protests came as a surprise to most of us here. In our newspapers, Brazil is always shown as a booming, up-and-coming economy, as one of the rising powers of the future, as a country where millions and millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Brazil is seen as a shining example of hope as compared to our doomed, crisis-infested, shabby old continent.
It's been kind of refreshing to read some inside-info concerning the actual social problems that Brazil is still struggling with. You don't get to hear those stories in the European newspapers (well, until this week).
And at AntonioR: protesting against corruption and squandering appartenly is ridiculous?
Err....Scandinavian countries have much smaller economies than the US and their quality of life and services are higher......
Scandinavian countries have a much smaller population than the USA, but the size of their economy is adequate to give the people a good standards of living, as is evident in their per capita GDP, which is nowhere near Brazil's.
Anyway, this happened about a month ago in Sweden:
And at AntonioR: protesting against corruption and squandering appartenly is ridiculous?
Its obvious you have never been to Brazil, because when ever I have asked Brazilian why their society is so corrupt, what they always tell me is that its in their blood and that is why its everywhere from the high ranking people to the everyday person in the street.
It is ridiculous in a society where most people do everything they can to evade taxes that they would complain about corruption. How about starting at home?
Do you know that in Brazil its quite common for people to go into say a bakery, buy a certain amount and then ask the cashier to put on the receipt a higher amount than actually paid! The customer gives the cashier a tip for that and then claims a refund from the government for an amount he never paid!
Do you know that Brazilians often hire people during their off hours to do work they are hired by a company to do? For example, here in the USA its practically unheard of to bribe a cable guy so he would connect your cable faster, but in Brazil that is as normal as drinking coffee in the morning. They even bribe their cable guy to install a plan that is more expensive than the one they signed and will be paying to the company!
Do you know that its quite common for everyday Brazilians to ask for them to be exempt from all sorts of rules and they do this by offering additional tips?
Do you know how often Brazilians tamper with the information on their ID in order to qualify from certain benefits geared towards the needy or towards a demographic they certainly don't belong to?
This is stuff the everyday people do, many of whom are there "protesting" the corruption of others while remaining silent about their own corrupt ways.
I haven't read most the thread, I didn't finish the first page, but my thoughts are that Brazil has a lot of problems. There is government corruption but this has not been new.
The caution I make is declaring war on a period of Brazilian in which it is actually making more improvements than it has in several decades combined. That's almost like shooting yourself in the foot. It's like going from $1 an hour to $15 an hour almost over night but declaring war on your employer and industry because you want $30 an hour immediately. Bearing in mind outside competition your company has.
Protesting to this degree should have taken place during the decades of $1 an hour. As an analogy that is.
Rio is conducting major infrastructural changes. Bearing in mind the favelas do not pay property taxes because they are essentially built-up squatter camps. So, when the government demolishes favela homes to build new low cost apartments, public housing, roads, or to increase the aesthetics of even the favelas, all being motivated out of the World Cup and Olympics, for tourists and Brazil's reputation, it may not be out of benevolence but it sure is helping motivate change.
The Brazilian Government has an ambitious plan to eradicate most if not all favelas by year 2020. This is the year 2013. That is an ambitious goal.
But what took many decades to build (sprawling favelas) can not be eradicated into U.S. looking cities in one year or under one Presidency.
So, it's not bad in a sense to protest, but don't overdue it so much you lose your greater future and other nations rebound ahead of you. Foreign investment will flee from Brazil or simply not go to Brazil if all the unrest continues. They will go to another nation. Which means the Brazilian middle-class will shrink.
A 10 cent hike in public transportation fare is not the worse thing. Every year in Milwaukee bus routes are taken away, buses run less often, and just about every year the fare goes up 20 or 50 cents. We will have no free public health care (I owe over $200,000 in medical bills now from being shot multiple times--which I will have to file bankruptcy on) and any house you live in you will pay property taxes on. With few jobs--and jobs leaving--the wages fall. If Milwaukee erupted into Brazilian and London like riots and looting and protests it would spell the end of the city. We would become Detroit because business would not relocate here and others would move.
Brazil is acting like a worn out used prostitute that now wants to riot, loot, and protest that it's gotten a husband with a job.
Brazil is known for shooting itself in the foot. They did it before which is why Brazil wasted so much time. They would had been developed by now had they not done that.
Now that they are back on the right track, here they are taking their guns out and are deciding where to aim. I will not be shocked if its the same foot again!
That's what I've heard from most of people here in São Paulo, and the rest of the country as well.
But, our bus fare was the main reason for the beginning of demonstrations, as widely noticed before.
Now, some major city governments (such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) have decided to go back and not to raise it.
People now are asking for harder changes, like the nullification of an outrageous constitutional amendment project(known here as PEC-37) that hinders prosecution investigations over politic crimes, beside better health and public transport conditions.
Changes like that are not attained unless the whole country starts uprising (what's not happening).
I personally think we won't get that far, because all the protests have no leadership, just an amount of little groups, each one marching against different things. That's not the right way to overcome corruption and public negligence.
I'm Brazilian and the protests that have been happening are not grassroots. Can you guess who is behind the protests?
Same old, same old... they did it in Egypt, they sent "humanitarian aid" to Libya and destroyed the country and did a bloodshed genociding 100.000 innocent civilians, torturing, raping women and men.
Who used to put people at the streets? The Labor Party and unionists. When Lula became president people stopped going to the streets.
Why now? All of a sudden 300.000 in Rio de Janeiro because of 2 cents?
Wake up Brazilians!
Those who went to the protests don't know who is behind them.
"The revolution will not be televised!" How is it possible that the mainstream media cover manifestations the way they did?
I'm an American, and I've been following these protests. I support the people of Brazil. Honestly, the problems they are rallying against are very similar to our own.
Lol, very similar to Brazil?
please tell me this is a joke
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Brazilian Protests are not Grassroots
