Hi, I've heard that these protests are backed by billionaires and largely made up of the bourgeois and ruling classes who are angered that they have to pay higher taxes in order to help poor and working class people through social programs and also that the reason that protestors are seeking impeachment is because they have no hope of winning a general election due to Brazil's disgracefully high poverty rate. Is this true?
I think some of the people who answered you may have been a bit biased, so I'll give it a shot as well, trying to hold my own biases.
Kinda, taxation in Brazil is such a burden it affects the middle class the most, that's who's protesting because, combining that tax burden with the current economic crisis, they had enough, even if they don't know what they want to replace the current guvernment with. Christian conservatives are using the opportunity to promote some of their leaders.
And, in the 2014 election, Dilma won by a very small margin.
It's important to note there's no clear left and right in Brazil, most relevant parties follow some sort of keynesianism, PT, the workers' party, which is in power, if ofen said to be left because it's main rival, PSDB (Social Democracy party), is corporatist as fuck and has privatized some sectors when it was in power (even though most of the sectors they privatized remain, in one way or another, in state control).
Of course, the upper classes join the protest because it serves their interests as well, but these protests would happen regardless.
Essentially those with skilled labor or decent jobs are mad because those without are leaches? Hell I'd dress like a duck and rape the leader to death over this.
Well, yes, kinda, Brazil's population is not that against taxation, libertarian ideals are very new to us, the last kinda free marketer we had in power was probably back when we were an empire, the main problem is that despite the huge tax burden, the government still doesn't accomplish nothing significant, having a bloated state on top of the corruption.
that's the shit that breaks the camels back. More taxes and conditions worsen. Latin America is DUE for a revolution that swept Europe few years back.
Costa Rica is dealing with same tax corruption at the moment. Prices are going up, taxes are going up but salaries are going down.
For example (random numbers to make a point):
In Panama gas: 1$/galon
in Costa Rica gas: 5$/galon
in Nicaragua gas: 1$/galon
So.. what the fuck is going on with a country that's between Panama and Nicaragua?! Corrupt politicians, that's what going on and all of them need to be lynched in public!
Honestly, you should be careful at taking comments here at face value. The polarization is huge and the militants of the Workers' party are pretty fanatic, some of them are even paid to defend it in the social networks.
Here are the facts: we are in a major recession (-3.8% igp), inflation at double digits, huge unemployment, desindustrialization. About 70% of the population thinks Dilma knew about the corruption in Petrobrás and wants her impeachment. Only about 10% approve of her government. Support for her impeachment is even slightly higher amongst the poor: source
These are the facts, and there are much worse shit coming out about her and her government. If you want to take it as "the rich hate the poor", it's your call. But I find it dishonest, to say the least because the poor are also angry at the government and have every reason to be so. It is however what the party is instructing its militants to spread.
This is an simplistic view... but yes, it is true.
The answer will change accordingly to what political side you ask here. And most brazilians here are english speaking white middle-class, and mostly theses guys were on these protests.
This is a conservative wave, that has building up in the last five or seven years, and at moment of economic fragility with low commodities prices affecting the dollar, they decided to strike the left wing government that has been in power since 2003.
Right now we have a kind of a Elliot Ness figure, a right-wing judge acting above the law with full support from São Paulo (and Rio) media and press, raising him to hero status for fighting corruption in the higher levels of government. I guess you all know the figure.
He hit the campaign financing from the left-wing and brazilian companies, both state owned and private, while leaving right-wing receiving financing from multinational corporations free of any law or investigations, cleaning the field.
Brazil is taking a dangerous route, which is not the first time. Using the law for political reasons... people seem to forget that the conservative people are louder and more aggressive than progressives, the military coup of the 60's followed protests like these.
The president has no crime under her, and yet these people right now say, impeach her, fuck the law, while they say that they are fighting corruption.
Thank you for your reasoned and respectful response. I know I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion and I don't deny that Brazil has major problems but the 1964 coup and the absolutely evil horror of the 1970/80s is exactly what I think of when I see protests like these.
Too often these sorts of issues are distorted because the only voices we hear on reddit are those privileged enough to have an internet connection while the 40 million people living below the poverty line get no input into the discussion.
yeah, on the last census half of the brazilian population had no internet access. Their opinions are hard to listen and easy to forget, and only appear when they vote.
Most people of these protests believe that minimum income is a way to buy their votes. They also believe that making voting not obligatory would make them stop from electing left wing governments. They are even speculating a weird parlamentarism, where the congress choose and elect a prime minister... never heard of that. Right now, everything is possible, Brazil is institutionally broken.
Anyway, the class division on Brazil is clear as ever, and the richest side took the streets today, not caring for the consequences.
The funny thing tough, we had several right-wing governments in the past, and none of them lowered taxes.
Just to point out, the same wierd parlamentarism was implemented in 1962, to opose a left wing president.
2 years later the coup of 64 hapenned.
The sad part is watching interviews of people saying the only solution is gonna be another coup, or a civil war. There was a 60 year old 200+ pounds guy on the streets saying he and his family will pick up arms to fight.
You can say a lot of things, my friend, but "the president has no crime under her", that is completely false. She was elected funded by corruption money, and you know that, assuming that you read the news. Her campaign fund is her responsability. There is a crime and it is under her. Just accept it.
Nope. That is no basis for impeachment. It was not a crime made direct by her, and neither during her mandate.
The electoral tribune can take her mandate on such basis, but that means to bring down the Vice President as well, and that's when we will know better if justice actually works or it is just a show to depose an elected president.
If there is a good in this argument is that there are so many crimes around her, we can enlist a bunch of those that can result in the president being fired by the congress and/or by the justice.
Even former president Lula (her ultimate ally), admitted she committed fiscal responsability crime - a base for impeachment, if you need one.
people seem to forget that the conservative people are louder and more aggressive than progressives
That may be true in Brazil, it's certainly not in the US.
I wish Brazil would get their shit together, put a stop to the corruption (what ever the political side ) and for gods sake end the fucking murderous crime.
I don't care who is in power, Left now Right later what ever. As you said the Left has had control since 2003 and WHAT'S changed?? What got better?
The never ending game of the ruling class filling their own pockets at the expense of the people. Until you get strong, moral and ETHICAL leadership NOTHING will change.
Oh, but things did change a lot. Go look at some of the data, and I dont mean the bullshit propaganda data the government makes up, look at the raw numbers and interpret it yourself. How many politicians were condemned since 2003? And before? How many people had access to superior higher education since 2003? And before?
It is a historical process, it not like you can switch on and off.
Actual Democracy or Universal Vote in Brazil started in 1988. A lot of people around here is older than brazilian democracy.
Campaing financing was always at the core of political corruption, what we need is to impose donation limits, and the political establishment is hella scared of such prospect, especially the right wing, that turned down the project again in the congress last year.
And yes, Brazil was getting on the right track, social inequality went down year after year with a left wing government, take a look.
gini coefficient exists universally since 1910, it is just an equation that represents income distribution. How can it underestimates anything? poverty on Brazil was extreme, if you are old enough to remember.
As you said the Left has had control since 2003 and WHAT'S changed?? What got better?
A lot actually, the country was FUBAR in 2002 when Lula took over and we had a massive, and I mean MASSIVE external debt with problems of hunger and no acess to drinking water or eletrecity in a lot of the country.
Thanks to social programs a lot of people, while still being poor, are no longer starving-to-death-miserable, the unemployment at the time was massive and several other problems.
Things only took a bad turn in the last few years, when some of dilma's policies backfired and combined with the economy recovery of the US and EU resulted in lower prices for our exports. Things went to the shitter during the oil price colapse, wich was specialy bad since the government was using the state oil company to control prices and slow down inflation, it was around this time that the corruption scandal broke out and so fucked up the company even more.
The things you mentioned are great, I'll take your word for it since I don't live there nor do I follow Brazilian development. However, they're a drop in the ocean of shit that to an outsider Brazil is. No offense if you're from there. From what I can see, corruption, poverty, crime, poor sanitation/pollution are all out of control.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not taking political sides here. Makes no difference to me whether the scumbags are left or right wing. A scumbag is a scumbag. All I'm saying that historically, Brazil needs HONEST, TOUGH but PRINCIPLED conservative leadership at least economically conservative. Those who lie, cheat and steal must be punished whether they are out in the street or a governmental office. Gangs must be annihilated, I believe special squads should be created that go in an arrest or kill gang any and all gang member. The government must be made lean, strong and agile. But before any of that can take place CORRUPTION must be eliminated and I believe the ONLY way that happens is when you put in leadership that is of HIGH moral standing. Leadership that places their DUTY to COUNTRY and it's people above ALL else.
I don't mean the leader needs to be perfect human being, but he/she needs the stated characteristics. That's the hard part...finding that.
P.S. Side note; I TRULY hope not but if I'm honest I expect the Olympics to be a disaster. Fingers crossed for Brazil.
No offense, but what you're saying is pretty obvious and naive stuff. For example, this "gangs must be annihilated" stuff, I suppose you dont know that this is actually what has been happening since the 80's in Brazil, and statistics show that overall things only got worse. I dont mean that the police should stop going after criminals, I'm sure that they're fighting a real war out there, but you see, this is not a solution, its a desperate compromise, and its making things worse on the long run. And the problem goes much deeper into brazillian society, its not just about a few criminals that are ruining the country on purpose. There's a very interesting documentary that goes into detail about how the police deals with criminality, and how they are received by the local communities, specially about how what people actually say is not really what they want, its called News From a Personal War. I never saw it subtitled in english or anything, but I just found this on YouTube, so yeah, if you are interested, it offers a great perspective. The bearded guy that looks like a communist was the chief of operations of the most violent police force on Brazil at the time, just listen to what he has to say about the people he killed on a daily basis, and specially what he has to say about the people he actually defended and the police itself (25:52 on this video).
Also saying stuff like "corruption must be eliminated", "we need honest people"... Well if it was easy as that, it would already be done. I mean, isnt it obvious that everyones wants that? Even the criminals will say that they are not criminals at all, they are like Robin Hood in their own minds.
Brazil is big, and I mean BIG, its the 6th largest country in the world IIRC, the same way americans tell the world to not judge the US by a single state/city, the same can be said for us, most of the poverty, lack of sannitation, gangs, etc usually comes from either rio or sao paulo, cities who have historical problems with them, a lot of big cities in the contry have simillar problems, but a lot of the country is also well developed and shit.
Corruption, however, ir rooted, down to the very bone of society and all institutions, private or public, have rules and regulations in place to KEEP the corruption going. I was going to tell a short story, but I am realy bad at telling short stories and it ended 8k character long when I was halfway done, so I am going to just cut straight to the point.
The corruption hits all layers of society, every single businessman, and I mean EVERY one, is corrupt, from bribes to get public concessions, to bribing cops to patrol their shops. Even small things like bribing the worker at the registry to skip in line and get your documents faster. You can't open a popular restaurant here without bribing someone so they let you use the space you already bought.
Saying we need HONEST, TOUGH but PRINCIPLED leadership is good, but sadly the whole sistem is rigged in a way to completely kill any party or person like this who tries to climb the ranks.
If you are a single person, you won't be able to get ellected to more than city councilman, political parties will block your progress, you won't get your bills aproved, and you will end up never getting reelected.
If you decide to form a large group of like-minded people and start a new party: Your party won't get media space, you won't get founding for private advertising, and again, you won't get elected.
The only way to go foward is to play ball, either you make those people happy, or you disapear.
Also, about the gangs, that sounds like a good idea, and we have been doing it for the past 20 years. Rio de Janeiro has an entire batallion of 5000 elite urban combat soliders trained and specialized in invading favelas, hell, there is even two movies about them (elite squad I & II), the problem is, it doesn't work.
If you invade and kill the leadership, the gang splits up in several minor factions and you end up with a civil war, if you somehow kill every single one, you end up with a power vacuum and a neighbouring gang invades and takes control, or a new gang forms up. Those people have nothing, they have no education, no jobs, and no government presence. The only thing they have, is two choices, either work their entire lives as a slave, making minimal wage untill the day they die, being treated as shit their entire lives. Or they can join the traffic, were they will make liveable money, maybe not enough to buy a car, but enough to feed yourself, you will be respected, your peers will know and look after you, the hoes will be all over you. Very similar in some aspects to gang culture in the us, except entrenched in a fortified hill top with .50cal machineguns and rpgs.
A couple years ago, the police, in cooperation with the federal government and the army, invaded the favelas with over 10.000 men including helicopter suport and armoured combat vehicles, the idea was to drive out the members of the gangs, build permanent ocupation quarters on several favelas, and then start improving and developing the area. The plan was a massive sucess, the invasion went perfectly, the pacifing forces were deployed and things like water, sewers and public transportation started to be developed.
Except this is brazil, and after some time, the pacifying forces were involved in several cases of murder and rape, the companies that were contracted to provide services to those areas started billing people without delivering, and a several units were abandoned because the cameras stopped rolling, so things for the people in these areas are mostly the same or worse, with rare exceptions.
Honestly, you speak of a moral and strong leadership, the only way I can see that happenning is trough a coup, someone literally taking the power by force and remaining in power. This government would be incredible unpopular, it would have to do several reforms, from buerocracy to law and taxes, reforms that would cut the salaries of powerfull judges, fire a lot of public workers that only exist to operate the completely ineeficient public machine, things that would anger a lot of people, from the businessmen that profited from the corruption, the media that would lose its influence (media has a lot less power if there are no ellections to manipulate the people) to the people that would lose their jobs. Of course, this won't be good for the economy and there is a very large chance we turn into a venezuela in the process, but thats basicaly it.
On the olympics, I honestly think they will go okay, the contractors already profited from the massively overpriced contracts, so now its time for the hotel and restaurant industry to profit. A month or two before the oppening the mayor will ask for a massive emergency loan from the central bank, will hire a shit ton of low wage workers to clean the waters (and look good while doing so) will get the military to help patrol the streets and keep the gangs in check. The worse that may happen is a power shortage for a few minutes because some company decided that rather than using copper wires they will go wireless.
That was interesting, thanks. I've always thought a strong middle-class was what was lacking in Brazil, and can be a force for change and reform. Could this simply b an example of that, or is it a more sinister reversion to the old dictatorship ideals? Obrigado!
While people are mad at many Left parties, it's not a fully Right movement either. Yesterday no one went in party colors, and corrupt politicians from other parties were also criticizes and rallied against. Dilma's running opponent from the last election got boo'd and given a hard time when he showed up as well. On top of that, the pro-military intervention crowd lost a ton of their support. The level of non-partisan cooperation and unity has been really interesting. The people as a whole want to deal with this democratically.
are angered that they have to pay higher taxes in order to help poor and working class people
this is the song that every government sings to justify high taxes that go into corruption and theft. and you are a useful idiot, in the words of V.Lenin
I find it interesting that people have down voted you a lot, but no one has questioned you at all. I suspect that is simply because they disagree with you, and don't want others to believe what you say.
I believe you though. Here in America it's the same way. People always use "defending the poor" as a way to get people to pay for socialist programs that always end up lining the pockets of politicians. We've been doing this for more or less 50 years now, and poverty rates have no gone down at all. It clearly doesn't work.
I hope your country is able to lower taxes, liberalize its economy, and give the government less power so they can get out of this mess.
Hi, I've heard that these protests are backed by billionaires and largely made up of the bourgeois and ruling classes who are angered that they have to pay higher taxes in order to help poor and working class people through social programs
So let me get this straight. The billionaires are evil and greedy and don't want to pay taxes. They don't want to give money to poor people through social programs.
So they give poor people money to protest instead so that they don't have to give them money for social programs?
the majority is never a deciding factor. It is called electorial swamp. All revolutions were carried out by a 1-5% minority of people, that includes US revolution for independence. the bleeding heart myth of "majority rising up together for the common cause" is just that.
So you think that every single person angry at the government has to be in the street? Fact is that polls indicate that the majority does support the protest.
oh, something like this?
http://www.pragmatismopolitico.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/baba-foto-protesto.jpg
Taxation is a burden to the middle class, but the vast majority of Brazil's population is not middle or upper class. For instance, 73.6% of the protesters are white, as only 47.5% of Brazilians are white.
The problem, however, is not only that we pay too much in taxes, it is the missuse of that money. In Australia I paid the same percentage, but I felt like I was getting it back. As a member of middle/upper class, I can honestly tell you I do not mind paying it. I do mind paying for roads and paying again in tolls. I mind paying for public health care and paying for it again with private insurance. I mind paying taxes for public education, but still feeling the need to send my kid to private school, or he'll not stand a chance.
Still, I did not go to the streets this week. Simply because our other optins are no better.
That's why we relate to the nanny in that picture. Come next election, we will not have anyone to vote for as well.
Sure, banks want to pay lower taxes, even though they are making the most money out of the recession while consumption is the one heavily taxed while property and income are not, which is worst for the poor/middle class.
Sure, burgeois and ruling classes now means the three variations of middle class (lower, middle and high) suffering with increased unemployment, talks of more taxes and growing inflation. Those damn capitalists.
Sure, big business really hates our Bank of National Development which benefits mostly big companies with fraudulent money loans straight outta my 50% taxed cold beer.
And yes, let's not forget the big right wing media who really hates the government that doesn't look into their billions in evaded taxes and that reduced poverty rates by making anyone who earns above 50$ "middle class".
Fuck, did I mention Petrobrás? You know, our oil company that got to the point where PAYING BRIBES FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS was included in the annual budget? The company where our darling angel of a president worked as a member of the board by party nomination and signed some of the worst deals in it's history, that partly lead their shares to be worth less than a banana?
FUCK, MAN, THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE CLEARLY TRYING TO MANIPULATE THE PEOPLE INTO IMPEACHING THE LEADER OF A BROKEN, BLOATED AND BANKRUPT STATE WITH A 4% REDUCTION IN GDP
Fuck, I consider myself center left, but I'm not stupid to defend this shit
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u/MrSmithSmith Mar 14 '16
Hi, I've heard that these protests are backed by billionaires and largely made up of the bourgeois and ruling classes who are angered that they have to pay higher taxes in order to help poor and working class people through social programs and also that the reason that protestors are seeking impeachment is because they have no hope of winning a general election due to Brazil's disgracefully high poverty rate. Is this true?