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Brazilians were always accused of being complacent with our government's corruption and mistakes. Most people complain but do nothing about it...
Brazil has one of the highest tax rates in the world, but one of the lowest education, health and security systems. Don't tell me something isn't wrong when you pay above average taxes for bellow average public services!!!
With that in mind, the protest started with a group of students from USP who wanted to show to people how the population was being mistreated. They created a website called "Passe Livre" (Free Pass) to demonstrate one of the atrocious examples of corruption and lies of our politicians, which is the hikes in public transportation. Fernando Haddad (mayor) was elected this year and one of his biggest focus of his campaign was the increase in quality and quantity of buses and subways without the increase in price. He also promised to create a monthly card to use on public transports that would translate to cheaper prices for the people who use it everyday. Instead, one of his first acts was to increase the price from R$3.00 to R$3.20...
Last week, a very small group of students and teachers from some Universities from all around Sao Paulo gathered in Av Paulista to do a pacific manifestation against the increase on prices of transport tickets. However, the police didn't want it to happen and some tension started to grow between the two. Something trigged violence (I wasn't at the first one, so I don't know the truth of who attacked first) and a confrontation begun. The police started acting violently and so did the protesters. We all know how these things work: the policemen abuse of the power they have and a portion of the protesters always only go there to do shit and break everything independently of the cause...This was good and bad. Good because without the confrontation, the movement wouldn't have made the news and would be long dead by now. And bad for the obvious reasons!
On Thursday, around 10 thousand people went to the City Centre to voice their discontentment. We were shouting many things and we wanted to do a walk through the city. The problem was the police didn't want us to walk around Sao Paulo, they wanted us to stay there and not move at all. It was all peacefully until a single policeman and a single vandal started fighting and a gas bomb exploded. You all can imagine how quickly that escalated and how big the confusion was after that, some people arrested and many more injured.
Today (17/06/2013), a huge amount of people will gather in Largo da Batata to protest against the flagrant corruption that has been going on for centuries. While most people live absolutely inhuman lives, politicians live with incredibly utopian privileges (if you are curious, I can post the list of benefits they have). On top of all that, the two FIFA events are making the police act really violently so we don't make noise in the international media and scare people from giving FIFA even more money by visiting Brazil next year.
The 20 cents of real have become a symbol to almost everyone here in Sao Paulo. It is a way to show the massive population that if we can stop them from abusing the transportation ticket price, we can stop them from abusing of our money in other areas as well.
The nation can't continue to progress if we allow things keep like this, where our politicians promise a lot of things to get elected but do nothing and forget about their principles once they win it. In Brazil, you either pay for things or you don't have them (or you do but in extremely low quality): schools, hospitals, security, transport, roads, etc. If all of that didn't promote good reasons for one to fight for, a 'little' extra ingredient certainly has the impact to make people go on the streets: inflation. Last year the ghost of inflation that has returned to terrify us with 6.5% and estimates for 2013 are around 7-8% (in the 80s we had a couple of years with 1100% of inflation, which is something I bet you can't even imagine).
To make it even worse there is the World Cup, which is the equivalent of not having money to pay for food but to buy an expensive dress for an expensive party, messing with everyone's life. FIFA and Brazilian Government are building a lot of useless venues (stadiums, buildings, fan zones, etc) for an absurd overpriced budget; where most of the money will go to their pockets and only a small percentage will be converted to benefits. And if the steal of money wasn't bad enough, FIFA is imposing a lot of ridiculous restrictions to our own behavior and culture (this is actually more inacceptable than the corruption that people knew it would happen since the beginning). To list a few: we can't call the stadiums as we want because it doesn't sound good for foreigners, we can't sing our traditional songs for Brazil because it has bad words, we can't drink our beer because FIFA doesn't want to, we can't have the traditional June Party in 2014 because it is weird to the tourists, we can't drive our cars because it adds to the traffic, we can't protest because it looks bad for BBC and CNN, etc, etc, etc. In resume…Brazilians pay for the event, they don't enjoy the event (due to the high prices) and we still have a ton of stupid rules and restrictions to follow?
The protest has miraculously left the Campus of USP (which makes me even more proud of belonging to this institution) to dominate Sao Paulo and now to infest Brazil!!!
I don't make this post longer than it already is, so I will try to rap it up…Each city will have its own banner (Sao Paulo has the 20 cents, Brasilia has the 1.5 billion stadium for a city with no football team, Salvador has the restrictions of FIFA, Porto Alegre has something I don't quite remember, etc), but it is much bigger than that, it is actually as big as it gets. Today, I will go to the streets of my birth city to shout for justice and to allow my future kids to grow up in a better country. Today I fight for my rights and to make clear that Brazilians will not tolerate to be treated as clowns and a bunch of shit anymore. And lastly, today I fight for the well being of others who depend on those greedy politicians, because I was thankfully born in a family with enough resources to give me every little thing one can possibly imagine, including honorable values and good education.
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There are obviously a lot of critics for both sides of the coins, but the most important thing is that people are political involved in all of this, there is no more alienation and it is always positive when the population voice their points of view.

Did you see the list of cities which are going to the streets this thursday? I think most big brazilian cities are doing some kind of protest. I know João Pessoa is and I won't be there because I'm traveling. I'm so FUCKING pissed.

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@Liquidator told me you have to call him Choo Choo for it to work nicely.

@Liquidator had experience with @CHOULO19 before?? :Goober:

What are you talking about! I meant debating about Mikel! You and your dirty mind, this is why we broke up, Jason!

Liar liar liar. Even 'my' cats are better are than you! :lol:

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