{"id":20736,"date":"2013-06-19T08:29:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T13:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=20736"},"modified":"2013-06-19T08:29:51","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T13:29:51","slug":"v-for-vinegar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/06\/19\/v-for-vinegar\/","title":{"rendered":"V for Vinegar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Economist<\/em><\/a> reports on the rising tide of protest in Brazil:<\/p>\n

All that changed on June 13th when the state\u2019s unaccountable, ill-trained and brutal military police turned a mostly peaceful demonstration into a terrifying rout. Dozens of videos, some from journalists, others from participants and bystanders, show officers with their name tags removed firing stun grenades and rubber bullets indiscriminately at fleeing protesters and bystanders and hunting stragglers through the streets. Motorists trapped in the mayhem ended up breathing pepper spray and tear gas. Demonstrators found with vinegar (which can be used to lessen the effect of tear gas) were arrested. Several journalists were injured, two shot in the face with rubber bullets at close range. One has been told he is likely to lose his sight in one eye. The following day\u2019s editorials took a markedly different tone.<\/p>\n

By June 17th what has become dubbed the \u201cV for Vinegar\u201d movement or \u201cSalad Revolution\u201d had spread to a dozen state capitals as well as the federal capital, Bras\u00edlia. The aims had also grown more diffuse, with marchers demanding less corruption, better public services and control of inflation. Many banners protested against the disgraceful cost of the stadiums being built for next year\u2019s football World Cup. Brazil has already spent 7 billion reais, three times South Africa\u2019s total four years earlier, and only half the stadiums are finished. \u201cFirst-world stadiums; third-world schools and hospitals\u201d, ran one placard.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

So, why now? One reason is surely a recent spike in inflation, which is starting to eat into the buying power of the great majority of Brazilians who are still getting by on modest incomes, just as a big ramp-up in consumer credit in recent years has left them painfully overstretched. Bus fares have not risen for 30 months (mayors routinely freeze fares in municipal-election years, such as 2012, and in January this year the mayors of Rio and S\u00e3o Paulo agreed to wait until June before hiking in order to help the federal government massage the inflation figures). In fact, the rise in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s and Rio\u2019s bus fares comes nowhere close to matching inflation over that 30-month period. But bus fares are under government control, unlike other fast-rising costs such as those for housing and food. Perhaps they were simply chosen as a scapegoat.<\/p>\n

More broadly, the very middle class that Brazil has created in the past decade \u2014 40m people have escaped from absolute poverty, but are still only one paycheck from falling back into it, and 2009 was the first year in which more than half the population could be considered middle class \u2014 is developing an entirely new relationship with the government. They see further improvements in their living standards as their right and will fight tooth and nail not to fall back into poverty. And rather than being grateful for the occasional crumb thrown from rich Brazilians\u2019 tables, they are waking up to the fact that they pay taxes and deserve something in return. Perhaps their government\u2019s triumphalism over those shiny new stadiums was the final straw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Economist reports on the rising tide of protest in Brazil: All that changed on June 13th when the state\u2019s unaccountable, ill-trained and brutal military police turned a mostly peaceful demonstration into a terrifying rout. Dozens of videos, some from journalists, others from participants and bystanders, show officers with their name tags removed firing stun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[465,28,20],"tags":[659,165,98,91,720,401],"class_list":["post-20736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americas","category-media","category-soccer","tag-brazil","tag-inflation","tag-police","tag-poverty","tag-protest","tag-worldcup"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5os","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20737,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736\/revisions\/20737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}