Is it for
"Real"
The pictures coming out of Brazil of street protests, people taking to the
streets questioning, in the only way they can, the spending of Billions of Real
on next year’s soccer World Cup and in another three years, the Olympics.
These events become the focus of huge spending sprees, funded by the taxpayer, handing enormous profits to the usual claimants, the global "construction company's" that these events attract.
On the one hand the expenditure is explained in terms of, national prestige with the caveat that there will be substantial improvements to services around the sporting event sites and the so called, "legacy" which can mean homes and the sporting venues themselves.
The politician of course herald the benefits that the spending will supposedly bring the people, yet they never answer the question, why couldn't this money (taxpayers money) be spent anyway if the projects are to benefit the taxpayers who have to cough up the cash anyway ?
When the Olympics or the Soccer World Cup come to town, government seem able to find the cash, even when "austerity" is on everyone's lips, to fund the event. FIFA or the Olympic Committee strides the stage setting the agenda and demanding the standards. We have to comply otherwise they will literally take their ball somewhere else.
In what is called the west, Europe/US/Australasia we have built up, through years of democracy, fairly equitable societies in which inequality is not as "in your face", as it is in other parts of the world. The slums, the sectors of ramshackle housing, the blight of human beings living in appalling circumstances belong to other parts of the world.
Brazil is one of these nations. Cheek by jowl stands the absurd.
Rio de Janeiro with its Copacabana Beach and Sugar Loaf Mountain jewels for the rich and famous whilst, around the hills and suburbs, in the Favelas the Cariocas exist. 6% of a total population of 190 million are Cariocas, a sub specious of economic life that the Brazilian Government would like to air brush out of the picture whilst they are world stage, engaged in the business of extravaganza!! No wonder the people are on the streets, held back by the force of Police and the Army (institutions that are there to protect the people but often used to oppress them) whilst the well-heeled soccer fans watch the game. Thank god Brazil won and the nation went home happy but what of tomorrow and the day after.
These events become the focus of huge spending sprees, funded by the taxpayer, handing enormous profits to the usual claimants, the global "construction company's" that these events attract.
On the one hand the expenditure is explained in terms of, national prestige with the caveat that there will be substantial improvements to services around the sporting event sites and the so called, "legacy" which can mean homes and the sporting venues themselves.
The politician of course herald the benefits that the spending will supposedly bring the people, yet they never answer the question, why couldn't this money (taxpayers money) be spent anyway if the projects are to benefit the taxpayers who have to cough up the cash anyway ?
When the Olympics or the Soccer World Cup come to town, government seem able to find the cash, even when "austerity" is on everyone's lips, to fund the event. FIFA or the Olympic Committee strides the stage setting the agenda and demanding the standards. We have to comply otherwise they will literally take their ball somewhere else.
In what is called the west, Europe/US/Australasia we have built up, through years of democracy, fairly equitable societies in which inequality is not as "in your face", as it is in other parts of the world. The slums, the sectors of ramshackle housing, the blight of human beings living in appalling circumstances belong to other parts of the world.
Brazil is one of these nations. Cheek by jowl stands the absurd.
Rio de Janeiro with its Copacabana Beach and Sugar Loaf Mountain jewels for the rich and famous whilst, around the hills and suburbs, in the Favelas the Cariocas exist. 6% of a total population of 190 million are Cariocas, a sub specious of economic life that the Brazilian Government would like to air brush out of the picture whilst they are world stage, engaged in the business of extravaganza!! No wonder the people are on the streets, held back by the force of Police and the Army (institutions that are there to protect the people but often used to oppress them) whilst the well-heeled soccer fans watch the game. Thank god Brazil won and the nation went home happy but what of tomorrow and the day after.
Brazil one
of the BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) countries which our financial
pages speak of as financial miracles with stupendous growth and money to
burn - but not on the Cariocas.
How reminiscent of our own history when only through emancipation has the constipation of the Capitalistic System been ameliorated.
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