SÃO PAULO—The latest in a string of protests against transportation-fare increases turned violent on Thursday, as tensions grow over unemployment and rising inflation in Brazil.
Thousands of protesters gathered in the late afternoon at the Municipal Theater in central São Paulo and marched through the city center. Just after 7 p.m., police began firing tear gas into the crowd, sending protesters running. People screamed “Fascist police!” and threw stones at the police as smoke filled the air.
The demonstration was the fourth since last week in response to a nearly 7% increase in public transport fares in the city to 3.20 reais, or about $1.50.
Earlier in the day, a strike by suburban rail workers had caused confusion in São Paulo, forcing hundreds of thousands of commuters to switch to emergency bus services or use their cars.
A similar demonstration Tuesday, also organized by the group called Movimento Passe Livre, or the free-pass movement, swelled to an estimated 12,000 people and also became violent, with protesters throwing stones and vandalizing buses and subway stations, and military police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.
http://youtu.be/ny7MPoaFy7Q
I know how they feel. It’s how I feel this morning. As usual though violence is directed impotently against things and people that have absolutely no effect on the situation being protested.
Let’s bring this home. Obama has lost his fucking mind. There are two precepts that liberals/progressives can never denounce. The first is that Peace is better than war. The second is that individual freedom and liberty is better than a police state that guarantees our safety and security. On the first point: those who argue that arming the Syrian rebels (al Qaeda) will eventually lead to Assad’s downfall and result in Peace are delusional. That has been the neo-cons (Zionist) arguement. People like McCain, Graham, Ayote, Hillary, and Susan Rice. Today the neo-cons have been joined by the poser liberal Obama. He will now arm the Syrian Mujahadin. (See: Taliban and Afghanistan.) The schisms in America are growing wider.
The US ambassador, should he ever get back to Syria, better be extremely well guarded. Those jihadist “rebels,” even when we help put them in power, tend to not like our representatives all that much, If Libya is any example….
Also, given Obama’s timing, shortly before a scheduled meeting with Putin, seems calculated to increase tensions between the US and Russia. A major diss.
But I think the US Powers That Be want to resurrect Russia as the same big bad enemy the USSR was during the Cold War. We need big enemies for our big Security State.