{"id":45358,"date":"2013-06-26T08:30:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T07:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/brazilians-are-taking-to-the-streets-to-protest-their-countrys-injustice-and-inequality-why-arent-we\/45358\/"},"modified":"2013-06-26T08:30:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T07:30:36","slug":"brazilians-are-taking-to-the-streets-to-protest-their-countrys-injustice-and-inequality-why-arent-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/brazilians-are-taking-to-the-streets-to-protest-their-countrys-injustice-and-inequality-why-arent-we\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazilians Are Taking to the Streets to Protest Their Country's Injustice and Inequality\u2013Why Aren't We?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: Agencia Brasil<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

June 25, 2013<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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I have outrage envy. <\/p>\n

For nearly two weeks, more than a million citizens across Brazil have taken to the streets to protest political corruption, economic injustice, poor health care, inadequate schools, lousy mass transit, a crumbling infrastructure and \u2013 yes, in the land of Pel\u00c3\u00a9<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 billions blown on sports. <\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil, wake up, any good teacher is worth more than Neymar!\u201d That\u2019s what the crowds have been shouting. Neymar da Silva Santos, Jr. is the 21-year-old Brazilian star who\u2019s getting nearly $90 million to play for Futbol Club Barcelona.\u00a0 \u201cWhen your son is ill, take him to the stadium,\u201d read one protester\u2019s sign, razzing the $13.3 billion Brazil is spending to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the $18 billion it will cost the country to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Even this soccer-mad nation is saying there\u2019s something out of whack with public priorities, and it\u2019s time to set things right. <\/p>\n

The\u00a0massive demonstrations<\/a>\u00a0have\u00a0stunned Brazilians themselves<\/a>, for their size, their spontaneity and their civic fury. \u00a0\u201cIf you\u2019re not outraged,\u201d an American bumper sticker goes, \u201cyou\u2019re not paying attention.\u201d Brazilians are paying attention to their problems, and they\u2019re mad as hell. So why aren\u2019t we? <\/p>\n

The Brazilian protests were sparked by a bus fare increase in S\u00c3\u00a3o Paulo. It\u2019s grimly comical to see American news media explain why a 9-cent hike is such a big deal by resorting to the usual trope for covering social unrest in the developing world, like when the price of wheat goes up a few pennies. To help us understand why this matters so much, our press relates the cost of bread or buses to the minimum wage in distant lands and points out the dependency of their diets on staples and of their jobs on public transportation. \u00a0Even though millions of Americans below the poverty line can\u2019t make a living wage, and millions more are barely hanging on by their fingernails, the infotainment narrative of life in America is so divorced from the pervasive reality of struggling to survive that journalists assume we\u2019d be bewildered that bus fares could start such a fire. <\/p>\n

There are, of course, plenty of dissimilarities between the U.S. and Brazil, a developing nation ruled by military dictatorship until 1985, but there are also plenty of all-too-close analogies between what\u2019s pissing off Brazilians and what ought to piss off Americans. <\/p>\n

Income inequality.<\/strong> Brazil is in the world\u2019s bottom 10 percent on income inequality<\/a>, ranking 121st out of 133 countries. But the U.S. ranks 80th, just below Sri Lanka, Mauritania and Nicaragua. <\/p>\n

Wealth distribution.\u00a0<\/strong> There are only six countries in the world whose wealth distribution<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 accumulated holdings, not annual funds earned — is more unequal than Brazil. But the U.S. is one of those six. <\/p>\n

Education. <\/strong>The annual rate of growth in student achievement<\/a>\u00a0in math, reading and science in Brazil is 4 percent of a standard deviation. But U.S. educational achievement is growing at less than half that rate: 1.6 percent, just below Iran. <\/p>\n

Corruption.<\/strong> Brazil ranks 121 in public trust in the ethical standards of politicians<\/a>, out of 144 countries. But the U.S. comes in only at 54, just above Gabon. <\/p>\n

Infrastructure.<\/strong> The quality of Brazil\u2019s infrastructure puts it at a dismal 107, out of 144 countries. But the U.S. ranks 25th<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 below most other advanced industrial countries and even behind some developing nations, like Oman and Barbados. <\/p>\n

Health care.<\/strong> \u00a0Brazil\u2019s health care system ranks 125th\u00a0out of 190 countries. But the U.S., jingoistic rhetoric notwithstanding, is only 38th. Among our peer nations \u2014 wealthy democracies \u2014 we\u2019re dead last<\/a>, and it\u2019s only gotten worse over the past several decades. <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit: Agencia Brasil June 25, 2013 \u00a0| Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. I have outrage envy. For nearly two weeks, more than a million citizens across Brazil have taken to the streets to protest political corruption, economic injustice, poor health care, inadequate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}