radical psyche
“Dear english speaking friends around the world, Brazil needs your help. Maybe some of you noticed an intense brazilian activity on facebook, posts with images and long texts about the protests, or maybe not. This morning though, the New York Times wrote about it, and that’s very good (also, the fb page World Riots 24/h talked about it a few days ago). But the problem is that this article is very very mild about what is really happening in São Paulo. I wrote this to help you understand what’s going on here.
I haven’t been to the protests yet for some reasons, but many of my friends (real world friends, not just-on-facebook friends) have been there, and it was really sad and revolting to read their texts tonight, about what’s really happening…
The NY Times doesn’t say that THE POLICE is not only starting the violence against peaceful citizens who want to protest the bus fees (and they have the right to, according to our constitution), but they’re also brutalizing people who have nothing to do with the protests: old ladies, college kids, workers. People who happened to be there, going home from work or from school were, for no reason at all, attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets. The police attacked journalists, students, ordinary citizens who were just passing by. They closed a subway station and threw tear gas bombs on the inside, so even people who were on a train, going home, were attacked. They also fired tear gas and rubber bullets on people while they were shouting “NO VIOLENCE, NO VIOLENCE”. They fired against people on their knees, or lying on the ground with their hands on their heads. Some of them also put fire on trash bags and tires; at least one of them (the one who happened to be filmed while doing it) broke the windows of his own car. If they could make believe, through the media, that the protesters did it, they can also say they “just defended themselves”.
We are living in a city where the police acts without identification and under the orders of the state governor and the consent of the city mayor. And our news papers and TV networks are not telling the truth about it either. I wrote this in order to ask you for your help: help the world to know what is happening in Brazil, help the world to see how our police is acting against the people, and how our government doesn’t represent us anymore!”
— My friend Marilia “Bombom” Jardim in Sao Paulo, on the Sao Paolo bus fare protests. Marilia is a costumer who helps run Dr. Sketchy’s in Brazil. Here’s the NY Times article she’s talking about. (via mollycrabapple)
“In the absence of certainty or proof, how can we overcome cynicism (either inner or outer)? We cannot overcome it. We can, however, address the wound that generates it. Cynicism guards a wound of idealism dashed and hope betrayed. Anything that reawakens our childlike (naïve) knowledge that a more beautiful world is possible generates, alongside the uplifting feeling of hope, an upwelling of fear, grief, and pain. We are afraid we will be disappointed once more. It is much safer not to believe, safer to dismiss it as idealistic, impractical, impossible. From that pain also comes the derisiveness that often accompanies skepticism. That may be why unorthodox scientific theories or phenomena that suggest there is order, intelligence, and purpose in the universe outside ourselves draw such virulent criticism.”
—
The Cynic and the Boatbuilder | Reality Sandwich, Charles Eisenstein.
[Yes, only I would offer that, given what we now face, it is no longer safe to be cynical.]
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