Carl,
I have no quarrel with anything you've said. Unfortunately, my ability to
compartmentalize is not as well developed as your's. But that may be partly
because I do not have all of the positives in my life now that you have in
your's. However, I do think that it is important to keep the reality of what
this life of our's is costing others, always in mind, particularly on this
list where, at leasst we can talk about the important issues. In case you
haven't noticed, it has become socially unacceptable to talk about the death
and destruction we are causing throughout the world and poverty here at home
in polite society.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2016 12:35 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Brazil's Olympic Calamity
There are some very interesting, and passionate posts here.
The way I see it, I am living on Planet Earth in the year 2016, in the
American Empire, a corporate Capitalistic Oligarchy. Arguably the most
powerful of all time.
Living in this Oligarchy means that I must find those activities which both
satisfy me and provide safety and some comfort for my family. So I
compartmentalize that which I do and that which I do not do. For example, I
can tune on the TV and watch a relaxing family program that, in itself has
some good features and some negative ones, and enjoy the program even though
I must endure...or tune off, the commercials that hammer at my wallet. I
can feel good about Ken Griffey Junior being voted into the baseball hall of
fame, recalling that day when he and his dad, Ken Griffey Senior hit back to
back home runs, even as I protest the direction of baseball and the Greed
driven corruption that has led to doping and other abuses.
I am able to wander through the Science Center in Seattle, knowing that the
land beneath my feet once housed poor working class families.
I worked for the State of Washington for many years, traveling in and out of
a crumbling, high crime neighborhood, greeting the folks living there with
courtesy and honest affection, and received back the same.
People, mostly persons of Color, would give anything to live in my
neighborhood, if they just had a decent income. Few of these folks went out
after dark. And we talked together over coffee, about those good old days
when the Columbia City area was a thriving community. I walk the streets of
Seattle, a growing, thriving city, but look down the back alleys and see the
stained mattresses spread out over the fire escapes, and the little Indian
children dressed in ragged shirts and pants, looking back at me with wide,
sad eyes. And I am reminded that I am walking on Lands that once were their
home. I am a free American, while they live like immigrants, scrabbling for
a meager living.
Yet at the end of the day, knowing all of the wickedness Greed has brought
into this Land, I sit on my deck and feel the last rays of the sun, hearing
the sleepy calls of the nesting birds, the far off cry of the coyote, crack
open a bottle of beer and sigh as I say to Cathy, "What a wonderful world!"
I am here today, August 11, 2016, at the age of 81. In my lifetime I have
fought many a good fight, ran from others, stood by my principles and
changed my mind a thousand times when given new information. I have worked
to organize unions, to organize blind people, to support women's rights, Gay
Rights, and just about any other Cause that came along. These adventures
were so consuming during my youth that they cost me two marriages. And so I
made choices. I take what I can from Life that gives me pleasure, and I
reject that which does not. But that no longer means taking up the mighty
sword and doing battle. And the bottom line, the important thing is that I
do not apologize for what I do.
So it's back to watching the Olympics, while giving the finger to the
"sponsors".
Carl Jarvis
On 8/11/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Im not positive, but I think your position might be slightly one-sided.theyre great.
Lets face it, nothing, absolutely nothing is ever all good or all
bad. You know the old saw, Hitler built the Autobahns. Obviously, that
fact does nothing to diminish the unspeakable horror and evil he
caused, committed, and created, but the Autobahns are still there, and
So the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, speaking of horrible HItler, is nowfill in the blank.
a beautiful public swimming pool and other athletic and park areas,
the Olympic village has been apartments for decades, the site of the
London Olympics is also a public park area, open to all, not sure
about Munich, and I dont know what was razed to create these
facilities in the first place, but after the games are over, it seems
that often the areas serve some public good.
And look at the opportunities for a better life for someone like
Biles. Or Dominique Marciano or whatever her name is, who also had a
pretty awful life before her triumphs at the Olympics.
Im not arguing with you or with anything you outline, only saying
that its not so black and white.
How many of those displaced by Olympic construction were indeed
presented with a better alternative? Were they really all, every
single one, tossed out into the street?
I dont know Im not sure any of us does.
It does seem, though, that no one is allowed to enjoy anything
anymore, though go to the public library built by Carnegie money and
be forced to think about what a capitalist he was. Cheer for a young
girl who executes a flor exercise that makes ones mouth hang open in
astonishment and be told it should all not be happening because, well,
I agree that the whole big business of the whole thing turns myfrom and exploit?
stomach, too. The fat cats are getting rich off of this. So what else
is new? What is there on this whole earth that the fat cats dont get rich
Look at the corruption that plagues every Olympics, look at what wentfeel safe?
on with Romneys turn at at but if it were all shut down, what would
happen to all these young athletes, many from third world nations,
young starry-eyed, disciplined, dedicated athletes who work their
asses off for years for these games? There was a story on the
rightward moving NPR about, I think it was the Nigerian baseball team,
that had some horrific travel experiences, I forget the details. They
arrived about tw hours or so before their game with Japan, and they
won. Were they happy as individual athletes? Sure. Were they happy as
Nigerians? Sure. Does that mean they hate the Japanese? Of course not.
I really have more questions than answers here.
On Aug 11, 2016, at 11:51 AM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I have to say that I'm amazed at all you folks who are so avowedly
anti Capitalist, being swept up by this very Capitalist extravaganza.
I value sports, as much as anyone, because participating gives people
an opportunity to use their talents to the fullest, to excel, to
express their individuality. But has the way in which sports has
become so financialized escaped you? Have you ever listened to Dave
Zirin on Democracy Now or read his articles in The Nation? He's a
sports enthusiast, but he always talks about sports within a social
and economic context. In how many cities are new stadiums built with
public money when the old ones were fine? And the new stadiums with
sky boxes for millionaires and little seating for working people?
Working people are supposed to watch on TV so that the cable
companies get their money and so that they can be bombarded with
advertisements. Of course, those people at home can buy devices to
record games and omit commercials. In that case, their money goes to
the manufacturers of the devices. The people who make the devices are
slave or sweatshop laborers somewhere in the third world. And the
Olympics? In every city where they take place, are you not aware of
the displacement of homes and businesses in order to build structures
for the Olympics which the citizens pay for and which may be of no
use when the Olympics are finished?
Do you know how many millions of dollars Brazil is paying for
militarized security so that the wealthy people who attend the games will
her mother, who battled drug and alcohol addiction, at an early age.Somehow, the glamour and the pageantry and the thype have managed to
overcome all this talk about the ruling class and the struggles of
the workers. Those appealing images that appear in Frank Rooney's
column that Alice posted, can exist without plunder and greed. Young
people can win races without making poor people homeless. But I
suppose that if people happily watch football games every week with
no thought to brain trauma, there's no reason for them not to enjoy
the Olympics with no thought of social trauma.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 10:06 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Brazil's Olympic Calamity
This is a "right on" article. If you need an uplift, go to the
Olympic Channel and breathe in some fresh air.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/11/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
OP-ED COLUMNIST. The Crying Games. By FRANK BRUNI. Somewhere betweenmorning, and I was telling someone what he'd missed on Sunday night:
the Zika stories, the doping stories and the stories about what a
fetid, toxic swamp Rio really is, I got the message: I was supposed
to feel cynical about these Olympics, the way we feel cynical about
pretty much everything these days.. I was supposed to marvel at our
talent for making messes, cutting corners, evading responsibility,
procrastinating. Rio was a testament to that, both as the host of
the Games and as a sublime, wretched theater of humanity. All the
promises we fail to keep, all the plans that go awry: They were and
would be on vivid display. I was supposed to shake my head in
disgust. Sigh in frustration. Instead I cried, and I mean good
tears. It was Monday
how the American swimmer Michael Phelps defied age and his own stabs
at self-destruction to swim toward yet another gold, in a men's relay.
How the American gymnast Simone Biles, in the team qualifying round,
responded to the gaudy expectations for her not by crumbling but by
meeting, even surpassing, every one of them. And then there was that
tiny wisp of a Brazilian girl -- 4-foot-4, 16 years old -- who
floated onto the balance beam, whirled the length of it and turned
in a near perfect routine that no one expected. The roar from her
hometown crowd was so loud, so true, that I'm certain it crossed
time zones. I bet it traversed the stratosphere. No lottery winner,
no matter the purse, has ever matched the glow of elation on her
face. I hadn't even reached the part about the British gymnast who
tumbled onto her head, stood up dazed and kept on going when I
myself had to stop, because I was suddenly so choked up that I
couldn't get another word out. Don't tell me what's wrong with the
Olympics. Let me tell you what's right with them. In a world rife
with failure and bitter compromise, they're dedicated to dreaming
and to the proposition that limits are entirely negotiable, because
they reflect only what has been done to date and not what's doable
in time. They make the case that part of being fully alive is
pushing yourself as far as you can go. Every Olympic record, every
personal best and every unlikely comeback is an individual
achievement, yes, but it's also a universal example and metaphor.
The swimmer Dana Vollmer, a gold medalist in 2012, stopped training,
became a mother and attended to her newborn. But the pool still
beckoned, and last weekend, just 17 months after giving birth, she
won a silver and a bronze in Rio. Good for her. Good for all women
who don't want to obey some timeline that they never signed on to or
stay in a box of someone else's construction. These champions
usually aren't children of extreme privilege. Biles was separated from
devotion.Others had worse odds and more daunting setbacks. But they had a
drive more powerful than that. They swapped resentment for goals.
And they worked. By God, did they work. We tend to marvel at their
freakish gifts, but we should marvel even more at their freakish
and shouted upon winning the Gold.That's what made the difference. They invested hour upon hour, dayimagine. They took risks, big ones. And they pressed on, because
after day. They sacrificed idle time and other pursuits. They honed
a confidence that eludes most of us and summoned a poise that we can
only
there was this thing that they wanted so very, very badly and the
only way to know if they could get it was to put everything on the
line.
I'm no na? f. I know that there's another, darker side to this --of stone. I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni) and join
that some of them are overly preoc'cup'ied with fame, with riches.
At least they're earning it. I know that there are flaws in the
system, even corruption. I'm reading and I'm hearing plenty about
that, about the inane remarks that NBC's commentators have made, and
about the excessive commercial breaks that the network builds into
the prime-time telecast. A certain crassness and greed have taken over.
It's true. But I fear that with the Olympics, as with so much else,
we've let the language of complaint supplant the language of wonder,
and there's wonder aplenty here. Just watch Phelps kick or Biles
vault heavenward, a force of will seemingly bound for the stars.
Just think about what it means to aim that high, commit that much
and invite the eyes of the world to see it all come together or all
fall apart. If that doesn't put a lump in your throat and a tear in
your eye, you're made
me on Facebook.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter
(@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. .
On Aug 11, 2016, at 12:26 AM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Back in my sighted life I always took in as much of the Olympics as
I was able, what with working and family. But for many years in my
life as a blind man, I have paid little attention to the very
visual events.
This year my wife and her sister are busy recording great gobs of
the Olympics and viewing them into the wee hours of the night.
Both were very athletic in their youth, and are big time supporters
of women's events. And despite my feelings about the over
production, over commercialization that has taken over this
world-wide ammeter event, I have to say that it is so very
refreshing to hear the youthful enthusiasm and exuberance of these
young men and women. I marvel that there are still such decent
sounding people growing up among this crab grass called World
Politics. I watched/listened to the American gymnasts as they laughed
ceremony.I actually had a silly grin on my face, and a tear of joy for them
in my eye.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/10/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David Zirin's Brazil's Dance With The Devil is on Bookshare. It is
fascinating and disturbing reading. Thanks to whoever it was, on
this list, who mentioned it.
Miriam
Boykoff writes: "It might not be captured on primetime Olympic
coverage, but Brazilians are welcoming the Games with mass protest."
Rio, Brazil. (photo: Jules Boykoff/Jacobin)
Brazil's Olympic Calamity
By Jules Boykoff, Jacobin
10 August 16
It might not be captured on primetime Olympic coverage, but
Brazilians are welcoming the Games with mass protest.
When Brazils interim president Michel Temer announced the opening
of the
2016 Rio Summer Olympics on Friday, he was met with boos. Speaking
as fast as a voiceover at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial,
it was an awkward scene. The choreographers of the ceremony
launched fireworks to mask the crowds disdain, but discontent
with the Olympics extends far beyond Maracanã Stadium. While
smiley-faced Games-goers fill the Olympic suites, thousands of
Brazilians are taking to the streets.
This was obvious as the Olympic torch made its way toward the
ceremony.
In
Angra dos Reis, protesters even managed to extinguish the flame,
forcing torchbearers to scurry to safer havens in a nearby van. In
Duque de Caixas, just north of Rio, demonstrators pelted
torchbearers with stones before cops responded with rubber bullets
and pepper spray.
Once the torch arrived in Rio, protesters came out in droves. So
did the police, who used tear gas and stun grenades to slice a
route for it to pass.
When the torch whisked past me at Praça Mauá, I could barely see
it behind a wall of military police.
One torchbearer, Tarcisio Carlo Rodrigues Gomes, even used his
moment in the spotlight to protest. After finishing his shift, he
yanked down his shorts, revealing leopard-print underwear and the
words Fora Temer (Temer
Out)
scrawled on his butt cheeks in bright white paint.
Fora Temer was the rallying cry of an enormous mobilization
along Copacabana Beach on August 5, the morning of the opening
laws.Brazils
president is extremely unpopular in Brazil, with one recent poll
putting his approval rating at 11 percent.
As Glenn Greenwald and Eric Lau recently pointed out in the
Intercept, Temer is accused of a staggering array of bribery
schemes he couldnt run for president even if he wanted to,
thanks to the recent ban he received for violating campaign finance
tourists stood by in bewilderment.Protesters along Copacabana highlighted all this and more. Unions,
workers, students, pensioners, feminist organizations, housing
activists, indigenous peoples, and anti-Olympics stalwarts joined
forces to create a massive throng that pulsed with creativity. The
protest, which drew fifteen thousand people, was coordinated by
worker and leftist groups, including Brasil Popular, Esquerda
Socialista, and Povo Sem Medo.
The mood was festive. A small orchestra played a version of
Carmina Burana
with uproarious Fora Temer lyrics. Activists from the Comitê
Popular da Copa e das Olimpíadas (The Popular Committee of the
World Cup and Olympics), who have long been protesting against the
mega-event machine, carried a banner reading #CalamidadeOlímpica
(#OlympicCalamity). The Corrente Socialista dos Trabalhadores, a
socialist workers group, wielded a sign that read, Não a
Olimpíadas (No to the Olympics).
Many activists connected the Olympic dots between the wider
political crisis and the Olympic Games. Some wore t-shirts bearing
the Olympic rings filled in by the letters G-O-L-P-E (C-O-U-P).
Numerous flags read Fora Temer
with
the Olympic rings standing in for the o on Fora.
One man held a cardboard sign with the handwritten phrases
Rio2016 Coup / Were Not Happy / Fora Temer written on it.
Another activist walked around with homemade Olympic rings
connected with metal wiring featuring a photo of Temer and the
moniker golpista. At one point protesters took over the site of
the official Olympic rings on Copacabana Beach, snapping
photographs with their Fora Temer signs in hand while Olympic
smoothly.
Other activists seized the Olympic moment, writing signs in
English for the global media to read. One said, We dont want a
torch / We want out homes!
The lack of housing in Rio, as well as the brass-knuckle evictions
that the Games galvanized, were major themes. On the beach,
protesters from Jogos da Exclusão (Exclusion Games) set up a
shrine highlighting displacement, with messaging in both
Portuguese and English.
Standing nearby, one demonstrator told me it was ironic that while
the team of Olympic refugee athletes was being widely celebrated,
the Rio Games had created numerous internal refugees, displaced in
the name of five-ring profit-making.
Later, as the opening ceremony unfolded, Bloomberg journalist
Tariq Panja put a fine point on it, tweeting: Perhaps the former
residents of Vila Autodromo will be invited to join the Olympic
Refugee Team at Tokyo 2020.
Vila Autódromo is one favela community that found itself in front
of the Olympic steamroller.
The afternoon brought another sizable mobilization, this one more
focused on the Olympics under the banner Jogos da Exclusão. Around
a thousand activists gathered at Praça Sáenz Peña, located close
to the Maracanã. During the
2014
World Cup final, the same square was the site of brutal police
repression of protesters who raised questions about hosting the
worlds soccer jamboree on the public dime.
Urban geographer Chris Gaffney attended both mobilizations.
Crystallizing a critique bubbling through the afternoon protest,
he told me, As Rio is glittering before the world, it has handed
over the city to the International Olympic Committee [IOC] and
private interests at the expense of taking care of the basic needs
of the population. He added, The Exclusion Games protest was a
clear note in a cacophonic symphony of destruction that has
defined Rios mega-event preparations over the past decade.
Whereas the police presence at the Fora Temer protest was
relatively light, it was unmistakably intense in the afternoon
event. Emerging from the metro station and into the praça, I was
met with a wall of police decked out in riot gear. Periodically
they would move about in lockstep formation, an arm latched to the
shoulder of the cop in front of them. Other security officials
encircled the square. Later, busloads of additional riot police
arrived. At one point a police helicopter circled overhead.
When the protest transformed into a street march, cops created a
tight envelope around the marchers, keeping a special eye on
activists using black-bloc tactics, who at one point burned a flag
bearing the Olympic rings. Halfway through the march, a squadron
appeared on horses, channeling the flow of the protest march.
Police presence in Brazil is no trivial matter. Amnesty
International recently reported that in the months leading up to
the Games, Rio de Janeiro has seen a 103 percent increase in
police killings. Since Rio was awarded the Games back in 2009,
security officials in have killed more than 2,600 people. Ahead of
the Games, activists delivered a strong message to Rio organizers,
placing forty body bags on their front stoop, reflecting the
number of people killed by police in May alone.
A majority of the victims of police violence are young cariocas of
color.
Amnesty International found that between 2010 and 2013, 79 percent
of those killed by on-duty police officers in Rio were black and
75 percent were young, between fifteen and twenty-nine years old.
Activists taking to the streets during the opening ceremony were
fully aware of this history. Numerous chants alluded to police
violence. One massive banner read, Abaixo o massacre olímpico!
and then in English, No to the Olympic massacre! Although some
minor skirmishes emerged, and cops used pepper spray and tear gas
on protesters at Praça Afonso Pena, the march went relatively
ceremony.At the protest Brazilian human rights lawyer Andrea Florence told
me, The Olympic Games promised to promote a peaceful society,
social inclusion, and human dignity. What we have seen in Rio is
the complete opposite . . .
The
protest highlights what happens when the Olympics come to town.
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not valid.
Rio, Brazil. (photo: Jules Boykoff/Jacobin)
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/olympics-protests-rio-temer-cou
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brazil/h
ttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/olympics-protests-rio-temer-coup
-b
razil/
Brazil's Olympic Calamity
By Jules Boykoff, Jacobin
10 August 16
It might not be captured on primetime Olympic coverage, but
Brazilians are welcoming the Games with mass protest.
hen Brazils interim president Michel Temer announced the opening
of the
2016 Rio Summer Olympics on Friday, he was met with boos. Speaking
as fast as a voiceover at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial,
it was an awkward scene. The choreographers of the ceremony
launched fireworks to mask the crowds disdain, but discontent
with the Olympics extends far beyond Maracanã Stadium. While
smiley-faced Games-goers fill the Olympic suites, thousands of
Brazilians are taking to the streets.
This was obvious as the Olympic torch made its way toward the
ceremony.
In
Angra dos Reis, protesters even managed to extinguish the flame,
forcing torchbearers to scurry to safer havens in a nearby van. In
Duque de Caixas, just north of Rio, demonstrators pelted
torchbearers with stones before cops responded with rubber bullets
and pepper spray.
Once the torch arrived in Rio, protesters came out in droves. So
did the police, who used tear gas and stun grenades to slice a
route for it to pass.
When the torch whisked past me at Praça Mauá, I could barely see
it behind a wall of military police.
One torchbearer, Tarcisio Carlo Rodrigues Gomes, even used his
moment in the spotlight to protest. After finishing his shift, he
yanked down his shorts, revealing leopard-print underwear and the
words Fora Temer (Temer
Out)
scrawled on his butt cheeks in bright white paint.
Fora Temer was the rallying cry of an enormous mobilization
along Copacabana Beach on August 5, the morning of the opening
laws.Brazils
president is extremely unpopular in Brazil, with one recent poll
putting his approval rating at 11 percent.
As Glenn Greenwald and Eric Lau recently pointed out in the
Intercept, Temer is accused of a staggering array of bribery
schemes he couldnt run for president even if he wanted to,
thanks to the recent ban he received for violating campaign finance
tourists stood by in bewilderment.Protesters along Copacabana highlighted all this and more. Unions,
workers, students, pensioners, feminist organizations, housing
activists, indigenous peoples, and anti-Olympics stalwarts joined
forces to create a massive throng that pulsed with creativity. The
protest, which drew fifteen thousand people, was coordinated by
worker and leftist groups, including Brasil Popular, Esquerda
Socialista, and Povo Sem Medo.
The mood was festive. A small orchestra played a version of
Carmina Burana
with uproarious Fora Temer lyrics. Activists from the Comitê
Popular da Copa e das Olimpíadas (The Popular Committee of the
World Cup and Olympics), who have long been protesting against the
mega-event machine, carried a banner reading #CalamidadeOlímpica
(#OlympicCalamity). The Corrente Socialista dos Trabalhadores, a
socialist workers group, wielded a sign that read, Não a
Olimpíadas (No to the Olympics).
Many activists connected the Olympic dots between the wider
political crisis and the Olympic Games. Some wore t-shirts bearing
the Olympic rings filled in by the letters G-O-L-P-E (C-O-U-P).
Numerous flags read Fora Temer
with
the Olympic rings standing in for the o on Fora.
One man held a cardboard sign with the handwritten phrases
Rio2016 Coup / Were Not Happy / Fora Temer written on it.
Another activist walked around with homemade Olympic rings
connected with metal wiring featuring a photo of Temer and the
moniker golpista. At one point protesters took over the site of
the official Olympic rings on Copacabana Beach, snapping
photographs with their Fora Temer signs in hand while Olympic
smoothly.
Other activists seized the Olympic moment, writing signs in
English for the global media to read. One said, We dont want a
torch / We want out homes!
The lack of housing in Rio, as well as the brass-knuckle evictions
that the Games galvanized, were major themes. On the beach,
protesters from Jogos da Exclusão (Exclusion Games) set up a
shrine highlighting displacement, with messaging in both
Portuguese and English.
Standing nearby, one demonstrator told me it was ironic that while
the team of Olympic refugee athletes was being widely celebrated,
the Rio Games had created numerous internal refugees, displaced in
the name of five-ring profit-making.
Later, as the opening ceremony unfolded, Bloomberg journalist
Tariq Panja put a fine point on it, tweeting: Perhaps the former
residents of Vila Autodromo will be invited to join the Olympic
Refugee Team at Tokyo 2020.
Vila Autódromo is one favela community that found itself in front
of the Olympic steamroller.
The afternoon brought another sizable mobilization, this one more
focused on the Olympics under the banner Jogos da Exclusão. Around
a thousand activists gathered at Praça Sáenz Peña, located close
to the Maracanã. During the
2014
World Cup final, the same square was the site of brutal police
repression of protesters who raised questions about hosting the
worlds soccer jamboree on the public dime.
Urban geographer Chris Gaffney attended both mobilizations.
Crystallizing a critique bubbling through the afternoon protest,
he told me, As Rio is glittering before the world, it has handed
over the city to the International Olympic Committee [IOC] and
private interests at the expense of taking care of the basic needs
of the population. He added, The Exclusion Games protest was a
clear note in a cacophonic symphony of destruction that has
defined Rios mega-event preparations over the past decade.
Whereas the police presence at the Fora Temer protest was
relatively light, it was unmistakably intense in the afternoon
event. Emerging from the metro station and into the praça, I was
met with a wall of police decked out in riot gear. Periodically
they would move about in lockstep formation, an arm latched to the
shoulder of the cop in front of them. Other security officials
encircled the square. Later, busloads of additional riot police
arrived. At one point a police helicopter circled overhead.
When the protest transformed into a street march, cops created a
tight envelope around the marchers, keeping a special eye on
activists using black-bloc tactics, who at one point burned a flag
bearing the Olympic rings. Halfway through the march, a squadron
appeared on horses, channeling the flow of the protest march.
Police presence in Brazil is no trivial matter. Amnesty
International recently reported that in the months leading up to
the Games, Rio de Janeiro has seen a 103 percent increase in
police killings. Since Rio was awarded the Games back in 2009,
security officials in have killed more than 2,600 people. Ahead of
the Games, activists delivered a strong message to Rio organizers,
placing forty body bags on their front stoop, reflecting the
number of people killed by police in May alone.
A majority of the victims of police violence are young cariocas of
color.
Amnesty International found that between 2010 and 2013, 79 percent
of those killed by on-duty police officers in Rio were black and
75 percent were young, between fifteen and twenty-nine years old.
Activists taking to the streets during the opening ceremony were
fully aware of this history. Numerous chants alluded to police
violence. One massive banner read, Abaixo o massacre olímpico!
and then in English, No to the Olympic massacre! Although some
minor skirmishes emerged, and cops used pepper spray and tear gas
on protesters at Praça Afonso Pena, the march went relatively
At the protest Brazilian human rights lawyer Andrea Florence told
me, The Olympic Games promised to promote a peaceful society,
social inclusion, and human dignity. What we have seen in Rio is
the complete opposite . . .
The
protest highlights what happens when the Olympics come to town.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
