Thursday, August 1, 2013

A Left deferred.

I find it amusing and also disappointing how many American intellectuals who write about Brazil employ popular tropes used to explain the failings of the U.S. political and economic system to interpret the current unrest here. 

According to a recent AP article, Brazilians are protesting primarily because of high tax rates (and not because of habitual corruption, inequality, sexism, or flagrantly disproportional investments in World Cup and Olympic games). In a similar vein, an urban planner at the New School's Milano writes that, if the provision of public services in some slums in Rio were reduced, then there would be less migration to these places. Implying that migration, and not living one's days in sewer water or suffering from high incidences of tuberculosis engendered by these very deficits in  physical and state infrastructures, is the main problem experienced by the poorest of Brazilians.

Aren't you suppose to be the critical and erring Left, and not another wheel in the machine that reproduces mainstream discourse, reinforcing these flawed understandings?