“... he met an evangelical pastor who worked with gang members who provided entree to that world.”
It’s entry, not entree. Otherwise great article
The severe wealth disparity between the poor and the most well off in Brazil is a warning sign to any society that wants to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
Shoving wealth and power to smaller and smaller circles at the top of the pyramid through policies that are made for and by the rich will lead us to a nation where, as my Brazilian friend told me, you can't live in many areas without fear of crime and the constant reminders and hindrance of disorder and desperation.
I'll make this easy. Especially for my right wing countrymen and women.
The more wealth is concentrated in a few hands, the more those hands will try to shape policy and favoritism to their narrow interests. In order to maintain the control they have come expect.
In fact, it would be unreal if they DIDN'T do that.
It would be against human nature for a group with great wealth and privilege to not want to maintain that arrangement.
People get real greedy.
Throw in the ability to basically buy our political system with unrestrained campaign cash and the desire has its method.
Corruption in government is a nasty, intractable disease.
A society rises or falls on how well it's masses are doing.
It falls for sure if it tracks the way ours has for several decades.
Want to ruin America?
Keep shoving wealth to the top and neglecting the rest of us.
Is there any doubt that's a formula for discontent and eventual destruction?
I'd like to hear anyone justify that path for America.
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I grew up in Rio. Crime and violence are no joke.people are born and raised among gangsters. Lives without hope. When you are mugged at gun point in broad daylight by kids no more than 12 years old, you don’t react. You fear your life depends on the kid not being startled by sudden movement or noise.
You grow up and get used to the violence around you. You take it as part of your daily routine. You avoid going out after sunset. You get used to watching and being aware of your surroundings. Parents never know if their son or daughter will be home after an evening in the movies.
This is life in Rio, irrespective of skin color and social or economic status. Blacks and whites. Poor and rich. There are no places to hide. There no places to escape. Homes have barbed wires on top of 15 feet high walls. There are no borders.
Life in the favelas and life in the trendy Copacabana and Ipanema beaches are the same. Every night is the same sigh of relief. I am home. I am safe. I lived another day. The next day, repeat. The next day, repeat. Until eventually your um out of luck, or you are lucky to run out of it.
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It is beyond time for the US, Canada and Mexico to fund a Marshall Plan for Central and South America. Jobs are the only stop gap to prevent further deterioration of the situation in those countries.
The Marshall Plan and its dedicated, strings-attached foreign aid saved democracy in Europe folllwing WW II and a similar effort may be our only chance to do so in South America. The costs will be minuscule compared to the price to be paid should these countries deteriorate into chaos.
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I have experienced first hand 4 Olympic cities before, during and after, and every single one of them spent huge within a tightly controlled area (where the connected got rich) while simply pushing the poor and crime away.
Every one of them went over budget (of course) and every one of them had corruption that was caught up within a few years later. Nothing new hear to see, move along.
The images here/for the book are so dramatic and intense, because you look at the young that seem so alive (the party ones), yet violence is omnipresent. (with those same young walking around strapped)
When you grow up, and you are given the choice of fighting just to survive/eat, then you are going to take it. It's a dichotomy to look at gang members in prayer, as it is to look at a young girl squatting in a tent passing the time by, while watching a large TV.
I have seen these people who just subsist - which is not living. They are in a state of limbo as people, gangs, and the government fight on the periphery of civilization.
The few that have found peace are the ones that have evaded the violence that follows the cracks in that civilization, like the rains that come every year.
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A great article witnessing why we seriously messed up by allowing unchecked immigration...
No one to blame but ourselves...
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How can you honestly believe that you’re looking at people who immigrate to the US? These people don’t even leave Rio. Do you have any idea how to get from Rio to the US? It’s not by hitchhiking. Have you ever looked at the map? A flight costs $1000, and a visa another couple hundred, that’s if one is granted. Why would people ever want to leave the places they were born? Maybe because of violence like this? Where does violence like this come from? The innate violence of certain groups of people, or the lack of opportunity where they live? Brazil is a country of massive disparity between the super wealthy and the poor. There is a middle class there doing everything it can do to avoid slipping back into poverty, including voting for politicians who pass laws taking away benefits and labor rights from the working class. On top of it all is political self-dealing and corruption. Sound familiar?
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Only difference between the law and the gangsters is their uniforms.
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