Things are about
to get messy in Rio.
The Rio+20
environmental [sic] conference is going to blast millions of tons of pollution
into the air, clog traffic, generate thousands of tons of waste and overload
the already taxed sewage system while purporting to resolve global
environmental issues. Not that I’m skeptical, but unless we convince China and the
USA to back off of coal consumption, or convince Brazilians and Indians to stop
buying petrol consuming cars, or design our cities a little more intelligently,
is there any way that this conference is going to do anything but make things
worse? In the midst of a global economic crisis that not even the CRIBS have
managed to avoid the first thing on the long list of trivial concerns is the
environment. Second is health care, third education. As Zizek has told us, the
capitalists can’t live without the environmentalists and vice versa, making
them part of the cycle of creative destruction that keeps our happy globe
tilted at 23.5 degrees.
The solutions
for our collective problems are more likely to come from the parallel conference of the Cúpula dos
Povos that will take place on the Aterro do Flamengo between the 15th
and 23rd of June. While the VVIPs and heads of state are shutting
down the city with their motorcades, regular people will be discussing more serious
issues than the medieval concept of carbon credits (which to my mind are much
like paying the Pope for indulgences). I’ll be giving a talk at the session
sponsored by the Conselho Federal de Psciologia on the 15th in their
session: A Psicologia e o Compromisso com a Construção do Bem Comum (Psychology
and the Promise to Construct the Common Good).More specifically, we’ll be
talking about Direito
Humano à Mobilidade: Crimes de Trânsito e Meio Ambiente (The Human Right
to Mobility: Crimes of Transit and Environment). Should be interesting.
Federal
Universities, meanwhile, have just entered into greve, that is, we’re striking.
This is a huge novelty for someone who worked at universities in the southern
USA, where it was/is ILLEGAL to form a union of state workers. There hasn’t been a
real wage increase at Brazilian federal universities in ten years, the
buildings are falling apart, and there is a noticeable shift towards the
privatization of public institutions, ala the recent turns in the UK (that
followed the sad trends in the USA). There is probably still some lingering
perception out there that the Worker’s Party is a leftist government. While
they do have some progressive
policies, the general trend is towards privatization and letting the invisible
hand of the market wiggle in mysterious ways. Most people get a solitary and salutary
finger, while a chosen few get rather more happy endings.
The strike at
Federal Universities means more, not less, work for professors and students.
The demands and justifications for the strike can be found here (in Portuguese).
The IOC is
visiting Rio this week for another series of closed meetings. Transparency
continues to be a major problem.
The Vila Autôdromo,
long targeted by our Sun King mayor for removal
has proposed an alternative plan for urbanization of the community. The Vila is
located in the northwest corner of the Olympic Park project, but was included
in AECOM’s winning design, even figuring in the 30 year urbanization plan.
However, Snoozman at the COB has said that there needs to be a transportation
link between the Olympic Village being constructed by Carvalho Hosken (at a
cost of R$500,000 per apartment) and the Olympic Park and that this
transportation line needs to pass
through the Vila Autôdromo. Right. Now that there is a counter proposal on the
table and the entire world is watching to see what the government is going to
do, let’s see if they decide to do the right thing and open a conversation with
the Residents’Association.
There will be a
march from the Vila Autôdromo to the site of the Rio+20 conference on the 20th
of June, starting at 8am.
I lived in Fortaleza in the mid 1980's and the University Professors were all striking then...for the same things!
ReplyDeleteAlso - I think your comments on the PT tending toward privatization are interesting. Do you feel they're moving right because they philosophically feel that is the best direction for a country, i.e. Brazil, or simply to keep the investment fluid (like China)?
Don't you think they are not exclusive? Is not keeping the investment fluid one of the major priorities that make the right be the right?
ReplyDeleteKeeping the investment fluid is one way of describing what is going on, another is to say that this is a transfer of public wealth to private interests. I think all governments want to have money circulating but what they do with that money is the difference between right and left. The rightward lurch of the PT is taking public money, investing it in fixed goods, and then handing those gods over to private companies. The risk is entirely public and the profits private. If and where and when there is return on the public investment, it is unclear that that money will then be invested into social goods.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the PT is able to act independently of the coalition of business interests that call the shots in Brazil, anymore than Obama, say, is able to change agricultural subsisies in the USA, even thoug hit would be the "left" thing to do.
I agree with Antonio that priming the pump of investment with public money (subisides, tax exemptions, PPPs, etc) is what makes the right, right, and so very wrong at the same time.