Cops are NOT the "tools of capitalism".

Cops are agents of the state. IF the state is a capitalist state they (in effect) support capitalism. But IF the state is a socialist state then they support socialism.

The proper question to ask in EITHER case is whether the form of the state expresses the will of the people or not (are the cops supporting the will of the people or opposing the will of the people). And this question has to be asked in all honesty, in terms of what the will of the people IS, not what it should be.

If you imagine that the socialist state of your dreams wouldn't have the same cop issues then you know little about the historical arguments between most leftists and the anarchists.

Although the protests started over a 20 cent raise in bus fares (which has now due to the massive protests been rescinded), increasingly the protests are also about police violence - in the everyday life on the streets and at the protests which have been met with excessive use of tear gas, rubber bullets and random beating of people.

Last night in Rio the cops got their revenge on the crowd after last Sunday's demo where some of them were beat and the Legislative Assembly was attacked. They prevented a crowd of 1 million people from marching up to Maracana stadium (where the Confederation Cup match was on) by attacking the crowd as it reached City Hall. They were desperate not to let so many people go to newly rebuilt Maracana, a symbol of the excesses of investment and corruption for the forthcoming World Cup 2014 and Olympics 2016 and a site of contunuing protests.

The cops scattered the large crowd throughout the city (they has closed all the Metro stations downtown) and just spent all night gassing and beating anyone in the way. Bars and restaurants were tear gassed as people sought sanctuary.

There were also militant protests in Salvador, Recife, Campinas, Porto Alegre and lot of other towns and cities across Brazil yesterday. An estimated 100 places saw some kind of protests.

The tone of the article is a fair tone given that the IMC newswire is heavily over-represented by articles about the EDL and Antifa. The IMC newswire is always going to represent what people want and given the over-representation of the EDL, and the fact that only articles about the EDL gather the most interaction ( number of following comments ), it is clear that IMC is not currently the best vehicle for analysis of the Brazillian protests.

IMC was a coherent vehicle for the anti-Capitalist/anti-Globalist movement but people left as the nationalists moved in. Nothing was done about that.

As far as the Arab Spring/Brazillian/Turkish/Occupy and other movements are concerned...it is best to leave IMC and take up other better vehicles of inclusion.

IMC is a resillient vehicle and the people involved have been at this for a long time.

I think the way forward at this point is to look for opportunities to make the most of the fact that the MSM has now become a walled community. Freedom of speech is seriously being undermined by the MSM business models. You cannot now comment on ANY British newspaper or media outlet without being forced to surrender your identity to US corporations...the same corporations that are clearly spying on anybody stupid enough to use them.

IMC UK now has a serious and demanding opportunity to press home the advantage here, while at the same time casting off its nationalist free-loaders. Anonymous commenting is now entirely owned by the IMC UK outfit.

Good luck whatever you choose to do.

:)

The Left can get so naive about public protests.

Doesn't it sound a little odd that Brazilians would complain about the World Cup?

Brazil has seen a transformation of its society where the number of poor people have decreased and where there has been economic growth. The government is anti-American and progressive.

Although, the Left know nothing of this, we are also on the verge of a major change to the economic order where countries like Brazil become far more important. We have seen this with the G8 which spent most of its time on Syria rather than global economics. The important forum is the G20, where Brazil has a major voice, not the G8.

According to Newsnight's Paul Mason, these protests are by the middle-class and organised by social media. Classic techniiques of Mark Brzezinski and the Albert Einstein Institute's colour revolution.

The reasons behind these protests sound weak because they are not the reason why the protesters are being moblised. The aim of this protest is a coup - to replace a progressive government by the opposition party which is pro-American.