Well I have just come back from a nice week in Rio de Janeiro. I entered the new year at Copacabana Beach… with around 2.5 million other people. (Yep 2.5 MILLION) The police seemed pretty bored watching what has been every year the most peaceful mass gathering of people on earth IMHO. No flying bottles, fighting or punches… no terrorists and no shootouts. Countdown finished and a few tons of fireworks later everyone was alive and no one was injured or scared.
Up north it seems that everyone was being frisked before entering Times Square in NYC. If you were planning to fly in from Paris your flight was probably canceled. If your were a US soldier in Baghdad... so sorry. Orange alert, delayed and canceled flights and lots of terrorist warnings. Better stay home ? I guess most americans are terrorism alert weary and didn't mind it... or didn't care at all. Or were packing extra food in case there was a dirty bomb somewhere.
So I ask… Was all that fuss, “alerts” and cancellations really helpful and warranted ? How much is just for show ?
How long can americans keep living like this ? Everytime you have a holiday they will keep popping terrorist warnings ?
Is US hegemony worth the hassle of living like someone in the witness protection program ?
Or am I just making unfair comparisons of my lovely beach experience to other less fortunate locations ?
I spent a nice time at the beach and I saw thousands and thousands of foreigners of all types. Everyone was wearing white… “gringos”, poor, rich… everyone was having fun… not a worry in the world. Many foreigners threw white flowers into the sea following the traditional african religion. No Homeland Security in sight… no Orange alerts… no Terrorists. I highly recommend it.
So, is there a Great Debate here? Brazil is wonderful and the United States sucks? Were you just too tired to travel to the appropriate forum, like Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share?
Having lived in Brazil (Jundiai) for several months, I am not in the least suprised that Rio police ‘seemed pretty bored’. With plentiful drug gangs, a murder rate over three times higher than Americas, and larcency so rampant that it boggles the mind, ‘pretty bored’ police are certainly part of the problem.
Don’t get me wrong, Rashak. To this day, churrascaria remain my favorite style of restaurant. Great looking women in Brazil. But to compare Brazil to America, and infer that Brazil is somehow more ‘secure’? Ridiculous. You may be safer from Al Queda, but there are plenty of other things to worry about.
Well Brutus I was just comparing the New Eves party… I could scarcely beleive how many flights cancelled, alerts and frisking was going elsewhere as compared to a normally crime ridden Rio. ( Thought the New Year thing is incredibly calm… doesn’t even seem the same city. )
I noticed no one answered my questions… the comparison was more for show. That a normally violent Rio could be better than prosperous US is the sign of times ? Americans are rich but now live behind a fence of suspicions and paranoia ?
Oh, I forgot. According to the UN Human Development Report:
USA ranks #7
Brazil ranks #65
% of population below the poverty level from the CIA World fact book:
USA = 13%
Brazil = 22%
(And I’d hazard a guess that someone living at the poverty level in the US has maybe an eensy bit better living standard than his Brazilian counterpart).
If you want a Great Debate about which country is “better”, come with some facts, not you’re personal anecdotes.
Happy New Year, RM. I wish I had celebrated it in Rio as well. Believe it or not, we talked about going there, but just never actually made the arrangements. But it’s on my list!
The sad truth is that the US is at war with Al Qaeda right now. Perhaps if Brazil were the sole superpower in the world you guys would do a better job at it than we have. I hope you get the opportunity to find out.
Well is being a superpower worth the hassle of living like that ? What is the point of prosperity if you have to go through all this hassle… and for how long ?
This reminds me of the rich people in Colombia… always with loads of body guards and huge security arrangements. Living behind their castle walls. Shitty life ? Still they prefer that to dealing with the problems of poverty.
I believe the OP already has determined what he feels the correct answers to his questions should be, so there’s no debate here. On the vanishingly small chance that he actually wants and would listen to sincere answers, however, I’ll have a go:
I have no particular reason to believe that the alert was purely for show, and nether do you. Raising the security level costs local municipalities, and each, state, huge amounts of money. Even an administration as tin-eared as this one must realize that the population, and state/local governements, are not going to take it seriously if they ratchet up the alert level purely on the basis of it being one holiday or another.
Long as we feel we have to and are willing to put up with it. It’s not all THAT bad, actually. I traveled from Texas to Pennsylvania and back by air over a five-day period around Christmas, and the security didn’t seem much more of a pain in the ass than it has at any given point since 9/11. The worst was an extra ten minutes as the rental car shuttle took a roundabout route to the Philly airport terminal.
You’ll have to ask someone in government about that. Why do you assume that just because I’m American, I support US “hegemony”? BTW, your comparison to the witness protection program makes no sense. More like persons the government is afraid of.
I mentioned in another thread that while driving up I-95 from D.C. to philly, all the overhead road signs read “Report suspicious behavior”. Pretty Orwellian, I must admit. Know what I did? Not a fucking thing. I didn’t see anyone I deemed suspicious and so didn’t report anyone. Not that I’d know what ‘suspicious’ means anyway. BTW, I like to photograph highways, bridges and railroads. So far no one has turned me in as suspicious, so I’m not sure there’s all that much paranoia about.
RM:
Just so you know (I’m sure your only concerned about my personal safety), I spent New Years in San Francisco. It was a great time, and the idea of a terror attack never once enterred our minds. I haven’t changed anything about the way I live my life, thank-you-very-much.
France cancelled their flights to Los Angeles. If there’s a show being put on I guess it’s being put on by more then one nation. As to whether it was helpful or warranted…who knows? After all you don’t really know if they’re helpful until you either catch someone or they blow up something.
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As long as we’re under threat and hold events where large numbers of people gather in small spaces.
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We’re not living like we’re in the witness protection program. Is a peaceful New Years worth all the poverty, corruption, and squalor found in your country?
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We’re all very happy for you. If we just say Brazil is better will that make you even happier?
Gee, I dunno, maybe the mass grave of twenty-eight hundred people about two miles south had something to do with it?
And you know how many people were arrested? Ten. All night. All released immediately except for a couple of drunks. Not one partygoer was hurt or mugged and tiny children were there in the Square totally safe. How about Rio? How many knives and bottles of alcohol were confiscated? How many muggings were there? I’m sure the papers reported it.
No muggings or knives… somehow the new year in Copacabana is always a truce. Or better said 2 weeks before and after too. I still wonder how it happens… especially with so much drinking and people. The tourists had naught to fear but sunburn. (One guy did drown apparently… drunkness and swimming don’t go well together.)
I am happy that in Times Square nothing happened but ten arrested… but with that much security only a real terrorist would have been a menace. If there were real terrorists anywhere close of course…
The status of “Super Power” is a recent chapter in the history of the United States and it was shoved up our backsides by the events of WWII. It was not a consciouse effort or master plan by any politician. The US at the start of WWII was not the same as the US that ended WWII.
Money can’t buy happiness but the freedom to earn money suggests a broader range of lifestyle choices. That, IMO is what defines the nature of “Americans”, the ability to choose your destiny.
Not that I want to preach history... but the US has been climbing the power ladder since the end of the 1800's. So its not so recent. US isolationism caved in with WWII would be more appropiate.
Not making propaganda of Rio... it really deserves it during the end of year Holidays. At other times of course more caution and care is necessary... but its still a very beautiful city. (Unless you hate beaches and warm/hot weather). I must warn you guys that the Gay tourism is pretty high these days too... not that I might discriminate... but it sure is very prevalent.
I have been to Rio 4-5 times for the New Years Eve at the Beach… its still amazes me how so many people together in the same place and no trouble… really mind boggling.
I would love to hear to what you attribute this temporary change. I’ve been to New Year’s and carnival celebrations in the US, Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Jamaica and Mexico, and the rate of crime in all those countries never seemed to differ from what it was the rest of the year.
Well I still wonder... so I might not have all the answers. Some factors though:
A lot of people leave the city to visit families in other states. Criminals too. The city becomes way less crowded and traffic jams, that help motorcycle using thieves, become very rare.
Tourism is very high in this period… its a lot of money for the city and the hotels. So the police are deployed heavily in the beach and hotel areas. Which means that most criminals know its stupid to try anything in this period before the New Year. By the time its New Year Eve not much police is necessary… also with a very crowded beach and roads its very hard to escape quickly with robbed stuff.
Drinking also tends to start 11 PM onwards… most tourists and brazilians take time to get ready after a long day at the beach. So drunkness is less common and happens 2-3AM onwards when the beach isn’t full.
Finally tourists are major drug clients… they have lots of cash. So drug lords in the surrounding shantytowns tend to impose a “dont touch the tourists” law. Robbed and pissed tourists have less tendency to snort cocaine and smoke pot ?
Another period where you can walk with a rolex and fear nothing is near Carnival... once again high tourist period. Especially when you visit the special preparatory "sessions" within the shantytown Carnival groups. They are like big dances with only Samba of course... I myself went into one of the most dangerous shantytowns to see my favorite Samba School play. They say anyone who robs a visitor during these nights is killed by the drug lords... criminally enforced law is way more effective. You could leave your car open and they won't touch it.
Not that I want to deny you your history lesson but if I enjoy anything, it’s history. The concept of a Superpower didn’t exist in the US prior to WWII. Most of the land grabs were done with a wallet and a flag pole. We just wanted to see what the Sun looked like when it set on the Pacific side.
You can probably give Theodore Roosevelt most of the credit for gun-boat diplomacy with his creation of Panama. These were turn of the century events that did not, by themselves, make the US a superpower. I would go so far as to say that WWI did a lot to reverse thoughts of extending US power abroad. When WWII came along we were completely unprepared. My father trained with a wooden gun in boot camp.
Correct Magiver… the other poster seemed to imply that the US popped up suddenly from obscurity into superpowerdom. Which is not true… economically speaking at least.
The US army in 1914 was smaller than Portugal’s army… and in 1939 was pretty pathetic in size too. They naturally got quite sometime to build up in peace.
