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Meanwhile our own government has had some stupid ideas concerning the separation of judiciary power from the other two. Sounds spooky so I am mildly concerned, but I also doubt it's going to be a permanent change. Bringing it up because of comparison.
(Also a heads-up: For the purpose of not-backtalking, if we're going to keep talking about him, I'm going to link him here.)
I've actually meant to ask you about that Poland stuff at some point, I often hear how the party in power is trying to concentrate, well, power, so...
Anyhows, I replied to him, and I can 'ping' him like this: @MillerCross, but there's no guarantee that he notices. Since
you follow him(edit: he follows you), if you feel like it, you can PM him and tell him.On the usual updates...
I think Trump's honeymoon within the PSUV is finally over. They've begun treating him the same way they treat whoever is the current US president.
For July 20th the MUD had announced a national strike. Not long ago that was an extremely controvertial idea (more on that later), but it was widely followed, completely paralyzing some major cities. Unfortunately it did not go without fatalities. Three people died: another tear gas cannister murder (according to witnesses, it was an execution), a rioter caught in the fire they set on a public building, and a man suffered a stroke after a naziguard launched a cannister at his home.
Padrino López wants to become a memelord just like Oscar Pérez (the helicopter dude), the problem is that he sucks at it.
The Organization of American States released a report on torture here. In addition to the beatings, strippings and shit-eating that we already knew about, they also mention lewd acts on detainess, including forcing to do such acts on each other, and four more rapes, again one being penetrated with a rifle (it might be the same I think I mentioned a while ago) and another with a pipe.
The big news is that the Assembly just up and "swore in" the new magistrates. I don't remember if the PSUV participated in their designation ages ago, I don't think they did. Anyhow, as I understand the new ones are unremarkable, which probably has to do that with the old!Tribunal's threats to have them jailed, thinning the competition. The only obvious partisanship* I'm aware of is one having been a legal advisor for Popular Will and another having been an Assembly candidate for Homeland for Everyone (which would be partisan the other way around).
* unless being an university professor or member of the Penal Forum counts as a partisan position.
At any rate, things are going to get awkward, what with having two judicial powers.
For some reason, my thirst for news seems to be coming back, perhaps because we're one week away from absolutism day.
I see, that's pretty silly given the track record of despotism not really boosting equality all that much.
Anyhows, a quick update:
A new!magistrate (Ángel Zerpa) has been arrested already.
The MUD called for a march in favour of the new magistrates. The turnout was kind of low. The repression was harsh, but fortunately there were no fatalities.
The MUD has called for a 48 hours strike, including the unfortunate phrase by Andrés Velásquez: "stock food because we're going to fight", it's been a while since we've had the luxury to do that.
There's a lot of uncertainty in the air. Violent clashes are expected to happen this Sunday (Constituent Assembly vote), the government is not backing down, things are getting more and more radical/desperate on the opposition side (I wonder if I count as a moderate now), and of course, the Constituent Assembly itself, so...
The Assembly's plan to create a new Tribunal with blackjack and hookers is not going very well. Two more new!magistrates have been arrested already.
Colombia and Peru have already begun preparations for a possible refugee crisis, they've started working on legislation on work visas and stuff. I hope we don't end up needing them. On a related note 26000 Venezuelans crossed the border to Colombia last monday, although this counts the people that went to stock food in preparation for this past week.
Speaking of said week, the 48 hour strike was seemingly a success, although not as soundly as the earlier one and with certain "important" places that didn't join in. I don't think this is something we can keep up with doing too often.
More US sanctions! 13 more chumps have had their imperial bank accounts frozen and are no longer allowed to go there, so no more Disney World for them. Come to think of it, a few noteworthy sanctionees have jumped ship lately (the most notable one being Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz), so maybe they needed some convincing or there were negotiations involved. At any rate, that's a strike against the hypothesis that personal sanctions backfire and helps hold the regime together.
The right to assembly has been officially revoked. As of last friday protests and such are forbidden per Minister of Peace Nestor Reverol, although at this point I don't think many protesters will listen.
Anyhows, that dreaded day is here, the day the PSUV gives itself absolute power. It hasn't been cancelled or anything so here we go. The most unremarkable outcome I can think of is that they do grant himself absolute power but then proceed to do nothing with it, like with the latest enabling law and the eight or so economic emergency periods. Anyways, expect happenings.
So yeah, things have kept escalating.
The Nazional Electoral Council claims they got a bit over 8 million votes, considerably more than what Maduro got in 2013 and way above what the PSUV got in 2015, and is barely below what the Galactic Corpse got in 2012, all this despite the fact that people hate their guts now. With a clearly fake and gay figure to show for it, the topic came back about how the Electoral Council is useless and should be disregarded. Then again, not like numbers really mattered in the first place.
So... what now?
As for updates:
Three important sources have claimed that the elections were fraudulent:
This seems to confirm that the final result was simply made up, unlike 2013's elections where the accusation was about ballot stuffing. Also unlike previous elections, the vote results per ballot hasn't been released, this is what is normally used to know if physical votes cast correspond to those from voting machines (which isn't too relevant since the MUD had no electoral witnesses this time) and more importantly, if the final result was made up, this would allow one to see inconsistencies.
Then again, every one of those votes is fraudulent regardless of the official or actual results on the basis that the Constituent Assembly was called for fraudulently.
Dozens of foreign governments have stated they will not recognize the Constituent Assembly, and the government has received numerous threats about sanctions, getting kicked out of international organizations, etc.
Speaking of which, the US govt. has sanctioned Maduro himself, forbidding striking deals with him, etc.
Things haven't been going well in the opposition camp either: despite the fact that we knew what was going to happen doesn't make it any less demoralizing. More importantly, as is usual now the MUD is having the usual moderates vs. radicals internal conflict on the basis of the (maybe) upcoming regional elections and whether they should participate. The PSUV just committed their biggest fraud so far, they have a Communist Assembly at their disposal and even ignoring all that, a new constitution means governors (and all other elected positions) would need to be renewed anyways, so you'd think we'd have other things to worry about, but as usual there are those who claim that it's worth participating. At any rate, it seems Democratic Action is going in.
I've been thinking... as you can see from previous posts we seem to be developing a proto-guerrilla. With a Constituent Assembly going and the MUD in disarray, it doesn't seem that things will get better anytime soon. The prospect of a civil war seems to be getting more likely as time goes by, and, well...
Edit: Almost forgot. Leopoldo and Ledezma (reminder: Caracas' metropolitan mayor that got jailed then sent to house arrest years ago), both of whom have still kept making videos and stuff, were kidnapped by the SEBIN deep into the night and presumably sent back to jail, although their location is not currently known.
Several of the Assembly's magistrates have already requested and been granted asylum at the embassies of Chile (6 magistrates) and Panama (2).
A bunch of central and municipal authorities in El Tigre, Anzoátegui (including mayor Jesús Figurea) did operation "Surprise", where they looked into some stores owned by Asian people for products with increased prices and forced them to slash said prices. They were explicit about looking into Asian businesses and that they were seeking to make an example for other Asian businesses out of them.
The currency exchange rate of course hasn't stopped its hike, but what's been going on is on another level. It almost doubled in about a week, and is now ~19000 Bs.F./$. Several economists are speaking seriously about the possibility of real-deal hyperinflation (>50% per month), if so this would make us the only oil country to have done so.
It seems my worries about both sides escalating things and devolving into a civil war were badly misplaced, Democratic Action's little antic about going to regional elections costed the MUD a lot of their earned trust. Things just kind of stopped abruptly. The MUD only called for one activity this week, a march in Caracas against the Constituent Assembly, with pitiful assistance and thus got easily put out. And so it seems we're back to "normal" were the government abuses us and there's nothing we can do about it.
Of course the news of the moment are regarding the Constituent Assembly.
A bunch of collectives protested the Constituent Assembly results, claiming that "their" candidates won but had their victory disregarded by the National Electoral Council (results per-candidate hadn't been published yet).
So the Communist Assembly is in. First things first they're staying true to their threats against the Prosecutor Office and the National Assembly, starting with the first. The Tribunal simply said the Prosecutor would be changed, next morning its offices were raided by naziguards and hours later the Communist Assembly simply kicked her out of her position and put in Ombudsman Tarek William Saab instead. Note that he's still ombudsman, that is, he's both prosecutor and the one whose most important job is keeping the prosecutor in check.
Also, Chávez' and the 'chavist Bolívar' portraits were brought back to the Federal Legislative Palace, which works as symbolism for our defeat. It really stings.
It took a while, but I think I'm finally losing my faith in Venezuela...
I think I'm going to go play video games.
Less than an hour later there was a skirmish at Fort Paramacay in Valencia, Carabobo. Apparently a group of rebel soldiers attacked and temporarily took over the fort before being repelled/captured. There's a shitload of obscurity in what went on, but apparently the rebels managed to steal loads of weaponry. The misinformation was not helped by the fact that things went apeshit with people claiming there were attacks in other places, declarations from other parts of the military against the government, etc. (see 'disreputable' above), but at any rate, this time 'something' did happen.
Interestingly, the government has been trying to minimize this, most notably by claiming that besides Capt. Caguaripano they were all civilians and that there were only 7 of them (they weren't many, but not that few), along with the usual stuff about how the Armed Forces are monolithic, how they immediately put it down, etc. Although of course in the following days they're going to blame the country's problems on this/us, I find it noteworthy that not as important as pretending everything is alright there.
Besides that, the two most interesting things I can point out is that this looks like evidence that there's real disaffection within the Armed Forces, and that this gives credence to the most conspiranoid parts of the opposition and in particular to Patricia Poleo (our version of Mario Silva) who was the one to reveal the 2014 Capt. Caguaripano video. Interesting she also claimed Julio Borges snitched his operation to the government.
I'm seriously considering whether I should keep track of those kinds of 'rumors' the same way I do with everything else in this thread.
Also I seem I was wrong again last post in that a civil war seems completely possible now.
Anyhows, on non-Operation-David update
s: The Guri dam has been overflowing due to the fact the government had maintained its gates closed for too long, causing many parts of the city of Puerto Ordáz to get flooded.Edit: Oh yeah, one reason they explained how they failed to prevent a few dudes from taking over the fort was because "it's Sunday and the soldiers were resting."
ACTUAL POST AFTER THIS SECTION
I haven't talked much about him, because I thought he was now an unimportant nodoby, but, Miguel Rodríguez Torres has been growing as a notable figure within the "anti-Madurist Chavism". You might remember Rodríguez Torres as the former Minister of Peace and especially in his involvement in 2014's state terrorism and is one of the people I've insulted the most in this thread.
National Assembly takeover and robbery
Luisa Ortega Díaz
Jailed mayors
Vente Venezuela, AKA María Corina's party, has broken with the MUD over the regionals thing.
Trump military intervention
General Baduel disappeared.
White supremacy
Homeland Card for universities entry.
CaracolTV, radio stations closure
Puerto Ayacucho massacre.
I'm not arrogant enough not to admit that my views aren't entirely my own and that I'm heavily influenced by people I look up to. Right now those people are divided on the issue of regional elections and the MUD partaking in it, so... well, I don't know what to do.
I really messed up when I put Tarek William Saab as Lawful Neutral on that alignment chart I made, it's been made clear these past months that he doesn't belong anywhere outside the evil category. Also if I had made a third chart prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz would've been in the Lawful Evil category. It's wouldn't have been a wrong assessment but she's also been the biggest candidate for redemption.
I think I'm going to stay away from news for a while, I have things to do that I have actual power to affect, like getting good at 3D modelling, playing the upcoming Touhou game, hitting walls, continuing the MIT EECS courses, [REDACTED], getting good at Overwatch, look up memes, etc.
[REDACTED]
More history, now with personal accounts from yours truly. Did you know one of the things that make you realize you're getting old is that stuff that happened while you were around is now part of history?
Chávez begins (1999-2003): And so begins Chávez' government. First things first, during the swearing ceremony he swore "upon this dying constitution". Now, Chávez had promised that he'd hold a National Constituent Assembly (hint hint). For some reason it's not part of the picture but it's important, so...
Unlike the current one, Constituent Assemblies were not recognized by the 1961 constitution, so Chávez had to rely on the article that said that "sovereignty resides untransferably on the people" and thus he can call for a binding referendum on it. A loose interpretation, but for some reason the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice agreed with it (and they weren't bought off or anything), and so Constituent Assembly is go.
All of this
And if you're wondering, having your country's name and flag changed feels as awkward as you'd expect.
The artist is well within the softie side of the opposition, so his opinion towards the more radical side of it is not very favourable and by extention is very critical of what we did during those early years back when we were kind of crazy).
Un profesor de la UBV socialista chavista PSUVista y miembro de colectivo estaba dando una clase de Hugo Chávez, un reconocido revolucionario.
"Antes de que empiece la clase, pónganse rodilla en tierra y oren un Chávez Nuestro al ser más revolucionario que haya conocido el mundo, ¡incluso más que Simón Bolívar!"
En este momento, un valiente, patriótico opositor duro que ha armado miles de guarimbas y entiende la necesidad de que se prenda un peo y se ha opuesto a cada decision del gobierno se levantó y mostró una bolsa de Harina PAN.
"¿Qué es esto?"
El arrogante profesor sonrió muy cubanamente y respondió "una Harina PAN, maldito escuálido."
"No. Es harina de maíz producida por Lorenzo Mendoza. Si hay una guerra económica como dices, esta Harina PAN no existiría."
El profesor quedó impactado y se le cayó su tiza y Carné de la Patria. Salió corriendo del salón derramando lágrimas chavistas de cocodrilo. Las mismas lágrimas que los chavistas lloran por los pobres (que ahora son tan pobres que no tienen neveras) cuando envidiosamente tratan de quitarle sus ganancias a los empresarios. Sin duda nuestro profesor, Jesús Silva, hubiera deseado haberse dedicado a algo y volverse más que un profesor chavista trasnochado. Deseaba tanto tener yuca amarga para suicidarse, ¡pero él mismo hizo que escaseara!
Los estudiantes aplaudieron y ese día se organizaron como miembros de la Resistencia y aceptaron a Julio Coco como su salvador. Un guacamayo llamado "Oposición" voló al salón, se montó sobre la bandera venezolana y derramó una lágrima sobre la tiza. Se cantó el himno nacional varias veces y Simón Bolívar apareció en persona y privatizó todo en el país.
El profesor perdió su titularidad y fue expulsado al dia siguiente. Murió de cancer de colon por la maldición del sarcófago de Bolívar y se está quemando por fuego de molotov por toda la eternidad.
¡Y va a caeeeer, Y va a caeeeer, este gobierno va a caeeeer!
ACTUAL POST STARTS HERE
The above is what my draft usually looks like in this thread.
The thing is that, well, you know, it has become kind of difficult for me to write these updates and stuff. Things are looking extremely bleak now, more than they've ever looked since... the Federal War, maybe? So actually sitting down and writing about all the shit that's been going on is... stressing? Frustrating? I don't know. And trust me, a lot of shit has been happening this last month. Posting silly puns, memes or calling people I hate nazis is no longer helping, and it's not like I have the power to do anything about this that warrants me keeping track of on-goings, so rather than trying to go on with a grueling task I think it's time to put these updates to rest, at least for a while.
Sorry if anybody here wanted this to continue. If you want to keep track of on-goings, caracaschronicles.com is easily the best English resource for such, and in Spanish I recommend either el-nacional.com or if you don't mind provocative headlines and somewhat-yellow journalism, lapatilla.com (NSFW). If at any time anybody has questions about stuff I'll be glad to answer.
Hopefully at some point there will be more news worth celebrating instead.
If anyone above sixteen resorts to Tibia of all things, then matters are serious indeed. (If someone talks to you in grammatically correct Polish, then it's probably another Venezuelan.)
But yeah, things have been doing nothing but worsening lately, and there's little prospect that they'll keep getting worse.
i dun gedit
Also, my draft is getting huge, at one point I'd have to post it so might as well do it now:
social networks censorship
Lilian 200 000 Bs.F. (~12 000 $)
Maracaibo power outages. One happened literally when I started typing the first three words of this paragraph's draft.
Venephobia.
Nicolas Maduro: Venezuela is Venezuela; fucked up, but happy.
The Assembly's Supreme Tribunal of Justice has seated itself at the Organization of American States.
Regional elections. My voting center was desolate. Also no inked pinky finger thing. It's a bummer, everybody loves the inked pinky finger thing.
The minimum wage is now under 10 $/month at the black market rate. By the by, here the average wage is closer to the minimum wage compared to other countries, so this statistic is even more damning than it sounds at first. This is why I'm so enthusiastic about MTurk.
I once dreamt it was voting day, but that the PSUV had made it so than when it's time to vote you have to look through a pile of voting certificates for somebody who had already voted and had the same name as you, and you only had a couple minutes to do so. I looked really hard for a certificate from someone with my name, to no avail. Also Vladimir Villegas was the voting table manager, and he was really helpful and nice, but still couldn't help me vote.
Guanipa's election thievery
David Smolansky, Freddy Guevara persecution.
Hyperinflation
Petro. One Petro is equivalent to 0.00001 menes :DDDDD
Rafael Ramírez
Municipal elections. This was the first time I broke the promise I made myself years ago not to abstain.
Lootings
One of our refineries abroad was taken over by the Empire. And by "Empire" of course I mean the Cuban Empire. The Cienfuegos refinery there in which we inverted money (an undisclosed amount, because transparency is a bourgeois concept) was taken over citing debts. The idea that we owe them anything rather than them owing shitloads of money is indeed dubious, then again it's probably just another case of high treason.
Oscar Pérez assault
Nacronephews' 18 year sentence.
Electrical failures
Pork riots
Oscar Pérez. Shots to the head. RPG. Bodies. [REDACTED]
Leopoldo/Lilian's daughter.
venephobia again, molotov cocktails
Colombia refugee camps
Presidential elections schedule.
Un profesor de la UCV opositor guarimbero estaba dando una clase de Carlos Andrés Pérez, un reconocido oligarca.
"Antes de que empiece la clase, pónganse de rodillas y alaben al mejor lider que ha conocido el país, incluso mejor que Hugo Chávez!"
En ese momento, un valiente y patriótico chavista
[More redacted]
Explanation: I don't know about right now, but Tibia earned a reputation for being a playing ground for sociopathic primary and junior high kids with the assorted spelling problems. Many memes.
Is influenza a big thing in Venezuela right now? If so I wonder if that might be relevant.
I know it's hugely widespread in the United States right now, has been for like a month or so. and apparently it's also in other parts of the world, like Hong Kong.
I feel such a disclaimer will come in handy in the future.
As before I'll dump my draft here (also if I ever start posting regularly again, I intend to go back and fill in the details):
Even our souls don't escape from scarcity. Waffer scarcity.
Father Bertuccio is one of the candidates. This should tell you everything you need to know about him.
It used to be the case that if we were to pay anything with cash, we'd have to use packful of bills or sometimes literal bags or boxes. Now they're completely scarce.
Maracaibo transport. People in kids' trains
More blackouts. It's been a week with a consistent daily 2h blackout, along with "blinks" throughout the rest of the day.
Misses corruption
Rodríguez Torres arrest.
Rationing schedule
Supersayan Bolivar
Maestro Abreu
Remember this post? See the guy on the right here? His name is Richard Peñalver, and after that he became a red hero for his valiant act of shooting at unarmed opposition protesters (the reds claim his group were returning fire). So what came of it? Why, it's not known if there's PSUV infighting threatening him or he's as sick of our situation as the rest of us, but either way he's fleeing the country and is seeking asylum in Cuba.
lol of course not, socialists don't do that sort of thing. He's seeking asylum in Spain.
Also, for the longest time I thought the claim was that those shooters were oppositors, but apparently not, and now I'm wondering if I was confused about something or this was the reds being inconsistent.
Maduro brain drain
Parallel parallel rate
Gaby Arellano detention order
PDVSA production's decline has been accelerating, it's now half of what it used to be at the beginning of the revolution. There's the very real possibility that we stop being an oil country.
More blackouts. 8 hours/day average.
Banesco arrests
Remember the tsunami of lawsuits from expropriated oil companies years ago? It's finally time to pay, ConocoPhillips has begun seizing assets, and now our tankers can't leave our waters without risking seizure. And that's only the beginning of Petroleums not being of Venezuela.
Kelloggs left.
Another National Assembly attack.
Helicoide riots.
Un profesor opositor guarimbero pitiyanqui burgués de la UCV estaba dando una clase de Carlos Andrés Pérez, un reconocido oligarca.
"Antes de que empiece la clase, pónganse de rodillas y alaben al mejor lider que ha conocido el país, incluso mejor que Hugo Chávez!"
En ese momento, un valiente y patriótico chavista, perteneciente a la FANB y que ha servido en 1500 emboscadas contra protestas y entiende la necesidad del socialismo y ha apoyado cada decision del gobierno se levantó y mostró una caja del CLAP.
"¿Qué hay en esta caja?"
El arrogante profesor sonrió muy judiamente y respondió "hay comida del CLAP, maldito chaburro".
"Es una caja con comida proporcionada por el gobierno. Si hubiera una crisis económica como dices, entonces esta caja no existiría."
El profesor quedó impactado y se le cayó su tiza y máscara de gas, salió corriendo derramando lágrimas escuálidas de cocodrilo. Las mismas lágrimas que los opositores lloran por los "pobres" (que ahora tienen tantos lujos que casi todos tienen neveras) cuando envidiosamente tratan de expropiarle la plusvalía a los trabajadores. Sin duda nuestro profesor, José Guerra, hubiera deseado haberse dedicado a su conuco y volverse más que un profesor opositor sifrino. Deseaba tanto tener pastillas para dormir para suicidarse, ¡pero su misma guerra económica hizo que escarsearan!
Los estudiantes aplaudieron y ese día se unieron a colectivos y aceptaron a Nicolás Maduro como su presidente obrero. Un pajarito llamado "Hugo Chávez" voló al salón, se montó sobre la bandera venezolana y derramó una lágrima sobre la tiza. Se cantó el Patria Querida varias veces y Ezequiel Zamora apareció en persona y nacionalizó todo en el país.
El profesor perdió su titularidad y fue expulsado al día siguiente. Murió de sensasión de inseguridad y se está asfixiando con gases lacrimógenos por toda la eternidad.
¡No volverán!
Managing an oil country is hard.
It's short so I might as well update:
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Maduro "won" the elections, garnering 5.8 million votes, with Henry Falcón* getting 1.8 million and Bertuccio (the God dude) a surprising 0.9 million. That's of course assuming the National Electoral Council numbers didn't make those numbers up, but whatever, he wasn't going to lose regardless.
* Quick rundown: Henry Falsón is a former PSUVer, governor of Lara until losing it a couple months ago, he's had his moments but he's been having clashes with the rest of the opposition these last several years, mainly due to his "hardline moderate" stance on everything (pretend elections are pristine, never relent from dialoguing with the govt., denounce those who protest, etc.) and more recently he broke the MUD's elections boycott, for these reasons he's seen with lots of suspicion within the opposition and so he was the perfect candidate for the PSUV to not bar from running.
Anyhow, lots of foreign governments are following through their threats not to recognize these elections, recalling their ambassadors and stuff. Also US president Donald Trump did some thing to prevent our govt. from selling their assets on US soil, I didn't know he could do such a thing but awesome.
Also since the elections there's been Nazipigs at loads of corners around here.
On non-elections news, Luis Posada Carriles has passed away. He was part of the SEBIN during the 60s back when it was called DIGEPOL, during which they commited many violations of human rights against guerrilla fighter groups. He then worked as a CIA agent commiting acts of terrorism against the Cuban government, including blowing up a commercial aircraft. Fast forward 2-4 decades he became a scapegoat to be used by the MVR/PSUV, despite at this point he being a retired old man in a wheelchair.
I often think that I'd be able to keep on if I had the assurance that things are going to start improving at some point, even if it's in something like 5-10 years. Alas, nobody knows the future.
Regardless, us falling into resignation is what our enemies want, so yeah, I better keep going.
Small update:
Since May a bunch of Armed Forces officials have been arrested for conspiracy. Normally I disregard these sort of news because they're made up by the government, but this time it's been confirmed by other sources, including the Penal Forum.
Also, some political prisoners are being released.
Some folks here in South Florida are now angry at said chef's restaurant in Miami.
I have a picture taken from what seems like some news source, that I saw posted by someone else. Is this, like, for real? Do they, like, walk around with these beauties like they didn't have enough batons for everyone?
If that sounds disappointing, they occasionally do wield some creepy huge hooks attached to chains, although that needs context (they use them for removing smoldering barricades). But of course, they don't need either to beat/shoot protesters.
Well, it seems that ship sailed a while ago.