From Society to Chaos in 30 Pesos per Ticket....

Thanks for the good vibage, y'all. Curfew announced for tonight again, 1900 - 0600. Here, and in four other major cities. Nuts, I tell ya'...

Little battle between protestors and army today in one of the main plazas downtown. Lots of rocks, tear gas, rubber bullets and the like. Lots of other peaceful protests, too. As the evening comes crazier stuff is happening. 5 dead in a fire that started in a supermarket being looted. Another fire in a major supermarket somewhere else in town. Reports of people driving around from area to area to loot different supermarkets. 

Night time's coming. Hopefully things start cooling down, hopefully the government will make some kind of actual progress on the deep issues. I'll keep you all posted as I can. :)

Thanks, Judit, LLTD and Lumber for the kind thoughts.

Ken, things are kind of settling down and kind of not. There's apparently less violence on the streets at night and in the evenings, there haven't been any more major supermarket fires or anything like that. I think the looting has stopped too. 

The problem is, now the army is unleashed on our streets. There's a State of Emergency (Constitutional Exception) declared in multiple areas, and people are not happy about it at all, myself included. Piñera is basically showing himself to be a product of the dictatorship, willing to oppress his people militarily and nothing in the speeches that he's given shows that he's actually working on any kind of real solution like the ones people are asking for. Last night was night 3 of curfew here in Santiago and like 8 or 9 other cities. Plus, there was a major health care workers strike organized for today, but I think it only went through in a few areas. Still, it's all part of it.

Schools are all closed, so I'm at home with my kids. Went to the supermarket today, waited in a line of about 2,000 people for it to open. I managed to get in and out quickly but it's chaos in there. Carts everywhere, people grabbing up what there is. Supermarkets close again at 1300 or 1400. Transportation is crazy now, too. Metro's at like 40% functioning. Extra buses everywhere. Protests don't stop though, but now more visible peaceful protests. Cops cleared them all the fuck out at curfew last night with the spray guns.

11 people dead so far. 4 confirmed kills by armed forces. 

On the plus side, people are rediscovering a sense of unity in that it's everyone against the government and a few rich elite. I know that sounds dangerous, and it is. There's a lovely kind of polite peace everywhere, everyone helping each other out, getting out of the way, opening doors...but the coals under the fire are burning. And if the government doesn't do something real, I don't know what will happen. I'm personally pretty sick of the choppers over my head every night.

Local businesses are being rediscovered, people are talking about the same thing as everywhere: tax the rich, lower the crazy insane political salaries, and basically, redistribution. It's very Marxist and simplistic in a sense, but man, the 1% here just let the pot boil for way too long all while MASSIVELY fucking the country, like with no respect, no shame, no sense of equity...Will I have to go back to work tomorrow? Maybe, probably. Talk to my students...while soldiers are on the streets. It's all pretty darn surreal...

Ken, the carabineros are also part of the armed forces, albeit the shoddiest branch in terms of training and whatnot. But there's no real fear of any branch of the armed forces breaking rank and creating coup or civil war conditions. Right now we have reasons to be optimist about what's coming, or at least, that's what's being sold to the public. But nobody wants the country to decay into lawlessness and war. There's a lot of talk about ex-FARC and other terrorist group members coordinating attacks here right now, and it's a very real possibility. If that's the case, then the situation will be even more complicated. Lots of attacks and fires and whatnot have all been curiously synchronistic and seemingly organized, and that's new here. But other than that, there's still a sense that we are all one country with the same goals. This has exceptions of course, on either extreme-fringe...

Hey y'all, just to let you know, for those who're interested. Another weird day. Last night President Piñera made a series of proposals of things he wants to do to change the tide of inequality. They all sounded real nice and he spoke with something close to human emotion in his voice, so since people want to believe in unity, it bought the country a few hours. Until people started actually analyzing his proposals and realized they are all government-subsidized bonuses that would ultimately weaken the government and the economy, while simultaneously not imposing any responsibility on the corporate class, the ultra-wealthy, and without making any structural systemic changes. 

So today the protests started earlier - the peaceful from Plaza Baquedano towards the East, the not-so-peaceful side in the other direction. Lots of tear gas, rock-throwing, water cannons. The body count is up to 15 apparently. 4 or 5 confirmed kills by the military. Lots of tales of kidnappings, torture, police brutality and abuse, as well as military abuse. Shit's getting crazy and feeling weird.

Today the House and Senate met to discuss proposals and all got into a big fighting match with each other. It had potential but somebody made a big protest out of it in front of the Minister of the Interior (Nazi motherfucker may he rot in hell forever). So nothing much got done.

On the bright side, daytime TV has become a great source of real, hard-hitting journalism. Daytime talk shows, once reserved for gossip and the occasional serious point, are now throwing hard hitting questions at politicians from different sides of the conversation and forcing them to discuss issues live, in person, on national TV. That's very interesting and raises hope that there could be a solution.

in the meantime, likely curfew again tonight, night 4 (5?). Last night there was a standoff about a mile and half from my house after curfew between some rowdys and the military. Armed forces pointed assault rifles in through the fences of apartment buildings and shot people. One shot dead, the other fractured femur. Up till today I was fairly casual in assuming things would be ok here. Now, the silent seed of doubt has gained hold in me: What if things don't turn out ok? 

This is how hard-right control freakazoids end up in power...Send out some good vibes to Chile, if you got any to spare, lol. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Lol, thanks, y'all. Craziness. Just watching on the news as cops make people go home after curfew just like a mile from my house. People lit a barricade, some shots have been fired apparently. It's so weird, to see on the news, places where I walk my dog, like, to see and say "hey, I really like the sandwiches at that joint" as the cops roll by while firing rubber bullets and tear gas cannisters.

Ken, I can't say whether the cops are or aren't on coke and I hadn't seen that video. I wouldn't be even a little bit shocked, though. Corruption runs rampant through all sectors, especially cops who make little and have much power. 

Tonight the curfew is from 22:00 to 05:00 - shortest one yet. I guess that's a good sign, haha. Still rolling the die and hoping for lucky numbers for tomorrow...Looks like political wheels are rolling at least. Initiatives being written, progress being made....fingers crossed!

Just watching now how some drunk guy decided to take justice into his hands last night and ran over a bunch of protestors on the road. They took him out of the car and went medieval on him, but not before he killed a few folks.

Everywhere there are neighborhood watch groups, and videos are coming out of them beating the shit out of people who're looting. Which, don't get me wrong, the looters have it coming, but people are really glorifying these vigilante justice groups...and that scares me almost more than anything else. When vigilantes operate side by side with the cops, then the rule of law truly doesn't mean much anymore...

Hey y'all, thank you for your kind words and thoughts. It's been a stressful and tense time here. So, the update

Today Piñera has removed the State of Emergency, which means we have a constitution again. Despite it being a flawed constitution created under military rule, it's certainly better than being at the whims of the President. Oh, and what a coincidence that today everything should be 'normal' again in Santiago, just in time for the commission to investigate human rights abuses. Ironically, the head of that UN office is the former Chilean president. Is that good or bad? Depends on how much in cahoots you believe the ruling class to be, I guess.

Piñera announced that he has asked all his Ministers to resign. It remains to be seen whether or not he will accept those resignations. And even if he does, will it make a difference? If he just puts more neoliberal warmongers in there, than what have we gained? The other day he proposed a series of measures to address the complaints of the people, but none of those measures actually addresses what's going on. None of them address the massive concentration of wealth in the 1% and how to begin to remove it from their hands. Until that happens, I don't think people will be happy. Oh, they've been somewhat lulled into complacency for now, but there's protests every day and life is far from 'normal', yet.

Piñera hired a media image company, which essentially showed him how to flip the situation and make people feel like he's addressing their needs, when he's actually not. For example, the other day, during the world famous million person march, the cameras would cut every time they got to a certain angle. That angle was being covered by street media folks. That's where the cops were throwing teargas and shooting watercannons at protesters. 

I hope that peace and progress are what's about to happen. Honestly, I'm kind of in a bit of mini-PTSD. I'm afraid for the future and don't want to believe that things are better because now I've seen just how fast a society can crumble and it scares me. It scares me for my children's future. Finger's crossed. Here's hoping the future is bright! :) Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile...

Thanks again, everybody! :)

Thanks, buddy. Here's hoping. It's crazy how fragile this whole 'society' thing is. I wish it didn't have to come to this for the people in power to actually listen to the people...

Hey Ras, thanks for looking out.

Things are ok, but stability is still an illusion. There's been non-stop protests and police repression every day since this began three weeks ago. 10,000 arrests. 2,300 accusations of human rights violations, including rape and torture. Videos of cops using teens as human shields. Videos of cops ransacking stores. Videos of cops throwing a molotov cocktail at a building. Videos of "delinquent vandals" getting out of and back into cop cars with no resistance, almost like they're working for them.

Piñera's response to the peoples' demands? Implement a new series of laws giving the police greater power to use force. 

Shit's crazy. I hope there's a path forward but right now it's looking complex. Some interesting ideas are happening. The work week was lowered to 40 hours by law. A good start. They're legislating on a tax for the mega-wealty. Also good. But other than that, politicians are playing politics, playing with human lives. Basically holding shut the lid on the boiling pot and hoping it'll just stop boiling on its own. And uh, it hasn't stopped. So either major changes come soon or shit's gonna hit the fan. Hopefully, option A.

On the bright side, Rage Against the Machine used a picture from the protests for their new tour announcement, so that's pretty sweet. 

Yup. That's about right. This whole thing stinks to high heaven and reeks of typical far-right destabilization designed to facilitate greater control by the government later. Plus, Piñera publicly came out as opposed to a supreme court case where a woman was asking to take her money out of the public pensions system (which is a HUGE issue in Chile right now), thereby cementing his stance as being essentially opposed to the heart of the demands that the protesters are making. 

Also, yesterday he called a meeting of the National Security Council for the third time in history, the first being during the dictatorship and the second many years ago in very different circumstances. Basically, he met with the heads of the Armed Forces to establish a policy with them. In the meeting were present the President of the Senate and the President of the House who both attended but came out after with strong declarations opposed to the meeting having ever been called. 

Weird times. There are some signs that the government is listening and an abundance of evidence that they want to continue business as usual. It ain't over till it's over, though. I'll let you all know how it develops in the next few days/weeks. 

This ain't no party...

...this ain't no disco...

...this ain't no foolin' around!

You know, 1st worlders are always looking for how their realities interfere with the 3rd world's, and in many cases they may. But don't forget: people here have their own motivations, their own desires and their own set of complaints, regardless of what the US, Putin or the CIA may do or say. The fact is Morales was a shady motherfucker who totally twisted and corrupted the democratic system to keep himself in power far past his mandate. Now, does that justify a coup? No. Does it create the kind of resentment and anger that lead to a coup? Definitely. No CIA is necessary for a coup to have happened in Bolivia.

Now, having said that, you can never rule out CIA interference, but it has become kind of the ace up the sleeve, catch all explanation, and it tends to take away the agency of the people living in these situations. In any case, I hope Bolivia pulls through ok. They're probably headed for a far-right presidency next, as is Chile in all likelihood. The fascist wave continues....

Russia is a strong player, no doubt, but I wouldn't sleep on China. China's been slowly taking Latin America away from the USA in the economic sphere and that is creating huge waves. These days, more than CIA power or anything like that, I really think the main power is in the corporate owners and who they sway. 

Thanks, Turtle, I appreciate it. 

Everyone at work is leaving early today because of the crazy-ass protests going on near their houses. Today is a massive national strike and the management at my work is trying to play all cool like nothing's happening....ugh.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/11/bolivian-coup-comes-less-we...

Lithium. Maaaaaaannnnn.....

It's always the same, it's just a shame, that's all....

Mark, Morales was a total shyster. I wish it wasn't the case, but it is. It's possible he may have done amazing things for the Bolivian people - I don't know enough about the situation to say one way or the other. But I do know that the OAS emitted their final report about the election fraud and man, it's a doozy. Those motherfuckers rigged that shit to hell and back, and Evo has been distorting and corrupting the democratic process since day 1. None of that, however, justifies a coup d'etat, but he's been corrupt, crooked and very brash in the way he isolated the ruling elite of the country. Piss those motherfuckers off too much and you get what you get. As much as I don't like the brutal power that the ruling elite hold, they are also part of the country and you do have to take their needs into account, to some extent, at least to the extent that you don't push them to the extreme.

4winds, yesterday my wife and I discussed for the first time the possibility of leaving. But we're not at that point yet. My great fear is that all this is being set up in such a way as to pave the way for the far-right candidate in the next election. If that happens, we may move. The question is where? The entire world is on fire. And sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick but there's no way in hell I would raise kids in the US these days. So who knows? The situation is bad but there's still hope for a good outcome. Keeping my fingers crossed we don't have to make that decision.

Gravy, thanks for your kind thoughts. Protests were acting up big-time yesterday. The one near my house was making massive noise until about 10 at night (started at like 5). Craaaaaazy times....

Shit, y'all, thing's are getting scary. Word is last night we just barely escaped a military coup d'etat. Allegedly the military is pushing the president to declare a State of Siege which is even more extreme than a State of Emergency. The constitution would be completely suspended and the armed forces would have free reign to impose rule as they see fit. According to these rumors, the President made a last second call to not loose the dogs. Instead he came out and made some tepid call for peace which, of course, satisfies no one as it says nothing. He also said basically that cops were going to have more right to knock skulls and what have you...

So yeah, now I'm thinking about moving to another country.

This is scary. And sad...

Hey y'all, thanks again for your kindness. It really does mean a lot to me. This is such a surreal situation going on right now that I need to vent about it somewhere, and down here everyone's just too paralyzed with fear to even think straight. 

Ken, the protests did ramp up a pretty solid notch last night. Night before last Piñera announced a bunch of strong-arm measures to reinforce cops, and that pissed people off a lot (because, you know, he should be worrying about solving the problems, not adding fuel to the fire). Then yesterday a national strike had been announced for a while and it was huge. Not all in one place necessarily, but highways cut off, neighborhoods, etc. The cops started going nuts in the poor neighborhoods, doing all sorts of illegal raids. In the major protests they had received orders to back off, which is why all the fires and shit got out of hand. It's insane, they deliberately (it seems to me) make the cops back off (rather than apply better tactics) so shit hits the fan and then they're justified in ramping up the police brutality. Which is what happened. Piñera said in his speech last night that cops would have more power to strong-arm, then the General of police said he would not fire any police officers acting in the line of duty even if he was ordered to. Next step, you get this:

https://twitter.com/marcoapintoa/status/1194664452827815936?s=12

As for the churches, they're a historic target, mostly for anarchist groups. There's so many operators on the scene right now that it's hard to say who's doing what. You have your run of the mill peaceful protestors, people who get pissed off and heated in the moment and start throwing stones, people who came ready with molotovs to launch at the cops, people who are actively planning acts of arson and destruction and people who are attacking churches and police stations. As for the arsonists and destructionists, I have no evidence to tell me that they're not part of a coordinated effort to create chaos, either by international groups (ex-FARC members, maybe), organized Chilean anarchists (I know, I know, organized anarchists) or maybe even conspiratorial right wing groups seeding chaos to usher in the far-right. Who knows?

As for moving, I really hope it doesn't come to that. I love my little home, I've worked hard to build a home with my wife and kids. Fortunately, as an English teacher who specializes in International Baccalaureate and who has a pretty solid resume, I could land a job anywhere in the world (except US or most of Europe), so that's good. My wife is indeed a doctor (Hi Judit!) so she could study, maybe work depending on the laws of the place, or just chill for a few years with the kids if I make enough and we cut our lifestyle. But again - hoping it doesn't come to that.

Thanks for asking about my kids, Judit. We are very fortunate (oh my God we are so fortunate....) in that we live in a nice neighborhood that's pretty quiet and mostly removed from the action. Apart from the nightime protests about a mile (little less) away, it's been quiet here, so we have been able to keep my kids in a bit of a bliss bubble. We talk about it a good bit with my 12 year old. He's pretty affected at times. He's really upset with all the destruction, especially of the metro since he's a big fan of it. Also, we send our kids to a school that is extremely socially conscious, so they have taken entire days of the staff together with the cleaning crew and groundskeepers and everyone to reflect on the situation and decide the best path for the school to take. Then they've done entire days of relfection with the students to talk about the events and process them. So my kids are good and healthy. A buddy of mine lives like two blocks away from where all the action is happening and sometimes the teargas wafts up to his 7th floor apartment where it makes his kids throats itch and their eyes hurt. He's thinking of sending the out of town to his in-laws...

Crazy times.

Thanks y'all for listening and caring...

One other thing about the churches: yesterday an historic church was burned down in a cool neighborhood downtown. When the cops came as first responders they found that the doors were locked and they couldn't get in from anywhere. The church burned to the ground as the cops tried to figure out how to get in. First off, what a bunch of incompetent dildos.

Second, nobody can explain how the fire was started considering there was no way into the church. No window, no unlocked or opened door....huh. Strange. I guess it must have been spontaneous combustion...

There are too many weird situation with unanswered questions happening...

The madness goes on...

Mark, the more I research the lithium angle, the more I think that plays a crucial role in everything that's happening in the region. It's almost eerily strange how these things have happened. First, the Peruvian government was totally destabilized, then Chile, then Bolivia. Between the three countries, we control access to a majority percentage of the world's lithium and access to the ports to get it out. I wasn't trying to refute you before or sound rude, and I'm sorry if I did. 

Ras, these are some protest songs that are making the rounds right now:

El derecho de vivir en paz (The Right to Live in Peace), Victor Jara (murdered by the dictatorship). This is a new version put together by Chilean musicians now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfAf2AibA8

El baile de los que sobran (The Dance of Those Who are Left Over) by Los prisioneros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJrZFBiy-A

Cacerolazo by Ana Tijoux: (short version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVaTuVNN7Zs .  A 'cacerolazo' is the most common Chilean form of protest where people bangs pots and pans. This song is based on the rhythm and sound of a 'cacerolazo'

The lasers, as Gravy mentioned (sorry I didn't address this before when you asked, Ken) are to create chaos, they can bring down drones, the fully fuck with the cops AND they've been keeping helicopters out of the conflict and protest areas by shining lasers at the pilots. It looks like some crazy fucked up Burning Man rave type scene with all those lasers flashing everywhere...

Today, BTW, is the one year anniversary of when cops stormed into a Mapuche community and gunned down an unarmed 19 year old boy who was literally doing nothing. There are massive protests planned everywhere. Violence has already broken out in a couple of municipalities and it's not 11 am yet. People are planning some shit today. Among the things allegedly being planned are that they're going to block off all the accesses to the area where I work because it's a rich area. They're specifically planning on targeting my school and three others in the neighborhood to fuck with the children of the ruling class. Good times. I don't think it'll amount to anything, though, because the cops protect the upper-class neighborhoods with everything they've got. Sad but true..

Thanks, Ned.

Yesterday, the leaders of almost all the political parties got together with the President until 4am and wrote up a document stating that they will work together to create a new constitution, with a plebiscite beforehand in which people will be able to vote on whether or not they want a new constitution and via what mechanism it's to be created. The 3 far-left parties sat out the meeting as they said it was classical closed-door political manoeuvring and wouldn't really address what the people are askin for (possibly true). It's being hailed as a huge accomplishment and there's a lot of hope that this means the end of these dark times and the beginning of a new era. I'm hedging my bets. I want to believe this will be good but a) changing the constitution isn't necessarily going to address the changes that people are asking for and b) it feels like political backroom wheeling and dealing which will ultimately put us right back where we were. But hey, we can hope. 

Ground zero for the protests has been a Plaza historically referred to as Plaza Italia but now informally known as Plaza de la Dignidad (Dignity Plaza). It's literally been a war zone for a month. This is what it looked like this morning:

Pretty cool. I want to believe...but the heart of darkness beats deep within every man's chest and unmet needs are brought to the forefront sooner or later. Maybe I'm just cynical and I shoud just go out and celebrate. 

This is what the same place looked like regularly over the past weeks:

Just up and right of center in the bottom picture you can see a bunch of pieces of fabric trailing down from the top of the statue. That's the same statue with the banner that says 'Paz' in the first pic.