Page 1 of 3

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:35 am
by mockbee
Larry B. wrote:
Wed Oct 23, 2019 4:13 am
Last night, our dictator went on TV to announce a “new social agenda” to tackle our social issues. Great measures like “USD 40 increase in pensions”. There wasn’t ONE measure that would actually address what the people want. And most of his proposals tried to disguise the fact that they benefit more private companies than the people.
Glad you're safe Larry, and I assume your family and friends as well. :nod:

In your words, what is it that the people want from the government? Do they want more freedom (are there specific examples?), or do they want more benefits (any specific? - healthcare, social security payments, job security, better wages?) Do they want less corruption in the government (specifically? - watchdog groups allowed in, regime change?)

Maybe it's all of it, but I was wondering if there are some specifics that are really being pursued by the opposition. I know it started, or was put over the top, with the fare increases.


I wonder if the Chilean government would be so bold, and vicious, if 18 million guns, including long guns, were spread among the general populace?
I've never thought that way before. :sad:
:noclue:

But your government sure is bold in the shit they do to you guys......
:wavesad:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:42 pm
by Larry B.
The hot demands are:

- New pension system. Currently, pension money is 100% in the hands of private companies. Around 50% of the population currently receiving pensions get around USD 200 per month. And that’s it, that’s all the money they have. With that, they have to buy medication, pay for transport, presumably pay for their housing, etc. But there is a sector of the population with their own pension system, to which no-one else can access and that’s at the very least 5x better. Guess what sector that is?? The military.

- Proper tax collection. The 1% takes advantage of loopholes to pay less, to the point that a little lady selling hot-dogs in a street corner literally paid more taxes than a multi-national company that own retail stores and a fucking bank.

- Higher minimum wage. Currently at around USD 700 per month, only applicable for full-time jobs (which, obviously, means more and more companies would rather have twice as many part-time workers).

- Lower wages for congresspeople. Currently at around USD 15,500 per month (some slightly higher, sole slightly lower). It’s obscene, especially comparing them to the minimum wage.

- Tax-paid education. Basically, same as the US: if you want to get a degree, you’re fucked for life.

- Obviously, that the military leave our streets.

- Most importantly, a new Constitution. We still live under the rules set by Pinochet, because the right has never allowed a proper, democratic constitution. It’s been ammended a few times, but (for instance) it still allowed the current dictator to arrest people for not paying their fucking transport fare (which in Chile is not even a crime). And after people started demonstrating, it allowed him to call on the military.

That’s pretty much off the top of my head.

Aside from that, people have been tortured in a basement of a police station located dab smack in downtown Santiago... allegedly, people were hung by their hands from the ceiling, hit, shot, etc. Some women have denounced being raped. The official body count is somewhere between 15-18. Military and police have been recorded setting fire to buildings, which later the dictator blames on “criminals” and uses that as a justification for keeping the military on the streets.

Today, the left called on the Ministry of Interior to resign. He’s the twat behind all this shit. If he doesn’t resign, they might try to remove him from his post and then try him, but he’ll leave this one unscathed. He’s the dictator’s cousin (!)

Anyway, shit is highly fucked. So far, friends and fanily are alright. Keep you posted

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:52 pm
by crater
Larry B. wrote:
Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:42 pm
So far, friends and family are alright.
And I hope it stays that way :gh:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 9:38 pm
by mockbee
Thanks Larry, that list is exactly what I was wondering about.

A lot of it sounds like the problems we are struggling with here, of course not as bad, but it's bad....

:wavesad:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 5:13 pm
by Larry B.
Today I went to a demonstration again. The police started firing rubber bullets to disperse us at around 4 PM. I saw a guy get shot in the stomach, another lad got 2 in his right leg, and a girl was shot on the nose.

These demonstrations were/are happening right on top of a subway station where people were being tortured. It breaks my heart thinking that there may still be people in there or maybe in other subway stations, about 3/4 of which are closed and under control of the military. This will be investigated, but just like under Pinochet's dictatorship, they won't find anything now but will find something in like 30 years from now.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 9:46 pm
by mockbee
Sorry to hear about additional violence. :jasper:

At least you guys are still trending on CNN Americas news stories. :noclue:

Keep it up! :tiphat:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:00 pm
by Artemis
Hi Larry! Thanks for keeping us up to date with what is going on in your country. I'm happy you and your loved ones are safe. :heart: :gh:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:17 pm
by Larry B.
Hey, thank you!

The latest developments are that they lifted the curfew, the military are back where they belong and 8 ministers were replaced.

All of this is an attempt from the regime to ‘go back to normal,’ which we’re not really having. Right now, there’s a significant demonstration downtown, and the police are waiting for the right moment to start with their tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

Last Friday we had the biggest demonstration ever, over a million people together in downtown Santigo and roughly half a million in the rest of the country. It was awesome.

A UN Human Rights commission will be here from today and for a month. I’m not sure if it will make a difference, but I hope it will.

A few days ago I nearly got detained by the cops, as I was helping people spraying their faces with water and bicarbonate (as an antidote to tear gas and pepper spray), but we all managed to get away.

The left still isn’t doing much, which disgusts me.

But well, still safe... but hopefully, this movement will endure and in the next elections people won’t forget that the right was responsible for dozens of deaths, tortures, lack of freedom of the press, bullet wounds, etc. They’ve ran over people. People have been found dead in burning supermarkets with bullet wounds or with signs of having died by bodily injuries. So fuck the right forever.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 6:27 pm
by mockbee
Thanks for the update Larry. :wave:


Is there a viable 'middle ground' party that is sttong enought to garner support, or is it just "Commie/Socialist" left vs. Fascist Right?

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 4:21 am
by Larry B.
Well, there is a so-called “centre-left” that actually aligns with the right most of the time. And there is a centre-right that, in times of need such as this, aligns with fascism without a hunch.

At this juncture, I don’t think that a political truce will be reached. Parties are negotiating and the right have access to greater wealth, so I’ve no doubt that the centre-left will align with the right once more and the left won’t be able to politically destroy those most responsible for the initial crisis and the subsequent deaths and Human Rights violations (minister of transport + minister of interior and the ‘president’).

And in terms of public demands, it is apparent that nothing will happen. The right is pushing the same measures that don’t address them at all, and the left if busy thinking about whether to try to impeach the ‘president’ or not.

It remains to be seen whether these people will be brought to justice and what will the courts decide.

Yesterday there was another big demonstration, which was dispersed at around 9 PM directly with bullets (hopefully, rubber ones.)

Today it’s my turn to go again. I’m going to buy safety goggles, to protect myself from those bullets and that tear gas that has irritated my eyes to no end.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:10 am
by mockbee
Larry B. wrote:
Tue Oct 29, 2019 4:21 am

And in terms of public demands, it is apparent that nothing will happen. The right is pushing the same measures that don’t address them at all, and the left if busy thinking about whether to try to impeach the ‘president’ or not.
BINGO.........!

Here we have some of the demands 'addressed' by the left but they are mostly just talking points that the majority of people have no faith in actually being implemented. Then the right doesnt really do anything except being yesmen to Trump. So we end up with the impeachment circus on one side and choas on the other. Media LOVES it! People all but forgetten.

Luckily very little violence here. There is way too much vitrol though. Violence would never amount to progress and would actually help Trump immensly.
Larry B. wrote:
Tue Oct 29, 2019 4:21 am
Today it’s my turn to go again. I’m going to buy safety goggles, to protect myself from those bullets and that tear gas that has irritated my eyes to no end.
Jesus Larry. Be careful. You are a brave soul. :cool:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 7:06 pm
by Larry B.
Today, a Human Rights observer got shot *seven times* (with rubber bullets.) It’s causing a bit of uproar.

In the demonstration I went to today, there were at least 10 people injured. Shots to the head, a guy lost his right eye, people shot in the body, etc. The police started shooting at around 5:30 PM and as a loose approximate, they must’ve shot 80-100 shots in the three hours I was there. That, and around 50-60 tear gas cans.

As the head of Human Rights finally said (something that we all knew,) this is absolutely illegal. Police protocols are not being followed.

I’m alright. Today I bought a hard hat to protect me from rubber bullets. So I’m with a mask, goggles and a fucking hard hat. It works, though. Today several tear gas cans landed right next to me and I hardly felt them, which allowed me to do what I go there for, which is helping other people overcome the tear gas and pepper spray so that they can keep pushing against the police.

But when these bastards shoot... there’s not a lot you can do. It’s literally bullets against bits of rock; full armor against protesters without their shirts on.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2019 1:53 pm
by mockbee
REALLY good article (FEATURED!) in the NYTIMES today about the Chile protests.

Sounds so much like what could/will happen here in the US soon....... we are smoldering, but I don't see the working class (or students) in the streets because of economic issues, it's going to explode in a different way. :noclue:


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/worl ... e=Homepage

Image


Image


Image

Her views are featured in the article.................


‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests
Published Nov. 3, 2019
Updated Nov. 4, 2019, 10:54 a.m. ET

1
By Amanda TaubPhotographs by Tomas Munita

SANTIAGO, Chile — The suddenness of the protests, the anger that spilled onto the streets every day, might have been surprising anywhere. But in the country often lauded as Latin America’s great economic success story, it has shocked the world.

For three weeks, Chile has been in upheaval. One day alone, more than a million people took to the streets of Santiago, the capital.

Perhaps the only people not shocked are Chileans. In the chaos, they see a reckoning. The promise that political leaders from the left as well as right have made for decades — that free markets would lead to prosperity, and prosperity would take care of other problems — has failed them.

“Chile woke up,” thousands of protesters chanted one recent Sunday afternoon in Santiago’s O’Higgins Park.

But that growth did not reach all Chileans.

Inequality is still deeply entrenched. Chile’s middle class is struggling with high prices, low wages, and a privatized retirement system that leaves many older people in bitter poverty. And a series of corruption and tax-evasion scandals have eroded faith in the country’s political and corporate elite.


“This is a sort of legitimacy crisis,” said Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, a political scientist at Diego Portales University in Santiago. “People start to say, ‘O.K., why is it we have to pay that, and the very rich are not paying their fair share?”

“And at the same time, we have a political class that’s totally out of touch,” Mr. Kaltwasser added.

In an attempt to restore order, President Sebastián Piñera scrapped the four-cent subway fare increase that set off the initial demonstrations. Then he deployed the military in Chile’s streets for the first time since the country’s transition to democracy.

When that didn’t quell the protests, Mr. Piñera went on television to ask for forgiveness and promise higher pensions, better health coverage, higher taxes for the rich and pay cuts for politicians. Later, he asked his cabinet to resign.

But demonstrators were not convinced.


“The abuses haven’t stopped,” he said, “so we have to go into the streets.”

His best-selling flag, of his own design, demanded Mr. Piñera’s resignation.

Minutes later, it sold out.

‘It’s Not 30 Pesos, It’s 30 Years’
Javiera López Layana, 24, an activist and student at the University of Chile who helped organize the protest, was buzzing with excitement.

Many of the speakers had used the term “el pueblo” when describing the Chilean people, she pointed out. To an outsider, it seemed like a tiny detail. But that term, which in Latin America is associated with the left, had been taboo in Chile for as long as Ms. López could remember. Its resurgence seemed as if it could be a harbinger of more significant change.

The end of the Pinochet dictatorship, in 1990, came with an implicit caveat: Military rule would end, but the socialist policies of Salvador Allende, the leftist president Gen. Augusto Pinochet had deposed in a coup, would not return. Subsequent governments preserved the extreme laissez-faire economic system imposed in the 1970s and 1980s.

But today, widespread public anger over the inequality and economic precarity that many Chileans see as a consequence of that system means that conservative economic policies may be more of a threat to political stability than a means of ensuring it.

“It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years” has become one of the slogans of the protests — a reference to the proposed metro fare increase that set off the crisis and to the three decades since military rule ended.

The country’s median salary is now about $540 per month — below the poverty line for a family of four, said Marco Kremerman, an economist with the Fundación Sol, a left-leaning think tank in Santiago. Median payments in the national private pension program, the only safety net for retirees, are about $200 per month.

There is broad agreement, among protesters and experts alike, that the country needs structural reforms. Replacing the current Constitution, which was adopted under the dictatorship, would also signify that Chile is emerging from the 30-year shadow of the Pinochet regime.

“When we’re in debt, living in misery and impoverished, we don’t necessarily think of the Constitution,” Ms. López said. “But in the end, we need to make changes.”

Generation Fearless
That evening, Ms. López and her family gathered around the kitchen table at their home in Lo Espejo, a working-class municipality far from the city center, and discussed the protest movement.

Seeing the military once again patrolling the streets had brought painful memories, long repressed, to the surface.

Ms. López’s grandfather revealed to her, for the first time, that he had been arrested during the military regime, and his sister killed by the government, because they had hidden a leftist politician and his family, then helped them escape to safety abroad.

Her father described how dictatorship had divided Lo Espejo in his youth. One neighbor, who still lived nearby, was interrogated and tortured by a man they had both grown up with. Another had a sister who worked for DINA, the feared secret police.


“Education was supposed to be our ladder out of poverty,” said Javiera López Layana, center. “But the debt turns out to be a heavy backpack.”
In part because of those experiences, they have been cautious about joining the protests, even if they support the goals.

“Javiera’s generation, they grew up without fear of the dictatorship,” said Ms. López’s mother, Pamela Inés Layana Guendelman. “She’s fearless.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ms. López said.

“But it enrages me” she said, as tears welled in her eyes. “Every time I go to a protest in Plaza Italia, or a protest in La Alameda, I have to come back here, to Lo Espejo, and see the same crap, the same misery, that has been there for many governments. And nothing has changed at all.”

In many ways, Ms. López personifies the contradictions of Chile’s political crisis.

Her parents and grandfather strained to send her to private schools, she was the first in her family to go to college, and she now hopes to attend graduate school. At least on paper, Ms. López seems to be a success story, proof of the benefits that hard work is supposed to bring under Chile’s free-market system.

But when she reached the University of Chile, she said, she confronted an educational system that seemed designed to keep her in Lo Espejo forever. Though a scholarship covered much of her tuition, she has still had to borrow money to complete her degree. Getting a master’s will mean borrowing even more.

“Education was supposed to be our ladder out of poverty,” she said. “But the debt turns out to be a heavy backpack.” Her background may also dilute the value of her degree: Employers are widely believed to discriminate against candidates from poorer social classes.

Families like hers have become a new constituency in Chile, one that has sacrificed to succeed in a supposedly meritocratic system, only to find that they are still excluded from its benefits.

“There is this discourse of merit, of striving, of how ‘you should get up earlier,’” she said. “But even if we get up early, nothing is going to change.”

The Larger Conflict
One recent day, at the near-shuttered University of Chile, as clouds of tear gas billowed outside, student leaders scrolled through Instagram and Twitter posts announcing demonstrations.

“We are the generation for whom the joy never came,” said one of them, Nicole Martínez, 26. Her words were a bitter twist on “joy is coming,” the slogan from the campaign that ended military rule.

But the Chilean political crisis is not unique to Chile. It carries unmistakable echoes of a problem that is at the center of political conflict all over the developed world.

As free trade, new technologies, the rise of China, and other seismic changes have reshaped the world’s economies, political divisions have emerged between those who gain from the current system and those who do not.



In much of Europe and the United States, onetime industrial towns declined as economic growth accrued to large, globally connected cities, instead. For many, even those who have seen modest objective improvements in their own standards of living, watching others surge ahead while they struggle has left them feeling angry and disillusioned. In many countries, trust in institutions is falling, surveys show.

The same economic changes have shattered longstanding political coalitions, weakening mainstream parties. Far-right populists and other outsider politicians have moved to fill the vacuum left behind.

And with no effective channels for public anger, mass frustration has erupted into protest movements like France’s Yellow Vests and the demonstrations in Chile.

The Chilean movement, like the Yellow-Vest movement, has no clear leaders, said Ms. Martínez, with information mostly spreading through people’s social networks.

“It is a social explosion,” she said.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2019 4:55 pm
by Larry B.
Yeah, that’s a fairly accurate article, thank you for posting it.

Today, day 18 of demonstrations. The police were quite aggressive and started shooting the main square for demonstrations (Plaza Italia), as oppossed to attacking just a small number of demonstrators in one corner. Their goal today was to prevent people from gathering at all (early on, at around 1PM, they were dispersing gropus of 3 or 4 people with tear gas or water cannons), but people arrived all the same. I arrived at around 5 PM and left at around 8 PM. Bullets were flying from about 6:30 and we had an earthquake at around 6.

There’s groups of people kitted out to ‘disarm’ tesr gas bombs and also groups of people kitted out to help people cope with the tear gas (that’s what I do), and the cooperation today was tremendous. They pushed us back with tear gas, water cannons and bullets, but people retreated less than normal thanks to these helping teams, so we were able to push forward again. But (obviously), we can’t really fight against bullets.

Anyway... another day, and still waiting for things to happen in the upper echelons of this piece of land. We’ll keep pushing.

Side note: I saw that in NY there was an ‘evade’ movement? They are using the image of a Chilean stray dog that was famous for barking at cops. I thought it was really cool and sweet.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:22 pm
by mockbee
That's amazing and unreal Larry.....

Thank you for the update.

I cannot ever imagine the US population being this organized/MASSIVE/persistent in it's protesting government actions.

The left has one-off "fluffy" protests that I have partaken in (Second Iraq War/Women's March/Etc), but obviously you guys are on a whole other level and obviously have a much different recent and founding history.

Good luck, stay safe and keep it up!!!

THE WORLD IS LISTENING!

mockbee

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:13 pm
by Hokahey
mockbee wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:22 pm
That's amazing and unreal Larry.....

Thank you for the update.

I cannot ever imagine the US population being this organized/MASSIVE/persistent in it's protesting government actions.

The left has one-off "fluffy" protests that I have partaken in (Second Iraq War/Women's March/Etc), but obviously you guys are on a whole other level and obviously have a much different recent and founding history.

Good luck, stay safe and keep it up!!!

THE WORLD IS LISTENING!

mockbee
Because for the most part, most of us are living pretty comfortably.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:40 am
by mockbee
Hokahey wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:13 pm
mockbee wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:22 pm
That's amazing and unreal Larry.....

Thank you for the update.

I cannot ever imagine the US population being this organized/MASSIVE/persistent in it's protesting government actions.

The left has one-off "fluffy" protests that I have partaken in (Second Iraq War/Women's March/Etc), but obviously you guys are on a whole other level and obviously have a much different recent and founding history.

Good luck, stay safe and keep it up!!!

THE WORLD IS LISTENING!

mockbee
Because for the most part, most of us are living pretty comfortably.
I don't (and haven't above) disagree with you, to a point. Understanding yours is a slippery/fluid statement.

We have a ridiculously high poverty rate for our country's GDP. Also without our massive dependence on predatory credit we would would be nearly in the same boat.

It is a thin line and the demands are the same.....and maybe it will stay that way for another 20-30 years, or maybe not...
:noclue:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 4:30 am
by SR
Keep on keeping on Larry. I can't believe the calm and resolve your posts reflect. I think it's a really important thing to be on the right side of history. :rockon:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:22 am
by Larry B.
It is a bit surreal, that's true. Most days, at some point I see myself in the middle of this, and then I look West and see a sea of people... I look East, and another sea of people, all waving flags and chanting. I see the clouds of tear gas, I hear the gunshots... and it's just surreal, partly because there is no actual fear. Yesterday, when the police were at about 30-40 yards from us, shooting what I guess/hope were rubber bullets, I just put on the hard hat I bought and kept on spraying people with a mix of water and bicarbonate and giving them lemons, so that they could breath and try to repel the police with stones. And they did it. It all feels very 'right'. And I only leave when I run out of mix, because that's when I become useless. I've got nothing else to offer.

Anyway, in case anyone is/would be interested, I thought I'd share a YouTube channel from an art gallery who have been broadcasting live and archiving every day of demonstrations in Plaza Italia, the place where I go (which is like the go-to meeting place for celebrations and demonstrations in Santiago.)

This is the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4GOcO ... NamN4WyMFg

And here's a timelapse of the plaza on the day where 1.2 million people demonstrated, I think this was about 10 days ago:



And here's the video from yesterday. If you go to 6:48:30, you can see when the police start shooting (after pushing us back a bit):


Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:56 am
by mockbee
Eloquent.

:tiphat:


You are brave Larry, and you are truly living.
What an opportunity to taste life like that, I can only imagine. It is surely not something to seek, but truly an honor to expereience, I can only imagine, having only read about such experiences in an extenuating fashion during war or great upheaval. Sebastian Junger's 'Tribe' comes to mind. And only expereiencing such feelings very briefly at a time during moto wrecks miraculously going unscathed, extreme sports etc.


I am honored to read your account.
Your people are amazing.

:rockon:


As always, stay safe. :wave:

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:24 am
by drwintercreeper
That time lapse video was pretty incredible. You and all the other participants are brave. I have a ton of respect for y'all.

Stay safe, keep agitating... someday the future will be brighter than it seems now.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:56 pm
by perkana
mockbee wrote:
Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:56 am



I am honored to read your account.
Your people are amazing.

:rockon:


As always, stay safe. :wave:
2x

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:00 am
by guysmiley
So this popped up. A live feed. Judging on the honks from cars already today will be another crazy one. Take care Larry. I could see something like this happen in the US. You all who can't imagine it are living under a nice rock.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:30 pm
by Larry B.
Thank you. Yeah, that’s the go-to live stream for Santiago’s main square. Today I won’t be able to go, as I’m visiting a friend who’s on the clinic, getting treatment for multiple sclerosis.

By the way, every day there are anywhere between 5 and 10 big, major demonstrations in Santiago. Dozens more in the rest of the country.

Yesterday, the dictators addressed the nation and some people were hopeful of receiving some decent announcements. He presented a 10-point plan to increase the powers of the police, the military and intelligence. He was panned by everyone except his party. He called the Council of National Security and (reportedly) even the army generals told him that he shouldn’t have called the council, as this situation has nothing to do with national security. I hope that congress will reject his fucking stupid 10-point plan.

There’s a national strike called for next Tuesday.

We’ll see what happens.

Re: Santiago under curfew

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 2:55 am
by kv


Crazy times