July 30th, a day of infamy

It is rather terrible to be without Internet in a time of trouble, the more so when Twitter is the only source of information if you know who to follow. My internetless plight continues and will last for who knows how long as the internet company of Venezuela is not even answering calls. Meanwhile my cel phone company allows me to do Twitter but at an expense that I pretend does not exist.

What Sunday means will be for another post. I am just going to tell you my day, for those who care about an on the ground experience from someone trapped in the more fervent opposition strongholds of Caracas.

Of course, I did not go out to vote. So I was trying to figure out whom to go with to the scheduled rally late morning to take the main Caracas highway. This was not going to happen. Already around 9 PM I was hearing loud explosions from Caurimare through where I was supposed to pass to reach the highway. Eventually the rally was cancelled due to the intense repression of the regime that would not even let embryos of rallies take place. 

From official terror to article 350 - 5) taking off Ortega before 350

Writing this series of articles with long delays in between actually helped me a lot, proving that procrastination pays: the events of today establish beyond doubt that civil rebellion is the lone thing left for the Venezuelan population at large. I say "at large" in all confidence as there is no serious pollsters, even among those who predicted Chavez victories years ago, that gives the regime and Maduro much more that 20%.  And this assuming that they can correct for the fear factor in their polling. The evidence is clear: even in a bad day the opposition drags quickly to the streets, in almost any Venezuelan city, more people to protest than the regime as a whole can do just in Caracas for support, after days of preparation.

A brief history of "colectivos"

Colectivos can be this tacky...

With the recent murder of representative Serra and the summary dismissal of Interior Minister Rodriguez Torres "colectivos" have assumed durable front news status. Heck, there is even a Wikipedia page on them, which is curiously critical considering the constant work that the regime propaganda machine does to edit permanently unfavorable comments in the people's encyclopedia page.

Still, that page is lacking on significant background and historical development, and could be neutered soon. Thus a blog post may be of help (1).