From official terror to article 350 - 7) civil disobedience, this Sunday big time

So this is the situation. You have on one side the bad guys, who hold all fire power and are increasingly more willing to use it; the bad guys that have turned into shreds the constitution and are now about to rewrite a constitution that fits better their thug regime; and not only that but they are calling for a constituent assembly (CA) through a rigged electoral system, without any limit on what that assembly could do; and if that is not enough, if partisan voters of the regime can vote  twice is not enough, the regime is now on record of threatening those who do plan to abstain. And more.

So, what are to do the good guys, those who merely want the rule of law and free and fair elections?

Well, after months of protest, month of increasing international support, there are left with two constitutional articles; the 333 and 350.  Their translation below.

From official terror to article 350 - 6) Luisa and Leopoldo are nothing

On rare occasions in spite of all my daily turmoils I do sense a certain elation. As an history buff I am keenly aware that I am in the middle of History, with a capital H.  Be it when I listen to grenade explosions in Caracas from my patio, or whether I am gassed directly, be it Leopoldo being "freed" or whether Diosdado (and others) announcing that they are about to take arms to defend the revolution, there is no need to have extrasensorial powers to gather that something big is taking place.

How have we reached such a point?

Leopoldo and Occam

The stunning news this morning is that we woke up learning that in the middle of the night Leopoldo Lopez had been freed from his military prison jail cell at Ramo Verde.  Well, not quite free, as for "medical reasons" that are yet totally unexplained a rather buff Lopez has to remain at his home in Caracas. With the implied threat that if he does not behave well he will get back to the slammer.  But that is more braggadocio of an agonizing regime than any show of strength.

He is baaaack.........
with grey hair........

We also got a deluge of conspiracy theories. So many that I refused to keep reading my Tweets during my normal travails of Saturday.  The one that made me stop early was that the high court, TSJ, was doing that to screw the nations general attorney, Luisa Ortega, by blaming her with bad admisnitrative moves during Lopez trial.

As if the regime needed any excuse to send to jail Luisa Ortega when it choses so....

France mourns one of her greatest

Sometimes we are not aware that we live in the times of heroes. And they die and we remember.

When she faced a 95% male audience
to regulate abortion in France

Simone Veil was probably the lone France hero alive.  She died last week and the outpouring came from all fronts, except as expected from the far right Front National who could not forgive her among other things that Simone Veil was one of the 2.500 survivors of the 75.000 French Jews sent to Nazi concentration camps. Or rather, that she answered only too well to what Le Pen and daughter are all about.

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.

July 4 meet July 5

I was reading the US Declaration of Independence again, this most formidable piece of literature, to begin with. Without changing a word this section can apply EXACTLY as is as to the opposition revolt against a colonial regime directed from Cuba. I shuddered!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 

We should use it tomorrow for the much needed second independence of Venezuela.

From official terror to article 350 - 4) that hamletian moment

The opposition MUD is subjected to tremendous challenges, all coming from the fact that they need to face off a criminal narco-state without any help from the outside police.

Why the world is not acting on Venezuela knowing very well that it risks receiving a refugee wave of millions is the subject of another text. Never mind that if the regime manages to hold power at the cost of a dictatorial communist "constitution" and thousands of deaths this will set a bad precedent for regimes dreaming of such a perpetuation outcome, like Bolivia, the FARC in Colombia, Nicaragua, to name a few of the wanna-.be rogue systems in Latin America.  The fact of the matter is that the latest failure of the OAS to even come up with a mild declaration is the confession of a world that has lost the notions of good and evil, navel gazing, worried about how to sustain a welfare state that will reward them politically. Times have changed.