The Unravelling of a Civilization

I just finished reading an interview with a young lady that aspires to move to the mecca of Mexico. It will be so much better than her homeland of Venezuela. Any country would be better, she says. Is she just a disgruntled and ignorant youth?

I suspect that not a lot of people are familiar with the unwinding of civilization in Venezuela, a once relatively prosperous nation that has come under the power of a prejudiced and corrupt mafia type government so far as I can tell. It’s a nation in which, as the BBC reported in the last 24 hours, a cut can mean death if you are a hemophiliac. Medicines simply are often simply not available.

The normal economy has collapsed. People trade now with bitcoin, PayPal, Amazon gift cards and whatever else they think they can keep secret. They don’t like to be seen with foreign currency lest they be kidnapped for ransom (as though their possession of other currencies means their friends have money).

Protestors assemble and march, but often in helmets and with shields to protect themselves from government violence. Also with faces covered so that they cannot be identified.

We have complaints in Canada and in the USA, but compared to a place like Venezuela, these countries are paradise.  Relative freedom to say what we wish and chart our own course. Freedom to move around and to leave and return. Freedom to earn and to spend.