The long and short of it: a dozen or so GloboCorp families own Chile lock, stock, and barrel, and have at least since the Pinochet era. There was pushback here, as there was elsewhere. Covid-19(84) came here as it did elsewhere, and for more than a year now, this country of just over 19 million has been descending into a totalitarian hellscape. Moreover, one of the world’s most aggressive mass vaccination campaigns began here shortly after the start of this year. As of April 21, around 13 million Chileans had gotten the jab (while the rate varies with availability, somewhere around 135,000 are jabbed per day). The most interesting fact about Chile now is the explosion of new cases of Covid. We’re talking in the 6,000 – 7,000 range per day, and between 100 and 150 deaths per day attributed to Covid.
.........If you are in Chile, here is what you go through to go anywhere:
You obtain a permiso off a carabinero (police) website. Print it or save it in your phone. It lists your name, Chilean ID number (foreigners with permanent residency can use a passport number), age, address and comuna, and destination(s). You get two per week. Up until recently you were allowed three hours out per permiso, which means you had six hours of free movement per week to get groceries, do your banking, go to a government office, etc. (these being “essential” operations open for business). Thanks to maximum capacity rules and the above-mentioned inefficiency, you could easily spend the bulk of your free time standing in line outdoors.
Security personnel of robotic demeanor guard entrances and inspect your permiso. They then direct you to a device to take your temperature: the sort of contraption that could easily transition to something able to read an implanted chip. Most folks would never notice the difference.
At the start of this month, free time per permiso was lowered to two hours. I can’t help but wonder if someone was trying to find out how much these people would put up with. Would a reduction in outdoor free time by a third arouse resistance? Nope. I’ve heard barely a proletarian whimper! (Oh, you are allowed walks outdoors from 6 – 9 am.)
How much will Chileans put up with? Some “guidelines” are patently absurd, with no legitimate scientific backing whatever. My wife and I encountered one just this morning as I write this: a three-person limit max on large mall elevators. We had gotten on, and an elderly couple was behind us. I thought: why not? I beckoned them to go ahead and get on. They started to. An enforcer (more on them below, too) appeared instantly and barked, “!Sólo tres personnes!” (“Three persons only!”)
I said gruffly, “¡Esto es estúpido!” (“This is stupid!”)
The enforcer looked at me in shock. Clearly she’d heard no one say anything against these stupid rules before. But being a gringo from a culture that values freedom and frowns on mindless compliance, I was not going to stand there and say nothing!
But welcome to Chile, where checkpoints have now been established at toll booths on “private” highways (of which — thanks to neoliberal pseudo-privatization — there are many) so carabineros can see “Your papers please!” I was in one of these, and the traffic-back-up was a sight to behold!
(Lockdowns are logistically impossible in a first world society for reasons anyone with a functioning brain ought to be able to discern: people need to obtain food or have it delivered, which means workers need to be in stores to supply it; medical centers and government offices need to be in operation; people have health and other emergencies; water mains break and need immediate repair; the enforcers themselves have to be out and about. This is not to mention the well-documented spikes in domestic violence, other crimes, substance abuse, depression, and suicide.)..........
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Poster Comment:
PLEASE READ A HUGE CHUNK of the article in the site -- it is mind-numbing. This is why I say it's time for humanity to just voluntarily quit. Nothing really works anymore.