One of the best discussions about what happened in Venezuela I've heard. We will be learning about examples from Lenin, Uncle Ho, Miranda and Bolívar. Pick the English subs if you need, they're good, and I really encourage everyone to listen.

We will forever love and treasure our comrade and friend, Michael Parenti. I want to salute our comrades who went and spent time with him from GenZedong. I don't know if any of them are here, but the fact that I was partially part of a group of folks from Reddit that got to go and visit Michael, will always be a source of inspiration and commitment for me. We all have our fronts, my friends. We all have our roles.

A good continuation to my last post, specially the discussion with the panel and the questions part. There's a lot of academic self-crit, observations, and good debate.

Due to popular demand for a more documented approach on this topic, I went to bed last night and started to conceptualize how to tackle it, and I think the best way to synthesize it is to make a guide on how easy it is to become one.

But first, we gotta remember that some of the people in the Bolivarian Revolution were in fact political prisoners. Members of guerrillas, student leaders asking for more ''cupos'', as in spaces in universities to study, civil rights activists, lawyers, like the current Minister of Justice, Tarek William Saab and Cilia Flores, who many times defended these very people's rights, during the 4th Republic. Delcy and Jorge Rodriguez' father, Jorge, was tortured and killed during these years.

I'm bringing this into context because to every Latinamerican or comrade whose family has lived through dictatorship, knows what a fucking dictatorship is. So it always baffled me that these assholes would trivialize the concept in such a way, by calling the current state of affairs in Venezuela a ''dictatorship''. It is an insult tantamount to Holocaust Denial. There are still thousands of people who were disappeared in Venezuela whose bodies haven't been found, that were buried during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez and continued throughout the period of Punto Fijo that followed it, and was put to an end by Chávez in 1999 when he became President.

Now to the matter at hand. The right, as we know, has been pretty pissy for some years now. A lot of wah-wah, babyraging and tantrums. They've gotten louder, more centralized (this is important), and have applied dispersion as a tactic. What do I mean by dispersion? That they not only operate via their parties, but have NGO's, ''activists'', ''journalists'' (like our rambling Oakley bros and Mar-A-Lago masked ladies), and heavy social media saturation. This last word is key, you have to oversaturate to overcompensate for the perceived sense of persecution. This is your method to capture segments of the population and suspend them over an indefinite amount of time. Keep their emotions reeling, tell them like María Corina did, that she would ''reunite their broken families'', ''fix everything'', and other messianic poultices to maintain suspense. This methodology is what gives rise to the narrative of ''political prisoners''.

The reason I mentioned above that centralizing is important is because it gives ''One Narrative To Rule Over All'', and that narrative comes from the US. From the Freedumb Truckers in Canada, to the trucker protests in Brasil, to the pititas in Bolivia, to the current bullshit against our Iranian friends, to the HK riots, to Gen Z in Mexico and Nepal, to Euromaidan, to the Arab Spring, and so on and so forth sniff (sorry, those who caught that reference are probably laughing right now)...All of these may vary in minor respects due to contexts, but all followed the same Narrative. It doesn't have to be coherent, it just has to be consistent, and it has to maintain the dichotomy of ''West=Good, World=Bad''.

Now I want to pivot (thanks, Obama), to how you can become a political prisoner in 3 easy steps I'll lay out:

1-Join the main antagonist of the Sentai during that season, be it Acción Democrática, Primero Justicia, Voluntad Popular or Vente Venezuela. Be one of their ''activists'', promoters, speakers, celebs that support them, NGO's, etc. You know, put yourself out there for the escualidera to see you. Take pictures with the current leadership, like Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López, Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio, David Smolansky, Henry Ramos Allup, María Corina Machado, Edmundo González Urrutia, Henrique Capriles, and do some self-promotion, social networking, techbro meet and greets, that sorta thing.

2-Do some agitprop for your hogbase, give 'em steady supplies of suspense slop (1) through social media, call for treason, participate in guarimbas, organize ''comanditos'' (2), which were like little terror cells, basically, that María Corina had been building with Vente Venezuela, which was a tactic used by Voluntad Popular during Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó's boss phases, do a little stealing, some corruption, burn some people ( yes, the opposition burned people during guarimbas) and eventually, the state will respond.

3-Once you get caught, the network I mentioned on Point 1 will kick into gear, along with your family. This is the fun part, because we're gonna have some show and tell in order to display how these videos work.

If you ever happen to be on Instagram or Facebook, and come across a feed that looks like this:

Or this:

And this:

Congratulations, you're looking at the hogmind of the escualidera. This is the shit they consume on a daily basis. This is what I meant by indefinite suspense. You can see some examples on the first pic of how these videos look. You stand with a piece of paper or put a cellphone camera to your face and try to talk seriously, saying: ''Liberen a Julito'', and then I go and look: ''Who the hell's Julito?''. Whoops, Julito was involved in some shit. They have 0 pictures of any wrongdoing by the state, only testimonies from family members, or other ''activists'', very much like the Uyghur genocide shit, following the same format, you know? We have a face of a supposed ''political prisoner'', who was not jailed for being rightwing, or belonging to a party, they were jailed for doing something wrong. This is not what a political prisoner is. And we should know, because we count many in our ranks. People who did much less than these clowns, and served or are serving, long ass sentences like Leonard Peltier, Oscar López Rivera, or Mumia Abu-Jamal. They've had their human rights violated in the largest prison system in the world.

But back on topic this picture:

Uses terms that are very common in this practice, like ''periodista'' (journalist), ''detenido injustamente'' (unjustly detained). They're always ''unjustly detained'' without ''arrest warrants''. The PNB (Policía Nacional Bolivariana) just woke up that day and charged into their home. These are not gringo cops or ICE. These guys get the equivalent to a bachelor's degree, like college level education, and learn about human rights, which are in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, something I can't say about the US. I need to reiterate, the people in power right now in Venezuela know a thing or two about human rights. And we all know that narrative has crumbled, because it's not part of the asspulled charges against Maduro. But it has to be maintained for both psychological war on their own base, and disinformation war against Chavistas.

To conclude, I came across this image of El Capitán, Diosdado Cabello, whom everyone should be familiar with, since he's one of the most vilified people in media history. I'm not joking. This guy, if you listen to the escualidera, you think he's Satan himself, and he's one of the most wholesome and based comrades in Venezuela. He's been there since that rebellion back in 1992, when Chávez declared the famous: ''Por ahora''. But I found funny that people in the comments say they look scared, and then I look at the pic, and it's this?

It's the same with Maduro and Chávez, they just never understand that these guys are ''jodedores'', they like to fuck around, joke, be in a good mood. You can't watch a Nicolás Maduro or Diosdado Cabello speech without some jokes somewhere. Joy, Alegría, is an essential part of Chavismo, and it's the polar opposite on the Opposition side. It's all doom and gloom, anger, dark shit, calls for murder, for invasion, and then these are the people crying when they get caught. But they all get their 15mins of fame and get to play the part of a ''political prisoner'', a ''victim of the dictatorship''. I said near the beginning that trivializing dictatorships is akin to Holocaust Denial, because when you know what people went through, and it's all well documented, and ongoing, sometimes elucidated by a release of internal CIA docs, and then you see people with the gall to downplay these atrocities, while I see them walk out of the Helicoide or Rodeo unharmed, healthy, well dressed and clean, I can't believe it. They get treated with kid's gloves and continue on their shit. Some things just never change, comrades.

Well, thanks for reading and I hope this helps people better understand this narrative.

Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

(1) Edit: Suspense Slop has to be profitable, and that's how Venezuela Aid Live which was that stupid concert in the border of Táchira, in Cúcuta, Colombia, that was held during Juan Guaidó's coronation attempt back in 2019 came about. We've also had scams like ''Ya Casi Venezuela'' (Almost Venezuela, meaning that we're almost there, we're almost done with something) which I mentioned before that was organized by Ivan Simonovis and Erik Prince, and managed to scam a sizable amount of their own base, much like Milei did with his Libra bullshit. We've had campaigns like ''La Última Cola'' (The Last Line, as in the line to the supermarket, to get gas, etc.) during the 2015 National Assembly elections, where the opposition won a majority and began to attack everything in sight, including portraits of Simón Bolívar and led to the period of guarimbas. All these events have been designed not only to attack the Bolivarian Revolution, but to profit while doing so.

(2) The ''comanditos'' were supposed to be the rightwing's response to the UBCH (Ooh-Beh-Cheh). The ''Unidades de Batalla Hugo Chávez'' form one of the basic organizational methods in the territory. Almost every street in Venezuela has an UBCH, a group of people in the base of the PSUV, with radio (still used a lot in Venezuela), transport, emergency supplies, etc. They were mostly organized for activation during and after the last election, which was held in July 28, 2024. They were designed to cause unrest, burn down buildings and schools that were used for voting. Some of these people do not even form part of any political organization, they were just hirelings and goons elevated to ''political prisoners''.

I got this on my Youtube Recommendations, and I gotta say, good one, Youtube. For once, the algo hit me with some bangers. This video is in Spanish, but the Autotranslate is spot on, you can trust it, and I highly recommend it. This goes into the mentality of ''vendepatrias'' from a Mexican context but also in general.

Life works in mysterious ways sometimes. Yesterday I commented on a post about the so-called ''political prisoners'' mindfap from Venezuela (found here: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/7560638) and today I wake up to the news that the Bolivarian government decided to unilaterally free a number of them. This can be understood in various ways: as an attempt to extend laurels for peace, an ''exchange'' for Maduro and Cilia, a ''capitulation'', a sign of defeat, proof of goodwill for negotiations, or even a sign of strength. This last one may confuse some, but in Venezuela there's a saying:''El que se mete con Venezuela, se seca'' (''Those that mess with Venezuela dry up''). It's an expression of moral consistency, of letting bygones be bygones and believing that life will eventually teach those that fuck with us a lesson without our interference. Vindictive hope and revolutionary certainty.

This is why María Corina Machado and Juan Guaidó got to strut about with nobody prosecuting them. Many of those now freed were part of their machine. Will they turn around and be grateful? Of course not. It not only feeds their arrogance, but their impunity. We know from which threads they're cut. Among them are Juan Carlos Guanipa, aka ''Tequeño Crúo'' (Raw Tequeño), another longtime politician and ally of Guaidó and MCM. Dude was taken into custody about a year ago, because they found in his cellphone contacts with the CIA, and others in MCM's circle discussing destabilizing plans. He's been around every guarimba and coup attempt. Another one I heard about was Edmundo González' son-in-law, Rafael Tudares. He, too, was not in prison for that long. He was charged with forging, terrorism, conspiracy, and so on. I haven't heard the names of others, but we can assume they're all part of this milieu.

According to the government, the things that are being done right now were already planned for by Maduro, in case of his death, unjust imprisonment, or other contingencies. I don't know if this action itself was part of his plans, but I do know that the country's stability during this forced absence is. He had planned for the government to carry on as usual with all the projects that were already underway. This is part of the formation that Chávez gave Maduro, and it's one of our greatest strengths. Reaction always operates through personalization, saying the fault of everything is this or that person, but Chavismo isn't Chávez or Maduro, it's the Venezuelan people. This is something all our movements must learn.

This is a petition with full paperwork, adherence to law, and following directions from law enforcement, in order to hold peaceful and nonviolent protests in Streetgrad, in front of the Embassy Of Hexbear On Lemmygrad (https://lemmygrad.ml/c/HexbearEmbassy). We've been forced to write this strongly worded letter due to the closure of Grad's residents to the c/chapotraphouse (https://hexbear.net/c/chapotraphouse) premises. We hope this letter reminds Hexbear mods of their obligation to maintain their services open to Lemmygrad or their embassy will be seized, according to Article 1917 of the Lemmygrad Constitution, where it states, and we quote:''Failure to let Gradders into Hexbear's comms will result in ending of friendly relations and seizure of any and all assets once owned by Hexbear within Lemmygrad''. We don't want to do this, because that means taking direct action, and we prefer to solve things peacefully.

The No Bears Manifesto

We Stand Against Unchecked Power.

Democracy was built to prevent bears from claiming control over the many. We refuse to live under the rule of self-appointed bears. Whether through government overreach, billionaire influence, or political corruption, we reject any system that strips power from the people and hands it to the bears. No bear should be above accountability. No Hexbear mods should dictate our future.

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True democracy is not just a system of elections. It is the voice of the people, the right to self-govern, and the ability to challenge those in power. We stand against policies that undermine democratic institutions, weaken civil liberties, and erode the rights of the people. We believe in fair representation, free speech, and a government that serves the many, not the privileged bears.

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Hexbear's mod policies have demonstrated the dangers of authoritarian leadership. Through executive overreach, the dismantling of democratic institutions, and the installation of unelected bears into positions of power, we have witnessed a direct assault on democracy. We refuse to accept a government that prioritizes self-interest, corruption, and authoritarian rule. Bears must be accountable to the people—not to their own ambition.

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Resistance is more than words. We mobilize. We protest. We organize. We educate. We refuse to stay silent while power is taken from the people. From city streets to digital spaces, we will continue to challenge those who seek to rule unchecked. No movement succeeds without action, and we call on all who believe in democracy to stand with us.

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They want us to accept the erosion of our rights. They want us to believe there is nothing we can do. They want us to think democracy is out of our hands. They are wrong. We are louder than their money. We are stronger than their power. And we will not stop until democracy belongs to the people again.

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