You remember it, right?  People were protesting in the streets against the crappy conditions, lack of food and lack of basic rights? Hollywood artists and political pundits did their twitter thing, resolutions were passed, etc.

It all petered out. Basically people got tired of inhaling CS gas, being shot at, having to endure abuses by the National Guard, the Bolivarian Police and the Government Irregulars called the “Colectivos.”  For all intents and purposes, the Government won and they are not shy about it. Hell, they knew they were going to win, they only had to wait them out as they were not a threat to the status quo. Peaceful demonstrations against totalitarian regimes have the tensile strength of a tissue subjected to a category 5 hurricane.

And of course, the government is “investigating” the deaths of protesters at the hands of its forces and we can expect results sometime in the next two decades or so. In the meantime and thanks to the Venezuela Supreme Tribunal, the way that people can redress their differences with the government has changed:

Authorization issued by the civil authority of the jurisdiction in accordance with the terms of the Law on Political Parties, Public Meetings and Demonstrations , a requirement by law, breach of which absolutely limits the right to demonstrate peacefully , preventing performing any type of meeting or event. Therefore, any concentration, demonstration or meeting that does not have the prior endorsement of the approval by the relevant competent authority to do so may result in the police and security forces in maintaining public order to purposes of ensuring the right to freedom of movement and other constitutional rights ( such as the right of access to a health institute , the right to life and physical integrity ) , act by dispersing these concentrations with the use of the most appropriate mechanisms for this , under the provisions of the Constitution and the legal order.

That doesn’t sound too bad, right? We need to establish a minimum of order and we need to have at least some basic regulation or it will all be anarchy…OK, not so much. From the same decision:

According to the provisions of the Law on Political Parties, Public Meetings and Demonstrations, the first civil authority of the jurisdiction-which is desired concentration, demonstration or public meeting-not limited to the terms on which the application is made and may not only deny authorization, but also in case of an agreement between modifying or authorize as to the indication of the place and the chosen itinerary (day and time). Such statement shall be delivered by express administrative act, which alludes to the reasons or grounds for its decision, that these aspects should be taken into consideration by the applicants or the time to appeal the decision is made in commento.

I am using Google Translate which does not necessarily gets the proper nuance, but basically even though you may have come with an agreement with the local civilian authority as to the when and when you can have your little political soiree, this agreement can be null and void just because and at the last possible moment because that civilian authority felt like it. You get no appeal on the matter.  Basically you can have your people already concentrated in a location, five minutes before starting time and a gofer from the local civilian authority can come by, give you a piece of paper that says “Your protest is cancelled by order of Mr. Government” and you better find a way to quickly disperse the people who came to protest and pray the cops don’t feel like target practice.

That the American Left is still believing that our Bill of Rights can be properly pruned out of the Amendments they don’t like (2nd) and expect that the others will be cheerfully respected and even worshiped by those who seek power and govern over them, demonstrates the absolute ignorance of human frailty and History.

And if there is a statement proved wrong over and over, is this one:

“This could never happen here. People would not stand for it.”

That is what they said in Venezuela when one Hugo Chavez announced his candidacy for the presidency of Venezuela. The rest is history; learn from it.