It is 12:22 am as I write this. 25 years ago I was standing guard in my family’s property with a single shot shotgun, about 20 rounds of buck & slugs, a Walther PPK .32ACP with a spare mag and perhaps 25 extra rounds for it. 24 hours before I would have thought I was well prepared for the usual contingencies, but at that time I realized I was woefully under-gunned.
Why standing guard? We were in the middle of what is euphemistically called a total breakdown of society. Riots and looting were everywhere and people were breaking into neighbor’s houses to steal, kill and set everything on fire. My parents, God bless them, always believed in the good of people and believed we would be spared by the Grace of God. I was more of a Doubting Thomas and decided that I trusted God, but it also paid off to make sure nobody else behaved un-Christian toward us.
By morning, the country was deep into chaos and I was jittery with so much coffee intake. The smell of smoke was heavy and shot were ringing everywhere. I was in shock as I thought “this could not happen here! What the hell is going on?”
Rumors were flying, the news was showing that we were pretty much on our own as the government appeared to be paralyzed and unable to come to grips with the situation; no law enforcement to speak of anywhere. Vandals were the only force out on the streets and were not shy about using their new-found power in the vacuum.
Somehow my hazy brain realized that there was an option to increase our chances to stay safe: Bathtub Napalm. I was partial to the gasoline and soap (real soap,not detergent) but I also realized that I was not in the best frame of mind to be as careful as I needed to be to come up with the optimal mixture. I ended up creating molotov cocktails with soap shaving added for flavor. They did not work as well as my previous concoctions, but they could still do plenty damage. I just needed an extra to keep the crazies away till some semblance of order came back… and it did, with vengeance on day 3.
It took the Government two more days to get the situation under control and not without a lot of violence. The official toll was 276 killed and many (me included) laugh at that shortness of that number. Monetary losses were never quantified and the country pretty much lost its previous innocence.
Fortunately, we were spared from damage & idiots. OK, so Mom’s & Wife’s prayers worked.
I learned a lot from those days: Mobs are stupid, temperamental and lose any decency that they may have as individuals. Governments are blunt tools that have no qualms exercising power with extreme prejudice when it suits them. The result is this last picture, also from those days:
Ok – excuse my ignorance – where is this?
Venezuela, 1989
Miguel, Americans are blessed to have men like you, and Selco, and Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre, who have been through the fire, and know firsthand what happens in societal breakdown. Men like you can teach the rest of us Americans what will occur, what to do, how to live when, at long last, the collapse does come, as it must.
Thank you for this post. I encourage you to write a lot more about those years in Venezuela, and what you learned. We need to learn from men like you, because most Americans have known peace for too long, and many of us have become soft and full of “normalcy bias.”
I value your blog, and read it almost daily. I also enjoyed your interview on Polite Society Podcast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracazo
Assuming for the moment the wiki is at least somewhat accurate (only just started reading about this event. haven’t had time to fact-check any of it)…
On the Protests and Rioting section… I’d love to see any level of gov’t attempt to enact those types of suspensions here and at this time. It would be quite interesting (to say the least.)
Interesting. Thank you for sharing.
I didn’t know you were from Venezuela. One of my friends, the one who makes the CNC guns, is married to a Venezuelan. His mother-in-law and sister-in-law are, belatedly, now trying to get out and get to Israel. But the government is basically non-functional right now. A bad time to be trying to get paperwork together.
I guess another lesson in something like this is to be prepared to get out. Have a plan, then execute when the time comes.
I guess another lesson in something like this is to be prepared to get out. Have a plan, then execute when the time comes.
I got out of there before Chavez even began his first run for President. There were a couple of indicators that told me the country was heading in the wrong direction, so we basically abandoned our settled lives and moved to the US. We could have also gone to Spain, but they are also becoming again Al-Andalus & didn’t feel like going through another 700 years of occupation. I was told I was a fool, that Chavez would never be allowed to win, that communism would never become the law of the land and that I was paranoid for giving up a nice life and start over again in a foreign country.
It is them that are now living in a foreign country and not a very nice one.
They were warned, they ignored the warnings.
Fuck ’em.
One of my friends, the one who makes the CNC guns, is married to a Venezuelan
My condolences to your friend!… LOL 😀
And folks never think ‘ that could happen here’. Scary shit, sir.