Here's a frightening video of a gang of people on motorcycles in Venezuela. They surround a truck carrying sugar, and throw Molotov cocktails at it until the driver stops: then they loot the truck, while other traffic on the road is forced to wait until they've finished.
What does it say about that society that other motorists seem to regard the incident as just another delay? There's no outrage that I can see or hear, no attempt by any law-abiding citizens to intervene or help the truck driver. There again . . . in a society where law and order have largely broken down, the definition of 'law-abiding' is, by definition, a bit murky. I've seen that in Africa many times. If your family is starving and you see someone with food, it's the most natural thing in the world to mug him for it. Desperation rules.
Ask yourself, too: what happens if they try to rob you like that? In a situation such as now prevails in Venezuela, if you're known to have stockpiled supplies for your family, you're going to become a target for those who have none. Guaranteed. What will you do about it? A man alone, or a family alone, can't defend their stash all the time . . . and sooner or later, either they'll run out of ammunition, or those wanting what they've got will up their game and bring more people and/or more and heavier weapons.
There really is such a thing as a "no-win situation". Right now, Venezuela qualifies as a "no-win country". There are already inner-city areas in the USA that can be described as "no-win suburbs". There will probably be more. Start thinking now about how to avoid them, and how to conduct yourself if you can't.
Peter
12 comments:
Good advice you give there.
True communism. Destroy the free markets. Blame the producers. Institute price controls. Get the inevitable results.
It looked like people on the road were stopping, running up to grab their own sack(s) of sugar.
Passerby's were helping loot the truck... not the kind of place where I'd expect strangers to stop & help the driver.
Sad times in Venezuela.
Coming to a neighborhood near you....
Outrage occurs when there is a conflict between actions and EXPECTED norms of behavior. Venezuela is a kleptocracy; what's a little more theft, especially if the thievery is by the people FROM the government. And since everything has been nationalized, including food distribution, the sugar is from the government.
SNAFU.
Two comments come to mind on this, both without knowing with any certainty (at this point) when and/or precisely where (in Venezuela) this took place:
1) In a country as deficient (for quite some time, now) in effective public law-enforcement, and lacking in anything like "normal" availability of foodstuffs, who is so apparently-lacking in any serious grasp of the realities that they try to haul a flatbed-truckload of food of any kind whatsoever on a public highway - in broad daylight - without equipping said truck with some sort of armed defenses?!? That just seems to be an open-invitation to hijacking - which is, of course, exactly what then took place...
2) How many of the people also traveling along that highway - in the obvious absence of any useful self-defense ability or attempt on the part of that truckload's owner(s)/operator(s), and the apparent absence of any sort of public law enforcement, could be expected to try to do anything to prevent, stop or even slow that hijacking from taking place? Would YOU try to do anything?? Against that mob of motorcyclists, who are obviously fairly-well-organized and intent upon their assault and looting, with some of them highly-likely to be armed - quite possibly heavily-so?? And with - after only a short while - at least some participation by a substantial percentage of other passers-by in the hijacking/looting? How would any such attempted-intervention not amount to subjecting oneself to a certainty of one being - at the very least - assaulted, beaten and quite possibly being killed, even if you were armed yourself?
Yes - we can be, objectively, horrified that it appears that most of the onlookers merely regarded that whole incident as a temporary obstruction, to be passively watched but otherwise regarded as simply an annoyance - a temporary obstruction of one's day and personal affairs - and endured quietly until it's over, and one can move on with one's own life - but what else could we logically expect would take place in such a situation?
Plan on this in the larger blue cities...
Like Chicago's South and west sides. It won't be pretty, but it will happen. A certain cultural and economic cohort will easily slip into such behavior. No, I'm not being racist.
Road Warrior: Venezuela-- This is socialism's end game, gangs of mutants roam the wasteland seeking any supply of the precious gas-uh. no. sugar or food. Coming soon to a country near you, if progressives have their way.
This happened last week in the western part of the country and very probably by the accent of those in the video, in Zulia state where most of the Oil fields are located. The two Natural gas truck also help with the deduction.
The people with the bikes are known as "motorizados" and have been a plague for many decades, but know they are a clear and present danger. Where before they would not gather and attack people one on one and maybe two on one, now they do this wolf pack thing. And short of explosives, not much you can do to defend yourself. They work under the principle of Piranhas or Marabunta ants.
Know what the difference is between a stray cat and your cat?
One dish of food.
If you're prepping, STFU. And be prepared to repel boarders, as Col. Cooper used to say.
The question might be do you have the legal right to use force/deadly force in Venezuela to prevent a robbery? I would be surprised if you do. The state probably controls all use of force.
If you just drive a truck for the company transporting the sugar,
do you risk life and limb for bags of sugar?
If it's your truck, is it worth getting firebomb and loosing your livelihood?
Maybe a good time to start hiring trunk monkeys for convoy duty.
Gerry
No one is addressing Peter's other questions. I recommend the work of Charles Hugh Smith on the topic of trying to be a lone survivor.
What keeps you from being a target is being part of a community and blending in with that community. It means minimizing stockpiles while maximizing the ability to produce the basics. It means a poison dart frog defense; it's nature's way of saying "do not touch" (also a nice far side cartoon).
If the truck had a couple of guys behind bulletproof shields with flamethrowers or other graphically deterring weapons, easier prey would have been selected. While that may draw your laughter, I'd point out that for a primitive mind the graphical example of what might happen is often the best deterrent over the intellectual law based deterrent that currently works in the west only because of our genetic and cultural foundation.
Naturally the Army would dislike things like that. I'd imagine that their supply shipments are not attacked, and they send along a couple of armored vehicles or a short platoon armed with automatic weapons.
Again, numbers, guns, and the willingness to make an example are the means of deterrence.
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