Caracas Chronicles

Photo: Bloomberg retrieved

Remember what we’ve been saying about the carnet de la patria as an instrument of oppression? Reuters just published a thorough investigation about the thing, and it’s so fucking perverse, it’s baffling.

Turns out, once you register, the carnet stores:

1) Family information (sweet merciful Christ);

2) Employment and income;

3) Property owned;

4) Medical history;

5) State benefits received;

6) Presence on social media (of course);

7) Membership of a political party;

8) Participation in Socialist Party events, and;

9) Whether you have voted.

You know what this means? After you get on the system, the State can come directly to you and say “I know your mother needs medicine. I have it, and you’ll only get it if you do what I want.”  This is how the State knows what to do when the time comes to exploit us. Hard, cold, social engineering.

“What we saw in China changed everything,” said the member of the Venezuelan delegation, technical advisor Anthony Daquin. His initial amazement, he said, gradually turned to fear that such a system could lead to abuses of privacy by Venezuela’s government. “They were looking to have citizen control.”

As Angus Berwick explains, the ploy was first tried with a Cuban team and, after they screwed the pooch, it was redone with the Chinese ZTE, a company known for selling tech to North Korea and Iran, and the very one selling mobiles down the avenue. At CANTV, there’s a ZTE team pulling knobs and keeping track of how Venezuelans live.

Now you see why Nicolás has been so desperate to get everyone on board with the carnet de la patria. Remember the gas price tale? It developed just like we expected it to, but many fellas out there bought the spooky story, in a scheme that’s bound to return.

Benito Urrea, a 76-year-old diabetic, told Reuters a state doctor recently denied him an insulin prescription and called him “right wing” because he hasn’t enrolled. Like some other Venezuelan citizens, especially those who oppose the Maduro administration, Urrea sees the card with suspicion. “It was an attempt to control me via my needs,” he said in his Caracas apartment.

To say that this tramples over the Constitution is an understatement, especially after 20 years of chavismo. Want to know the best part?

This all came from Hugo Chávez himself.

It’s fucked beyond belief, utterly evil and the most chavista thing I’ve ever seen. Please, read the piece and abandon hope all ye who enter here.