Viva La...

Don't think I'm on this YouTube kick now or anything, it's just that I find this video to be exceptional. Gracias. No subtitles, but even if you don't speak Spanish you should FF>> to the end, it gets kinda dramatic although the cameraperson was kinduva pussy and doesn't follow her into the 'danger zone'.

Anyway, it starts out like one of those whiny liberal protest gatherings, I don't even know what the specific gripe was, and some white lady kvetch, kvetching. See some Che posters in the background, same old. At least, that's what it would feel like if we were in Berkeley, CA, a bunch of well-off liberals saying "no war" and carrying picket signs with hundreds of words detailing their complex conspiracy theories.

Not here, this obviously weak ass little protest gets gun-downed with high powered hoses laced with tear gas. Totally normal. She'd been talking the whole time about fatalism and economic tyranny and then this happens, so, already worked up she runs over and starts kicking one of the the big tanks, guanacos, a totally futile and even pathetic gesture of civil disobedience, she gets carried off and if there was any brutality (apart from the act of forcibly hauling her away) there's a tree that really doesn't want you to know about it.

More interesting, however, is what she's saying. She talks about a certain inability of the system to continue as such, for Chileans to sustain this tyranny of an unchecked market economy. Retirement is out of the question, wages are pathetic, and she's obviously of the "growing middle class" that is so celebrated in Chile. The way she dresses, her accent, her reference to travel to Scandinavia.

I met a guy on the bus who talked about a similar tension in Chile. He said something about 3 million people being on the brink, just not able to hang on in this system Chile (population 16 million) and that something's gonna have to change. His name is Fesal Chain, author, seems like a cool dude.

So according to Chain it's not "revolution", but it's something. What will it be? I find this idea extremely fascinating and exciting. It's an idea, immaterial, something like dreams and optimism, borne out of desperation. I believe that for a huge number of Chileans (a lot more than the 3 million critically affected that Chain alluded to), Chile totally sucks, and that's how they feel.

Marcel Claude, in another YouTube video, was talking about the extreme fatalism of Chileans, how common perception is that everything is corrupt, hopeless. But he stresses that there is an increasing tendency for the people to speak out and demand their rights and even be victorious, and this process is accelerating. From the student protests of last year to the CODELCO negotiations. Ah, fuckit, here's the video (big day for YouTube I guess):