chile

Before you go to Valpo you should watch that wack Eli Roth movie set there, Aftershock. I tell chileans about this movie and they are like, wtf.

all the pablo neruda houses are worth a visit imo

here we go

think we're gonna try for borago on our last night (if we can get in)

narrator: they did not get in

we did go to peumayen tho! great presentation if not totally mind blowing, across the literal boards the courses came on, but at USD$36 a screaming value and well worth it. rec very much appreciated yerac!

oh! that sucks about Borago. I never found it to be hard to get a table for whenever but it's been a year or so and I think they have moved locations. I liked peumayan a lot but my spouse who needs the veg menu said last time he went it was mostly cheese (which he does not eat) so we have not been since. What did you eat and what did you do in Santiago?

Borago was open for reservations allllll week so we stupidly didn't actually try to place a res until Friday, for a Saturday night booking for four. Oh well

I got the "mixed" tasting menu, which had samplers of the meat/sea/veg menus

the mushroom pate was exquisite

Borago is a little funny, whimsical. Like drinking tea out of horns. Scraping some mushroom paté off of a big stone. They had something I called the pine diaper, where they would bring out a burlapy cloth infused with foresty/earth smells with the dish in the middle and when they opened the cloth it would release the fragrance.

we didn't get to do much in Santiago on Saturday because we ran out of gas on the way out of Chillan and lost a few hours to that little escapade

At least it was warmer this weekend!

Okay, I felt the need to make a fast thread in English so the people who aren't from this country know what's going on Chile.#EvasionMasiva#EvasionMasivaTodoElDia pic.twitter.com/qQJLvjl7xv

— vakyn 📌 AU (@_SE0KJ1N_) October 18, 2019

Good thread explaining what's going on rn in Santiago

It's pretty quiet here now. A lot of people waiting for the bus. Two weeks ago there was a football team staying at a hotel down the street from me and after the fan rally a bunch of barras bravas just started trashing our street, pulling up signs to lay in the middle of the street, setting trash on fire. The police came with the teargas and the firemen were quick but they kept resetting fires. I was annoyed because the firemen are all volunteer and donation funded. Last night was pretty crazy though.

The food and real estate here are on par with most US cities that I don't get how (I mean I do) how they keep the wages so low. It's really messed up.

now that's direct action fuckin hell ahahahahahaha yes lads https://t.co/C79kJNF0p4

— niko 🐝 (@nik0_mcr) October 19, 2019

A lot of metro stations and buses were set on fire too. FIRE!

This:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chile/comments/dkl5j8/y_recuerden_amigos_el_lumpen_no_es_aliado_de_la/

So much hair-raising footage going round.wonder how long it can go on for?

Pinera is a fool.

yes, he really is.

for those not following he was seen dining in a nice resto the first night of the unrest, and then has made statements typifying the unrest (with lots of the participants being teens/youth) and the police/military response as being a war against evil.

I didn't realize he was one of chile's 11 billionaires.

or 13 or 14 or however many they have now with the minimum wage still being ~400usd a month.

After he made that comment all the neighbors were banging their pots in all the buildings around me (I live in providencia).

Chilean troops fired on civilians from APC, footage from 1 hr ago pic.twitter.com/oUF9shP9B0

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) October 21, 2019

jesus, fucking armed troops on tanks firing at will here

I am surprised an apology and changes came this fast. https://www.cnnchile.com/pais/presidente-pinera-medidas-agenda-social_20191022/
I also see that there may is impeachment talk for Pinera.

I’m seriously relieved by Piñera’s statement. It’s just a beginning obviously, and needs to be backed up by real reforms, but man his tone up until now, combined with the specters of the junta crystallizing on the streets, was started to freak me out, having lived through ‘73 and all...

Then after checking on my family and friends there (including some who live right on Plaza Italia), and calming down a bit, I begin to wonder ... why aren’t we in the US rioting? Brutal neoliberalism for decades, violently racist structures and policy,, and a level of corruption that makes Chile look like a parent-teacher association... why are we so bloody patient[?

had started to freak me out, I meant

Probably the only chance people can really gain wins. This and the riots in Ecuador have given me joy

why aren’t we in the US rioting?

I (a non-American) tried raising this question in rolling US politics threads a couple of times and was met with hostility. There's always an exceptionalist excuse.

I would think because of guns and people being so imprisoned by their shitty health insurance (or lack of) and being so trained to be overly concerned about property destruction.

It's a shade funny though that the metro in Santiago has magnitudes better service that the NYC MTA. Like trains comes often, on time with countdowns, stations are mostly large and well taken care of...

It was pretty nice to see the media here covering older people being vocally supportive of the students and later shots of the elderly in their wheelchairs beating on their pots in solidarity.

Amusing to think that the Second Amendment may in fact be preventing US citizens from rebelling against their tyrannical government.

Your point about property destruction is interesting btw. As far as I can tell, it is indeed a far bigger deal in Anglo-Saxon countries (loosely speaking, of course).

Whenever people say violence and they only mean property destruction or setting trashcans on fire, I am like "oh fuck off."

i also think americans are overly distrustful of their neighbors but pretend they are of the government.

I have no idea how one would go about rewiring them short of a science-fiction utopia dystopia.

The first night here when everything was being set on fire we both said "chileans do not fuck around."

so this is still going strong!

for spanish speakers: i enjoyed this short (11 minute) podcast about the situation

yeah there is a huge (the largest?) demonstration going on right now. Students at one of the major universities sent out an email that they voted to be on an open ended strike and I think the truckers are protesting the highway tolls (highways are privatized).

It's unfortunate about the amount of looters but I get it. One of the hotels by plaza italia was totally fucked up the other day.

I was reading somewhere that the firefighters think it's better to be volunteer only because it makes them run better and members take it more seriously. I don't know if that is just spin or not though.

oh yeah the whole bomberos being voluntary thing and the consequences of that with all the burnings had skipped my mind :/

I had been wondering if they would have a demand to the government for salaries but then I read about their pride in being volunteers...and I just don't know. We do have an automatic monthly donation that goes to them.

46 years after US-backed forces led by Pinochet kidnapped, tortured and murdered communist singer Victor Jara, tens of thousands were singing his music yesterday in the streets of Chile: pic.twitter.com/ewr3oUUMrf

— hmmm (@yke_hmmm) October 26, 2019

“Neoliberalism was born in Chile and will die in Chile” pic.twitter.com/Gaa90j8zdH

— UptownBerber (@HishamAidi) October 28, 2019

where are all the usual ILX suspects with their usual Strong Opinions on civil unrest in the S American zone? I know, pointless fucking question.

A Chilean orchestra gave an open-air performance of "El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!" ("The people united will never be defeated") in Santiago.

The song was written in 1973, only months before the violent coup by dictator Augusto Pinochet, who assumed power in September. pic.twitter.com/EYgn7U1XA3

— redfish (@redfishstream) October 28, 2019

some songs never age.

Piñera having a wee cabinet-shuffle today as if that's going to fuck all.

"to do fuck all" even

We might need to have a general global civil unrest thread.