Good, Well-Informed Neighbors
On Tuesday, when I saw the stay informed prompt, my wife was just telling me about an issue that had just happened in the WhatsApp group of the neighborhood. The group had been created to inform people about the domestic gas fee collection and delivery, but someone decided that it was in the best interest of the community to spam with information that would make us support Putin in his invasion of Ukraine.
As you know, even though the maduro regime brags about Venezuela being first in the world in gas reserves, we have all kinds of issues with domestic gas and there are communities where the service fails for months, forcing people to block the streets in protest.
In this context, and with tons of other local problems that have been lingering for decades (sewage water, unpaved roads, electricity/phone/internet failures, etc.), this neighbor (who had been sending unrelated messages to the group) pissed my wife off when she complained and demanded that only gas-related messages should be exchanged in that group.
He argued that the comuna (an illegal figure that is nowhere in our constitution but which chavistas keep imposing to no purpose) had to stay informed about the recent events in Europe, especially the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The information in question, which he wanted to share was obviously filtered and mandated by the regime’s propaganda machine. We are supposed to feel sorry for Putin whose only fault has been to try to save Ukraine and the world from the secret biolabs the USA has been operating in Ukraine.
We were livid. He disrespectfully pointed at our freedom of choice; if we did not care about the news, we could simply ignore the crap he was sending via the WhatsApp group. The straw that broke the camel’s back was his assertion that wifi connection was not an excuse to object what he was doing because he knew we did have internet and could afford the downloading of crap.
This attitude is typical of the new man/woman created by the revolution. This is what they understand by being a good neighbor. They mirror the paternalistic attitude from their ideological masters and assume they know better what you want or need.
My wife did a great job protesting so adamantly that some other neighbors joined in the protest and the administrator of the group had to change the settings to prevent anyone sending unwanted info. The neighbors in question left the group immediately. If only they also left the neighborhood or the country, for that matter.
Information war has been the main investment of the Bolivarian revolution since they are in power. They know how much it can shape and harm a population. They will continue to brainwash and restrict freedoms as long as people allow them to. They have minions in every street, but it is up to every neighbor to allow them to do the dirty work for which they are not even paid.
Source
Thanks for your reading
This was my entry to @mariannewest and @latino.romano’s 5 Minute Freewrite: Single Prompt Option: STAY INFORMED. You can see the details here.
Make sure you visit the Freewrite House!!!
