Seven years ago, Jose's home nation of Venezuela, a wealthy and developed nation, fell apart suddenly. It failed economically, politically, militarily, agriculturally, socially and culturally. Jose had to move into the mountains just outside the border to survive.
He's writing about the experience because most of us in functioning societies don't know how quickly it can happen, and what a collapse is like.
He says: "Today, where the only law is the fear imposed by AK-toting guys, in unidentified vehicles, crime has increased in the countryside and in the cities. Restrictions on importation were lifted and those using foreign currency made huge fortunes importing from abroad."
"It saddened and alarmed me to learn from a farmer in the Los Andes Mountains that people would come from the town, walking kilometers uphill during the night, even when raining, to steal potatoes. Crops that have not yet matured are being dug out of the ground. Farmers have to sleep in their potato fields to avoid being stolen from. Unarmed, roving bands of four or more thieves have caused the farmers to arm themselves with machetes and pikes."
This time by Medvedev — answering RT’s question about France and Britain’s plans to transfer nuclear weapons to Ukraine:
“I’ll say something obvious and harsh.
"Information from the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation about France and Britain’s intention to transfer nuclear technologies to the Kiev Nazi regime radically changes the situation. And it’s not about the destruction of the NPT and other things in international law. This is a direct transfer of nuclear weapons to a warring country.
"There can’t be the slightest doubt that under such circumstances, Russia will have to use any, including non-strategic nuclear weapons, against targets in Ukraine that pose a threat to our country. And if necessary, against the supplier countries that become accomplices in a nuclear conflict with Russia.
"This is the symmetrical response to which the Russian Federation has the right.”
"Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
John Harrington 1561-1612 Epigrams, Book iv. Ep. 5.
Published in 2019 by the Observatory of Christianophobia, a French website dedicated to documenting incidents of anti-Christian hate crimes, map marks every area a church has been attacked in France with a red pin. As a result, virtually the entire map of France appears covered in red, highlighting the ubiquity of church attacks.