[andrewcooke]

the best way to have change is to make it, not wait for the rich. and i think this is obvious (not just here in chile, but anywhere - there must be a dozen posts on hn a day complaining about the complacency of those in charge of the status quo). so it seems very odd to read: the Chilean government would have supported my fund, but I also wanted a commitment from the elite, and it didn’t happen.

if you wait for the entrenched families here to change, you will be waiting a long time.

[mjwalshe]

And if you piss them of to much you might end up dead

[abalashov]

Where do you come up with this crap? Do you know anything about Chile?

[bruo]

I live in Chile, i supported the punta de choros people struggle to stop an energy plant there since mid 00's, since friends of mine work in that area. All the place's economy is based on fishing, and the power plant will destroy that.

I know they were raided, i know the SII visited a lot of people at 2am asking for data. Some journalists from Canal 13 did a note about that but never got broadcasted.

They learned that they aren't going to be on TV because they are less rich and less powerful than people who wanted the plant. That knowledge made them to ask for help to some actors and then, using internet, the campaign was made public.

The sites chaopescao.cl and salvemospuntadechoros.org were asked by phone to be removed and hosting company agree with that...

I created myself an account on hn just to tell you that this maybe is not a common politics, but it still happening, specially away from santiago. You don't have to belive me and say this is what happens in chile, but it will be more than cool to keep your mind open to notice when this happens, and confront it and make it public.

[abalashov]

I find that entirely believable. But do you really think that activists in the US do not face similar problems, at least, when their actions threaten genuine subversion of some end desired by the wealthy elite? In relative terms, I am not given to believe that Chile is a particularly oppressive place.

[whateverer]

The you should see what we do to the Mapuche over here. Last week the Supreme Court confirmed a sentence of three years of _probation_ for a cop who killed a Mapuche activist. Their communities are violently raided with gunshots as a matter of business, international media is harassed out of the region and the national media doesn't cover squat.

[pelle]

That is unfortunately what most people in the US and Europe think about most countries in Latin America.