Banned in Caracas

/ March 27, 2014
Yeah, they went there

Yeah, they went there

A while back, our old comrade blogger Alek Boyd opened a blog called Infodio. In Alek’s trademark, no-holds-barred style, the site has become an indispensable source of information (some call it gossip, others slander) on the comings and goings of the boli-bourgeoisie. One particular fixation of the site is the so-called bolichicos, the young-ish “entrepreneurs” behind Derwick Associates, a firm with … oh, never mind, just check the link.

Alek started becoming quite notorious in Caracas circles avid for information on the powerful. Conspiracy theories about him began popping up, and it was quite amusing when, on my last trip to Caracas, several people asked me out of the blue if Alek was indeed a real person.

It seems, though, as if Infodio has been rocking a few too many boats – a few weeks ago, the site was banned in Venezuela.

This wasn’t bombasted through the airwaves, mind you – it wasn’t blasted on cadena nacional like the ban on NTN24 or the censorwhip of Twitter. No – the ban was implemented on the down low, in the shadows, where Infodio’s subjects like to dwell.

I have no way of knowing if the ban is still in place, but people will surely get around the information block. After all, Infodio’s latest juicy detail is about a lawsuit that alleges Diosdado Cabello received kickbacks for electricity plants (shocking!), and it was picked up by the Miami Herald, among others. Now that Infodio is being quoted by other news outlets, the ban seems sillier by the day.

Alek likes to push the envelope in his research, and that gets him into trouble sometimes. Regardless of what you think of him, in today’s Venezuela sites like his are necessary to have some semblance of accountability.

In anything that resembles a normal democracy, powerful, politically connected businessmen don’t get to just take down websites that publish things they rather weren’t published. Then again, the normal rules of the game don’t really apply to the bolibourgeoisie.

Related posts

32 thoughts on “Banned in Caracas”

  1. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Boyd’s work regarding Derwick. Between he and Mr. Bodzin/Setty’s delving in to the latrine of 21st Century Socialism exemplified by Derwick and continuously coming up with diamonds, it makes you wonder just how vast the corruption is and how wide and far it has spread.

    The sewers may be open in La Esperanza and elsewhere, but all the shit flows through Miraflores and the Capitolio and spatters over the entire country.

    Like

    • That was very close to where i live,i was not far away when it happened. They burned more than 10 vehicles, broke into houses to rob,tried to rape that girl…eventually the guy got caught and got lynched, theres the picture of him dead on the street going around on social media.

      I see the people at CC talking a lot…but what is the exit? The civil resistance option looks more appealing each day that passes, dialogue? Did Fidel ever try to establish dialogue? This is the same people we are talking about. We either use non-democratic ways to free venezuela form these commies,or they will rule FOREVER.

      Like

      • “That was very close to where i live,i was not far away when it happened.”

        Jesus Christ!!!!!!! I hope you and your loved ones are coping well with such traumatic situation. Just to think that those barbarians are entering homes and beating woman like that makes me mad! Stay safe!!!

        Like

        • And all that under the supervision of the National Guard…the fucking military man….
          Crime is part of the state now, officially.We are very scared,because the police,the military, those whose sole purpose is to defend us are doing the total opposite, and in a legal way.
          This is macabre,definitely hell.The tension,the anguish is unbearable,i just want to escape this place ASAP.

          Like

        • Nobody gives a shit about your ‘traumatic situations’, Mark.

          Opposition terrorists are getting what they deserve, it’s all good.

          Like

          • As opposed to pro-government terrorists? By the way, I also was terrified by that young lady. Shivers…

            —

            Like

    • This is why fighting fire with fire is just beginning…the escoria attacker is an archetypical barrio malandro, of which there are legions in Venezuela today. Residencias Palaima in Maracaibo is an 800-unit apartment lower middle-class complex in Maracaibo inhabited mainly by students and their families, and, I believe, was built by Banco Obrero in the Cuarta.

      Like

  3. If you want to know whether a ban is in place, use Chrome’s http://hola.org/ browser extension and select Venezuela from the list. Be aware that it’s rather slow, of course, courtesy of our amazing connectivity speeds.

    Like

  4. OT: where can I find a transcript of the speech Leopoldo Lopez gave on Feb 12? Presumably the case against him hinges on his words before the crowd on that date?

    Like

  5. I admire the work of Alek Boyd a lot. Societies need such people, who really dig up the dirt. Like prosecutor Fritz Bauer, an early nazi hunter in post war Germany, a society where a lot of those hold powerful positions especially in justice and academia. Or even the people involved in disclosure of the massive tax evasion, a huge topic of my society today. Or María Olivia Mönckeberg in Chile. Its the plain evil stuff, that makes human organizations tick, the way they tick. This office I am sitting too, though fortunately on a much less serious scale.

    Like

  7. I applaud Boyd’s efforts. He is quite tenacious and he has found quite amazing stuff few others have, stuff millions of Venezuelans should know.
    I might not agree on the style sometimes – his strong wording can put off some people who are not actually disinclined towards our side -, but he does a great service to those of good will in Venezuela.

    Like

  8. This regime purports to be totally opposed to guarimbas as a means of limiting the free transit and circulation of vehicles and peoples in public spaces and yet one characteristic feature of its rule is the way it has established countless guarimbas including a communicational guarimba which aims to curtail or prevent the free circulation of any dissenting or critical ideas information or opinions in public spaces, or one which prevents dissenting parties from freely and fairly participating in electoral contests for elected office or which prevents freely elected officials to pairlament or regional or local office from the legitimate exercise of their public faculties or rights . If anything defines this regime is its guarimbero mentality and practices. Only its guarimbas are worse because they dont just limit the circulation of vehicles and people in particular streets but the exercise of the freedoms and rights which are recognized all freemen in a society of equals !! .

    Like

  9. Alek Boyd is one of the best we have: brave,intelligent consistent, diligent, hard working,and tireless..

    The fact that he never minces words makes him all the better.His language is straight and plain like the Quakers…not designed to fool and to seduce others, but designed to speak the unadulterated truth, which is what those who are not above board can never abide.

    Like

  10. The headline in primicias24.com is amusing, if not desperate. It means that corns have been stepped on. And that is good.
    Boyd’s inflammatory style of writing, attention neediness, and hyper-defensiveness are not my cup of tea. But he deserves a great deal of credit for stirring the pot. As Juan noted, I, too, am not sure if all that is stirred is 100% factual. And I chuckled when Boyd razed the Bolichicos on inflated academic credentials, a practice in which Boyd himself has engaged, as per my earlier revelations, much to Boyd’s subsequent obfuscations, if not verbal hysteria.
    So yes, I say, keep stirring the pot, Alek. But remember that personal accountability is important. Otherwise, con qué autoridad moral ….?

    Like

  11. Alek Boyd is indeed a real person–he is, in fact, the Dalai Lama, as evidenced in the selfie he took and uses in some twitter postings, alongside some unknown younger male!

    Like

  12. Our society is completely based on money, you are proportionally respectable as your bank account size. It doesn’t matter how you got it, it only matter how much you have. I learned it 5 years ago when I was having lunch at Caracas Country Club and in a close table Mr Orlando Castro was having lunch with some friend and people come by and say “Orlandito!!!!!!! Good to see you around!!!! Good that you are back!!!!”
    I think one of our main problems is the lack of Contraloria Social (I don’t know how to translate) and Alek’s blog kind of do it. Sometime I don’t agree with him, for example when he blamed Insituto Cumbres de Caracas, saying kids there learned how to be a bolichico. They learned it at home and the way parents teach kids on how to be a respectable person. I did not study at ICC but blaming it to a 7-1 pm school and a bunch of preachers is just simplistic and denies social accountability.
    Anyway, I think blogs like Infodio are necessary if he can back up all his accusations

    Like

  13. Alek is not acceptable in a society where the incumbents jut want to take the coroto and not really challenge the status quo.

    Alek is not political, and rather radical and therefore will be hard to accept in the society of complices that Venezuela is, has been and hopefully ceases to be.

    However, a reality check is warranted. Jews usually are quoted as saying “money has no smell”.

    the challenge for Venezuela is to reward success and wealth creation without so many complejos, and in my opinion that is done by having a strong and fair tax culture. If fulanito de tal, still has so much after tax income to buy himself a porchse 911, good for him!!! He has been taxed his butt off and contributes to society that way.

    Now, in a country where we know all the new camionetotas are purchased cash by testaferros to 1, 2, 3 and 4th tier goverment employees and contratistas da arrechera.

    Alek is an outlier, and a good one at that, that needs to be praised and not ostracised IMO.

    If we had more people willing to be like radicals, to advocate for wealth, to defend right wing values, to be more protestant, less catholic, more modern, more accountable; to call the bullshit in many of our own worse society traits, I am sure the “average values” would move on the right direction.

    IMO la clave esta en desmontar el petroestado, quitarle poder al estado central por todos los medios (descentralizacion, tarjeta de beneficios por renta petrolera, fondo de estabilizacion intra and inter generacional para la renta petrolera, profesionalizacion de la procura en el estado y en PDVSA, fuerte autoridad en el area de impuestos, etc…. ) Esto ayudaria a una correlacion de fuerzas mas sana, y eventualmente al desarrollo del ciudadano doliente!!!!

    Cuanto duele saber que los recursos perdidos del pais pueden /podrian hacer.

    Like

    • “Money’s got no smell” originated not with Jews, but the Roman Emperor Vespasian. He sold the contents of public urinals to leather-tanners, and that was his response to those who sneered at the “smelly” profits.

      Like

  15. My only problem with Infodio was how Alek Boyd decided to slander the Instituto Cumbres de Caracas. El Cumbres is an excellent school, one of the best in the city, its academic level is way above the mean. Hundreds of families enroll their children there so they can have a hollistic education. There are bolichic@s from every single “upper-class” school in Venezuela, the social decomposition of Venezuelan upper class is not new and it can be traced way back to the colonial era, why descredit an institution that every day tries to change this? The ambition and vices that the bolichicos showed are not taught at school, they are taught at home. And yes, Cumbres is not perfect, favoritism and internal politics are part of the daily bread, but, isn’t that the same in every single human organization?

    Like

Comments are closed.