Join the new world

If it were any other country in this world, I’d swear I put a jinx on them by talking so positively about their recent state of affairs. Just a few days ago, we were dancing in the streets of La Paz, celebrating our twin victories in the resistance wars against Paraguay and being back on the map. I was twitterpated over the engaging Princess Isabella, and I enjoyed promoting her as Bolivia’s champion and president-to-be.

After a weekend where the two victories were wiped out and the country was wiped again, the taste of joy isn’t so sweet.

After the arrival of YET ANOTHER PTO GROUP, it’s even gotten a little bitter.

Can’t the world give Bolivia even the smallest chance to regroup? Can’t they enjoy the things much of the rest of the world takes for granted for even one weekend?



I’m not so concerned about getting wiped, we’ll get the regions back, Paraguay isn’t very much without CoT acting on their behalf; with the US sucking the alliance dry in their vendetta against Serbia, Bolivia can and will get back on the map. Soon.

I’m not even all that concerned with this PTO attempt, although every PTO deserves your attention to detail. This attempt, however, is rather amateurish, compared to the more sophisticated PTO’s we’ve all seen. Basically it’s a group of kids trying to steal the presidential elections by way of multi’s. They’re doing a horrendous job of it. For one, the Bolivians are alerting the admins, and many of them are getting the banhammer; the only question is if they’ll be able to ban enough of them so they can’t influence the election. For another, they don’t know the most basic element for being an effective PTO gang: STFU AND DON’T DRAW ATTENTION TO YOURSELVES! These guys were in the Bolivian media, writing in Portuguese (a dead giveaway that this group is Brazilian-based) and using a lot of newbie personas to vote it up and leave positive comments; the author has been permabanned, and we all laughed.

The venerable Camarada Ernesto has see a LOT of these, I have no doubt he’ll be able to get the country through this one as well. However, he does require people who call themselves leaders to listen to his warnings. Apparently he’s talked to the major candidates and sought a “unity candidate”. You who have dealt with PTO’s know what this is, you try to get all the candidates to pick one among them to be the official national candidate, the others support them, and by concentrating votes to this candidate, you can outvote the PTO. Though Ernesto has recommended this, interest in this method is thin at best, as none of the three (Emiliosis33, Darthvan, and Princess Isabella) have yet to publicly state they’d give up their position. They may do so in the eleventh hour, but thus far they haven’t.

Then there’s the Phoenician Method, something my grandfather did all the time and something I do as well. It means to be very vocal and honest with citizens, tell them everything you know, alert them, point fingers at the culprits, and trust in your people’s ability to do the right thing. It also means tracking down the perpetrators via message, the forums, and IRC, and confronting them, getting in their faces, demanding they speak for themselves; by doing so (it works best in a crowded IRC room) you force them into a corner, and at that point you see what they’re made of.



I got into such a discussion with ”Gandalf” in the Bolivian IRC. That’s Gandalf Sabio Revolucionario, spokesman for G.R.E.M.I.O. In yesterday’s article, he talked the same talk many such groups use to woo votes their way, talk of saving Bolivia from themselves, how leadership has failed them, how they’re here to return Bolivia to their former glory. Virtually every member of this group is about four days old, tops. Most of them write in Portuguese, and then I assume they get out their translators and post the same damn thing in Spanish.

Anyway, I got on Gandalf pretty good, and he gave me a very defensive, wishy-washy reply that’s so common, you can probably say it with me:

”We’re not here to PTO anyone, we just came to help our Bolivian brothers in their time of need.”

Of course, the subtext of such a thing is more like:

”We know you’re a small country, so we’re going to think you’re stupid enough to fall for our ploy. We want to help, so long as we end up in power, and we’re not at all willing to work within your political system to pay our dues and gain your respect.”

When I asked him, if he’s not here to PTO the country, who he would vote for in the upcoming election, he refused to answer. My bet is because he doesn’t know who any of the candidates are. Someone somewhat in the know would have lied his way out of that one and just spouted a name to get me off his back. He couldn’t even do that.

I implore my Bolivian friends to summon the admins and get them to ban as many of these cats as possible. Right now it’s a race. It’s between you, decent voting citizens, and G.R.E.M.I.O., to see how many of their multi’s are eligible to vote Wednesday. I’m pretty sure you can get most of them banned. You have to. The legitimacy of your government is at stake.

I was really looking forward to a nice election cycle, to promoting my friend Isabella, and to hoping this generation of Bolivians finally had things under control. It’s a cruel lesson they’re learning, apparently something I still have to get through my thick skull, that the world won’t wait. At the very second you think you’ve taken a step forward, your neighbors will knock you back. It’s not that I don’t believe in Bolivia, because I do, I believe they can win back their regions and thwart this PTO. I just know it has to be incredibly exhausting to have to deal with this all the freaking time, to have to constantly start all over again, and I know it’s nearly impossible for a country to flourish when they’re always returning to Square One.

Good luck, Isabella and Bolivia. I love you both.