July 10, 2007   Recently we were sent an e mail from an interested party. It distributed to Ecuadoreans an article from Carlos Alberto Montaner whose pieces we have applauded and commended here before. His July 8, 2007 piece, also seen in numerous newspapers,  in fabulous and worth a full review- read it here.

Montaner puts to rest the foolishness of current comments by those who should know better across Washington, D.C. that the utterly obtuse, badly educated political manipulator named Rafael Correa is somehow mysteriously ‘redeemable.’ Correa's own comments and acts long ago exposed this fantasy for what it is. But Ecuadoreans seem enthralled with their own addiction to manipulation which they call adult behavior but what we call adolescent self delusion which has ruined their future and distastefully created a global view that Ecuador is untrustworthy, aberrant/deviant and self delusional.

There is nothing at all to be proud of in this picture and nothing to defend of proclaim as virtuous. Indeed, it is time to sweep out the Idiots, cease enabling the Idiots, stop funding the Idiots [sometimes called criminals], and return to non-Idiotic performances.
 
We cannot find one untruth in the article. We are positive that the normal chattering groups of anti-liberty will once again tell us that this article, as with so many superb pieces lately about Ecuador is, what do they call it-? ‘too strong’ or the worst yet stupid comment...." too fact based." We remind these enabling, feckless ninnyhammers of criminal regimes that the media has an obligation to cover the facts and that we prize insightful analysts. Worse yet, even as the Inter American Dialogue sends around its recent article questioning - as if this is a question at all- if free speech and open media and core human values are shuttering in Latin America.

The DIALOGUE is silly to ignore professional reports from the field in their fact based reporting on same which of course removes all doubt and long ago answered this question, which is supercilious/distracting/not credible to even raise at this juncture. The DIALOGUE's misinformation campaign is rather like visiting a dead, embalmed body lying in a casket for all to see at a funeral wake and asking ‘Is He Dead Yet ?’ Yes, personal freedoms are dying in the Andes as well as Brazil and Argentina even as the rallying cry mischievously would tell us that human rights for transsexuals and the Indigenous are being protected to help the poor. We remind that all Latin nations just a few years ago had full human rights protections by law. If there was not equal application- and not to decry the needs of the poor- common sense applications should have and must be applied.
 
What rankled us was the original note that the Montaner article was sent our way as "privileged and confidential material." While life has not yet come to this - yet...to Ecuadoreans who read accurate analysis of Rafael Correa's disastrous plans, not one criticized the sender of the shared, for the public news article for calling this privileged. Indeed, the glory of Montaner and many others is that his works are openly available to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

His message is neither privileged nor confidential at all. However, unless one and all stop pondering their navels and stop stargazing about with foolish avoidance of the facts, the disinformation campaigns will engulf fact based reporting and debase the fundamentals of intelligent reporting until none have access to clear information. The current hat tricks to mislead the general populace by circuitous routes of bad/flawed information transmission is itself a political tool applied for gain to some. We know it as an old KGB style trick to misinform, mislead and worse yet: disinform.
 
Today Ecuadoreans need to wake up and insist on the facts.  No one will spoon feed them any more. No one is interested in their self inflicted demise because their general population prefers to lazily ignore their human obligations as adults and remain wallowing in self pity, self ignorance and self destruction. Choices are made which are not useful. Ecuadoreans can and must organize to insist on a return of principled behaviors by their leadership. Idiots return to mislead and misgovern because we enable them. This is not privileged and confidential news. These are the facts. Use them.
 
Ecuador itself has numerous superb journalists, creative thinkers and leaders. Their value is neither confidential nor privileged and must be taken off the shelf where they have gathered dust sand self imposed, self censoring. Indeed, their acts and words should be flowing under the current craze by the full Correa Cabinet to insist that bad government of propagandists replace weak government. We remind that installing criminal authoritarian, neo communist government is no substitute for functional, even handed  law and order. What it is....is a green light for self enriching state kleptocrats engineered by the Chavez-backed Bolivarian Plan for self enrichment of the few....Chavez's politburo. Ecuadoreans have ignored the real story which is a fact based review of the Correa team's reliance- politically and financially- on the Chavez-backed illicit teams so populating, like the FARC, Ecuador today. Who are they? How many? What do they do? After five or so years on the job, why are they everywhere? What are their real goals besides misinformation and propaganda? Who will seek their ouster? 
 
A criminal, undemocratic dysfunctional marriage of convenience with alarming speed is being enshrined in Ecuador, surrendering all human capabilities to the same high art of fascism and deception as in Iran and Venezuela and Cuba. Such marriages of convenience never serve the common good and only serve the self enriching core group, which in this case appears to be affiliated with Russian "fund managers" as we have just seen carved out for the Marc Rich offshore/hidden/murky group, sometimes called Taurus Oil's, take over of some of Ecuador's oil. Will Trafigura soon enough extend its full transportation monopoly across Ecuador as is panned/ That too is a valid question, not the misleading question that asks IS democracy being shuttered. More importantly, the answer to the removal of democracy's lights must include functional reforms which have of course been systematically removed in Ecuador since 1999, following the Jamil Mahuad and Jeffrey Sachs- backed by Peter Romero, Ivonne Baki and their family business groups- planned economic disasters. The actions of the Idiots and criminally self enriching can be turned around. No one is a victim on this road. The reign of the Idiots can be supplanted with common sense and functioning attention- not more enabling.
 
One billion barrels of crude oil in Ecuador may sound like a lot but....it is no justification to shutter the state, close down democracy, and drain the swam of all state backed mineral extractions under a self imposed blockade of personal and leadership growth potential. This then is neither personal nor privileged. What it is....is a failure of leadership running amuck under criminal elements which are already costing Ecuadoreans massive amounts of money to hide their foolish crimes and will preclude any robust financial future for their nation. We are all fools when we do not stand for fair play, even handed law and order and the basic tenants of democracy. We become the Perfect Latin American Idiot- undependable and foolish- when we return to ennui, laziness, partnership with criminal behaviors and instinctively fleeing from inconvenient positions of principle because the money is good or the politics demand lies. Politics that demand lies and self enrichment based on buying in to the criminal acts reveals our own acts as Idiots.This is not politics but is an old communist tactic. Worse yet, it reveals a debasing element that can and must be turned around, not rewarded. Of this, there can no longer be any question marks or enabling claims that crime and democracy's antithesis communism are not afoot. Marriages of convenience such as exist in Ecuador never work except for those idiots that enjoy misery and its manipulative effects.
 
As penned correctly by the Executive Office of the President, viz U.S. Trade Representative Schwaab on July 6, 2007 to U.S. congressional Speaker Nancy Pelosi, if we are to hang out a Closed for Business Sign across the U.S. Congress which just renigged/broke its own transparent pledge to encourage democracy's brightest lights while rewarding Chavez-paid hacks and propagandists, it is not just Pelosi who is deceptive. Review Mary Anastasia O'Grady's brilliant column in the WALL STREET JOURNAL here about the perils of free trade versus illicit back room political trickery which the article calls presciently the "silly policies" of the Pelosi decision making team, already overrun by pro drugs groups and her "counsel."  We fool ourselves when we shutter all of democracy's functions and enable the "foolish" politics of deception. It is a Going out of Business sale for liberty lovers who deserve better and can have it....if they can keep it. This will require a return to the antidote of the Idiots.... a return to honesty, common sense and hard work. Donde está? When we do not act to impel the productive good, we are all Idiots. In a nation of idiots, leaders make the best the enemy of the good. In a nation gearing for progress, we make the best the advancement of the good. Rafael Correa is deceptively- and now quite openly- determined to make the best the enemy of the good. It is no way to run a country.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis