August 17, 2007  Having achieved full blown self coups to co opt any relevant governability in their inter married nations, once called Ecuador and Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's Rafael Correa intend to enshrine the illicit total take overs of their governments- aka their nation, their lands, their governmental incomes- for perpetuity and profiteering through criminal malfeasance, racketeering and cartel performances unseen in recent decades. Looking more like communist Russia under their KGB led cartels, the Western Hemisphere has never seen such sweeping KGB-style mafia-related chutzpah ever.
 
While Ecuador is busily self deluding and ruining itself, sifting through over 4,000 so called candidates for less that 200 so called assembly seats for a so called open vote under slates of candidates in what is the most remarkably incompetent, ridiculous, gerry-rigged electorate system ever devised by mankind to confuse the voters with hundreds of pages of confusing texts, Ecuador fails to grasp the concept that already Rafael Correa rules Ecuador with an iron fist by sheer caveat called Presidential Decree and woe to anyone who looks at Correa, always paranoid, cross wise. Ecuador's newest concept of electoral activity is nothing less than old fashioned manipulation, an overt effort to Baffle Them with Baloney or bull or any other unsavory word. And baffled the voters will be, wondering how it could have ever come to this....with so much obvious manipulation by their own government to derail liberty and compromise any legitimacy. Baffling with baloney is a cheap trick but Ecuadoreans fall for it repeatedly because they are lazy and prefer to remain self delusional. It is far easier to pass the blame for one's own errant vapidity and lack of citizenship when one can blame "the other." Soon enough, the blame game will increase until there is no one left to blame and all free speech has ended.
 
EL UNIVERSAL in Caracas (read here) details Chavez's golpe constitutional. Not one to be timid in his aversion to liberty, Rafael Correa continues to claim that he is converting Ecuador in to a Cuban paradise on earth and that his Assembly will be a transformative moment. Carlos Alberto Montaner once again reminds us here in Lula, El Negrero  that Cubans are not free at all and that Castro's government, that is....Chavez's government for that island gulag, views all its residents as property of the state, the communist state. Being chattel of Chavez-Castro relegates one to slavery and slavery in any form is horrifying. Ecuadoreans are selling themselves to Chavez-Correa-Castro as....chattel....self enslaving their lives to some mythical, self debasing servitude. The island gulag called Castro's Cuba is now ready for self imprisonment by all Ecuadoreans. Check in time is about February 27, 2008 and there will be No Exit, or as Sartre explained, HUIS CLOS. No way out. Why anyone enables/permits the criminally debauched to team up with the lazy to lead anything anywhere baffles us.

This is neither new and it is not legitimate.
 
Problem is....the badly educated and morally compromised Rafael Correa could care less about functional governance, let alone functional democracy in his unending abuse of freedom's tools to serve a singular purpose....his own greed and racketeering enrichment schemes with Hugo Chavez and his backers. While we have long assumed that Venezuela's Manuel Rosales is politically compromised, at least he finally has the guts to call Chavez's dictatorship for what it is and to call this current constitutional theatre for what it is- a constitutional self coup. Once enshrined, the deceit of their new constitutions is that all that is illegitimate becomes magically legitimate. And all that was legitimate becomes magically illegitimate....making the best the enemy of the good. We also remind that most citizens of the Andes have expressed confusion each and every time this ages old expression is used, showing an inherent confusion about the perils of manipulative behavior...as if nothing is too off base to manipulate or try to manipulate, as if this were the worthiest goal and not the core act itself. We advise again: do not make the best the enemy of the good. Do not compromise legitimacy. Do not sell out one's nation to criminal cartels- sometimes called Chavez's communism- and do not dance with the devil. All common sense reminders, long forgotten inside Carondelet Palace. And Miraflores's Palace of Smoke and Mirrors.
 
There are well known, common sense markers for functional democracy. There are well known, common sense road maps for functional reforms.

Ecuador wants none of this under Correa's game of hide and seek democracy. Correa, it is readily apparent, has hidden liberty and seeking its enshrinement inside Ecuador today is a fools' errand for it can no longer be found. The proof of this statement can be seen in the utter refusal...and denial...to work with or permit entree- of any leaders of functional reform and democracy building. Correa and Chavez's inner team of advisors is already crowded and will not permit any with knowledge of reforms, democracy or liberty in to the sacred circle of criminal cartels. No indeed. Just look at the list of advisors already opening offices in Quito and those who have already written Correa's new constitution. The new comers will proclaim like trained dogs their Pox Vobiscum on the crimes underway and the hard line actors in this horrifying theatre of the criminals will find their crimes rewarded in full measure this winter.
 
Not one penny should be spent on the dual criminal cartel golpes of Correa and Chavez. Both should have the plug pulled now.
We recommend a parallel Andean constitutional convention...in Philadelphia, or Bogota or Lima or Mexico City [or anyplace that is safe and free speech is assured for nothing healthy or helpful is assured in the debauched, dishonest zones called Ecuador and  Venezuela] for legitimate democracy building.
But there will be nothing legitimate coming out of the works of Correa and Chavez. Nothing legitimate at all.
 
Ecuador is dying now. Like free speech/open media, it is almost dead. If Ecuadoreans care one bit about their lives, their fortunes- such as they may be- and their sacred honor, they had best start with uniting behind caring and reforming the lines to defend....their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. It is quickly being buried along with their nation.
 
 
- The Editors, ECrisis