January 20, 2008  Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa has a plan to control the private sector across the nation. His plan for control is called lying to his own citizens and extorting all citizens, especially the business sector with threats, targeted tax reprisals, jail time, loss of income, physical abuse and torture. What Correa is really doing is acting like a thug even as he fully controls all of Ecuador's powers to control every facet of life. That is his plan and it is simply horrible. But Ecuadoreans, always willing and able to act like patsies, fools and are easily manipulated, fail to turn states' evidence against this illegal mafia goon squad called the Correa-Chavez government of criminals and by readily succumbing to the disease known to all manipulated and irresponsible patsies of their own demise,  and have failed to stand for themselves, their businesses and their community in the face of these political and actual threats from the Chavez-Correa bully boys [and girls.] Never one to shrink from excesses of money and time to waste, the Quito Ecuadorean American Chamber of Commerce [AMCHAM} has gaily abandoned all principles of economic freedom to the tender mercies of the tawdry bathhouse boys' rules which includes the high art of misrepresentation, lies and smarmy ethics. Next week, the AMCHAM will join Rafael Correa's paid front men in the persons of Aristide and Daniel Ortega's pro Marxist mouth organ Paul Reichler and George Soros and the U.S. Democratic Party's own Fenton Communications in one of the most massive two week string of lies and propaganda before the U.S. Congress not seen since the days of the John Murtha ABSCAM muck.
 
Dredging up Ivonne Baki's little black book of democracy sell outs, Ecuadorean ambassador Gallegos teams with Ivonne and every U.S. Democratic Party staffer across the U.S. Congress for disingenuous lies before the U.S. Congress, all scripted and paid for by Ecuador to aid and abet their other client, the anti Uribe of Colombia activists of the US AID and Soros ilk who denounce Uribe's high principles and intend to reinstate a full Chavez-FARC-Iranian narcodemocracy as soon as they can, enjoining this foolishness in a bloc of nations which today includes Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela. Both the anti Uribe Soros /pro FARC clients and the government of Ecuador are under the Fenton Plan for aiding the new FARC-Iran-Chavez plan.
 
We remind that before she departed her tenancy of the Ecuadorean embassy residence, where she notoriously housed her fundamentalist muslim banker husband's friend, radical terror leader Yassir Arafat as an official guest of the Republic of Ecuador, Ivonne was suffering the disgrace of being known as no one to be trifled with...without penicillin. But she has generously re opened her Black Book of Chris Dodd and Soros enjoinders for a fee...once again selling her artistry, previously seen in her dreary art works on the wall. But Baki's "artistry" will not be the only slime on parade next week.
 
Microsoft, General Motors and IBM- all of whom have suffered mightily from the Correa regime but have yet to be honest about the capitol flight from Ecuador. will ignore the crude state theft of their colleagues from scores of American businesses, cravenly never once lifting one finger to assist colleagues whose billions in business assets have been illegally expropriated by the caducidad clamoring Correa, are united to demand that Ecuador must deserve yet another U.S. taxpayer give away called ATPDEA extension because their 3 companies will die in the Andes without this. In faith, they can do what Coca Cola smartly did- move to Peru where at least rule of law exists as opposed to Ecuador which upholds no rule of law.
 
Thus, the AMCHAM's reign of idiots not only lies to the U.S. Congress but seriously believes that while it is OK to cause harm to other U.S. businesses, that as long as they lobby for Correa's crime spree, they can manipulate their way in to the uneven tender mercies of Correa's Marxist regime. Moreover, these local losers, called regional managers of U.S. companies and AMCHAM lobbyists- all badly trained and exhibiting about as much of a composite IQ as those masters of the universe currently sequestered in Montecristi- ignore the crimes committed against U.S. businesses in Ecuador daily. These manipulative perps seek only to disinform and spread canard such as their current media campaign in Quito to explain that the "evil" U.S. Senate majority of Republican party senators will hurt their efforts and they must use U.S. and Ecuadorean tax dollars to fight the evil Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. Indicative of their crude lies, we remind that there has not been a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate for years and their fake war against Republicans and fact based reporting needs to stop. In other words, the AMCHAM appears as if their local managers are every bit as bribed and extorted as far too many Ecuadoreans who believe that if they curry favor by lying for Correa and covering up his crimes, they will enjoy his favoritism and enrich, as their new de facto AMCHAM leaders like Chavez's pet transport monopolist TRAFIGURA explains. La Hora carries this sorry tale of AMCHAMS supposedly representing U.S. commercial interests but tragically selling out the USA every chance they can get here: Empresarios buscan mantener las Atpdea.

The tragedy is that had the AMCHAM once acted to promote free and fair trade, which relies on functional business ethics, Ecuador would have its own FTA today and not the disingenuous cash awards called ATPDEA which it so justly does not deserve for having abandoned not only Ecuador's fight against illicit narcotics but its fight against crime. The AMCHAMS need a house cleaning fast and a return to common sense.
 
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce must install immediately a full legal review of its paid team members for lying to the U.S. Congress and going against the U.S. Chamber's intent to promote free and fair capitalism and not this dishonest neo Marxist bull hooey being sold by the Quito AMCHAM of ninnyhammers and debauched lobbyists for the global underbelly of criminals, perverts and semi-terrorists. The U.S. Chamber deserves far better than these cretins of deceit and anti U.S. manipulators who look like this as they embrace delusion upon delusion:



Far better for the AMCHAM to stand for something, such as restitution of law and order in Ecuador, currently on vacation. U.S. companies such as Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, City Oriente, Occidental, Texaco and scores of other companies know well what the AMCHAM is lying about and find their non ethical platform repulsive. In fact, criticism of the AMCHAM is common now for its complicity to abandon principle and sustain harm against assorted U.S. businesses not willing to throw in their lot with the Chavez-Correa-Cuban communists of criminality. The AMCHAM has sold out to the communists in Ecuador, abandoning their own corporations' responsible governance. It is no wonder why U.S. businesses are angry at the U.S. Chamber: they have failed themselves to stop the internal corruption of their own AMCHAMS, themselves dupes for the Soros and Democratic party political hacks who sell us on the aberrant plan to increase the Chavez bloc of nations.
 
The Correa team has sent their better halves to work over the U.S. government: previously dispatched porn queen Espinosa as dishonest trade advocate and now Baki, whose Clinton credentials are the stuff of legends, tawdry legends that is. It is not known yet if Fenton will distribute free penicillin to U.S. Congressional teams after these visits. We suspect that there is not enough penicillin to inoculate against this crass disinformation campaign for the willing dupes of the free believers called the Soros-directed anti USA and anti Uribe actors across the U.S. Congress, across U.S. State Department and across US AID and the U.S. media, sometimes called the U.S. Soros-Democratic Party. Why MICROSOFT and General Motors engage in this is another matter.
 
Although Sr. Viciano Pastor exposed himself as a bit too high profile in his directorial debut as master of all of the Chavez constitutional writing projects, he has just been downgraded by the masters of their universe in Bolivarian land. His replacements will be tougher yet. But while the Cuban and Chavez-backed intelligence and hard RED operatives control Bolivia and Ecuador, few pay attention to exact, identical Cuban structure of the Chavez governmental bloc being installed in three nations now. And even more incredulously, none pay attention to the fact that Fidel Castro has the lowest popularity of any Latin leader and the least respect for the doomed island prison he has created. Certainly Rafael Correa is constantly selling the joys of his Maximum Leader, Fidel even as the badly educated leaders of Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia ignore the dark side of their Cuban agents littering their own countries: rampant Cuban crime, suicide, defections, untrained operatives and horrifically dishonest slaves of the Cuban state machinery. This then is the backbone of the Chavez bloc- debauched souls from Castro's gulag, mixed with overpaid propagandists and disinformation thugs whose sole intent is to lie and sell drugs, rackets, move dirty money and buy lots of Russian weapons.
 
But the Washington Post's Monte Reel wants to skip over the Chavez-Correa-Morales-Nicaraguan-Iranian bloc underway now with a first ever discussion of the engine behind the Chavez money machine: legitimizing the illicit, read it here, and then ask yourself why no one locally speaks of these things.
 
Reel writes with a shallow touch on the impact of the new bloc of nations, "In three Andean countries -- Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela -- political leaders recently have pursued constitutional rewrites that would make it more difficult for future administrations to reverse the policies they instituted while in office. But in recent weeks, the proposals have reenergized opposition movements [here we admit this is true for Bolivia but not for Ecuador which remains missing in action and easily manipulated, hastily selling out to the Cuban-Chavez charms], which complain that their governments are tilting toward authoritarianism...`The main changes that they are calling for are to centralize the government and to concentrate power in that central government. If you want to reinforce democracy after that, you have to change them again to decentralize the governments and the power.' In trying to rewrite the charters, Chavez and his allies in Bolivia and Ecuador hope to forge new national identities -- and awaken a strong sense of hope among their poorest citizens. They speak of their proposed changes in revolutionary terms, advocating a stronger state role in the economy and less reliance on global markets, which they say favor more-developed countries."
 
In other words, democracy is gone from Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia under these so called constitutions. And once done, it will be very expensive and difficult to reinstate. There- that was not so hard to say, was it? But no one can bring themselves to be honest about the Chavez-Correa-Morales trifecta because to do so would see them lose their overpaid consultancies in each land. And we say over paid because they do nothing meaningful and score lots of money for doing nothing but maintaining the status quo of surrender, avoiding at all costs any meaningful transformation while insisting that their own status as persons of access, intelligence, high level USA access is true and helpful when nothing of the sort exists. To all our friends in the Andes paying hefty prices today for a savior to save them from the Castro-Chavez tender mercies where no life is secure or stable, we advise to first perform your own due diligence, avoid all shake down artists, and at all costs demand a functional; performance based plan with actual cost effective steps before paying one penny to these rogue operatives who claim power to transform but have none. You know precisely who we are talking about. With no known performance indicators and nothing to substantiate claims of future corrective activities, none should throw good money after bad and must instead consider the debilitating consequences of working with so called paid specialists from across the Americas, particularly the USA- who sell much and do nothing.
 
Doing something requires integrity first and an organized plan second. If we are to pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to restoring democracy, then hasten to do so and avoid the trap of double agents, dishonest representatives and plans which do not exist, resembling more like JELLO than actual, functional steps. Consider deeply who you are hiring from among the large rosters of Soros-backed double agents who care nothing about the commonweal and care everything about legitimizing the illicit. Seek honor first, define the plan, insist on full disclosure and know well that the U.S. government is not operated out of private clubs inside the USA. Not at all.
 
Throwing good money after bad in this epic struggle now ripping Latin America in half is a fools' errand and exhibits the foolishness of the Andean business community. Examine first the gleefulness of Peru and Colombia's voting public where employment is bettering and serenity is returning as many satisfactions emerge.
But most Andean souls seek the manipulated today and this they have. It is where they spend their money; ignoring the functional in their unending self destruction that only the dysfunctional can succeed when nothing could be further form the truth. They pay for their own destruction and now infiltrate the Peruvian and Colombian communities with their debauched ethics, which should be corrected anyway for debauchery is not a sound export.
 
The Heritage Foundation on 1-18-08 belatedly reports that, "... totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro has spawned younger `carnivores,' including Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Nestor Kirchner (and most recently his wife, Cristina Fernandez) of Argentina. All of them are, to varying degrees, `21st century' socialist populists who oppose the U.S. and are determined to tear apart market-based democratic capitalism and anyone who stands in their way. In place of the "neoliberalism" that they despise, the carnivores would substitute `neo-communism.’ Unlike his friends Hugo Chávez, dictator and would-be President for Life of Venezuela, and the socialist presidents of Bolivia, Argentina, and Ecuador, former Comandante Ortega did not return to office on a wave of populism." What is it about that benign paragraph that you do not understand yet? In fact, the author James Roberts is actually soft on describing Castro's spawns in his widening Faustian dragnet. With around $300 million from the USA pledged for Nicaragua to return to its senses, using of course US AID nonsensical contractors, no one should seriously believe that Nicaragua will cut itself off from the global underbelly of crime, sometimes called Chavez's Axis of Evil and certainly none should expect any return for U.S. tax dollar investment for Daniel Ortega except more of the same type of propaganda to prop up the Cuban model underway by their hands in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Soros's actors at US AID call this "progress." We call it contract fraud.
 
Chewing coca leaves at high altitudes may increase some oxygen but chewing coca leaves at sea level only makes one act stupid and do stupid things, such as channel Simon Bolivar from the dead and spend money like a drunken sailor, as Hugo Chavez does. This is no way to lead a multi-national bloc forward but instead signals its own demise into the horror of narcodemocracies. Hugo Chavez tells us that Evo Morales sends him coca paste which he uses daily. We remind that cocaine is illegal and destroys brain cells and due to its addictive capabilities is psychotropic and destructive. Coca paste is the perfect drug for Andean souls already addicted to manipulative behaviors and acts...it feeds their cravings for delusion, controls and self destruction which always follows any addiction to manipulative living. But Chavez, never honest, wants you to know that coca paste is his daily fare and even on that score, he is not honest, as in all he does.
 
From NOTICIAS 24, read it here, comes this confusing, bifurcated picture from Colombia:

Duro pronunciamiento de EE.UU. contra Chávez por “facilitar” el tráfico de drogas


We applaud John Walters of the USA for stating the obvious and for his clarity, at last. Chavez, like Correa, has publicly and formally announced to the world that he is a state sponsor of terror and as such, the USA must respond forcefully to cancel the support from the USA for any state sponsor of terror. This is non negotiable. Perversely, Walters stands in front of the very symbol/the emblem of the pro drugs funding stream called US AID in the Andes which repeatedly delivers monies to the very groups which cover over the Chavez-Correa activities, having encouraged their politics for too long, and do return to the USA the worst nonfactual reports on the Andes seen in many years, also called U.S. contract fraud. We are confounded by Walters making a great effort at telling the truth while being overshadowed by a rogue U.S. governmental agency that does daily seek his removal and counters law and order with every trick they can muster. John Walters is a Cabinet rank officer of ONDCP from the Bush White House and does not represent US AID nor would they have him unless he joined US AID in co funding all Soros pro drugs activities globally. US AID's rank and file thousands and thousands of employees hate Walters and work very hard to undo what he does, although Walters appears to be too kind as to remove their own contractor fraud.
 
We understand why U.S. Ambassador Brownfield in Bogotá would perversely insert his US AID banner behind Walters to vainly try to promote legitimacy for his goofy efforts in Colombia called US AID contractors since these Soros-backed actors beaver away across the US embassy in Bogotá, Quito and Caracas while co opting U.S. foreign policy, but we do not understand why Walters would allow his agency's hard work to actually promote drug reduction to be overwhelmed by US AID that creates harm to the intentions of the U.S. government and its tax payers. US AID today stands for drug legalization, neo Marxist governments and money laundering supports called banking reform. What US AID does do is the exact opposite of what they say they do. They pretend that elections are free and fair when they are not. They hire thousands of souls who loathe and despise capitalism and express surprise when free trade falters. US AID claims to promote democracy when their own employees work to deliver the new Soros-Chavez effort which is not democracy and it is not new. Meanwhile, local businesses fall further and further behind while hiring some of the most ridiculous U.S. lobbyists, lawyers and fake former so called intelligence operatives, abandoning all due diligence and functional contract performance. It is a plan for disaster. It is good money after bad. And worse yet...no known plan is accepted for success by these former business leaders who today are so addicted to manipulative behaviors in the Andes and in their own homes and careers that they are afraid of success because that might require them to actually do something outside of writing a check to goofballs who promise to do something helpful but have no capacity and no intention of doing something helpful except take their money like a shake down artist. And you know who we are talking about.
 
We know the plan for success. We are not afraid of success or this plan. It has every earmark of success but it will never succeed without a mutual pledge of honor- sacred honor born of our lives. The next step is to remove the fake paid hucksters, double agents and expensive "lobbyists" who promise help but have no verifiable plan to help. That is not help. Help comes from first pledging your lives and your sacred honor...not just a check to a fake lobbyist, who should have retired long ago and comes bearing fake credentials and fake promises of access and action.
 
Being afraid of success is a disease of the manipulated. Planning for success is healthy and liberating.
When we lead our lives both inside our homes as relational and emotional rent seekers and act under the state system as rent seekers, we are never honest nor functional nor prepared for the future. If you want freedom, stop being emotionally sub human. Or, as we say, if you want a miracle....first you must define it for what you want.
 
You will find no miracle at Montecristi or in the FARC camps or in La Paz or from Miraflores Palace. The transformative moment is not there. It is about time that Ecuadoreans stop celebrating the shallow, the hollow, the fake, the dishonest and set about living lives where transformation only comes from the real work or reinserting honor, integrity and clear, decisive steps. You will not be able to buy this from any of the Soros-backed contractors for their agenda is already set to be complicit with the pro drugs agenda, the so called alternative governments called the Chavez bloc, and undoing law and order. You are known by the company you keep.
 
More informative is a new article from one Jesuit who correctly reviews how Venezuela became so disgusting so quickly: it had no backbone. We include the Jesuits themselves in this epic struggle however much most have rehabbed back in to sanity by now. Before you reject this article as yet one more Chavez-laced lunacy to promote Marxism by goofy Jesuits, know that this one Jesuit has the right of things and is a national treasure. This priest, read it here, correctly points out that even handed justice and rule of law has never been functional in the Andes.

Commencing with the oil boom, "...the idea at the time was to produce Venezuelan citizens who could play their role in modern private and public businesses, which were also subsidized and protected by the State. The idea that a modern economic state could be constructed around an unearned income like oil revenues would have revolted Adam Smith.  In fact Smith saw the rent-earning class as the irreconcilable enemy of the commercial class.  Smith was right: in the presence of an income that can be appropriated without risk or effort, entrepreneurs do not become genuine entrepreneurs and workers do not become genuine workers.  They all tend to become rent seekers. 

Various ways emerged of gaining petrol revenues without producing anything particularly useful:  dollars and cheap imports, direct and indirect subsidies to businesses and consumers, free social services without taxes to pay for them, public employment of very low productivity for millions of people, state enterprises running at a huge deficit and, of course, corruption at every level of the State.  Growing petrol revenues made it possible over decades to maintain the distribution of wealth in the economy with very little genuine modernization. ”This is Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, no matter what lies the Soros/US AID and Chavez backed Joseph Stiglitz and Noam Chomsky want to tell you.

Further, "If Chávez's supporters have emphasized the distributive aspect of his presidency, while his opponents stress his authoritarianism, it should be noted that both aspects contribute equally to preventing Venezuela from modernizing, as much in the economic as the socio-political sense.  This failure to modernize is exacerbated by a third element which was not present in the political manifesto on which Chávez won the first elections, but which has emerged since he came to power: the option for social confrontation, dressed up in 'socialist' language, which distinguishes his from earlier versions of Venezuelan populism...

The political project shared by the major populist parties since the advent of democracy in 1958 was the reconciliation of social classes, made possible by the distribution of the oil revenues from which everyone benefited.  It has already been shown how this project was betrayed by the parties themselves when, beginning with the debt crisis of 1983, the necessary sacrifices fell on the shoulders of the masses while some in the elites became rapidly wealthier and other groups were able at least to maintain their standard of living.  In the face of the increasing gap, Chávez had two options: i) to use his widespread popular support to demand a renegotiation of the social pact which would allow everyone to progress together (or make sacrifices together, if oil prices fell);  (ii) to politicize the social gap and begin a class war with the aim of destroying the middle and upper classes, and turning himself into the champion of the poor majority.  Chávez chose the second option, and in a systematic and aggressive way began to threaten the very basis of the way of life of the business, professional and skilled working classes.

The combination of redistributive populism at the economic level, increasing authoritarianism at the political level and deadly confrontation at the social level has quite clearly been the cause of Venezuela's failure to modernize during Chávez's time in power.  Indeed, economic modernization will not be possible until the country is able to rely on its productive business, professional and working classes, who can hold their own on the international market.  Increasing the population's dependency on state distribution of oil revenues is a sure recipe for failure.  Today more than ever, Venezuela is a one-product economy, extremely vulnerable to external fluctuations, and year on year, through emigration, is losing tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and professionals who could advance themselves in a modern economy.

On the other hand, political modernization depends on an effective division of powers within the state and on the emergence of a vigorous and pluralist civil society, capable of counterbalancing the power both of the state and of the big conglomerates.  Chávez has moved systematically in the opposite direction: first of all by placing his closest supporters in the state agencies responsible for controlling the executive, which has effectively been left without any control at all; then by attacking every independent social institution that has not submitted to his orders: businesses, trades unions, the communications media, the Catholic church, the Jewish community, the universities, private education, human rights NGOs, etc.

Ultimately, the modernization of a country like Venezuela requires a substantial middle class to act as a link between the social elites and the poorer sections of the population.  By insisting on confrontation, Chávez has exacerbated the social divide, making increasingly problematic any co-operation between social groups to eradicate poverty.  He promises that the state will help the poor to escape from their situation without the help of any other social classes who, as far as he is concerned, are welcome to leave Venezuela. 

The key of the new constitution submitted for referendum on 2nd December was the broadening of Chávez's powers to an extent never before seen in democratic Venezuela.  Chávez could be re-elected indefinitely (he modestly announced his intention of stepping down from the presidency in 2031); he would acquire the power of direct nomination of regional and local authorities; and he would have complete control over a new municipal power structure whose representatives would not be elected by universal vote but chosen in public assemblies of local organizations.  Furthermore he would be able to suspend at will the right to due process and freedom of information solely by declaring a state of emergency. 

In the last presidential election (2006) Chávez obtained 7.3 million votes; in the presidential referendum, one year later, the Yes vote was only 4.4 million.  Lack of public security and rampant corruption, the failure of the social programs and the democratic instincts of many of the president's supporters explain why nearly 3 million voters abandoned Chávez when faced with his plan to become dictator for life.  The refusal on the part of the army to swallow electoral fraud and repress its opponents explains why Chávez had to accept a negative result.  The totalitarian nature of his project explains how, two days after accepting his electoral failure, he confirmed that he would impose the same model by different means, principally through laws dictated by himself.  Neither the will of the people expressed at the polls nor the broad social consensus necessary to sustain a stable Constitution appear to hold any great significance for Chávez."
 
To understand what the media is not reporting and to grasp what is daily fare, study not the foolish reports from US AID and ambassador Jewell about Ecuador. Reject the state propaganda from DISIP and Cuban operatives looming on most street corners. Study instead the superb analysis of Venezuela and know well that this mirrors Correa. Tragically, Chavez appears benign compared to Rafael Correa. But if you want a miracle, start with the transformative act of studying Father Raúl González Fabre, SJ's superb analysis of your life and how you got there and how to get out of this self imposed prison.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis