April 22, 2008    The Editors of ECrisis take no pleasure whatsoever in the dire comparisons of Zimbabwe to Ecuador under Correa. BUT WAIT! You may say- Ecuador is doing great! We have a small nation run by one Chavez-backed undereducated thug ring which is a criminal racket running the nation in to the ground- embarrassing us all with his lies, his manipulations, his deceit and his lack of respect for human freedoms. That is great you may say- a welcome confirmation of the very debauched and utterly useless/vapid ethics of selfishness we have been taught since birth: take what you can get fast, manipulate and lie about the rest while never contributing one thing to the common good except to complain, whine and screech while misusing others' money. That is Ecuador today. It is getting Ecuador in to the same mess as any failed marriage knows: a prison of failures locking each and every participant inside a dishonest situation and going nowhere fast.
 
The Madness of King Rafael Correa is that he is a sociopath with psychopathic tendencies. He is abusive and utterly dishonest. But while some may pretend that loading Correa up on Lithium and other injections is worthwhile because Hugo Chavez's own madness appears controllable and now known as substance abused, Correa deserves a far closer inspection as one particularly nasty specimen. And that is because Correa, while he is poorer by billions than Venezuela in oil assets is indeed a man in a hurry: Chavez on a moped. And Correa has commandeered the entire landscape of every single dictatorial control over Ecuador is one year whereas thug-in-chief Chavez has ham handedly been slowed from time to time by his own stumbling. This is not the case in Ecuador whose speedy utter collapse of any democratic holdings and the abandonment of rule of law as it is today inside its own lawlessness makes Ecuador look more and more like Haiti or worse- Zimbabwe.
 
"April 21, 2008
Zimbabwe Descends into Madness
Rick Moran  THE AMERICAN THINKER
As if 80% unemployment and 100,000% inflation wasn't enough to kill hope in the afflicted land of Zimbabwe, now comes the Mugabe crackdown on the opposition - savage beatings by the dictator's bullyboys that is driving many citizens out of the country:..." -please click here to read the full article.

In their haste to "help the poor" and destroy what they called "the oligarchs," Mugabe and his self enriching Marxists, as we have noted here before, is a poignant example of what transpires to nations- once vibrant and mostly democratic- fails to stand on principle and refuses to defend its moral surety, replacing it with dishonest monikers that it "helps the poor" and "removes the oligarchy." No one likes ruling elites when they are hyperactively useless and flaccid as a three year old. And truly, no nation long survives by abusing its poor and hopeless with state backed plans of persuasion. But the alternative to law and order is lawlessness and this is what Chavez, Correa and Mugabe have brought: the heart of darkness where already weakened families- wracked as they are by addictions to manipulative thinking and buoyed by their own selfishness- cannot and do not stand for anything ethical or moral. And worse- as their worlds fall apart, they are not prepared to do one thing to protect and defend their nation from its inexorable slide in to the current Andean bloc of communist cartels underway.
 
NOTE- in Zimbabwe, local people hate the government but are "too scared" to do anything.

NOTE: In Zimbabwe, "The situation is hopeless and can only be improved by the intervention of an outside power. But Zimbabwe's neighbors - more prosperous     and peaceful - don't want the responsibility of ministering to a failed state that is further coming apart as a result of political violence."

NOTE: in Zimbabwe, "...no one wants to get involved."

NOTE: in Zimbabwe, “starvation can only be avoided by supporting the government that is starving you to death; you know you have entered a surreal world where the normal impulses of people are subsumed by the even more basic instinct of survival."

NOTE:    Zimbabwe sustains " ...80% unemployment and 100,000% inflation..."

NOTE: in Zimbabwe, "Commercials are now running on Zimbabwean TV ... reminding citizens not to disobey their leaders."
 
This then is the heart of darkness, when nations fail to install healthy governance and replace it with self approving madness. We can decry the refusal of the utterly ridiculously incompetent league of African nations- equal to if not worse than the Chavistas and neo Marxist Soros groups now running the tawdry OAS- and the failure of the United Nations to over ride the African temerity to stand for anything not connected to the current craze in Africa for criminal cartels running amuck while communism and fundamentalist Muslims bump and grind for political controls. The common good is not furthered and human suffering is stretched to some outer limit of hell while none appear to lift a finger.
 
We are told that souls in Zimbabwe must defend themselves and demand good governance. This is true. But like Venezuela and Ecuador, this can only go so far when the media, the military and all state controls are run by one regional politburo as is the case today in the Andes [outside Peru, Chile and Colombia] while freedom lovers of any meaningful sense are on Correa's Watch List and truth tellers have been shown the door, cut off and derided as not part of the political take over. Indeed.
 
No human being on earth needs must become the victim of such family values that insist that all succumb to the tyranny of mental illness, madness and corruption.

There is a better way. It will require tough love and the hard work of truth telling to rebuild. But the alternative is...Zimbabwe and the heart of darkness which at the end of the day is cold- very very cold with no compassion- because none showed compassion before and no help because none gave aid before. Sympathies compete for hard earned sympathy. And when "no one wants to get involved" for every excuse we notate, nations are truly dead: as dead as their uninvolved, self censoring, undereducating by choice rudderless selves under very criminal rackets led by Chavez and Correa.
 
Contrast the abandonment of Western Civilization  across Ecuador by the so called "oligarchs" who are actually new rich/lower middle class persons of remarkably bad taste and frenzied selfishness, and who could care less about values and principles, abandoning even Ecuadorean media when its need for free speech is dire as the Chavez-Correa criminal  racketeers squeeze out all competition while none say or do one thing....hoping for some financial reward for playing along with the extortion rackets...with the principles laid out here by Rupert Murdoch:
 
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 April 22, 2008   

The Wall Street Journal
OPINION

Enlarging the Atlantic Alliance
By RUPERT MURDOCH
April 22, 2008; Page A25
In the aftermath of World War II, statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic recognized that the defense of freedom would require the active engagement of a new generation of leaders. The result was the Atlantic alliance. In the six decades that followed, this alliance helped the West prevail against Soviet communism and ensured the advance of democracy from the Atlantic to the Urals.

Today we may be tempted to bask in our achievements and wax nostalgic about all we have been through. But this is no time for nostalgia. At this moment, our alliance now finds itself threatened on several fronts:

First, by the growing appeal of protectionism on both sides of the Atlantic.

Second, by the terrorists who target civilians in all our countries.

And finally, by a Europe that is losing its faith in the values and institutions that have kept us free.

Nowhere is this crisis of confidence more apparent than in the failure of nerve we see in Afghanistan. After the attack of September 11, it was clear that America and its allies needed to deprive al Qaeda of its safe haven. It was also clear that we needed to help the Afghan people replace the Taliban with a free government that would build a more hopeful future.

Unfortunately, far from reflecting our unity, NATO's entry into Afghanistan has exposed its divisions. Instead of standing together as full and equal partners, a handful of alliance members are bearing the brunt of the fighting. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that the lack of equal burden sharing threatens the future of the alliance. He is right.

We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies. However strong NATO may be on paper, this fact makes NATO weak in practice. It also means that reform will not come from within.

In other words, a strong and successful Atlantic alliance will have to ground itself more on shared principles rather than accident of geography. And we need to show we are serious about defending those principles by standing with those who are standing up for them.

NATO's agreement to invite Albania and Croatia to become members is a welcome start. So is the somewhat weaker commitment that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO at some point.

But we need to go further. As a rule, when an organization expands, the expansion dilutes its principles. For today's NATO, it is just the opposite. Around the world, there is no shortage of nations who share our values, and are willing to defend them. These include countries like Australia, which sent troops to Iraq; Israel, which has been fighting Islamic terrorism almost since its founding; and Japan, which generally follows a more "Western" policy than most of Western Europe.

Others have not reached the level of development these countries enjoy. But some are working hard to get there, and would be strong partners down the road. At the very least, the U.S. needs to support them as they struggle against the dark forces trying to pull them down.

Right now the U.S. has a test in its own backyard. Colombia is a nation that is fighting poverty, battling the drug lords, and taking on terrorists backed by foreign governments. Its citizens have suffered terribly from violence, and want peace and opportunity. So its brave and innovative president, Álvaro Uribe, is trying to bring the rule of law to people who have not known it.

All President Uribe asks of us is that we ratify the trade agreement we have negotiated with his nation. By ratifying this agreement, we would open an important market for American goods. We would demonstrate to millions in our hemisphere that the path to prosperity lies in freedom and democracy. And we would give strong moral support to a leader struggling to bring hope and opportunity to his people in an important part of the world.
Everyone knows this, Democrats as well as Republicans. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has effectively put off the bill by not scheduling a vote. We need to make clear to the leadership in Congress what killing this trade deal would mean.

Throughout Colombia, a defeat for the trade deal would be confirmation that the U.S. is not an ally you can count on. Throughout Latin America, a defeat for the trade deal would be exploited by thugs like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who would tell the people, "See, the Americans will never accept you as equals and partners." And throughout the world, a defeat for the trade deal would be taken as another sign that the U.S. will not stand by its friends when the going gets tough.

Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., puts it this way: "The most important geopolitical mistake the United States could do today . . . is not ratifying that treaty."

The world is watching. The same values that we are trying to uphold in the Atlantic alliance are at stake now in Colombia. And if we fail to support them in Colombia, it will be harder to revive them in the alliance.

As a man who was born in Australia, went to university in Britain, and made my home in America, I have learned that shared values are more important than shared borders. If we continue to define "the West" or "the Alliance" as a strictly geographical concept, the alliance will continue to erode. But if we define the West as a community of values, institutions and a willingness to act jointly, we will revive an important bastion of freedom and make it as pivotal in our own century as it was in the last.
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This depressing talk notes that Europe has killed itself of any competence and destroyed its own values to the point of uselessness. Like Ecuador and Venezuela, no one victimized Europe: Europe simply failed itself, although it is notable that its own suicide was aided and abetted by the very souls who promote state euthanasia as if by some ironic hidden hand of evil. Worse yet- and here is where we disagree with the author, the author calls upon the USA to reinvigorate Europe which is essentially on life support. Nowhere are these truths uttered in any U.S. or Latin political fora and instead, politicians want to tell us that the USA has such a hatred across Europe for its Iraq position to do what the United Nations should have done and did not do in Iraq and should do in Zimbabwe. It is impossibly stupid to hate the USA while demanding that it must deliver more and more. Moreover, the author spends almost half of his talk by stating the truth that Colombia is being lied about by U.S. Democrats and the Soros-hate Colombia groups while outrage at this perfidy insures that Western Civilization looks as hollow and as empty as a failed marriage- values in name only while all honest affection for our partners and friends is abandoned. If we give over to the growing criminal cartels coalescing today across Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, we do so with our eyes wide open that it is we who fail ourselves. When we have no one to share our values with....and when values are hyperactively manipulated to meaninglessness, madness rules. When the going gets tough, Ecuadoreans and Venezuelans run away when they should stand firmly for higher principles, for friends and values. Here is what happens when persons stumble around the universe:      

The article's author above, Rupert Murdoch, deserves praise for his position of principle. Bravo!
 
Ecuador suffers from its own crisis of confidence. Ecuador will not rise out of this self inflicted crisis unless and until Correa is gone and honest leadership returns in every sense. The days will get worse and no easy reinstatement of democracy will be had. It is this very crisis of confidence which refuses honest affection for the multi-faceted world as we know it that maintains the end of our days and self imprisons us in our new found hell.
 
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis