VOTE NO on Sunday to Correa-Chavez's Fascist-Communism
 
September 25, 2008     ECrisis reminds our readers that life is full of choices. One can choose to ignore common sense or not. One can act decisively on the tenants and moral foundations of western civilization or not. One can choose to remain stupid, undereducated and complain about it- running away from adult responsibility or not. One can choose to be a supporter of communism or not. One can support Correa's communist manifesto this Sunday or not. One can live a life complaining, whining, blaming every one around or act like an adult in accountable ways while refusing to live off of someone else's money. These choices have never been as stark as they are today in Ecuador. All the years and years of irresponsibly pretending that all of life- including family life and government [public and private] is best served up by irrational greed, envy, childishness, and dishonorably venerating some odd form of voodoo-ism/shamanism/polytheism in Ecuador is a hallmark of a society determined to manipulate all reality around it. This simply does not work. Ecuadoreans run away from their own failed and dishonest manipulative approach to life. No one can be held innocent for their adolescent tantrums after Sunday's vote.
 
One is either with the communist cartel laid out by Correa and Hugo Chavez or one is with essential human freedom. There is very very little distinction between Chavez and Correa on essential approaches to life and liberty: both "leaders" are joined with the Russo-Iranian cartels to remove life's essentials.
 
As for our global political analysis, one either agrees with Otto Reich that Hugo Chavez is "destroying" Venezuela and is an ally of U.S. enemies or one runs away from factual analysis. EL UNIVERSAL writes, ".Otto Reich compares Hugo Chávez with Hitler and Mussolini" - read it here

Further, "Reich also stressed, `there are people like the Castro brothers or Chávez who want to create problems and when they do, someone has to stop them. When I refer to the "21st Century Socialism,' as Chávez calls his Venezuelan regime, for me, when you examine his actions, what he is doing is exactly what Mussolini did in Italy and Adolph Hitler did in Germany in 1930 before becoming an expansionist. It is fascism,' he said. Reich also questioned Chávez's relationship with the government of Iran.  "

Here is pro Chavez and pro Correa communist advocate U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, also on the take for the George Soros team currently supporting the Correa-Chavez-Morales communist constitutions in the Andes through hidden work under U.S. AID which defrauds intentionally the American taxpayer as surely as Dodd and his partner Barack Hussein Obama have defrauded the U.S. housing markets with wild schemes to buy votes, ostensibly to help the "poor" while gaming the U.S. financial backbone and this is how many see Correa's best friend in the U.S. Congress:
 

Thursday, September 25, 2008 
Investors Business Daily
 

 
Indeed, the overblown dog walker could easily be seen as the Chavez-Correa-Soros scheme with their dishonest, self promoting Chris Dodd poodle on their leash/on their take...for he is. Who do you chose to believe? Otto Reich or Chris Dodd?
 
Many Venezuelan business leaders have joined the paid Chavez-Correa propagandists to run away from Reich's truth telling about communism/fascism and want you to know how much they adore and revere the great leader, Chris Dodd and his Democratic Party pals. Many Ecuadoreans, like Venezuelans, have refused Reich's counsel, even when he served the Bush administration, and ran away from his friendship, preferring instead like so so so many Venezuelan lobbyists and infiltrators from the Russo-Iranian spot oil trading teams to pretend that truth telling matters not at all.
 
President Bush met with so called freedom advocates in New York this week, organized by US AID to promote the lie that US AID actually delivers functional support for liberty and democracy when it does not. Of course the pathetically ignorant Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez find US AID's cronies a convenient scapegoat, falsely claiming that US AID works against their communist regimes when US AID has been pouring support and money in to these new Russo-Iranian cartels governments in the Andes, declaring as they do that narcozones for terrorists are fabulous as long as spot oil traders can run amuck, as is the case also in Ecuador. Here is Garry Kasparov who also writes for the WALL STREET JOURNAL, a newspaper loathed and despised by U.S. Democrats and US AID minions globally:
 
     

Entre el grupo de líderes que se reunió con Bush se encontraba el ex-campeón mundial de ajedrez y disidente del Gobierno de Rusia, Gary Kasparov

Mr. Kasparov, leader of The Other Russia coalition, is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal recently wrote that Vladimir Putin is wrecking Russia's economy...due to Russia's refusal to be honest and act with decency. Today, Hugo Chavez inked weapons deals with Putin, possibly worth billions, all on credit...to be paid at a later date. Castro did this to Russia for years, always stiffing his fellow comrades. We suspect Putin intends to get paid one way or the other. But why Chavez, swimming in oil money, feels the urge to exponentially increase his needless weaponization plan and... claim he has no cash...is another question we do not grapple with. But there was Kasparov along with the suspects rounded up to make everyone think US AID does something when it actually hurts the USA, especially in the Andes.

And here are some from the Soros-backed so called Buddhist effort in Burma [of the few still alive]:

Bush, al tomar la palabra, destacó lo siguiente:

NOTICIAS 24 writes, "El presidente George Bush recibió ayer a un grupo de “líderes de la democracia, activistas de derechos humanos, valientes hombres y mujeres que han permanecido firmes a favor de la libertad”, entre los cuales se encontraba Marcel Granier."
 
Brave men and women, hand picked by US AID as the faces of freedom visibly served up to promote US AID which has done nothing to assist freedom lovers in any of these nations except to file deceptive reports justifying their existence which is not based on facts. Not that US AID ever did one thing to actually assist anyone from Venezuela, Bolivia or Ecuador except random broccoli gardens, money laundering remittance banks and their total complete support for communism and its new constitutions in the Andes as long as their real sponsors- spot oil traders- can pretend to own legitimate businesses when they do not. Do you think that anyone from US AID lifted one finger to assist Marcel Granier when his need at RC TV was most dire? No- the U.S. State Department did nothing at all except foolishly pretending that the OAS might pass freedom of expression resolutions when no one with a brain should have been tricked by the pro communist Insulza and his pals. Then again, Granier is known to be closely connected to Chavez's good friends, also called the Chris Dodd fan club and prefers pro-socialists from the WASHINGTON POST such as Marcella Sanchez to actual fact-based reporting. Granier is an unlikely candidate as global hero but he is a perfect face for Chris Dodd's neo communist support team from US AID, also called the U.S. Democratic party of George Soros who remains quite active although one of his groups under Vivanco was forcibly removed from Venezuela which now calls Vivanco an agent of the US CIA when in fact he is an agent of Soros and his ilk of pro Chavez leftists such as Soros's own Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz and scores of paid pro communist propagandists.
 
But the US AID partner, the National Endowment for Democracy [NED} is totally infiltrated by Soros actors as pass through accounts and pro Chavez efforts so we cannot know why anyone from Venezuela and other nations wants to be part of their publicity stunt this week. But there is always hope- hope that democracy advocates will press for functional liberties, rather than give aways to their seemingly endless end runs against freedom. And maybe Kasparov reminded the US AID promotional group in New York this week as he wrote in the JOURNAL, "With their reliable business partners in the West, the Kremlin has opened up a lucrative market for what could be called democracy offsets. In exchange for oil and gas from Russia, they provide democratic credentials and pretend Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev are elected officials rather than mafia bosses. Until Russia has a government that is accountable to its citizens, no company or individual will be safe here."  Democracy offsets cobbled together by Soros and the NED are still.... offsets.
 
One of our readers suggested we reprint Alejandro Pena Esclusa's piece. We agree:
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Like Venezuela, So Ecuador?

By Alejandro Pena Esclusa
The Washington Times | 9/25/2008

Venezuelan soldier-turned-President Hugo Chavez harnessed soaring oil revenues and simmering class resentments to make himself the hub of anti-American sentiment in Latin America. But after a quick blast of popularity, he tried to consolidate and increase his power by rewriting the constitution. Fortunately, his power grab failed

Today, Mr. Chavez's close ally - President Rafael Correa of Ecuador - is traveling down the same authoritarian route. Mr. Correa's proposed new Ecuadorian constitution would grant him broad powers, including the ability to dissolve Congress, set monetary policy and stay in office through 2017.

The new constitution, approved by the Correa-dominated Constituent Assembly elected to write it, would concentrate excessive power in the president's hands and amount to his virtual coronation, according to a report by the Associated Press. The nation's voters will decide Sept. 28 whether to adopt it. While shy of the 50 percent plus one vote needed to succeed, according to recent polls, support is likely to grow as the Quito unleashes its marketing blitz on Ecuador's impoverished masses.

Sadly, none of this is new in the troubled history of Latin America. How many times have we seen the same anti-democratic moves by populist "caudillos" with the same disastrous results - abuse of power, erosion of democratic institutions, dwindling economic opportunity and rising poverty? One need only look to recent events in Venezuela and Bolivia, where similar "socialist" experiments are under way.

As with Mr. Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, Mr. Correa's real aim is to stay in the presidential palace for years to come. Yet even as he seeks to increase his power and muzzle opposition, he wants to improve his image with American lawmakers because "in Washington many think that we harbor the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia [FARC], that poor [Alvaro] Uribe [Colombian president] is Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz battling the FARC by himself and that all of his neighboring countries are evil nations that cooperate with the FARC," according to statements in Agence France Press.

That's why he recently sent an official delegation to Washington, D.C., to, among other things, seek the extension of the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA), and hired international PR consultants and lobbyists to help him.

Mr. Correa's high-priced public relations and lobbying team will be at pains to explain to Washington the latest actions by the Ecuadorian government, which repeatedly cracks down on liberty, justice and democracy while espousing anti-American and anti-business sentiment a la Chavez. But we ask: Why so much resolve? Why risk the future of Ecuador?

Two goals seem evident: (a) Present the businessmen and "the oligarchy that controlled the country during the last decades" as criminals and, (b) obtain control of two key media outlets that will strengthen popular support for the government and to win approval of the new socialist constitution on Sept. 28.

Like Mr. Chavez and Mr. Morales, Mr. Correa is walking the path of populist demagoguery, his only compass the delirium of so-called 21st century socialism. This path will only lead Ecuador to greater poverty, an end to pluralism and the demise of institutional independence that is the foundation of democracy. It is time for the world to open its eyes to the next battle for freedom in Latin America.

Alejandro Pena Esclusa is a former presidential candidate in Venezuela who leads Fuerza Solidaria (www.fuerzasolidaria.org), a nonprofit organization that has become one of President Hugo Chavez's staunchest critics. He has written various books on Latin American affairs and is also a firm opponent of the "Cubanization" of Iberoamerica. 
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Rafael Correa, by any account, is a communist, not a populist. Read the proposed constitution and know what this man is up to.

Here is Ecuador's ambassador to the USA fudging/hedging/manipulating reality again:
 
                                Ecuador Will Not Bow To Pressure Over Chevron, Ambassador Says

19 September 2008
Inside U.S. Trade

Ecuador will not bow to any pressure to affect the outcome of a civil lawsuit by Ecuadorean tribes against U.S. oil giant Chevron despite the fact that the case is making it harder to have the expiring Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) extended, Ecuadorean Ambassador Luis Gallegos said in a Sept. 17 interview with Inside U.S. Trade.

"I don't think we can accept any pressure on this. We maintain a vital independence on this issue," he said. "The Ecuadorean government has an impartial position."

Asked if any U.S. officials had explicitly used trade benefits to pressure Ecuador to interfere with the judge's ruling in the case, Gallegos would only say that description is not "exact."

He explained that the executive branch cannot interfere with its judiciary, an apparent rejection of Chevron's allegations that the government of Ecuador is siding with the plaintiffs in a five-year-old environmental lawsuit against Chevron. Chevron has been lobbying against an extension of ATPDEA, which expires on Dec. 31, and extends lower duties to Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.

The lawsuit alleges that Chevron is responsible for environmental damage caused by Texaco, which it subsequently acquired, and the suit could end up costing Chevron billions of dollars. Chevron argues in related lawsuits that Ecuador exempted the company from liability for the damage in the 1990s and must pay any damages awarded to the Amazonian tribes affected by the pollution.

Gallegos blasted as a "mistake" Chevron's petition before the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to revoke ATPDEA over the case.

He this week accompanied a delegation led by Susana Cabeza de Vaca, Ecuador's coordinating minister of production, to lobby for ATPDEA extension. The delegation is meeting with members of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees.

Gallegos acknowledged Ecuador has an uphill battle getting attention, given that Ways and Means was tackling energy legislation this week and Finance was focused on tax measures. The delegation was not meeting with Finance Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA) or his staff this week but hoped to have a meeting next week, according to delegation member Bernardo Traversari, director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ecuador.

In July, the House passed a one-year extension of the Generalized System of Preferences but did not extend ATPDEA benefits partly due to anticipated opposition from Grassley in the Senate, who made clear he would not support across-the-board ATPDEA extension at this time in part due to Chevron's complaints, sources said.
Gallegos said a Sept. 16 Bush administration report praising Ecuador’s anti-drug efforts have bolstered hopes for the success of the Washington lobbying trip and that it provides the cornerstone of arguments Cabeza and U.S. investors were to make to members of Congress this week.

"Ecuador is the only country in that report that is congratulated on its [anti-drug] efforts," Gallegos said. He added that the trade benefits garnered by apparel and produce sectors under ATPDEA are helping to win the war on cocaine trafficking through Ecuador.

"This is flowers and broccoli against drugs," he said.

He emphasized that there is no coca production in Ecuador and said the nation is focusing on tracing boats involved in moving cocaine from Colombia.

The report, the "Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2009," says "the Government of Ecuador is committed to protecting its borders and territory against drug trafficking and other transnational crimes."

The increased presence of Ecuadorian security forces in its counternarcotics efforts provided a more effective deterrent to drug production and trafficking, according to the report. The identification of new trafficking trends and increased staffing and inspection at all air, land and sea ports are also helping to hinder drug trafficking, it says.

U.S.-Ecuador cooperation has been complicated by a July notification by Ecuador that all U.S. soldiers at an air base used for anti-drug raids in the city of Manta must leave by next year. Gallegos said however that Washington has accepted that it is the democratic will of the Ecuadorean people that no foreign troops be stationed on Ecuadorean soil.

He said that Ecuador only receives $7 million from the U.S. for its anti-drug efforts while spending $150 million on its own for counter-narcotics.

Bolivia, as another ATPDEA beneficiary, was one of three countries, along with Burma and Venezuela, that Bush designated as countries that have "failed demonstrably," over the past year to combat drug trafficking. Under the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2003, U.S. foreign aid is forbidden to countries so failing unless the president certifies that continued support is in the national interest.

Bush invoked this national interest waiver for Bolivia and Venezuela in order to have the U.S. offer continued support for bilateral programs in both countries.

With a very short legislative calendar, lobbyists concede that the ATPDEA at the earliest will be extended after the election, and some sources have suggested that this will happen only next year.

In addition to the Chevron case, deteriorating U.S.-Bolivian relations could adversely affect the extension of ATPDEA.

Asked about Bolivia, which last week expelled the U.S. ambassador, Ecuadorean officials said they were focused on making Ecuador's case and it would be up to the U.S. to decide whether Bolivia should be excluded from ATPDEA.

"Every country has its own situation," Cabeza said. "Our focus is on what Ecuador is doing."

But Jeff Sheedy, an investor in the Ecuadorean textile and broccoli sectors, said that the fact that there has not been a vote on the U.S.-Colombia FTA and the problems with the implementation of the U.S.-Peru FTA mean that those nations need ATPDEA extended as well. This will add momentum for an extension, he said.

The Colombia and Peru situation have forced the two countries and Ecuador to consult with each other as they together push for an ATPDEA extension, Gallegos said.

Gallegos said that in his view all four ATPDEA nations would seek an extension since the chains of production are interwoven between the countries and full extension is needed to satisfy U.S. rules of origin.

Gallegos said that Ecuador prefers a multi-year extension and said that the Republican strategy of using short-term extensions of ATPDEA to force a vote on the Colombia FTA has backfired by adversely affecting the ability of businesses to plan effectively.

He also said that when ATPDEA was extended retroactively in the past there were serious economic consequences. The key time for Ecuador's fresh cut flower industry is February because of St. Valentine's Day. Importers prepare well in advance for this and could scale back orders if ATPDEA lapses after Dec. 31.

Lobbyists for Ecuador's Amazon tribes have been told that Congress expects to extend ATPDEA next year retroactively.

Ecuador's prepared lobbying materials target members of Congress from Texas, Louisiana, California, New Jersey and Georgia, which export the most in dollar terms to Ecuador of all U.S. states.

Gallegos said he would also highlight that a new U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has praised Ecuador for the treatment of thousands of Colombian refugees from Colombia's civil war.

Additionally, they were to argue that Ecuadors' new draft constitution leads the world in protection for the environment. This constitution, which will give the government control over sectors such as telecommunications and natural resources, will be voted on in a plebiscite on Sept. 28.

Asked to respond to the argument that preferences deter countries from negotiating FTAs, Gallegos said that Ecuador is waiting to see if the next U.S. administration will gain fast-track authority and what sort of new free trade agreement template is developed before reaching out to the U.S. on negotiations for an FTA.

The Bush administration launched FTA negotiations with Ecuador, Peru and Colombia in May 2004, but negotiations with Ecuador broke down in May 2006 over Ecuador's cancellation of an oil contract with U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum and seizure of the company's assets (Inside U.S. Trade, May 19, 2006).

Cabeza said that Correa has identified some 3,000 tariff lines to be liberalized, she said, and this liberalization will benefit U.S. exporters.

Between June 2007 and June 2008, Ecuador liberalized 328 tariff lines including tariffs on machinery, buckwheat, poultry and eggs, vehicles, wheat, aircraft parts, and sugar processing machines.

She said 98 percent of wheat and 80 percent of soybeans now enter Ecuador under reduced duties. Documents prepared by DTB Associates on behalf of Ecuador list U.S. firms Monsanto, Bayer Group, Caterpillar, Ford Motor Company, Chrysler LLC, Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical and Jeep as suppliers to the Ecuadorean flower industry.
 
We at ECrisis know very well what the Correa lobbyists, recently led by communist Correa cabinet ranked Cabeza de Vaca, herself a non-tax paying USA citizen, are up to: their plan is to squeeze Peru and Colombia for non-passage of their well deserved FTA while keeping the Ecuador and Bolivia ATPDEA deals which of course are not deserved. We are fully aware that Chevron Texaco is also lied about by "Ambassador" Gallegos and Correa's cabinet, currently funding scores of liars, propagandists and lobbyists- sometimes called their legal team- to strike it rich by seizing tens of billions of dollars from Chevron for crimes it did not commit.
 
What Gallegos and all of Correa's lying, useless propagandists refuse to do is to state the facts: Correa is legalizing narcotics and ushering in safe zone/a narcostate for the FARC inside Ecuador. This is a cause to retract Ecuador's ATPDEA, no matter how much Gallegos lies that Ecuador is a great warrior against drugs when it today is not. Ecuador knowingly is a major transport hub for narcotics shipments. Further, Correa's minions have just released all drug runners from jail and have yet to capture one narcoterrorist- ever. But Gallegos wants you to believe that Ecuador is a mature, responsible partner against crime when his efforts to date are to manipulate and send forth more liars and manipulators like Correa communist Cabinet member Susanna Cabeza de Vaca, who should have her US citizenship cancelled...or at least pay up her back taxes due to the US IRS for starters.
 
Ambassador Gallegos is a deceitful manipulator. He knows, as Correa knows, that Chevron Texaco is not trying to jigger or manipulate justice. Justice is on their side while Ecuador's plan is to throw more and more liars in the face of previously beneficial allies. As for Bernardo Traversari, paid by the US Chamber of Commerce's support for the Chavez-Correa lobbying club called the Quito AMCHAM, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce needs to grasp the concept that their paid spawn is a bunch of liars. And the U.S. Chamber, contrary to its lying, useless AMCHAM came forward with four other truth tellers to state the truth that Correa and his communist cabinet, Ambassador Gallegos, Susanna Cabeza de Vaca and the Quito AMCHAM are liars and manipulators.
 
Here is what REUTERS reports today, exposing the fraud blasted by Correa's lying henchmen:
       
WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The United States should consider ending longtime trade benefits for Ecuador and Bolivia, but quickly renew them for Colombia and Peru, five U.S. business groups said on Thursday.

"There are serious concerns within the U.S. business community about breaches of the basic rule of law that are occurring in Ecuador and Bolivia," the groups said in a letter to congressional leaders.

"We urge Congress and the Administration to reconsider how the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act) should apply, if at all, to these countries given their actions," the groups said.

The five groups were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, the Emergency Committee for American Trade and the National Foreign Trade Council.

The United States has provided duty-free access for most goods from the four Andean countries under a program dating back to 1991 to help fight the illegal drug trade.

With Congress soon expected to adjourn for the year, the fate of the program has become entangled in U.S. concerns about the shift of Bolivia and Ecuador toward more leftist economic policies and the Bush administration's last-ditch efforts to win approval of a free trade pact with Colombia.

In testimony prepared for the U.S. International Trade Commission in July, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce complained that "more than half a dozen of the largest business enterprises in Bolivia have been expropriated" over the past three years.

"Most of these firms are in the oil and gas sector, but the largest telecommunications company in the country was also expropriated. While U.S. companies and citizens were not involved in all of these cases, they were in some," the business group said.

The Chamber of Commerce also cited Ecuador's decision in 2004 to terminate a 19-year-old contract with Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and expropriate the firm's assets.

"Now being considered under international arbitration, this was one of the largest expropriations in the world in a generation" and part of pattern in which Ecuador's judicial system has failed to provide adequate protection, the business group said. (Editing by Peter Cooney)

Know this: Correa and his overpaid team of liars and manipulators have been fraudulently lying to you and the world. Study their communist manifesto. Vote NO on Sunday and finally....be an adult. A vote for Correa's constitution is a vote for communism and Correa's dirty cartels. A vote for an ATPDEA extension for Ecuador is a vote for dirty cartel communism knowingly supported by the usual suspects who want Latin communist cartels.
 
Today Barclays Bank announced its desire to buy the North and South American sections of Lehmans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is right that rule of law is dead in Ecuador. They know very well that they helped back up its early demise and do now grapple with the end game of their own refusal to stand united with truth tellers. They now face an up hill battle in a place where full communism and total crime is about to be voted in to reality on Sunday. Their chickens have come home to roost. Vote no on Sunday.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis