December 5, 2009 We at ECrisis find many truths in the following article:

 Ecuador plays `dirty'

By GLENN GARVIN   ggarvin@MiamiHerald.com
Some countries derive their legal system from the Magna Carta or the Napoleonic code, which clamped restrictions on royal fiats. Others rely on the Koran. And in Ecuador, the governing authority looks to Alice in Wonderland for legal standing.

In the trial there of a $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron, the courtroom echoes with the cry of the Queen of Hearts: ``Sentence first -- verdict later.''

The trial is still going on, evidence is still being submitted. But in a YouTube video (youtube.com/texacoecuador), you can can see presiding judge Juan Nuñez breezily declaring that he's already decided against Chevron and will stick the company with a fine in January.

``Chevron is the guilty party?'' asks a visitor. ``Yes, sir,'' the judge assures him.

It's hardly surprising that the wheels of justice are running on flat tires in Ecuador, where President Rafael Correa fires congress at breakfast, repudiates a few billion dollars in debt at lunch and then relaxes over dinner by sheltering Marxist narcoguerrillas. Ecuador's main export may be oil, but Correa runs his country like a banana republic.

The Chevron trial has become a morass of corruption that threatens to suck in the U.S. judiciary, too. It's the ugliest example yet of a new, international form of jackpot justice in which buccaneer American trial lawyers hitch their wagons to class-action suits in anti-American countries, hoping for a big score that will be enforced by U.S. courts.

The good news is that U.S. judges have, so far, refused to play along. This summer, a California judge ruled that a trial lawyer had faked evidence in Nicaragua lawsuits in which plantation workers supposedly poisoned by pesticides won $3.2 million from Dole Food Company. ``It is now clear that those plaintiffs and the evidence presented were all a product of the fraudulent enterprise,'' declared Judge Victoria Chaney in a ruling that casts major doubt on more than $2 billion in Nicaraguan judgments against Dole, Dow Chemical and others.

The Chevron case in Ecuador will be the sternest test yet of the American judicial system's ability to resist politically correct but legally suspect awards from Latin America. Steven Donziger, the lead attorney representing the Ecuadoreans, is Barack Obama's law-school pal who raised more than $40,000 for the campaign and likes to brag about his political clout.

Certainly the case has more to do with politics than the law. It started with Texaco's discovery of oil in the Ecuadorean Amazon in 1967. (Chevron inherited the case when it bought Texaco in 2001.) Far from regarding the American company as a rapacious interloper, the Ecuadorean government welcomed Texaco as the key to a bright economic future.

Over the next quarter century, Texaco worked with the state-owned company Petroecuador in an enterprise that brought Ecuador billions of dollars of royalties and turned the country into the second-largest oil exporter in Latin America.

In 1992, when Ecuador decided it could pump the oil by itself, Petroecuador bought out Texaco's stake. Texaco spent $40 million cleaning up its drilling sites; the Ecuadorean government released the company from further liability.

But that was no deterrent to American trial lawyers who, as Ecuador's politics moved left, saw a cash cow just waiting to be milked. The entire case against Chevron has been bankrolled not by damaged Ecuadorean parties but Philadelphia trial lawyer Joe Kohn. While the state-owned Petroecuador never cleaned up its share of sites and has amassed one of the world's worst environmental records -- an estimated 1,400 oil spills this decade -- it mysteriously is not a target of the lawsuit.

The conduct of the Chevron case has been an outrage from the beginning, with faked cancer cases, backdated documents, findings of pollution at nonexistent wells and grotesquely inflated cost estimates. (One court-appointed ``expert'' recommended billing Chevron $2.2 million for cleaning up each well pit, even though Petroecuador cleans up its own pits for $85,000 apiece.)

But last week's video of Judge Nuñez's ``facts?-we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-facts'' advance verdict takes the case to a new level of legal malfeasance. The video was shot with concealed cameras by two businessmen who were negotiating with the government for a piece of any cleanup project resulting from the verdict. Correa's political cronies arranged for them to meet with the judge (who, on Friday, removed himself from the case) to assure them that there's plenty of money in the pipeline.

As attorney Donziger admitted in the documentary film Crude, discussing political pressure his team has applied to Ecuadorean courts, ``Ecuador, you know, this is how the game is played, it's dirty.'' American courts would do much better to stay on this side of Alice's looking glass.
___

 And here is Correa’s legal team fighting against rule of law:

BUSINESS
DECEMBER 5, 2009
Ecuador Seeks To Block Chevron

By BEN CASSELMAN And CHAD BRAY
The government of Ecuador asked a U.S. court on Friday to intervene in its long-running environmental battle with oil giant Chevron Corp.

The federal court filing is tied to a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit taking place in Ecuador that seeks to hold Chevron responsible for environmental damage allegedly caused by Texaco Inc., which operated there from 1964 to 1990.

Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, denies the allegations. A ruling in that case is expected next year. Although the lawsuit was filed by residents of Ecuador's oil-producing region, Chevron has increasingly targeted the government of Ecuador in both its public statements and its legal filings in the case.

The San Ramon, Calif., company accuses the government of interfering on the plaintiffs' behalf and violating an agreement to release Chevron from environmental claims. The government denies any interference and says the release agreement didn't cover lawsuits filed by third parties.

In September, Chevron requested binding arbitration under international law, claiming that Ecuador was violating the terms of a 1997 trade pact with the U.S. Chevron asked arbitrators to rule that Ecuador, not the company, is responsible for any environmental damage and should pay any penalties.

On Friday, Ecuador's government fired back, asking a U.S. district court in New York to order Chevron to drop its arbitration claim. At the heart of Ecuador's claim is a promise by Texaco to a U.S. court in 1999 to accept the ruling of the Ecuadorean courts in the case.

"By commencing the arbitration, it is Chevron that is trying to escape its commitments," said Eric Bloom, Ecuador's attorney in the case.

But Chevron argues that promise doesn't apply to the current lawsuit, and accused Ecuador of stalling. "The government of Ecuador is simply seeking to delay the arbitration and avoid ever having to own up for its abrogation of the rule of law," the company said.

Separately, Chevron said it would stop selling fuel at more than 1,100 gas stations in Eastern states including Pennsylvania, Ohio and South Carolina.
___

And The LA Times on December 3, 2009 had a story planted by the Correa-Donziger fake law suit team, currently engaging the Obama team and the U.S. Democrats to suborn perjury. Here is a comment from one of the readers:

“The current piece appears to denounce some nascent request by Chevron Texaco to underscore that the USA deem Ecuador as unfit for free trade benefits extensions in 2010. What we know is that the USA deserves a dossier of facts regarding Ecuador today and a fundamental review of same, which does not exist and must be on the table. Without a real time review, your analysis stands as irresponsibly naive and in need of repair.

We cannot but be struck by the demonstrable facts that Ecuador has broken its fitness for these trade benefits willfully, which we woefully admit are its own doings and nothing to do with whatever it is that Chevron seeks, which appear to us to be a reiteration of findings on the ground.

By any yardstick, the facts bear out the reality that the Correa team running Ecuador has broken the bonds of US-Ecuadorean trade relations by verifiably restricting U.S. goods and services, portending its canceling the Bi-Lateral Investment Treaty {BIT}, revoking U.S. counter-narcotics reduction activities in any meaningful sense, ending U.S. patent protections, terminating open media and free speech with a new draconian Chavista media barring law, seizing private enterprise while melding its presidentially-controlled Central Bank with the Iranian Central Bank for ease in money laundering of Iranian cash in to U.S. dollars. To this must be added a deteriorated scenario in Ecuador created by their president Correa to replicate Castro's Cuba while insisting that contract law and private property end while afflicting all branches of government, notably denying even handed law and order, now arbitrarily under Correa's ham fisted control. Rule of law, contract law, property rights and essential due process are banished in Ecuador. This bears no reward by Obama.

Ecuador can and must restore all human rights and return to the sound principles of governance, transparent and accountable. Unless and until it does, the USA must not reward cartel-like behaviors with U.S. tax dollars and will not serve to further extortion rackets.”

And while you are pondering just how bad Ecuador will be under this lawless and very corrupt government of Correa, currently lying a lot to the USA and itself, consider what Correa’s group of self inflated narcissists look like:

Adaptive liberal hypocrisy
By Deborah C. Tyler     American Thinker

In recent weeks we have witnessed liberals in the highest level of government sanctimoniously defend terrorists who kill us, while persecuting those who defend us from murderous attacks. In an effort to understand this reversal of good and evil, it has become a cliché to call liberals crazy. But while supremely hypocritical, liberalism is not insane. It is a highly adaptive ego device that enables people to violate commitments, vilify those who are true to their faith, and avoid personal sacrifice while feeling great about themselves. The only defense against hypocrisy is self-knowledge; the politics, spirituality, and morality of liberalism are well-constructed firmaments of self-delusion.

The United States was founded in a Judeo-Christian theocentrism that is informed by scripture and assumes a personal God who hears prayers and grants forgiveness for sin. Theocentrism provides stable laws and settled moral codes.

In the mid-twentieth century, an unorganized, reactive spiritual orientation arose, egocentrism, which has become the dominant moral framework in our nation. This orientation says there may or may not be a God, so each individual must follow his or her own conscience and ethical values. Theocentrism has been promulgated by traditional religion. Egocentrism has mainly been introduced through mass media, educational power structures, and more recently by reoriented religions.

A theocentrist lives out the question, What does God say is best to do? An egocentrist lives out the question, What do I think is best to do? Here is the central difference between theocentrism and egocentrism: Living for God is a largely conscious, intentional process, informed by a written scripture that presupposes the need for repentance.

Egocentrism largely proceeds below the level of conscious awareness through a series of experiments in self-directed living. It presupposes constant change -- and who is there to repent to? The consciousness/unconsciousness dichotomy may be shown by a behavioral exemplar. Theocentrists are always praising and blessing God, saying things like, "Praise the Lord . . . so help me, God . . . Insh Allah."  But for egocentrists, it's not so clear who to thank. They don't disclaim "Praise Me!" Me have Mercy!" or "May it please Myself!" 

This difference explains the gratitude gap between liberals and conservatives. Thanking God is central to theocentrism; thanking oneself is more complicated, and that is why self-esteem is all important in egocentrist spirituality.

The individual ego is a PR shill. Its job is not to find the truth but to organize life and win every game from the viewpoint of the all-important I. And just as the eye cannot see itself, the ego cannot be honest with itself. It always buys its own pitch. The individual ego is the strongest force in the phenomenal world because of its capacity for self-delusion. Toward that end, there is no form of self-service that the ego cannot transform into a sense of moral superiority. This is why we see a case like Representative Patrick Kennedy, who claims to be Catholic, yet facilitates mortal sin by endorsing "the right to choose." His ego, not Christ or scripture, is in the driver's seat. But the ego is so enthralling that Mr. Kennedy may not even know it. Though hypocritical, his public position is not crazy. In fact, it is functional and advantageous in a world dominated by egocentrism.

The spiritual orientation of theocentrism generally provides the moral framework for conservatism, and the spiritual orientation of egocentrism generally provides the moral framework for liberalism. When a theocentrist is hypocritical, it is because he has knowingly violated the tenets of his faith, and the transgressor tends to be secretive because he knows he has broken his own laws. That is the purpose of scriptural codification: it lets you know when you are wrong. And that is why there is no equivalent written code of behavior in egocentrist spirituality. Egocentrism has no written moral law because a written code would in itself violate the process of self-directed experimentation.

Because of the way the ego works, the politics of liberalism are bulwarks of hypocrisy and self-deception. But liberals are often not secretive, just clueless. They tend to be "in your face" hypocrites because they are obeying the ego, which tells them that, ultimately, they cannot be wrong. This is why liberals speak of tolerance when they really mean approval. Tolerance is based on disapproval. It is a conscious, mediative process of non-interference with something that does not meet with approval. Tolerance is a compromise that the ego cannot make, because the ego is an on-off switch of self-interest.

The anti-American statements and policies of the Obama administration are sacraments of two generations of ascendant egocentrism in our country. The ego is loath to admit, "I don't want to get my behind shot off in some war." No problem. Liberal academia has given us 50 years of indoctrination in the many reasons America is not worth it. And here's some good ego-logic: The reality that "it takes too much courage to knowingly bring a Down Syndrome child into the world" becomes "Sarah Palin is confused and slutty." Eric Holder calls the American people cowards and then casts self-confessed terrorist murderers as civil rights victims. Khalid Sheik Mohammed becomes the new Rosa Parks.

But none of this is crazy. It is adaptive. For example, in the case of Mr. Holder, his deference to admitted terrorists is an ingenious, though probably mostly unconscious, ego-projection of himself as a civil rights hero while he breaks his oath to defend the Constitution from foreign enemies. Liberal hypocrisy is not insanity, it is pretersanity, a powerful tactic of self-absolution, a way to become rich, admired, and powerful while supposedly "fighting for the little guy," or to exhort others to self-sacrifice while making none yourself.

The notion, now commonly posited in liberal media, that the Fort Hood terrorist Major Hassan is mentally ill, is another unconscious capitulation to egocentrism. It is the worst form of hypocrisy to make excuses for somebody who takes all of the benefits of military service and then murders his defenseless fellow soldiers. 

Theocentrism and egocentrism are opposite and irreconcilable. One revels in the new moral entitlements, the other sees a mad world portending the end of days. A theocentrist will not give up God, an egocentrist cannot give up himself.

American society is being split in two. It is also a testament to our rule of law and compassionate character that we still hold onto our pluribus unum. How will it all end? Let's use a psychological assessment technique. Complete the following sentence:

The significance of these times is: _____________________________
---

-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis