June 25, 2010    While you are busy enabling Rafael Correa as president to control every facet of your life and take your freedoms away, you have gone too far by letting the state- your government- control your values which means you hold no values because you freely give them up. Values are those very things that are tough, hard and give meaning to our days because a value stands for and represents moral clarity. A nation, as Ecuador is today, that has no moral clarity, is not clear and is not moral. Ecuador is adrift and going down. No one respects or likes Ecuadoreans today because Ecuadoreans are morally dirty, manipulatively dishonest and unwelcome. Your life has no values because you chose to hold no values. It was always your choice.

We are thrilled to read from Rome that Catholic bishops convened to focus on societal corruption, forging ahead past the corruption producing Liberation Theology which is falsely promoted by Correa. Liberation Theology is but a crutch for criminals and corrupt, lazy actors for its eschews the actor- the person- as irrelevant in the march of time, a mere pawn whose existence is meaningless because the citizen is dependent upon the state for his or her life, which utterly abandons the essentials of Christian beliefs which inform us that all humans have free will, free gifts of grace and the right to chose life patterns. If one is busy depending on the Marxist state to do everything, the citizen avoids maturing and avoids moral responsibility for one’s life choices, often making immoral choices and living an irrelevant life, full of statist sound and fury but signifying nothing.

It is helpful that the Church grasps this concept in the Andes but it is not enough. Each of us must know and live the fundamentals of this thing we call life….for its good and its bad. And how we do live this life makes all the difference. It has been said too that a good Christian man or woman cannot be seduced by Correa’s evil- his lies, thefts and extortions. Correa cannot harm a good man. No Faustian Bargain seduces a decent person to sell his values if they are rock solid. Followers of Correa are known as persons who hold weak morals and are easily seduced. How do you want to be known?
 
Note to the vapid, uneducated regional attendees: there is not one thing evil or corrupt about privatizations. Private sectors compete, deliver accountability and pay taxes. State owned companies under Correa are not accountable, are not productive and steal from businessmen. This is not sound Catholicism and the Bishops are idiots to pretend that Correa’s state run cartels are honest or functional. But the Bishops are on the right track to decry corruption. Indeed, even Christ himself never once encouraged the state to run all. Indeed Christ suggested the state be the state and businesses be businesses and religion be religion. It is a sound concept which is unfortunately forbidden in Correa’s 9-08 Cuban ALBA freedom and legitimate private business ending constitution.
----------

GLOBAL ZENIT NEWS
Rome's Zenit News

Corruption in Latin America Seen to Be Multiplying

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, JUNE 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- There are a multitude of roots that give rise to the ugly reality of corruption, but the current spread of the phenomenon is perhaps unparalleled in history, participants in an international seminar have suggested.

The seminar gathered in Ecuador this month Church and civil leaders from 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The Latin American bishops' council hosted the five-day conference.

The first days of the meeting were dedicated to examining the situation, causes and consequences of corruption in Latin America. The following days focused on the illumination offered by the social doctrine of the Church and on seeking solutions in the pastoral ministry of the Church.

"Although corruption has existed in different moments of the continent's history, we could say that we are witnessing a 'geometric' progression in the recent period," a final statement from the seminar asserts. "We see it in the growth of organized drug trafficking networks and frequently in electoral contests, especially in re-election processes that deteriorate the institutions of democracy."
 
"We see old and new models of corruption, among them those related to privatizations, public debt, the purchase of armaments, within the framework of resistance to implementing international conventions against corruption," participants added.

Though noting multiple causes, the seminar participants highlighted the imitation effect, the crisis of values that peoples are experiencing, the lack of political will to punish this evil, low salaries and administrative anachronisms.

They called for formation in ethics and values for ordinary citizens. And they emphasized the need for teamwork, including alliances between the Church and other organizations.
 
The participants assured that they have not lost hope in the search for solutions to the problems that exist in society. Hence, they affirmed that they could not "remain inactive in the contemplation of those things that we can change with a serious commitment that stems from faith."
__

ECrisis repeatedly states that there is always hope. Hope is not ours- or Correa’s- to give or take away. Hope is yours alone. Besides, hope is inactive when hope is gamed politically. Too many tell us that they have lost hope due to Correa’s oppressive state policing, spying and dishonesty. There again, one’s hope must surely be weak when vermin such as Correa harms your hope. Determine your values and stand with them. It really is that simple. Stop telling us that you find your morals in a shopping mall or that because everyone is selling out to the Cuban-Chavez plan in Ecuador, you must also or else….run away. Stop selling your morals out so cheaply to Correa’s Pink Curtain….it will be your prison for life with no way out. A moral life of solid values will set you free to live, to love with self respect which will ultimately earn the respect again of others.

-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis