Idiocracies

The scene was not the beginning of a “block” Rosary I used to attend at neighboring homes once a month in my youth. However it started that way. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made the sign of the cross at the UN in 2006, then went on to give a short meditative reflection on President Bush as Satan himself. Well, he presented another Valentine blue-light special to the world last weekend when he won a referendum to allow him to duplicate FDR’s multi-term presidency. No term limits for this Castro admirer. But with the world oil prices below $40 a barrel, there could be a crash and burn end to his story. This would be a blow to all his Hollywood admirers... including Danny Glover , Kevin Spacey, Harry Belafonte, and Sean Penn.

Venezuela’s mirror-gazing leader has influenced other countries in the lower half of the Americas…Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia...among others. In Ecuador, U.S.-educated Rafael Correa simply dismissed the elected Congress, wrote a new constitution giving him new powers, including the right to be reelected and control over the Central Bank. In Nicaragua, the mushroom Daniel Ortega was elected in 2006 with 38 percent of the votes, following promises that he would not repeat the totalitarian policies of his previous rule (1979-90). Sure. Right. In Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma strongly believes that capitalism, or our free-market system, is dead. All these guys blame America for the depressed global economy. Yet if you look at many of our Latin neighbors, while claiming to be democratic, they have, in their history, embraced coups and dictators. We are seeing these countries embracing the new communism.

Another concern is Mexico, one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats. The government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon recently instructed his embassy and consular officials to promote a positive image of Mexico. Kind of hard to do when kidnappings of American tourists are increasing at an alarming rate. Like the pirates off the coast of Somalia, these shadowy characters lurk in the tourist towns of our neighbor. Not only American tourists, but the relatives of Mexicans in the United States have become a new profit center for Mexico’s crime industry. Hundreds of families are emigrating out of fear of kidnap or extortion, and Mexicans in the U.S. are doing everything they can to avoid returning. Instead, they’re getting their relatives out. We, of course, are doing our part by finishing construction of the new Berlin Wall to keep these desperate families out. Now, with pressure on the new administration to help US citizens keep or find new jobs, the pressure cooker that is Mexico is about to explode into chaos. Where was Congress’ head when Bush proposed his logical immigration policy to allow Mexicans in legally to earn money for their families and begin enterprises in Mexico that would benefit everyone? I tend to be conservative in most things, but most leaders of the Republican party blathered on about the need to keep Mexicans out…Democrats, too, were afraid their union buddies would lose too many jobs to Mexican green card holders. So, nothing was done, except build a wall.

We have a president that promises to be all things to all men. The adulation given Obama at a gathering in Elkhart Indiana last week made me gag. One lady in camera view mouthed the words “I love you Barack” as he hugged a desperate homeless woman. The upshot of that scene was that a member of the community, not the government, offered free housing to the woman.

Anyway, the question debated on the airwaves is “Are we heading to socialism?” No question in my mind. At least we don’t have a country whose leader can summarily dismiss Congress and write a new constitution. However, maybe we can all look to the new big government, courtesy of the Democrats, helping with those 1040s. We have / had some great prospects in Geithner, Daschle, Killifer, and Rep. Rangel. Gotta love this new era of liberal idiocracy. I hope it doesn’t crash and burn too soon because we don’t have as many oil reserves as either Mexico or Venezuela.