Un Llanto para Latinoamérica

Amazing the way politics can rile up people. Around my office desk this morning flew loud comments, waving hands, political ideologies, biased opinions, and plenty of energy as my coworkers discussed the "Chavez Phenomenon" in Venezuela. I myself was educated a bit more on the issues last night as I watched a documentary on what's been happening in this Caribbean-Latin country. Corruption, coups, fraud, greed, power, money, poor, oligarchs, reformers, revolution, anti-globalization--it's a spicy political soup that is very frequently served up in South America. There's always talk of something better, a soup that's tasty and fair, that puts the people's interests foremost. But what can you do when the only ingredients to be found in the land don't lend themselves to an honest concoction?

You reap what you sow, and you reap more than you sow. This is a basic process of nature, accepted and well-known by farmers, and equally applicable to the rest of life. The choices and decisions, the actions of today, will have consequences in the future. One of my pastors once said that, "No moment is isolated in itself." Thus, the consequences are more far-reaching than perhaps the action originally intended. In the case of Latin America, past decades and centuries of sowing bad decisions, corruption and greed can't be erased in a matter of a few years, no matter how sincere a reformer is. I think about Ecuador as an example, with coups occuring roughly every 2 years when the populace becomes disillusioned with the current leader for not following through on reforms. In two years you cannot undo the round of sowing of oppression that began as far back as the conquistadores and has not been righted since. It has been tried, but Latin America is still reaping bitterly.

Do I sound pessimistic? Wacko? I hope rather to be realistic. I'm not a proponent of one political system over another, I am a proponent of rewarding good, punishing evil, and protecting citizens. And there are many facets to discuss and weigh in this topic. Bottom line: in my opinion, you cannot expect a successful system to be set up on the enslavement and killing of another people for avarice. It may be history of centuries gone by, but it's still haunting the continent today.