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I don't know much about this latest scandal in Colombia--just that it rather dwarfs the scandal of high government figures (including Uribe) and their ties to rightwing death squads (murder of thousands of union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers, journalists and others), drug trafficking and other crimes.
But if I'm right, we are talking about "the rich" in Colombia--people with extra money that they got lured into investing in pyramid schemes. These would likely be the same folks who have been suckered by Uribe & co. into believing that brutality against the poor creates security, that an economy artificially propped up by $6 BILLION in U.S. military aid is stable, and that the Bushwhacks have Colombians' best interests at heart, for instance, in deregulating business ("free trade"--including a U.S./Bush handslap for Chiquita International execs who paid $1.7 million to death squads to murder some 4,000 union leaders and workers, over a seven year period--friggin intense deregulation!).
Most of Colombia is dirt poor. They don't have any money to invest. And they don't want fabulous riches--just decent wages and working conditions, or a little plot of ground to grow food for their families and a little extra for their local community. It is the delusional rich, the mostly urban dwelling privileged--the Uribe supporters--who dream of yet more riches--fabulous riches--to make them powerful like the corrupt SOBs who run their country (and this one). They see crime pay, big time--among their U.S. overlords and local, drug-running, peasant-killing lackeys. Why not them? Why can't they be that rich, too-- rich beyond the pale of the law?
As I said, I'm not yet sure of the demographics of the pyramid scheme victims, but this is my guess. They are imitating those whose lies they have believed, about what government is for--for the rich to get richer.
Uribe has a 60% to 70% approval rating among those who dare to speak their views in Colombia. The polls, and the votes, are likely heavily influenced by people getting chainsawed and their body parts thrown into mass graves, for expressing leftist opinions. So we really can't know what most Colombians think. But we do know that Uribe & pals seem to be popular in the few areas of Colombia where pollsters would dare to venture, and where people have the right views (the views that don't get you whacked). And it is these very folks--it seems--that now feel so betrayed that their ponzi scheme didn't work out, and their government didn't protect them. It's kind of like speculators on Wall Street who lost their shirts demanding that the government (i.e., yet to be born taxpayers) bail them out. Depending on the bracket of 'rich' of the Colombian victims, they probably will get bailed out--and the richer they are, they more bailout they will get.
But if the money from Amerika dries up in the near future--which it is likely to do (as the shit from the vast Bushwhack pyramid scheme hits the fan)--and the dreams of fabulous wealth among the privileged in Colombia go bye-bye, so may Uribe. Colombia is surrounded by healthy leftist democracies now--Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador and throughout the continent. It will be difficult, but maybe Colombia could become an honest country with a good, democratic government. It's not impossible. It has happened in virtually all the countries with former U.S.-backed rightwing regimes or dictatorships--the above, plus Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and most recently, Paraguay--of all places. If Paraguay can do it, so can Colombia.
That's what I hope--that the collapse of this pyramid scheme will be the beginning of reform in Colombia, at long last.
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