Game Changer In
Latin America
By DICK MORRIS
Published on
DickMorris.com on March 13, 2013
The twin developments of the death of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez
and the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope may offer a turning
point for Latin America.
Chavez had established an eight country empire of minions willing to do
his bidding which includes: Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cuba. In addition, the
Dominican Republic and Brazil are under his influence.
Chavez' power is maintained by massive cash handouts to the poor to lure
them to support his version of revolutionary, socialist change.
Free food and medical care flow freely from his oil-enriched coffers
through the leftist political organizations in each country. While
Chavez' financial ability to sustain the flow of funds is limited by his
decreasing oil production -- and will soon be cut off if we stop buying
his oil as our domestic production surges -- but it has continued.
After his death, it is unlikely that his Venezuelan successors will be
so interested in foreign adventures that they will divert money from
domestic uses in Venezuela where they must compete with democratic
forces for political power.
Pope Francis of Argentina is a very different kind of pope. He is
truly a man of the people. He is humble, self-effacing, and
focused on issues of economic and social justice. He commutes to
his church every day in Buenos Aires by train from his small apartment.
He will bring a new kind of Gospel focused Catholicism to Rome and will
concern himself with alleviating poverty just as John Paul II focused on
fighting communism.
The very fact of a Latin pope is likely to stir a revival of Catholicism
in Latin America where Evangelical Protestants have lately made huge
incursions. He has the potential to replace the fraudulent Chavez
as the voice of the poor in that neglected region where a plurality of
the world's Catholics live.
God works in mysterious ways.
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