Hey bloggers, it's been a long week so far and I'm not really feeling the newsy bits flowing from me. But I do have a little to keep you all interested until I'm feeling better.
Okay, I realize that my country is in the election stage. And I realize it's a big deal this year. However, with all my news reading every day, there is a little bit of news that has somehow totally slipped by me. I found it the MOMENT I added my first foreign newspaper feed. And it upsets me. We spend way too much of our times forming our little knowledge bubble around ourselves and are content to believe that the world doesn't exist outside election coverage and what we hear on E!
So, let's look south for a bit, shall we? No, not the Texas primaries, further. No, not Mexico, further still. Keep going... keep going... there! Colombia. Ah, coffee, cartels, and Colombians (sorry, I needed another C). But what's this, if we zoom in. Vicious stand offs on TWO borders? What the hell is going on down there. How come the American people seem to be the only ones ignorant of the fact that major war is about to break out between Colombia and Venezuela and Ecuador? I feel silly as an American. Our arrogance makes us for the most part ignore anything south of Mexico (and Mexico itself when we aren't going there for cheap booze and labor), yet when there is civil unrest with our neighbors, regardless of what is going on in our country we should take note. No, I'm not saying jump in there and play police, I'm saying simply pay attention! Look, know! The world moves on around us, but we are not islands as much as we would like to think.
If there is one thing this new experience has shown me with all my intake of information, it is this. I have been made aware just how ignorant and selfish I have been in the past, thinking just like everyone else and closing off my eyes to anything past my day to day life and the tiny information bubble I allowed to exist around me. Ignoring the world doesn't make it go away, it makes it worse.
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I'm not sure I understand the tangled relationship that entry presents.
First, we have Ecuador "blaming Washington" for the conflict due to imperialistic ties to Colombian government. Then we have a mention of Ecuador as receiving development aid from Germany and maybe other European countries.
Then we have the description of the incident that has everyone concerned: Colombia crossed Ecuador's borders without Ecuador's permission to strike at a terrorist group.
Venezuela then sent tanks to their border with Colombia in an "unrelated move."
Germany supports the Ecuadorian president.
Venezuela's president supports the Colombian terrorists.
So does Ecuador's president.
.. that doesn't look entirely good for Colombia, does it.
Thanks for broadening the bubble.
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