Greg Palast has a Christmas Carol posted at Truthout. Mainly about Doctor Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, it talks about how South American countries are finding their own way now, throwing off unfair deals bequeathed to them by predecessors and foreign bodies. 

Palast begins with a bit of a shocker: Correa admitting his father was a drug mule, once. The banana republic of Ecuador was at that time in dire straits as the price of bananas crashed. Correa's family was destitute, and his father took the only chance he could think of to help his family.

So the current leader of a sovereign state had a father that was not only a mule, but a convicted felon who served four years in a US jail. Now, he is forged by those humble roots into a social-reformer president that is joining with Chavez of Venezuela and Morales of Bolivia in overthrowing the "banana" deals that hobble those countries. 

The father that took the chance, failed, and evenually committed suicide, has left behind a man that can now act on his daughter's letter from her grade-school class, which he has on his office wall:

"We are writing to remind you that in Ecuador there are a lot of very poor children in the streets and we ask you please to help these children who are cold almost every night."

Only words to some of us, but close to home for Ecuador's president.