Democracy
I want to expand a bit on my comments yesterday. I don't want to give the impression that I am against democracy, and democracy in the Arab world in particular. Quite the opposite. The problem, though, is a much more complex one than simply "have a vote." Which means, of course, that neocons absolutely can't begin to grasp it.
A functioning democracy requires certain preconditions. Without moving to a sort of pre-democratic state, democracy fails. Neocons, being shortsighted and not the first in line when it came to handing out brain cells and work ethics, can't see this. They think of Germany and Japan as totalitarian states that transformed quite nicely to democracies, without realizing that in both cases pre-democratic conditions already existed.
States that are not ready for democracy in certain vital ways are bound to fail. South Vietnam is a good case, because it was no more prepared to be a democracy in the 1960's than Iraq is today. And with the sort of ham-handed idiocy that Americans are applying to Iraq, there is simply no chance at all of a real democracy taking hold.
One of the primary requirements of a real democracy is that the people must have a common belief in their own liberty. That means the rich and poor must agree that their own freedom is important. Secret Police and terror organizations thrive in a pseudo democracy because government and elites allow them to.
In a real democracy, the rich understand that it's important to keep the poor and middle class relatively free and well-informed. Their belief is such that they won't allow the weaponry of the state to be pointed at its people. When that starts to happen, democracy falls away. Once information and control is in the hands of the regular mechanisms of the state, the will of the people quickly falls away and the state dominates.
That's what happened in Weimar Germany in the 1920-s and 30's. Germans did not believe that all members of the state should be free and equal. That led to the dominance of the government by extreme rightists, who in turn became the state. It wasn't until after the war, when West Germany was forced to accept their own culpability and the role that extreme racism played in it that they accepted broad freedom as the basis for their democracy.
If you look at various failed and fake democracies, they have that element in common: no broad consensus on freedom, and therefore an inevitable over-extension of state authority. South Vietnam. Pre-Castro Cuba and other Caribbean attempts (like the Haiti and the DR). Mexico (and Japan to an extent) is a one-party democracy where the elites work like a political machine, handing out enough largesse to voters and officially crippling and fragmenting the opposition to maintain power a all costs.
Generally, democracy fails when the upper economic classes refuse to respect the freedom and support the causes of those less fortunate than them. Russian democracy is in jeopardy - if it hasn't outright failed - because the ruling elites refuse to share power. The average citizens grew up with the weight of totalitarian pressure keeping them down, and they are not capable of grasping what should be theirs. And the elites have made the shortsighted mistake of refusing to champion others.
Because, in the end, it's only self-serving of the well-off to champion the poor. They only way to preserve their own freedom from the oppression of rightist fascism or leftist communist dictatorship is to keep everyone in the game. When the jackboots come out, nobody's happy - not even the rich.
Which brings us back to the failed democracies of the Arab world. Okay, the one democracy they've been forced to set up and how it's failed the Palestinians. There is no belief in universal liberty among Palestinians. They believe they are better than all Jews, and that all Jews must die. Further, they believe that they are powerless to stop their own elites from taking the crust off the table. The result is the election of extremists who, if allowed to by democratic processes, will cancel democracy and invade their neighbor. Sound familiar, Herr Fuhrer?
The solution is nation-building. It is to develop economic success for all walks of life, along with progressive education that makes the case for freedom. All levels of government need to be brought into the nation-building plan to create the preconditions for true democracy. Without that, all you have is a vote. And they used to hold votes in the Soviet Union - they just didn't mean anything.
As far as the shortsighted US Junta is concerned, all bets are off for the poor and middle class. The power grab by the wealthy elite has already started morphing, inexorably, into fascism. Tax cuts for the rich have transformed, in only a few short years, into warrant-less phone taps.
Did rich people really want their calls and emails recorded without a warrant? No. But they haven't understood that the price of their liberty is the liberty - and prosperity - of all. The Junta has paid off their greed with the currency of their freedom.
A functioning democracy requires certain preconditions. Without moving to a sort of pre-democratic state, democracy fails. Neocons, being shortsighted and not the first in line when it came to handing out brain cells and work ethics, can't see this. They think of Germany and Japan as totalitarian states that transformed quite nicely to democracies, without realizing that in both cases pre-democratic conditions already existed.
States that are not ready for democracy in certain vital ways are bound to fail. South Vietnam is a good case, because it was no more prepared to be a democracy in the 1960's than Iraq is today. And with the sort of ham-handed idiocy that Americans are applying to Iraq, there is simply no chance at all of a real democracy taking hold.
One of the primary requirements of a real democracy is that the people must have a common belief in their own liberty. That means the rich and poor must agree that their own freedom is important. Secret Police and terror organizations thrive in a pseudo democracy because government and elites allow them to.
In a real democracy, the rich understand that it's important to keep the poor and middle class relatively free and well-informed. Their belief is such that they won't allow the weaponry of the state to be pointed at its people. When that starts to happen, democracy falls away. Once information and control is in the hands of the regular mechanisms of the state, the will of the people quickly falls away and the state dominates.
That's what happened in Weimar Germany in the 1920-s and 30's. Germans did not believe that all members of the state should be free and equal. That led to the dominance of the government by extreme rightists, who in turn became the state. It wasn't until after the war, when West Germany was forced to accept their own culpability and the role that extreme racism played in it that they accepted broad freedom as the basis for their democracy.
If you look at various failed and fake democracies, they have that element in common: no broad consensus on freedom, and therefore an inevitable over-extension of state authority. South Vietnam. Pre-Castro Cuba and other Caribbean attempts (like the Haiti and the DR). Mexico (and Japan to an extent) is a one-party democracy where the elites work like a political machine, handing out enough largesse to voters and officially crippling and fragmenting the opposition to maintain power a all costs.
Generally, democracy fails when the upper economic classes refuse to respect the freedom and support the causes of those less fortunate than them. Russian democracy is in jeopardy - if it hasn't outright failed - because the ruling elites refuse to share power. The average citizens grew up with the weight of totalitarian pressure keeping them down, and they are not capable of grasping what should be theirs. And the elites have made the shortsighted mistake of refusing to champion others.
Because, in the end, it's only self-serving of the well-off to champion the poor. They only way to preserve their own freedom from the oppression of rightist fascism or leftist communist dictatorship is to keep everyone in the game. When the jackboots come out, nobody's happy - not even the rich.
Which brings us back to the failed democracies of the Arab world. Okay, the one democracy they've been forced to set up and how it's failed the Palestinians. There is no belief in universal liberty among Palestinians. They believe they are better than all Jews, and that all Jews must die. Further, they believe that they are powerless to stop their own elites from taking the crust off the table. The result is the election of extremists who, if allowed to by democratic processes, will cancel democracy and invade their neighbor. Sound familiar, Herr Fuhrer?
The solution is nation-building. It is to develop economic success for all walks of life, along with progressive education that makes the case for freedom. All levels of government need to be brought into the nation-building plan to create the preconditions for true democracy. Without that, all you have is a vote. And they used to hold votes in the Soviet Union - they just didn't mean anything.
As far as the shortsighted US Junta is concerned, all bets are off for the poor and middle class. The power grab by the wealthy elite has already started morphing, inexorably, into fascism. Tax cuts for the rich have transformed, in only a few short years, into warrant-less phone taps.
Did rich people really want their calls and emails recorded without a warrant? No. But they haven't understood that the price of their liberty is the liberty - and prosperity - of all. The Junta has paid off their greed with the currency of their freedom.
posted by fiduciary at 10:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home