Democratic Thinking

Religion as the Basis of Democracy

Obama and Egypt

From Al Jazeera (yes, Al Jazeera):

President Obama, say the ‘D-Word’

It’s incredible, really. The president of the United States can’t bring himself to talk about democracy in the Middle East. He can dance around it, use euphemisms, throw out words like “freedom” and “tolerance” and “non-violent” and especially “reform,” but he can’t say the one word that really matters: democracy.

How did this happen? After all, in his famous 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, Obama spoke the word loudly and clearly - at least once.

“The fourth issue that I will address is democracy,” he declared, before explaining that while the United States won’t impose its own system, it was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people... I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

“No matter where it takes hold,” the president concluded, “government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power.”

Simply rhetoric?

Of course, this was just rhetoric, however lofty, reflecting a moment when no one was rebelling against the undemocratic governments of our allies - at least not openly and in a manner that demanded international media coverage.

Now it’s for real.

And “democracy” is scarcely to be heard on the lips of the president or his most senior officials.

In fact, newly released WikiLeaks cables show that from the moment it assumed power, the Obama administration specifically toned down public criticism of Mubarak. The US ambassador to Egypt advised secretary of state Hillary Clinton to avoid even the mention of former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, jailed and abused for years after running against Mubarak in part on America’s encouragement.

Not surprisingly, when the protests began, Clinton declared that Egypt was “stable” and an important US ally, sending a strong signal that the US would not support the protesters if they tried to topple the regime. Indeed, Clinton has repeatedly described Mubarak as a family friend. Perhaps Ms Clinton should choose her friends more wisely.

Similarly, president Obama has refused to take a strong stand in support of the burgeoning pro-democracy movement and has been no more discriminating in his public characterisation of American support for its Egyptian “ally.” Mubarak continued through yesterday to be praised as a crucial partner of the US. Most important, there has been absolutely no call for real democracy.

Rather, only “reform” has been suggested to the Egyptian government so that, in Obama’s words, “people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances.”

“I’ve always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform - political reform, economic reform - is absolutely critical for the long-term well-being of Egypt,” advised the president, although vice-president Joe Biden has refused to refer to Mubarak as a dictator, leading one to wonder how bad a leader must be to deserve the title.

We don’t agree with all of the article (feel free to read the rest here), but the writer (a professor of history at University of California, Irvine) has a point.

It is important to avoid cheap-shot criticism of Obama. Like every American president he has to balance human rights against American interests. And indeed, American interests are often consistent with the interests of the world (in not wanting radical Islamic regimes, for example).

Further, no US president, including those like Carter and George W. Bush who have rhetorically supported democracy, has anything close to a pristine record of supporting democracy.

But Obama promised “hope and change.” Obama went around the world apologizing for America’s supposed faults.

But now it appears that he’s no visionary. And not only is he no visionary, he’s less the visionary than was George W. Bush.

The fact that he doesn’s believe in American exceptionalism may be a large factor here. Whatever he may say about “democracy” and “human rights,” he simply has trouble believing that the American way is better, and that America’s enemies are usually bad people.

Why Americans Favor Israel

From Jeff Jacoby:

Of all the ways in which the United States marches to the beat of its own drummer, few are more striking than the American people’s consistent and deep-rooted support for the Jewish state. In a recent nationwide survey, the Gallup organization asked Americans: “In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?” For the fourth year in a row, 59 percent — nearly 6 in 10 — said their sympathies were with Israel, while just 18 percent sided with the Palestinians. When respondents were asked for their opinion of various countries, 63 percent said they had a favorable view of Israel (21 percent said very favorable), compared with just 15 percent who thought highly of the Palestinian Authority.

Conversely, only 29 percent of Americans told Gallup that their opinion of Israel was negative, even as a whopping 73 percent expressed a negative attitude toward the Palestinians.

This overwhelmingly positive feeling for Israel is normal for the United States, but it puts Americans sharply at odds with the rest of the world. At the United Nations, for example, nothing is more routine than the castigation of Israel. Similarly, any time Israel is forced to use its military power in self-defense, it comes under the harsh glare of the international media, which subject it to a scrutiny far more unforgiving than any other country receives. It was only a few years ago that a poll commissioned by the European Union found that a plurality of Europeans regarded Israel as the greatest threat to world peace — more menacing than even North Korea or Iran.

So what makes Americans different?

Foreign policy “realists” could certainly suggest reasons why close friendship with Israel is not in America’s interest, beginning with the fact that most of the world doesn’t share it. There are 300 million or more Arabs in the world, and they sit atop a vast share of the world’s oil supply. Why endanger American access to that oil by maintaining such close ties to a nation with only 6 million people and no petroleum to export? Why risk incurring the wrath of Islamic terrorists by supporting Israel, a nation most of them detest? Surely it would make more sense — so a “realist” might argue — for Americans to distance themselves from the world’s lone Jewish state, and tilt instead toward the much greater number of nations and governments that are hostile to Israel.

Yet most Americans instinctively reject such advice. The national consensus in support of Israel is longstanding and durable, and it isn’t grounded in economics, energy policy, or a quest for diplomatic popularity. Nor, as some conspiracy-minded critics have claimed, is it because a “Zionist lobby” in Washington routinely hijacks US foreign policy, manipulating America into serving Israel’s ends.

The roots of America’s bond with Israel lie elsewhere.

First, Americans stand with Israel because in it they recognize a liberal democracy much like their own: a nation in which elections are lively, fair, and democratic; in which freedom of speech and the press are core values; in which the political rights of minorities are respected; and in which a commitment to civil liberties and justice is woven into the very fabric of society.

Second, Americans know that Israel is a stable ally in one of the world’s most critical and volatile regions. Its intelligence service is perhaps the world’s finest, its military is the best in the Middle East, and its painfully acquired expertise in counterterrorism is invaluable — all the more so as we wage our own war against jihadi terrorists.

Third, Americans sympathize with Israel because they understand that the enemies of Israel state hate the United States as well. The suicide bombers who revel in the death of innocent Jews, the fanatics who chant “Death to Israel,” the Iranian- and Syrian-backed forces that launch rockets from Gaza or Lebanon with the aim of shedding Israeli blood — they are steeped in the same murderous ideology as Osama bin Laden and the Islamists who slaughtered so many Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

And fourth, there is a deep religious bond between American Christians and the Jewish people, a bond that stretches back to the earliest era of American history. More than a century before the Revolutionary War, the Puritan leader Increase Mather taught his followers to anticipate the day when the Jews would return to their homeland and establish “the most glorious nation in the whole world.” In 1819, former President John Adams wrote of his wish to see “the Jews against in Judea an independent nation.” Today, tens of millions of American evangelicals passionately support — even love — the Jewish state, and consider it nothing less than their duty as Christians to stand with Israel and her people.

Why are Americans so pro-Israel? For reasons practical and idealistic, religious and strategic. They are linked by the kinship of common values — an affinity of strength and decency that reflects the best of both nations, and sets them apart from the other nations of the world.

The simple truth is that Israel is hated by a literal unholy alliance of decadent, secular Europe and Muslims with a deep-seated hatred of the Jewish state. It speaks well for America that we are Israel’s friend. It speaks badly for certain groups here (academics, leftist activists, Marquette’s Student Affairs office) that the consistently side with anti-Israel terrorists, and not with the victims.

Hypocrisy of Card-Check Supporters

From FreedomWorks:

Yesterday, Congressman George Miller (D-AFL/CIO, and sometimes D-CA) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the Orwellian “Employee Free Choice Act” into both houses of Congress.

The measure would require a company to accept the unionization of its workers without a secret ballot if half-plus-one of its workers sign cards requesting either a union or even a union election…and those signatures can be requested in public. It also would impose binding arbitration on companies which can not agree to a union contract, giving the new unions tremendous incentive to offer extremely expensive terms to the company and then take their chances with a likely pro-union arbitrator (assuming the plan gets set up where the arbitrator has some affiliation with the government.)

Although this information first hit the web more than a month ago, it bears repeating: In 2001, Congressman Miller was the lead signature on a letter to a department of the government of the Mexican state of Puebla which says:

As members of Congress of the United States who are deeply concerned with international labor standards and the role of labor rights in international trade agreements, we are writing to encourage you to use the secret ballot in all union recognition elections.

We understand that the secret ballot is allowed for, but not required, by Mexican labor law. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.

We respect Mexico as an important neighbor and trading partner, and we feel that the increased use of the secret ballot in union recognition elections will help bring real democracy to the Mexican workplace.

Check out some of the context of the letter here. Basically, the people signing the letter were unhappy that workers might be (supposedly) “intimidated” into joining company unions, rather than the unions that the leftists like. So if the secret ballot is likely to produce the result they want, they are all for it.

Who were the signers? All liberal Democrats, with the exception of one socialist.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur - D-OH
Bernie Sanders - I-VT…Sanders, a socialist, is now in the Senate
William Coyne - (former) D-PA
Lane Evans - (former) D-IL
Bob Filner - D-CA
Martin Sabo - D-MN
Barney Frank - D-MA
Joe Baca - D-CA
Zoe Lofgren - D-CA
Dennis Kucinich - D-OH
Calvin Dooley - (former) D-CA
Pete Stark - D-CA
Barbara Lee - D-CA
James McGovern - D-MA
Lloyd Doggett - D-TX

So, if the secret ballot brings “real democracy” in Mexico, why are they against it in the U.S.?

The answer, of course, is obvious.

Wrong Direction

Suppressed Venezuelan TV Channel Goes to YouTube

It’s a classic example of how technology can make things tough for nasty dictators.

When Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez having forced off the air the most important TV station that was willing to oppose him, the station began putting its videos on YouTube.

CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) -- Radio Caracas Television, the station silenced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has found a way to continue its daily broadcasts -- on YouTube, the popular video Web site.

Although the station is officially off the air, CNN’s Harris Whitbeck said its news department continues to operate on reduced staffing, and the three daily hour-long installments of the newscast “El Observador” are uploaded onto YouTube by RCTV’s Web department.

In addition, RCTV’s Colombia-based affiliate, Caracol, has agreed to transmit the evening installment of “El Observador” over its international signal. The program, which will run at midnight, could reach about 800,000 people in Venezuela.

Although this is drastically reduced from RCTV’s previous audience, its continued presence is a sign of hope for the staff.

“We’re just doing our job as journalists,” said an employee of RCTV. “As long as somebody is seeing us, we consider what we are doing to be valid.”

Thousands of people, most of them from area universities, took to the streets of Caracas in protest this week after Chavez refused to renew RCTV’s broadcasting license, which expired last Sunday.

Chavez accused RCTV of violating broadcast laws and supporting a botched coup against him in 2002. He replaced RCTV on Monday with a state-run broadcast station.

RCTV, which had been on air for 53 years, aired soap operas, programs and news broadcasts with a decidedly anti-governmental perspective. It was one of only a handful of private broadcast stations in Venezuela that openly criticized the government. Another, Globovision, has received similar threats from Chavez regarding its right to broadcast.

One of YouTube’s many features is the option for viewers to comment on the posted videos, and recently old and new segments of RCTV programming on the site have been accompanied by fiery debate about the limits of free expression.

“Cerrar un medio de comunicacion es una monstruosidad sin excusa alguna,” stated one commenter: “To close a means of communication is an inexcusable monstrosity.”

Of course, being available on YouTube is not really a substitute for being available over the air -- especially in a poor country where not everybody has the Internet.

But being on YouTube is far superior to being silenced.