When Democracy Is Stolen
When George Bush sleazed the 2000 election out from under Al Gore, he did more damage internationally than anyone has yet acknowledged. In securing the leadership of a leading democracy by applying the Cheneyan belief that the ends justifies the means, democracy lost its best proponent and its greatest selling feature.
What is democracy when it cannot claim integrity as the collective will of a majority of the people?
Hmm...
Since the leading proponents of democracy -- the US -- clearly no longer believed in it, no one else around the world needed to respect their democratic processes either. Democracy became an expendable commodity, little more than an unconvincing advertising slogan: 'Things go better with..."
A nice smile and a good pretense were the only requirements for ambitious, modern politicians. Corrupt world leaders scurried like cockroaches to give the appearance of democracy while holding onto power the way water skiers hang off their ropes.
Robert Mugabe took George's lesson closest to heart when he abandoned pretenses completely and simply ignored the results of the elections held in Zimbabwe last year.
Now ironically, the profoundly anti-American Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using the Bush-republican model of retaining power by brazenly fudging results in his national election.
A clear indication that the Iranian results are fiction is Iran's ban on text messaging prior to the vote. Ahmadinejad's strategists realized there was a real possibility of collective protests following this crooked election. They tried to head this off by arresting opposition leaders and by removing the main medium of the opposition's organization: cell phone networks. Ayatollah Khomenei then quickly endorsed the phoney results and warned opposition parties against questioning them.
Unfortunately this didn't stop the riots.
Three days later people are still standing on the rooftops of Tehran shouting "God is Great. Death to the Dictator" (by whom they now mean Ahmadinejad). The rioters burn trash in the streets at night and beat up the police sent to disperse them.
Nice.
All this supports my deeply held personal belief that no good can come of the theft of democracy anywhere in the world. When such theft happens, it is an open expression of the contempt in which a country's leadership holds the opinions of its people. This is certainly what it meant under George W. Bush. The whole country, its institutions, laws and governance were up for sale by a government that no longer respected their own responsibility to the people or the people themselves. The challenge now facing the Republican party is to restore its own integrity. This is not impossible, but it won't happen soon and it will never happen under the leadership of Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin.
When integrity evaporates throughout an entire system, it's like a desert wind that dries up the smallest beads of life-sustaining moisture. If a government will lie to its own people about national election results, they will have little trouble lying to them or anyone else about -- in America's case -- torture, secret prisons and domestic wire-taps, or -- in Iran's case -- the real purpose of a national nuclear program which, it seems clear today, is intended to build a bomb in order to exert pressure that will counter Israel's recalcitrance in establishing a Palestinian home state.
The middle east today, is a much more dangerous place than it was a week ago. I hope Benjamin Netanyahu understands that the Palestinian two-step is no longer a viable option. Like Iran's phoney election results, the world sees through the push-me pull-me forces that have prevented Palestine from joining the world in free self-determination and self-governance.
With the assistance of a few corrupt politicians, the world has now brought the middle east to the brink of nuclear war.
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"The supreme leader is a dictator. I hope he gets overthrown by the rioters." That is the best democratic way, is it not?
Leave Iran to Iranians. If only Iranians had involved themselves in American elections as much as America and Americans have involved themselves, what would be the response in the U.S.? Any country which has secret prisons, tortures people on suspicion and spies on its own people is a dictatorship. So when are Americans going to riot and overthrow their dictatorship?
It doesn't help to make a hash of what democracy means. The political dissidents jailed in IRI would disagree. The gays hanged there would, too but their voices are silenced. By all means we should fight the horrible post 9-11 paranoid laws and the security state that is still a dangerous option for US. But you embarrass yourself to conflate the IRI with US on civil liberties and democracy.
I agree totally. Any credibility we had went out the window when Bush was given the WH--TWICE. During that 8 yrs it was proven there are no rules except the ones being made by the ones in power and lies, subterfuge and double-talk were the only game in town. They all lied and when caught, lied more and were even smug about it. The people lost all say in their govt and that is still in place today. Obama did not roll back the damage, he has left it in place and continued the cover-up. We don't believe our own govt. now on almost any statement or promise (More lies) and it is very clear no one in the global community believes the WH and its enablers any longer either.
We knew the election was stolen in 2000...and again in 2004. The Supreme Court of the US gave us the first term...Diebold Voting Machines gave us the second one. But trying to buck the establishment and fighting it was a mountain no one was able to climb. After all, if Al Gore gave it up, how were we to fight the powers that be?
We have to face it...big oil, big insurance, and big agra own this country. They own our lawmakers, and we have about a snowball's chance in he// of doing anything about it. They will put into power those who will let them continue to r@pe and pollute the earth, and rip off the people.
Sorry for the cynicism! But today has been a sad day, both for the good people of Iran, and for the good people of America. Universal health care is a pipe dream, and the torturers and destroyers of our Constitution go unpunished! My hope is beginning to fade!
Wait a minute. Don't despair Em__ .This is a wonderful opening, an historical moment as the restive in Iran fight for their freedom. With a little craft, vision, and luck they might kick a theocracy over. Who knows, it might turn out to be contagious.
When Democracy Is Stolen...
Iranians take to the streets in protest. We The People, not so much. :-(
Way too busy watching "Idol"! How sad! The dumbing down of America! Looks as if it succeeded beautifully!
And yet we persist in calling Mahmoud Abbas the Palestinian President and he's the one that President Obama is negotiating with. What Abbas has done, with US and Israeli collusion, is exactly what Ahmadinejad now stands accused of doing. Abbas's party lost an election, fair and square, but Abbas refused to acknowledge the defeat and has instead clung to as much power as he can, despite the fact that the mandate he was once elected to has expired.
At least the Iranians are protesting, even if its because of the $400 million Bush directive to conduct clandestine operations within Iran.
Democracy? I refer to the U.S. president as the electoral college president and so should you. We do not decide the presidency, the men in power that can rig and hijack elections like in 2000 and I am sure 2004 elect the presidents!
There is no proof that Ahmadinejad stole the election. People who say that he did are obviously underestimating the damage done around the world by the last administration. Iranians exercised their freedom of choice to vote by electing the person who most closely reflected their hopes for Iran.
Cell phone text messages were more likely shut down to thwart the protests of malcontents who would use the media to undermine the election results (which they are attempting anyway).
Ahmadinejad is the rightful president of Iran & the sooner we come to terms with that is the sooner we can move forward on important issues like nuclear weapons.
Its also very inconsiderate to compare any living person to G.W.Bush. That's just wrong.
There's a host of evidence. Allow me to plagiarize another poster, Cynthia 707:
A few reasons:
--- a high number of undecideds- who historically tend to go with challengers rather than incumbents- combined with an unexpectedly high turnout
--- the poll directly contradicts virtually all of the municipal-level polls in days leading up to election
--- in a society where secret police are everywhere, there is a (strategic) tendency to play it safe and tell a stranger that you're going with the incumbent, which was the riskiest question on the entire survey
--- the poll was taken *before* the televised debate, where Mousavi embarrassed Ahmadinejad with how much better he performed
[me again] Go to http://www.juancole.com/ for Juan Cole's deconstruction of the election.
The results reflected that Ahmadinejad overwhelmingly dominated Mousavi's home town. An impossibility in Iranian politics. Impossible !! Never happened previous to any election in the entire Muslim world.
Kamau - your credibility and integrity as a source of viable dialogue has been broken here with your latest post. I suggest you find another venue, as I for one no longer regard your opinions as useful or fruitful.
"Iranians exercised their freedom of choice to vote by electing the person who most closely reflected their hopes for Iran. "
That is so not true. Iranians only get to choose between two puppets of the supreme leader. These elections don't even matter since the president of Iran doesn't have any real power anyway. The supreme leader is a dictator. I hope he gets overthrown by the rioters.
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