The president was on the radio this afternoon, and I caught a part of what he was saying as I was driving.
Apparently there was a White House press conference and Pres. George W. Bush was discussing the difficulty in opening negotiations with Iran over its threat to enrich uranium which can be used not only for power plants and medical research, but to build A-bombs. This frightens us, as well it should. Apparently before you can have a discussion with a nation as difficult to deal with as Iran, which calls us the Great Satan, you have to get past the preliminary questions such as where the talks should be held, which countries should be present, and the size and shape of the table, so that a country like Iran is not presented as being less worthy or due proper respect than it deems it should.
Pres. Bush was saying that he's prepared to meet Iran at any table at any time provided only that the terrorists get out of the way.
"You see," he explained in the manner of a teacher addressing a very slow student, with a plaintive tone suggesting that he's speaking slower than usual for those who are a bit slow on the pick-up, "the advance of Democracy is being opposed by terrorists." And so forth.
We are the good guys who want only to advance Democracy. I'm foursquare in favor of advancing democracy. We can cram it down the terrorists' throats and make them eat it and like it, as far as I'm concerned.
It may, however, be the case that the terrorists don't like it.
I think Democracy is our religion. It seems to be our "ultimate concern," as the theologian Paul Tillich described it. Tillich had been a Lutheran minister in Germany before the war until he got on Hitler's nerves and the U.S. took him in. He was oft-quoted on my Wagner College, Staten Island, N.Y., campus because it had begun as a Lutheran theological seminary fourscore years or so before I attended and it had become a non-sectarian college open to all including this Staten Islander.
We will go to war over democracy, or Democracy, or the Advance of Democracy. I'm not sure what that is, exactly, but if you need to go to war, this is as good a reason as any. We used to go to war to Christianize the natives, like the Filipinos, regardless of the fact that they were way more Christian than we are. My wife is Filipino-American by birth in Manila to Phil-Am parents and family who took refuge here after a bad war there. Something about the Japanese occupation and the invasion that flattened the city when the Americans liberated the place and the Japanese went on a rampage of atrocities.
We don't go to war over Christianity any more, I don't think. We're not freeing the poor benighted dark skinned people for the missionaries to enter and convert. Not the Christian missionaries. Maybe the business missionaries. We want to trade with you. We did send armed naval ships to open up Japan in the mid-19th Century under Adm. Perry, as I recall. We needed our sailors to be able to take refuge on Japanese islands when in distress, and to be able to re-coal when steam technology was coming in. We didn't much care whether Japan ever became Christian or not, I don't think, as long as they didn't mess with our ships. At least we were honest about whatever it was that we were doing.
I'm not so sure we're as honest today about what we do in the world. We like to dress mundane exercises, such as protecting the oil supply, in high principle. For me, protecting the oil supply is a fully worthy goal. Saddam invades Kuwait, threatening the world oil supply, we're there, and I support that. Oil, like oxygen, is worth protecting with money and lives. The system runs on oil and I happen to live in the country that heads up the current system that benefits me and my family. I don't see that we have to harm a lot of people in keeping this system going. We could distribute the benefits better so more share in the pie, but we can do that as we go along, I suppose.
But Pres. Bush doesn't say that he's just trying to protect the oil supply and improve the network of trading relationships on which the world economy depends. He says he's trying to advance Democracy and the Terrorists are opposing him, shame on them.
Please, Pres. Bush, don't tell me we're advancing Democracy. I teach the subject and I'd be hard pressed to tell you what it is. What I think it is is a system of government that derives its legitimacy from the just consent of the governed. To do this we need to inform "the governed." This means a lot more freedom of mind than the world seems to enjoy at present.
I don't see the world rushing to adopt our system. Some countries do, and more power to them. I hope they succeed. But the fact is that an awful lot of the world doesn't want to see free and fair elections that may throw the ruling clique out. Lord knows we've supported a lot of undemocratic ruling cliques. How long did we support the Shah of Iran after we threw out the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1954 in a CIA caper that formed the mold? How long did we support the dictator Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines? How long is this list? See Stephen Kinzer's "Overthrow, America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq" (H. Holt, 2006) for the big ones.
Okay, we've got a system; we're the head of it; we're in undisputed leadership of the world, a far cry from when I was a boy. The Soviet Union is gone. Russia is nothing, except it's holding all the leftover nuclear weapons it had during the Cold War, so we treat it the way we treat rattlesnakes. We gave up on Democracy for the former Soviet Union. When your adversary holds nuclear stock, you soft-pedal the talk of Democracy.
With Iran, however, we're shouting Democracy. They have elections in Iran. Hitler was democratically elected. Being democratically elected doesn't mean that you are good or smart. We don't really care how you got to the top of your national heap. If you're there and we need you, we'll deal with you. Otherwise, if we don't need you, we won't sit down with you, which is our mistake.
We want diplomats to talk to bad guys. Our cops and detectives talk to bad guys all the time, trying to get them to surrender, confess, reveal the location of the body, the weapons, the dope, their confederates, turn on each other, etc. Constabulary diplomacy, it might be called.
Our diplomats are like our prosecutors, dealing with the bad guys, after our detectives, the CIA, gets through revealing what the bad guys are up to.
Israel talked to Arafat. We talk to Syria. France talks to Lebanon. Nixon and Kissinger spoke to Red China, the PRC. Established diplomatic relations. They shoot our planes down. We still talk. It's better than fighting.
We might like to see Democracy advance in China. We could offer all sorts of reasons why this might be good for China, the Chinese people, and the world. But it won't be good for the folks in charge right now, the Communist Party of China. They would lose out, big time, if China ever really went democratic.
We export Democracy selectively.
I'd like to see us import some.
Are you impressed with our democracy? Does your vote count? For what? If you live in California or New York, you get two senators. So does Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, and North and South Dakota. Want to multiply the value of your vote many times over? Move to South Dakota. You'll be a big shot. Your vote will be worth about ten of mine.
One man, one vote, we proclaim. We've never enjoyed that. For decades it was one white man, one vote. That let out blacks and women. Was that Democracy? We thought so. We never let facts interfere with what we believe in religiously.
Now we allow more people to vote, including blacks and women.
Now we have Democracy, right?
Not so fast!
We don't pick our legislators.
Our legislators pick us.
That's right. Every ten years we have a national census that tells who lives where. We also know, down to the street address of the individual voter, how each household votes, Democratic, Republican, or other. We also have a requirement that each ten years, in light of the census, we have to redraw the voting districts.
Do you think the incumbent for the district wants to lose his chance for re-election by losing votes through the process of line drawing?
Don't be silly. What your incumbent representative wants is for some other incumbent to lose his seat through redistricting. Your incumbent wants to head the new line-drawing committee so he can include as many supporters as possible. And they do, all the time. Well isn't this terrible? Political gerrymandering? Racial gerrymandering is against the law, isn't it? It is. Gomillion v. Lightfoot is the equal protection of law case. But not political gerrymandering. The Supreme Court cannot, for the life of it, figure out a way to prohibit political gerrymandering without canceling the democratic program of using elections to select representatives.
We live in an imperfect world, and imperfect democracy is one of its features. We also have imperfect monarchies, dictators, and tyrants, but that's another story.
We export Democracy, such as it is.
I don't mind serving as an example to the world. If the world wants to adopt Democracy, well and good. We'll cheer and clap. Might even lend a hand.
But to say that we're Advancing Democracy into Iran, when Iran didn't ask us for the favor, seems like asking for trouble, to me. If Iran tells us to stay home and tend to our own knitting, what do we tell the Iranians? Adopt our system or else?
All the president says we want is for Iran to cut out playing with nuclear fire-crackers. We don't care whether they're a democracy or a theocracy. The Iranians may care, but not us. We just want them to stop.
Maybe if we acted more responsibly we'd have more people admire us. Maybe if, instead of cramming our beliefs down others throats, we served as a shining example of all that was good, we'd have voluntary followers, not forced. Our agreements might last longer, too.
Enough.
Advance of Democracy. Opposed by terrorists.
Tell it to someone, but not to me, please.
I'm not swallowing it myself and I'm a big believer.
Who is writing our propaganda?
Rumsfeld? Cheney? I know it isn't Bush. He's just trying to sell it in his own inarticulate way.
"Ya see, the Terrorists are trying to stop the Advance of Democracy."
Got it; thanks so much for the clarification.
Only three more years.
Comments