Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Bush likes to claim that he is fighting for "democracy" around the world. Well, let's leave aside, for a moment, the ironies of such a claim when his election to power is questionable, his attacks on Constitutional rights are damaging American democracy, and his parties attempts to turn our voting system over to private companies using unreliable technology will further damage American democracy. What I want to do is look at some of the ironies of the real democracy that is sweeping the world.

Americans always assume that "democracy" somehow means pro-American or thinking like America thinks. We assume democracy means capitalist, though there is no reason to make that assumption. It doesn't, of course. America didn't invent Democracy and is not currently even its best example.

Democracy means, among other things, a fair election. Democracy cannot exist without fair, open, free elections. This is one reason why the DRE voting machines are such a threat in America. They take away the openness of voting and allow for hidden tampering with the machines that could take away fairness.

By this criterion of being fairly elected, I hear no one accusing Hamas of rigging the election. Or even using intimidation. I do know that there was some violence, but it seemed more due to Fatah. That can't have made Fatah look good. I would have expected Hamas to use violence to influence the election, hence negating their claim to full legitimacy. That didn't happen. Hamas, from all I have heard, did everything right and above board.

Whether we like it or not, Hamas is duly elected. We may have the right to refuse to deal with them. But we cannot say what happened in Palestine wasn't democracy. It was. Palestine has shown its maturity in the way the election was conducted. I am reluctantly impressed.

Another aspect of democracy is that the defeated party steps aside. The moment that the Sandinistas proved most definitively that they were a democratically elected government, rather than the dictator ship American Republicans falsely claimed they were, is when they quietly stepped down in defeat. Fatah seems to be stepping down. Palestinians are showing their maturity, so far at least, in the smoothness of the power transfer. Anything can happen, but so far I am impressed with the behavior of both the defeated and the victorious parties in conducting the transfer of power.

Another aspect of democracy is rule of law. No part of the government should be above the law. That was the significance of Watergate. It proved that rule of law is dominant in America and that even the President can be held accountable for breaking the law. Bush is trying to take us away from democracy by exempting himself and his cronies from the rule of law. That's another way in which Bush is threatening American democracy.

The next step for Fatah is how they react to the rule of law. They have for some time now acted without regard for law. Can they, as a democratically elected body, accept the rule of law? If so, then they will be showing a maturity that I would not have expected from Hamas.

That may be the next test.

America wants to claim that we are fighting for democracy. If so, then one would expect us to applaud true democratic elections and shun nations that are despotic. And yet we support despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan while we denigrate and shun the government of Venezuela. Aristide was the duly elected president of Haiti. Yet under Bush we allowed and even helped a coup that swept Aristide out of power and swept in some of the old-school thugs from earlier Haitian dictatorships. How does Bush justify destroying Haitian democracy while opposing Venezuelan democracy?

The right wing loves to call Hugo Chavez a despot. But in what way is the democratically elected leader of Venezuela a "despot?" What has he done that is more despotic than what Bush is doing? From what I can tell, Chavez, whatever his faults, cannot be called a "despot." I have never heard anything that indicates he was elected fraudulently (and how can WE criticize other nation's elections these days?). He has the backing of his legislature, which, from what I have heard was also democratically elected. Hugo Chavez may have faults, but he was democratically elected and Venezuela is an example of democracy in action.

What should we do when an extremist regime is really and truly democratically elected. In Algeria France refused to allow a democratically elected extremist Muslim government to take power, supporting instead a military coup. I have never been able to decide how I feel about that. I cannot abide extremists of any stripe and I feel that French intervention may have saved Algeria from becoming like Taliban Afghanistan. And yet, their interference was distinctly anti-democracy.

Another factor that is directly of interest to the Hamas election is the effect being in a position of elected power can have on extremists. Ariel Sharon was, in my book, an extremist. And yet, as the elected leader of Israel, he steered a fairly moderate course. The election in Turkey of the Islamicist party was chilling to me, fearing the destruction of Turkey's fragile democracy. And yet the Islamicists proved moderate and reasonable when in a position of power. The extremist Hindu party in India, though I largely did not like their policies, did not impose extremist laws on India.

Will Hamas go the route of these other extremists? We will have to see.

Iran-leaning Muslims in Iraq

Hamas in Palestine

Hugo Chavez in Venezuela

Evo Morales in Bolivia

Michelle Bachelet in Chile...

All anti-American. Some are religious extremists. Some are anti-capitalist. And yet ALL are democratically elected in elections that make our recent elections look shoddy. Whether we like it or not, THIS IS DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD. Mr. Bush: get over it.