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News :: International Relations |
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Bush's Contempt For Democracy |
Current rating: 0 |
by Robert Jensen
(No verified email address) |
03 Mar 2003
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Let's remember the basic notions behind democracy: The people are sovereign. Power flows from the people. Leadership is beholden to the people. |
Many around the world are skeptical when George Bush says he wants to use war to help create democracy in Iraq. As a step toward bolstering his credibility, Bush might start taking seriously democracy in the rest of the world, and at home.
U.S. reaction to the weekend news that Turkey's parliament had rejected a proposal to accept the basing of U.S. troops for an Iraq war only confirmed what has long been obvious: The Bush administration believes democracy is wonderful -- so long as it doesn't get in the way of war.
Let's remember the basic notions behind democracy: The people are sovereign. Power flows from the people. Leadership is beholden to the people.
If those ideas are at the core of democracy, Bush's recent reaction to the will of the people suggests he has contempt for the concept.
Bush has a habit of praising as "courageous" those leaders who most effectively ignore their people. In the U.K., polls show more than half the public against the war, and close to a million people turned out for the Feb. 15 protest in London. In Spain, 2 million hit the streets of Barcelona and Madrid, and 74 percent oppose the war. But Bush has praised the courage of prime ministers Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar in remaining fanatically prowar in the face of massive public opposition.
Silvio Berlusconi is another favorite of Bush. The Italian prime minister has to ignore the 80 percent of his people who object to the war, and on Feb. 15 the largest demonstrations in the world were in Rome, where police put the crowd at 1 million and others estimated two to three times that many.
But perhaps the most courageous leader in Bush-speak is the prime minister of Turkey, Abdullah Gul.
The Bush team found that it took some convincing (and $15 billion) to secure the ruling Justice and Development Party leadership's support for U.S. use of bases for a war. In that effort, as a former Pentagon planner and ambassador to Turkey explained, "the biggest problem is that 94 percent of the Turks are opposed to war."
After winning over the key leadership, U.S. officials faced another problem: The Turkish constitution requires a vote of parliament to allow those new U.S. troops. With tens of thousands of Turks protesting in the streets during the debate, the proposal failed by a narrow margin.
The State Department, expecting a favorable vote, had prepared a statement of congratulations. Because the initial reports out of parliament suggested the proposal had won, that statement was released and -- you guessed it -- it applauded the Turkish government for its "courageous leadership."
U.S. officials hope to reverse the vote later this week. No doubt Bush's people will be tough negotiators, but the Turks also can expect understanding of the problems that Gul and his party face. During earlier negotiations between the United States and Turkey, one U.S. official explained the process was time-consuming because, "We are dealing with a new and inexperienced [Turkish] leadership that is feeling very much caught by the situation."
"Experience" in this context means the ability to ignore and override the will of the people, an endeavor in which U.S. politicians have considerable experience.
And what of democracy at home? When asked about his reaction to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who rallied on Feb. 15 to oppose a war, Bush brushed them off as irrelevant. To pay attention to the largest worldwide political event in recent history, he said, would be like governing by focus group.
Of course, political movements -- people coming together because of shared principles to try to affect public policy -- are not quite like focus groups, which are convened by folks in advertising and marketing to test out their pitches. Demonstrations are real democratic expressions of the strong commitments of people; focus groups are a research tool used to craft manipulative slogans and advertising strategies in order to subvert real democracy. But let's put aside the president's confusion and go back to his assessment of how the system should work:
"The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security -- in this case, the security of the people," Bush said.
That's all well and good, but beside the point. The question is, does Bush think "the people" have any ideas about their own security that are worth considering?
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of "Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream." |
See also:
http://www.commondreams.org
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Pissed-Off Republicans Say Bu$h Is Screwing His Own Party |
by Capitol Hill Blue
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Mar 2003
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Feb 28, 2003, 05:48
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1846.shtml
President George W. Bush has an interesting political strategy for why his domestic agenda may fail.
Blame the Republicans.
Bush blames the GOP-controlled Congress for underfunding programs to guard against terrorism, saying the Hill "did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for -- they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money" for other unrelated programs.
"That was an incredibly stupid thing for the White House to do," a senior House GOP aide complained Thursday.
Democrats agree but they don't plan to ignore the gift from the President and will use Bush's remarks for political ads in 2004.
By accusing House and Senate Republicans of failing to protect the homeland, the president "is saying, in effect, Republicans shortchanged homeland security," says a gleeful Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).
Hoyer read the President's remarks and told his staff, "start working on developing this for the campaign."
But funding for Homeland Security is not the only place where the President has problems with his party colleagues on the Hill. The White House is sending Cabinet officials out to districts of GOP lawmakers who have doubts about his $695 billion tax cut plan. Their mission: drum up public support.
Republicans strategists say Bush is undercutting congressional allies like Sens. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who face tough reelection campaigns in 2004.
"I'm starting to wonder if Bush knows how politics works in this town," says political scientiest George Harleigh. "It's one thing to go into a Democratic Senator or Congressman's district and undercut them with voters but doing it with members of your own party is suicide."
Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and other officials will visit several states with Republican Senate and House members to promote the tax cut plan.
Conservative Republicans say Bush, who is expected to demand more than $100 billion this year for a war in Iraq, will drive deficits beyond $400 billion and give Democrats a good campaign issue next year.
Congressional Republicans say they now know Bush will undercut them if it serves his best political interest. In his speech to the governors, Bush said he was "disappointed" that Congress did not provide the $3.5 billion he requested a year ago for counterterrorism programs.
"If the president wanted the money, he should have asked for it. He never did," a senior House GOP leadership aide said Thursday. "I wonder if he remembers which party controls Congress."
Democrats wasted no time in using Bush's remarks to hammer Republicans for spending too little on homeland defense.
"Incredibly, the president is now blaming others for the budget he himself insisted on," said Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).
Democrats said they were introducing a bill to provide $5 billion more for emergency response preparedness -- the same package that Republicans, at White House insistence, refused to add to the omnibus spending bill enacted earlier this year.
"No more blaming others, no more delay," Daschle said.
One Capitol Hill source said House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert, already angry at Bush's remarks, lost his temper when a staffer suggested he go public with his feeling about what Bush said.
"What do you want me to do, call the President a liar? George Bush may screw his party. I don't!" Hastert is reported to have said. |
