American Ideal? Be careful what you wish for, even if it's democracy

American Ideal?
Be careful what you wish for, even if it's democracy
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
By Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The juxtaposition of the Afghanistan and American elections over the past few weeks leads, unfortunately, to some dismal thoughts regarding democracy in practice.

Arguments about the operational feasibility of democracy frequently come to an end in conversation with someone citing Winston Churchill's 1947 pronouncement on the subject: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Everyone nods and smiles, and the subject is put to bed one more time like a troubled infant silenced into sleep with a teaspoon of brandy.

But there are some important footnotes to put to Churchill's dictum. One is that it was pronounced in 1947, in the wake of World War II, before the end of colonialism, before the point that most of the some 192 now-sovereign nations were created.

A second, perhaps even more relevant, point is that -- as far as we know -- Churchill never had the bright idea of trying to export democracy beyond Britain's scepter'd isle and the United States. We know what he thought of French "liberte, egalite, fraternite," and trying to conceive the idea at that point of countries like China, India, Germany and Japan operating as democracies might have made even him stop drinking.

But here we are, currently tying the U.S. troop level in -- and withdrawal from -- Iraq to that invaded, occupied and very divided country's holding credible democratic elections in January. That is almost like talking about what the United States will be able to do when the national debt is paid off.

As to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has been holding a series of deliberations on the subject of how many U.S. troops should be there, ranging from none, to the current 68,000, to the reported up-to 163,000 that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal would like. Those discussions reportedly turned in part on Mr. Obama's desire that Afghanistan hold the run-off elections once scheduled for this Saturday to try to clean up the results of the crooked Aug. 20 elections. That was to say, until the second-running candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, flushed the whole exercise on Sunday by saying basically that, from what he could see, there was no point to holding the run-off elections in any case given the Karzai government's criminal habits.

Otherwise, that would have been another example of America's hitching its wagon in a very dangerous war in a truly hazardous part of the world to the idea that democratic elections were the answer to a country's problems.

At least during the first part of the Bush administration, Americans had accepted to a degree the idea that their nation's greatness had somehow been a result of its adherence to democracy as its philosophy of government. (I wouldn't try to argue otherwise, citing the country's enormous resources, borders protected by oceans and other strengths, hoping in any case that most Americans have soaked up some of that starting in grade school.) The fantasy part was that American democracy can be exported, especially to places we invade and occupy.

I'll try to conserve my marriage and few remaining friendships by not discussing the American South. The Philippines and Puerto Rico are still works in progress. Germany has gone rather well, although, for some reason, the United States still has some 70,000 troops there. Japan's democracy seems to be solid, although definitely not Jeffersonian, and the U.S. still has 47,000 troops stationed there. India got its democracy via the United Kingdom and it functions, although it would definitely be described as different.

And then we come to American democracy. First, is America a democracy? We do have regular elections. But to a large degree, the outcomes are dictated by money. The money that flows gets called, variously, campaign contributions, lobbying, bribes, walking around money, commissions or just plain graft. What is for sure is that there is lots of it involved in American elections.

We just saw our new president, whom some had hoped -- based on his own campaign statements -- would not let himself be bought with campaign cash, in New York City, the sphincter of campaign money, addressing a group of masters of pay for play. The Oct. 20 dinner reportedly raised $3 million for his party.

Anyone who would like to swear by America's professed adherence to the concept of "one person, one vote" as the basis for its democracy needs to be able to square that belief with the fact that the wealth of the top 1 percent of America's population is equal to that of the bottom 95 percent.

The role of the American media in the democratic transaction is by no means clean. Newspapers are becoming the thin church mice of the media package, but a large part of the money that our politicians collect for their campaigns ends up in the hands of the media -- primarily, but not exclusively, television.

And we get about what we deserve. Recent years have showed a string of Democratic and Republican senators, representatives, governors and their staff members involved in, accused of and sometimes sent to prison for a shocking list of violations of what is laughingly called "the public trust." Some of what they do would be funny if it did not involve our -- the taxpayers' -- money, cash in the freezer, tax-free Caribbean real estate, sweetheart loans from banks and whole political families on the public payroll.

All of the people at the base of these abuses were elected by some group of unwitting fools somewhere, "unwitting fools" otherwise known as us. The worst will be if the voters don't take the first opportunity presented them to turn these people out of office.

Then, just as one is supposed not to let one's pet mastiff loose to feed on the neighborhood children, America also has a serious responsibility to the world not to try to forcibly export our system to the unwitting citizens of other countries, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq. Why not see if we can straighten things out at home first?