"...an utterly corrupt new religion called environmentalism..."
If the history of this planet's climate over millions of years is any guide, we are about to enter a new ice age.
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he wants to see the United States become a Muslim country.
Promoting Democracy -- from Rhetoric to Reality (by a Freedomist Network "Colleague")
By R J Rummel (08/08/05)
One of the most important steps in transforming something -- such as "promote democracy" from the area of theory-idea-normative to the arena of practice-structure/institution-description -- is to actually change the institutions. This is an important lesson the commies certainly understood; perhaps Gramsci's description of "marching through the institutions" is most illustrative. The lesson is one Democrats understand, and implement quite well in American politics: party loyalty is important, and once in power, they -- for the most part -- adhere to "the party line" and end up governing. Republicans don't seem to understand this, and as Newt Gingrich keeps pointing out, Republicans are still more habituated to criticism and apology rather than running things as if they really were in charge, and even though they control both White House and both chambers of Congress -- they do not govern well.
Looking at the transformation of the Democratic Peace from theory to practice has been frustrating in American politics. Look at the Clinton administration's use of democracy rhetoric: it figured prominently in the National Security Strategy document (promoting democracy was one of the three pillars of Clinton's American foreign policy), and Secretary of State Albright did good "democracy talk." But the Clinton administration did little as far as actually changing the institutions of foreign policy to make promoting democracy a structural -- not just rhetorical -- reality.
This lack of institutional change -- or, to use a favorite Bush word, transformation -- may be ending. President Bush had his "democracy -- it's REALLY a good thing!" epiphany reading Nathan Sharansky's book "The Case for Democracy." And he seems to have imbued his former National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, with the same drive -- somewhat surprising to many people given Rice's reputation and background as a no-nonsense "realist" in foreign policy. Now, as Secretary of State, Rice is taking that most important step of actually changing the institutions: recently she set forth specific organizational changes to both implement and institutionalize democracy promoting: it is now not just a policy, but had become an organizational reality as well.
Specifically, Rice is changing one of the "big five" Under Secretary titles from "Global Affairs" to "Democracy and Global Affairs." To be sure, Global Affairs was already the home of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, but promoting democracy was always a third order -- or at best a second order -- priority, even though the Department's mission is to Create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community. Now at least the word Democracy is institutionally situated at the highest working levels of the Department. And the Democracy Bureau even gets a new "Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy" -- the first time (I think) there has been any secretarial title in the Department with only the word Democracy.
Also, knowing that taking away can be just as important as giving, the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs is losing an important but "pain in the butt" function: drugs. That mission now gets spread out to the various regional "desks" -- with another Under Secretary -- and in the process, changes from a special interest, to just another part of a portfolio. This can only help focus organizational attention -- not just policy rhetoric -- on the primacy of promoting democracy.
Secretary Rice is also ordering two routine bureaucratic endeavors: a "comprehensive policy review" and setting up an Advisory Committee, both to look at promoting democracy. These may or may not be useful: policy reviews usually end up at the bottom of in-boxes, and advisory committees never end up telling anyone what they have to do (that's for the Boss -- GWBush). These are bureaucratically necessary components of changing an institution's focus, but they are ephemeral. The lasting impact is in changing job titles.
Secretary Rice is doing important work that may end up becoming a major milestone in the shifting of American foreign policy from standard "realist" stuff, to the new model of "democratic realism," which recognizes that democracy, in and of itself, is a major factor in national security and "vital national interests." Making "Democracy" a routine part of the institutional structure of the State Department, especially at it's highest levels is a vastly important step, with three cautionary "ifs":
If Rice (and Paula J. Dobriansky, the Under Secretary with the new title) take these title changes as real and not just perfunctory; and
If the next administration -- Republican or Democrat -- keeps these changes; and
If the findings of the Democratic Peace research program -- democracies don't go to war against each other; the more democratic two countries, the less their violence; the more democratic a country, the less internal violence and democide; no famines in democracies -- continue to hold true,
Then the Bush-Rice implementation of actually Promoting Democracy will turn out to be the most important achievement of American foreign policy since it's inception under the first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson.
This article was submitted by "Colleague" of the Freedomist Network.
Original Blog
(Printer friendly version) Email: R J Rummel
R.J. Rummel is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science. He has published twenty-four nonfiction books (one that received an award for being among the most referenced), four novels, and about 100 peer-reviewed professional articles; has received the Susan Strange Award of the International Studies Association in 1999 for having intellectually most challenged the field; and in 2003 was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Conflict Processes Section, American Political Science Association. He was a 1996 Nobel Peace Prize finalist.
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UPSSA
United Progressive Socialist States of America
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