Article: State crimes against democracy in the war on terror

Lance deHaven-Smith, "State crimes against democracy in the war on terror: applying the Nuremberg principles to the Bush-Cheney Administration" ("Contemporary Politics", 16 [4], December 2010: pp. 403-20):

www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a929282687

Abstract: "This article asks whether, in waging war in the Middle East, the Bush-Cheney Administration developed and executed a conspiracy comparable to the one for which Nazi leaders were tried, convicted, and executed at Nuremberg after World War II. To meet the Nuremberg standards, such a conspiracy must include efforts to subvert the constitutional order. Today, scholars refer to these actions as 'state crimes against democracy' (SCADs). After explicating the Nuremberg standards, the article applies them to the Bush-Cheney Administration's 'war on terror'. The conclusion reached is that evidence of a SCAD-driven conspiracy is extensive and certainly adequate by the Nuremberg standards to warrant investigations and trials."

Excerpts: "To the extent the Bush-Cheney actions mirror the crimes of the Nazis, the administration's moral guilt becomes rather clear even if Bush, Cheney, and other responsible persons are for some reason beyond the reach of the national and international legal systems as they are now constituted. In the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the defendants were charged with, among other crimes, conspiring to [...] transform democratic Germany into a police state by contriving and exploiting threats to the nation's stability and security [...]. Hitler and his associates were charged with staging acts of domestic terrorism, issuing false warnings of impending coups, conducting false-flag attacks on the nation's frontiers, and in other ways mobilizing mass support for authoritarian government and aggressive war. [...]

"The IMT [International Military Tribunal] did not use the term 'state crimes' or 'crimes against democracy', but its jurisdiction and judgments prefigured the SCAD construct [....] [S]tatutory and constitutional reforms should be adopted to strengthen democratic governing institutions so that future presidents cannot repeat past abuses. If, as the evidence indicates, the Bush-Cheney Administration succeeded in hijacking American democracy, the political system was and remains quite vulnerable to SCADs by top officials. [...] The high crimes of the Bush-Cheney Administration show that representative democracy is quite vulnerable to antidemocratic conspiracies in high office."

Lance deHaven-Smith is a Professor in the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University.

Article: What Checks and Balances in a Democratic Dictatorship?

One M. Rafic Soormally, apparently based in London, is credited as the guest author of a blog post titled "What Checks and Balances in a Democratic Dictatorship?", published on 14 October 2010 on the website of the bilingual (French and English) Mauritian daily newspaper "Le Matinal".

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.lematinal.com/blogs/7847-Blog-What-Checks-and-Balances-in-a-Democratic-Dictatorship.html

Excerpts: "Debates are presently raging on what to do with the presidential system imposed on Mauritians. The [...] system of political control is not an invention of democracy, and people are being grossly misled. [...] Majority rule must necessarily command over 50% of the votes but this is hardly the case in any so-called democracy. In practice, a minority almost always rules through a process of 'buying' votes through electoral promises and unspeakable forms of corruption perpetrated by a capitalist system wherein less that 10% of the population owns over 90% of the wealth. Moreover, people are forced to vote for candidates selected by political parties and not by them. Democracy is a most manipulative, infectious and lying political system controlled by powerful lobbies and is a [sic] most war-mongering system the world has ever known through the perpetration of terror, invasions, occupations, land theft, decimation of whole populations and the use of weapons of mass destruction such as Nuclear Bombs (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah), Agent Orange and Napalm (Vietnam), Phosphorous Bombs (Palestine), Cluster and Uranium Bombs and Biological Weapons (Iraq, Afghanistan), and more. [...]

"Adolph Hitler, George Bush, Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu, Nicolas Sarkozy have all been 'democratically' elected but they all act/ed like dictators. [...] In theory, the US Constitution guarantees the Separation of Powers between the three branches of government [...]. In practice, there is overwhelming evidence that all three branches do act in concert as they are dictated by the same powerful lobbies, for example, in decisions to embark on false flag operations, to pass dictatorial laws and make wars, not to mention that the US is still a very racist country built upon the genocide of the Native Americans. The US is still torturing people they kidnapped and transported to Guantanamo Cuba, Diego Garcia Mauritius and elsewhere, and all checks and balances are non-existent. The President effectively has dictatorial powers [...]. The notion of checks and balances has become just another myth in most modern democracies. The strategy is to find ways to dominate the people, and the world. [...] The Mauritian President is a symbol of dictatorship as, like the British Queen, he is above the law too."

Book: Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy

Frederick Clarkson, "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy" (Common Courage Press, 1997):

www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=088

From the publisher's description (on Amazon): "Drawing on years of rigorous research, Clarkson exposes the wild card of the 'theology of vigilantism' which urges the enforcement of 'God's law' and argues for fundamentalist revolution against constitutional democracy."

Review: "Frederick Clarkson's Eternal Hostility provides a chilling road map to a growing movement whose roots go back to the founding days of the country. Clarkson asks the reader to consider what it would be like if having an abortion was punishable by death, if gays and lesbians were thrown into jail, or if our constitutional rights were replaced by biblical law. [...] Chastising liberals and the left for failing to recognize the depth of the threat to liberty, Clarkson argues that we must develop a coherent response to a well-organized effort aimed at overthrowing democracy. When he exposes the aims and strategies of such diverse Christian zealots as the 'Promise Keepers' and the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, remember that [...] Clarkson was also the first to expose how elements of the Christian Right were encouraging the formation of citizen 'militias' almost five years before the Oklahoma City bombing propelled the militia movement into general public awareness." ("Midwest Book Review")

Frederick Clarkson is an independent US journalist and book author.

Article: On Democracy and Kings

John C. Médaille is the author of an article titled "On Democracy and Kings", which appeared on 15 September 2010 as the first of a series of articles in the fortnightly traditionalist Roman Catholic US newspaper "The Remnant" (43 [15]: no page numbers given).

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2010-0915-medaille-monarchy.htm

Excerpts: "[I]t is clear to me, especially in this late date of our democracy, that it enthrones the will of determined and well-financed minorities, that it dissolves the customs and traditions of the people, and that it has no concern for the future. And a king may indeed be a tyrant, but such is the exception rather than the rule. [...] A king, no less than a president, must consider the forces and interests in his kingdom. But a king is free to judge the justice of the arguments; a president is free only to count the votes. And while the president might attempt to engage in persuasion, in the end he himself can only be persuaded by power, that is, by whoever controls the votes, which is very likely to be the one who controls the money. A king may also be persuaded by power and money, but he is always free to be persuaded by justice. And even when a king is a tyrant, he is an identifiable tyrant; much worse is when a people live in a tyranny they may not name, a system where the forms of democracy serve as cover for the reality of tyranny. And that, I believe, is our situation today. [...]

"Modern democracy has come to mean, in preference to all other possible forms, electoral democracy [...]. Since this democracy is something we are willing to both kill and die for, it assumes the status of a religion, albeit a secular one. Like all religions, electoral democracy has its central sacrament, its central liturgy, and its central dogma; its sacrament is the secret ballot, its liturgy is the election campaign, and its dogma is that the election will represent the will of the people. But is this dogma true in any sense? [...] One might respond that it is the will of the people who cared enough to vote. However, that ignores the fact that there are people (like myself) who care enough not to vote; people who find no party acceptable, or worse, find that both parties are really the same party with cosmetic differences for the entertainment and manipulation of the public. [...] Further, we can ask if a bare majority is actually a sufficient margin for any really important decision, one that commits everyone to endorse serious and abiding actions. For example, should 51% be allowed to drag the rest into war? [...]

"[D]emocracies tend to erode traditions by pandering to current desires. [...] In abandoning the past, democracy also abandons the future. We pile the children with debts they cannot pay, wars they cannot win, obligations they cannot meet [...]. In truth, elections are markets with very high entry costs. [...] Indeed, in the 2008 elections, campaign costs were a staggering $5.3 billion, and that was just for the national races. There are very limited sources for that kind of money, and the political process must, perforce, be dominated by those sources. [...] And why is so much money needed? Because the political arts in a democracy are not the arts of deliberation and persuasion, which are relatively inexpensive, but are the arts of manipulation and propaganda, which are extremely costly. The appeal is almost never to the intelligence, but to raw passion and emotion. The path to power in a democracy, the surest way to ensure the loyalty of one's followers, is to exaggerate small differences into great 'issues.' [...]

"A thing is known by its proper limits, and a thing without limits becomes its own opposite. Thus democracy, sacralized and absolutized, becomes its own opposite, a thinly disguised oligarchy of power which uses all the arts of propaganda to convince the public that their votes matter. There is precedent for this. The Western Roman Empire maintained the Republican form and offices. Consul, quaestor, aedile, and tribune remained and there were hotly contested and highly expensive campaigns for these offices. The army still marched under the banner not of the emperor, but of the SPQR, 'The Senate and People of Rome.' But of course it was all a sham; real power lay with the emperor and with the army and the merchant/landowning classes whose interests he largely represented, while buying off the plebs with the world's largest welfare state. But at least the Romans could see their emperor, could know his name, could love him or hate him. We are not permitted to see our real rulers, and never permitted to name them. The democratic sham covers the oligarchic reality."

The second installment of the series, an article titled "A Real Catholic Monarchy", appeared in "The Remnant" on 30 September 2010 (43 [16]: no page numbers given).

Excerpt: "A modern bureaucrat, in the normal course of his day, exercises more power than a medieval king; the bureaucrat can, with a stroke of a pen, take away your business or your children, thereby making tyranny a sort of daily routine; the bureaucrat's writ does indeed run as law, as long as the proper forms are filled out ..."

The full text of this article is only accessible to subscribers of the paper (available in print or as e-edition).

I was not able to ascertain whether there will be further installments in future issues of "The Remnant".

John C. Médaille is Adjunct Instructor of Theology at the University of Dallas.

Article: Participatory Culture and the Assault on Democracy

Lee Siegel's article "Participatory Culture and the Assault on Democracy" was published in the contributed volume "New Threats to Freedom", ed. Adam Bellow (Templeton Press, May 2010: pp. 259-67):

www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=144

Excerpt: "No spaces for the cultivation of our individuality exist between us and the media monopolies or the sham elected representatives. The essential liberal position is based on an idea – the idea of ever-expanding individual rights. It just so happens that the fantasy of a majestically sovereign and autonomous self is the heart and soul of American popular culture, a culture that is quintessentially liberal. The result is that the most serious threat to freedom in America today is the threat posed to democracy by the excesses of that culture. As our ever-expanding selves participate more in every cultural activity, the disinterestedness of play and of aesthetic pleasure gives way to crude self-assertion. And as everyone asserts their entitlement to participation, popularity replaces originality as a standard of excellence – you end up with what you might call an egalitarian antidemocracy, in which interactive crowds scorn and marginalize the democratic equalizer of true talent. That old bugbear of postwar sociology – the mob-self – is now a reality. In a participatory/popularity culture, the freedom to think and act for ourselves becomes harder and harder to achieve. The tyrannical majority so feared by Adorno, Foucault, Talmon, and others is all around us, and within us."

Lee Siegel, a book author and cultural critic for numerous US publications, is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University.

Article: Engaging Muslim Communities

Zeyno Baran's article "Engaging Muslim Communities" – an excerpt from a 2009 testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs – was published in "Defining Ideas" (no. 1/March 2010), a quarterly journal of the Stanford-based conservative public policy think tank Hoover Institution.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/5380

Excerpts: "I have written extensively about the difference between Islam (the religion) and Islamism (the political ideology) and how we need to expose the extremists' cynical exploitation of the religion as a means of convincing the moderate majority of their fellow Muslims that the current conflict is religious in nature – and that the only solution is for Muslims to come together as part of a single nation (umma) following its own legal system (sharia) in pursuit of a new and antidemocratic world order. Why is Islamism a threat to democracy? Because, according to its interpretations, sharia regulates every aspect of an individual's life; moreover, because it is considered God's law, no compromises are possible. The holistic nature of Islamist ideology makes it fundamentally incompatible with the self-criticism and exercise of free will necessary for human beings to form truly liberal and democratic societies. [...]

"The Islamist movement is much stronger today than it was in 2001. And it will continue to get stronger over the next decade until we realize we are faced with a long-term social transformation project designed to make Muslims an angry and fearful people who can then be easily controlled. [...] Throughout the world, liberal democracy is once again being challenged as a political system and, more fundamentally, as an ideology and as a set of beliefs. Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in an ideological struggle – and the United States is losing ground. [...] Faced with authoritarian threats in both religious and secular forms, the United States should not be questioning whether to promote democracy but how to promote it. [...] If not, the United States and its allies will continue to grow weaker as their opponents strengthen.

"In general, the United States looks for short-term successes when a generational commitment is needed (as originally stated by the Bush administration). But because the United States had to demonstrate success quickly, it went for the 'low-hanging fruit' – at points even sounding as doctrinaire about democracy promotion as those who oppose democracy. [...] Since September 11, anti-American movements, groups, and leaders – from Russia to Venezuela – have come together in a shared hostility to the Western liberal system. [...] I believe having President Obama in office will grant the United States only short-term relief. Islamists are working on new narratives and searching for new grievances; their need to undermine the United States and its democratic vision is incredibly strong. [...] Clearly, the United States cannot do this cheaply, especially given how much everyone else is spending on antidemocratic agendas."

Turkish-born Zeyno Baran is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC.

Article: Neo-Liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy

Wendy Brown, "Neo-Liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy" ("Theory & Event", 7 [1], 2003: no page numbers given):

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/summary/v007/7.1brown.html

Excerpt: "For the American Left, the wake of 9/11, the War on Terrorism, practices of 'homeland security,' and the recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq together produce a complex set of questions about what to think, what to stand for, and what to organize. These questions are contoured both by our diagnosis of the current orders of power and rule and by our vision of alternatives to these orders. This essay aims to contribute to our necessarily collaborative intellectual effort – no single analysis can be comprehensive – at diagnosing the present and formulating alternatives by reflecting on the political rationality taking shape in the U.S. over the past quarter century. It is commonplace to speak of the present regime in the United States as a neo-conservative one, and to cast as a consolidated 'neo-con' project present efforts to intensify U.S. military capacity, increase U.S. global hegemony, dismantle the welfare state, retrench civil liberties, eliminate the right to abortion and affirmative action, re-Christianize the state, de-regulate corporations, gut environmental protections, reverse progressive taxation, reduce education spending while increasing prison budgets, and feather the nests of the rich while criminalizing the poor."

I had no access to the full text of the article.

Wendy Brown is Heller Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Article: Democracy Still Matters

Roger Cohen, a London-based "International Herald Tribune" columnist, in an op-ed piece the "New York Times" today published on its website, eloquently paints a picture of the global "anti-democratic tide" that seems at once gradual and unavoidable. The title of the article, "Democracy Still Matters", subsequently cannot but ring untrue.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/opinion/21iht-edcohen.html

Excerpts: "One mystery of the first decade of the 21st century is the decline of democracy. It's not that nations with democratic systems have dwindled in number but that democracy has lost its luster. It's an idea without a glow. [...] Those who saw something of the blood expended through the 20th century to secure liberal societies must inevitably find democracy's diminished appeal puzzling. But there are reasons. The lingering wars waged partly in democracy's name in Iraq and Afghanistan hurt its reputation [...]. Given the bloody mayhem, it was easy to portray 'democracy' as a fig leaf for the West's bellicose designs and casual hypocrisies. While the democratic West fought, a nondemocratic China grew. It emerged onto the world stage prizing stability, avoiding military adventure and delivering 10 percent annual growth of which Western democracies could only dream. China's 'surge' was domestic. It was unencumbered by the paralyzing debate of democratic process.

"When the West's financial system imploded in 2008, the Chinese response was vigorous. A 'Beijing consensus' gained traction. The borderline between democracy and authoritarianism grew more opaque. The dichotomy between freedom and tyranny suddenly seemed oh-so 20th century. The new authoritarianism of China or Russia was harder to define and therefore harder to confront. 'Regimes like the one in Russia are stabilized by the fact that they have no ideology,' said Ivan Krastev, a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. 'There is really no ideological means to attack them.' They also derive resilience from the fact that their borders are open. 'The middle class is not interested in changing the system because if they don't like it they can fly to London,' Krastev noted. Having grown up in Communist Bulgaria, he believes democracy was oversold in the 1990's. All good things, at the Cold War's end, were shoveled into the democratic basket: prosperity, growth, peace. When democracy stopped delivering in these areas, it suffered. [...]

"Meanwhile technology kicked in with what the author Jonathan Franzen has called its 'trillion little bits of distracting noise.' People, synched with themselves, retreated into private networks and away from the public space – the commons – where democratic politics had been played out. Democracies seemed blocked, as in Belgium, or corrupted, as in Israel, or parodies, as in Italy, or paralyzed, as in the Netherlands. [...] Obama soon found himself caught in the gridlock of the very partisan shrieking he had vowed to overcome. [...] So what? So what if money trumped democracy and stability trumped open societies for hundreds of millions of people? So what if the rule of law or individual freedom was compromised, the press muzzled, and media-controlling presidents thought they could use 'democracy' to rule for life with occasional four-year breaks. So what if people no longer thought their vote would change anything because politics was for sale? Perhaps liberal democracy, along with its Western cradle, had passed its zenith."

As of now, the article seems not to have appeared in print in the "New York Times", though it may be included in a print edition of the "Times"-owned "International Herald Tribune".

Book: Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy

The contributed volume "Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy" was edited by Felia Allum and Renate Siebert (Routledge, 2003):

www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415467278/

Publisher's description: "This innovative book investigates the paradoxical situation whereby organized crime groups, authoritarian in nature and anti-democratic in practice, perform at their best in democratic countries. It uses examples from the United States, Japan, Russia, South America, France, Italy and the European Union."

The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):

http://books.google.com/books?id=BUQLjF9ks_cC&printsec=frontcover

Felia Allum is a Lecturer in Italian Politics and History at the University of Bath.

German-born Renate Siebert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Calabria, Italy.

Article: The Abandonment of Democracy Promotion

Tara McKelvey's article "The Abandonment of Democracy Promotion" was published in the contributed volume "New Threats to Freedom", ed. Adam Bellow (Templeton Press, May 2010: pp. 171-80):

www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=144

Excerpts: "Democracy has been taking some serious knocks in countries around the world. [...] Yet despite the threat to political freedom in Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, and other countries [...], Americans have begun to show considerably less interest in helping to promote democracy as part of the nation's foreign policy. These trends will reinforce each other in the coming years [...]. Americans have turned away from the principles of democracy promotion largely in response to President George W. Bush's disastrous efforts in this area. It may seem natural to scale back on this aspect of foreign policy after the excessive zeal of the Bush administration. [...]

"President Obama has demonstrated that he is significantly less interested in democracy promotion than his predecessor; moreover, top members of his cabinet share his views. [...] Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have sent a national-security memo to President Obama, urging him to abandon democracy promotion in Afghanistan, and in the president's proposed 2010 foreign operations budget, funding for democracy projects in the Middle East and North Africa has gone down. [...] [S]ome U.S. officials seem almost disdainful of the attempts at building a democratic society [in Afghanistan] that are currently under way."

Tara McKelvey is a Senior Editor at the liberal magazine "The American Prospect" and an Alumni Fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security.

Book: The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy

Kenneth Good, "The Liberal Model and Africa: Elites Against Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001):

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=261248

Publisher's description: "This book critically examines the realities of liberal democracy; its elitism and non-accountability; and its inequalities and injustices. Participatory systems and movements, whether in Athens, seventeenth and nineteenth century England, or South Africa 1970-1990, are more effective in satisfying the democratic aspirations of the people and in curtailing ambitious elites, than what is passed off now as 'democracy'. By interrogating contemporary democratic regimes, in the United States, and in Botswana and South Africa, the severe limitations and constraints inherent in liberal democracy are highlighted. The need for a clear evaluation of what constituted democracy emerges as a powerful message of Kenneth Good's argument."

Endorsements: "[A] searching, powerful and innovative critique of liberal democracy, notably as it has arrived in Southern Africa." (Roger Southall, Rhodes University)

"This is indeed a useful and timely contribution to the democracy debate in Africa." (Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Botswana)

Review: "[Kenneth Good] illustrates in this important book, no country [...] has embraced participatory democracy with its egalitarian face, preferring instead the elitism of the liberal model." ("The Sunday Independent")

Australian-born Kenneth Good was Professor of Political Studies at the University of Botswana. He was declared an "undesirable person" and deported from Botswana in 2005.

Pamphlet: Democracy in Crisis: How the Islamic Political System ensures Good Governance

On the day of the general elections in the United Kingdom (6 May 2010), the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the pan-Islamist revolutionary party active in many Muslim as well as western countries, released a pamphlet titled "Democracy in Crisis: How the Islamic Political System ensures Good Governance".

The full text of the pamphlet can be read free of charge here:

www.hizb.org.uk/hizb/images/PDFs/Democracy_in_crisis_may2010.pdf

Excerpts: "Democracy [...] is the established order in a chaotic and unstable world, where every critic of democracy is viewed with heretical suspicion. [...] For every civilization, for every country for every tribe, for every time – goes the mantra – democracy is the claimed answer to all our ills. [...] In addition to elections, Western democracies also champion a separation of state and religion, liberal values towards personal conduct, as well as capitalism, with its policy of unbridled free markets. Western societies promote individualism, hedonism and utilitarianism, with faith and morality kept strictly to the private arena. There is very little evidence that the people of Kabul (never mind Kandahar), Baghdad or Cairo support or accept that Islam should be marginalised in society and kept solely to the confines of the mosque, nor would most accept that a person has freedom to view pornography or commit adultery. Nor would most agree with laws permitting alcohol, gambling establishments or free market capitalism with all its adverse impacts; yet these are all norms in Western democracies. [...]

"Yet the problem of secular democracies originates not from bad implementation but shaky theoretical foundations. The view that laws become superior to other laws based on the number of people voting for them is as absurd as it is dangerous. We certainly don't decide scientific progress based on the number of people who support a position, if we did then Galileo, Copernicus and the hundreds of scientists who spoke truth to power and who struggled against public opinion must have been wrong. We decide trials based on the quality of evidence not on the numerical superiority of witnesses on any particular side. If people, as they did in the 1930's, vote for a populist leader who would later kill millions of Jews and start a world war, does this validate their choice just because they constituted a majority at a point in time. No it doesn't. [...] It is the active promotion of secular democracy abroad while simultaneously abandoning it at home that is the brazen hypocrisy. In rolling back democracy at home, the West has lost its moral leadership to preach to countries abroad, seriously undermining the pro democracy activists abroad it claims to support. [...]

"Theocracies at their heart believe that there is a group or leaders who are infallible and who have an exclusive right to interpret the word of God, where no one is allowed to challenge their interpretation and anyone doing so is condemned. Muslims believe Prophets are selected by God but that subsequent political leaders are not. Their legitimacy must emanate from the authority of the people. The Islamic political system is not theocratic in nature with anyone allowed to challenge any ruling by either scholars or the head of state. [...] The Islamic system would take the money out of modern politics. The electoral circus every four or five years [...] in the West positively encourages the growth of money in politics forcing politicians to either raise grotesque amounts of money for re-election or maximise their own wealth before they get booted out. The Islamic system, though not immune from the temptations on offer, seeks to actively detach both finance and the interests of corporations from politics [...].

"No one – including the head of state, their family, or any religious scholar – is above the law. And unlike the West where justice is skewed to those that are more powerful and wealthier, Islamic courts have historically – and will do so in the future – exercised justice for the weak, minorities and the less well off. [...] We do not believe in arbitrary arrest or torture or rendition or internment. Every person has the right to a presumption of innocence, a right to privacy and a right to a fair trial. Secular democracies do not have a monopoly over respecting the rights of its [sic] citizens. [...] There are also clear constitutionally enshrined Islamic prohibitions on torture and abusive behaviour amongst other things – applied to the police, armed forces and security services as well as the general population – as a protection from such forceful rule [....]

"The failure to acknowledge the Khilafah State as an alternative, despite its resonance with hundreds of millions of Muslims is not surprising. Western political leaders are more at ease comparing their way of life with the low benchmark of brutal dictators of the Middle East (despite propping up these same leaders for years) than in actually arguing the substantive issues of which political system would be better for the Muslim world. [...] In practice there is a huge gap between the reality of democratic countries and the rhetoric. [...] Debt is rising as democratic states continue to pander to their populations for short-term electoral considerations. The financial crisis of 2008 driven by the unholy trinity of democracy, capitalism and liberalism brought the world to the brink of disaster. We should learn the lessons before its [sic] too late. [...] What we need today is fresh thinking, not another model of secular democracy or some diluted set of reforms. It is a system so bankrupt that the world needs radical new alternatives, intertwined with new values and a new ethos of politics serving the public not a wealthy elite. This is the essence of the Islamic alternative."

The pamphlet includes case studies on the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Afghanistan, as well as a Q & A section on the Islamic Caliphate (Khilafah) system as an alternative to democracy.

Article: As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere

The "Guardian" newspaper on 8 April 2010 published an op-ed piece by Simon Jenkins titled "As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere". The subtitle or lead reads: "While the US and Britain slide towards oligarchy, the forced elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought no good".

The article can be read free of charge here:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/democracy-iraq-afghanistan-britain-us

Excerpts: "The west's proudest export to the Islamic world this past decade has been democracy. That is, not real democracy, which is too complicated, but elections. They have been exported at the point of a gun and a missile to Iraq and Afghanistan, to 'nation-build' these states and hence 'defeat terror'. When apologists are challenged to show some good resulting from the shambles, they invariably reply: 'It has given Iraqis and Afghans freedom to vote.' [...] Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died and millions been driven from their homes [...]. The import of democracy has so far just inflamed local tension and fuelled fundamentalism. Like precious porcelain, elections were exported without instructions on their care. In the absence of adequate security, they are little more than tribal plebiscites. [...]

"As the joke in Kabul goes, as long as the west pretends to uphold his regime, Karzai must 'pretend to be Swedish'. He is America's exhibit A for world democracy. [...] Democracy in both America and Britain is [...] said to be sliding towards oligarchy, with increasing overtones of autocracy. Money and its power over technology are making elections unfair. The military-industrial complex is as powerful as ever, [...] democracy is not in good shape. How strange to choose this moment to export it, least of all to countries that have never experienced it in their history. The west not only exports the stuff, it does so with massive, thuggish violence, the antithesis of how self-government should mature in any polity. The tortured justification in Iraq and Afghanistan is that elections will somehow sanctify a 'war against terrorism' waged on someone else's soil. The resulting death and destruction have been appalling. Never can an end, however noble, have so failed to justify the means of achieving it. [...]

"A system of government that they [Britons] have spent two centuries evolving and still not perfected is being rammed down the throats of poor and insecure people, who are then hectored for not handling it properly. Why should they? The invasions of their countries was not their choice. They did not ask to be a model for Britain's moral exhibitionism. They did not plead for their villages to be target practice for western special forces. [...] [T]he only certainty for Karzai is that, one day, Nato will get fed up and leave him to his fate, as it is now leaving Maliki in Baghdad. If he wants to live, he must make his peace with Afghans, not Americans, and that means on Afghan terms. Free and fair elections and a stop to corruption will have no part to play in that survival game. Democracy has been greatly oversold."

Sir Simon David Jenkins, a journalist and book author, is the former editor of "The Times" and the "Evening Standard".

Muslim anti-democracy activist approved for assassination

On 6 April 2010, the "New York Times" reported that US President Barack Obama's administration (including the National Security Council) authorized the assassination of American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (sometimes spelled al-Aulaqi), an outspoken critic of democracy. Born of Yemeni parents, al-Awlaki, a former imam, was lately a Lecturer at Iman University (alternatively transcribed as al-Iman, el-Eman, or al-Eman University) in Yemen, an institution that appears to have been attended by many students later involved in terrorist activities. Al-Awlaki has been linked to al-Qaeda himself, although the evidence is shaky. He is said to be in hiding in Yemen now.

Before the 2008 presidential elections in the United States, al-Awlaki released a scathing statement against democracy, titled "Voting for the American President". The article was originally published on his blog, which seems to have been taken down since.

The cached version of the article can be read free of charge here:

http://cryptome.org/anwar-alawlaki/08-1031.htm

Excerpts: "Democracy in [sic] an un-Islamic system and we as Muslims should have nothing to do with it. Whether one looks at the root and history of democracy or at the reality of democracy today one can realize that it is a system that is not only different than the Islamic system but is opposed to it. Can't you see that the West in its war against Islam is offering the democratic system as an alternative to Sharia? So if the West, which is the founder of democracy, sees democracy as an opposing system to Islam why are some Muslims still insisting on participating in it and adopting it as their political religion?

"Democracy is a Western system that was founded and developed in the West and today the West, not the Muslims, have full authority and right to tell the world what democracy is and how it should be practiced and implemented. We have our own system of government and likewise it is the Muslims who are going to define it and will not allow non[-]Muslims to meddle with our religion and teach us what is right from wrong.

"Muslims should seek to avoid any forms of participation in Western democracy. The promoters of participation in American elections argue that we are choosing the least of the two evils. This principle is correct but what they are missing is that in the process of choosing the lesser of the two evils they are committing an even greater evil. The breaking down of the psychological barrier that should exist between Muslims and non-Muslims, the erosion of the aqeedah of wala and bara (loyalty to Allah and disavowal of the enemies of Allah,) [sic] and the risk of loosing one's religion are evils that outweigh any benefit that may come out of such participation.

"Also the types of candidates that American politics has been spitting out is [sic] absolutely disgusting. I wonder how any Muslim with a grain of iman in his heart could walk up to a ballot box and cast his vote in endorsement of creatures such as Mcain [sic] or Obama?! How can a Muslim sleep with a clear conscience after he has chosen the likes of G.W. Bush? No matter how irrelevant your vote is, on the Day of Judgment you will be called to answer for it. You, under no coercion or duress, consciously chose to vote for the leader of a nation that is leading the war against Islam."

It is thought that vocal homebred anti-democracy activist Anwar al-Awlaki is the first US citizen ever singled out for "targeted killing" by the CIA, the Joint Special Operations Command, and possibly other US security agencies.

Article: William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism

H.A. Scott Trask, "William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism" ("Journal of Libertarian Studies", 18 [4], fall 2004: pp. 1-27).

The article can be read free of charge here:

http://mises.org/journals/jls/18_4/18_4_1.pdf

Excerpts: "Pioneering sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was a prolific and astute historian of the early American republic. His work is informed by both his classical liberalism and his understanding of economics. [...] Sumner's political insights can be found throughout his histories and biographies, but [...] [c]onsidering them together, it is possible to reconstruct Sumner's political thought. This reconstruction reveals that Sumner was a first-rate diagnostician of the vices and flaws endemic to modern democracy, and that he saw with remarkable prevision how it would develop into the twentieth century. [...] Democracy is more than a term for a certain type of government; it is [...] an ideology, a quasi-religious faith, a 'superstition,' and it is false. Its two foundational dogmas – human equality and social atomization – have no support in human nature or experience. [...]

"The advance of civilization has been marked at every stage by an increase in inequality, social differentiation, and complexity. The principle of one-man one-vote, by giving no political recognition to differences in intelligence and wealth among persons, to the natural divisions within society, or to the existence of classes, is unjust, and can only lead to laws that are unjust and unwise. He also questioned the democratic dogma that the same form of government was suitable for all kinds of different societies and collectivities, without regard to their level of education, industrial development, and internal diversity. [...] Because Sumner rejected the moralistic, equalitarian, and atomistic dogmas upon which democracy rested, he was not in favor of extending the suffrage to ex-slaves or to women. He denied that either group could claim a moral right to vote, as he denied that anyone had such a right. [...]

"There is no reason to believe that democracy would prove friendlier to liberty than would monarchy, aristocracy, or other forms of elitist rule. [...] If political power be vested in the masses, '[t]hey will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done.' Ruling elites have misused their power for selfish ends because it was in their nature to do so. The people share the same nature. Greed, selfishness, and other 'vices are confined to no nation, class, or age.' [...] The theory behind extending the suffrage to all adult males was that this would ensure that legislation was framed to benefit the interests of all, rather than of the few. Sumner demonstrated in his historical studies that it did not work out that way. [...] 'The fate of modern democracy is to fall into subjection to plutocracy.' The term plutocracy [...] meant a type of government in which effective control rested with men of wealth who sought to use political means to increase their wealth. Sumner believed that there is no form of government better suited to their control than democracy. [...] The plutocrats have [...] no qualms about flattering, lying to, or bribing the masses. [...]

"At election time, the voters are given a choice between two candidates who may stand for essentially the same thing, or nothing. [...] [G]iven that the nature of democracy is to throw off all limitations upon government power, elections become 'struggles for power – war between the two parties' for control of the state. [...] One election is hardly over before the intrigue and planning for the next one begins. [...] Party platforms are full of 'empty phrases and Janus-faced propositions,' and often 'two contradictory propositions are combined in the same sentence, or a non-proposition is so stated that each man may read there just what will suit his own notions.' [...] The object of political campaigning is not to educate the public at all, but to energize one's supporters and win over by means of deception the non-committed middle. [...] No idea more annoyed Sumner than the superstition that democratic elections are a magic elixir from which flow liberty, justice, and wise governance. [...]

"Sumner feared that American 'democracy' would grow even worse by becoming paternal while not ceasing to be plutocratic. Plutocracy would prove to be the parent of paternalism [...] such as limitations on the length of the working day, unemployment insurance, government health care, and other means of providing for economic and social 'security.' The plutocrats may conclude that extending such benefits is the price they must pay for retaining power and their own lucrative privileges, while the masses will regard paternalism as their right to a share in the spoils of the state. Sumner condemned the incipient welfare state as incompatible with freedom and inimical to liberty. Those citizens who favor it are hypocrites who clamor for security with the same insistence and sense of entitlement as they demand freedom and equality. [...] There was also a danger that 'democratic' government would enact moral reforms or try to alter the structure of society. [...] 'The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches,' as it offers endless potential for rewarding certain behaviors and punishing others. [...]

"The Bush doctrine – American world dominion is justified by her divine mission to spread freedom and democracy – is not new. The Spanish-American War and its imperial aftermath were justified on the same grounds. Sumner noted how a senator had claimed that the United States would occupy the Philippines only long enough to teach them self-government. [...] If America attempts 'to be schoolmistress to others, it will shrivel up into the same vanity and self-conceit,' and be the object of the same loathing and hatred as the other imperial powers. Moral imperialism is as 'false and wrong' as any other kind of imperialism, for it violates freedom and self-government. The nation that says, 'We know what is good for you better than you know yourself and we are going to make you do it' cares nothing for liberty or national self-determination, since liberty 'means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way.' It is also a recipe for endless intervention and perpetual war, as the subsequent history of the United States demonstrated. [...]

"Sumner's final judgment on nineteenth-century American democracy was that it had failed to secure liberty or good government, and it would do worse in the next century. Who was to blame? He blamed the people. 'The root of all our troubles at present and in the future is in the fact that the people fails of what was assumed about it and attributed to it.' The people complain about the politicians, about the special interests, and about the power of corporations to corrupt the political process. But who elected the politicians? Who makes up the special interests? Who elected corruptible legislatures and presidents? 'He who rules is responsible, be it Tsar, Pope, Emperor, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Demos.' The 'people is altogether at fault. It has not done its first duty in the premises, and therefore the whole system has gone astray.' [...] What is [our] destiny? A paternalistic, plutocratic, imperial state, in which freedom and individuality will slowly suffocate and civilization coarsen and die. A century of war and collectivism has vindicated Sumner's pessimism, and it appears that the twentieth century has bequeathed even worse to the twenty-first."

H. Arthur Scott Trask, PhD, an independent historian, is an Adjunct Scholar at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Book: Tocqueville on America after 1840

Aurelian Craiutu and Jeremy Jennings are the editors and translators of "Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings"
(Cambridge University Press, March 2009):

www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521676830

Publisher's description: "Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America has been recognized as an indispensable starting point for understanding American politics. From the publication of the second volume in 1840 until his death in 1859, Tocqueville continued to monitor political developments in America and committed many of his thoughts to paper in letters to his friends in America. He also made frequent references to America in many articles and speeches. Did Tocqueville change his views on America outlined in the two volumes of Democracy in America published in 1835 and 1840? If so, which of his views changed and why? The texts translated in Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings answer these questions and offer English-speaking readers the possibility of familiarizing themselves with this unduly neglected part of Tocqueville's work. The book points out a clear shift in emphasis especially after 1852 and documents Tocqueville's growing disenchantment with America, triggered by such issues as political corruption, slavery, expansionism, and the encroachment of the economic sphere upon the political."

Review: "It is a common experience among readers of Tocqueville's Democracy in America to notice that its two volumes are really two different books on the same subject. [...] [I]n certain strategic parts of the second volume one gets the impression that Tocqueville has grown more gloomy, more pessimistic, or, to put it more accurately, less enthusiastic with the democratic experiment in general, or at least more willing to openly disclose its shortcomings. [...] Aurelian Craiutu's and Jeremy Jennings's [...] main claim is that with time Tocqueville changed his views on some general questions which are particularly crucial to his theory of democracy. But somewhat surprisingly they argue that this change of outlook in a more negative direction came only after the publication of Volume Two of Democracy in America. [...] In short, they suggest that a hypothetical Volume Three would continue and reinforce what for many readers are Volume Two's hesitations as to the essential goodness and stability of the democratic adventure. [...]

"Craiutu and Jennings make the general claim that '[i]n 1852, Tocqueville realized much better than he had in 1835 or 1840 that it was in the very nature of democracy (...) to transgress its limits and to subvert its own foundations' [...], 'the hypothetical "Volume Three" [...] would have probably mirrored his disenchantment and skepticism and would have called in to question some of the most significant ideas of his widely acclaimed book' [...]. They assert that by reading this collection of letters, papers and speeches, we gain new insights into Tocqueville's misgivings. Even when they acknowledge that Volume Two already suggested some of the anxieties of the post-1840 years, they immediately add that we have to look into his correspondence in order to get many more details. [...] In this context, the authors quote Benedict Songy's judicious remark: 'For Tocqueville, Democracy was on trial'". (Miguel Morgado, "Society")

Aurelian Craiutu is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Jeremy Jennings is Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary, University of London.

CONF: The Role of Law in Undermining the Defense of Democracy

Conference "The UN's Goldstone Report: The Defamation of Israel and the Threat to American National Security in the Age of Terrorism" of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) and Touro College's Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust (IHRH), at Fordham University School of Law, 140 W 62nd Street, New York City, 27 April 2010, 9.00 am-5.00 pm

Description: "International law and legal institutions are being used to pursue strategic and political goals as a corollary to modern warfare. In the case of Israel and the threat posed by terrorism in the 21st century, 'lawfare' can be as biased and lethal as any other form of weaponry. Attacks on the legitimacy of actions taken in self-defense by democratic states, in the halls of the UN and international and domestic courts, radically undermine the ability to protect the welfare of the Jewish state and all democracies from the scourge of terrorism. This assault empowers and emboldens the enemies of democracy and encourages the intolerance and antisemitism at the root of the terrorist and anti-Zionist agenda.

"In particular, the semblance of authenticity and the cloak of legal language surrounding the Goldstone Report have given it an undeserved legitimacy and inspired a plethora of further mechanisms intended to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel. The report and the lawfare strategy it embodies, erode the legitimacy of international law and pose a clear and present danger to the right of all democratic states, including the United States, to defend themselves. This [conference] will explore, examine and expose the fallacies of the Goldstone Report, and other manifestations of lawfare, as well as suggest strategies for fighting back."

Of particular interest may be the part of the programme on "The Role of Law in Undermining the Defense of Democracy".

Confirmed speakers include: Gabriela Shalev (Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations), Shmuel Trigano (Professor of Religious and Political Sociology, Paris West University Nanterre La Défense), Anne Bayefsky (Director, IHRH, Touro College), Samuel Edelman (Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, American Jewish University), Malvina Halberstam (Professor of Law, Cardozo School of Law), Kenneth Marcus (Ackerman Visiting Professor of Equality and Justice in America, Baruch College), Ed Morgan (Professor of Law, University of Toronto), Nicholas Rostow (University Counsel and Vice Chancellor, State University of New York), Peter J. Haas (President, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East), and Martin Kramer (Senior Fellow, Shalem Center).

Kosher lunch provided.

Seating is limited and participants must pre-register. Please RSVP asap: info@jewishlawyers.org

Co-sponsored by B'nai Brith, American Jewish International Relations Institute, International Council of Jewish Women, World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues, Jewish Law Students Association of Fordham School of Law, American Zionist Movement, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and Women's League for Conservative Judaism.

A first conference on lawfare last month, also held in New York City, was criticized afterward for not inviting any speakers from the opposing camp. Although seemingly more academic, this one sounds fairly one-sided too.

Book: Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

In July 2009, the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute published the book "Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe" (Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a Distinguished Fellow with the Mises Institute), edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann (University of Angers, France/Mises Institute) and Stephan Kinsella (Mises Institute).

The full text of the book can be read free of charge here:

http://mises.org/books/property_freedom_society_kinsella.pdf

Part Four of this contributed volume is titled "Democracy Reconsidered" and comprises of four short articles. Among them:

Doug French (Mises Institute), "The Trouble with Democracy: Maslow Meets Hoppe" (pp. 237-42).

Excerpts: "[T]o be elected and stay elected in American politics to any full-time position requires the suspension of any ethics or good sense a person may possess. [...] Democracy makes it possible for the demagogue to inflame the childish imagination of the masses, 'by virtue of his talent for nonsense.' [...] Because democracy is open to any and all who can get themselves elected, either through connections, personality, or personal wealth, it is a social system where leadership positions become a hotbed for sociopaths. [...]
[T]hose stuck on the need for esteem are drawn to it like flies to dung. [...] So while the electorate recognizes that they are electing, at best incompetents, and at worst crooks, the constant, naïve, pro-democracy mantra is that 'we just need to elect the right people.' But, the 'right people' aren't (and won't be) running for office."

Robert Higgs (Independent Institute), "Democracy and Faits Accomplis" (pp. 249-62).

Excerpts: "No institution of modern life commands as much veneration as democracy. It comes closer than anything else to being the supreme object of adoration in a global religion. Anyone who denies its righteousness and desirability soon finds himself a pariah. [...] Many people are atheists, but few are anti-democrats. [...] Although democracy made giant ideological strides in the nineteenth century, a few writers had the courage to condemn it even well into the twentieth century. [...] [O]ffice-seekers typically either speak in vague, emotion-laden generalities or simply lie about their intentions. After taking office, they may act in complete disregard of their campaign promises, trusting that when they run for reelection, they will be able to concoct a plausible excuse for their infidelity and betrayal of trust. Thus, the voters remain permanently immersed in a fog of disinformation, emotional manipulation, and bald-faced mendacity. No matter what a candidate promises, the voters have no means of holding him to those promises or of punishing his misbehavior until it may be too late to matter. [...] Contemplating this situation, one readily recalls Goethe's dictum that 'none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.'"

Some other articles from the book also discuss Hoppe's anti-democratic convictions.

Article: Winter in America: Democracy Gone Rogue

"Winter in America: Democracy Gone Rogue" is an op-ed article by Henry A. Giroux that was published on the alternative news website "Truthout" on 4 March:

www.truthout.org/winter-america-democracy-gone-rogue57353

Excerpts: "Democracy in the United States is experiencing both a crisis of meaning and a legitimation crisis. As the promise of an aspiring democracy is sacrificed more and more to corporate and military interests, democratic spheres have largely been commercialized and democratic practices have been reduced to market relations, stripped of their worth and subject to the narrow logics of commodification and profit making. [...] When not equated with the free market capitalism, democracy is reduced to the empty rituals of elections largely shaped by corporate money and indifferent to relations of power that make a mockery out of equality, democratic participation and collective deliberation. [...] As part of the crisis of legitimation, democracy's undoing can be seen in the anti-democratic nature of governance that has increasingly shaped domestic and foreign policy in the United States [...]. What is often missed is how such anti-democratic forces work at home in ways that are less visible and when they are visible seem to become easily normalized, removed from any criticism as they settle into that ideological fog called common sense. [...]

"[D]emocracy is [...] transformed from a mode of politics that subverts authoritarian tendencies to one that reproduces them. [...] Used to gift wrap the interests and values of an authoritarian culture, the rhetoric of democracy is now invoked to legitimate its opposite, a discourse of security and a culture of fear [...]. When tied to the discourse of democracy, such practices seem beyond criticism [...] – beyond ethical and political reproach. As the country undermines its own democratic values, violence and anti-democratic practices become institutionalized throughout American culture, their aftershocks barely noticed, testifying to how normalized they have become. [...] Emerging out of this void and shaping a more militaristic anti-politics are the anti-public intellectuals and their corporate sponsors, eager to fill the air with populist anger by supporting right-wing groups [...] and self-styled patriots that bear an eerie resemblance to the beliefs and violent politics of the late Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995. [...]

"Under its common-sense rubric, homelessness and poverty are now criminalized, schools are dominated by zero-tolerance policies that turn public schools into a low-intensity war zone, school lockdowns are the new fire drills, the welfare state morphs into the warfare state, and university research is increasingly funded by the military and designed for military and surveillance purposes. [...] Zombie politics loves to depoliticize any vestige of individual agency and will. [...] Under such circumstances, memory is lost, history is erased, knowledge becomes militarized and education becomes more of a tool of domination rather than empowerment. One result is not merely a collective ignorance over the meaning, nature and possibilities of politics, but a disdain for democracy itself that provides the condition for a lethal combination of political apathy and cynicism on the one hand and a populist anger and an ethical hardening of the culture on the other. [...] [U]nderlying [...] is a hatred not merely for government, but for democracy itself. [...] Going rogue is now a metaphor for the death of democratic values and support for modes of symbolic and potentially real violence in which all vestiges of thought, self-reflection and dialogue are destroyed."

Henry A. Giroux is the prime example of a chronologist of the failure of democracy in the United States. With increasing frequency he publishes books and articles (on "Truthout" and elsewhere) that show how democracy is the problem. He has not been able to make the mental leap, though, to realizing that the problems caused by democracy can only be overcome by opposing and overcoming democracy itself. Democracy (not the abuse of it) is the root cause of the ills Giroux keeps highlighting.

American-born Henry A. Giroux is Professor of English and Cultural Studies and Global TV Network Chair in Communications at McMaster University, Canada.

Book: Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter

Rick Shenkman, "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter" (Basic Books, June 2008):

www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0465014933

Publisher's description (hardcover edition): "Levees break in New Orleans. Iraq descends into chaos. The housing market teeters on the brink of collapse. Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election with the sense that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. But what exactly? Democrats blame Republicans and Republicans blame Democrats. Greedy corporate executives, rogue journalists, faulty voting machines, irresponsible defense contractors – we blame them, too. The only thing everyone seems to agree on, in fact, is that the American people are entirely blameless. [...] Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. The hard truth is that American democracy is more direct than ever – but voters are misusing, abusing, and abdicating their political power. Americans are paying less and less attention to politics at a time when they need to pay much more: Television has dumbed politics down to the basest possible level, while the real workings of politics have become vastly more complicated. Shenkman offers concrete proposals for reforming our institutions – the government, the media, civic organizations, political parties – to make them work better for the American people. But first, Shenkman argues, we must reform ourselves."

From the publisher's description (paperback edition): "Fifty percent of Americans can name four characters from 'The Simpsons,' but only two out of five can name all three branches of the federal government. No more than one in seven can find Iraq on a map. Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid."

Reviews: "Shenkman [...] makes the provocative argument that as American voters have gained political power in the last 50 years, they have become increasingly ignorant of politics and world affairs – and dangerously susceptible to manipulation. The book provides a litany of depressing statistics – most Americans cannot name their representatives in Congress, only 20% hold a passport, 30% cannot identify the Holocaust – as Shenkman inquires whether Americans are capable of voting in the nation's or even their own best interests. Although Shenkman clearly derives some pleasure in pointing out the stupidity and irrationality of the American public, his concern is genuine and heartfelt. In lucid, playful prose, he illustrates how politicians have repeatedly misled voters and analyzes the dumbing down of American politics via marketing, spin machines and misinformation." ("Publishers Weekly")

"With wit, passion and devastating evidence, Shenkman compels us, the praised and petted 'American people,' to look in the mirror for an explanation of why our elections are travesties of informed, intelligent debate. Lively and crucial, the book reminds us, however we vote, that there's no such animal as 'democracy for dummies.'" (Bernard A. Weisberger, formerly University of Rochester)

Rick Shenkman is Associate Professor of History at George Mason University.