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.The favoured polarity now became democracyversus dictatorship. New Hitlers , variously Slobodan Milo-sevic, Saddam Hussein, or Syria s Bashar Assad, would have toembrace democracy or face the consequences.This argument has been most persistently and volublyadvanced by the political right but on each occasion some pre-viously left wing figures have also accepted that the nature ofthe regime in question was so dastardly, the capacities of itspeople so limited, that recourse to armed intervention by themajor powers in order to impose democracy was justified.Aca-demic Fred Halliday and journalists Christopher Hitchens, NickCohen, David Aaronvitch and Johann Hari have all taken this 202 War and ideologypath in response to the first Gulf War, the Balkan and Afghanwars or the invasion of Iraq.The democracy argument can only be sustained if onebelieves (i) that the major powers are genuinely in the businessof pursuing a global democratic agenda, (ii) that democracy canbe imposed at the point of a gun and (iii) that the people of thecountry concerned are not capable of achieving democracythemselves.Assessing the major powers commitment to democracyrequires an examination both of democracy in the imperialcountries themselves and of their record of supporting democracyabroad.It is a remarkable fact that the democratic rhetoric of theleaders of the major powers has reached a new pitch just at thetime when the health of democracy in their own countries isprobably worse than it has been at any point since the inter-waryears.Voter turn-out in the US has always been low but even incountries where it has historically been much higher it is nowin decline.In Britain the turn-out at the last two general elec-tions has been the lowest since universal suffrage was intro-duced.Tony Blair s third successive term in government wasachieved with the support of just 36 percent of those that votedand a mere 22 percent of those eligible to vote.Indeed TonyBlair won the 2005 election with less support than Neil Kinnocklost elections in the 1980s.Noam Chomsky s description of USpolitics as a totalitarian system with two factions famouslyunderlines the limited choices facing voters in the America.Andit is of course a truism that it is impossible to become US Pre-sident without being a millionaire, or having the support ofmillionaires.The tightly drawn limits of democracy in the US are nowincreasingly being reproduced in other countries as all theestablishment parties crowd into a middle ground defined byneo-liberal economics and neo-conservative foreign policies.The growth of corporate power, and especially the wave of pri-vatisation that has swept the industrialised countries in the last25 years, is itself a major blow to democracy since it takescontrol over very large parts of social life out of the hands of War and ideology 203elected politicians and places it in the hands of unelected cor-poration executives.To take but one example: freedom ofspeech is the watchword of every western politician out tobuttress pro-war sentiment, but what can this mean in theirown societies when a single media mogul like Rupert Murdochcontrols a third of the press? What can it mean when a mediamogul of such power is also the prime minister, as was Italy sSilvio Berlusconi?Moreover, it is commonly acknowledged that the securitystate that has grown up since 9/11 has meant a significanterosion of civil liberties.The Patriot Act in the US and similaranti-terror laws in Britain have diminished the very freedomswhich our governments insist make us superior to othernations.None of this is meant to diminish the real difference betweenthe degree of political freedom in parliamentary democraciesand that in authoritarian regimes.The point being made here isa different one: those governments most insistent on propagat-ing the idea that they are fighting for other people s freedom areprecisely the same governments that are presiding over the ero-sion of freedom in their own countries.Conversely, those forcesin the anti-war movement and on the left that have most resis-ted the wars for democracy have been in the forefront ofdefending democracy and civil liberties in their own countries.So this argument speaks to the intention and motivation of the pro-war democrats.It questions whether those who move soquickly to limit freedom at home can really be as enthusiastic asthey claim about freedom abroad.But even if we were to grant that the motivation is pure, canthe chosen means deliver the declared goal? Is it possible todeliver democracy at gun-point? The balance of historicalexperience suggests that it is not.Modern democracy is, if any-thing, the product of revolution, revolutionary war, or anti-colonial uprising.It is rarely the product of military interventionby the major powers.The foundations of the modern demo-cratic states of Europe and North America were laid by theEnglish revolution of the 17th century and the American and 204 War and ideologyFrench revolutions of the 18th century, a process more fullyexamined in the chapter on Their democracy and ours.Thismodel was established as the aspiration of the European con-tinent in the 1848 revolutions.In our times great swathes ofhumanity have achieved parliamentary regimes in Portugal, Iran,the Philippines, South Africa, Eastern Europe and Indonesia bythe exercise of people power
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Tematy
IndexJohn Ringo Ghost 01 Ghost
John Norman Gor 04 Nomads of Gor
John Norman Gor 01 Tarnsman of Gor
John Norman Gor 23 Renegades of Gor
John DeChancie Castle 07 Castle Spellbound
John Norman Gor 12 Beasts of Gor
John Dalmas Farside 01 The Lion of Farside
Lennox Judith Florenckie lato
Child of Darkness (Gemini Serie V. C. Andrews
Brzozowski Legenda MÅ‚odej Polski