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At this point, you probably know: Its all about 61. Nothing else matters.

What Israel's last-minute polls say, and can we trust them? LISTEN to Election Overdose podcast

Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeed or fail in forming a 61-seat coalition consisting of the right wing; the extreme right wing; the racist, homophobic, xenophobic and misogynistic right wing and the ultra-Orthodox? This coalition, he hopes, will provide him immunity from trial through retroactive legislation and continue the assault on Israeli democracy.

Israel is approaching a Weimar moment of democratic crisis: a point of inflection with an equal probability of following either of the two paths is presents. That is what it this election is all about.

Exactly how many Knesset seats each party will receive is of great interest only to lower-slated candidates, election handicappers and hyperventilating political pundits. The one and only important question for the broader public is whether Netanyahu and his allies will have the magical number of 61, enabling him to form his immunity-granting coalition.

This election is not contested over the right-left fault line. It is not about a Palestinian state, nor about the future of the territories and borders. It is not about the state of the economy or gross inequality, and despite the daunting background of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not about public health and the governments mismanagement of the crisis.

It is about Israeli democracy.

Every election in Israels political history, since the first election in 1949, has been heralded with pathos as critical, formative, historic, defining or fateful. But neverbeforewas an election straightforwardly about the very existence of Israeli democracy, which makes it all of the above.

In the history of Israels fragile democracy, there have always been cracks, flaws, dangers and crises, but never was the threat to liberal democracy so ominous and real as it is today.

The danger is not of a coup detat, an overnight installation of a dictatorship or a drastic wholesale suspension of civil rights. Rather, it comes in the form of a gradual diminishing and weakening of democracy, directed by a prime minister who does it for his own personal political and legal reasons.

What exactly constitutes a Weimar moment? In short, its a dismal failure of democracy. Naturally, Israels current predicament is not historically analogous to the events and processes in the German Weimar Republic. Instead, the similarity lies in the state of democracy and how it is perceived.

It is a historical tipping point in which a relentless assault on an already fragile democracy and its institutions finally manages to crack it and change its very nature, dynamic and direction. It moves the state's form of government to some point on the spectrum between illiberal democracy and benign authoritarianism. Israel is on the precipice of that point.

Despite being used profusely, the term "illiberal democracy" is in essence contradictory. A democracy cannot be illiberal, since its basic tenets are by definition and nature liberal. If it degenerates into illiberalism, it effectively ceases to be a democracy, while maintaining the appearance and illusion through formal processes such as elections.

A democracy is not simply majority rule. It is a prerequisite, but there also needs to be an independent judiciary, a functioning court system free of political pressure, inalienable constitutional rights, the right of appeal, a free press, an effective set of checks and balances, gatekeepers not subjected to and undeterred by political intimidation and academic freedom.

The evolution of the illiberal democracy is a 21st century phenomenon. These are democracies that are deliberately weakened from within by democratically elected but patently undemocratic leaders. They steadily and aggressively target liberal processes and institutions. They question and attack the legitimacy of elections, they undermine the judiciary, they accuse elites of controlling the system, they intimidate the bureaucracy tasked with maintaining checks and balances, they depict criticism and opposition as unpatriotic, they wage total war on the press and they blame problems on supposed foreign interference.

The anti-democratic assault is aided and exacerbated by two types of public attitudes: growing apathy by segments who no longer believe democracy is working for them and, worse still, a sizable group in society content with less democracy, so long as they feel their quality of life is not diminished.

These formal but hollow democracies, such as those of Hungary, Poland and Turkey, descend into an illiberal state. They are not fully authoritarian, but they are also no longer functioning liberal democracies.

Israel is not there yet, but a Netanyahu-right-wing-racist-extremists-ultra-Orthodox coalition puts it on a trajectory leading to that dubious realm.

Under this kind of government, the attorney general will be fired and replaced by a convenient yes man who will cancel Netanyahu's indictment. The current status-quo around religious issues will be disrupted, legislation reversing the rights of Arab citizens and the LGBT community will be presented regularly, and the Supreme Court will be weakened to a point where it won't be able to protect the civil rights that will come under assault.

The majority of the public is resoundingly against this possible future. In several polls, an average of 58 percent of Israelis does not want Netanyahu to remain prime minister. This is not because of a specific foreign, defense or domestic policy, but because of his alleged corruption and the war he is waging against Israeli democracy.

An aggregate average of polls along the anti-Netanyahu versus pro-Netanyahu dividing line shows a consistent 45 to 55 percent split, with the majority of the public opposed to the incumbent prime minister. But this indicates nothing in terms of the election results and the possibility of forming a coalition.

The Israeli electoral system, the political fragmentation and the endemic weakness in leadership among the left and center left may produce the exact coalition that a majority rejects, and put Israel on an irreversible course toward a quasi-democracy.

Link:
Israel election: On the verge of an illiberal democracy - Haaretz

For the first time since 2001, a majority of all states worldwide are no longer under democratic rule, Democracy Without Borders said in its 2020 Varieties of Democracy report published by researchers based at the University of Gothenburg. And with Hungary, there is for the first time an EU member state classified as autocratic.

They call it the third wave of autocracy. The first was the rise of fascism leading to World War II. The second was the consolidation of the Soviet empire in the 1960s and 70s.

Is the sad state of democracy today not enough to bring a tear to the eye? By far the worlds most successful autocracy is its biggest. The Chinese Communist Party is the most enduring dictatorship in modern history. It is also the most formidable by far, whether judged by its economic, diplomatic, military or technological power.

And the Peoples Republic is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system, in the words of Americas Blinken.

Bidens decision to convene the first summit of the Quad was not so much an effort to contain China, as if that were even possible. It is more an attempt to save democracy.

I do want to acknowledge, Campbell told me, that the subtext of all of this, of course, is the challenge that China presents and each of the countries in the last year in their own way has faced profound and unnerving challenges from Beijing. Fear of, and frustration with, Beijing has drawn the four together.

Chinese President Xi Jinping.Credit:AP

Bidens America also is now confronting China as the leader of a system, not just as a single country. One of the defining differences between China and America is that the US stands at the centre of an alliance network of some 40 nations, including its European and Asia-Pacific treaty allies. China has no allies but a ragtag of vassal states that, on a good day, could include Pakistan and North Korea.

Donald Trump discarded this key asset. Trumps America was not really America First but America Alone. Now Biden is reviving the alliance system, more like America Plus.

The clearest early illustration is that the US is presenting itself to Beijing as the representative of an alliance bloc. As Campbell told me last week: We are not going to leave Australia alone on the field subject to Chinas economic coercion. We have made clear that the US is not prepared to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion.

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Beijing is unhappy at this new American solidarity with allies. A spokesperson for Chinas Foreign Ministry taunted in a tweet: Interesting. The US is now switching from America First to Australia First?

Top US officials meeting their Chinese counterparts on the weekend in Alaska spoke in defence of all US allies against Chinese pressure and aggression. With the Quad, the US brings India into its democratic circle although as partner rather than ally.

As Blinken had said earlier, we will engage China from a position of strength. Trump believed that allies were a liability; Biden believes they are an asset.

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The threats to democracy, as Trump showed, are not exclusively outside the democratic states. Division, corruption, prejudice, inequality, social media and the authoritarian impulses of democratic leaders themselves are all enemies of democracy, lurking within.

Indeed, a former Trump spokesman, Jason Miller, said on the weekend that the former president will soon make a social media comeback on a new platform of his own creation. Its enough to make anyone a bit emotional.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.

Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Go here to see the original:
Tears and fears in Quads bid to preserve democracy - Sydney Morning Herald

Thousands of miles away from Stanton across the Pacific Ocean, Burmese people are being snatched up in the night by a brutal military regime.

Theyre being beaten, shot dead and slaughtered in the streets as they demand democracy, freedom and justice after the military overthrew and detained a civilian Burmese government earlier this year.

The atrocities hit close to home for some in Orange County and in Los Angeles especially the Burmese American community who watch in worry as the number of dead bodies pile up over there for the freedoms they have here in the U.S.

They put martial law and theyre shooting people. Theres about more than 600 people that have been killed throughout Burma, said Banny Hong, the owner of Taste of Burma restaurant in Stanton on Friday.

They arrest. They torture. Theres a lot of dead bodies.

Hong organized a rally at Stanton city hall today with help from Republican Mayor David Shawver to bring awareness to the vicious military crackdown on peaceful protesters, activists and civilians willing to die for democracy in Burma a struggle that has been going on for decades.

[ Read: Santana: Meet The Orange County Restaurant Owner Who is Trying To Stop The Burmese Killing Fields ]

The country was renamed Myanmar by the military in the late 80s following the killing of thousands who protested for democracy.

Hong and other Orange County residents like Sonny Wynn have called on elected officials to help the Burmese people in their fight for democracy.

Even if we are outside of Burma, our minds are always flying back to our country, especially in this situation, Wynn said in a phone interview after the rally.

Wynn said the military has taken control of the economy and is calling on the world to stop business with Burma until a new government is in place.

Dont give the business to the military government. We need to cut their oxygen line, he said.

Orange County Elected Officials Call Out Military Regime

Shawver said democracy in Burma must be restored.

There have been too many lives lost and families destroyed. It is our responsibility for all of us to protect human rights of the people around the world, he said.

Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a House resolution HRes 134, which condemned the coup and HR 1122, legislation which sets up a framework for a State Department report on the coup as well as plans to seek consequences for the perpetrators.

All Orange County Congressmembers voted in favor of condemning the coup including Congressman Lou Correa from Santa Ana.

In an interview before the rally Correa said if the U.S. military didnt pledge to follow civil authorities Wed have Myanmar today here following the Capitol attacks.

Those people that are fighting for democracy need to see that we here in America care, that we are watching and the only way the military there will listen is if we make them listen, he said. Our message to these dictators is we are not going to look the other way.

We are watching.

Correa also spoke at the rally along with a couple of Orange County City Council members. A representative spoke on behalf of Congresswoman Young Kim .

The actions taken by the Tatmadaw in overthrowing the democratically elected government, cracking down on peaceful protesters, and killing dozens if not hundreds of its own people on the streets is deplorable, horrific and wrong, the representative said reading a statement from Kim.

Burmese Americans Stand in Solidarity With the Fight for Democracy

A huge crowd of people from places as far as San Francisco came out to show their support for the protesters. Many holding signs condemning the military and wearing red in honor of the National League of Democracy the ruling political party in Burma that was ousted by the military last month.

The crowds sang Burmese revolutionary songs and chanted for democracy raising three fingers in the air symbolizing justice equality and freedom. Religious leaders lead a prayer for the country.

Speakers called the Myanmar Military terrorists.

They have been using submachine guns, said Dr. Kyaw Moe, from the Burmese American Medical Association who spoke at the rally.

(Its) as if they have been fighting against another Armed Forces like they have been fighting against Al Qaeda or ISIS or Taliban forces.

They are fighting peaceful protesters.

Moe shared the history of the struggle and fight for democracy in the South East Asian country and how time and time again the military responded with extreme violence.

He added that tens of millions have taken to the streets to peacefully protest the coup and describe the brutal military retaliation including pouring acid down the mouths of people.

UCLA Student Thet Lin Tun, President of the Burmese Student Association as his school echoed his sentiments.

The youth of Myanmar are united as one against the inhumane military terrorists, he said, receiving a loud cheer from the crowd.

Lin Tun said that youth should be cramming for exams, hanging out with friends, supporting their parents and to laugh and enjoy life.

Instead theyre on the frontlines spending every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears to protect and save their country and their future. Theyre coming up with all sorts of creative tactics to resist the Myanmar military terrorists, refusing to bend to the terrorists illegitimate rule.

They are arrested, injured, tortured, killed, and defiled, for fighting for their freedoms and basic human rights, determined not to let the military take them all away again, he said.

The crowd cheered again.

We need the support and solidarity of the international community to do everything in their power to support us and to make sure that we are not alone in our struggle for democracy, Lin Tun said.

Hong said on Friday that Generation Z is leading the charge for democracy.

They know democracy, they know freedom and they cant stand the coup, Hong said.

He added that Americans and Burmese people believe in some of the same values.

Even though its a different country we believe in the same democracy and freedom.

Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC Reporting Fellow. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.

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See the original post here:
Community Rallies to Support the Burmese Fight For Democracy Against a Violent Military Regime - Voice of OC

Liberal democracy representation, the rule of law, and human rights is the foundation of the trans-Atlantic alliance and a rules-based international order. The Biden administration has placed democracy at the heart of its policy agenda; in the words of its March 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, Democracy is essential to meeting all the challenges of our changing world. Yet democracy is under threat worldwide from populists and rising authoritarian powers.

Still, civil societies continue to fight for their rights. In Belarus, a pro-democracy movement led by teacher-turned-presidential-candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is bravely protesting the fraudulent August 2020 election, despite violent repression by the government of Alexander Lukashenko.

On March 26, as part of the seventh annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law, Foreign Policy at Brookings will host Tsikhanouskaya for a keynote address that examines democracy and human rights in Belarus. Afterwards, senior fellow and Fritz Stern chair Constanze Stelzenmller will join Tsikhanouskaya for a conversation on how the United States and Europe should support democracy in Belarus and the surrounding region. A panel discussion on protecting democracy from both sides of the Atlantic will follow their conversation.

Viewers can submit questions by emailingevents@brookings.eduor on Twitter using#Democracy.

More:
Defending democracy against its adversaries - Brookings Institution

By STEVE ERKENBRACK

If you meander along the highways and byways of New England, you will notice a common feature in many villages that date to the colonial era: the center of each community is marked by a town square, typically punctuated by an old church or meeting house. This is for neither traffic control nor aesthetics; rather, it was the site for public decision-making, established by the pilgrims when they landed four centuries ago.

Communal decisions were not to be made by lords or landed gentry, as in Old England; they were to be made by the everyday folks who comprise the community. They gathered and groused, discussed and decided.

Grand Junction continues this time-honored American experience these days as we select from our neighbors who have stepped forward and offered to serve us on our City Council. If you tend to take this phenomenon for granted, just consider what is happening on the other side of the globe where citizens in Myanmar, Moscow, and Hong Kong are gassed, arrested, or shot in their efforts to have people control the government, not vice versa.

While pondering this contemporary lesson in liberty, we might note the three things that make this both possible and meaningful.

The Candidates

In an era of social media rants and tweets, its admirable that people have the courage to run for public office. Eight candidates have offered to serve the rest of us, and they deserve our appreciation. Ive run for local office four times, three times successfully as district attorney, and one time not-so-successfully for the state Legislature. It requires an intense personal commitment of time, effort, and focus. Each of these citizens could like the rest of us spend an evening browsing a book, streaming a show, or sipping a beer with a friend. Instead, they have spent hours learning the issues from skating rinks to swimming pools, toking to taxation. They may differ in style, background, or vision, but they all share a commitment to make this community a better place.

In any election, half the candidates go home disappointed, and rejection hurts, especially after pouring your heart into an effort. So, if you bump into one of these brave neighbors, regardless of how you are going to vote, take a moment to thank them. Abe, Dennis, Greg, Jody, Kraig, Mark, Rick and Randall are the next generation of the spirit of liberty that was born in those New England town squares centuries ago, the next tiles in the American mosaic.

The Coverage

Recognizing the risk of accusations of bias (since this paper periodically publishes my perspectives on politics, law, and history), local media is also an essential component of grassroots democracy. Months ago, as candidates declared their interest, most of us did not know most of them. This newspapers reporters outlined key issues, and then gave each candidate the chance to present his message in his own way, not spinning stories to fit a publishers preconceived agenda. News was clearly differentiated from the opinions reflected on the editorial page.

Much has been said of both fake news and the demise of local media, and these are truly topics for concern, especially when national media colors the news with its views, and when social media uses artificial intelligence to feed us topics selected to make us happy, not to make us think. Local newspapers are at the forefront of trying to provide us the facts, and letting us reach our own conclusions.

The Community

Having been born in Washington, D.C., and moving about every three years as the youngest son in a Navy family, I never really had a hometown as a kid. So, when my wife and I settled in Grand Junction as a young couple in 1979, we were looking for more than just jobs; we were looking for a community. And did we ever find it.

Our current municipal election is but the latest iteration of this community collectively addressing its issues, with differences that dont degenerate into denigration. Out of that spirit have come countless public servants and extraordinary accomplishments like the our downtown, the Riverfront Trail, Lincoln Park, Little League, Las Colonias, museums, and theaters. Perhaps the culmination of this spirit is the you-gotta-live-here-to-believe-it phenomenon of JUCO or the transformation of higher education at Colorado Mesa University. None of these accomplishments were without discussion and dissension; we are a scrappy lot. But we pull together through trial, tragedy or triumph. We get hit with a pandemic, we hit back with a 5-Star program to lead the state in keeping our local businesses open.

There is much that can divide us, especially when topics turn to national events. But here, in the shadow of the Grand Mesa, this community has been built brick by brick. The newest bricks will be laid over the next two weeks with our new City Council, selected by you and your neighbors, in this quintessentially American demonstration of democracy, which the people in Myanmar would die for ... and are. Savor this privilege. Vote. It is the key leg of the tripod that is liberty.

Steve ErkenBrack is an attorney in Western Colorado, where he settled in 1979. Over the years, he has served as a trial attorney, as the elected District Attorney, as a health insurance CEO, and as Colorados Chief Deputy Attorney General. He is currently Of Counsel at Hoskin, Farina & Kampf in Grand Junction.

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The Tripod of Democracy | Columns | gjsentinel.com - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel