Archive for the ‘Democracy’ Category

Its Time to Demilitarize Our Democracy – The Nation

A member of the Minnesota National Guard stands watch on the grounds of the Minnesota state capitol on June 1, 2020. (Sgt. Linsey Williams, CC BY 2.0)

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This months insurrection at the Capitol revealed the dismal failure of the Capitol Police and the Department of Defense to use their expertise and resources to thwart a clear and present danger to our democracy. As the government reform group Public Citizen tweeted, If youre spending $740,000,000,000 annually on defense but fascists dressed for the renaissance fair can still storm the Capitol as they please, maybe its time to rethink national security?

At a time of acute concern about the health of our democracy, any such rethinking must, among other things, focus on strengthening the authority of civilians and civilian institutions over the military in an American world where almost the only subject the two parties in Congress can agree on is putting up ever more money for the Pentagon. This means so many in our political system need to wean themselves from the counterproductive habit of reflexively seeking out military or retired military voices to validate them on issues ranging from public health to border security that should be quite outside the militarys purview.

Its certainly one of the stranger phenomena of our era: After 20 years of endless war in which trillions of dollars were spent and hundreds of thousands died on all sides without the US military achieving anything approaching victory, the Pentagon continues to be funded at staggering levels, while funding to deal with the greatest threats to our safety and national securityfrom the pandemic to climate change to white supremacyproves woefully inadequate. In good times and bad, the US military and the industrial complex that surrounds it, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned us about in 1961, continue to maintain a central role in Washington, even though theyre remarkably irrelevant to the biggest challenges facing our democracy.

These days, its completely normal for military and defense officials to weigh in endlessly on what once would have been civilian matters. As the Biden years begin, its time to give some serious thought to how to demilitarize our democracy.

Unfortunately, in the America of 2021, the short-term benefit of relying on the widely accepted credibility of military figures to promote policies of every sort is obvious indeed. Who in the political class in the nations capital wouldnt want a stamp of approval from dozens of generals, active or retired, endorsing their favorite initiative or candidate? (Its something in years past the authors of this piece have been guilty of as well.) As it happens, though, such approval comes at a high price, undermining as it does the authority of civilian officials and agencies, while skewing resources toward the Pentagon that should be invested elsewhere to keep us truly safe.

Its an essential attribute of the American system that the military remains under civilian authority. These days, however, given the number of current or retired military officers who have become key arbiters of what we should do on a dizzying array of critical issues, civilian control is the policy equivalent of an endangered species.

In the last election season, long before the attack on the Capitol, there was already an intense national discussion about how to prevent violence at the polls, a conversation that all too quickly (and disturbingly) focused on what role the military should play in the process. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was repeatedly asked to provide assurances that it would have no role in determining the outcome of the election, something that in another America would have been a given.Current Issue

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Meanwhile, some actually sought more military involvement. For example, in a widely debated open letter to Milley, retired Army officers John Nagl and Paul Yingling stated that if Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order. Proposals of this sort undermine the integrity of the many laws Congress and the states have put in place to prevent the military or armed vigilantes from playing any role in the electoral process.

Similarly, both former President Trump and President Joe Biden have identified the military as a key future player in distributing the Covid-19 vaccine, something that could and should be handled by public health institutions, if only they, like the Pentagon, had adequate resources.

During and after the attack on the Capitol, officials from the military and national security worlds were given pride of place in discussions about the future of our democracy. Their opinions were sought out by the media and others on a wide range of issues that fell well outside their primary areas of expertise. A letter from 10 former secretaries of defense calling on the Republican caucus to respect the results of the election was given headline attention, while political figures pressed to have retired military officers involved in the January 6 assault tried in military, not civilian, courts.

Before pursuing the second impeachment of Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi typically turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs (who isnt even in the civilian chain of command) to seek assurance that he could stop the president from starting a last-minute nuclear war. And none of this was faintly unusual, given that retired military officers have regularly been asked to weigh in on subjects as varied as abortion rights, climate change, and childhood obesity. Its not, of course, that such figures shouldnt be able, like anyone else, to offer their opinions or support on matters of public health and safety, but that their voices shouldnt matter more than those of public health experts, scientists, medical professionals, or other civilians.

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Despite its failure to win a war in decades, the military remains one of Americas most respected institutions, getting the kind of appreciation that generally doesnt extend to other more successful public servants. After almost 20 years of forever wars, its hard, at this point, to accept that the militarys reputation for wisdom is deserved. In fact, continually relying on retired generals and other present or former national security officials as validators effectively erodes the credibility of, and the publics trust in, other institutions that are meant to keep us healthy and safe.

In the Covid-19 moment, it should be clear that relying on narrowly defined notions of national security harms our democracy, a subject that none of those military or former military figures are likely to deal with. In addition, in all too many cases, current and retired military officials have abused the public trust in ways that call into question their right to serve as judges of whats important, or even to imagine that they could provide objective advice. For one thing, a striking number of high-ranking officers on leaving the military pass through the infamous revolving door of the military-industrial complex into positions as executives, lobbyists, board members, or consultants for the defense industry. They work on behalf of firms like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics that receive a combined $100 billion annually in Pentagon contracts with little accountability, even as they remain key go-to media figures.

They then use their former rank and the prestige attached to it to lobby Congress and influence the media on the need for endless wars and an ever-increasing military budget to support major weapons programs like Lockheed Martins troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighterall without bothering to disclose that they stand to gain financially from the positions theyre taking. And the prospect of a big, fat salary in the weapons sector upon retirement also exerts an unhealthy influence on officers still serving in the military who are often loath to anger, or in any way alienate, their potential future employers.

This revolving-door phenomenon is widespread. A study by the Project on Government Oversight found that, in 2018 alone, there were 645 cases in which the top 20 defense contractors hired former government officials, military officers, members of Congress, and senior congressional legislative staff as lobbyists, board members, or executives. This should hardly inspire public trust in their opinions.

In some cases, ex-military officers have even taken to the airwaves and the op-ed pages of newspapers to advocate for war without disclosing their ties to the arms industry. A 2008 New York Times investigation, for example, revealed that a number of retired officers turned media pundits with continuing defense industry ties had, for years, advocated for the Iraq War at the Pentagons behest. Ex-generals like former Trump administration Defense Secretary James Mattis, who served on the board of General Dynamics before taking the helm of the Pentagon and returned there shortly after stepping down, too often use their stature to refrain from providing basic information to the media while befogging the transparency and accountability that should be a pillar of democracy.

When civilian voices and policies are eclipsed as the central determinants in how our democracy should operate, a larger dilemma arises: continuing to rely on the military as a primary source of judgment for whats right or wrong in the civilian world risks politicizing the armed forces, too. From retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn leading chants of Lock her up! at the 2016 Republican National Convention to the competition between Hillary Clinton and Trump as well as, in the 2020 election campaign, between Joe Biden and Trump to see who could get more retired generals to endorse him or her only helps militarize the civilian election process and politicizes what should be a nonpartisan institution.

Given the more than a trillion dollars Americans annually invest in the national security state, its striking to note, for instance, how such institutions let us down when it came to addressing the threats of white nationalism. Last summer, The Intercept uncovered a buried FBI report on the shortcomings of various federal agencies when it came to dealing with domestic terrorism. Before the 2020 election, the bureau refused to release that report on the domestic threat of white supremacy. Last year, in a similar fashion, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) withheld for months its assessment of the same lethal threat of racist extremism in this country.

While there must be a full investigation of what happened at the Capitol on January 6, reports seem to indicate a striking blindness in the national security state to the possibility of such an attack. Its not that the DHS, the FBI, or the military needs an influx of new funds to face the problem. Rather, whats needed at this moment in history is a clearer focus on the real risks to our country, which have little to do with foreign terrorists, the Taliban, or other such groups the United States has been fighting abroad for years on end. The Department of Defense typically did itself and the rest of us no favors by burying a report on widespread racism in the ranks of the military, which, though completed in 2017, didnt see the light of day until this January. Only in the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol did that organization finally begin to truly address its own white-supremacy problems.

The military, like so many other American institutions, has failed to reckon seriously with deep-seated racism in its ranks. Even before the January 6 insurrection, it was clear that such racism made it nearly impossible for Black officers to be promoted. And while many questioned the naming of key military bases after Confederate generals, the issue has only recently been addressed (over a presidential veto at that) with the creation of a new commission to rename them. Reports of active duty, reserve, and veteran members of the military aiding the Capitol insurrection only bring into stark relief the inexcusable costs of not having addressed the problem earlier.

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There are also high costs to be paid for relying on the Department of Defense to handle problems that have nothing to do with its primary mission. Using the armed forces as key players in addressing crises that arent military in nature only further undermines civilian institutions and is often counterproductive as well.

In the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of politicians called for President Trump to use the Defense Production Act (as it seems Biden will indeed soon do) and the Department of Defense to ramp up the production of N95 masks, ventilators, and other personal protective equipment. The story of what happened to such funds in the Trump years should be telling. The Washington Post discovered that $1 billion in supposed pandemic relief money was instead funneled directly to defense contractors and $70 million of the funds the Pentagon spent went to ventilators that proved unfit for Covid-19 patients. While some of that money did go to bolster mask supply chains, another Post investigation discovered that such efforts did not come close to addressing national shortfalls and amounted to less than the department spends on instruments, uniforms, and travel for military bands.

Perhaps the most disturbing cost of our overreliance on the military can be found in Congresss budget and policy priorities. In December of last year, a bill to authorize nearly $740 billion in Pentagon spending garnered enough votes to easily overcome President Trumps veto (motivated mainly by his refusal to condone renaming military bases named after Confederate generals) at the very moment when Congress was blocking legislation to give $2,000 relief checks directly to Covid-embattled Americans.

By now, two decades into the 21st century, its clear that more money for the Pentagon hasnt made this country safer. It has, however, helped give the military an ever more central role in our previously civilian political world. Bidens selection of retired Gen. Lloyd Austin III to be secretary of defense only emphasizes this point. While its certainly laudatory to appoint the first Black leader to that position, Austin has retired so recently that he needed a congressional waiver from a law requiring a seven-year cooling off period before taking up such a civilian post (just as Mattis did four years ago)another sign that civilian control of the military is continuing to weaken. In addition, now that he has retired from his role in private industry, Austin stands to make a small fortune, up to $1.7 million, when he divests his stock holdings in Raytheon Technologies.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex, President Eisenhower warned Americans in his 1961 farewell address. How right he proved to be! Sixty years later, its become all too clear that more must be done to deal with that very unwarranted influence. The immediate crises of the American republic should be clear enough right now: responding to the pandemic and restoring our civilian democracy. Certainly, military leaders like Milley should be appreciated for agreeing on the need to prioritize the pandemic and oppose sedition. However, more Pentagon spending and more military influence will not, in the end, make us any safer.

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Its Time to Demilitarize Our Democracy - The Nation

Open forum: Phineas on the ‘Twilight of Democracy’ – The Winchester Star

Whatcha reading?

Anne Applebaums Twilight of Democracy.

The rise of authoritarianism and divisional politics that tear friends and countries apart.

Power and influence of course. Applebaum makes her point by describing the turn of events in Poland in 2015 when voters swung to support a group of men that came to violate their constitution. They packed the Polish Supreme Court, established control of the media, fired thousands of experienced public servants replacing them with sycophants and inexperienced relatives of the party leaders.

Sounds vaguely like the Trump playbook, observed Phineas.

It got worse. They fired experienced military leaders, dismantled the diplomatic corps, and intimidated cultural institutions.

Let me guess. A sociopath used intimidation to challenge the previous administration, falsehoods to whittle away at trust in governmental institutions such as the courts and public establishments such as the free press.

He casted dispersions on civility towards Islamic citizens and immigrants, demeaning truthful and respectful discourse, I added.

All with the pretense of draining the swamp and making government more efficient, said Phineas.

Pretty much sums it up. Four years ago, here, a demagogue respecting only himself claimed to be the expert who could accomplish the necessary changes, I replied.

Trump told 30,573 falsehoods. Why did the competent and altruistic people in positions of influence abdicate their responsibilities and allow egotistical polarization to run rampant, destroying functioning democratic norms and the rule of law?

Applebaum demonstrates that polarization is the norm in many societies and sustained unity an anomaly. Rules of law are increasingly viewed with suspicion as archaic, supported by old, white men with personal agendas. The general populace generally abhors complexity and change. People tend to favor the comfort of placing their trust in a confident, even arrogant authority figure, despite the slow creeping loss of their voices in the political process.

Similar losses of autonomy occur in the corporate worlds of fashion and music, but tend to be short lived and cyclical, added an unusually astute Phineas.

Skepticism about democracy is normal. Democracy moves slowly and is inherently complicated. The cacophony in unpleasant. Sustaining a vibrant democratic system takes commitment and hard work.

We worked hard to elect President Biden, said Phineas. Hopefully we can return to trusting scientific evidence.

Advice from scientists will continue to bother people untrained in critical thinking who fall prey to glitzy, superficial social media repeating blatant lies. The easy appeal of authoritarianism is eternal.

I remember reading The Mouse That Roared, recalled Phineas. The Dutchy of Grand Fenwick was run by a benevolent dictator. The citizens loved it.

Jefferson was concerned the uneducated masses could win control of government by the popular vote. He introduced the Electoral College, giving the Senate final decision to certify the Presidential victory.

Unfortunately, irrational passions can lead to destructive anger as we saw on January 6th.

Perhaps that riot was a poorly attempted coup against our seat of Democracy.

Applebaum sounds like a good read.

Read it now or live it later.

Greg Kujala is a resident of Winchester.

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Open forum: Phineas on the 'Twilight of Democracy' - The Winchester Star

New citizenship law pulls India down in the democracy rankings and 2021 is not looking better – Business Insider India

The primary reason for the massive fall was the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that came into being in January 2020.

India versus rest of South AsiaWhile being categorized as a flawed democracy, at first glance, India fares better than its neighboring countries. However, while India has been falling in the ranks, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan have improved marginally in 2020. Even those countries which saw a fall in scores, none were as massive as Indias drop.

The judiciarys sensitivity was seen yet again when lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan was brought under the scanner for tweets criticizing the government.

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Creators of shows like Tandav, Sacred Games, and others have been dragged to court after being accused of hurting religious sentiments.

Most recently, the Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar stated that the state police will track people posting anti-national and anti-social posts on social media to be taken into consideration when verifying passport and arms.

When critics questioned why persecuted Muslims were left out of the Act, the government said that in the three countries specified, Muslims are the majority and not persecuted. However, many debaters have pointed out that Muslims are a minority in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and the amendment excludes them.

Whats worse, the government had planned to execute the National Registrar of Citizens, which would identify the undocumented and illegal migrants. However, if any non-Muslim gets caught without papers, he could be reinstated under the CAA. But a Muslim does not have the safety net that other communities have.

India scores well for its electoral process but takes a hit in political culture

Indias health budget sees a 137% jump in 2021

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New citizenship law pulls India down in the democracy rankings and 2021 is not looking better - Business Insider India

The future of democracy in Asia – Brookings Institution

Asia represents a critical frontier for democratic governance that will shape the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century. Democratic states in the region face increasing strain from an interconnected set of challenges across political, economic, and cultural dynamics. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, uncertainty about American strategy, the implications of emerging technologies, and support for illiberal populism and authoritarianism by policymakers and foreign actors have tested democratic norms in the region.

On Friday, January 29, as part of the initiative on Democracy in Asia, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings hosted an event examining the health of democracy in Asia. Following opening remarks by Brookings President John R. Allen, Taiwan Digital Minister Audrey Tang delivered a pre-recorded keynote address and respond to questions. A moderated panel with regional experts and scholars then explored the ongoing intraregional challenges and trends affecting democratic governments and institutions across the Indo-Pacific. Following the conversation, panelists took questions from the audience.

Viewers submitted questions by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter at #DemocracyInAsia.

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The future of democracy in Asia - Brookings Institution

What those mourning the fragility of American democracy get wrong – The Conversation US

For many people, the lesson from the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and more broadly from the experience of the last four years is that American democracy has become newly and dangerously fragile.

That conclusion is overstated. In fact, American democracy has always been fragile. And it might be more precise to diagnose the United States as a fragile union rather than a fragile democracy. As President Joe Biden said in his inaugural address, national unity is that most elusive of things.

Certainly, faith in American democracy has been battered over the last year. Polls show that 1 in 4 Americans do not recognize Joe Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. The turn to violence on Capitol Hill was a disturbing attack on an important symbol of U.S. democracy.

But there are four other factors that should be considered to evaluate the true state of the nation. Taking these into account, what emerges is a picture of a country that, despite its long tradition of presenting itself as exceptional, looks a lot like the other struggling democracies of the world.

First, fragility is not really new. Its misleading to describe the United States as the worlds oldest democracy, as many observers have recently done. By modern definitions of the concept, the United States has only been a democracy for about 60 years. Despite constitutional guarantees, most Black Americans could not vote in important elections before the 1960s, nor did they have basic civil rights. Like many other countries, the United States is still working to consolidate democratic ideals.

Similarly, the struggle to contain political violence is not new. Washington has certainly seen its share of such violence. Since 1950, there have been multiple bombings and shootings at the U.S. Capitol and the White House. Troops have been deployed to keep order in Washington four times since World War I during riots and unrest in 1919 and 1968, economic protests in 1932, and again in 2021. The route from the Capitol to the White House passes near the spots where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, James Garfield was fatally shot in 1881, and Harry Truman was attacked in 1950.

Political instability is also a familiar feature of economic downturns. There were similar fears about the end of democracy during the 1970s, when the United States wrestled with inflation and unemployment, and during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Of course, those fears had some justification. Many people wondered whether democratic governments could rise to new challenges. But there is evidence from historical episodes like this that democracies do eventually adapt indeed, that they are better at adapting than non-democratic systems like the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991.

Finally, the debate about American democracy is fixated excessively on politics at the national level. This fixation has been aggravated by the way that the media and internet have developed over the last 30 years. Political debate focuses more and more heavily on Washington. But the American political system also includes 50 state governments and 90,000 local governments. More than half a million people in the United States occupy a popularly elected office. Democratic practices may be imperfect, but they are extensive and not easily undone.

On balance, claims about the fragility of American democracy should be taken seriously, but with a sense of proportion. Events since the November 2020 election have been troubling, but they do not signal an impending collapse of Americas democratic experiment.

It might be more useful to think of the present crisis in other terms. The real difficulty confronting the country might be a fragile national union, rather than a fragile democracy.

Since the 1990s, the country has seen the emergence of deep fissures between what came to be called red and blue America two camps with very different views about national priorities and the role of federal government in particular. The result has been increasing rancor and gridlock in Washington.

Again, this sort of division is not new to American politics. The United States did not become established in American speech as a singular rather than a plural noun until after the Civil War. Until the 1950s, it was commonplace to describe the United States as a composite of sections North, South and West with distinctive interests and cultures.

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In 1932, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frederick Jackson Turner compared the United States to Europe, describing it as a federation of nations held together through careful diplomacy.

It was only in the 1960s that this view of the United States faded away. Advances in transportation and communications seemed to forge the country into a single economic and cultural unit.

But politicians overestimated this transformation.

Since the 1990s, old divisions have re-emerged.

Americas current political class has not fully absorbed this reality. Too often, it has taken unity for granted, forgetting the countrys long history of sectional conflict. Because they took unity for granted, many new presidents in the modern era were tempted to launch their administrations with ambitious programs that galvanized followers while antagonizing opponents. However, this winner-take-all style may not be well suited to the needs of the present moment. It may aggravate divisions rather than rebuilding unity.

Only 20 years ago, many Americans buoyed by an economic boom and the collapse of the Soviet Union were convinced that their model of governance was on the brink of conquering the world. President George W. Bush declared American-style democracy to be the single sustainable model for national success. By contrast, many people today worry that this model is on the brink of collapse.

The hubris of the early 2000s was misguided, and so is the despair of 2021. Like many other countries, the United States is engaged in a never-ending effort to maintain unity, contain political violence and live up to democratic principles.

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What those mourning the fragility of American democracy get wrong - The Conversation US