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Dennis Gronquist

Stillwater

To the editor:

Mark Krzmarzick seems like a fairly well informed writer and reader of the News Press. Good for him. I hope its not liberal brainwashing. In his Letter to the Editor, Writers arguments filled with holes on July 6, it is evident that he is still somewhat confused, as are many other people, over the difference between a democracy and a republic.

Yes, Mark, I agree with Merriam-Webster, even though it is a poor source for explaining this difference. Wikipedia or Blacks Law Dictionary are somewhat better, but it is still somewhat confusing as they are similar. Both democracies and republics may have laws written by representative governments. Thats a no brainer. But your attempt to clarify the terminology is not helping. What we just agreed upon does not change the fact that we do not have a democracy or a democratic republic. Yes, there are similarities.

To quote Steve King, Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

A better definition is to quote Benjamin Franklin, We have a constitutional republic, if we can keep it.

The Founders established limits on what government can do without public approval. When these constitutional limits are routinely violated by government, and we do nothing about it, our government is openly evolving into something other than what was originally intended and what has served us and the world so well. A prime example is the Democratic Party with a socialist candidate and platform. Then, there are the bogus Oklahoma public trusts used by the City Council to justify double utility rates and other excessive fees, simply because the state allows it.

They do not serve the common man, but their governmental entities at public expense. In doing so, they violate not only the Oklahoma state constitution, but the U.S. Constitution; the supreme law of the land.

The best example of a true democratic republic is still the Democratic Peoples Republic of (North) Korea, the proud DPRK, with its million man army. To suggest our government is a democratic republic is not only in error, its ludicrous.

If the majority ruled, Hillary Clinton would be carrying on the socialist practices of her predecessor. Thankfully, the Constitution defines an electoral college that temporarily saved us from paying the welfare state in Mexifornia; who, like our city employees, will always want more.

Read more from the original source:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: We're no democracy, thank goodness - Stillwater News Press

In her July 13 op-ed in Foreign Affairs, How U.S. Officials Can Craft Innovative Human Rights Policy, former Ambassador Sarah Mendelson recalls her work as a senior, politically-appointed foreign policy official in the Obama administration. Her personal mission, as she recalls, was to elevate human rightsfirst within USAID, and later when she worked for the US Mission to the United Nations.

Her initiatives to promote civil society and human rights within small powers such as post-Ben Ali Tunisia are admirable. However, her implicit suggestion that we ought to elevate human rights in our relations with great powers such as China and Russia is strategically incorrect. Our countrys policies vis-a-vis great powers (and to some extent medium powers, such as Turkey) must be guided, first and foremost, by a grand strategy rooted in our strategic interests, not one that aims to reflect our values.

In January 2010, Ambassador Mendelson was asked by the Obama administration to join USAID. Right away she embarked on a proactive agenda to push human rights to the top of the priority chain. Yet nearly three years later, as she was about to travel to Russia to assess the impact of Americas civil society promotion efforts there, Putin decided to quickly shut down USAIDs presence in Russia.

Ambassador Sarah Mendelson. Credit: Center for Strategic and International Studies/Flickr/Creative Commons

Astoundingly, she writes, she felt upset that there was no consequence (from the U.S. government) for Russias actions. This is a worrying sentiment from a senior official whose work impacts U.S. national security. Why should there have been a consequence for Putins crack-down on a political opposition promoted by USAID? Shouldnt she have expected that to be the reaction of an authoritarian leader?

Both the U.S. and Russia have nuclear arsenals that could bring about the worlds destruction. The situation is is tense, in Syria and in Eastern Europe, where American forces are in close proximity to an increasingly bellicose Russia. There can be no room for error. There can and should be real consequences for Russian strategic misbehavior: for example, a Russian attack on one of Americas NATO allies, or meddling in the U.S. elections. But Putins reaction to the Obama administrations democracy promotion in Russia (which the Kremlin viewed, probably correctly, as efforts to undermine his regime), does not rise to the level of injury Mendelson seemed to suggest.

If anything, Putins increasingly repressive measures should have had the opposite impact on Ambassador Mendelson: They should have caused her to reconsider attempts to elevate civil society promotion in powerful nations like Russia, an on-again/off-again adversary, especially since the results were so blatantly contrary to her intentions. And she should have considered, when reflecting on her time in government, whether her enthusiastic efforts to increase support to political opposition inside Russia inadvertently contributed to Putins decision to try to undermine Hillary Clinton during the 2016 elections.

Despite or because of USAIDs closing in Russia, Ambassador Mendelson continues, she doubled-down on her efforts to promote civil society in Russia. Following Putins closure of USAID, her team worked to establish centers in various parts of the world as places where members of civil society could learn to be more resilient and develop skills that made them better connected to the people they were meant to represent than to their foreign donors. This is both disappointing and illogical. Disappointing because it exudes undiplomatic arrogance: Does she really think that individuals who are courageous enough to risk their lives being part of the opposition in politically repressive countries like Russia or China need foreign officials (many born and bred in an elite, upper-class bubble), to teach them on how to be more resilient? And how does resilience training for activists in repressive countries look like? Solitary confinement in the morning, starvation in the afternoon, sleep deprivation at night, and torture at dawn?

In addition, such centers require the U.S. government to finance, lead, support, and sustain them. So the U.S. will (and in some instances already) becomes a foreign donor to centers that teach activists to pay less attention to foreign donors. This does not make sense.

The Ambassador is critical of President Donald Trumps and Secretary of State Rex Tillersons omissions regarding human rights and civil society. Yet this is precisely what is needed at this point in history. Putting aside Iraq for a second (since she is not suggesting promoting human rights through military force), think of the regionswhere the U.S. has tried promoting civil society over the last two decadesEastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Today the sovereignty of Georgia and Ukraine has been torn to shreds by Russias counter-reaction (from sending in little green men, to increasing cyber attacks on those countries critical infrastructures). Meanwhile political factionalism and corruption in both countries has made future progress impossible.

Promoting human rights, democratic institutions, or civil society can remain the aspiration of individual diplomats, but American foreign policy must first be guided by strategic interests. Today, the U.S. should seek to find ways to cooperate with China and Russia on Syria, Iran, North Korea, and other pressing challenges, rather than to promote civil society in Beijing or Moscow, and thereby inadvertently trigger an unnecessary and dangerous escalation in hostilities.

Dr. Oleg Svet is a defense analyst. The views expressed here are his own.

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When Pushing Democracy on Others Backfires - The American Conservative

Javier Lpez

The aftershocks of the Great Recession are still being felt. The trail of suffering in the shape of unemployment and destruction of wealth has transformed the map-making of the western world, ending up by provoking a real geopolitical recession with an Anglo-American epicentre aka the cradle of global capitalism. Likewise, the coordinates of the political agenda are being modified; old conflicts are resurfacing, new cracks appearing. Once again, distribution of wealth, inequality and their effects are returning to the centre stage of public debate. Why is this?

We are reproducing the abnormal levels of inequality of the Gilded Age,precursor to the First World War and the following Great Depression. Fairness and social mobility are linked (The Great Gatsby Curve); in fact, if you want to live the American Dream, you should go to Scandinavia. Similarly, inequality in relation to income and between genders develops along parallel lines. Fairness acts as a social glue creating connections of mutual trust.

With inequality, there are various patterns of correlation that allow us to argue that fairer societies have better social results, as well as being healthier, more peaceful and cooperative (Wilkinson and Pickett). There is a correlation between inequality and infant mortality, life expectancy, unwanted pregnancies and rates of mental illness. Social vulnerability goes hand in hand with emotional fragility. In Spain, the OECD country after Cyprus where inequality has increased most, consumption of antidepressants has tripled in the last ten years.

One of the basic axioms of the dominant mode of thinking has been: inequality is the price to be paid for market efficiency. Until now. Endless academic literature links problems with growth to current levels of inequality. Its connection to secular stagnation has also come up, as inequality distorts demand, holds back family consumption levels and favours over-indebtedness. Therefore, it is worth recalling that an increase in salaries would activate the economy.

According to no less than the IMF, less inequality allows for a faster and more longer lasting growth (see here). All this invites us to transition to the following discourse: a move from growth for redistribution towards redistribution for growth. The left should take note. Only strategies of equal and balanced growth will guarantee recovery in the economies of industrialized countries.

At the same time inequality acts as a solvent for democracy. The decline of the middle class undermines the political order and damages traditional politics. The polarization of income outcomes contributes to political polarization and weakens support for inclusive democratic and economic institutions. Inequality undermines interpersonal trust and encourages the sensation of lack of control. These ingredients are the basis of the reactionary political cocktail that is battering the world.

In this way, the components of welfare that end up defining social class and socio-economic context are being reconfigured (State, family and labour market). We fall back on the family more and require more help from the State due to the lack of quality labour opportunities. Put simply, labour has ceased to be the main source of prosperity and stability: a historical breakdown of the utmost gravity, aggravated by aggressive labour reform, a weakening of collective bargaining, and the consolidation of precarious and poorly paid employment.

Yet when we most need the States help, it faces aggressive processes of fiscal consolidation. Austerity is a painful medicine; it has caused a massive increase in unemployment and a fall in adjusted salaries (2010-2015). At the same time, fiscal consolidation based on cutbacks in public spending exacerbates social stratification.

The fiscal rules institutionalized during the Eurozone crisis (Fiscal Compact) are a deflationary anchor that acts as a straitjacket. The dysfunctional design of the single currency is a machine that worsens divergences, incapable of dealing with asymmetrical shocks. Completing the institutions of monetary union and increasing the member states room for fiscal manoeuvring should be at the heart of any progressive European Project.

Market globalization and liberalization acts in this way. On the one hand, it has taken millions of people out of poverty in recent decades, especially in Asia, yet on the other hand a significant part of the middle classes and workers in the developed world do not feel any benefit (Milanovic). Therefore, the perverse logic of focusing on net profit must be accompanied by the logic of profit distribution.

The automation and digitalisation of the economy act in a similar way. Its clear that technological advances produce profit, but they also generate a strong skills bias in the labour market and renovate the typology of job positions. If public powers do not counteract, compensating and rebalancing the losers and winners, there will always be people prepared to smash machines with hammers or tempted to impose terrible commercial blockades.

This new clothing of inequality also brings with it the opening of new wounds that activate fears and identity crises. Generational and territorial gaps explain to a large extent recent European election results. The mechanisms of intergenerational solidarity are ceasing to function, and in the eyes of many young people the promise on which democracy is built has been broken: that the future is a desirable place to inhabit.

Jeremy Corbyn has achieved a spectacular increase in his electoral base, mobilizing young people and those who previously abstained with the pledge to restore that promise. He has managed to be seen as a politician who is honestly worried about the daily problems of many of them, indeed the majority. Quite a rara avis, and he has reintroduced the topic of socio-economic conflict into the electoral conversation.

At the same time, urban/rural cleavages operate powerfully in the political conflict. Diverse urban centres integrated into the global value chain versus a periphery either rural or suffering from deindustrialisation (Guilluy). A breeding ground for Rousseau-istic resentment and identity withdrawal. A new logic emerges from all this globalism versus nationalism/nativism which crosses traditional political conflicts. And all this cannot be understood without one factor: inequality.

This new logic, between defending open and closed societies, has landed on territorial fault lines. Le Pen only managed to garner one in ten votes in Paris. Trump, 4% in Washington DC, theBrexiteers,one in four ballot papers in inner London. Emmanuel Macron skilfully positioned himself as an opposing party in the conflict, becoming the new strong man in a Europe lacking directional signposts.

But the risk provoked by the activation of this axis of conflict is looming in France: a left in total breakdown. To repair the progressive electoral base, it is necessary to put into practice a program of redistribution against inequality. The recipes of the twentieth century have been as follows: Keynesian management of economic policies of demand, state industrial planning, preservation of collective bargaining, fiscal redistribution through taxes and a system of social welfare. This road map remains valid but must adapt to multiple changes: the peculiarities of the Eurozone, an economy and market that is internationally integrated and changes in social structures.

We have to construct a new tax framework of public regulatory spending which redistributes in the most efficient way and inspires a fairer predistribution. And all this must be done tending to the vectors of transformation represented by urban concentration, ageing of the population and climate change. The leverage to rebuild the social contract should be the political threats that torment Europe, just as in the glorious thirty years (1945-1975); without threat, there can be no agreement. Because inequality explains, at least in part, the fracturing of the pillars that have held up the developed world: economic growth, middle classes, liberal democracy and the American order (Lizoain).

Like every Herculean task, the fight against inequality demands a narrative that supports it and gives it shape. A new narrative of equality in defence of economic growth, protection of democracy and the deepest sense of freedom: autonomy and dignity.

This post originally appeared in Spanish in the CTXT contexto y accin blog.

Javier Lpez has been a Spanish Member of the European Parliament since 2014. He is the holder of the Spanish Socialist delegation in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly of the European Parliament.

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Democracy Without Glue - Social Europe

"Morning Joe" is in mourning. The deceased is the Republican Party of balanced budgets and international restraint.

MSNBC host and former Congressman Joe Scarborough announced last week that he was leaving the Republican Party. In an impassioned piece for The Washington Post, Scarborough cited Donald TrumpDonald TrumpTrumps attack on one class of immigrants wont make America great Fox News personality: GOP healthcare plan says ideology is less important than victory' Mar-a-Lago asks to hire more foreign workers MOREs actions and Republican Party leaderships silence as the basis of his decision:

The wreckage visited of this man will break the Republican Party into pieces and lead to the election of independent thinkers no longer tethered to the tired dogmas of the polarized past. When that day mercifully arrives, the two-party duopoly that has strangled American politics for almost two centuries will finally come to an end. And Washington just may begin to work again.

Welcome to the (anti-) party, Scarborough! You are joining the roughly 45 percent of Americans who are abandoningthe Democratic and Republican Parties or never joined them in the first place. Not only are our ranks growing, but political scientists and pollsters are finally acknowledging that independents are not apathetic fence-sitters but engaged Americans concerned about how the parties and partisanship are ruining our country.

But if Ive learned anything about American politics in my 20 years as an independent activist and advocate for electoral reform, its that nothing automatically leads to anything. There are no straight lines in politics. Change is not inevitable. The parties work hard to muffle the impact of this exodus towards independence. Independent voters might comprise 45 percent of the country, but the parties still make the rules.

And heres rule No. 1: Independent voters must accept that they are second-class citizens in our democracy.

Joe Scarborough announces he's leaving Republican party: report https://t.co/Uw0cLwKAsZ pic.twitter.com/iZX5riu5DP

Independent voters in many states cannot register to vote as independents they must choose from derogatory voter registration language like unenrolled or decline to state. Independent voters are not allowed to serve as poll workers in states like New York its a job only Democrats and Republicans can apply for. Independent candidates are locked out of participating in the presidential debates and have to gather many more signatures than party candidates to have their names appear on the ballot.

Independents in dozens of states pay taxes for primary elections that they are barred from. The two forms of gerrymandering that dominate our country partisan gerrymandering and bi-partisan gerrymandering share a common commitment to protecting the parties at the expense of the voters, especially independents. The Federal Election Commission is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans which guarantees deadlock instead of two Democrats, two Republicans, and two independents, which the current statute allows for and would produce functional oversight of the electoral process. Local and state boards of elections are run by Democratic and Republican appointees.

We do need to elect independent thinkers no longer tethered to tired dogmas, as Scarborough suggests. That is true. And we need to free independent voters from the iron maiden of partisan election laws and practices that keep them from fully participating.

Want to fix American politics? Open up the primaries https://t.co/Cq85lfcmAg

Implementing open primaries is where I start. Its simple and popular. Let all voters vote in all elections. Dont make party membership a condition for participation. Dont let the parties private, non-government organizations decide who can and cannot vote in publicly funded elections. If we can break down this barrier, the American people will be better positioned to take on the dozens of other ways the parties hold on to old dogmas and insulate themselves from independent voices, from change and from progress.

My hope is that Scarborough takes his independence seriously and uses his location in the media to publicize the growing chorus of voices calling for the full enfranchisement of independent voters. While just five years ago the conversation about reform was limited to money in politics, there is a surge of new leaders and organizations who recognize that the party control of the process itself must be disrupted. There are hundreds of articulate, passionate, committed and accomplished independent leaders and reformers working around the clock to reform our political system. The country needs more opportunities to hear from them!

Dont mourn Joe. Join the fight to unleash the power of independents.

John Opdycke is president of Open Primaries, a national election-reform group.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

Originally posted here:
Independent voters have second-class status in American ... - The Hill - The Hill (blog)

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates saysPresident Trump's comments rippingAttorney General Jeff SessionsJeff Sessions8 things you might have missed in latest Trump interview Trump has confidencein Sessions, White House says Your income paid for welfare fraud from sea to shining sea MORE's recusal from the Russia probeis a violation of the Justice Department's independence.

"POTUS attack on Russia recusal reveals yet again his violation of the essential independence of DOJ, a bedrock principle of our democracy," Yates tweeted Thursday.

POTUS attack on Russia recusal reveals yet again his violation of the essential independence of DOJ, a bedrock principle of our democracy.

"Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else," Trump said.

Sessions recused himself from the federal investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow inMarch, after it was revealed that he failed to disclose to the Senate two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while he was a surrogate for Trump's campaign.

Trump abruptly fired Yates earlier this year for refusing to defend in court his original executive order restricting entry to the U.S. for refugees and people from certain Muslim-majority countries.

The former acting attorney general has slammed the Trump administration before for ignoring legal and political norms, saying its behavior should be "alarming to us as a country."

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Sally Yates: Trump attack on Sessions violates 'bedrock principle of our democracy' - The Hill (blog)