Mediaboss Marketing

The attack on the USA on 9/11 is continuing through Donald Trump. He has the same motivation as those who took down the World Trade Center Buildings and hit the Pentagon - to destroy our democracy. His Jan. 6th attempt to stay in power failed and many of his mercenaries are either in prison or in hiding to avoid justice.

Trumps despicable behavior toward our system of justice in court and on his own social media merits contempt.

Most of his followers know he has no belief beyond himself but apparently think that if he gets away with it so can they.

His criminality is well recognized. He is a sexual abuser and business cheat who must not be anywhere near the White House.

The GOP under his spell is becoming the political party of anti-law and order.

The irony is that his followers for the most part are middle or lower class and not wealthy. Some might think he cares for them. The reality is that his goal is more tax cuts for the big corporations and the really wealthy.

Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!

Read the original:
Letter: Trump trying to destroy our democracy - Quad-City Times

This year, Indonesia will hold its five-year democratic party, namely the 2024 general election. Ahead of the 2024 general election, various universities in Indonesia are busy plugging the ears of the authorities through petitions, edicts, and manifestos regarding the current condition of Indonesian democracy. Voices of concern about the condition of democracy and political dynamics are increasingly resounding. Not only civil society, but academics also voiced their concerns.

The academic community, from students to professors, must come down from the mountains to express their stance and fight the current dilapidated condition of Indonesian democracy. Many state universities issue petitions, edicts, and petitions, such as the University of Indonesia, Diponegoro University, Padjadjaran University, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Andalas University, and so on.

Not only state universities, but private universities have also expressed their attitude towards the current condition of Indonesian democracy, for example, the Islamic University of Indonesia, Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta, Ahmad Dahlan University, Muhammadiyah University of Bangka Belitung, all campuses of Philosophy Colleges in Indonesia and so on.

As academics and intellectuals, universities have a moral responsibility to actively participate in maintaining and fighting for democracy. Higher education is not an ivory tower isolated from political and social realities.

The voice of higher education, whether in the form of a statement of attitude or real action, can be a catalyst for positive change in society, so this statement of attitude is expected to be able to make all universities in Indonesia a bastion of democracy and critical of all forms of oppression.

A Strong Warning to the Rulers

Several universities in Indonesia have issued petitions openly criticizing the current state of Indonesian democracy under the rule of President Joko Widodos government. This petition contains firm criticism and calls on Jokowi to maintain state ethics and democracy.

For example, the University of Indonesia condemns actions that suppress freedom of expression, demands honest elections, and calls on all universities to supervise the implementation of voting. Gadjah Mada University, Padjadjaran University, and the Islamic University of Indonesia also expressed similar criticism, highlighting ethical violations and injury to democratic values ahead of the 2024 elections. The petition is a moral appeal and response to concerns about the condition of democracy in Indonesia.

Towards the end of the term of office as captain In this Republic, many of the policies or decisions of President Jokowi and his government are reckless, causing the decline of democracy. These policies, such as weakening of the Corruption Eradication Commission, Job Creation Law, Perppu on Mass Organizations, etc.

In the end, the academic community, especially professors, had to come down from the mountains to give a strong warning to the authorities not to be careless in running the government. Perhaps the government has forgotten that the people hold the highest power in this Republic because democracy is of, by, and for the people.

Indonesian Democracy is Broken

Looking at the existing reality, it is not surprising that Indonesian democracy is said to be dilapidated. A study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) shows that Indonesias democracy index in 2022 is a flawed democracy, so Indonesia only achieved a score of 6.71 out of 10 and still maintains its position as a country with imperfect democracy.

In the global ranking, Indonesia is in 54th position out of a total of 167 countries, experiencing a decrease from the previous years ranking which was in 52nd position. Thus, an assessment of Indonesian democracy shows significant weaknesses. Index of democracy that achieves status flawed democracy This indicates that there are various problems in the democratic system in Indonesia.

Several factors that can cause this decline involve various aspects, such as corruption, inequality, human rights violations, and lack of transparent political involvement. One of the main challenges faced by Indonesian democracy is the high level of corruption at various levels of government. Rampant corrupt practices can hinder the healthy growth of democracy, fuel public discontent, and create inequalities in the distribution of resources.

Apart from that, violations of fundamental human rights and political tendencies that lack transparency also hurt the health of democracy in Indonesia. Restrictions on freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, and public participation in decision-making can harm the essence of the democratic system itself.

Efforts to improve and reform the political system are the key to improving the quality of democracy in Indonesia. Concrete steps need to be taken to combat corruption, increase transparency, strengthen institutions democratic, as well as encourage active community participation in the political process. Only with joint efforts from the government, institutions, and society can Indonesian democracy emerge from its status-flawed democracy and head in a better direction.

Indonesia Must Improve

Indonesia must improve to improve the condition of its democracy, which continues to show weaknesses and defects. Indonesias ranking as a country with an imperfect democracy indicates that there is a lot of homework that needs to be done. For this reason, change cannot only rely on one party but must involve all elements of society and related institutions.

First of all, the government needs to take concrete steps to combat corruption, which is one of the main factors hindering the health of democracy. Steps to eradicate corruption must be more than just political rhetoric but must be accompanied by firm action and the application of fair and transparent laws.

Second, transparency in the political process and decision-making must be increased. The public must have wider access to information regarding government policies and programs. Government institutions must also be more open to criticism and input from the public and supervisory institutions.

In addition, the protection of human rights must be strengthened. Every individual must have the freedom to express and express opinions without fear of repression or persecution. Protection of press freedom is also important to ensure that there is ample space for the media to provide objective information to the public.

No less important, active participation of the community in the political process must be encouraged. The public must feel that their voices are heard and have influence in policy making. This can be done through the development of participatory mechanisms that enable communities to be directly involved in making decisions that affect their lives.

By carrying out these steps seriously and consistently, Indonesia can improve the condition of its democracy in a better direction. Only with hard work and commitment from all parties, Indonesia can realize the vision of a democracy that is stronger, fairer, and more resilient to the challenges of the times.

The conclusion is that Indonesian democracy faces serious challenges that result in a dilapidated state of democracy. Various universities, both state and private, have been vocal in their condemnation of democratic violations and criticism of the authorities, especially ahead of the 2024 general election. Issues such as corruption, human rights violations, and lack of transparency in the political process are of primary concern.

Indonesias ranking as a country with an imperfect democracy shows that there is a lot of homework to be done. Improvements in the political system, eradicating corruption, increasing transparency, protecting human rights, and increasing public participation are the keys to improving the quality of democracy.

Only with hard work and commitment from all parties, including the government, related institutions, and society, can Indonesia improve its democratic conditions towards a better direction. Joint efforts are needed to ensure that democracy in Indonesia becomes stronger, fairer, and able to face the challenges of the times.

Read the original post:
Indonesia's democracy is dilapidated, many universities are "cheating" the authorities - Modern Diplomacy

No one misses the early days and dark theaters of the Covid pandemic, but the emergency workaround of streaming content was good for a few things anyway. People who formerly could not afford admission suddenly could, since much of it was free, and artists from anywhere could now be seen everywhere, with just a Wi-Fi connection.

Thats how I first encountered Russian Troll Farm, a play by Sarah Gancher intended for the stage but that had its debut, in 2020, as an online co-production of three far-flung institutions: TheaterWorks Hartford, TheaterSquared in Fayetteville, Ark., and the Brooklyn-based Civilians. At the time, I found its subject and form beautifully realized and ideally matched the subject being online interference in the 2016 presidential election by a Russian internet agency.

This is digitally native theater, I wrote, not just a play plopped into a Zoom box.

Now the box has been ripped open, and a fully staged live work coaxed out of it. But the production of Russian Troll Farm that opened on Thursday at the Vineyard Theater is an entirely different, and in some ways disappointing, experience. Though still informative and trenchant, and given a swifter staging by the director Darko Tresnjak, it has lost the thrill of the originals accommodation to the extreme constraints of its time.

Not that it is any less relevant in ours; fake news will surely be as prominent in the 2024 election cycle (is Taylor Swift a pro-Biden psy-op?) as it was in 2016. Thats when, as Gancher recounts using many real texts, posts and tweets of the time, trolls at the Internet Research Agency a real place in St. Petersburg, Russia devised sticky memes and other content meant to undermine confidence in the electoral process, sow general discord, legitimize Trumpism and vaporize Hillary Clinton.

But the play is less interested in classics of the conspiracy genre like #PizzaGate and Frazzledrip than in the kinds of people who would dream them up. In the manner of sitcoms like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Office, Russian Troll Farm focuses on four such (fictional) trolls, neatly differentiated from one another and from their dragonish supervisor, Ljuba (Christine Lahti).

Read the original:
Russian Troll Farm Review: A Stream of Memes, Eroding Trust in Democracy - The New York Times

With the 2024 presidential race underway, FRONTLINE investigates the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. In this special audio version of Democracy on Trial, veteran political filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team examine the House Jan. 6 committees evidence, the historic charges against Trump and the threat to democracy.

In this first installment, former President Donald Trump is charged with crimes in office an unprecedented event in American history. The Jan. 6 Select Committee report starts to build a case against former President Donald Trump, which will go on to become a blueprint for special counsel Jack Smith. And a central question emerges for the committee: What did former President Trump know about the 2020 election results, and when did he know it?

Tune in next week for the second installment of the audio-only version of the documentary here on The FRONTLINE Dispatch. Watch Democracy on Trial in full on FRONTLINEs website, YouTube or the PBS App.

See original here:
Democracy on Trial, Part One: A Blueprint For the Case Against Trump - PBS

In El Salvador, an overwhelming majority voted in favour of the unconstitutional re-election of President Nayib Bukele on Sunday. At least if the winner is to be believed, as official results were still not available 24 hours after the end of polling day. An impatient Bukele announced on X on Sunday evening that 85 per cent had voted for him. However, his pompous victory celebration was overshadowed by the fact that the electoral court did not provide any results. Eventually, the officials excused themselves with cyberattacks and power cuts. Now, votes are to be recounted by hand in the country that wants to become a tech hub and has legalised Bitcoin. A symptom of the desolate state behind the official glittering faade.

In an interview with the New York Times, Vice President Flix Ulloa announced that El Salvador would eliminate democracy and replace it with something better. Bukele, on the other hand, spoke of a true democracy that would now begin, and it was possible to get an idea of what this will look like on election day: when the writer Carlos Bucio stood in a square in the capital and quoted the articles of the constitution that prohibit re-election, he was booed by passers-by and arrested by the police.

El Salvador is thus setting the stage for the 2024 super election year, in which hundreds of thousands of voters around the world will face a similar dilemma: to either give democracy a chance despite its tediously slow decision-making processes and complicated checks and balances, or to believe self-proclaimed saviours who claim that in a world full of violence, crises and conflicts human rights, the separation of powers, the rule of law, environmental protection and a free press are merely disruptive factors that stand in the way of the well-being of their subjects.

Against the background of historical experience, it seems obvious to the average European which is the better political alternative. But Bukules victory shows that people in other parts of the world do not think the same way, not even in Latin America, the continent closest to Europe in cultural terms and which has already had enough desolate experiences with authoritarian rulers. Indeed, according to a survey by the Latinobarmetro Institute, 54 per cent of people there do not care whether their government is authoritarian or democratic as long as it solves their problems.

Bukele is therefore regarded by many in Latin America not as a dictator but as a hero, and his counterparts in neighbouring countries look up to him with admiration. These include the left-wing government of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, the World Bank official Rodrigo Chaves in Costa Rica and the entrepreneurial scion Daniel Noboa, who rules in Ecuador. They see the 42-year-old as a model for political success to solve one of the continents biggest structural problems and thus secure their hold on power. Consequently, they have copied some of his measures, such as the state of emergency or the construction of high-security prisons.

Bukele has indeed achieved something extraordinary: during his five years in office, the murder rate fell from 36 to 2.4 per 100 000 inhabitants. El Salvador, which was still considered the most murderous country on the continent in 2015, has thus become one of the safest countries in the region. However, the methods used are questionable: these include the state of emergency, which has been repeatedly extended for two years and is now completely unfounded, suspending all basic rights, as well as the establishment of a police state in which the most people in the world are behind bars in proportion to the population and the legal persecution (lawfare) of political rivals, critical journalists and environmentalists. The co-optation of all institutions has also fuelled nepotism, corruption and a lack of transparency.

Over half of the Salvadoran population is under 30 years old. Most of them do not consume traditional media but inform themselves via social media instead.

The publicity expert Bukele thwarts all these criticisms with the help of his powerful PR team, compliant influencers on social media and troll factories. They focus the spotlight on his successes his security policy or on superficial diversionary manoeuvres such as the Miss Universe event, the launch of Bitcoin, the opening of a modern animal hospital or the inauguration of a state library built with Chinese loans. The discourse of fear was also effective: if he did not remain in power, Bukele said, his successors would release the criminals he had imprisoned during his first term of office.

Over half of the Salvadoran population is under 30 years old. Most of them do not consume traditional media but inform themselves via social media instead. However, these are dominated by Bukules PR machine, fuelled by bots, trolls and algorithms. Opposing views find little echo there: the fact that extreme poverty rose from 5.6 to 8.7 per cent since 2019, that Bukele dissolved the structural fund for the provinces, and since then, health and education as well as infrastructure have been in ruins, that he gambled away taxpayers money with Bitcoin speculations, that suddenly heaps of officials and confidants of Bukele won the state lottery and others built themselves luxury villas, that the state owes millions to private contractors, that his re-election is a clear breach of the constitution, that his supporters illegally handed out food parcels on election day and that his party manipulated the outcome of the election by redistributing the constituencies.

The list of violations is long some of which are likely to appear in the election report of the observers from the EU and the Organization of American States (OAS). Such criticism is important, but it does not get through. Bukele is a master at manipulating the hopes and pride of a population that he has propelled from the shadows of world affairs into the limelight. That is what makes him so attractive in the eyes of some heads of state. He has succeeded in pushing through a narrative that has little to do with reality.

El Salvador is not the first country in the region to succumb to the totalitarian temptation of a caudillo, a strongman. Latin America has had a long tradition of authoritarian rulers since independence from Spain. But since the democratisation of the region in the 1990s, no one has enjoyed as much support. Even in his heyday, Hugo Chvez in Venezuela received just 62 per cent of the vote; Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua even had to make a pact with his arch-enemy, the corrupt liberal Arnoldo Alemn, for an electoral reform so that 38 per cent of the vote was enough for his victory in 2006. And the conservative Juan Orlando Hernndez in Honduras was re-elected in 2017 with just 42 per cent of the vote, despite numerous manipulations and a suspicious computer crash.

In contrast to Bukele, Chvez, Hernndez and, for a long time, Ortega at least endeavoured to create the appearance of democratic legitimacy even if they discreetly undermined its foundations. To this end, they used the classic populist recipes: plebiscites, populist social programmes that only brought dependence instead of structural improvements, agitation against critics, rivals and intellectuals, harassment of non-governmental organisations and the media, bringing the state apparatus into line, especially the judiciary, and weakening transparency and control mechanisms.

The symbolic capture of Congress paved the way for the militarisation of the country, which culminated in the imposition of a state of emergency and the arrest of thousands of innocent people in 2022.

Bukele, on the other hand, makes no secret of his contempt for democracy, for which the country once paid a high price in blood: more than 75 000 people died in the civil war between 1980 and 1992. Driven by historical revisionism, Bukele described the peace treaty as a farce, destroyed the monument to reconciliation and labelled the traditional parties as corrupt war profiteers who divided up the spoils in the shadow of foreign powers. Bukele pushed the boundaries of what can be said and done with well-considered stagings and thus reinterpreted history.

Back in 2020, when parliament failed to approve a loan he had requested for security projects quickly enough, he marched into parliament with the military. At the time, the traditional parties still had a majority there and were speechless in the face of this taboo-breaking. However, Bukele justified the transgression to his cheering supporters with the true interests of the people, which were supposedly being disregarded by Congress. This time, he said, the military had sided with the people, not the oppressors. The symbolic capture of Congress paved the way for the militarisation of the country, which culminated in the imposition of a state of emergency and the arrest of thousands of innocent people in 2022. Only a few human rights activists protested. Bukele thus provided the script for authoritarian imitators.

The heavy-handed policy has long been regarded as the elites traditional response to the problem of violence in Latin America. It produces short-term results and enables social control. But it has always fallen short even in El Salvador. This is because it does not address the root of the problem: on the one hand, the lack of the rule of law, which is sabotaged by elites out of self-interest. On the other hand, the structural poverty and inequality of opportunity in countries that are still trapped in neo-colonial schemes due to both rigid hierarchical social structures and unjust economic globalisation.

Bukeles model is a so-far successful new edition of the heavy-handed policy. However, his model is not so easily transferable at least not if you shy away from taking the step towards an authoritarian police state as initial examples show. Honduras may have declared a state of emergency, but violent crime has hardly decreased. The country has far fewer security forces than El Salvador, which are also more corrupted by organised crime. President Noboa has also declared a state of emergency in Ecuador and sent the military onto the streets. However, it is still a Bukele light model: civil society is much more critical and better organised, and the USA and the EU have also pledged emergency aid in order to secure their influence on the course of events.

What may deter some from total Bukelisation is the fact that most authoritarian presidents of the modern era Chvez in Venezuela, Hernndez in Honduras or Alberto Fujimori in Peru did not end well. Moreover, cracks in Bukules model are already visible. According to initial projections, only two of the six million eligible voters went to the polls on Sunday which puts his success into perspective. In his victory speech, Bukele revealed a complete lack of ideas on how to proceed in El Salvador. He now faces challenges that cannot be so easily dismissed: despite the improved security situation, there is a lack of foreign investment. The economy grew by just 2.3 per cent in 2023 less than in its Central American neighbours. The Salvadoran state is in arrears with private service providers, with public debt amounting to 85 per cent of gross domestic product. The International Monetary Fund links new loans to the abolition of Bitcoin. A third of the population continues to live in poverty. El Salvador, a country the size of the German state of Hesse with a population of 10 million, that exports T-shirts, sugar and plastic packaging, is now embarking on a path into the unknown.

The rest is here:
El Salvador: unconstitutional re-election of Bukele Democracy and society - IPS Journal