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Gary Grappo

Gary Grappo is a former US ambassador and a distinguished fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies at the Korbel School for International Studies,

It is time for all of Americas institutions of democracy to engage, activate the citizenry and make its democracy function as it should.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, said Thomas Jefferson, Americas third president.

This quote came to mind in the aftermath of the US presidential election and Donald J. Trumps improbable victory. Not because a literal bloodletting is in the offing, though we may very well see a figurative one. But rather because Americas tree of liberty is in need of refreshing, shaking up or even repotting in more fertile soil. Its democratic roots need new nourishment. So, in that sense, Jefferson may have been on to something.

Can it be that Americans have grown complacent of their democracy? They votewell, barely half the country. They pay their taxesthough of some we cant be sure. And a very small number serve in its armed forces, less than one-half percent. But an increasing number volunteer their time and talents for a multitude of causes like places of worship, the environment, literacy and hundreds more.

But a shocking number of American adults cannot name their senators or members of Congress. Few can name more than a couple Supreme Court judges or cabinet members. Many are unaware of how laws are passed or of the authorities granted the president by the Constitution. The lack of awareness of public affairs can be appalling. Those who stay abreast of issues often follow only media that reflect their own views. One of democracys strongest defenders, Winston Churchill, once insightfully quipped: The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. He might have added, If you can find one.

That cant be what the worlds oldest democracy is about. At least, American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson did not think so. The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment, said American educator, author and former University of Chicago president and chancellor, Robert Hutchins. Americas democracy needs nourishment.

Donald Trump may be just the one to get the nourishing process started. I do not for a second put Trump anywhere near the exalted category of Jefferson and Americas other presidential luminaries. Rather, the ideas hes expressed, positions hes taken and behavior hes shown ought to rile Americans to their roots and, indeed, Americas democratic roots. Could he be the catalyst that stirs Americans into action?

Thankfully, Americas democracy does not rely on any one institution and certainly not on the presidency, however important and powerful it may be.

Americas success as a democracy stems from the multiple institutions that support it: its legislative and judicial branches of government, its free and freewheeling mediaand lets not forget an explosive and pervasive social mediathe armed forces, its 4,000-plus institutions of higher learning, its many religious institutions, the many state and local governments, and the innumerable groups and organizations that make up its civil society, probably the most active and prolific in the world.

These will all be challenged under Trump. How they respond and what they do will ultimately determine what President Trump is able to achieve for or against the American interest. Most important, however, is how they embrace and activate the American public to step up and fulfill their roles and duties as citizens in a democracy.

Americas media, for example, have responded in exemplary fashion, calling Trump and his advisors out when they pose so-called alternative facts or brush lightly over critical policy issues like health care or free trade. Social media have also played a prominent role, both criticizing as well as defending the new president.

While too early to say, civil society may also be stepping up. The Womens March that took place the day after Trumps inauguration and drew millions of women and men across the nation and even abroad, demonstrated a cherished right and essential responsibility in a democracy to speak out. Especially worth noting was the mobilization that took place in so-called red statessuch as Kansas, Wyoming, Alabama, Alaska and rural areas of Virginiaas well as blue states.

Whether that impressive performance can crystallize into an organization with leadership and platform remains to be seen. But it represents a commendable start and should demonstrate to Americans and the world that Americans genuinely care about their democracy and the freedoms that come with it.

We should be on alert to Americas college campuses, whose responses to the 1960s and 1970s defining issuesthe Vietnam War and civil rightshelped galvanize the nations attitudes. As a product of that period, I can attest to the power of pro-active students making their voices heard. Watch and listen to them as well. More than17 million students are currently enrolled in these institutions, and its their future thats at stake. Will they respond?

So, in that sense, Trump may be facilitating the nourishing of Americas roots. The country may need a real stirring and a president with a transgressive penchant for sowing disorder and discord may be just the person to do that. It is time for all of Americas institutions of democracy to engage, activate the citizenry and make its democracy function as it should.

But there is another challenge America confronts. It is a country divided. Not as it was in 1861 when the southern states seceded to form the Confederacy and drove the nation into the bloodiest conflict in its history, the Civil War. The major issue dividing America then was slavery. In 2017, however, one can see many fault lines running through the countryconservative vs. liberal, red state vs. blue state, urban vs. rural, pro-choice vs. pro-life, main street vs. Wall Street, as well as the many social issues relating to race, religion, immigration, gender, taxation and others.

The divisions are palpable. Americas Congress, now with Republican majorities in both houses, has become so partisan that many of the issues on which Americans want decisions simply sit without action, aggravating the divisions.

While he did not set out to do so, President Barack Obama effectively widened the festering political divide in America. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also share the blame, though neither of them sought to do so. But today that divide may now be a chasm. Such divisions are nothing new in this country. In fact, they ought to be expected in any vibrant democracy. Nevertheless, it is worrisome.

As Americans begin this next and fearful chapter in our history, it may be useful to recall the words of another great in the pantheon of American presidents, Abraham Lincoln, from his second inaugural address. They were spoken at the end of the Civil War, unquestionably the single most divisive time in US history.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nations wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

The reference to the nations woundscomes from one of the most poetic and moving books of the Old Testament, the Book of Psalms. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

Lincoln was referring not only to the mercy of God but also to that to which God calls all mankind. Lincoln, in his almost divine-like wisdom, saw the need to heal the nations wounds after that most destructive war. Sadly, the nation was deprived of that wisdom and his leadership as he was assassinated only days after having delivered those noble words.

So, now it must be asked, who shall begin the work to bind up the nations wounds of today? Who will it be to reach across the many battle lines, find common cause and do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations? Can America produce a 21st century Abraham Lincoln?

In his inaugural address remarks, Donald Trump seemed to make it clear he has no intention of binding wounds. In his administration there will be winners and losers, victors and vanquished. Despite subsequent efforts by administration officials to present his inaugural words differently, what many heard was more dividing, breaking, defying and ultimately tearing down. The so-called American carnage he described may in fact be just beginning.

But America must return to that essential and necessary work of keeping the worlds oldest and most successful democracy ever vibrant. Who will lead America in that epic, Sisyphean undertaking? For now, it seems the task remains in the hands of the American people and their cherished institutions, perhaps as it should be in a democracy of the people.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

Photo Credit:RiverNorthPhotography

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Democracy in a Nation Divided - Fair Observer

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Today, President Trump is flying to Philadelphia, where congressional Republicans are on retreat. Hes going in an effort to win more support for his political agenda. Over the past five days, he has signed a number of executive orders and presidential memorandums, but many of his actions will require congressional support. In his first day in office, Trump directed government agencies to freeze all pending regulations and to take steps to weaken the Affordable Care Act. Then, on Monday, Trump reinstated the controversial global gag rule, that bans U.S. funding for any international healthcare organizations that perform abortions, advocate for the legalization of abortion or even provide information about abortions. On that same day, Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On Tuesday, he instituted a federal hiring freeze and issued presidential memorandums to revive the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. Then, on Wednesday, Trump signed a pair of wide-reaching executive orders dealing with expanding a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, empowering state and local law enforcement to act as immigration officers, prohibiting federal funding of so-called sanctuary cities, and expanding the number of Border Patrol agents.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The secretary of homeland security, working with myself and my staff, will begin immediate construction of a border wall.

AMY GOODMAN: And more executive orders are on the way. According to leaked documents, Trump may open the door for the CIA to reopen secret overseas black site prisons. And another executive order is in the works that would temporarily ban most refugees from entering the country and reportedly block visas from being issued to anyone from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

To talk more about President Trumps actions, were joined by two guests. Vincent Warren is the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Faiza Patel is co-director of the Liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center.

Vince, lets begin with you. Before we get into the specifics of this slew of executive orders and presidential memoranda, can you talk about thiswhat has happened this week? And how binding are these moves that President Trump has made?

VINCENT WARREN: Well, this week has really been extraordinary, because weve seen that hes just rolled out a series of actions and orders. Let me talk a little bit about executive orders. Executive orders arecan be done by the president, and they come from his Article II power. And so, he or she is allowed to move forward these orders that have the force of federal law. So some of the things that weve seen have the effect of federal law. Executive actions can be much broader and actually come from a subset of the power, and they could be things like memoranda and things like that. They have varying degrees of power.

As a general rule, theyre all challengeable, particularly if the orders or the actions are unconstitutional, they violate international human rights or they violate existing federal law. But those are actions that the president can take. And just as an example, things like interning the Japanese were presidential orders, things like that. So, theres an opportunity here to not only see what hes putting forward, but a lot of us who are in the social justice field are looking for opportunities and ways to be able to challenge these executive orders and actions. But, of course, as were going to be talking about later, some of them have not come out yet. We have to see what these things say, what they actually mean, and then we have to think about ways to challenge them.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, and the difference between a presidential memorandum, as was the case with the reviving of the Keystone XL pipeline and moving forward with the Dakota Access pipeline, and an executive order?

VINCENT WARREN: Yes, there is. And, you know, itsyou could think about it as a game of presidential ping-pong. So, President Obama, for example, issued executive actions around DACA, and then President Trump is going toyou know, theoretically can come in and redo that. And similarly, with respect to the decision of President Obama not to move forward with the Keystone pipeline, President Trump comes in and issues a presidential memorandum saying move forward on that. These are challengeable issues. But we have to remember that theyre not the same as federal law and laws that pass by Congress. Laws that get passed by Congress are harder to enact, because it requires congressional consent in a vote, and theyre also harder to withdraw, because that also requires congressional consent. So the idea here is that presidents will move forward to move forward their agenda. In executive orders, its largely taking executive agencies and ordering them to do something. So, for example, ordering them to build a wall is a good example of an executive order, because its ordering the agencies under the presidents power to be able to do something.

AMY GOODMAN: So you had, for example, one of the first executive orders that President Obama issued in 2009 was closing Guantnamo in a year. So, its 2017, he served for eight years, and that never happened.

VINCENT WARREN: That never happened. And what were likely to see coming down the road, and at least if the leaked documents are correct, that President Trump is going to be issuing an order that says Guantnamo is to remain open and, in fact, that new prisoners that are captured can and should be brought to Guantnamo. So President Trump is essentially using his executive power to reverse the course of many of the things that President Obama did, including things like a permanent ban on torture with respect to the CIA and the Army and U.S. government officials.

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Trump's Executive Actions Reverse Obama Policies on Torture, Healthcare & Guantnamo Bay - Democracy Now!

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: And today marks the first anniversary of President Obama ending juvenile solitary in the federal prison system. Obama took the action in response to the case of New York City teenager Kalief Browder, who committed suicide in 2015 at the age of 22. In 2010, when Kalief was just 16, he was sent to Rikers Island, without trial, on suspicion of stealing a backpack. He always maintained his innocence and demanded a trial. Instead, he spent the next nearly three years at Rikers, nearly 800 days of that time in solitary confinement.

Here in Park City at the Utah Sundance Film Festival, Democracy Now! got an exclusive interview with Jay Z as he premiered his new docuseries, Time: The Kalief Browder Story.

AMY GOODMAN: Jay Z, you called Kalief a prophet. Why?

JAY Z: Well, you know, weve seen prophets come in many shapes and forms, and weve seen, you know, sometimes tragedy happens for our prophetsMartin Luther King. And, you know, I believe this young man, his story will save a lot of lives. You know, what was done to him was a huge injustice, and I think people see his story and realize like, man, this is going on. This is not like one case that happened. This is happening a lot for people, you know, especially places where I come frominner boroughs and Marcy Projects and the Bronx and Brooklyn and all these places. So, its very important, his story.

AMY GOODMAN: You knew Kalief. What were your thoughts when he committed suicide?

JAY Z: I wouldnt say I knew him. You know, I heard about his story, and I reached out to him, and I met him. Came to my office. The way this all happened was reallywell explain that another time, but it was meant to happen. And he came to my office, and I just, you know, wanted to see him and tell him thatgive him encouragement for what he had justfor those three years of his life that he wasthat he had missed, and, you know, just offer encouragement and anything I could do for him.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think Rikers should be closed?

JAY Z: Oh, man. Well, if anything like that is happening, if one kidif that happens to one kid, any place that that can happen to any kid should be closed.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Jay Z, executive producer of Time: The Kalief Browder Story, which premieres on Spike TV on March 1st.

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Jay Z Calls for Rikers Jail to be Closed in Exclusive Interview with Democracy Now! - Democracy Now!

A democracy is a form of government in which the people, either directly or indirectly, take part in governing. The word democracy originates from Greek, and means rule of the people.

Distinctions

Democratic governments can be divided into different types, based on a number of different distinctions. The most important distinction is between direct democracy and indirect democracy. The latter type is the most common one.

A direct democracy is a political system in which all citizens are allowed to influence policy by means of a direct vote, or referendum, on any particular issue.

Indirect democracy is a term describing a means of governance by the people through elected representatives.

A representative democracy is a system in which the people elect government officials who then make decisions on their behalf. This is often referred to as Republic, particularly in historical usages and in constitutional theory. Modern definitions of that term, however, refer to any State with an elective Head of State and most monarchies are representative democracies.

Essentially, a representative democracy is a form of indirect democracy in which leaders and representatives are democratically selected. A doctrine ofter known as Edmund Burke's Principle states that representatives should act upon their own conscience in the affairs of a representative democracy. There is also an expectation that such representatives should consider the views of their electors - particularly in the case of States with strong constituiency links. Some critics of representative democracy argue that party politics mean that representatives will be forced to follow the party line on issues, rather than either the will of their conscience or constituents.

Another form of indirect democracy is delegative democracy. In delegative democracy, delegates are selected and expected to act on the wishes of the constituency. In this form of democracy the constituency may recall the delegate at any time. One critique of delegative democracy is that it can be used to filter out the will of the base element if too many layers are added to the structure of decision making.

One important issue in a democracy is the suffrage, or the franchise - that is the decision as to who ought to be entitled to vote. Recent example of how the "right to vote" changed over history is New Zealand, which was the first country to give women the right to vote (19 September 1893). In the Athenian democracy, slaves and women were prohibited from voting.

Another important concern in a democracy is the so-called "tyranny of the majority". In a pure democracy, a majority would be empowered to do anything it wanted to any unfavored minority. For example, in a pure democracy it is theoretically possible for a majority to vote that a certain religion should be illegalized, and its members punished with death. In some countries, their Constitution intentionally designs a representative rather than a direct democracy in part to avoid the danger of the tyranny of the majority. Some proponents of direct democracy argue that not all direct democracies need to be pure democracies. They argue that just as there is a special constitutional process for amending articles in the constitutions of traditional Republics, there could be a distinction between legislation which would be handled through direct democracy and the modification of constitutional rights which would have a more deliberative procedure there attached.

Direct and Representative Democracy

Direct democracy becomes more and more difficult, and necessarily more closely approximates representative democracy, as the number of citizens grows. Historically, the most direct democracies would include the New England town meeting, and the political system of the ancient Greek city states.

There are concerns about how such systems would scale to larger populations, in this subject there are a number of experiences being conducted all over the world to increase the direct participation of citizens in what is now a representative system:

We can view direct and indirect democracies as ideal types, with actual democracies approximating more closely to the one or the other. Some modern political entities are closest to direct democracies, such as Switzerland or some U.S. States, where frequent use is made of referenda, and means are provided for referenda to be initiated by petition instead of by members of the legislature or the government.

However, elections are not a sufficient condition for the existence of democracy, in fact elections can be used by totalitarian regimes or dictatorships to give a false sense of democracy. Some examples are 1960s right-wing military dicatorships in South America, left-wing totalitarian states like the USSR until 1991 or the more prominent III Reich, in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.

Representative democracy is the most commonly used system of government in countries generally considered "democratic". However, it should be noted that the definition used to classify countries as "democratic" was crafted by Europeans and is directly influenced by the dominating cultures in those countries; care should be taken when applying it to other cultures that are tribal in nature and do no have the same historical background as the current "democratic" countries.

Discussion on Direct Democracy

The traditional, and to many still compelling, objection to direct democracy as a form of government is that it is open to demagoguery. It is for this reason that the United States was established as, in the terminology used at the time , a "republic" rather than a "democracy". Thus Benjamin Franklin's famous answer, to the question as to what sort of government the "Founding Fathers" had established, was: "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Alternative Definition of 'Democracy'

There is another definition of democracy from that given above, though it is less commonly used. According to this definition, the word "democracy" refers solely to direct democracy, whilst a representative democracy is referred to as a "republic". Using this definition, most western coutries' system of government is referred to as a "democratic-republic," rather than a democracy.

The words "democracy" and "republic" were wrongly used by some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. They argued that only a representative democracy (what they called a 'republic') could properly protect the rights of the individual; they used the word 'democracy' to refer to direct democracy, which they considered tyrannical.

From the time of old Greece up to now the definition of the word "democracy" has changed, according to most political scientists today (and most common English speakers) the term "democracy" refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it be direct or representative. The term "republic" today commonly means, a politicial system with a head of state elected for a limited term, as opposed to a constitutional monarchy.

Note however that the older terms are still sometimes used in discussions of politicial theory, especially when considering the works of Aristotle or the American "Founding Fathers". This older terminology also has some popularity in conservative and Libertarian politics in the United States.

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

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Kids.Net.Au - Encyclopedia > Democracy

Democracy Spring is a movement organization committed to winning fundamental reforms to end the corruption of big money in politics and guarantee the right to vote for all Americans. We use campaigns of escalating nonviolent action to achieve this goal and believe in the power of mass civil disobedience to transform our political system.

Last April, we brought together over 1,300 people to risk arrest on the steps of our nation's Capitol, demanding that Congress take immediate action to get money out of politics and ensure free and fair elections for all, making it the largest single act of civil disobedience of the 21st century in the United States.

In Philadelphia, we took mass nonviolent direct action to barricade the entrance to the DNC, demanding thatDemocratic Party leadershippublicly commit to pass sweeping democracy reforms to overturn Citizens United, establish publicly funded elections, and ensure comprehensive voting rights protections for all Americans within the first 100 days of a new administration AND that they abolish superdelegates immediately.

On December 19, 2016 we mobilized thousands of Americans from all 50 states to protest Donald Trump's undemocratic rise to power by calling on the Electoral College to respect the will of the people and refuse to vote for Trump.

In 2017, we are building a mass movement of nonviolent civil resistance capable of wrenching political power from elites and putting it in the hands of the people by winning sweeping democracy reforms.

Every American deserves an equal voice in government. That is our birthright of freedom, won through generations of struggle. But today our democracy is in crisis.American elections are dominated by billionaires and big money interests who can spend unlimited sums of money on political campaigns to protect their special interests at the general expense. Meanwhile, as the super-rich dominate the money primary that decides who can run for office, almost half of the states in the union have passed new laws that disenfranchise everyday voters, especially people of color and the poor.

This corruption violates the core principle of American democracy one person, one vote citizen equality. And it is blocking reform on virtually every critical issue facing our country: from addressing historic economic inequality, to tackling climate change and ending mass incarceration. We simply cannot solve the urgent crises that face our nation if we dont save democracy first.

But if the status quo goes unchallenged, the 2016 election already set to be the most billionaire-dominated, secret money-drenched, voter suppression-marred contest in modern American history will likely yield a President and a Congress more bound to the masters of big money than ever before. And our planet and people just cant afford that. But there is another possibility.

The moment is ripe. Poll after poll shows transpartisan public frustration with the corrupt status quo reaching new, nearly unanimous highs. Voters in Maine and Seattle just passed bold new anti-corruption laws to enact citizen funded elections. A growing democracy movement has lifted this issue into the public debate. Yet Congress refuses to act.

The stage is set for a bold intervention to turn the tinder of passive public frustration into a fire that transforms the political climate in America, that sparks a popular movement that can't be stopped. How? From Selma to Occupy Wall Street, the Tar Sands Action to Black Lives Matter, everyday people have proven the power of mass, escalating nonviolent action to rapidly shift the political weather and open the door to reforms previously considered impossible.

Right now, as the national election takes center stage, Americans of all ages, faiths, political perspectives, and walks of life have brought the popular cry for change to Washington in a way that's been impossible to ignore: with nonviolent civil disobedience on a historic scale.

When we arrived in DC on April 11th, we gave Congress a simple choice: either take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in politics and ensure the right to vote or arrest over 1,300 Americans simply for demanding an equal voice in government. Their refusal to act and their readiness to condemn so many exposes the depth of corruption that pervades our political system.

The historic march and capitol sit-ins this April inspired millions of people across the country. But that was just a beginning. From here, we need to take the fight home to states across the union, challenging candidates and elected officials to take a side, lifting up those whodeclare their supportfor fundamental reforms to fix or democracy, and exposing those who refuse to do so as defenders of the corrupt status quo. We will disrupt their fundraisers, their debates, their press conferences, and ultimately, their chances at the polls.

We have been able to focus the nations attention as never before on the urgency of this crisis, the existence of solutions to it, and the strength of the popular demand to enact them. Now, we will make this election a referendum on whether our democracy should belong to the People as a whole or to the billionaire class alone.

Thats a referendum we can win, setting the stage to achieve fundamental reform that will give us finally the democracy for all we were promised.

This is the hour to stand tall, to challenge each other to rise to this historic moment in which we did not choose to live, but which we now must choose to face. With love, with courageous hope, with the legacy of those who struggled for freedom before us in our minds we must act with a determination matching the urgency of this crisis. Join us.

#DemocracySpring

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Democracy Spring