Tag: democracy

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At Large Opinion

Sea Change

Photo © Lawrence Wee | Dreamstime.com

A pelican glides by just offshore, there, out where the blue dolphins dance, emerging and disappearing into the sea. The kite hangs overhead, side-slipping in the ocean breeze, tethered to your umbrella pole by a gracile thread. You push your new sunglasses up on your nose and soak in the sun, the blue sky, the bleached sand; you hear the surf mumbling, “Stay.”

I could do it, you think, shifting in your canvas chair. “I could get a job renting beach umbrellas or maybe working on a fishing boat. In the evenings, I’ll sip margaritas and finish the novel.”

Your young daughter hands you a sand dollar from a plastic bucket filled with saltwater currency. “Let’s go cash this in,” you say. “We’ll buy this place.

The cast is perfect, a dry fly circling at the deep end of an eddy. There is a flash of silver and a tug that feels like you’ve hooked the river and it wants off. The trout streaks into the current, jumps once, twice, takes line, gives it back a reel-turn at a time. You stand in the riffle, gravel crunching, sliding under your feet. “This is a good one,” you think. Minutes later you net the fat rainbow, admire it for a few seconds, and release it back into the pool.

“I wonder what a piece of land on this stream would cost,” you wonder. “I could live here, deep in these dark woods, enjoying a life of fishing, solitude, and contemplation — become a wise old man.”

You’re sitting on the pool steps, waist-deep in cool water, deep in the steamy jungles of Quintana Roo, south of Cancun. The house is modern, open, with glass walls overlooking the pool on one side and the twisted green jungle on the other. Every morning, a troop of monkeys swings by, screeching through the trees as you sit outside with your coffee, marveling at the strangeness of it all.

“I’ve decided this must be a drug lord’s house,” your wife says from her chaise lounge, not opening her eyes. “Who else would build a place like this in the middle of nowhere?”

“They didn’t mention that in the rental brochure,” you say, “but whoever owns this house certainly knows how to get away from it all.”

Two grackles land near the diving board and begin dipping their heads in the water and shivering it off. They chortle and chatter like an old couple in the park. You slip neck-deep into the pool and they fly away, complaining at the intrusion. 

“Hey, I’m thinking maybe we should look into property in this area.”

“Sure,” she says.

Two-hour layover in the Atlanta airport. You’re sitting in a bar that has a stupid name, talking to a man in gray — gray suit, socks, tie. He’s on his way to St. Louis, a software rep for a company you’ve heard of. You both watch as five men walk into the place — scruffy hair, tattoos, colorful funky clothes — obviously a band. You overhear them talking about going to the Bahamas to record. 

“Nice work if you can get it,” says the gray man.

“I used to be in a band myself,” you say.

“Really?” says Mr. Gray. “Me, too!”

You sigh and take another pull on your beer.

How many times have you been tempted to start over, to ditch your life, your career, and make a big change? If you’re like me, those moments occurred, but were seldom followed up on, unless you count moving to a new city to take a job, which last happened to me in 1993.

Change is difficult, even when the goal is worthy and attainable. It’s much more difficult when it’s not worthy and it’s forced upon you, and when you’re not sure how to fight against it. That’s where we all are now, in the midst of an attempt to change how our country will be governed, to overturn our core human values. Democracy itself seems tethered by a gracile thread. I take solace in knowing we’re all in this together, and that that’s the only way we’ll get out of it. I don’t know how it ends. I do think that we’re well past the “have a margarita and watch the dolphins” stage. Courage, my friends. 

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At Large Opinion

Keepers of the Flame

Photo: Evgeniya Leonova | Dreamstime.com

The presidential inauguration in the Capitol rotunda on Monday marked the return to power of the most controversial and scandal-plagued president in American history. It felt a little like when the second plane hit the tower on 9/11 — the moment when we knew it wasn’t an accident.

Monday was also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and here in Memphis — the city where Dr. King was assassinated in 1968 — the celebration of his life takes on a special significance. The NBA’s annual MLK Day celebration featured the Memphis Grizzlies hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the National Civil Rights Museum held a day of events called “Community Over Chaos,” which seemed a most fitting theme.

But before it fades into history, buried by the noisy deluge of Trump drama, I want to take note of former President Biden’s farewell address of last week. As might be expected, he cited the achievements of his administration — the record job-creation numbers, the long-desired ceasefire in the Middle East, the strengthening of NATO, and the ongoing resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine — but his real purpose in his speech seemed to be to deliver a warning, to address, as he said, “some things that give me great concern.”

Citing President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, in which he warned the country about the dangers posed by the “military industrial complex,” Biden decried the rise of a new threat, one he called the “tech industrial complex.”

“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power,” Biden warned. “The free press is crumbling. Errors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.” No errors detected.

The tech industrial complex was on full display in the Rotunda on Monday, including Sundar Pichai (Google), Tim Cook (Apple), Jeff Bezos (Amazon, The Washington Post), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Threads), and Elon Musk (X, Tesla, Starlink, xAI).

Never have so few had so much unbridled power to influence public opinion and so much money to invest in doing so. And it doesn’t help that they’re supplicating themselves (and giving millions of dollars) to the new president to curry his favor. It’s called obeying in advance, and it’s worrisome stuff. Journalism is in danger of being put out of business by “content providers” that have no ethical qualms about ignoring the truth in favor of whatever makes a profit — or makes the president happy.

CNN, ABC, and even MSNBC have also made at least token moves to ameliorate relations with the new administration. CNN buried Trump critic Jim Acosta in a late-night slot. ABC settled a libel lawsuit with Trump that it easily would have won in court. Facebook eliminated fact-checkers. Companies are getting rid of diversity hiring programs. Macho (“masculine energy”) is all the rage among the tech bros. Women’s healthcare rights continue to be eroded in red states.

Biden called it “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people,” and cited the consequences “if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” What Biden was describing is an oligarchy. Merriam-Webster (remember dictionaries?) defines it as “a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.”

Can there be any doubt that an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power, and influence is moving into power in the United States, one that threatens our democracy and our basic rights and freedoms?

Democracy depends upon the will of the people, and if the people are misinformed, disinformed, or uninformed, they can be manipulated. As we well know, public opinion — and elections — can turn on well-funded, broadly circulated lies and propaganda.

Our social media platforms are already permeated by disinformation, mostly via bots that skillfully imitate real people and overwhelm legitimate content by their sheer numbers. Artificial intelligence is now upping that deception to previously unknown heights. Biden called AI “the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.”

The former president concluded by saying to his fellow Americans, “It’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keepers of the flame.” That doesn’t feel like malarkey, folks. 

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Christophe Testi | dreamstime.com

Despite all the blather about democracy, we did not

invent it, do not support it, and have during the current administration become less democratic than we were before.

We are and always have been too large a country for a true democracy. That’s why the Founding Fathers created a

republic. In a true democracy, the people would decide practically all the issues. In a republic, the people delegate that power to elected representatives who serve for a fixed term.

A republic is a good form of government provided the people pay attention, fairly judge the performance of their elected officials, and boot ’em out of office when they don’t cut the mustard. It is a good form of government provided the best people, not the worst, offer themselves to serve in public office.

Our government really does not support democracy, except rhetorically. When the Palestinians had a free and fair election and chose Hamas members to man their government, we refused to recognize the new government. Apparently, the Bush administration’s definition of a free election is one that provides the results the president wants.

Most of our “allies” are far from democratic. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states are all authoritarian in one form or another. Ironically, Iran does have an elected government, but there again, it’s one Bush doesn’t like. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been elected and reelected but still gets called a tyrant by Bush’s step-and-fetch-its. While China, which is a stern one-party dictatorship, seems to find our favor.

I’d say that if you are a dictator seeking the favor of the United States, you must offer financial incentives or volunteer for lapdog status.

If you dare indicate that you are interested in the welfare of your own people and your own nation, you are likely to end up on the president’s bathroom list. This basic rule of foreign policy doesn’t seem to change regardless of which party occupies the White House.

It also should be noted that people keep insisting that Iran give up weapons it doesn’t have while remaining dead silent about the nuclear weapons Israel does have. If our government were truly interested in nuclear nonproliferation, it would support a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East that includes Israel, and it would not be making deals to increase the nuclear capability of India.

So, the second rule of American foreign policy is that hypocrisy and expedience trump principles.

Internally, we have become decisively less democratic. The present administration has a bad habit of questioning the patriotism and loyalty of people who disagree with it. It spies on everybody without any judicial restraint. It has riddled the government with partisans who are incompetent. It is the most secretive administration in American history. It lies like a drunken fisherman. It puts people in jail and holds them incommunicado without charges. It tortures people. It is contemptuous of the Constitution and especially of the principle of checks and balances.

Congress is too cowardly to do it, but George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are a lot more likely to deserve impeachment than Bill Clinton was. Clinton lied about his private sexual peccadilloes, while the Bush administration seems to lie about everything. Clinton lied to prevent a war with Hillary, while the Bush mob lied to get us into a war in Iraq. A big difference, I’d say.

Thomas Jefferson did not believe that one generation had the right to burden another with debt. Our $9 trillion federal debt is a burden on generations too numerous to count. This is almost as serious a civic sin as lying the country into a war.

We seem to be following the familiar path of history, where republics slide into empire and eventually a fascist dictatorship. Too bad that freedom, like a good spouse, is most appreciated in its absence.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

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News News Feature

Think Locally

One Supreme Court justice, 1,500 lawyers, and a disgraced former prime minister out of a population of nearly 150 million people hardly constitute great opposition to President Pervez Musharraf, who has declared a state of emergency in Pakistan.

For Americans to prattle about a “return” to democracy is both silly and hypocritical. Musharraf was a dictator when we asked for his help after 9/11, has been a dictator ever since, and very likely will remain a dictator unless some assassin gets lucky.

Furthermore, democracy in Pakistan has a sorry history of corruption, coups, and assassinations. The best and smartest thing we can do is simply keep our mouths shut and let the Pakistanis work it out for themselves. In a country where Osama bin Laden is more popular than George W. Bush, our influence is virtually nil anyway. As long as President Bush wants to keep troops in Afghanistan, he needs Musharraf more than Musharraf needs him.

Unfortunately, too many of the baby-boomer generation are blathermouths. They have this insane notion that they have to “make a statement” on everything in the world, not realizing that words won’t even ruffle the wing of a gnat. To make matters worse, we’ve developed an industry of chatterers on radio and television, hardly one of whom is the least bit knowledgeable of the topics he beats his gums about.

No American who hasn’t spent years in Pakistan is qualified to talk about the situation there. It takes that long to learn who the players are and where the power structure lies. Looking at fleeting images of crowds on television doesn’t tell you anything except that there are crowds in a very crowded country. Ignorance is best served by silence, lest it spread.

Besides, we have only a limited and narrow legitimate interest in Pakistan. It’s not our country. It’s not on our borders. Our only interest is, will Pakistan assist us in the war against terrorism (to use the bad metaphor of the Bush administration)? If the answer is yes, it doesn’t matter to us who is in charge of the country. As the ancient saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Right now would be a good time to turn off the television sets in America. The writers are on strike, and soon there will be nothing but reruns of reruns. Apparently, none of the late-night comedians is able to write his own material. The news shows are a joke. If you get lonesome for a talking image, play a DVD or a tape.

In the meantime, your local newspaper will keep you informed, though keep in mind much of what we journalists classify as news is really irrelevant to our readers. If you live on the East Coast, you might have some idle curiosity about wildfires in California, but you can easily do without the information. Random crimes and accidents outside of your local community are likewise irrelevant and useless. It is not a good idea to clutter up one’s mind with useless and irrelevant information.

For years, Americans have been propagandized to “think globally” when we should be thinking locally, which is the only place where we have any influence. I know there are busybodies who desire to save the world and actually think they are doing it if they buy a sack of organic coffee or send a check to some self-proclaimed charity.

But the world is a pitiless place, where power rules. If you have no power, you have no influence. Sometimes even if you have power you have no influence, because most people in the world are not cowards. Palestinians, for example, have been defying Israeli power for more than 60 years.

Think and act locally. It’s our only chance at making a difference. And forget about Pakistan’s internal politics.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

A Bully Puppet

Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is rising a notch in my estimation. He’s begun to snap back at his American critics. Bully for him.

Arrogant American politicians, in calling for his ouster, shed all pretense of any interest in democracy. Clearly, they see themselves as imperial overlords dissatisfied with someone they consider an American stooge. American generals even now are starting to talk about the need for a dictator, though they don’t use that term. Maybe, they are telling journalists, democracy for Iraq wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Nevertheless, al-Maliki is the legitimately chosen head of a legitimately elected government. It’s not up to American senators and presidential candidates to decide who should be prime minister of Iraq. These empty-headed windbags wouldn’t dream of calling for the ouster of the British prime minister. That they so readily do so in the case of Iraq simply shows you how they disdain the democracy they claim to support.

In fairness to al-Maliki, it should be pointed out that the much-publicized hand-over of “sovereignty” to the Iraqi government was and is a sham. Iraq’s army has to answer to the Americans, not to the Iraqi government. Iraq has no intelligence agency. The intelligence agency was set up and is run by the CIA. The U.S. is still the occupier of Iraq, and there is relatively little freedom of the Iraqi government to set its own policies.

Add to that the fact that the Iraqi government, regardless of who leads it, is stuck with a country that we “bombed back into the pre-industrial age,” to use the boastful phrase of General Norman Schwarzkopf during the first Gulf War. Then, with our singularly inept attempt at occupation, we fired its government and its army.

If every member of the Iraqi parliament had a genius IQ, they’d have a hard time digging themselves out of the hole we dug for the country.

The Iraqi fiasco is a black comedy — black because of the tragic loss of life and suffering it has caused, but a comedy nevertheless because of the Three Stooges-type antics of American officials, beginning with President Bush.

The president has misled and continues to mislead the American people in an attempt to rationalize his failed policy. His pathetically juvenile claim that the terrorists would follow Americans home if the U.S. withdrew from Iraq is laughable. Al-Qaeda declared war on us long before we did it the enormous favor of invading Iraq, thus both reinforcing al-Qaeda’s propaganda and providing it with a new recruitment and training ground.

Bush’s ill-fated war has not only increased the stock of the world’s terrorists, it replaced a Sunni-led government with a Shiite-led government that is close to Iran. You couldn’t screw this situation up any worse than if you had let Osama bin Laden plan the invasion. I have never seen such a stupid administration as this one.

And make no mistake — there is no easy solution or way out of this morass. Just as so many knowledgeable people, both here and in the Middle East, warned the president beforehand, Bush has set loose the wild dogs of war — chaos and havoc in a previously stable region — and he doesn’t have any idea at all of how to round them up.

I long ago predicted the end result of this blundering around would be a new dictatorship, because a brutally strong central authority is the only way Iraq’s feuding factions can be controlled. This time, however, it likely will be someone allied to Iran.

Iraq’s misery and difficulties remind me of a quotation from a Turkish officer, who said, “The trouble with being an ally of the United States is that you can never tell when it’s going to decide to stab itself in the back.”

Amen.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.