Bush call for democracy draws scorn from Palestinians

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH



US President George W. Bush's call on Thursday for greater democracy in the Middle East drew rebukes from Palestinian commentators and officials, who condemned Washington for its continued support for Israel.

Bush said the U.S. strategy of supporting non-democratic Arab leaders over the past 60 years had been a failure and challenged Syria, Iran, and Egypt to adopt democracy.

<snip>

Ali Sadek, a prominent political analyst, wrote in the Palestinian Authority's official Al-Ayyam newspaper that the policy of the Bush Administration made the US one of the most hated countries in the world.

"Bush is searching for an excuse to intimidate the Arab governments so that they would agree to play functional roles that serve his imperialist policy," Sadek said.

"In our view the worst Arab regime, with regards to freedom and constitutional rights, is more democratic than the US. The American democracy is arrogant and offensive, and this is reflected in the picture of the American soldier trampling with his boots on an Iraqi citizen who is fasting during the month of Ramadan. This is similar to the daily killings of Palestinian children."

(Has anyone seen this picture?)

<snip>

Fuad Abu Hijleh, another Palestinian commentator, said the "Arab street" hates the US because it's an imperialist superpower that is hostile to the freedom and advancement. "The Arab peoples hate America because of its bias towards Israel and because it supports tyrannical regimes in the Arab world," he explained.

"They hate America because it is occupying Iraq and is threatening to occupy Syria, looks down on the Arabs, is waging a war against the real Islam, and because it is stealing Arab oil. We hate America and we don't hide this."

<snip>
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1068273139942&p=1008596981749

it's a load of junk.

Is it then your opinion that Arab states like Syria and Egypt are democratic enough or that they do not need democracy?

I'd like him better. But he doesn't. He wants to insert more American puppets into the Middle East.

EDITED for spelling

Ms. Gimel, you are not here. In America, we are not used to being a banana republic. Bush lost the election of 2000, then seized power through fraud and manipulation. He has used his ill-gotten gain, the White House, to give his cronies the keys the the treasury. He has used the attacks of September 11 to persuade congress to pass legistlation curtailing civil liberties. He went to war against Iraq, justifiying it with a pack of lies. In fact, the invasion was just one more way he has cooked up to remunerate those who contributed to his campaign. It really had no other purpose. In spite of what you Israelis may think, it didn't do anything for you, either. Bringing Saddam down in this way hasn't and will not prevent one suicide bombing.

The truth is that, as crooked and unsavory as they are, comparing Bush to Assad or Mubarak is an insult to Arab leaders.

Bush has undermined American democracy and has no intention of allowing the Iraqis to be self-governing. If the Iraqis were self-governing, they would throw Halliburton out of their country. Bush has no business lecturing anybody about democracy.

:thumbsup:

The American election process is something else. It is a form of democracy, not pure, by any means. The purest form of democracy may have existed on the kibbutz, but even there the vote was limited to one per household (which in effect eliminated women's votes). Your system of an electoral college is at fault, it seems to me. Florida alone swung the final vote, although not without the stalemate of the other 49 state's electoral college votes.

People here don't like Sharon who was elected without the intervention of such an electoral vote. Neither are voting machines used in Israel. Only a simple slip of paper is counted for each vote. So you see, it's not democracy that is objected to, but the man in power.

Assad and Mubarak were elected like Arafat. One name on the ballot. Education is also an important element for democracy. Education and a free press. These things are rare in the Arab countries.

However, I'm not so sure that the American way is best for these countries either. They have a right to practice their religion, but not to murder other cultures and other religions.

(I)t's not democracy that is objected to, but the man in power.

You seem to have missed the point of my post. What is odious about Bush is that he undermines democracy. Bush is in power because the American electoral process was subverted. You also seem to have missed the news that before a single vote in Florida was cast and a few not counted, about 90,000 voters were illegally scrubbed from the rolls by Katherine Harris. The Republicans stole the election. That is only disputed by liars and fools.

Nothing in my post had anything to do with Sharon.

I agree with you that Assad and Mubarak are not the products of democratic processes. However, they didn't subvert a democratic process. Bush did.

For Bush to talk about democracy is like Willie Sutton talking about making an honest living. Bush is a threat to American democratic institutions. He is hostile to democracy. He isn't just a poor president; he's dangerous.

You seem to have missed my point all together. However, let's not discuss the US election results here. If the US were a real democracy, you seem to say in your first post above, and Bush was actually elected, he could then, and only then be pure enough to use persuasion in suggesting that powerful monarchies in the Middle East hold open elections.

If you thought that the US was a functioning democracy, you might agree that he has the right to say what he has said. Perhaps he would be promoting corruption and vote stealing instead. At least he would be honest, heh?


What I am saying, the 'democratic process' in the US may not be perfect, but it doesn't make the US any less powerful in the world. Maybe people are scared. By promoting democracy, Bush seems to be doing something good, however ill-gotten his own office. That is, if you believe in democracy at all. If by saying this he is then intending to forcefully transform those nations which he calls "the axis of evil" rather than using diplomatic pressure, then he would be undermining his own message. What Iraq has proven, it seems to me, is that if a dictator is removed by force, the outcome could be almost as destructive as the power of the dictator that was removed.

I am glad to agree with you Gimel! ;-)

when he cuts aid to Egypt, starts pressuring Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to change, ends relationships with Uzbekistan, and cancels aid to Pakistan, perhaps I'll start listening to him...

At least you got the point.

It isn't that Bush says that more democracy is needed in the Middle East. Democracy is needed in the Middle East. However, we don't need Bush to tell us that. Iin fact, it would be a lot more credible coming from somebody else -- almost anybody else.

What is ludicrous is the idea that Bush is going to promote democracy in the Middle East or anywhere else. The invasion of Iraq was not about democracy. It was colonialism; it was gunboat diplomacy with Cruise missiles. Through his viceroy, Paul Bremer, Bush is not going to permit any self government in Iraq. As far as Bush is concerned, the Iraqis can do whatever they want, as long as the country is sold to US transnational corporations.

Even thugs like Assad and Mubarak can see through that. So do Arabs on the street. It isn't democracy Bush is selling and they know it. They are absolutely right to laugh in his face.

He has no culture. He lacks qualities os a leader and orator. Where are the good old days of FDR? (before my time, for sure).

What bothers me more is that he is a cynic. He will only propose what benefits him and his friends and clothe it in terms of benefitting someone else, when that someone else is being set up to be screwed.

For me to defend the honorable title of cynic from such abusive mis-use. The jackanapes is a mere thieving booster, a babbit in cowboy costume; at most he rises to the stature of rank hypocrite.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

!!

See also my post number 41, above, and post number 19n by The Magistrate, below.

The election in Florida and the passage of the Patriot Act are relevant to this discussion as evidence that Bush is not a democrat and is, in fact, hostile to democracy.

I agree with your point that Arab countries would benefit from democracy. Of course, I believe in democracy, which I define ideally as a state where:

• Citizenship is universal. All people born within the boundaries of the state, born abroad of at least one citizen parent or who swear allegiance to the state through a naturalization process are citizens.
• Citizenship is equal. Each citizen has an equal opportunity to participate in and influence civic affairs; decisions are made by majority vote on a one man/one vote principle.
• Citizenship is inalienable. A set of guaranteed civil liberties is in place in order to assure free and open discourse on civic affairs; no citizen may be stripped of his citizenship or otherwise punished for giving to voice an unpopular view.

That is not what Bush is selling. Bush is selling that odious version of free market where transnational corporations are permitted to buy up a developing nation's resources for their own benefit, not those of the citizens of the nation. There may be nominally free elections in Bush's vision, but they voters would choose from candidates selected by the elites in the business class. Discourse on civic affairs would be limited to what those same elites, who control most print and electronic media, permit to be said and heard.

In short, Ms. Gimel, I would dispute that America today is a democracy. I would also dispute that Bush's plan for the Middle East has anything to do with democracy. Most importantly, I would question whether what Bush has in mind would benefit the average Arab or would improve his life over what it is now under the rule of authoritarian crooks like Mubarak or Assad. In fact, Arabs might be better off if they pass on Bush's plan and work out one of their own.

is more than true. As a Texan I could tell you more than you already know. But, he has not murdered and tortured thousands upon thousands of Americans. Assad is a mass murderer, Mobarak tortures and terrorized his population. You have taken hyperbole to a new low.


KRISTALLNACHT...NEVER AGAIN

with about ten thousand innocent people dead in two wars?

Can any of them compete with conditions in Guantanomo?

Can any of them compete with the horridness of corporate imperialism (known innaccurately as "globalization") and its harm to hundreds of millions of people across the world?

Can any of them compete with Bush's and the US's propping up of Mubarak and the House of Saud and the leaders of Kuwait and of other despots across the world?

No, it is not hyperbole. Bush is the most dangerous man in the world today. He is crooked. He has used war as a means to steal.

Perhaps Mubarak uses torture, but Bush has done this by proxy. He contracts out to countries ruled by people like Mubarak to do his torture. POWs in Afghanistan in US custody have been asphyxiated to death.

Camp X-Ray is from first to last a defiance of the Third Geneva Convention. Last spring, George Monbiot detailed the possible violations of international law at Guantanamo for which the junta has been responsible.

Bush should be brought before an international tribunal and made to answer for war crimes and crimes against humanity. That's not hyperbole. That's a call for justice.

The concept of democracy in the Arab world is, by and large, a lot of junk.

Democracy is government by the people. Bush wants government by american puppets.

Nothing new here when it comes to US Middle East foreign policy...

Democracy or democracy for Arabs?

I was pretty sure that Darranar was referring to the idea of Bush being genuinelly interested in bringing democracy to the Middle East as being a load of junk, which of course it is...

Violet...

the idea of an unelected right-winger who has already shown his greed for oil and power actually trying to genuinely bring demcoracy to the Middle East is comletely ridiculous.

Not to mention the fact that it contradicts US foreign policy for the past sixty years or so...

with your great perceptive powers of what others really mean.

Considering Darranar had already said what he meant in post 12 before you asked that loaded question, there was only a basic reading comprehension skill needed to be pretty sure that he was referring to Bush genuinely wanting to bring democracy to the Middle East as junk....

Violet...

of the Palestinian people.

He probably thinks some court appointed him or something.

and didnt this "democratically elected leader" CANCEL

elections in 1998 because he's afraid that gravy-train

of grand-larceny will come to a flying stop ??

He also would like to run unopposed to insure his own victory. Look at how much more money he could pocket for himself if he didn't have to spend it on TV mis-advertising.

replies you have ever made. Thanks for the smile.

Well I guess beating an unknown 70+ something social worker in 1996 is technically a democratic election.

And I'll just assume cancelling the next scheduled election was just a cost cutting measure by Arafat to cut government waste. I hear it's hard to keep costs down when so much revenue get skimmed off the top.

The violence is not going to cease as long as America continues to occpy Iraq. Period. As long as there are American troops in Iraq and American Corporations controlling the Iraqi economy there will be rocket attacks and suicide bombings.

The only thing that makes the American occupation different from the Israeli one is that the insurgents are better armed. Also, most of the targets in Iraq are legitimate. The Iraqi resistance is not randomly targetting innocents - mostly because there are no innocent Americans in Iraq.

What the neo-cons fail to understand is that the Iraqis are not going to stop killing Americans. There is NO WAY America can win this war. We have a small demoralized occupation force fighting against citizen soldiers defending their homeland. The Iraqis are defending their women, children, their culture, their businesses, their religion, their homes.

The only way to win the Iraqi war is the genocide/attrition of the Sunni opposition - men, women, children. You cannot win an immoral war without throwing away all moral restraints. You are going to have to wipe out entire ethnic segments of the Iraqi population. Bush doesn't have the stomach for this and thus America will lose. Wolfowitz has driven America off a cliff. We either become Nazis or we lose the War on Terror.

They're the least democratic Arab country of all.

they friends with the Bush's! First come friends and oil interests then human rights and those other pesky things...

First comes corporate interests (oil included), then comes political gain.

Human rights is at the bottom.

But some are more democratic than others.
Saudis are one of the less democratic democracies.

:thumbsup:

All friends of the USA must be demcoratic, because the good ol' USA is the only nation capable of global leadership. Hence, anyone who accepts Pax Americana understands the needs of the world, and is a government of the people.

Even that overstates the case: the policy is the prevention of democracy. Given the state of play, that might even be a necessary policy, viewed through the lens of realpolitik, but those persons on the receiving end can hardly be expected to applaud the eyewash.

Though I sincerely doubt that such policies are neccesary for any reason...

In circumstances where it seemed likely an election would be won by an Islamicist party, my own policy would be to strive and prevent it.

My opposition to that line is in earnest....

in most of the Arab states, or at least not for any long period of time.

Fundamentalism, extremism, and terrorism all thrive on a lack of freedom, oppression, fear, desperation, and other such emotions. A democratic nation would considerably reduce such sentiments.

It is possible that I am being overly optimistic. However, a curbing of political freedom in the way that you seem to be advocating would enhance such sentiments, not reduce them, in the long run. It seems to me that the temporary advantage would not be offset by the long-term disadvantage caused by meddling in another nation's affairs.

And let us not forget the example in Jordan, where only six seats out of one hundred ten were filled by an Islamist party.

At least by local standards has something of a democratic tradition, and there is more control to voting there than meets the eye.

Perhaps my own inclination is more pessemistic (it should come as no surprise to find me in the glass half empty school), but there is such a thing as "One man, one vote, once" in these situations.

that there is a strong Islamist movement in the Middle East. But such things come and go; with the improvement of the domestic solution there, the movement will lose recruits.

However, the chance of a consistently Islamist state in any place in the Arab world seems not very high to me, unless the elcted Islamist government makes efforts to reduce political freedoms.

The two areas where such fundamentalist rule seem most likely is in a democratic Iraq (or perhaps a Shiite state in what is now Iraq) or Saudi Arabia, due to a large amount of Wahabist sentiment there. Both of those places have endured devestating domestic problems; in Saudi Arabia, as in Kuwait, the gap between rich and poor is rather large; the oil managers are rich while the workers are poor, and in Iraq three wars, a brutal tyranny, and ten years of sanctions have had to be endured. If the glaring domestic problems in both of those states are improved such fundamentalist sentiment would be reduced considerably.

On edit: This post was intended as a reply to the above post, but got rather off-topic. It is essentially a little elaboration on some of the points made in my earlier post.

An Islamicist government could be counted on to do that. They would not be true to their own beliefs if they did not: how the mere will of the people set aside the commands of supreme diety?

The experience of Iran is somewhat instructive in this regard. The will of the people against the continuance of the ayatollahs' rule has been clearly expressed at the polls, and yet they continue in power, having rigged the structure of government so that no important act can be taken without a clerical council's approval, and all control over armed echelons of government remain in clerical control.

there was no state of democracy in between.

The Islamist revolution in Iran was labeled as a populist movement agaisnt a brutal dictator - and it was somewhat, though like the one in Russia, the result was simply another brutal dictator. If the existence of a democracy in an Arab state could gather such populist support, the Islamists would not be able to take power. If the democracy was the result of popular will against a dictator (as might have happened under saddam, had a number of things gone differently) it would certainly have such populist appeal. The encouragement of such actions in the Middle East is a useful US policy goal, as long as US oil interests in the region decrease.

"that there is a strong anti-Semitic movement in Germany. But such things come and go; with the improvement of the domestic solution there, the movement will lose recruits."

The exact words my family in Europe said to my father when he begged them to leave before it was too late. After the war, there was exactly one person to rescue, one out of at least 100 people. Why don't we believe them when they say exactly what they mean.


kristalnacht: never again!

surely you understand analogy?


The 600th + Jews in the Arab world have, at least the vast majority, resettled in Israel. The majority of remaining Jews in the world are in Israel & the USA.

Plus on this day, I find your lack of ________ insulting to the extreme!

kristalnacht: Never Again!

racism, when its target is at hand, can be an extremely damaging factor, even if it is simply temporary.

And it generally is temporary - look at Germany today.

You find my lack of ______ insulting? How clear of you! I'll be sure to have more _______, whatever it is.

I know you are not anti-semitic.

I know you are not a holocaust denier.

I know you are not a racist.

Yet, I still do not what you meant to imply.

I was speaking of democracy in the Middle East and Islamism with The Magistrate.

rini then took a statement from my post, out of context, and attacked it with a statement that really had nothing to do with anything.

I did not say that in my original post; I decided to address what rini said, instead of the target statement that rini addressed it to. Perhaps that was a mistake, but what's done is done.

She implied that the threat from Islamism was as great as the threat from the Nazis was in the late 1920s and 1930s - this is junk, because as I pointed out, there are not six million Jews in the Middle East, and there are far less then that if one removes Israel from the picture - as they should, because there is really no chance of Israel falling to Arab attackers.

Do you understand me now?

What you just said is IMO much worse than anything you might or might not have meant before.


"She implied that the threat from Islamism was as great as the threat from the Nazis was in the late 1920s and 1930s - this is junk, because as I pointed out, there are not six million Jews in the Middle East, and there are far less then that if one removes Israel from the picture - as they should, because there is really no chance of Israel falling to Arab attackers."

I posted your words so that their is no misunderstanding about what we are talking about.

1) The threat is junk because their are not six million Jews in the Middle East. My question. What number of Jews is necessary for it to be a threat?

2) Their is really no chance of Israel falling to Arab Attackers. If that is true, I guess their is no longer a need for Israel to have an army? Please explain your logic here, I am totally lost.

but it isn't as serious as the threat from the Holocaust.

And that's what I said.

As for your last point, please give me a break.

a while back, about how Israel was so superior that it could
afford to reduce it's forces. It was from an Israeli military
think tank, IIRC, and that would seem to support your point.

Edit: no, no, don't thank me, it is nothing, really.
:-)

but Israel's military superiority is rather clear, article or not.

Let's see, how many wars have they LOST?

Aside from Lebanon, which was which was for reasons more political than military, Israel has won every war it has fought. Even without US aid, that superiority is not likely to disappear any time soon, and the Arab nations haven't invaded for thirty years now anyway.

But I would agree that the Arabs are not much interested in
an aggressive conventional war at this point. It is hard to see how
it could work out for them, and they know it.

showed that the Israelis weren't invincible - though it also showed that Israel could not be defeated in a conventional war. The arab nations had every advantage - surprise, the holiday, a series of mistakes made in the beginning - but they were defeated - and rather soundly - by Israel nevertheless. So it sort of was a political victory for both sides - it restored the faith the Arabs had in themselves, but it also showed the Arab nations that Israel was likely a permanent facet of their situation.

I quoted you precisely. The fact you choose to walk away from your own words is sad at best.

And I quoted them exactly in that post for you to see.

because I said that equating the threat from Islamism with the threat that existed from Nazism was junk, and if you had read the statement that you posted closely enough you would have realized that.

Reread it, please.

"She implied that the threat from Islamism was as great as the threat from the Nazis was in the late 1920s and 1930s - this is junk, because as I pointed out, there are not six million Jews in the Middle East, and there are far less then that if one removes Israel from the picture - as they should, because there is really no chance of Israel falling to Arab attackers."

THESE ARE YOUR WORDS SIR.

She implied that the threat from Islamism was as great as the threat from the Nazis was in the late 1920s and 1930s - this is junk

As great as - those are the key words. Not that Islamism isn't a threat - it is - but it is not as great a threat as the Nazis. Saying so is a load of junk.

Yes, those are my words - please read them very carefully next time.

with your 6 million comment, if you will

At what "NUMBER" would it be "not junk"?

Mr. Rabbit and yourself have given some of the best nutshell illustrations of what US policy currently is w/r to the Middle East I've seen in some time. It CERTAINLY isn't for the establishment of democracy given the basic premise that Bush wishes to establish certain controls which benefit his cronies economically over the long term. This control is obviously antithetical to the idea of democracy where the populi are free to chart their own future and instead smacks more of neo-colonialism than anything else.

L-

Isreal too :smoke: :evilgrin:

...heck bring back the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

jail Asscroft and Boosh.

About how Israel is allegedly not democratic?

nt

That wasn't what I said or asked. I asked a specific question which has been specifically avoided.

As you well know.

The perfect cannot well be erected as merely the enemy of the good.

And the blandness of my answer reflected my distinterst in the question.

I am here to attack Bush, , not to discuss Israel's intternal political system...which I really don't know all that mch about, or care much about...this thread is about bush and his hypocritical call for Democracy, which is both a joke and an insult to any thinking person, and does not turn in any way, as far as I am concerned, on how much or how litle democracy there is in Israel.

I presume we are all here 'to attack Bush', however, this thread is in the I/P forum and therefore your statement that "...Israel's internal political system...which I really don't know all that much about, or care much about..." might behoove you to move on.

No disrespect intended, just a simple observation.

And he is a hypocrite and a dirtbag, and has no credibility to speak about democracy for anyone.

Secondly, I don't care that Israel is a democracy as such, at least as far as this issue is concrened

If it were a dictatorship, I would STILL argue that the Israeli state has a right to exist, just as Egypt does, for example, which is no democracy at all, but is a sovreign nation with rights nevertheless.

I would PREFER that all all of these nations be democracies--but it is up to the people that LIVE there to decide that, in my opinion.

Besides, the "Israel is a Democracy" argument is too often used to excuse bad policies on the part of the Israeli government.

I no more accept the system as an excuse for the present policy of occuptation than I would accept an argument that the USA is/was a Democracy, therefore the Iraq invasion, or Vietnam, or Jim Crow, or anything else should somehow be defended or excused.

What is wrong is wrong.

I admire many prominent Israeli statespeople--M. Dayan, A. Eban, Rabin, Peres. etc.

I despise Sharon and Bibi, who to my mind are the Israeli equivalents of Bush and co.

I wish the Israeli populace would vote them out of office.

I would hope that the rights of Palestinians living in Israel are being upheld in the EXACT SAME terms as those of Israeli Jews are, but have heard that this is not entirely the case.

This worries me, and if it is so, i hope that this will be remedied.

My question for YOU is--returning to BUSH and the topic of this thread--is what good are words promoting democracy from the lips of this stinking failure of a human being, tis unelected fraud, this lie of a president...words that will be despised and dismissed by all thinking people as a piece of unmitigated propagandistic horseshit?

Scorn--yeah..that's the word I was searching for....

yeh I know Israel Arabs can vote, however from what I read
they don't have the same property rights and marriage rights
... isn't there a law that restricts people who mary non-jews
from moving to certain settlements ????

That in itself is rare enough in the world, as a genuine right, to qualify.

It is true that non-Jewish cannot easily lease land owned by Narional Trust, which is the great bulk of the county's acreage.

Again, see post 44. I know you have expressed problems with this definition of mine in the past, but it is a Platonic exercise intended to define an ideal against which the material can be measured.

The mere right to vote is insufficient to define democracy. For example, a stockholder has the right to vote, but only in proportion to the amount of stock he owns. The one man/one vote principle is also part of democracy that is absent in the corporation.

Historically, we may speak of Athens as a democratic state. However, few would regard it one today; the franchise was restricted by gender and wealth. Also, decisions in South Africa have always been determined by vote -- but until a few years ago, one had to be white to exercise that right. No one called that democracy.

The problem with ideal formulations is that, by definition, any material actuality must fall short of them. People may become so accustomed to judging by reference to the ideal then that, as the phrase goes, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good, and all that falls short in any degree of the ideal becomes lumped together, regardless of the very real degrees of difference that might exist among them. My own inclinations, as you know, are to the material, and the perceptible gradients within it, as the soundest basis for judgement here below.

Israel does meet the one adult citizen, one vote, standard of political democracy. It meets other corallery standards as well, such as a free press, and vigorous public debate of political matters without fear of the police.

My usage of democracy does not extend beyond matters of political process, and it does not seem wise to me to expand the definition of the term to incorporate other good things a society ought to feature, desireable as these might be. It is perfectly possible, for instance, to conceive of a society which did not feature all citizens voting for office-holders, yet in which persons could expect equal treatment from officials, and equal economic opportunities.

It is certainly true that in some ways, Arab citizens of Israel are disfavored socially, but they are not disenfranchised. In Boer South Africa, Blacks were disenfranchised, and this long after the usual standard of democracy employed by political thinkers had evolved to where the term meant a political process in which all adult citizens enjoyed the sufferage. In Classical Athens, the franchise was more restricted than is the modern custom, but less so than in many other Greek polities, such as Thebes, or Sparta, and so, at least in context of its time, it deserves the designation. Even the slave-holding United States of the early 19th century, and England at the same period, with its stringent property requirements and "rotten borough" gerrymanders, deserves the title by the standards of the day, by compare to continental absolutisms, and the traditional Oriental imperiums, under which the majority of humankind then lived.

To me, sir, neither ideal nor material have meaning as long as one is without the other. One interprets, the other is what is to be interpreted.

I agree that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good; it is, however, the rod by which the good is measured and distinguished from the bad.

"I am a man of priniciples, and chief among those principles is flexibility."

it is more than just voting, hell you could have a
democratic klan meeting, they could all vote democratically..

..off course there'd be no blacks, jews, latinos,
catholics, arabs ect.. voting in that meeting...

not democratic? ??????? :smoke:


...see Asscrap n Boosh

I notice you asked about Israel first.

I asked about the I. You still haven't answered it.

we have a different definition of democracy.

my definition applies to everybody, regardless of race,
religion, culture...

It is entirely appropriate to discuss the messenger in this forum.

In fact, I find the opportunity to do so a bit refreshing.

it would make the Apartied in Israel all the more glaring.

this posting as well as FBB's "the decline of the ARABS"

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH in Sunday's 11/9/03 Jpost

Official PA paper: "The worst Arab regime is more democratic than the US."

Until they recognise what needs to be fixed, it stays broke!

If there is one thing that is clear to me, Bush has no conception of, and no use FOR, even the most rudimentary concept of Democracy, in the US, in the Middle East, or anywhere else.

He is a corporate raider as politician, a purveyor of atrocities.

His speech was a steaming heap of neo-imperialist shit, and should be immeduately flushed as such, since it is stinking up this forum, along with the rest of the world.

Bush's "democracy" is nothing but another name for American hegemony. If Bush truly believed in democracy, he wouldn't be sitting in the White House today, and he wouldn't have tried to overthrow the democratically elected government of Cesar Chavez in Venezuela, or prevent the majority Shias from having an Islamic Republic in Iraq.

The very words "democracy" and "freedom" are devoid of meaning and cheapened when in the lips of people like Bush.

The Palestinians are criticizing Bush for saying that because they know he's full of it?

How could a man who is occupying Iraq with troops and trying to take away the Palestinian's DEMOCRATICALLY elected leader be for democracy? That's nothing but a sham.