One can hardly cease to be amazed when George W. Bush or Condoleeza Rice or some other lightweight "heavy" in the American government pronounces that "freedom is on the move" around the world, with the inference that the American government is promoting freedom and democracy. The American government (of the moment) is promoting its own interests, and not even the interests of the American people! If America had a real democracy of informed people seeking their own self-interest, the current American government would never have been empowered.
Democracy is a process, but to the powerful elite it has become manipulated by corruption into the search for a result. Bush was made president by thwarting democracy in Florida and then misusing the Supreme Court of the U.S. to override democracy. Bush was reelected by stifling democracy in Ohio and elsewhere, but relentless lying and deceiving the American people, who were only too happy to be deceived, and thus proving that American democracy is not only for sale, but easily thwarted by clever, corrupt, power crazy plutocrats. In America, democracy is only admired when it produces the favored result.
And America’s view of the world is exactly the same. Iran needs democracy, according to Bush, but only if Iranian democracy produces a regime favorable to U.S. interests. If Iranian democracy produces an anti-American regime, according to the will of the Iranian people, then Iranian democracy is a sham, according to the American government.
According to the American government, Iraq needed a democracy, too. But not just any democracy. Iraq needed a democracy with an elected government vetted by the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority, who could determine who the candidates were and make sure that the votes were counted under American influence. America’s idea of democracy for Iraq is a democracy that allows American corporations to privatize and exploit Iraq’s economy and wealth. An Iraqi democracy that served Iraq’s needs and rejected American meddling would never be the sort of democracy that America would approve of.
America’s current government uses democracy in a ruthless manner to advance its own interests. American democracy is shameless and intrusive, meddling in other nations’ affairs while thwarting its own self-professed principles everywhere, including at home. American democracy talks like a virgin while acting like a whore. Americans have totally forgotten that democracy, in theory, is a pure process, but which has been corrupted into a search for a result.
