Friedman: Talking About Us?

Thomas Friedman wrote about the Kidnapping of Democracy in Lebanon and Israel on July 14th, in the New York Times.

A few quotes:

What we are seeing in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon is an effort by Islamist parties to use elections to pursue their long-term aim of Islamizing the Arab-Muslim world.

The tiny militant wing of Hamas today is pulling all the strings of Palestinian politics, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite Islamic party is doing the same in Lebanon...

As a result, the...democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is being hijacked.

Yes, basically free and fair elections were held...[yet] they refuse to be accountable to international law

Then why do parties like Hamas and Hezbollah get elected? Often because they effectively run against the corruption of the old secular state-controlled parties...But once these Islamists are in office they revert to serving their own factional interests, not those of the broad community.

Why don’t the silent majorities punish these elected Islamist parties for working against the real interests of their people? Because those who speak against Hamas or Hezbollah are either delegitimized as “American lackeys’’...

Friedman then laments that the flower of democracy may wither and die in the Mid-East.

Okay, let's back up, this time substituting a few words:

What we are seeing in the U.S. is an effort by Christian extremists to use elections to pursue their long-term aim of changing the U.S. from a secular and religiously tolerant nation to one of Christian fundamentalism.

The...militant Christian right aligned with Republican extremists today are pulling all the strings of American politics...

As a result, the...democracy experiment in the United States is being hijacked.

Yes, basically free and fair elections were held...[yet] the Bush Administration refuses to be accountable to international law...

Then why do parties like the G.O.P. and Grover Norquist's neo-cons get elected? Often because they effectively run against the corruption in government under the secular Democratic party. But once these extremists are in office they revert to serving their own factional interests, not those of the broad community.

Why don’t the silent majorities punish these elected right wing parties for working against the real interests of their people? Because those who speak against the Christian right or the Bush administration are either delegitimized as “liberal lackeys" and lose their jobs or...

My point is this:

What’s happening in Israel and Lebanon is part of a bigger picture, a trend toward backward thinking and aggression. Anyone aware of U.S. politics knows that we in the U.S. are also under the control of an aggressive and hostile minority that has used elections to kidnap democracy.

Let’s review:

Voting districts have been reapportioned by Republicans to include individual streets and houses in order to assure election results. Both of our presidential elections were hijacked, our Constitution is ignored, our populace spied upon and investigations into government’s role subverted.

Protesters have been blocked from protesting, jailed and beaten. Fake news has been generated and widely disseminated at government cost. Legitimate media has been cowed, threatened with lawsuits or bought. A covert CIA operative was exposed in retaliation over her husband’s attempts to tell the truth about government machinations.

Based upon lies and false pretenses, Iraq was attacked and virtually destroyed, with tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of civilians killed as a result. Torture has become U.S. policy. To no one’s surprise, Amnesty International has found the U.S. to be a human rights violator.

Meanwhile, 80% of all environmental regulations have been rolled back and cuts made to all social services. Real progress has been made in drying up funding for public schools, Medicare, the VA and PBS. Every law and institution, from affirmative action to the National Direct Loan, from the Freedom of Information Act to Social Security, from the EPA to FEMA, (all created to promote democracy, justice and the collective welfare of the American people) has been assaulted if not damaged, dismantled or destroyed.

How could this happen? To quote Friedmann, "…the roots of democracy are so shallow" and our own "moderate majorities so weak and intimidated that we are getting the worst of all worlds" right here in the United States.

Witness our domestic policies, national debt, outsourced jobs, shrinking American dream, gutted social services, lack of health care, abandoned poor, etc.

Friedmann asks: "So why did this party get elected?...Why don’t the silent majorities punish these elected...parties for working against the real interests of their people?”

Although he asks this about the Israelis and Lebanese, he could, as easily, ask the same questions about the American people.

It’s time to face that Americans have wanted simple answers and simpler politicians. We have allowed our ideals to be sold out from under us in exchange for cheap goods at Wal-Mart. Now our youth is exchanging their intellects for an expanded choice of cell phones.

Truth be told, we find it all too convenient to shop for politicians as we do for consumer goods — looking at the ads — and lumping all government corruption together with the intellectually lazy claim that the parties are “all alike.”

The parties are not alike. And anyone who seriously bothered to research George Bush's record along with the Republican agenda could have predicted the destruction visited upon us by this administration. Yet most Americans didn’t. They preferred voting for a man who made the world seem simple.

His message was, basically: “Us right, them wrong. Cut taxes. Grog be okay.”

Well, the super rich are okay, but the country isn't doing so well.

By surrendering our responsibility to read, analyze, think logically and turn our attention from entertainment to reality, Americans have allowed their government to be hijacked by billionaires, corporate lobbyists, the religious wrong and warmongers.

Unaware that we are being swung toward fascism and feudalism, we are sinking into the morass from which we once fought to escape: primitive thinking. So given that this is happening to us, can we really expect Israel and Lebanon to overcome what we cannot?

One thing's for certain: we in the U.S. no longer have the credibility to preach at others - with any effectiveness - or convince them to embrace democracy. After all, we’ve virtually discarded ours.

Frankly, I think this is a worldwide trend and, based upon how democracy is withering in the U.S., there's zero hope that democracy will take root in the Middle-East. At best, with super human effort, we Americans might realize we need to resurrect it here at home.