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"Just remember, we're all in this alone"

Those were the words of Senator Richard Durbin in dismissing Bush's high concept "ownwership society" and its ideological linchpin, the drive to privatize, and thus dismantle, Social Security.   Philosophically, what it comes down to is a straightforward debate between conservatives and liberals, and the socio-political principals and beliefs that divide them.  Its an all out battle between private benefit and public good.

Well, maybe not so straightforward, since debates always come down to words, and how people have been conditioned to understand them.  Curiously, in American culture private has a more positive connotation than public, as in private sector versus public sector, or private enterprise versus ... government.  A letter writer in today's Oregonian felt obliged to call himself a private citizen before making an argument in favor of public ownership of PGE.

I say it's curious because the dictionary definitons make the word private sound, well, rather sinister:

• Secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others
• Designed or intended for one's exclusive use
• Of or confined to the individual; personal
• Of, relating to, or receiving special hospital services and privileges
• Not available for public use, control, or participation
• Not for public knowledge or disclosure; secret
• Not appropriate for use or display in public; intimate

When I read those definitions, straight from my online dictionary, I can't help but think of Bush and his cronies.  They describe his administration wonderfully-- secretive, secluded, privileged, exclusive-- and of course the life he lived before he became a public figure.

Of course, the letter writer I mentioned probably meant private citizen in this sense:

• Not holding an official or public position

Nevertheless, private still conveys some vague legitimacy or virtue.  It conjures a person who stands on his own two feet, by god, without the help or the sustenance of the government, even if he is in favor of government ownership of a private utility.

The battle is being waged both locally and nationally.  For instance, an article in yesterday's Oregonian chronicles the rapid rise of the use of user fees to fund government services in lieu of taxes :

"In 1992, taxes accounted for 45 percent of total state revenue and fees brought in 10 percent. Ten years later, taxes had dropped to 36 percent and fees had grown to 13 percent, the most recent Census data show."

To my way of thinking, taxes--the progressive kind-- are democratic, meaning that they make government services available to everyone, regardless of class.  User fees, on the other hand, serve only those people with the wherewithal to pay them.  Gov. Kulongoski has ruled out tax increases, but not the increased use of user fees, a decision which makes his budget advisor, Theresa McHugh, wonder:

" 'How," McHugh said, 'do you make sure a public institution is still public?' "

More visible, or audible, is the national debate over Social Security, where the ideological rubber really hits the road.  Benjamin Barber, in this op-ed piece for the LA Times (and the Oregonian), frames the debate as consumer versus citizen:

"Yet privatization tries to convince us that the consumer is simply another, more efficient, form of the citizen. The citizen who votes with her dollars rather than her ballots. But dollars don't deliberate. They don't seek common ground. They are not bearers of empathy and imagination. As education consumers in Chicago or Washington, we can select the 'best schools' for our children, but as citizens we need public schools that help make us all public citizens. As consumers in Los Angeles, we can choose among hundreds of automobile models, but only as citizens can we make the choices that create a public transportation system serving all."

To Barber, the argument is not a pragmatic one--about what system makes the most economic sense, or which approach will benefit or harm which particular segment of society.  It's a battle of philosophies.  In that vein, he invokes Thomas Hobbes:

"Private choices rest on individual power and skills and on personal luck. Public choices rest on civic rights and common responsibilities. With privatization, this administration is trying to seduce us back into the state of nature, where the strong dominate the weak and anarchy ultimately dominates the strong and the weak, undermining security for both. Under these conditions, Thomas Hobbes reminds us, we are perfectly free to do as we choose, but as a consequence we live lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Not an ideal recipe for social security."

In other words, the privatization of Social Security brings us one step closer to rampant social Darwinisn, the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest (or most ruthless)-- a dog eat dog world in which there is no common ground.  Just every man for himself.

In the world according to Bush, just remember, we're all in this alone.

Aliteracy

Speaking of literature as I did in yesterday's post,--it wasn't supposed to be about literature but ended up there when I incidentally compared the greed of Texas Pacific to the obsessive avarice of Ebeneezer Scrooge-- I stumbled across a new term while perusing --reading-- the latest copy of NEAToday, which was all about reading programs and teaching kids to really read. The term?  Aliteracy (not illiteracy), meaning the habit of not reading, even though the capability is there:

"That's aliteracy, not illiteracy. Aliteracy strikes those who can read   but choose not to. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, more than   half of America's adult population isn't reading literature, and   this malady isn't limited to adults. Aliterate students may never become strong, fully engaged readers."

Although I've written in the past that George W. Bush is probably dyslexic, which would account for his admitted aversion to reading, he could serve as the poster child for aliteracy.  I mean, he's not, strictly speaking, illiterate.  He reads his speeches competently.  He decodes the written word well, and he's getting better at it.  There is still some question, at least in my mind, whether he actually understands what he's reading.  Given the number of corrections, explanations, elucidations, translations, and spin that poured out of the White House following his inaugural address, one has to wonder.  But let's give him the benefit of the doubt, and proclaim him literate.  By the definition above, a literate person who doesn't read is an... aliterate.

Here's my theory on aliteracy and its root causes:  high school English classes, sometimes called comp lit (composition and literature-- writing and reading, in normal, unstilted, everyday language.)  High school English classes teach most kids, not to love reading, but to hate it!  Here's an example.

My nephew is a sophomore at West Linn High School.  In the first semester of English this year, he had to read Gilgamesh, Beowulf, King Arthur... English "classics", in other words, in the heroic genre.  On the final for the class-- yes, they have finals in high school now.. they were expected to know the traits of the archetypal hero.  Last year, as a freshman, he was confronted with not only Shakespeare, but the Iliad and the Odyssey.  Needless to say my nephew is now a typical high school aliterate.  He doesn't do a lot of reading for pleasure. 

Now, I am a college English major with an appreciation for the "classics."  But I am also a reading specialist.  The cardinal rule of reading instruction is to give kids stuff to read that is age and skill appropriate, materials that they are both capable of reading and want to read.  Unfortunately, high school English is not about improving the reading skills of students, nor, as it should be, inculcating in them the love of reading. The learning objective of secondary English appears to be superficial knowledge about the structure of literature-- character, plot, setting, blah blah blah... creating mini-literary critics, as it were.  That's an instructional goal that was articulated, and apparently set in stone, well over a hundred years ago, when far fewer than 10% of students actually attended high schools.

If you want kids to know about Beowulf, have them also read Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead.  To teach about King Arthur, how about throwing in The Sword in the Stone?  In other words, make them aware of the classics, but also teach them how to read with pleasure.

It's no wonder that our tenth graders fare so poorly, relatively speaking, on standardized reading tests.

 

The PGE pretzel

Any scheme as convoluted and twisted as the Texas Pacific plan to take ove PGE deserves the moniker "pretzel", which is the precislely the terminology the big bucks Texas holding company itself uses to describe the fraud it's perpetrating on the clueless customers of the Portland based utility.  Read the article in today's Tribune and see for yourself.

The truly clueless are actually the local luminaries and civic movers and shakers, most prominently Peter Kohler and Tom Walsh, who have been chosen to serve as window dressing as board members of the Oregon Electric Company.   They don't yet realize they're merely dupes in the grand money- making scheme hatched by the true power brokers at Texas Pacific.  They haven't yet grasped the reason for their existence -- as pawns used to circumvent the law prohibiting holding companies from owning utilities:

"But critics of the proposed deal say, and Texas Pacific officials have at times acknowledged, that establishing Oregon Electric and its board was not primarily about protecting Oregonians’ interests, nor even about hometown public relations.
   
"Instead, they were set up for one primary reason: to avoid federal law that would otherwise prohibit any such sale to Texas Pacific because of what it is — a large, private, nonutility holding company trying to buy a regulated utility."

I admit I don't understand business, big business, anyway, and the passion it seems to inspire in some people, so I cannot answer the question that this whole sordid affair
begs to have asked:  Why do such obviously bright people exert such energy to devise ingenious and devious schemes for the sole purpose of making money--lots of money?  Do they delude themselves into thinking they're accomplishing some greater good?  Is amassing great fortunes an end, and a "good", unto itself?  I mean, haven't they ever read "A Christmas Carol"?

Speaking of the great Dickens novella, I used to read it aloud (mainly--it's meant to be read aloud)-- to my seventh grade students before Christmas break.  The last couple of times, as my delivery became more polished,  the conclusion of the tale was greeted with... applause!  From twelve and thirteen year olds!  Not for me, but for Scrooge and Tiny Tim, and the catharsis  --the change of heart and understanding-- that results from immersion in all great literature.  If literature sounds too pretentious (it does), substitute any story, well told. 

I'd like to think that none of the students who heard the story are working for firms like Texas Pacific.

 

Slots and.... well, the women who "compromise" their principals

The article in this morning's Big O announcing the arrival of slot machines to the Oregon Lottery--ostensibly to fund the state police-- says that a study conducted in 2001 estimates the cost of problem gambling is equal to what the lottery brings in:

"Jeffrey Marotta, problem-gambling services manager for the state Department of Human Services, said he is worried the easy availability of the games will attract a new group of gamblers, some of whom would become addicts.

"Marotta estimated the new games could create another 8,000 addictive gamblers whose problems include bankruptcy, embezzlement and family breakups. A 2001 study estimated Oregon had 59,000 problem gamblers who cost the state $360 million in social and economic costs."

So what's the point of contining a program that costs as much as it provides?  Worse, some educators are demanding that new Lottery revenues be used to fund schools.  Bad idea!  There are better ways to educate kids than to prey on the addictions of the poor and the weak.  Anybody that's been through a halfway decent public education should know about probability.  And the probability of winning  playing state-sponsored  gambling machines  is zilch.

***********************

Back to Condi Rice and  the Dems who voted to confirm her as Bush's Secretary of State.  David Corn wrote this scathing post on Diane Feinstein and her inexplicable support of Bush's enabler-in-chief in the lies that led us to invade Iraq.  It begins this way:

"Here's one good reason why grassroots Democrats get fed up with their supposed leaders in Washington: Senator Dianne Feinstein."

And concludes like this:

"Feinstein calls Rice a friend. And it sure is swell to do a favor for a friend. But Feinstein's fawning introduction of Rice was an insult to anyone who believes the administration presented a fake case for war--and that happens to be most Democrats. To assist a pal, Feinstein practically endorsed the Bush administration's dissembling and disingenuous explanations for the invasion. After all, she was endorsing one of the chief dissemblers and ignoring Rice's crucial role in the caper. With these far-too-kind words for her buddy, Feinstein has aided and abetted the administration's ongoing effort to deny there is such a thing as a WMD scandal."

And to think that Feinstein serves along side fellow Californian Barbara Boxer, who isn't afraid to call a lie a lie.

"A few good Dems" step up

"To confirm Dr. Rice to be the next Secretary of State is to say to the American people, and the world, that the answers to those questions are no longer important. Her confirmation will most certainly be viewed as another endorsement of the Administration’s unconstitutional doctrine of preemptive war, its bullying policies of unilateralism, and its callous rejection of our long-standing allies.

The stakes for the United States are too high. I cannot endorse higher responsibilities for those who helped set our great country down the path of increasing isolation, enmity in the world, and a war that has no end. For these reasons, I shall cast my vote in opposition to the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice to be the next Secretary of State."

Thus declaimed the palsied former KKK member, Senator Robert Byrd, still the most eloquent and principled Democrat in the U.S. Senate.

In his floor speech, Byrd gave credit to another principled Democrat, Barbara Boxer, for her role in bringing the vote to the full Senate.

Here's an argument --an indictment, really--  against Rice and her suitability to function as the next Secretary of State. 

And here's a list of those who voted nay on the Rice nomination, the Democrats (and one Independent) who stiffened their spines to voice their disagreement with Bush's reckless foreign policy:

• Barbara Boxer
• Ted Kennedy
• John Kerry
• Mark Dayton
• Carl Levin
• Robert Byrd
• Jack Reed
• Richard Durbin
• Daniel Akaka
• Evan Bayh
• Frank Lautenberg
• Tom Harkin
• Jim Jeffords (I)

You'll notice, no doubt, that Hillary Clinton isn't on the list of Democratic stalwarts.

Measure 37 and PGE: Revolution and counterrevolution

As I've written previously, I'm puzzled how a decidedly liberal county-- 73% for Kerry-- could have voted for a reactionary initiative like Measure 37, which could easily overturn 30 years of visionary and revolutionary land use planning in Oregon.  My only explanation is that it flew under the public's radar, while bigger and more "important" issues, like banning gay marriage, garnered all the media attention. 

Most of the media attention since the election has, fortunately, been on the ramifications of Measure 37.  And many people are apparently having second thoughts.

This article in today's Tribune, for example, highlights both the practical and the philosophical concerns of many property owners.  Dave Johnston, for example, thinks back to the  houses destroyed by the 1996 floods:

"Even more houses might have come crashing down, he figures, if not for the city’s flood plain regulations and soil conservation rules that affect much of the woodsy Southwest Portland hills." 

That's a practical, and reasonable, concern.  Here's a philosophical analysis by a PSU professor:

"A decreased sense of community and social obligation worries Regina Lawrence, an associate professor of political science at PSU. She sees Measure 37 as part of a continuing trend that places a higher premium on individual well-being than the common good. She points to cuts in health care, education and other social services.

“ 'The individual’s well-being is intricately connected to the community’s well-being,' she said. 'Their fates are tied together, like it or not. Do we value our collective quality of life? Do we value it enough to make individual sacrifices?' ”

Such philosophical nitpicking seems beyond the ken of the people at Oregonians in Action, the sponsors of Measure 37:

"Day, the Oregonians in Action attorney, said he supports zoning and land-use laws but thinks they often go too far. He said many protections came from elitists who want to preserve Oregon vistas because 'they don’t want to have their visual sensibilities offended.'

“ 'Oregon’s land-use system,' he said, 'no longer determines where people live but how they live.' ”

 

I think we ought to debate, and vote on, that issue. Should people be allowed to use their private property in ways that offend not only the visual sensibilities of their neighbors, but also their aural and olfactory sensibilities?  I mean, isn't that what zoning is all about?

*********************

On the other hand, plans for the public takeover of PGE, a move for the common good of ratepayers big and small, continue apace.  Mayor Tom Potter has gained both regional and business support for public ownership of the Portland based utility:

"Business support for public ownership has gained ground in recent months as details of the Texas Pacific deal have become known, said John Russell, president of Russell Development Co., a real estate developer who joined Potter and other officials at Monday's announcement.

" 'This is not an issue that can be characterized as public versus private or socialism versus capitalism', Russell said.

"He objects to the Texas Pacific deal because the buyout firm intends to make a huge profit on the utility by holding it for a brief time, then selling for as much as $1 billion more than the purchase price, Russell said."

What's not to like about public ownership?  The city (or region) wouldn't have to pay federal taxes.  In other words, they wouldn't have to charge ratepayers for taxes that were never sent to the government anyway, as was the case for the last few years under Enron/PGE.   And of course, public owners don't have to make a profit to pay off investors.  The savings go to ratepayers, including industrial ratepayers, which should, in theory, create jobs.

But never underestimate the wiles of the counterrevolutionaries, including the editorial board of the Oregonian, who continue to sow doubt about the wisdom of government ownership of anything.  Their weapon of choice is the dreaded pejorative-- BUREAUCRAT!  As in "government career bureaucrats" who are incapable of running any enterprise successfully, unlike private sector bureaucrats, who are by definition--a tautological definition-- quite capable of success because they are private sector bureaucrats, and not government bureaucrats.   That seems to be the gist of this letter which showed up in the Tribune opposing the public takeover.  It reads in part:

"As a PGE customer, I ask myself, 'Which operator or situation would be worse?' Then I visualize the governing boards consisting of successful business and professional people or governing boards consisting of career bureaucrats, ... ."

(Apparently you're a person if you work in the private sector, a bureaucrat if you work for the government.)

Never mind that public takeover advocates have said they "would hire a private utility operator to handle PGE's day-to-day operations."  And the people who now work for PGE, including technicians and linemen, would be the same people who would work there under public ownership.

Minus, of course, some of the career corporate bureaucrats at PGE, like CEO Peggy Fowler.

 

The flailing Democrats

What's the "Ownership Society"?  Democratic Senator Richard Durbin says it all boils down to a single phrase:

"Just remember, we're all in this alone."

Perfect!  And hypocritcal, considering that George W. Bush never accomplished anything on his own.  Or perhaps more accurately, never failed in any of his career ventures entirely on his own.  He always had access to money:  first his uncle's (George Herbert Walker), and then money from well-connected friends of his father, George Herbert Walker Bush. 

Come to think of it, he's never really owned anything, either.

**********************

While we're on the subject of Democrats, I'm close--really close-- to chucking my registration or affiliation with the Dems, and declaring myself a Green, or an Independent.  I don't know how much more spinelessness I can take from the so-called party of the left.

First, only one Democratic Senator-- the feisty little Barbara Boxer-- had the guts to stand up and back the House challenge to the Ohio electoral vote, which is one more than last time, when not a single Senator could find the energy, the conviction, or the courage to challenge the 2000 electoral vote in an election that was obviously tainted.

Next, only two Senate Democrats-- again Boxer, along with John Kerry-- voted against recommending to the full Senate the confirmation of Condoleeza Rice as Bush's Secretary of State, despite her unwillingness to denounce torture or to admit mistakes (and lies) in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.  Not Joe Biden, not Russ Feingold, not-- Barack Obama, the great hope for the future of the Democratic Party.

Finally, and most egregiously, is the disgraceful continued pro-war stance of the two leaders in the Democratic Congress, Harry Reid inthe Senate, and Nancy Pelosi in the House.  Both strongly oppose the anti-war Howard Dean for chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.  Did they learn nothing from the last election?

Pelosi's performance is most disappointing considering the district she represents-- San Francisco, where 63% of voters approved a measure in November calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. 

In his Common Dreams essay, Stephen Zunes says that Pelosi is undermining Democratic opposition to Bush and his policies:

"Historically, opposition leaders in Congress have helped expose the lies and counter-productive policies of the incumbent administration. Pelosi, however, to her party’s detriment, has decided instead to defend them."

Pelosi's current stance is an ideological about face:

"Less than fifteen years ago, Pelosi was an outspoken liberal critic of the senior Bush administration’s militaristic policy toward Iraq. Now, however, she finds herself to the right of former President George Bush’s Secretary of State and his National Security Advisor."

She also was one of the few Dems to vote against authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq.  But in another about face, she turned against Howard Dean in his run for the Democratic Presidential nomination:

"In the race for last year’s Democratic presidential nomination, Pelosi helped lead an effort to undermine the anti-war candidacy of former Vermont governor Howard Dean, claiming that his call for a more balanced approach by the U.S. government in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process somehow brought into question his commitment to Israel’s right to exist in peace and security. Instead, she endorsed the hawkish Missouri congressman Richard Gephardt, who cosponsored the House resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his choosing. When Gephardt dropped out of the race, Pelosi threw her support to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, another supporter of Bush’s war."

Any progressive should realize that our unswerving support for Israel, despite its reactionary and "war criminal" leadership--that's Ariel Sharon-- has contributed greatly to Islamic disdain of U.S. foreign policy.  It's truly bizarre for a San Francisco liberal like Pelosi to pander so shamelessly to the conservative Jewish vote.  In Hillary Clinton's case, it's at least politically understandable, perhaps even defensible, to pander, since so many of her constituents are Jewish.  I don't think that can be said of Pelosi's district.   

Inequality and school choice

If you need any more evidence that school choice and open enrollment create gaping inequalities and doom school districts to what I've called educational apartheid, just look at what's happening in Eugene, a district with the state's widest array of school options.

According to articles in both the Oregonian and the Eugene Register Guard, the Eugene District is re-examining its commitment to school choice in light of the rising poverty and mobility (a measure of the number of students who leave a school during the year) in its traditional neighborhood schools.  The superintendent of the district is apparently set to annnounce proposals to remedy the growing problem, which one critic says is leading to "racial segregation":

" 'The school choice approach is aggregating wealth and aggregating poverty,' she said. 'It is also leading to significant racial segregation.' "

The same critic also has Constitutional concerns over the way Eugene runs it public schools:

" 'The Oregon Constitution calls for a system of 'uniform and common schools,'  said parent Nancy Willard, who has led the call for reform. 'What the district has created is a system of publicly funded private schools. They are not common schools.' "

Other parents are critical too:

"But, some parents say, it's no wonder that alternative schools perform well: They attract students from the district's better-off families. Their enrollments are capped, meaning their student populations are more stable and class sizes tend to be lower. They serve low numbers of special needs students and can tap parent fund-raising to buy students additional programs such as music, art or library services.

"By contrast, the regular neighborhood schools must take all the students in their area. They have larger class sizes, less stable student populations, serve almost all of the district's special needs children and are more likely to have parents who don't have time to raise money for extras.

" 'The way we manage the schools puts a greater burden on neighborhood schools,' said parent Betsy Boyd, who also is on the district's budget committee. 'The greatest stability is given to schools that need it least.' "

Sounds like Portland on steroids -- "choice" steroids.

The Register Guard, in this sidebar, says that parents are driven to select alternative programs based on test scores.  It tells the story of Paula Fleitell who chose not to send her daughter to her neighborhood school because the state report card rated it only "satisfactory."  She wanted a school with "better scores":

"Through a friend, Fleitell found her 'exceptional' school in the shadow of Eugene's south hills: Eastside, an alternative school and test-score powerhouse with a well-heeled and highly involved parent base."

Parents, in other words, have been duped into believing the hype about test scores, and their dubious relationship to the "performance" of a school.  Even well-educated, "well-heeled" parents.

Of course, that may be just the public rationale.  Dig a little deeper and I think you'd find a class-based desire on the part of some parents to avoid sending their children to schools where they would have to rub elbows with the "unwashed " masses. 

 

Democracy in the People's Republic-- Portland

In my last post about Bush's push for democracy, American style, in every corner of the world, I noted that a "majority of voters could easily opt for public ownership... of private industry." That could very well happen here in Portland as the result of the last election which put Tom Potter in the Mayor's office, and not the odds-on favorite and big money raiser, Jim Francesconi, whose pockets were so stuffed with corporate money that his campaign sank from the sheer weight of the "filthy lucre."

Potter announced in today's Oregonian that he'll vote to have the city bid to buy PGE  should the Texas Pacific  deal fall through, as in rejected by the state Public Utility Commission:

" 'We're ready to go,' said Potter, who describes a 'groundswell of opposition to the Texas Pacific proposal. We want citizens to know there's another alternative out there.'

" 'I intend to take every action I can as mayor to make a public acquisition of PGE happen.' "

Francesconi was (apparently) against a city takeover, meaning that the popular vote in November for Potter was also a vote for "public ownership" of a heretofore private utility.  That's democracy at work, but probably not the sort of democracy Bush and his backers had in mind in crafting the Inaugural Address.

 

Dangerous democracy

The Latin root of the word liberty, used 15 times in George Bush's Inaugural Address, is liber, which means both free and ... book, which I find ironic when spoken by a man who has little use for books, who indeed reads very little at all, maybe not even the Presidential Daily Briefs like the one entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S."

More to the point, I don't think Bush has a clear understanding of the word, or its synonym, freedom, which he used 27 times in his speech. 

Freedom is an abstract and complex concept.  My online dictionary lists nine definitions.  The differences lie primarily in the accompanying preposition, most commonly  "of", "from", or "to".    I associate "freedom to" with conservative or libertarian ideology, as in this definition:

• A right or the power to engage in certain actions without control or interference.

On the other hand, "freedom from" typically has a more progressive or liberal bent:

• Liberty of the person from slavery, detention, or oppression.

Or:

• Exemption from an unpleasant or onerous condition: freedom from want.

Freedom from want is not something that unfettered (unregulated) free market capitalism normally brings to mind.  And it wasn't what Bush had in mind in his endless (mindless) iterations of freedom and liberty, except as part of his "vision" of the obligation of this country to spread "American-style" democracy to all corners of the world.  Democracy, of course, means the rule of the people through the electoral process-- voting.  But American-style democracy also implies free market capitalism, which isn't established, necessarily, at the ballot box.  A majority of voters could easily opt for public ownership, to some extent, of private industry, which is truer of many European countries, all democracies, than it is of the United States.

Beyond that, the speech threatens a dangerous and unprececedented use of American force--military or otherwise--to impose democratic reforms on other countries.  Many people find that prospect troubling, including Eric Hobsbawm writing in the Guardian:

"This idea is not merely quixotic - it is dangerous. The rhetoric implies that democracy is applicable in a standardised (western) form, that it can succeed everywhere, that it can remedy today's transnational dilemmas, and that it can bring peace, rather than sow disorder. It cannot."

He goes on to say:

"The effort to spread democracy is also dangerous in a more indirect way: it conveys to those who do not enjoy this form of government the illusion that it actually governs those who do. But does it? We now know something about how the actual decisions to go to war in Iraq were taken in at least two states of unquestionable democratic bona fides: the US and the UK. Other than creating complex problems of deceit and concealment, electoral democracy and representative assemblies had little to do with that process. Decisions were taken among small groups of people in private, not very different from the way they would have been taken in non-democratic countries.

"Fortunately, media independence could not be so easily circumvented in the UK. But it is not electoral democracy that necessarily ensures effective freedom of the press, citizen rights and an independent judiciary."

That's certainly true here under the Bush Administration, which is working tirelessly to restrict the free flow of information and to create a judiciary sympathetic to its ideology.

Is that the kind of "democracy" we want to spread throughout the world?

Oh, before I forget.  Bush took his oath of office with his hand on the Bible-- Greek root biblio, meaning book-- which, evidence suggests, he has probably not actually read.  Or at least read with any real understanding.