An undemocratic country foisting “democracy” on others

The Kennan Institute at the Wilson Centre says it “is committed to improving American expertise and knowledge of Russia, Ukraine, and the region.” But wouldn’t knowledge of Russia include an in-depth coverage of the Russians’ love of their leader and the reasons for it. You’d think so. Instead it posted a piece on Aleksey Navalny, a US-backed Russian politician trained at Yale in the ways and means of overthrowing Putin. Although Navalny has been convicted of fraud, he is still organizing thugs who stage oft-times violent riots, the latest of which caused several million roubles worth of damage to a car rental business and a restaurant along the route of the riot. But the Kennan institute portrays Navalny – known affectionately in Russia as the “hateful blogger,” as a hero in their recent post on him. After all, if an idea is worth supporting, it’s worth rioting and vandalizing for. (Oh, but the writer of the piece omitted to tell us about the violent riots, just portrayed Navalny as a clever fellow who knew how to manipulate the Russian local elections and called him a hero.)
 
Like many liberal US think tanks, the Wilson Centre is keen on spreading across the globe its conception of US-style “democracy.”
 
However, in the US style “democracy,” politicians are elected on the basis of lies, often-false promises and almost always-false assumptions, and, according to a Pew Research poll no one is happy with their government. I had shown here that, thanks to this chicanery and manipulation of minds, there is actually nothing resembling democracy in America, which is de facto controlled by a list of interest groups. It is amazing that any American could believe that he or she is in any way participating by his/her vote to the decision making process.
 
In this system, as long as the Establishment operatives give the people the illusion that they are in charge, they accept the fraud. At bottom, they want peace, but in the matrix of available options, they somehow suspect that peace is a subversive trap and they therefore reject the concept out of hand and would never be caught dead voting for a “peace” candidate, even if one could be found (Ron Paul is the only exception. He almost got elected). They want, on some level, a sustainable debt but are brainwashed into believing – without requiring proof – that not spending more and more on arms for the military would dangerously weaken the US. Thus they are locked into a set of assumptions, including the assumption that peace is subversive and anti-American and that fighting the debt by not investing excessively in arms and military adventures would weaken them and enable the enemy to enslave them. These two assumptions are the most important but not nearly the only ones – and few citizens require any evidence to support them. These two assumptions support a common narrative promulgated by both major political parties. Americans who deny either of these assumptions are unpatriotic or even traitors and, so goes the given wisdom, if an enemy manages to conquer America, it will be their fault.
 
Although attitudes differ somewhat between the two parties, some of the many additional assumptions that the American msm and political class insist their underlings accept include the assumption that:
 
̶  Russia, China, Iran and Assad’s Syrian government are enemies that harbour sinister plans to take over the the Western world and the Middle East, respectively. The US must invest in arms that can counter any arms Russia or China possess, no matter who much congress must spend to acquire them. In this way, it is virtually impossible for any politician to strongly oppose the profligate spending that drives the unwieldy national debt.
 
̶̶  The Sunni Wahhabists of Saudi are reliable allies (even though they sponsor al-Qaeda and ISIS) but the Shiites in Iran, Syria and Iraq, who successfully fight these terrorists, are not to be trusted. Until recently, this assumption has been shared by both sides of the aisle (though not so much by the grassroots). The Kashoggi killing has made it possible, for now, to mildly criticise Saudi, and even Congress has made purely symbolic moves in that direction. But until that grisly event, no federal politician had dared to breathe a word of reproach in Riadh’s direction, despite the kingdom’s sponsorship of ISIS and al-Qaeda and the latter’s rebrandings.
 
̶  Capitalism, even the increasingly predatory variety dominating the US economy, is indispensable to the economic health of the nation and any attempt to reform it would be dangerous and automatically lead to communism and gulags, making slaves of all Americans. Reincarnations of Mao and Stalin would emerge, goes the narrative.
 
̶  Iran is a tyrannical nation that harbours plans to destroy Israel and take over the Middle East (even though Europe does not think so, and even though Iran knows that if it were to attack Israel unprovoked, it would lose the option to trade freely with other countries – indeed it would lose the support of its most staunch supporter Russia, so of course it will not do it). AIPAC would rain fire and brimstone on any candidate who spoke too softly on Iran.
 
̶  Israel must be supported by the US regardless of its apartheid, its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, its territorial confiscation, and its refusal to comply with humanitarian UN rules. Anyone opposing any Israeli policy, regardless of how warlike or inhumane, is a dangerous far-leftist. Christian Zionism, the most powerful voting bloc in the world, supported by AIPAC, decrees this. In this way, the general assumptions of the nation overcome the time-honoured Constitutional ban on favouring one religion over others.
 
̶  The US is entitled to invade or infiltrate and change foreign regimes as it sees fit because it is morally superior to all other nations.
 
̶  The US is exceptional and is perfectly entitled to write its own international laws and to ignore the ones on the books at the UN unless they favour the US. Israel enjoys the same privileges.
 
̶  The Federal Reserve must be given free rein to set monetary policies as it sees fit, even though it is not officially a branch of the government. No one may challenge its freedom to set and implement these policies even though the constitution says “Congress shall coin money and set the value thereof.” No politician would dare to challenge the power of the Fed and no moderator in a TV debate would ever give a candidate for federal office a question that could lead to such a challenge.
 
Essentially no candidates for federal office would dare to challenge any of the above assumptions and their debate moderators are aware that questions that might challenge them are off limits. Can this really be democracy? Is this a bad dream?
 
Assumptions for conservatives:
 
̶  Providing state-administered health care, even in life-or-death cases, is a dangerous policy that would bankrupt the US (this despite the fact that many prosperous countries around the world have socialized medicine).
 
̶  The limitation of individual rights to own the gun of their choice is absolutely out of the question, regardless of whatever gun violence may be occurring at any given time.
 
The above conservative assumptions may, however, be challenged by liberals, but doing so is dangerous to careers.
 
For liberals:
 
̶  For liberals, there is a need to censor certain kinds of speech, such as criticism of Israel or criticism of gender choice.
 
̶  For liberals, Russia did the US irreparable harm by “meddling in the US elections.” Some Republicans also buy this absurd assumption.
 
̶  For liberals, gender is up to the individual to choose and any country (except close allies like Saudi and the UAE) that denies its citizens the right to choose its own gender is a human rights violator and needs US NGOs to initiate and finance a colour revolution to topple its regime.
 
The above liberal assumptions can be challenged by conservative politicians but doing so can be hazardous.
 
Further, since there are two political parties that have different subsets of unproven assumptions that are simply taken as givens by the adherents, the country is permanently divided by these secondary assumptions that are in fact virtually meaningless – such as the assumption among conservatives that any form of gun control would automatically lead to more murders and forfeiture of freedom, while any form of government assistance to individuals is evil and is the source of the unsustainable debt, and, on the other hand, the assumption among Democrats and many Republicans as well that US style democracy is vital to America’s health and any country that does not adopt this mode of governance is a threat to the very existence of the US and the entire planet and must be challenged by US reformers via NGOs and other actors, and even invaded if necessary. This insistence that all nations implement US style democracy (which I have shown does not even exist) has caused NATO to take its warships and aircraft to the very borders of Russia and China, flirting with the possibility of a nuclear WW III by accident.
 
The characteristic US style of governance, based on certain of the above assumptions for liberals and certain ones for conservatives, creates a perpetual divide which makes it impossible to define any kind of purpose and direction of the nation. Such governance might therefore be termed an “incoherent democracy.” One political group will point to the promotion of gender choice and say “this is who we are,” while another, pious, group will point to the religion-based support of Israel (notwithstanding its cruel wars on Arabs) and say “this is who we are” while still others will point to tolerance for drug use and unlimited immigration and say “this is who we are.” Yet, sadly, there is no consensus and in reality, there is no “we” because no one can define the hopelessly splintered America. 
 
The ill effects of the above outlined deficit of meaningful democracy and this political division of the American people are evident everywhere:
 
̶  a rapidly growing income gap that threatens the existence of the middle class,
 
̶  a staggering and unsustainable debt that threatens the value of the US dollar and its position in the world of finance and threatens America with hyperinflation,
 
̶  and a military that is perpetually at war with countries that are not threatening to the American people, wars that it always loses.
 
In short, Americans live with a constant low-key tension, chaos and sense of doom that robs everyone of their peace of mind and, yes, of the happiness that everyone would admit that they long for if they were free to speak their mind. But, of course, admitting that would be to challenge the sacred cow assumptions.
 
On the other hand, there is a kind of “democracy” in Russia that is based mostly on truths rather than lies. While Americans are taught to hate and fear, for example, Syria, Iraq, Russia and China, and are taught by their warmongering politicians on both sides of the aisle that it is necessary for the US military and NATO to conduct various provocations such as taking their warplanes and warships to the very shores of Russia and China and conducting menacing and provocative in-your-face drills in order to deter these countries from carrying out imaginary plans that neither country has ever enunciated, the Russian government simply tells their people the truth about these provocations, showing them why it is necessary to develop effective arms to thwart aggression by the US and its allies (such as Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian’s plan to destroy Kaliningrad unprovoked, as reported by Reuters). Thus, the US invents enemies, while Russia and China confronts the real, declared enemy, Washington.
 
Thanks to its particular variety of democracy aimed at pleasing the average Russian rather than just the oligarchs, Russia has made major strides in the Middle East, where the US and Israel have learned to respect its military might and where governments are turning to it for assistance in economy (such as the Russian industrial zone in Egypt’s Suez area and the Kalashnikov factory in Venezuela), diplomacy (such as arbitration in the return of refugees from Lebanon to Syria), security, eg, a strong Russian hand against Israel’s missile attacks on its neighbours and effective deterrence against US aggression in Syria, achieved thanks to ingenious novel weapons including electronic warfare systems that do not harm humans or property but effectively prevent attacks, and arms sales everywhere (particularly now that US air defences have failed in the Houthi attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities).
 
Thanks to this Russian form of democracy, which we can call “coherent democracy,” and which involves a strong hand in government, not in deceiving the populace as US democracy regularly does, but in actually giving its people what they need and want, Russia has the healthiest and most stable economy of any world power, as I explained here.
 
Now the reason US democracy ideologues give for defending “democracy” (and exporting it to countries not aligned with the US) is freedom. They insist US style democracy gives people “freedom.”
 
However, like most Westerners, they reference only individual freedom, which is the form of freedom least capable of providing for human needs such as security, social harmony, economic health and peace.
 
So what other form of freedom is there, you ask (assuming you are an indoctrinated Westerner)?
 
The other vital form of freedom is national freedom, ie, sovereignty, the freedom of a people to determine and control their own destiny. While individual freedom can provide a citizen with a perplexing array of options, including one’s very own choice of gender, the choice to buy a gun for defence, the choice to burn the national flag if so desired, the choice to work or go on welfare, the choice to start your own business (Russians also have this choice, BTW), or your own blog (Russians also have this choice) etc, Russia emphasizes national freedom, also known as sovereignty. Thanks to their coherent form of democracy, Russian people know that their government is dedicated to ensuring their security against Western aggression, not leading them into wars against countries that are not a threat to Russians just to please the blood thirst of a few twisted oligarchs. To defend their sovereignty, the Kremlin has banned a list of foreign agents, mostly US NGOs like USAID, NED and Soros’ Open Society foundations that are busy in other parts of the former Soviet Bloc setting up propaganda systems and civil organizations designed to topple leaders willing to trade and confer with the Russians – leaders like Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who attempted to stay on good terms with both Russia and the West but was toppled by a US-backed illegal and violent coup, sponsored and aided by the above-named NGOs and no less than the State Department, when he declined to make Ukraine an associate member of the EU (a bloc that is now crumbling) and thereby bring it into the US sphere of influence. This same regime change pattern is also being pursued in Kyrgyzstan, as I explained here and in Hong Kong, as I explained here. Russia is currently coping with a colour revolution attempt by Aleksei Navalny, a US-trained puppet eerily similar to Juan Guaido. While Guaido got his regime change training at Harvard, Navalny received training in the World Fellows program at Yale, which has also trained colour revolution leaders of other countries. Navalny is supported by many Americans who naively think he aims to improve conditions in Russia. Russia defends not only its own sovereignty (national freedom of choice) but also that of other countries, and has forced the “democracy”-exporting US to stand down in Syria, Venezuela and Iran and has also counteracted Israeli missile strikes in Syria and Lebanon.
 
By contrast, the US “democratic” system that denies its people a preferred coherent direction can be likened to an airliner in which the passengers vote every two hours or so on the direction in which they want to fly. A flight posted as Chicago-bound, for example, may wind up landing in Seattle, depending on how the vote turned out. This is an absurd example, of course, but so is a country whose people have no coherent direction or goals and are voting for candidates that only serve the interest of interest groups that despise them. In fact, the latter case is actually more absurd.
 
A look at the current presidential hopefuls reveals that none of them list anything like “ending the endless US wars” as part of their platform. Now, if you took a poll among Americans and asked if they think peace is a vital goal for their country, most would say yes. But if you watched the televised presidential debates every four years over the last half-century, you would have heard almost no moderator asking questions pertaining to this vital issue. Ron Paul was a standout in that he raised this issue as central to his platform. In fact, the enormous success of his crowd funding showed that the US grassroots was ready for this issue to be raised. But the Establishment operatives who designed the questions in the debates made sure that no direct questions were raised that would give a possible peace candidate a chance to show-case his or her views and promises in that area. Today the US has a possible peace candidate in Tulsi Gabbard but after her televised appearance at the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame event, where she came out strongly against US invasions, her Facebook presentation was pulled and then restored. Clearly the powers that be do not want their precious war industry tampered with. Yet they call this democracy?
 
A further look at the presidential candidates’ platforms shows that no one is challenging the power of AIPAC to virtually choose the candidate of its choice.
 
Nor are any candidates challenging the debt and promising to fix it.
 
You can’t call the US a democracy until these sacred cows are challenged. It probably won’t happen until the US dollar loses its hegemonic status and God only knows what will happen then to the world economy.
 
Relevant:
 
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/international-relations/made-in-usa-democratic-navalny