Democracy and Society » Obama

Democratic Values in Domestic vs. International Policy

Imara — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:02:16 +0000

These last few weeks I found myself struggling over how to approach some of the recent issues in US domestic governance. From uncomfortably authoritarian reactions to left-leaning protestors, to authoritarian flavored ideas on internet freedom and detention of citizens, I’ve floundered for weeks somewhere between Chicken Little style ranting and my -tragically common- defeated indifference. Finally looking to a thoughtful recent post from Liza on US Foreign Policy on issues of Rule of Law and Human Rights in Russia, I decided that the best approach to writing on these subjects would just be to ride the coattails of my sharper witted peers .

Even as a student of politics things look pretty bad to me at the moment, in light of our ongoing economic woes I can’t help but wonder what on earth those who govern us are thinking about in continuing their same old tricks under the apparent assumption that no one is paying attention. On issues of foreign policy I regularly find myself genuinely proud of my government these days, sure there are mistakes, many of them quite grievous, but it appears at times as if we’re genuinely trying to do something positive in several regions of the world. At the same time our blatantly repressive handling of domestic issues has left me truly and sincerely baffled on what our governors see in America’s future.

I’ve written before on my opinions on the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and its negative influence on the relatively free space that is the internet. Over recent weeks voices against SOPA have become increasingly outspoken while legislators have fumbled time and again over why this legislation is necessary, good and important. Certainly I am not without my biases on issues of internet freedom and piracy, but assuming legislators as public servants or representatives of the populace it becomes increasingly difficult to envision who is being served or represented. The push to allow business to more strictly regulate the internet while hailing the virtues of internet freedom abroad strikes as a central example of our representatives blatantly being for sale.

As discussed by Secretary Clinton all too often in speeches abroad, the development of the internet has been an amazing advancement in the field of free speech. Whether merely facilitating easy communication between people or offering a medium for the sharing of typically repressed or less represented ideas, no matter how you slice it the development of the internet as a vaguely ungoverned space has been a marked positive in promoting free speech around the world. Attempting to limit that through the same sort of repression we regularly assail China over is a strike against one of those freedoms we as a nation hold dear. If anything, I suppose we should be proud that it’s largely corporate greed rather than the specter of security concerns that has triggered this recent legislative crackdown on internet freedom.

I have not written on the “National Defense Authorization Act” (NDAA) as it has been difficult for me to reasonably express my problems with this legislation or my sorrow in having reached a point where this is considered acceptable. I have highly mixed feelings about the president I helped elect at times, it’s unfortunate to imagine Barak Obama as the President who signed provisions for indefinite detention without a trial into US law. It is difficult to envision a surer way to end up on “the wrong side of history”, the reality of indefinite military detention has been understood in the US for some time but scripting it into our legal code is the type of policy decision I am used to reading in texts on transitions into authoritarianism.

This is actually one of those rare examples of an actual constitutional issue, unlike most of what we focus on in day to day politics. Limitations of individual legal rights are often eroded in times of conflict, and the current state of indefinite detention, however wrong, shouldn’t be surprising. It is however, quite different to enshrine these negative changes in the law. There is a reason we value rule of law, separation of powers and a respectable judicial system in the promotion of democracy abroad. The military is good at several things, and given the realities of US funding, it excels at some activities historically outside its scope. However, there is seldom, if ever, a time when military efficiency should replace due process.

Hyperbole is a constant danger when writing from the prospective of a student of politics, the issues of the present always seem so much more relevant and vivid than those of the past. In part my previous hesitance to discuss these acts or the trends they display in US politics is out of concern for my own biases and worry that I am blowing issues out of proportion. Liberals are regularly squealing in terror over some perceived apocalyptic bit of reactionary legislation or another after all, but after some careful thought my reactions to these acts seem justified. More even than my outrage at what is being done to the nation however, I am amazed at the time our legislators have chosen to take these actions. In a time of economic hardship and global political turmoil, pursuit of repressive legislation reeks of an honestly incomprehensible disconnect between legislators and those they are meant to represent.

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I am not sure I agree with Caroline Glick

Barak — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:23:32 +0000

Caroline Glick, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, believes one problem with the war or terror is that the US has been insufficiently aggressive in fighting it. In particular, she would like the US to expand its efforts to countries such as Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. Although she doesn’t directly call for US-led regime change in these countries, it seems to me that at a minimum she would like the US to do something to make these countries more unstable than they already are. After carefully considering her point of view, I have come to the conclusion that she is totally nuts. Let’s leave the merits of the policy aside (of which I think there are few) and look at the US record on regime change in the broader Middle East over the past decade. We have tried it in two countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, and the record is, to put it charitably, mixed at best.

Don’t get me wrong – I very pleased that Glick has such confidence in the US’s capacity to get other countries to govern as we wish they would through a policy of military aggression. The problem is that I find it really hard to believe that the world would be a safer place if the US provoked more instability in the Middle East. Perhaps in a future column Glick will outline why she thinks the US military would be more successful in Iran, Lebanon, and Syria than it has been in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Until that day comes, I hope that our joint chiefs of staff don’t read her work and think, “hmm…she’s got a point. Lemme run it by Obama.”

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Voting rules affect election outcomes

Barak — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:59:27 +0000

Scholars and practitioners of politics are probably more familiar with how voting rules affect election outcomes than the average person. Since I am a member of this group, Ari Berman’s Rolling Stone article on The GOP War on Voting made me nauseous. The nickel version of the article is that Republicans in many states, under the guise of reducing voter fraud, are putting onerous demands on who can vote, despite the fact that voter fraud is nearly non-existent in the US. Not surprisingly, these demands don’t fall equitably along the political spectrum, but target likely Democrats. For example, in Texas a concealed weapons permit is acceptable ID for voting, but a student ID is not. FYI, gun owners are far more likely to vote Republican than college students.

What is perhaps more interesting than Republicans manipulating voting rules to increase their chances to win elections is the sales pitch: reducing vote fraud. Most people in the US I suspect have no idea how much of a problem it is and few are pro-fraud. Voter suppression, I suspect, doesn’t test as well in focus groups.

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Congressional Politics & Global Conflict

Imara — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:19:05 +0000

Image courtesy of ForgottenInvasion.com

Recently I’ve had a few excellent and rather fiery discussions with friends on the subject of the current conflict in Libya and the role being played by the United States in that conflict. It’s fairly difficult for me to stand behind uses of military force, but like some of my peers it’s hard to see what would have been the better option for the US in Libya. While I suspect David and I differ in regard to our government’s stance on the conflicts in Yemen and Bahrain, we agree that those conflicts are not a reason to let things in Libya grow worse.

Specifically, a colleague asked my opinion on the President’s recent decision to pursue military action in Libya without the consent of Congress. Amid the current din of contrasting claims of Obama’s Presidential weakness, and the image of him as a socialist authoritarian overstepping the boundaries of Presidential power, the question certainly seemed worth addressing. This isn’t the first time the role of the executive in conflict has come to a head in American history, and I suspect it will not be the last.

Our nation hasn’t exactly made a habit of formally declaring war on other countries, and in contrast with some of our past conflicts it’s hard to see our efforts in Libya as deserving of any such declaration. Historically Congress has declared war as outlined in the Constitution only five times, during the 20^th century only WWI and WWII find their way onto that hallowed list. As early as the late 18^th century our Presidents engaged the nation in military conflicts without going through the standard channels, and I don’t think that’s entirely the wrong approach. The deliberative nature of our legislative branch is, as intended, very good at preventing our government from leaping too boldly into policy changes. However, deliberation, while a strength in politics, is often a liability in strategy.

Given my concerns about hypocrisy I’m certainly not comfortable with some of the players involved this time around. Vice President Biden, for example, was adamantly against military action being taken without Congressional approval just a few years ago. During the our conflicts in the Middle East over the last decade, many left leaning thinkers have been thoroughly outraged over military action taking place without the express consent of Congress . There were a host of reasons I was less than fond of our former President, but this was never one of them.

While I recognize the dangers of war-making in the hands of an executive power, I tend to be more convinced by my lack of faith in legislators to address time-sensitive concerns. To put it simply, there are a great number of subjects I think our legislators could dedicate their time to fixing before political grandstanding over international conflicts. In an ideal world I would prefer that legislators -and through them, the populace- had more influence on the making of war and international peace, but legislative politics in the US are anything but ideal.

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Wrong answer

Barak — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 02:11:26 +0000

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned today (i.e., was fired) as a result of critical remarks he made about the Obama administration’s rather inhumane treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of passing confidential cables to Wikileaks. This is the wrong response. Manning has not been convicted. The right answer would be to respect Manning’s human rights. It’s a sad day in a democracy when a government official is fired because he criticizes his government’s human rights violations over its own people, while the violations continue.

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What the Huck?

Barak — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:31:16 +0000

Mike Huckabee’s recent comments on Obama and Kenya are truly perplexing. Most of the media has focussed on the fact that Huckabee is factually wrong – Obama didn’t grow up in Kenya. What I find more interesting is the theory Huck is trying to float. According to Huck:

[Obama's] having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American…But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

Umm…okay. I’m not quite sure what Huck is getting at here. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Kenya isn’t the only country that ever fought a liberation movement against the mighty British Empire. Nor are the Kenyans the only colonists that felt persecuted by the British colonial apparatus. Lots of people who lived in Britain’s colonies felt this way and some even fought successful rebellions against the mother country…such as those living in what we call today the United States of America! So if Huck is trying to say that rebelling against Britain is somehow an un-American activity, what, exactly, would constitute an American activity? Huck might want to check out a rather important document in US history called “The Declaration of Independence” and rethink his position. By the way, since when did the GOP become pro-colonialism?

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D&S is right on time!

Barak — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:58:11 +0000

We like to be timely here at D&S, but we’re not usually this timely. Our most recent issue of Democracy and Society (which just came out this week!), as it turns out, focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East and has lots of good articles addressing the crises unfolding in the region:

Dina Guirguis provides some good analysis about what’s unfolding in Egypt at the moment…and predicted the explosive protests we’re seeing there right now (I’m not certain if she was predicting them so soon…).
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (of the Park 51 Mosque controversy) and Eric Patterson provide some good advice for how the Obama administration can engage in the region in a constructive way.
Nicholas Noe discusses (predicted?) the crisis in Lebanon.
Uriel Abulof and David Kenner talk about the challenges of democratic reform in the region.
István Balogh weighs in on the shifting balance of external power in the region.

As they say, RTWT (read the whole thing).

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D&S Vol. 8 Iss. 1 Winter 2011

admin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:42:07 +0000

The newest issue of Democracy & Society is now available online!

The Obama Administration and the US Relationship with the Broader Middle East

Featuring:

An interview with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
Lessons and implications for the Obama Administration
Discussion of the unexpected Maliki-Sadr alliance
“Democratizing” Iran

And more!

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Not serious budget debate

Barak — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:40:28 +0000

The Republicans are super-duper, really, really, really serious about cutting spending. I disagree. In fact, I don’t think they are serious at all. The Republicans in the House want to cut $100 billion of non-security discretionary spending from the fiscal year 2011 budget. This is a ridiculous way to reduce the budget deficit. The White House proposed budget for 2011 is $3.8 trillion. $2.4 trillion is non-discretionary (mainly social security, medicare, and interest on the debt). Defense accounts for about $850 billion. Discretionary spending, by contrast, is around $500 billion, or about 13% of the total budget. In fact, the projected budget deficit for this year is more than double all discretionary spending! Trying to “balance the budget” through “painful cuts” or by “eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse,” but fencing off 87% of that budget from any cuts makes zero sense. Even if Congress eliminated all discretionary spending, the US budget deficit would still be more than 5% of GDP. There is simply no way to reduce the budget deficit to manageable levels (2%-3% of GDP) without raising taxes, and/or reducing spending on medicare, social security and/or defense. None. At. All.

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Economic Failures & the Asia Tour

Imara — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:21:44 +0000

Obama "gets served" in Asia.

In the wake of blows taken by the Democratic Party in the recent midterm elections, the media has labeled the President’s recent Asia tour a similarly crushing stroke on a global scale. Where domestically the President “got served” by the Tea Party and Republicans – abroad China, South Korea and Germany delivered a similar treatment – overall displaying the growing weakness of the Obama administration. This limited presentation of the Asia tour seems accurate only if one believes that economics was the only focus of the tour and that the G20 was somehow going to miraculously resolve the lingering woes of our global economic crises.

Overlooking the President’s activities in India and Indonesia as irrelevant in search for a single striking narrative is illustrative of the larger flaws in the way information is presented to the US populace. However one may feel about the subjects of democracy promotion, international relations or religious freedom, acting as if these subjects simply weren’t relevant to the tour speaks of either dramatic shortsightedness or a conscious agenda. Even in the area of economics it seems that a conscious decision has been made to ignore the activities of the administration in India. The development and deepening of the bilateral relationship between India and the United States cannot be ignored if one is interested in economic policy.

In the area of democracy and international relations, the clashes between the China and the US over the elections in Burma and issues of human rights in the nation necessitate some attention. The promotion of Indonesia as a thriving Muslim democracy (regardless of realities of religious freedom in Indonesia) deserves the same level of consideration. The above issues alone would have justified the Asia tour, regardless of the successes of developing economic ties with India. Yet the evening news supported only the conclusion that the whole of the tour was a waste of time and resources, and a dismal failure of foreign policy. The only thing I really perceived as a marked failure in the tour was the effort to solve the world’s economic woes through the G20 summit, which I can’t imagine anyone genuinely expected.

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