National Endowment for Democracy: SHUT IT DOWN

Sounds like the National Endowment for Democracy needs more support...especially if leftists don't like it, not that they have a clue about democracy.

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http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve08/1379ned.html
The Guardian 20 August, 2008
National Endowment for Democracy: SHUT IT DOWN
James Jordan

Haven't heard of the National Endowment for Democracy? Not many people
in the US have. Yet the NED is taxpayer funded and carries out foreign
policy with no meaningful public oversight or transparency. In fact,
it does more to undermine democracy than not.

The NED…

# spent more than $20 per voter in?Nicaragua in 1990 — more than had
been spent by both candidates in the 1988 US Presidential election!

# funded and set up meetings between?organisations involved in the
2002 attempts to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela.

# funds far right parties in Eastern?Europe, even working with
convicted Nazi collaborators like Lazslo Pasztor, of the NED funded
Free Congress Foundation.

# funded, created, and trained most of the?groups involved in the
overthrow of Haiti's elected government in 2004, through its core
institute, the International Republican Institute, chaired by John
McCain. This led to the bloodiest year in Haiti in modern history.

# spends almost half its budget in support of the occupation of Iraq.

Here in the United States, we care about democratic rights. We fought
a revolution against colonialism and we fought a civil war against
slavery. In the 20th century we fought for women's right to vote and
we waged a civil rights struggle to secure the vote for people of all
ethnicities.

We were knocked down a few times when we got a president, in 2000, who
actually lost the popular vote, only to turn around and force us into
a war that the US people didn't want. But we're still here, still
struggling on behalf of real democracy!

We care about democracy — at home and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the
political-corporate-military machine tries its best to keep us from
learning about US efforts to undermine elections in other countries.
These efforts are aimed at making sure other governments adopt
policies granting easy access for big corporations to natural
resources, cheap labour, and new markets. This is backed up with US
military power.

Michael Plattner, a Vice-President of the NED, explains, "Liberal
democracy clearly favours the economic arrangements that foster
globalisation …. The international order that sustains globalisation
is underpinned by American military predominance."

While the NED is only a small part of the US's so-called "democracy
promotion" efforts, its influence reaches far beyond its annual budget.

The NED is…

1) Unconstitutional:
# the NED sets a dangerous precedent by privatising US foreign
affairs. The constitution is clear that international relations are
carried out on behalf of the US people by the executive and
legislative branches.

2) A "Black Box" of Democracy Interference that violates the public trust:
# Because of its publicly-funded, yet?"private" character, the NED is
not subject to any meaningful oversight. In fact, the core institutes
of the NED also receive funding from USAID and the US State
Department. Funnelled through these institutes, and then further
subcontracted, even non-NED funding can get laundered so that it is
almost impossible to track

3) A web of military, political, espionage, and corporate media that
obstructs the free flow of information for the sake of corporate
interests:
# The boards of the NED and its core?organisations are full of Spin
Doctors from public relations firms, big advertisers, corporate
headquarters; political analysts and advisors; and ex-CIA and military
personnel. Vin Weber, NED Board Chair, works for a public relations
firm that is part of the Omnicom Group, the world's third largest
advertising agency. The Center for International Private Enterprise,
an NED core institute, includes an executive from Google and a major
contractor with Google.

The International Republican Institute, another NED core institute,
includes a former Senior Advisor to the CIA and various
representatives from the military-industrial complex. These are just a
few examples.

The NED is able to coordinate campaigns of misinformation and bring
together a diverse coalition in order to manipulate foreign elections.
If that fails, the NED empowers that coalition to overthrow elected
governments — like it did in Haiti and like it is trying to do in
Venezuela.

The sole mission of the NED is to "fix" other countries' elections,
and most US residents would agree that is unfair. USAID also builds
schools, roads and has other projects that are an obligation for rich
countries to provide to the poor countries since our wealth was
extracted from them in the first place. The NED mission, on the other
hand, is limited to the manipulation or other countries' democratic
institutions and processes.

In the playing field of democracy, two competing forms have met head
to head: neo-liberal vs participatory democracy. The kind of democracy
that the NED favours is the neo-liberal kind. Its proponents, such as
Plattner, refer to it as liberal democracy, but that is incorrect
terminology.

Liberal democracy is the philosophy of government on which the US was
originally founded. It is flawed, but still more democratic than its
neo-liberal permutation. One still has had to struggle pretty hard to
win the right to vote, be it through colonial revolt, civil war, or
suffragist and civil rights movements. But once the less-than-assured
right to vote is won, elections are more or less decided along the
lines of "one person, one vote" and "majority rule." Another goal of
real liberal democracy is the protection of minority rights. But the
only minority neo-liberal democracy aims to protect are the rights of
big corporations.

"One dollar, one vote"

Neo-liberal democracy replaces the motto of "one person, one vote"
with "one dollar, one vote." For instance, in Iraq, the US is
advocating for passage of oil laws that are opposed by two thirds of
the Iraqi population. Passage would result in the biggest give-away of
oil profits that the Middle East has witnessed. Union membership in
the oil and public sector was also outlawed by the occupation government.

Conversely, participatory democracy directly empowers community
structures and co-?operative ventures. When I think of participatory
democracy, I think of Susana and Cesar Achique, from Tacaraigua de la
Laguna in Venezuela. Susana Achique is the elected president of the
Grupo Turismo y Aventura Dios y Yo (or, the God and I Tourism and
Adventure Group), a local co-op that was founded on a government
credit of just under $140,000 US. With that money, they bought and
outfitted three motor boats, an office and launching dock, and set up
a co-operative that takes tourists on ecological and fishing trips.

Cesar, the driver and tour guide for our boat, was enthusiastic,
telling us how their lagoon had been damaged by over-fishing by
commercial trawlers, depleting both fish and bird populations that
depend on the fish for food.

Jobs were scarce — the commercial fishing industry brought the town
little benefit. Cesar's eyes radiated a confident pride as he told
about the return of the fish and bird populations following
Venezuela's reform of fishing laws that stopped the trawlers from
entering such environmentally sensitive areas. As if to underscore
what he was saying, thousands of birds started their evening descent
into the mangrove swamps around us as the sun began to set.

Back on shore, Susana explained to us how members run the coop
democratically. Profits from the venture are used to pay the workers
and to provide community benefits. This is something I heard over and
over in Venezuela — how co-ops and worker-owned and operated factories
don't just benefit the people directly involved, but the whole community.

Revenues fund schools, health clinics, and more. Media centres, food
subsidy centres, health clinics, and a whole variety of government
missions are not just serving but are being implemented by community
members.

While Venezuela is engaged in a massive effort to diversify its
economy, it still remains dependent on oil profits which, under
participatory democracy, support social spending. Community members
are involved in decisions about whether or not to develop oil
resources and, for the first time in Venezuelan history, indigenous
nations most affected by oil development, take part in these decisions.

Participatory democracy

Has participatory democracy been good for Venezuela? Since the people
gained popular power in 1998, the poverty rate has dropped from 54% to
38.5%-30% if food and health subsidies are factored in; millions have
gained access to free health care; half the population is enrolled in
free, public education; and over five million acres of fallow land
have been turned over to rural people for agricultural development.
The economy has been growing steadily since NED funded attempts to
overthrow the government in 2002.

The Alliance for Global Justice has begun a project called the Respect
for Democracy Campaign, and one of our primary goals is to close the
NED. This campaign has been endorsed by many groups and individuals,
including Howard Zinn, author of the Peoples' History of the United
States, Eva Golinger, author of The Chavez Code and Bush Vs. Chavez,
Rev. John Fife, co-founder of the Sanctuary Movement and former
Moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA, the Venezuela Solidarity
Network, the Campaign for Labor Rights, the Worker to Worker
Solidarity Committee, and the Nicaragua network.

Of course, ending democracy manipulation and winning participatory
democracy must be built upon participatory struggle! In other words,
what this campaign needs is…YOU!

Neo-liberal democracy and economics has put the future of the world at
stake. We have a choice: corporate globalism and elitist power or
community autonomy and people power.

Which of these is in YOUR future?

James Jordan is coordinator of the Respect for Democracy Campaign.
For More information: respect4democracy.org