Democracies

Source: www.newsday.com --- 20 days ago
WARSAW, Poland - Poland strikes a deal on a U.S. missile defense base. Ukraine tries to limit the Russian navy's movement in its waters. The Czech Republic's leader warns his nation is in danger of being sucked back into Moscow's orbit. ...

Source: www.kansascity.com --- 20 days ago
Russia’s military invasion of Georgia has rekindled memories of the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were bitter rivals. ...

Source: tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com --- 18 days ago
Philip Pan's book is an excellent reminder that history is not a simple process of nations snowballing from authoritarianism to democracy. And furthermore, that it is dangerous to consider modern authoritarian regimes as temporary phenomena merely stalled in the inevitable transition towards democracy. Many policymakers in Washington remain afflicted with this notion, having come of age during the Cold War and America's victory in it. If Pan's book helps to debunk the closely guarded myth that economic development invariably leads to political liberalization, it will have already made a vital contribution to the debate about China's future. But Out of Mao's Shadow also highlights, albeit indirectly, another important insight regarding the prospects for democratization in China: namely, that mass, populist movements can also be impediments to the expansion and expression of individual liberty. Rather than ending in stable, full-blown Democracies, democratic transitions are often seized and reversed by political entrepreneurs who fill the societal vacuums that exist under dictatorship. This point is reinforced by Orville Schell's insightful comments regarding the underdetermined goals of Chinese development. Recall that the Iranian Revolution, as well as the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, all began as nominal efforts towards reformist, democratic governance. This is what worries me about talk of ...

Source: www.charleston.net --- 26 days ago
The United Nations Security Council has been bogged down in acrimonious debate about what to do since Russia invaded Georgia last week. Meanwhile, Russia's forces are moving deeper into Georgia, and the Russian foreign minister told the American secretary of state on Sunday that Georgia's president "must go." ...

Source: fredtopeka.wordpress.com --- 20 days ago
Not too long agoI noted that the war between Russia and Georgia showed that Democracies go to war. Brainiac notesthe same thing, but also adds that it’s a case where two countries with a McDonalds have gone to war ( which Thomas Friedman said never happens). So I missed one. On the other hand, I [...] ...

Source: www.guardian.co.uk --- 31 days ago
Lionel Beehner: John McCain's proposed League of Democracies would not solve the UN's problems but rather undermine its authority ...

Source: dyspepsiageneration.com --- 32 days ago
Read it. ...

Source: www.britsattheirbest.com --- 25 days ago
The Flag of England and the Flag of Georgia I was thrilled to see that the leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine had flown to Tbilisi and were standing with the embattled Georgians against the invading Russians - John McCain called for an end to Russian aggression, and said about the Georgian people, “Because of their location, their history hasn't been easy. Through the centuries, they have seen invasions and attacks from Mongols, Russians, Turks and Persians. And through it all, they maintained their language, their cultural identity, and their national pride”. It’s often assumed that the British, behind their moat, had an easier time of it, but this partial list of aggression repelled suggests otherwise - ...

Source: www.topix.com --- 24 days ago
Visiting East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta paid tribute to the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, which he said inspired hope among the East Timorese for their own independence even while ... ...

Source: groups.google.com --- 21 days ago
GEORGIA V. RUSSIA : INCORRECT CLAIM WITHOUT WESTERN Democracies V. COMMUNISM/SOCIALISM August 14, 2008 The old west desires total cleansing of Communism/Socialism, Islam, non-align, Asia and Africa selfishly to dig gold. This the brain behind these chain of conflicts 1900 – present. The old west has ...

Source: www.ITCinstitute.com --- 26 days ago
Terrorism concerns have led to reduced privacy in many but not all Democracies ...

Source: www.atlasusa.org --- 5 days ago
The freedom movement is incredibly fortunate to have many talented writers. Let me highlight a noteworthy new collection that showcases fourteen Latin American authors. Recently, Angel Soto (Chile) collaborated with various partners in the Atlas network to publish a book called Las Fragiles Democracias Latinoamericans (The Fragile Democracies of Latin America). Atlas was a proud [...] ...

Source: rss.iscabbs.com --- 4 days ago
Lots of "liberal Democracies" have a real problem with free speech. In France you can be arrested for being stupid enough to be a bigot and candid enough to open your mouth about it. Canada and UK and Germany similarly. ...

Source: auspundits.typepad.com --- 21 days ago
A community (or league) of Democracies has been proposed by a number of politicians (GOP POTUS nominee [John McCain](http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OR8DTG0&show_article=1&cat=0) and potential GOP VP nominee [Mitt Romney](http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/post_199.html). In response to Georgia's crushing defeat at the hands of a well prepared Russian... ...

Source: egov20.wordpress.com --- 37 days ago
I have been invited to give a speech in South Africa. They asked for my tutorial at the Lisbon conferece, but I will make some changes. In particular, I wrote several times about how the new vision of egov2.0 is very much suited to the Anglo-Saxon contest (UK, US, New Zealand…). A former colleague at [...] ...

Source: usrole.foreignpolicyblogs.com --- 18 days ago
As Russian tanks move deeper into Georgia in defiance of the ceasefire agreement The New York Times’ On This Day section reminds us that it was on this day in 1961 that Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city’s eastern and western sectors. The original report from The New [...] ...

Source: willamos.myblogsite.com --- 26 days ago
Does that include FDR doing that to Germany and Japan and Italy ? ...

Source: jeremylott.net --- 5 days ago
Ralph Nader name-checks Jeremy in this interview with the Rocky Mountain News: If you read this article two weeks ago in Politico by Jeremy Lott, he thinks we’ve already had an impact over the last eight years on the Democratic Party. It was quite an eye-opener to me that he writes that way. I don’t even [...] ...

Source: www.bbc.co.uk --- 3 days ago
Baghdad - There is light at the end of the tunnel but nobody knows how best to describe it. Coming back here after several months, negotiations between the US and Iraqi governments about the future status of coalition forces in this country are said to be almost complete. Time is short: the United Nations mandate governing the presence of foreign troops here will expire at the end of this year - but more importantly, it is the Bush administration's ardent wish to conclude the new deal before November's presidential elections in the US. So much of American policy here has been dominated by the electoral cycle back home that this latest milestone is of enormous importance; for since Democracies normally respect treaties signed by their predecessors, this is George Bush's chance to define the next administration's approach to Iraq. So not only will the new treaty define the circumstances and timetable for the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq - whatever Barack Obama is saying about it on the stump - but it also offers the Bush Administration its last, best, chance to tell the world "we won". But how do you actually say that? Talking to senior officers here several months ago, the word was, "General Petraeus has banned any mention of the V word". Since then pretty much all of the security indicators have shown continued improvement: deaths of US forces are down (despite the occasional blip); Iraqi civilian deaths ditto; Muqtada ...