President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countriesOn CNN, one of the Post reporters on the story, Shane Harris, said that obviously is not true. But it is true.
No country has subverted more elections than the United States although its usual practice has been to allow elections to go forward and then if democrats are elected to destroy the democracy.
American interference in other countries' elections got going shortly after World War II in France and Italy. It continued under every administration except Carter's, but it wasn't just a matter of subverting democracy.
Democracy was not all that common so as often as not subversion of democracy took the form of supporting despotisms: Indonesia, Greece, Turkey, South Africa, South Vietnam, Spain, Portugal, Paraguay, many more.
From time to time brown people did attempt to start democracies. This usually caught America off guard since it does not believe brown people are capable of governing themselves.
When that happened democracies had to be overthrown in Haiti, Guatemala, Iran, Dominican Republic, Chile.
America didn't allow for democracy at home either. I came to political consciousness in the 1950s in Georgia which no one would describe as a democracy. Then or now although there have been some attempts in that direction recently there.
A few days ago I listened to most of Trump speech at the United Nations. He always speaks from the bully pulpit though in the common use of the word bully not Roosevelt's. He blustered about Venezuela. American policy has not been now or previously been to support democracy there. insofar as the current government has a policy it's the old familiar one of propping up a puppet with little or no popular support.
Imagine if the United States had supported democracy in Venezuela in the '50s or '60s. Perhaps it could have become a democracy by now. But actions have consequences and supporting the destruction of democratic movements makes it all the harder for any to break through subsequently.
The earliest international policy of which I have any clear memory was the 1956 Hungarian revolution. As Trump spoke about Venezuela I was mindful of what happened to the democrats in Hungry.
Hungry has never been a democracy. It was fascist and then it was occupied by Russians. At Our Lady of Perpetual Help church we prayed for the liberation of Cardinal Mindzenty in the name of democracy. Mindzenty was not a democrat, he was a reactionary Catholic.
Having failed to detect or support any genuine democrats, when the revolution broke out the United States was in an impossible position. Because of the McCarthyites and the Catholic lobby it could only support the reactionaries if it supported anyone. But the people in streets throwing Molotov cocktails against Russian tanks were -- at least some of them -- democrats.
The United States would not support them but Eisenhower had the Voice of America encourage their reckless resistance. With words only.
Today the United States talks about democracy in Venezuela but any actual democrats there have been hung out to dry.
No comments:
Post a Comment