You Don't Say!

From the BBC, on the US acquittal of Cuban terrorist Luis Posada-Carriles:

The US has previously refused to send Mr Posada Carriles to Cuba or Venezuela, saying he could face torture.

There's less danger, as far as I can tell, of Posada being tortured in either Cuba or Venezuela than of anyone's being tortured by the US or our agents. So, what I want to know is, why wasn't he tortured in the US?

And does this mean the US, I mean NATO of course, will have to enforce a no-fly zone over Egypt?

You Don't Say!

From the BBC, on the US acquittal of Cuban terrorist Luis Posada-Carriles:

The US has previously refused to send Mr Posada Carriles to Cuba or Venezuela, saying he could face torture.

There's less danger, as far as I can tell, of Posada being tortured in either Cuba or Venezuela than of anyone's being tortured by the US or our agents. So, what I want to know is, why wasn't he tortured in the US?

And does this mean the US, I mean NATO of course, will have to enforce a no-fly zone over Egypt?

Sharia Law for Madison, Communism for Cairo!

From Lenin's Tomb.

It's been entertaining to watch the Right going berserk over the protests in Madison, often the very same right-wingers who support the Tea Party. Someone actually complained somewhere that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker won his election, so now he can do what he wants! Someone else pointed out in reply that Obama and the Democrats won the 2008 election, so why didn't the Teabaggers welcome their every initiative? (The same complaint was made in Korea during the beef-import protests of 2008: they've got the right to vote now, so why are they protesting in the streets?)

Which reminds me, the BBC has a story up this morning that I found interesting but mildly disturbing. It's a celebration of an American academic named Gene Sharp, who has built his career studying methods and tactics of "nonviolent revolution." According to the article, Sharp's booklet From Dictatorship to Democracy, which lists 198 "techniques collated from a forensic study of defiance to tyranny throughout history", has been used by activists from Burma to Serbia to Egypt. Sharp has been accused, the writer sniffs, of being a CIA front; I wouldn't be so sure he's not, though he has one interesting item in his CV: he was jailed "for nine months in 1953-4 for protesting against conscription of young men to fight in Korean War."

What disturbed me about the article was a passing remark that "President Hugo Chavez used his weekly television address to warn the country that Sharp was a threat to the national security of Venezuela." This means that Sharp's methods can be, and perhaps are being used against properly elected governments, not just tyrants. (What disturbed me was the implication, so common in the US mainstream, that Chavez is a tyrant; it doesn't have to be supported, everybody just knows it.) Diana Johnstone wrote a few years ago, "I have written another note on that, pointing out that the United States, with its vast wealth and power, is able to use all methods, those of the powerful and those of the weak, including 'non-violence' (U.S. agents taught 'non-violence' to the well-subsidized 'Otpor' movement in Serbia to get rid of Milosevic... which did not preclude using violent groups as well)." I hope the protesters in Wisconsin are studying From Dictatorship to Democracy. It seems only fair.

Sharia Law for Madison, Communism for Cairo!

From Lenin's Tomb.

It's been entertaining to watch the Right going berserk over the protests in Madison, often the very same right-wingers who support the Tea Party. Someone actually complained somewhere that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker won his election, so now he can do what he wants! Someone else pointed out in reply that Obama and the Democrats won the 2008 election, so why didn't the Teabaggers welcome their every initiative? (The same complaint was made in Korea during the beef-import protests of 2008: they've got the right to vote now, so why are they protesting in the streets?)

Which reminds me, the BBC has a story up this morning that I found interesting but mildly disturbing. It's a celebration of an American academic named Gene Sharp, who has built his career studying methods and tactics of "nonviolent revolution." According to the article, Sharp's booklet From Dictatorship to Democracy, which lists 198 "techniques collated from a forensic study of defiance to tyranny throughout history", has been used by activists from Burma to Serbia to Egypt. Sharp has been accused, the writer sniffs, of being a CIA front; I wouldn't be so sure he's not, though he has one interesting item in his CV: he was jailed "for nine months in 1953-4 for protesting against conscription of young men to fight in Korean War."

What disturbed me about the article was a passing remark that "President Hugo Chavez used his weekly television address to warn the country that Sharp was a threat to the national security of Venezuela." This means that Sharp's methods can be, and perhaps are being used against properly elected governments, not just tyrants. (What disturbed me was the implication, so common in the US mainstream, that Chavez is a tyrant; it doesn't have to be supported, everybody just knows it.) Diana Johnstone wrote a few years ago, "I have written another note on that, pointing out that the United States, with its vast wealth and power, is able to use all methods, those of the powerful and those of the weak, including 'non-violence' (U.S. agents taught 'non-violence' to the well-subsidized 'Otpor' movement in Serbia to get rid of Milosevic... which did not preclude using violent groups as well)." I hope the protesters in Wisconsin are studying From Dictatorship to Democracy. It seems only fair.

Every One That Doeth Evil Hateth the Light

It's great news that Hosni Mubarak has resigned, after balking yesterday. The courage of the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who kept up the pressure on him, in the face of attacks by his thugs, should be celebrated now and for years to come. We Americans should heap shame on President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for supporting Mubarak as long as they did. They'll try to take credit for his resignation, but they should be jeered at when they do. It wasn't their doing. If it had been up to them, Mubarak would still be in power.

The US right has been tying itself into knots on this matter for the past couple of weeks. On the one hand, the fall of Ben Ali and now of Mubarak echoed the "Arab spring" that flowered briefly in 2005 under Dubya, and some on the Right attacked Obama for not putting more on pressure on Mubarak, even though Bush abandoned his support for democracy in the Arab/Muslim world almost immediately. The 2006 victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections may have been one factor, but Bush had no serious interest in Middle Eastern democracy anyway. Will the US Right give Obama the credit for Mubarak's resignation? Of course not. On the other and dominant hand, the US Right warned that Obama wasn't supporting Mubarak enough, that Mubarak would be replaced by a jihadist Sharia Muslim Brotherhood tyranny. (The wrong kind of tyranny, of course: a stable pro-Western, pro-Israel tyranny, a destination for American extraordinary renditions, torturing on demand, is just fine.)

That being said upfront, I'm wary of getting too excited. The Egyptians should be proud, but for me there are memories of (among other things) the exultation that followed the election of Obama in the US. Bush was gone! Democracy would flow down from above like a river from the mountain springs! The People had spoken! The downfall of Mubarak is great news, but by itself it means little, especially since Mubarak designated his successor, a blood-soaked torturer with no more interest in democracy than Mubarak has. Omar Suleiman has announced that the Supreme Military Council will be in charge now, and that's not a hopeful sign, especially since the Egyptian military is a prime beneficiary of American "aid."

It's a safe bet that (among others) the US, Israel, and entrenched interests in the upper strata of Egyptian society will be doing their best to ensure that change in Egypt is limited, hobbled, and strangled in the cradle. And these elements have an important advantage over those who want democracy: anti-democratic forces can work in private, in secret, because while of course the People are the court of last resort, they just don't understand the necessary compromises that need to be made in a free society to make things go forward. The demonstrators in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt who brought Mubarak down worked in the open, before the eyes of the world. Those who aim to undo what they achieved not only prefer secrecy, they need it to do their dirty work. I'm sure most Egyptians understand this; I hope they can find ways to frustrate it.

P.S. Ashraf Khalil's summing-up here says it better than I can.

Every One That Doeth Evil Hateth the Light

It's great news that Hosni Mubarak has resigned, after balking yesterday. The courage of the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who kept up the pressure on him, in the face of attacks by his thugs, should be celebrated now and for years to come. We Americans should heap shame on President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for supporting Mubarak as long as they did. They'll try to take credit for his resignation, but they should be jeered at when they do. It wasn't their doing. If it had been up to them, Mubarak would still be in power.

The US right has been tying itself into knots on this matter for the past couple of weeks. On the one hand, the fall of Ben Ali and now of Mubarak echoed the "Arab spring" that flowered briefly in 2005 under Dubya, and some on the Right attacked Obama for not putting more on pressure on Mubarak, even though Bush abandoned his support for democracy in the Arab/Muslim world almost immediately. The 2006 victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections may have been one factor, but Bush had no serious interest in Middle Eastern democracy anyway. Will the US Right give Obama the credit for Mubarak's resignation? Of course not. On the other and dominant hand, the US Right warned that Obama wasn't supporting Mubarak enough, that Mubarak would be replaced by a jihadist Sharia Muslim Brotherhood tyranny. (The wrong kind of tyranny, of course: a stable pro-Western, pro-Israel tyranny, a destination for American extraordinary renditions, torturing on demand, is just fine.)

That being said upfront, I'm wary of getting too excited. The Egyptians should be proud, but for me there are memories of (among other things) the exultation that followed the election of Obama in the US. Bush was gone! Democracy would flow down from above like a river from the mountain springs! The People had spoken! The downfall of Mubarak is great news, but by itself it means little, especially since Mubarak designated his successor, a blood-soaked torturer with no more interest in democracy than Mubarak has. Omar Suleiman has announced that the Supreme Military Council will be in charge now, and that's not a hopeful sign, especially since the Egyptian military is a prime beneficiary of American "aid."

It's a safe bet that (among others) the US, Israel, and entrenched interests in the upper strata of Egyptian society will be doing their best to ensure that change in Egypt is limited, hobbled, and strangled in the cradle. And these elements have an important advantage over those who want democracy: anti-democratic forces can work in private, in secret, because while of course the People are the court of last resort, they just don't understand the necessary compromises that need to be made in a free society to make things go forward. The demonstrators in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt who brought Mubarak down worked in the open, before the eyes of the world. Those who aim to undo what they achieved not only prefer secrecy, they need it to do their dirty work. I'm sure most Egyptians understand this; I hope they can find ways to frustrate it.

P.S. Ashraf Khalil's summing-up here says it better than I can.

The Trouble with Normal

The BBC opened a story on "Egyptian unrest" with this rider:

Egypt is increasing pay and pensions for public-sector workers by 15% as protesters defy attempts to return the country to normality.

I know there are various possible meanings for "normality" here that don't miss the point. But normality, Egyptian-style, is exactly what the protests opposed: a corrupt, violent, repressive state, with a crumbling economy. Of course a return to that normality is exactly what Mubarak, Obama, Clinton (whose envoy to Egypt works for Mubarak) and Netanyahu (among others) want to see.

Mark Mardell, the Beeb's North American editor, spells it out:

What US policymakers want amounts to the current Egyptian government's pro-Western policy, plus democratic legitimacy, plus stability. They believe for that to happen, peace on the streets is essential and serious negotiations about the path to elections are vital.

What the US wants is change without change, in other words: a veneer of "democratic legitimacy" plus "stability," plus Mubarak's collaboration with the US and Israel. What the Egyptian people want is another matter, of little interest to the US. None of this is at all surprising, of course. It's exactly what I'd expect. But it's charming to see it said so openly and unself-consciously.

The Trouble with Normal

The BBC opened a story on "Egyptian unrest" with this rider:

Egypt is increasing pay and pensions for public-sector workers by 15% as protesters defy attempts to return the country to normality.

I know there are various possible meanings for "normality" here that don't miss the point. But normality, Egyptian-style, is exactly what the protests opposed: a corrupt, violent, repressive state, with a crumbling economy. Of course a return to that normality is exactly what Mubarak, Obama, Clinton (whose envoy to Egypt works for Mubarak) and Netanyahu (among others) want to see.

Mark Mardell, the Beeb's North American editor, spells it out:

What US policymakers want amounts to the current Egyptian government's pro-Western policy, plus democratic legitimacy, plus stability. They believe for that to happen, peace on the streets is essential and serious negotiations about the path to elections are vital.

What the US wants is change without change, in other words: a veneer of "democratic legitimacy" plus "stability," plus Mubarak's collaboration with the US and Israel. What the Egyptian people want is another matter, of little interest to the US. None of this is at all surprising, of course. It's exactly what I'd expect. But it's charming to see it said so openly and unself-consciously.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Where on earth did this week go to? I know that Thursday night I went to a friend's birthday party, and Wednesday night was busy for some other reason. And the world just seems overwhelming lately.

I haven't written about the protests in Egypt, because while I support them I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything useful about them. (Yeah, like that's ever stopped me before...) I'd hope that the people who read this blog know where to look for information, but if not, try Democracy Now!'s coverage, or the liveblogging by the blogger at Moon of Alabama (CORRECTION: not Billmon, as I mistakenly wrote before -- sorry for the mistake), or articles by an old friend of mine, an Egyptian-American journalist who's been in the thick of things in Tahrir Square. (I've seen the weird phrase "pro-Mubarak supporters" in more than one US news article; aside from being redundant, it covers up the fact that the "supporters" are mostly thugs and plainclothes police in Mubarak's pay -- which doesn't exclude their being "supporters", but suggests a false equivalence between them and the anti-Mubarak protesters.) Ash, who's the source for the photo above, has apparently been heard on NPR and the BBC, along with other people who actually know what they're talking about, a big improvement on the usual malignly ignorant talking heads.

And that's not including such purely malign figures as President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, who'd be hard to keep out of the media in any case. It appears that the "reform" we're supposedly seeing now is a typical change-without-change: Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's new vice president, has a long history as torturer-for-hire.

The FAIR blog, as usual, has been critiquing the corporate media coverage, such as the noteworthy but unsurprising agreement between "conservative" pundits like Charles Krauthammer and "liberal" ones like Joe Klein that democracy isn't for Mooslims. (At least not until they've been invaded and occupied by the US, I suppose.)

Which reminds me that my right-wing Facebook friends have been surprisingly quiet about the Egyptian uprising. RWA2 posted a quotation from Admiral Dama of Battleship Galactica (I had to ask for the source): "There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." I pointed out that in Egypt, it's the military that had been siding with the people, however uncharacteristically, and the police that sent in thugs and agents provocateurs to attack the demonstrators. Plus, of course, the US has traditionally preferred to blur the distinction between the police and the army in our client countries, arming and training both. No further exchange ensued, or I'd have asked why a self-styled libertarian likes a statist like General Dama: the army "fights the enemies of the state"? Doesn't the army supposedly defend the people against those who would attack and enslave them? Someone's got his propaganda all garbled.

RWA1 has also been relatively taciturn on the Egyptian protests. At first he stuck with links to relatively noncommittal stuff like this reassuring piece by Robert Kaplan (The protests "are not about the existential plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation; nor are they at least overtly anti-Western or even anti-American. The demonstrators have directed their ire against unemployment, tyranny, and the general lack of dignity and justice in their own societies.") and this fatuous piece from National Review Online which claimed that it's all about Demographics: Then he recommended an op-ed from the Philly Inquirer which called on the Obama administration to "get on the right side in Egypt", but that couldn't last; next he recommended this article by a stupid and vicious Tory from the Telegraph which blames TV and "Muslim extremists" in England for the protests in Tunisia and Egypt: "The Iranian Revolution of 1979 began with the overthrow of an unpopular autocrat and ended with the triumph of a murderous theocrat." That "unpopular autocrat" was also murderous, but that can conveniently be forgotten. RWA1's thrashing about on the issues is all too typical of right-thinking educated Americans, of course, which is why I'm talking about it here.

Myself, I approve of the demonstrations in Egypt and elsewhere, because I think that people should have as much control as possible over their governments -- that governments should be accountable to their people. The whole point of US and Israeli support for Mubarak has been to have an Egyptian government that is not accountable to its people. It's tempting to say that the US should simply butt out of Egyptian politics, but I'm not sure that's possible: there will be plenty of other outside forces butting in, so the question is whether we can butt in intelligently (as hilarious as the idea is, given our track record). Another Facebook friend linked to this very sensible blog post from a couple of days ago.

If the people go home now, there will be a few days of relief and peace. Those who only want stability at any cost will be appeased. The U.S. government and the American media will report it as a victory for Egyptian democracy, because Mubarak has agreed to step down in the fall and the protesters have "agreed" (by virtue of going home). There will be a respite of a week or two, and the story will fade from the international news.

Then it will begin. Mubarak's security team will start combing the videos that have been uploaded over the past week, making notes of names and faces. They will obtain phone and internet records. They will start tapping phones and monitoring Facebook. (In the U.S. the word "Facebook" means "ha ha I spend too much time here omg I should be studying"; in Egypt it means that too, but is also a way to organize politically in a country where there is no right to assemble.)

And so on; the whole post is worth reading. Constructing a democratic Egypt will not be easy because of the repressive state apparatus that has been in place for more than thirty years, with US and other outside support. You don't dismantle all those institutions simply by getting rid of the guy at the top, if only because not even the most brutal tyrant or absolute monarch rules alone. It's a popular mainstream US trope to excuse our support of repressive regimes by saying that there are no local institutions of self-government there; to the extent that it's true, it's because such local institutions have been stamped out before they could become effective. Which is not accidental, despite the equally popular imperial lament of Joe Klein (via), "How on earth do we get saddled with such creepy clients as Karzai and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, over and over again?" We don't "get saddled with" them, we choose them, over and over again, because only corrupt tyrants will let themselves be bought by outsiders. And it isn't "we" (viz., Americans) who are saddled with them, it's them -- you know, the faceless huddled masses of Afghanistan and Egypt.

This is not to say, as the blogger I just quoted wrote in another post, that "the U.S. hates democracy for its own sake." The blogger attributes this idea to a "forty-year-old analysis" of unnamed "progressives"; I think it's a straw man, because 1) I can't remember ever having seen any progressive or left analyst say such a thing and 2) this is a common accusation made against left critics of the US imperium -- that we think the US is responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world, and so on. If we can get democracies that will go along with us, we will let them survive. "The United States government would support a stuffed rabbit or Paris Hilton if it meant making the Arab world safe for economic investment and keeping the Suez Canal open," the blogger says. Exactly what people like Noam Chomsky have been saying for decades. But unfortunately, cheap docile labor and other perks of a welcoming investment climate are hard to square with local governments that are accountable to their people. That, and not some metaphysical hatred of democracy, is the reason for the ongoing US discomfort with democracy, abroad and at home. It's because capitalism (whether nominally private or public -- it doesn't make much difference in practice) is incompatible with democracy.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Where on earth did this week go to? I know that Thursday night I went to a friend's birthday party, and Wednesday night was busy for some other reason. And the world just seems overwhelming lately.

I haven't written about the protests in Egypt, because while I support them I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything useful about them. (Yeah, like that's ever stopped me before...) I'd hope that the people who read this blog know where to look for information, but if not, try Democracy Now!'s coverage, or the liveblogging by the blogger at Moon of Alabama (CORRECTION: not Billmon, as I mistakenly wrote before -- sorry for the mistake), or articles by an old friend of mine, an Egyptian-American journalist who's been in the thick of things in Tahrir Square. (I've seen the weird phrase "pro-Mubarak supporters" in more than one US news article; aside from being redundant, it covers up the fact that the "supporters" are mostly thugs and plainclothes police in Mubarak's pay -- which doesn't exclude their being "supporters", but suggests a false equivalence between them and the anti-Mubarak protesters.) Ash, who's the source for the photo above, has apparently been heard on NPR and the BBC, along with other people who actually know what they're talking about, a big improvement on the usual malignly ignorant talking heads.

And that's not including such purely malign figures as President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, who'd be hard to keep out of the media in any case. It appears that the "reform" we're supposedly seeing now is a typical change-without-change: Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's new vice president, has a long history as torturer-for-hire.

The FAIR blog, as usual, has been critiquing the corporate media coverage, such as the noteworthy but unsurprising agreement between "conservative" pundits like Charles Krauthammer and "liberal" ones like Joe Klein that democracy isn't for Mooslims. (At least not until they've been invaded and occupied by the US, I suppose.)

Which reminds me that my right-wing Facebook friends have been surprisingly quiet about the Egyptian uprising. RWA2 posted a quotation from Admiral Dama of Battleship Galactica (I had to ask for the source): "There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." I pointed out that in Egypt, it's the military that had been siding with the people, however uncharacteristically, and the police that sent in thugs and agents provocateurs to attack the demonstrators. Plus, of course, the US has traditionally preferred to blur the distinction between the police and the army in our client countries, arming and training both. No further exchange ensued, or I'd have asked why a self-styled libertarian likes a statist like General Dama: the army "fights the enemies of the state"? Doesn't the army supposedly defend the people against those who would attack and enslave them? Someone's got his propaganda all garbled.

RWA1 has also been relatively taciturn on the Egyptian protests. At first he stuck with links to relatively noncommittal stuff like this reassuring piece by Robert Kaplan (The protests "are not about the existential plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation; nor are they at least overtly anti-Western or even anti-American. The demonstrators have directed their ire against unemployment, tyranny, and the general lack of dignity and justice in their own societies.") and this fatuous piece from National Review Online which claimed that it's all about Demographics: Then he recommended an op-ed from the Philly Inquirer which called on the Obama administration to "get on the right side in Egypt", but that couldn't last; next he recommended this article by a stupid and vicious Tory from the Telegraph which blames TV and "Muslim extremists" in England for the protests in Tunisia and Egypt: "The Iranian Revolution of 1979 began with the overthrow of an unpopular autocrat and ended with the triumph of a murderous theocrat." That "unpopular autocrat" was also murderous, but that can conveniently be forgotten. RWA1's thrashing about on the issues is all too typical of right-thinking educated Americans, of course, which is why I'm talking about it here.

Myself, I approve of the demonstrations in Egypt and elsewhere, because I think that people should have as much control as possible over their governments -- that governments should be accountable to their people. The whole point of US and Israeli support for Mubarak has been to have an Egyptian government that is not accountable to its people. It's tempting to say that the US should simply butt out of Egyptian politics, but I'm not sure that's possible: there will be plenty of other outside forces butting in, so the question is whether we can butt in intelligently (as hilarious as the idea is, given our track record). Another Facebook friend linked to this very sensible blog post from a couple of days ago.

If the people go home now, there will be a few days of relief and peace. Those who only want stability at any cost will be appeased. The U.S. government and the American media will report it as a victory for Egyptian democracy, because Mubarak has agreed to step down in the fall and the protesters have "agreed" (by virtue of going home). There will be a respite of a week or two, and the story will fade from the international news.

Then it will begin. Mubarak's security team will start combing the videos that have been uploaded over the past week, making notes of names and faces. They will obtain phone and internet records. They will start tapping phones and monitoring Facebook. (In the U.S. the word "Facebook" means "ha ha I spend too much time here omg I should be studying"; in Egypt it means that too, but is also a way to organize politically in a country where there is no right to assemble.)

And so on; the whole post is worth reading. Constructing a democratic Egypt will not be easy because of the repressive state apparatus that has been in place for more than thirty years, with US and other outside support. You don't dismantle all those institutions simply by getting rid of the guy at the top, if only because not even the most brutal tyrant or absolute monarch rules alone. It's a popular mainstream US trope to excuse our support of repressive regimes by saying that there are no local institutions of self-government there; to the extent that it's true, it's because such local institutions have been stamped out before they could become effective. Which is not accidental, despite the equally popular imperial lament of Joe Klein (via), "How on earth do we get saddled with such creepy clients as Karzai and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, over and over again?" We don't "get saddled with" them, we choose them, over and over again, because only corrupt tyrants will let themselves be bought by outsiders. And it isn't "we" (viz., Americans) who are saddled with them, it's them -- you know, the faceless huddled masses of Afghanistan and Egypt.

This is not to say, as the blogger I just quoted wrote in another post, that "the U.S. hates democracy for its own sake." The blogger attributes this idea to a "forty-year-old analysis" of unnamed "progressives"; I think it's a straw man, because 1) I can't remember ever having seen any progressive or left analyst say such a thing and 2) this is a common accusation made against left critics of the US imperium -- that we think the US is responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world, and so on. If we can get democracies that will go along with us, we will let them survive. "The United States government would support a stuffed rabbit or Paris Hilton if it meant making the Arab world safe for economic investment and keeping the Suez Canal open," the blogger says. Exactly what people like Noam Chomsky have been saying for decades. But unfortunately, cheap docile labor and other perks of a welcoming investment climate are hard to square with local governments that are accountable to their people. That, and not some metaphysical hatred of democracy, is the reason for the ongoing US discomfort with democracy, abroad and at home. It's because capitalism (whether nominally private or public -- it doesn't make much difference in practice) is incompatible with democracy.