Tag: Jimmy Carter

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Egypt and the freedom nazi: No Democracy for You

At least one BBC reporter on the ground in Egypt insists that the Islamic Brotherhood is not a significant factor in the protests — they are just a canard offered by Mubarak consistently for 30 years to scare the Americans into blindly supporting his dictatorial regime.

So the 85 million people of Egypt– no democracy for you! The U.S. has several important interests in the Middle East– your freedom and prosperity don’t figure into any of them.

No doubt the Obama Administration is giving considerable thought to Iran these days. The U.S. backed the Shah’s despotic regime for 25 years. When protest rallies spun out of control in 1979, the Carter Administration appears to have backed away from their proxy. There was short struggle for a secular, constitutional government, but when Ayatollah Khomeini was allowed to return, the radical Islamacists succeeded in wresting control of the government away from the moderates.

It could be argued that the lesson to be learned is that repression by the Shah would have been better. But you could make an equally cogent argument that the extremists were able to take control because long-term unconditional support for the Shah had weakened the moderates.

It is possible that if Mubarak leaves, the Islamic brotherhood may succeed in eventually seizing power. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. Iran today is really not the caricature that the U.S. likes to present to the public, and Afghanistan and Iraq are not exactly sterling models of the kind of alternative society the U.S. has in mind. But it also may be the result of the U.S. supporting Mubarak for 30 years without pressuring him to democratize gradually, to allow the establishment of a moderate opposition with real power, and to cultivate the institutions of society that moderate political power, like labour unions, universities, and regional governments.

The long sad history of U.S. support of anti-democratic regimes.  [Sorry– the website has been taken down, but my comments still apply.]

I don’t totally buy the list. Yes, we know that U.S. corporations like Standard Oil and ITT continued to do business with the Nazis during the war, and that Henry Ford was a big fan of Adolf Hitler, and it is clear that the U.S. allowed many Nazi war criminals to escape responsibilities for their crimes so they could be used elsewhere for American interests, but I think those complaints are more in the nature of the world being an unjust place than a steaming indictment of U.S. foreign policy.

At a national, policy level, Roosevelt clearly opposed Hitler. That’s different from George Bush Sr. cozying up to Marcos, or Jimmy Carter welcoming the Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment or Nixon instigating the coup in Chile.

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The Last Christian President

I have long regarded Jimmy Carter as the only real Christian president of the last 50 years. He has recently given a number of interviews with the publication of “White House Diary”, an account of his four years in the White House.

Carter used to carry his own luggage, even as president. He also put a stop to the absolutely inane practice of playing “Hail to the Chief” every time the president enters a room.

Did you you hear that, tea party Republicans? You howl about your politicians being corrupted by Washington. So how did people react when Carter put a stop to paid musicians following him around with idiotic tributes every time he met with the public? They hated him. They hated him when he put solar panels on the White House and Ronald Reagan, in a monumental act of mindless spite, had them removed. They hated him most of all when he preached to America, when he suggested that people learn to postpone gratification, make sacrifices for the greater good, and stop indulging in mindless consumerism.

Frank Capra used to make movies about naive innocents of pleasant virtue suddenly being thrust into corporate or political rats’ nests of corrupt decadence. In the Capra films, virtue triumphed and “the people” came to the rescue. Well, no they didn’t– check out “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”. It’s actually one of the most darkly cynical movies about politics ever made.

So Carter kept America out of a war with Iran, and he cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil by substantial amounts, and his conservation policies produced stunning gains in efficiencies. And he was vilified by Republicans for leaving office with a deficit of about $45 billion. Ronald Reagan came in and tackled that deficit problem: he ran it up to $450 billion by the time he left office, but you should hear Republicans wax nostalgic about the “great” Ronald Reagan. It took another “liberal” (by American standards), Bill Clinton, who got the deficit under control.

The closest recent presidential candidate to Jimmy Carter was Al Gore, who, similarly, understood that some self-restraint and sacrifice is good for the country. Gore was smart and fairly virtuous– as politicians go– and he seemed more rueful than disappointed when the Supreme Court paid its debt to the Republican Party and put Bush into office. Gore, like Carter, was a bit of a moralist. He liked to lecture people about social virtue. Americans don’t like that. Gore might well be the best president the U.S. never had.

Since he left office, Carter has made a career out of volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, various peace missions, and living modestly on his farm indulging his grand-children. Everyone calls him the best ex-president there ever was. He may also have been the most responsible president there ever was, but his reward was to be ridiculed by the very people who elect those characterless, corrupt politicians over and over again to undo all the good policies Carter implemented.

The greatest compliment to President Jimmy Carter: the scads of third world dictators, torturers, and murderers who expressed their relief when he was knocked out of office by Ronald Reagan. Thank god! Finally an end to all the hassles about human rights, for heaven’s sake.

The attitude of many European leaders to Carter: I remember reading about it at the time and being rather flabbergasted that they seemed to prefer the worldy and “sophisticated” Nixon. I thought Nixon was the bad guy, bombing Cambodia, rattling the sabres, promoting the nuclear deterrent.

It turns out the Europeans appreciate someone who understands that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelets, as they say. Well, no, let’s say: you have to kill people to get what you want.

It’s complicated.