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Thursday, November 30, 2006

Mr Finkelstein and Mr Ford

Times columnist and staunch neo-conservative Daniel Finkelstein reveals that if he had to give away a million dollars he would give it to 'those trying to promote democracy in Iran'.
Where was he I wonder, during last year's Presidential elections in the Asian republic? Iran is a democracy, but the only trouble is that the people didn't vote the way Daniel would have liked them to. Ditto in Belarus, Venezuela and Palestine.
Supporting democracy means respecting the right of people to vote into power whatever government they wish- be it Islamist, socialist, communist, capitalist or nationalist.
I fear the form of democracy Daniel favours is the narrower Henry Ford variety, under which people can elect any government they wish- so long as its neo-liberal and orientates its foreign policy to Washington.

2 comments:

Ken said...

Yeah, but the problem is, Neil, that the HP gang are arguing that Iran is a restricted democracy at best, where to get on the ballot you have to pass a theological test.

This happens to be true, but it does not invalidate your other point: namely, that the west promotes its brand of neoliberalism and damns everything else.

However, unless you take care with the clumsy sentences, the warmongers will take an error and use it to damn your whole thesis.

Neil Clark said...

Great to hear from you Exile.
The truth is that Finkelstein and his neo-con chums would call any election which resulted in a victory for Ahmadinejad 'undemocratic'.
Yugoslavia in the 1990s was a multi-party democracy with a vibrant independent media and 21 different political parties, but it still didn't stop the warmongers labelling Slobo a 'dictator'!