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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Condor who wrote (10436)	11/15/2001 2:57:32 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

OT "The greatest threat to democracy is democracy itself" The only place I found the exact phrase is in this review linked below. I'm afraid I see it as putting up a straw man. i.e. nobody actually said it except the author. Then she does the usual thing (never read the book, it ain't my "cup of tea either") =========================================================== "Standing Tall on the Backs of Others" by Holly Sklar excerpted from the book Reagan, Trilateralism and the Neoliberals: Containment and intervention in the 1980s thirdworldtraveler.com Crisis of Democracy Unfortunately for Carter, the president could no longer "govern the country with the cooperation of a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyers and bankers," as a Trilateral Commission report described an earlier era. In the U.S. section of that report, The Crisis of Democracy Samuel Huntington (coordinator of national security on the National Security Council, 1977-78, and a "regular consultant" to the CIA during the 1960s) laments the erosion of traditional forms of public and private authority and the widespread questioning of "the legitimacy of hierarchy, coercion, discipline, secrecy, and deception-all of which are in some measure, inescapable attributes of the process of government. " The crisis of democracy was that too many people participated too much, or attempted to do so -- Congress, the media, "value-oriented intellectuals" and, most importantly, the public: " Previously passive or unorganized groups in the population, blacks, Indians, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students, and women now embarked on concerted efforts to establish their claims to opportunities, positions, rewards, and privileges which they had not considered themselves entitled to before. " The "minorities" and "special interests," representing most of the population, were challenging the Establishment which ruled in the holy name of the National Interest. The Crisis of Democracy was unusually blunt about the distinction between egalitarian, participatory democracy and the anemic democracy beloved by the Establishment: "The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some [i.e. most] individuals and groups." The greatest threat to democracy is democracy itself: "The vulnerability of democratic government in the United States thus comes not primarily from external threats, though such threats are real, nor from internal subversion from the left or the right, although both possibilities could exist, but rather from the internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly educated, mobilized, and participant society." =========================================================== Maybe repressive totalerians have a point. These people should not even be allowed to speak.... Talk about climbing up ones own butt -LOL-