| New American organization asks world to help save
democracy in U.S.
A news release from the International
Endowment for Democracy (I.E.D.)
March 20, 2006
A new organization, the INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR
DEMOCRACY (I.E.D.), announced today that it has issued an URGENT APPEAL TO
THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD to donate money to help support democracy in the
country that needs it most -the USA.
The Board of Directors of the I.E.D. includes
• Howard Zinn (America's leading radical historian)
• Mumia Abu-Jamal (America's most famous political Prisoner)
• Gore Vidal (America's premier progressive novelist and essayist)
• Ellen Meiksins Wood (winner of the Isaac Deutscher Prize)
• Ramsey Clark (world's leading human rights lawyer)
• Barbara Foley (Chair of the Left Alliance, the union of progressive
academic caucuses)
• Michael Parenti (America's foremost critic of capitalist democracy)
• Immanuel Wallerstein (past president of the International Sociological
Association)
• Michael Ratner (President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and past
President of the National Lawyers' Guild)
• and two dozen other major American progressive scholars, lawyers and
activists.
"If the U.S. government has its 'NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY' (N.E.D.)
to promote its self-interested view of democracy in other countries, it is
only fair", says N.Y.U. Politics Department Professor Bertell Ollman, who is
the President of the I.E.D., "that the people of the world should have an
'INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT' to push their idea of democracy inside the United
States."
"When the government of the country that likes to think of
itself as 'THE GREATEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD' has just stolen two
presidential elections," Ollman continues, "and spreads unnecessary wars,
theft of the commons, exploding economic inequalities, environmental
degradation, and outright torture in the name of 'DEMOCRATIC NATION
BUILDING' and 'DEMOCRACY PROMOTION'; and then finances supposedly
independent organizations like the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED) to
subvert foreign governments of which it disapproves - when, in short,
'DEMOCRACY' not only rhymes with 'HYPOCRISY' but has come to embody it - it
is time for everyone suffering from these policies to unite across national
borders to bring them to an end."
To aid in this task, the INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR
DEMOCRACY (IED) is appealing for donations, no matter how small, from all
those victimized by our government's actions. Apart from the organization's
minimal expenses (no one on the Board is paid a salary), all of this money
will be passed on to some of the many groups (no political parties) already
working to change these policies by defending and extending democracy INSIDE
the United States. THIS MAY BE A FIRST: AMERICANS SEEKING HELP FROM PEOPLE
OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY, RATHER THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
Professor Ollman explains, "Our view is that DEMOCRATIC NATION BUILDING -
THE REAL THING, NOT THE HYPOCRITICAL VERSION - MUST BEGIN IN THE COUNTRY
THAT NEEDS IT MOST, THE U.S.A., AND THAT PEOPLE EVERYWHERE HAVE A ROLE TO
PLAY IN BRINGING IT ABOUT. This is not because there is less democracy in
the U.S. than anywhere else - a few other countries are even worse off in
this regard -but because the DEMOCRACY DEFICIT from which we suffer in the
United States is a greater threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness of people all across the globe than the activities of any other
regime."
"THE CONNECTION WITH OUR RAPIDLY VANISHING DEMOCRACY",
Ollman continues, "comes from the fact that, as victims of these same
destructive policies, the great majority of Americans have no interest in
retaining them, and would change them in an instant if our democracy really
worked as we're told it does. That they haven't done so is because they
can't, because the laws, the media, the schools, and other means for making
such changes have been bent out of shape (through systematic bias), hidden
(through enforced ignorance), bought up by Big Money (especially this) and,
when 'necessary', stolen (as in the last two presidential elections)."
"WHO CAN DOUBT THAT PEOPLE EVERYWHERE HAVE A HUGE STAKE IN
THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF AMERICA? And with the I.E.D., they now have a chance
to help themselves by helping us to help them."
THE I.E.D. ALSO CALLS ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO
MONITOR ELECTIONS IN THE U.S. "Is there anyone left in the world outside the
United States", Ollman asks, "who doesn't recognize the need for such
monitors?"
In keeping with the organization's aim of giving the
people of the world a voice in U.S. affairs, the I.E.D. is also exploring
the possibility of co-sponsoring a WORLD SOCIAL FORUM ON DEMOCRACY TO BE
HELD IN EITHER OHIO OR FLORIDA IN THE SUMMER OF 2007, one year before the
next presidential election. "A World Social Forum held at 'ground zero' of
our last stolen election", Ollman says, "would help both Americans and our
foreign guests acquire a deeper understanding of the meaning of democracy
and of what is necessary to defend and extend it."
The I.E.D.'s APPEAL for funds has just gone out to over
twenty thousand people who are being asked to forward it to everyone on
their e-mail trees, who are, in turn, being asked to do the same, and so on.
The MoveOn organization reached millions of Americans on behalf of Howard
Dean during the 2004 presidential primaries in just this way, but ours may
be the first attempt to extend this tactic to the whole world. It is
certainly THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO USE THE INTERNET TO INVOLVE THE WHOLE WORLD
IN THE BADLY NEEDED DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The I.E.D. has also launched a website -
http://www.iefd.org (much of it in over a dozen languages) - to help
gather donations and to expand on the analysis that underlies our project.
An extensive DEMOCRACY LIBRARY
of critical works divided into sections on "The National Endowment for
Hypocrisy Democracy", "Stolen Election(s)", "American 'Democracy'?" and "Is
Democracy Compatible with Capitalism?" (along with manifestos, Noble Prize
for Democracy, cartoons, quotations, blog and essay/book/poetry/song/cartoon
contests on these subjects, and more) has also been added to create a unique
educational resource for courses that deal with democracy on both high
school and college levels.
For further details, including a copy of our URGENT APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF
THE WORLD, see our website
=====================================
PRESIDENT OF THE I.E.D.
Prof. Bertell Ollman
Dept. of Politics, NYU
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE I.E.D.
• Prof. Michael Brown (former Chair) Dept. of Sociology, Northeastern
Univ.
• Prof. Barbara Foley Dept. of English, Rutgers Univ. (Newark)
• Prof. Emeritus John Manley (former Chair) Dept. of Political Science,
Stanford Univ.
• Michael Smith Lawyer
========================================
TO CONTACT I.E.D.:
WEBSITE
http://www.internationalendowmentfordemocracy.org or
http://www.iefd.org
REGULAR MAIL International Endowment for Democracy P.O.
Box 3005 Prince Street Station New York, New York, 10012, U.S.A.
To be added to their e-mail list, send your name and country by e-mail to
info@iefd.org with "mailing list" in the
subject line.
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