“In a world where evil is still very real,democratic principles must also be backed with power in al its forms:Political and economic, cultural and moral, and yes, sometimes military.” Condoleezza Rice, PrincetonUniversity NJ 9/30/05
What an amazing quote!
I read it and I said, “that is exactly what Fidel Castro did in Cuba after his rise to power in 1959.” He backed his principles with “power in all its forms.” Ideologically, through propaganda in the arts, in the print and broadcast media; militarily through the militias whose job it was to arrest or do away with anyone who opposed Fidel Castro and his ideology and through the neighborhood committees whose job it was to report their neighbors, or family members who expressed any opposition to the Castro regime. Morally, through the suppression of free religious expression and, politically through the suppression of opposing political parties and/or views.
So, I ask. Is Condoleezza Rice hoping that the American people, who have never lived under a repressive regime, are ignorant enough, so as not to know that she has described the perfect blueprint under which repressive states operate? Is she hoping that the American people will not realize that the blue print for establishing democratic principles in an evil world, as described by her, can never be a blue print for achieving any true democracy, here or anywhere else in the world?
Surely, Mz. Condoleezza Rice knows that, “Democratic principles backed with power in all its forms,” is a negation of true democratic principles.
Surely she knows that her statement is a blueprint used for all sorts of repressive measures by dictators and dictatorships, jackbooted and fascist states, anywhere in the world throughout any period in history.
And, I ask seriously, does she take the American people for complete morons unable to see through her words of repression or aggression, or is she beginning to lift, slowly and cautiously, the veil of truth behind the Bush administration, so as not to shock and awe the American people into a sudden realization that they are being chained by the Bush administration and into the ensuing revolution which would result from that realization? Rather, is she raising the level of repression slowly on them, so that, once submerged in the Bush Administration repressive waters they won’t be able to do much of anything once the realization finally dawns on them that the Bush administration has chained American democracy and the American people along with it?
Dear American Democracy, you are adrift in America today. The Bush administration has turned you loose from your moorings.
You are today but a ghost of your former self. The pirates who boarded you on Election Day 2000 and who today man the oval office have no interest in cultivating you, or in nurturing the free flow of ideas which grow in any fruitful and fructified democracy.
Surely, Condoleezza Rice knows that any political system which needs to promote a culture backed by power can never be considered a democracy. Perhaps the idiot son doesn’t know that. But surely, the gifted pianist knows that.
Surely she knows that a democracy gives rise to the free voice of the people, and to the free expression of ideas, in any and all of its form, of its entire people. Surely she knows that.
Why would thinkers, playwright, novelists, composers, pianists, etc., flee from countries where culture is backed by the repressive power, military, moral, economic, or cultural of a crazed, nazified, or communist leader, if it is not for the purpose of finding safe haven, true democracy, and a place where they can express their ideas, thoughts, and art, or where they can practice their religion?
Surely Condoleezza Rice more than knows that cultures which have only one point of view rammed down a people’s throat through military power, or through instituted guardians of morality, or creativity, or of political thought ... surely she knows that those cultures cannot be called democracies!
Surely she knows that any culture backed by power which seeks to snuff the free expression of the people as expressed in its art, its religion, its philosophy, its ideology, cannot be called anything other than a dictatorship. And surely she knows that the Bush Administration is a dictatorship, as well she knows too, that she has trouble spitting out the word dictator, or dictatorship, as it refers to her and the Bush administration.
Morality backed by power, which suppresses a person’s right to choose what he or she believes is right or wrong, is not a democracy, whether that morality is suppressed through the dictums of a propaganda machine, or of fear mongering, or of a jackbooted state with all of its military and paramilitary forces with guns pointed at its people.
The same is true of any politics backed by the power of guns and rifles, or of fear mongering, or by the enactment of martial laws, or of laws which allow the expression of only one voice, one party. In fact, any culture backed by power which seeks to snuff the free expression of ideas of the people, as expressed in the people’s art, religion, or philosophical ideology so as to secure a party’s domination and suppress political opposition is, and cannot be called anything other than, a repressive, jackbooted state.
Teresa Simon-Noble is a computer activist for peace. She is a former mental health clinician. A poet and a freelance writer. Her work has been published in several online publications.
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