2008

In our first post on what the Democratic Platform for 2008 should be, I included, "Be the advocate for real democracy in the world. Stop being like the line in the Jim Croce song, 'Let him live in freedom, if he lives like me.'"

The Times has an editorial entitled "A Clean Start," urging Nancy Pelosi to make good on her promise for ethics reform to be the first issue that the House takes up in 2007. As The Times observes, "The House Democrats are perfectly capable of replicating the RepublicansÂ’ fall from grace. They need to throw up protections right away, while they are most conscious of the dangers and least prey to temptation."

Amen! Reform must be carried out swiftly and surgically, the old guard swept away before the siren song of campaign cash can whisper in the ears of newly-empowered congressmen and senators.

If ethics reform is an issue in 2008, then, it will be a sign that the Democrats will have failed. However, The Times' editorial presents a useful counterpoint to my suggestion that Democrats concentrate on encouraging true democracy in the world: The best way to build democracy abroad is to perfect our democracy at home.

This brings up another point. In my earlier post, I let my typing get ahead of my writing. When I speak of encouraging democracy, I do not mean the kind of "nation building" that Bush and the neo-conservatives imposed on Iraq. That was a foolish and fatuous exercise from the start. Buildingg a democratic tradition is a lengthy process fraught with danger; if you don't believe me, look at Greece and Turkey, or check out Chile and Uruguay, the two Latin American nations that had the strongest democratic traditions. All four suffered at least one military coup during the late 20th Century.

Still, there are ways to encourage responsive government that can start nations on the path toward democracy or something close to it. And the first requisite for that is for other nations to see that the United States is, indeed, a vigorous democracy. Indeed, they should see that our country works hard at our system of government, striving to make it more fair and more democratic. That sounds easy, but as we've most clearly for the last six years--although the decline of our system began long before Bush'saccessionn--it isn't. That's why it should be on the agenda in 2008.