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| A Larger View |
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A Bi-Monthly Newsletter of the Inner Outer Partnership |
| Volume IX Edition 3 |
May/June |
2004 |
The Fragility of Democracy:
Recommitting Ourselves To Priorities
A poll of 18,643 people in 18 South American countries shows that 56.3% believe that economic development is more important to them than democracy. Part of a 3-year study by the United Nations Development Program, the poll, which in addition interviewed political leaders and current and former heads of state, was conducted in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela also found that 54.7% would support an authoritarian government if it resolved economic problems. Other striking findings include 58.1% who agree that the president should be allowed to act outside the law, and 43.9% who don't believe that democracy can solve the country's problems. The strongest support for an authoritarian government was among the poor and given their large percentage in the whole region, the findings can be foreboding.
While one can construe the poll to show a lack of support for democracy, one needs to plumb for underlying reasons. Many South American countries, for example, have been asked by institutions like the International Monetary Fund to adopt austerity measures. These measures, while aimed at reforming the structures that give rise to poverty often hurt the poorest. The idea was that those measures would favor business interests, attract investments, thus create jobs and end up helping everyone. Although this kind of strategy has had successes, in the main it has not brought about the affluence the South American leaders hoped for. Perhaps the poll's findings are not about democracy but about priorities and how people in need react. In context of the economic health and prospects for these countries, the poll may be more indicative of a sense of desperation many feel about their lack of economic well-being, as if people were saying, what good are democratic principles if they don't help me feed my children, I'd rather distance myself from democracy than from basic necessities.
The report's findings when seen in tandem with how several South American governments have and are being challenged as well as the protests by a number of groups both at the World Trade Organization meetings and at the recent meeting of the economic ministers in Washington, give pause as to the effects of current policies, and as to how we can best effectuate helping developing countries. But most of all they are reminders that having to choose between democracy and economic well-being is not a choice one ought to have to make. That's an important message when one considers that in other parts of the world democracy may be given short shrift over other issues. Trading freedom for something dear and basic is a choice US citizens are making in another context, that of the Patriot Act where people are willing to trade in civil rights for a sense of safety. In the Middle East and other countries where Islamic fundamentalists are making inroads, people are willing to forego democracy for their vision of an Islamic state.
Democracy and economic development can and should go hand in hand. But the message of this poll evokes something deeper, it lets us know how fragile the democracy we tend to take for granted can be. Unless one commits, or recommits, to its principles and make them priorities, any number of real or perceived threats can easily lead us to limit it. And when those threats feel near enough it may be too late to remember that democratic principles cannot thrive in an atmosphere of complacency, for they are the guarantee of the personal freedom underlying our spiritual progress.
The Inns of Court:
Lessening Courtroom Tensions
Court proceedings are by nature adversarial. While adversaries traditionally can have vehement disagreements, lawyers for both sides could until recently put aside the disagreements of the day and after court or often during recess come together as colleagues, friends, co-workers, people. But big cases with a lot at stake where lawyers tend to engage in a win-at-all-costs-mentality are making this congeniality dated if not rare. As a result more and more cities are following in a national movement and openings Inns of Court, a professional organization seeking to enhance legal ethics, sharpen advocacy skills and improve courtroom behavior.
As an idea the Inns of Court date back to Middle-Ages England. Then they were the gatekeepers of the legal system. Young men who would live at the Inn would study under the tutelage of seasoned judges and barristers. The movement in the United States is much more recent, dating to the 1980's when the late Chief Justice Warren Berger founded and equivalent organization in Provo, Utah. Since, many Inns of Court have opened throughout the country. Current membership is estimated to about 72,000 comprising 342 organizations.
While one can decry the need, especially in our times of televised trials and courtroom theatrics, one must applaud a movement where cooperation supersedes competition, where decorum is valued over disruptions and where legal ethics are a norm.
Standing Up To One's Conscience - The Right Way
Three school board members in Orange County, CA recently voted against a state mandated law that requires school districts to protect certain groups against discrimination, including groups like transsexuals who do not meet traditional definitions of gender roles. The three board members explained they were Christians and had to vote their conscience.
Their vote cost the district $16 millions when Bank of America felt it had no choice but to call in a loan given that the anti-discriminatory state mandated provisions it is to uphold were not observed. In order to protect the 10,000 Kindergarten through eight grade students who faced reduced services, the state became involved and eventually accepted a compromise wording of the law in question. The new wording includes the idea that gender can be defined by how it is perceived and can be seen as a victory for the three Christian board members.
Despite the outcome, the point remains, how do we exercise our conscience? Being able to do so is fundamental to the practice of freedom, of democracy, of spiritual integrity. Not only is civil disobedience part of a long tradition, it is reinforced by St Augustine teaching that we have the right (if not the moral obligation) to disobey an unjust law. But civil disobedience and the right to disobey an unjust law are private matters, not involving others. They ask for our willingness to accept, and if needed endure, the consequences of our actions without harming others and certainly without imposing our perception on them.
It is a five members board, and the temptation is understandable. Still, what the three board members could have done is simple. They could have as an act of conscience, just resigned.
What We Can Give Martha
True Martha Stewart's story makes cliches come alive, what goes up must come down, what goes around comes around, be careful who you slap on the way up...But what her personal drama has to teach us is on a different order. Here is a woman who ostensibly has everything money can buy including Hermes handbag and chinchilla scarf. Perhaps fittingly, her sister, describing to a TV interviewer how Martha was coping following the verdict, said she was surrounding herself with beautiful things. She quickly added family to the list therefore alluding to a more abstract inner interplay of forces. Regardless, her answer clearly indicated external things were playing a large if not crucial role.
Having been found guilty of lying to federal investigators, Martha Stewart is being stripped of much that is important to her, her business, her titles, her TV show. Her reputation has suffered, her fortune cut by half if not more. And all that seems rather easy compared to what the future is likely to hold. In jail she would have no lattes, no gym to work out in, no friends, no family, no hair color, pedicures, manicures and chauffeurs, no luxuries or gourmet food. Not only would she be deprived of freedom of action, she would also be deprived of those things that seemingly have helped her deal with the trial and its aftermath. That is when her inner resources will have to manifest themselves and to cope she more than likely will have to surrender to them or suffer even more.
For each of us who rebels against the manifestation of our inner self some opportunity comes that challenges us. It seems here is Martha Stewart's. For that, for the difficult setting that awaits her and even more for the difficult work ahead in letting her inner resources prevail, she deserves our compassion.
Web Site of Interest: www.whitehouse.gov
A Budget And Much More
While this site is obviously flattering to the current President-he is Chief of State after all-it is not partisan and contains much information that is not only interesting but useful to citizens who want to vote intelligently. The history of the White House is expectedly there along with a tour. One can go room by room and through video have a kind of virtual tour getting a sense of the room's setting and also being able to focus on details. There's a section called your government, listing all the various offices of the executive branch. The section on the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, is one that includes constructive and valuable information, including the President's 2005 budget. Through the search feature one can input what one wants to know about.
Although one can access the budget through the OMB, accessing it through the search feature is even easier. It is not a set of dry tables, but a report like narrative addressing goals, past and future and hopes of performance. It may not be bedtime reading, nor read like a potboiler but it is instructive enabling us to better gauge news stories, proposed legislation, or even the desirability of political agendas.
Best of all, the site hails an idea-that the budget of a democratic country can be so public, it is online!
To Ponder On
What We Don't Know - And Think We Do
A poll recently conducted by Research America, a non-profit educational group advocating for medical research, and Parade magazine gives a telling glimpse into what we think is fact and what the facts really are. Fifty nine percent of Americans, for example, think taxpayers pay for the medical research conducted in the U.S., when the fact is that pharmaceutical companies are currently financing more than half of the research conducted. Thirty six percent of those polled think cancer is the greatest health concern and 21% think it is AIDS/HIV, when the fact is that cardiovascular illnesses are the number one killer.
We are often so sure of what we know, we forget that what we know may not be factual and that the depth of our belief cannot substitute for the facts nor be an indication of objective truth.
A Larger View is published by the Inner\Outer Partnership, a tax-exempt educational organization addressing issues of higher values. We are funded through donations. Please send yours-as well as any comments-to P.O.Box 1293, Pac. Pal. CA 90272-1293. Also contact us by email at innerouter@earthlink.net or call 310-8367710 or visit our web site at www.innerouterpartnership.org
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