THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY?

I don't know who James Templer (journalist and author) is, but he published a guest commentary in The Daily News of Galveston County, saying what has been on my mind since the evil days of President Donald Trump, which continues.  I should insert here his entire presentation, but will only use two paragraphs (you should read the rest):

Lurking beneath the surface of American democracy ever since its inception have been potentially disastrous eruptions from anti-democratic factions, militia, underground armies, insurrectionists and domestic terrorists. Just as plate tectonics can set off a volcano, political greed and chicanery can set off an insurrection.

Who are these angry, anti-government, anti-authority, hate-filled, mostly white Caucasian Americans? Why are they so full of fear, paranoia, hatred and resentment? Perhaps it’s because there has always been inequality, government inefficiency and corruption and people get fed up with it.

The danger is that the future of our Democracy remains under threat, so here is one more quote:

And on that same infamous day, 139 Republican representatives and eight Republican senators refused to verify the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. Since Jan. 6, Republican politicians and officials across the country have relentlessly spread the Big Lie. For example, almost four months after the U.S. Congress verified that Biden won the presidency fair and square, Arizona Republican senators have hired a pro-Trump firm to conduct another needless recount of the presidential votes, this one in Maricopa County, which overwhelmingly voted for Biden.  Wisconsin Republican lawmakers are following in goose step with another recount by the same dubious firm that suggested that other battleground states will follow.

All the above you know.  What you might not be familiar with is something even more frightening happening in American Samoa, a territory of the USA.  The following came yesterday from The Diplomat:

• It might seem cliché or exaggerated to continue to blame former U.S. President Donald Trump for all of the world’s ills, especially after he left office. Yet his — and his party’s — behavior leading up to and following last November’s presidential election are still rippling out beyond U.S. shores. Although Trump and the Republican Party were unsuccessful in their attempts to subvert American democracy, they did send a signal to the rest of the world that a refusal to accept results and hand over power in an orderly and graceful manner was a legitimate form of political action in democratic countries.
• 
  Here is what happened in America Samoa, and I seriously simplify:
• For the past 23 years Auilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi (right) has been Prime Minister, with his Human Rights Protection Party (HRPR) in total control of the politics.

• 
  So a splinter group formed the FAST (too complicated to explain acronym) Party, led by Fiame Naomi Mataafa, who on April 9 was elected as the new prime minister.
• But HRPP changed the Parliament membership to add someone from their party, causing both sides to have 26 seats.
• Then on 19 May 2021 the Supreme Court of Samoa ruled against this additional seat, giving back the slim majority to FAST.
• However, HPPR appealed, but the go ahead was nevertheless okayed by the Supreme Court on May 24 to reconvene the Parliament to formally anoint Mataafa as Prime Minister.
• Ah, but the building of the Parliament was locked, forcing FAST to go through the ceremony in an outside tent.
• On May 25 HRPP launched a private prosecution case agains Mataafa for bribery, which will not be heard until September. 
• SO WHO IS RUNNING AMERICAN SAMOA?  GOOD QUESTION.  Where is Biden on this?  Amazingly enough, not a peep.

While Belarus was once part of the Soviet Union, and incumbent Alexander Lukashensko is blessed by Vladimir Putin, and has won the last six elections as president since 1994, in August of last year, Sviatlana Tsikhamouskaya using the slogan, Stop the Cockroach, claimed victory with at least 60% of the votes.  Then Lukashensko said he got 80% of ballots and was still president.  Of course, he controls the TV stations.  Further, Lukashensko arrested leaders of the opposition party, except ST was able to escape and is now in exile.  

The European Union, for one, imposed sanctions on Belarusian officials.  The country went into a round of protests.  Then today, the White House announced their sanctions, stimulated by the forced landing of a Ryanair commercial flight, leading to the removal and arrest of 26-year old opposition journalist Roman Protasevich.  This is now called the Slipper Revolution because that is the traditional means of controlling a cockroach.  But this does not qualify as any kind of decline of Democracy because Belarus has never really been one.

For the record, Democracy is declining (Green=Free, Gold=partly free, Blue=Not Free):

• The 2021 edition of Freedom in the World, covering the events of 2020, marked the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. Of the 195 independent countries assessed by the report, 73 experienced aggregate score declines and just 28 made gains, the widest margin of its kind during the 15-year period. There are now 54 Not Free countries, accounting for 38 percent of the world’s population, the highest share since the decline began.

• 
  Dark countries are electoral Democracies.
• With India’s downgrade from Free to Partly Free, less than 20 percent of the global population now lives in a Free country, the lowest level since 1995.
• The United States, which remained Free, fell by three points in 2020, for a total decline of 11 points on the report’s 100-point scale over the last decade.

The most Democratic countries at 100 are Finland, Norway and Sweden.  United States?  83.  Others, and some are surprising:

• Syria  1
• Eritrea  2
• South Sudan  2
• North Korea  3
• Saudi Arabia  7
• China  9
• Belarus 11
• Venezuela  14
• Russia 20
• Singapore  48
• Monoco  83
• Romania  83 
• USA  83
• Mongolia  84
• Argentina 84
• Czech Republic  91
• UK  93
• Taiwan  94
• Slovenia  95
• Japan  96
• Uruguay  98
• New Zealand  99

The United States is not the sterling model of Democracy.

Can't end my posting on this Saturday on that note.  What about the duet of Luciano Pavarotti and Tom Jones singing Delilah?

If you want more, here are Pavarotti and Celine Dione.  This has always been one of my favorites: Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman in their 2007 Time to Say Goodbye.  That duet single became Germany's all-time best selling single.  Known as Con te partiro, the song was first made popular by Bocelli in 1995.  You might not have seen that version, for he begins by playing a French Horn.

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