[DEBATE] : An InterNational Endowment for Democracy!

peter waterman p.waterman at inter.nl.net
Fri Apr 7 16:59:54 BST 2006 

==============================================
 URGENT APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
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March 24, 2006
from the INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (I.E.D.)

HELP! HELP! The house is on fire and we are all living in it.
The United States government and its dependent organizations, such
as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), have responded to the
fire... by pouring more oil on it.

They call it "democratic nation building" - a fancy name for the
perpetual wars, theft of the commons, exploding economic
inequalities, weakening civil liberties (including the introduction
of torture), and the intensifying degradation and outright
destruction of our natural environment that lie hidden behind "free"
trade and the promise (seldom fulfilled) of a "free" election.
Billions of people outside America want this madness to stop, but
what can they do?

Our new and independent organization, the International Endowment
for Democracy (I.E.D.), believes it will only stop if democratic
nation building (the real thing, not the oil) is applied to the
U.S., which is the country most responsible for these frightening
global developments, and that people everywhere can play a role in
bringing it about.

The I.E.D. is a new non-profit foundation whose Board of
Directors 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 Deutcher 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. Find the full Board of Directors at
http://www.iefd.org/about/?r=r01

IN BRIEF: If groups like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
use American government money (whence the "NATIONAL") - and a big
dose of hypocrisy - to subvert democracy abroad, the International
Endowment for Democracy (IED) hopes to use foreign monies (whence
the "INTERNATIONAL") to help build a real democracy in the country
that needs it most, the U.S.A. (See DEMOCRACY LIBRARY, section III)
of our website:
http://www.iefd.org/articles/american_democracy.php?r=r01

WE ALSO CALL ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO MONITOR ELECTIONS IN
THE UNITED STATES. Is there anyone left in the world outside the
U.S. who doesn't recognize the need for such monitors?
This is not because there is less democracy in America than anywhere
else - a few other lands are even worse off in this regard - but
because the DEMOCRACY DEFICIT from which our country suffers is a
greater threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of
people all across the globe than the actions of any other regime. As
victims of their own government's destructive policies, the great
majority of Americans have no interest in retaining them and would
change these policies in an instant if our democracy really worked
as we're told it does. That they haven't is because they can't,
because the laws, the elections, the media, the schools and other
means for making such changes have been bent out of shape (through
systematic bias and, increasingly, outright repression), 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?

THIS MAY BE A FIRST: Americans asking people from other countries
for help. Many recipients of this Appeal outside the U.S., however,
are probably still asking themselves - "Why should we help
Americans make needed changes in their country? Don't we have enough
to do in our own country?" The answer can be presented best by
another question: Is there any reader who lives outside the capital
of his or her country who believes it is a waste of time and money
to try to influence the policies of the government sitting in the
capital? That's where the main political power is. Well, in this
period of American military, economic and cultural imperialism,
Washington has become the real capital of your country, for it is
there that many of the most destructive decisions affecting your
life are made. It would seem to make sense, therefore, good
political sense, to devote at least some of your time, energy and
money to helping bring about the kind of changes you want in
Washington. If that's at all possible...

At this moment in history, those of us who live in the United States
are in the best position to confront our common oppressor. The
responsibility we bear, therefore, is enormous, but our forces are
weak. While the current government's undermining of the democratic
process, as imperfect as it was, constitutes a growing threat to all
dissenters, it also provides us with a key issue on which our rulers
are extremely vulnerable. As the explosion of governmental hypocrisy
clearly attests, democracy remains the American people's favorite
virtue. It is on this crucial issue, with its broad ramifications
for government policy in America and around the world, that we need
your help.

There are many groups in the United States that are trying to defend
what remains of our rapidly shrinking democracy and/or build a
better, more egalitarian one. Mostly they are small, and they all
lack funds. The International Endowment for Democracy (I.E.D.) wants
to give people all over the world an opportunity to participate in
this crucial struggle by making a donation (no matter how small) to
us, which we will then distribute to some of these groups. Apart
from our small operating expenses (no I.E.D. board members are
paid), all the money received will be passed on. As odd as this may
sound, with this show of solidarity, people everywhere can now help
themselves by helping us to help them. Maybe this doesn't sound so
odd, after all.

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POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTORS should also know that we will not give money
to any political party, or accept money from any organization
involved in violent forms of political activity or from any foreign
government.
To American readers, who don't need our advice to donate money to
their favorite progressive organizations, we only ask that you
continue doing what you have been (okay, do a little more), but
please forward this appeal to your friends and acquaintances,
especially those who come from abroad. (Should you also want to show
your support for this initiative by making a donation, of course, we
won't turn you away.)

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THE SUCCESS OF OUR PROJECT depends on getting the word out to
millions of people throughout the world.

So...if you approve of what we are doing and think it could be
important, we urge you to send this appeal to all the people on your
e-mail trees, and to the websites and blogs you visit as well as to
the discussion and organizational lists to which you belong,
particularly outside the U.S. And please don't neglect your contacts
in the media.

The MoveOn organization is said to have reached between ten and
twenty million 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 strategy 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 supremely serious nature as well as the planetary scope of our
problem is what makes this approach necessary. The new technology of
the internet is what makes it possible. But it still requires a
little help from you to make it happen.

_________________
 WON'T YOU HELP?
_________________

See our website -
http://www.internationalendowmentfordemocracy.org or
http://www.iefd.org  -  for information
on the following, much of it in OVER A DOZEN LANGUAGES:

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See HOW TO HELP for details on how to make a donation.
http://www.iefd.org/donations/?r=r01

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See our STATEMENT OF PURPOSE for a more detailed analysis of the
crisis in American democracy and what we hope to achieve.
http://www.iefd.org/articles/statement_of_purpose.php

See our PRESS RELEASE.
http://www.iefd.org/press/press_releases.php?r=r01

See WHO WE ARE for the background and publications of the members
of our Board of Directors.
http://www.iefd.org/about/?r=r01

See WHERE THE MONEY GOES for our priorities and procedures in
passing on funds (and, later, for how much money we received and
who we gave it to).
http://www.iefd.org/money/priorities.php?r=r01

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IN ENGLISH SECTION OF WEBSITE ONLY
See our DEMOCRACY LIBRARY, which contains some of the best critical
writing on this subject and is divided into the following sections:
* National Endowment for Hypocrisy Democracy
* Stolen Election(s)
* American 'Democracy'?
* Is Democracy Compatible with Capitalism?
(HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for courses that deal with democracy at both
high school and college levels).

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See, too, sections on
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE / MANIFESTOS AND CHARTERS
NOBLE PRIZE FOR DEMOCRACY
DEMOCRACY QUOTES
DEMOCRACY CARTOONS
DEMOCRACY WATCH BLOG
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM ON DEMOCRACY IN 2007
CRITICAL BOOK, ESSAY, POEM, SONG AND CARTOON CONTESTS ON DEMOCRACY
    FOR HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
LINKS
and Coming Soon:
MEDIA REACTIONS TO THE I.E.D.
DEMOCRACY VIDEOS
N.E.D. vs. I.E.D. DOCUMENTARY
CONFERENCES AND LECTURES
LETTERS
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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PLEASE FORWARD THIS APPEAL TO ALL YOUR CONTACTS
AND ASK THEM TO DO THE SAME.

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TO CONTACT US:

WEBSITE
http://www.internationalendowmentfordemocracy.org
or http://www.iefd.org

E-MAIL
mailto:comments at iefd.org (for readers' comments or questions)

REGULAR MAIL
International Endowment for Democracy,
P.O. Box 3005
Prince Street Station
New York, New York, 10012, U.S.A.
(for all of the above plus DONATIONS BY CHECK - please include
e-mail address with all letters)

====================================================================

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

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FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS
Arabic http://www.iefd.org/lang/ar01.php?r=r01
Bengali http://www.iefd.org/lang/bn01.php?r=r01
Chinese http://www.iefd.org/lang/zh01.php?r=r01
Farsi http://www.iefd.org/lang/fa01.php?r=r01
French http://www.iefd.org/lang/fr01.php?r=r01
German http://www.iefd.org/lang/de01.php?r=r01
Greek http://www.iefd.org/lang/el01.php?r=r01
Hindi http://www.iefd.org/lang/hi01.php?r=r01
Italian http://www.iefd.org/lang/it01.php?r=r01
Japanese http://www.iefd.org/lang/ja01.php?r=r01
Korean http://www.iefd.org/lang/ko01.php?r=r01


Portuguese http://www.iefd.org/lang/pt01.php?r=r01
Russian http://www.iefd.org/lang/ru01.php?r=r01
Spanish http://www.iefd.org/lang/es01.php?r=r01
Turkish http://www.iefd.org/lang/tr01.php?r=r01

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KEEP INFORMED
If you wish to be kept informed of later developments in our project
(in English), please send us your name and country by e-mail to
info at iefd.org with "mailing list" in the subject line.

====================================================================

Copyright (c) International Endowment for Democracy 2006.
All rights reserved. Site launch: March 2006.

----------------------- http://www.iefd.org/ -----------------------



PUBLICATIONS 2005:
Waterman Symposium, Labour+Social Movements, ‘Labor History’ 46:2;
Ocho ensayos acerca del internacionalismo
http://democraciaglobal.org/index.php?fp_verpub=true&idpub=34;
The Liberation of Time from Work
http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/03/24/170247;
Communication, Culture, WSF
http://www.nigd.org/docs/MakingTheRoadWhilstWalkingPeterWaterman;
Movements+Global Governance
http://www.nigd.org/docs/AntiglobalistMovementGhent2005PeterWaterman;
Civil Society: Defining, Disputing,
http://www.nigd.org/docs/GlobalCivilSocietyPeterWatermanNovember2005;
Trade Unions, NGOs+Global Social Justice
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,11,1260.

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