Democratic Leadership Quotes

A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.

Democracy is not simply a license to indulge individual whims and proclivities. It is also holding oneself accountable to some reasonable degree for the conditions of peace and chaos that impact the lives of those who inhabit one’s beloved extended community.

The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the ear down.

When picking a leader, choose a peacemaker. One who unites, not divides. A cultured leader who supports the arts and true freedom of speech, not censorship.

Pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

Pick a leader who will keep jobs in your country by offering companies incentives to hire only within their borders, not one who allows corporations to outsource jobs for cheaper labor when there is a national employment crisis. Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies.

To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of "blackness", "maleness", "femaleness", or "whiteness".

When I look at Africa many questions come to mind, many times I have asked myself what would happen if Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba were to rise up and see what is happening, many times I have asked myself what would happen if Nelson Madiba Mandela were to rise up and see what is happening, because what they will be confronted with is an Africa where the Democratic Republic of Congo is unsettled, there is a war going on there, but it's not on the front pages of our newspapers because we don't even control our newspapers and the media.

Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes -- or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist.

A great leader has to be flexible, holding his ground on the major principles but finding room for compromises that can bring people together. A great leader has to be savvy at negotiations so we don't drown every bill in pork barrel bridges to nowhere. I know how to stand my ground — but I also know that Republicans and Democrats need to find common ground to stand on as well.

YOU ARE JUST You are not just for the right or left, but for what is right over the wrong. You are not just rich or poor, but always wealthy in the mind and heart. You are not perfect, but flawed. You are flawed, but you are just. You may just be conscious human, but you are also a magnificent reflection of God.

We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela’s largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be most useful to ask, perhaps we should begin by discerning what our prospective leaders believe it worthwhile for us to hear. Do they cater to our prejudices by suggesting that we treat people outside our ethnicity, race, creed or party as unworthy of dignity and respect? Do they want us to nurture our anger toward those who we believe have done us wrong, rub raw our grievances and set our sights on revenge? Do they encourage us to have contempt for our governing institutions and the electoral process? Do they seek to destroy our faith in essential contributors to democracy, such as an independent press, and a professional judiciary? Do they exploit the symbols of patriotism, the flag, the pledge in a conscious effort to turn us against one another? If defeated at the polls, will they accept the verdict, or insist without evidence they have won? Do they go beyond asking about our votes to brag about their ability to solve all problems put to rest all anxieties and satisfy every desire? Do they solicit our cheers by speaking casually and with pumped up machismo about using violence to blow enemies away? Do they echo the attitude of Musolini: “The crowd doesn’t have to know, all they have to do is believe and submit to being shaped.”? Or do they invite us to join with them in building and maintaining a healthy center for our society, a place where rights and duties are apportioned fairly, the social contract is honored, and all have room to dream and grow. The answers to these questions will not tell us whether a prospective leader is left or right-wing, conservative or liberal, or, in the American context, a Democrat or a Republican. However, they will us much that we need to know about those wanting to lead us, and much also about ourselves. For those who cherish freedom, the answers will provide grounds for reassurance, or, a warning we dare not ignore.

I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go up in flames, for people of different ethnicity, color, or religion to kill each other as if they had nothing in common whatsoever. Having a democratic constitution, laws that secure human rights, police that maintain order, a judicial system, and freedom of speech don't ultimately guarantee long lasting peace. If greedy or bloodthirsty leaders come to power, it can all go down. It happened to us. It can happen to you.

Let me be clear: I don't trust the Republicans. And I don't trust the Democrats, & I think a whole lot of Americans likewise don't trust the Republicans & the Democrats, because it is leadership in both parties that has gotten us in this mess.

The word fascism is not a word of abuse any more than the word capitalism is. It is a concept denoting a very definite kind of mass leadership and mass influence: authoritarian, one-party system, hence totalitarian, a system in which power takes priority over objective interests, and facts are distorted for political purposes. Hence, there are "fascist Jews," just as there are "fascist Democrats.

Because of demagogues, rhetoric has a tainted reputation in our time. However, rhetoric is central to democratic governance. It can fuse passion and persuasion, moving free people to freely choose what is noble.

Ego focuses on one’s own survival, pleasure, and enhancement to the exclusion of others; ego is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in terms of threat or no threat, like little children who classify all people as “nice” or “mean.” Conscience, on the other hand, both democratizes and elevates ego to a larger sense of the group, the whole, the community, the greater good. It sees life in terms of service and contribution, in terms of others’ security and fulfillment.

How do tyrants hold on to power for so long? For that matter, why is the tenure of successful democratic leaders so brief? How can countries with such misguided and corrupt economic policies survive for so long? Why are countries that are prone to natural disasters so often unprepared when they happen? And how can lands rich with natural resources at the same time support populations stricken with poverty? Equally, we may well wonder: Why are Wall Street executives so politically tone-deaf that they dole out billions in bonuses while plunging the global economy into recession? Why is the leadership of a corporation, on whose shoulders so much responsibility rests, decided by so few people? Why are failed CEOs retained and paid handsomely even as their company’s shareholders lose their shirts? In

In accordance with the prevailing conceptions in the U.S., there is no infringement on democracy if a few corporations control the information system: in fact, that is the essence of democracy. In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the leading figure of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, explains that “the very essence of the democratic process” is “the freedom to persuade and suggest,” what he calls “the engineering of consent.” “A leader,” he continues, “frequently cannot wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding … Democratic leaders must play their part in … engineering … consent to socially constructive goals and values,” applying “scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs”; and although it remains unsaid, it is evident enough that those who control resources will be in a position to judge what is “socially constructive,” to engineer consent through the media, and to implement policy through the mechanisms of the state. If the freedom to persuade happens to be concentrated in a few hands, we must recognize that such is the nature of a free society.

Do not confuse democracy, anarchy and monarchy. Because the bees are happy and democratically assigned to their posts despite having the queen as their sole leader.

[I]f the public wants the military to perform better, give more prudent advice to its civilian leadership, and spend taxpayer money more wisely, it must elect a Congress that will dial down a few notches its habitual and childish 'we support the troops!' mantra and start asking skeptical questions - and not accepting bland evasions or appeals to patriotism as a response.

The Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump, a weak, cowardly, amoral, and faithless husk of a once-great party of ideas and leadership. They’ll follow him into a political graveyard, red hats, tawdry nationalism, dumb policies, cruel tweets, and all. Their cult-like obedience to him has consumed their honor, and their souls.

But for a younger generation of conservative operatives who would soon rise to power... They were true believers who meant what they said, whether it was 'No New Taxes' or 'We are a Christian Nation.' In fact, with their rigid doctrines, slash-and-burn style, and exaggerated sense of having been aggrieved, this new conservative leadership was eerily reminiscent of some of the New Left's leaders during the sixties. As with their left-wing counterparts, this new vanguard of the right viewed politics as a contest not just between competing policy visions, but between good and evil. Activists in both parties began developing litmus tests, checklists of orthodoxy, leaving a Democrat who questioned abortion increasingly lonely, any Republican who championed gun control effectively marooned. In this Manichean struggle, compromise came to look like weakness, to be punished or purged. You were with us or you were against us. You had to choose sides.

The path to the ethnic democratization of American society is through its culture, that is to say through its cultural apparatus, which comprises the eyes, the ears, and the "mind" of capitalism and is twentieth-century voice to the world. Thus to democratize the cultural apparatus is tantamount to revolutionizing American society itself into the living realization of its professed ideas. Seeing the problem in another way, to revolutionize the cultural apparatus is to deal fundamentally with the unsolved American question of nationality--Which group speaks for America and for the glorification of which ethnic image? Either all group images speak for themselves and for the nation, or American nationality will never be determined.

In an era of globalization, we recognize that we are part of a global society, but we have no idea how to make such a society work. So far, no unified vision or leadership has emerged to guide us in this endeavor. We have not yet found a way to expand the spiritual ideals of democracy so that they pertain to every human being, every animal, and every plant. Until we do, human civilization and the Earth's ecosystem will continue to be in peril.

It is truth, in the old saying, that is 'the daughter of time,' and the lapse of half a century has not left us many of our illusions. Churchill tried and failed to preserve one empire. He failed to preserve his own empire, but succeeded in aggrandizing two much larger ones. He seems to have used crisis after crisis as an excuse to extend his own power. His petulant refusal to relinquish the leadership was the despair of postwar British Conservatives; in my opinion this refusal had to do with his yearning to accomplish something that 'history' had so far denied him—the winning of a democratic election.

So the German people clamored for order and leadership. But it was as though in the babble of their clamoring, they had summoned the devil himself, for there now rose up from the deep wound in the national psyche something strange and terrible and compelling. The Führer was no mere man or mere politician. He was something terrifying and authoritarian, self-contained and self-justifying, his own father and his own god. He was a symbol who symbolized himself, who had traded his soul for the zeitgeist. Germany wanted to restore its former glory, but the only means available was the debased language of democracy. So on January 30, 1933, the people democratically elected the man who had vowed to destroy the democratic government they hated. Hitler’s election to office destroyed the office.

Though the United States has made many mistakes in its eventful history, it has retained the ability to mobilize others because of its commitment to lead in the direction most want to go—toward liberty, justice, and peace. The issue before us now is whether America can continue to exhibit that brand of leadership under a president who doesn’t appear to attach much weight to either international cooperation or democratic values. The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one.

The bullet that rests in Roosevelt’s chest has killed Wilson for the Presidency,” one Democratic speaker suspected.

Leaders who formulate positive ideas and implement effective change in their community can help others overcome difficult economic and social hardships.

THE SEVEN TRAITS OF ELITE CAPTAINS 1. Extreme doggedness and focus in competition. 2. Aggressive play that tests the limits of the rules. 3. A willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadows. 4. A low-key, practical, and democratic communication style. 5. Motivates others with passionate nonverbal displays. 6. Strong convictions and the courage to stand apart. 7. Ironclad emotional control.

He made it clear enough that there would be no “democratic nonsense” and that the Third Reich would be ruled by the Fuehrerprinzip, the leadership principle—that is, that it would be a dictatorship.

Blacks must learn that true freedom from poverty is available only through hard work and perseverance, not through affirmative action programs, protesting, or blind allegiance to the Democratic party.

The Flint water crisis illustrates how the challenges in America's shrinking cities are not a crisis of local leadership - or, at least, not solely that - but a crisis of systems. Paternalism, even if it is well meaning, cannot transcend the political, economic, and social obstacles that relegate places such as Flint to the bottom. The chronic underfunding of American cities imperils the health of citizens. It also stunts their ability to become full participants in a democratic society, and it shatters their trust in the public realm. Communities that are poor and communities of color - and especially those that are both - are hurt worst of all.

All of us in the West, our political leaders and our newspapers above all, had underestimated Adolf Hitler and his domination of this land and its people. His ideas might seem half-baked and often evil - to me they did. But the unpleasant fact was not only that he believed in them, fanatically, but that he was persuading the German people to believe in them. He might seem like a demagogue... but his oratory, his drive, his zeal, his iron will and the power of his personality were having an immense impact on the citizens of this country. He was convincing them that the new Germany...under his leadership, was great, was strong, and had a manifest destiny ... I heard no mention...of the loss of personal freedom and of other democratic rights. Apparently this was not much of a sacrifice. They couldn't have cared less. They had committed themselves to Adolf Hitler and his barbarian dictatorship.

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers. For example, it is one thing to be a good leader of Americans, who are raised in a tradition of democracy and have a high need for independence. But the American brand of democratic leadership doesn’t work so well in Europe, where executives have a psychological need for more autocratic leadership. That is one of many reasons why it is wise for American agencies to appoint locals to lead their foreign subsidiaries.

Under one or another Democratic administration, 120,000 Japanese Americans were torn from their homes and livelihoods and thrown into detention camps; atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an enormous loss of innocent life; the FBI was given authority to infiltrate political groups; the Smith Act was used to imprison leaders of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and later on leaders of the Communist party for their political beliefs; detention camps were established to round up political dissidents in the event of a “national emergency”; during the late 1940s and 1950s, eight thousand federal workers were purged from government because of their political associations and views, with thousands more in all walks of life witchhunted out of their careers; the Neutrality Act was used to impose an embargo on the Spanish Republic that worked in favor of Franco’s fascist legions; homicidal counterinsurgency programs were initiated in various Third World countries; and the Vietnam War was pursued and escalated. And for the better part of a century, the Congressional leadership of the Democratic party protected racial segregation and stymied all antilynching and fair employment bills. Yet all these crimes, bringing ruination and death to many, have not moved the liberals, the social democrats, and the “democratic socialist” anticommunists to insist repeatedly that we issue blanket condemnations of either the Democratic party or the political system that produced it, certainly not with the intolerant fervor that has been directed against existing communism.

The Marxist truth of democratic centralism is that the Party directive coming from higher leadership must be carried out. Because the Party’s highest leader is he who has firmly established himself as a Marxist through a long period of movements and theoretical debates.

At the tail end of the Reagan years the Democratic Party, with the aid of Clinton/Gore–led groups like the Democratic Leadership Council, presented us with a new kind of “business-friendly” Democrat, one who voted the right way on choice and minority rights but was “willing to work with business” on such matters as free trade, deregulation, privatization, government spending, and personal debt. Such a Democrat, we were told, could win: we’d be giving up a thing or two in terms of workers’ rights and other matters, but at least Roe v. Wade would be safe for now.

Only a visionary leadership that can motivate "the better angels of our nature," as Lincoln said, and activate possibilities for a freer, more efficient, and stable America -- only that leadership deserves cultivation and support. / This new leadership must be grounded in grassroots organizing that highlights democratic accountability. Whoever our leaders will be as we approach the twenty-first century, their challenge will be to help Americans determine whether a genuine multiracial democracy can be created and sustained in an era of global economy and a moment of xenophobic frenzy.

For nearly two years, under Lyndon Johnson’s domestic leadership, Republicans and Democrats had toiled together to engineer the greatest advances in civil rights since the Civil War and to launch a comprehensive, progressive vision of American society that would leave a permanent imprint on the national landscape.

Democracy is a political form, a system of government. It has no social content, although it is frequently misused in that sense. It is wrong to say, “Mr. Green is very democratic; on his trips he sits down for lunch with his chauffeur.” He is, rather, a friend of simple people, and so is appropriately called demophile, not democratic. “Democracy” is a Greek word composed of demos (the people) and krátos (power in a strong, almost brutal sense). The milder form would be arché which implies leadership rather than rule. Hence “monarchy” is the fatherlike rule of a man in the interest of the common good, whereas “monocracy” is a one-man tyranny.

This job of international leadership is not the kind of assignment one ever finishes. Old dangers rarely go away completely, and new ones appear as regularly as dawn. Dealing with them effectively has never been a matter of just money and might. Countries and people must join forces, and that doesn’t happen naturally. Though the United States has made many mistakes in its eventful history, it has retained the ability to mobilize others because of its commitment to lead in the direction most want to go—toward liberty, justice, and peace. The issue before us now is whether America can continue to exhibit that brand of leadership under a president who doesn’t appear to attach much weight to either international cooperation or democratic values. The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one.

Consider almost any public issue. Today’s Democratic Party and its legislators, with a few notable individual exceptions, is well to the right of counterparts from the New Deal and Great Society eras. In the time of Lyndon Johnson, the average Democrat in Congress was for single-payer national health insurance. In 1971, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, for universal, public, tax-supported, high-quality day care and prekindergarten. Nixon vetoed the bill in 1972, but even Nixon was for a guaranteed annual income, and his version of health reform, “play or pay,” in which employers would have to provide good health insurance or pay a tax to purchase it, was well to the left of either Bill or Hillary Clinton’s version, or Barack Obama’s. The Medicare and Medicaid laws of 1965 were not byzantine mash-ups of public and private like Obamacare. They were public. Infrastructure investments were also public. There was no bipartisan drive for either privatization or deregulation. The late 1960s and early 1970s (with Nixon in the White House!) were the heyday of landmark health, safety, environmental, and financial regulation. To name just three out of several dozen, Nixon signed the 1970 Clean Air Act, the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the 1973 Consumer Product Safety Act. Why did Democrats move toward the center and Republicans to the far right? Several things occurred. Money became more important in politics. The Democratic Leadership Council, formed by business-friendly and Southern Democrats after Walter Mondale’s epic 1984 defeat, believed that in order to be more competitive electorally, Democrats had to be more centrist on both economic and social issues.

When the chairman of the Democratic National Committee came to see him after the election to ask for some political favors, and reminded Wilson that he owed his election to that party and its leadership committee, Wilson coldly cut him down to size. “Remember that God ordained that I should be the next president of the United States,” he told the astonished chairman. “Neither you nor any other mortal could have chosen another president.”30

In the democratic, egalitarian spirit of our day, we hold in suspicion positions of social authority, yet we submit to the power of peers. Social anxiety, peer group pressure, and competition all dictate our lives. Many are more afraid of offending their friends than they are of offending figures of authority. We have moved from a culture based upon hierarchy to a peerarchy. Ironically we flee from relational distinctions and boundaries, yet without these traditions and boundaries we become mired in codependency.

I find it difficult to say whether the leadership's 'second echelon' could have preserved the German Democratic Republic. Helmut Kohl later told me he had never believed that Egon Krenz was capable of getting the situation under control. I do not know — we are all wiser after the event, as the saying goes. For my part, I must admit I briefly had a faint hope that the new leaders would be able to change the course of events by establishing a new type of relations between the two German states — based on radical domestic reforms in East Germany.

Richard Russell, the segregationist senator from Georgia, warned President Lyndon Johnson that if he signed the Voting Rights Act, the Democratic Party would lose the South for the next thirty years, which turned out to be a conservative estimate. Johnson declared that the moral principle at stake was worth the political sacrifice, arguably an act of presidential leadership without parallel in the twentieth century. Most of the southern states soon made the transition from Democrat to Republican and from overt to covert forms of racial discrimination.

The democratic gospel of the French Revolution rested upon the glorification of man rather than God. The Church of Rome recognized this and struck back at the heresy as she had always done. She saw more clearly than did most Protestant churches that the devil, when it is to his advantage, is democratic. Ten thousand people telling a lie do not turn the lie into truth. That is an important lesson from the Age of Progress for Christians of every generation. The freedom to vote and a chance to learn do not guarantee the arrival of utopia. The Christian faith has always insisted that the flaw in human nature is more basic than any fault in man’s political or social institutions. Alexis de Tocqueville, a visitor in the United States during the nineteenth century, issued a warning in his classic study, Democracy in America. In the United States, he said, neither aristocracy nor princely tyranny exist. Yet, asked de Tocqueville, does not this unprecedented “equality of conditions” itself pose a fateful threat: the “tyranny of the majority”? In the processes of government, de Tocqueville warned, rule of the majority can mean oppression of the minority, control by erratic public moods rather than reasoned leadership.

The Democratic Party has been as guilty as the Republicans in the abdication of real power to the corporate state. It was Bill Clinton who led the Democratic Party to the corporate watering trough. Clinton argued that the party had to ditch labor unions, no longer a source of votes or power, as a political ally. Workers, he insisted, would vote Democratic anyway. They had no choice. It was better, he argued, to take corporate money and do corporate bidding. By the 1990s, the Democratic Party, under Clinton’s leadership, had virtual fund-raising parity with the Republicans. Today the Democrats raise more. The

Ultimately, Reagan presided over the largest tax cut in American history, and accomplished it working in tandem with (rather than against) a huge Democratic Party majority in the House. It was a bipartisan triumph. The Washington Post called Reagan’s accomplishment “one of the most remarkable demonstrations of presidential leadership in modern history.” After a slow start through 1982–1983, the stimulus effect of the Reagan tax cuts was extraordinary, sparking the longest peacetime expansion/recovery in the nation’s history: ninety-two consecutive months, far surpassing the previous record of fifty-eight months.

Lippmann was a major figure in many domains, including political theory. The main collection of his political essays is called “political philosophy for liberal democracy.” In these essays he explains that the “public must be put in its place” so that “the intelligent minorities” may live free of “the trampling and roar of the bewildered herd,” the public. Members of the bewildered herd are supposed to be “spectators of action,” not “participants.” They do have a function, however. Their function is to show up periodically to push a button to vote for a selected member of the leadership class. Then they are to go away and leave us alone. That’s progressive democratic theory. I

Technology equalizes opportunity in important ways. Much of this is good. But it also fuels a cult of efficiency, a fetish for tools, and a lopsided focus on the future. It fosters boredom with the past. It feeds self-interest. It transfers huge wealth to a new, highly secular leadership class. It punishes many workers in traditional industries. It renders, or seems to render, the “supernatural” obsolete. And with its power to manipulate and propagandize, it reshapes our political life. As citizens are swarmed by ads, noise, and political messaging, people’s sense of powerlessness grows. So does their anger at the privileged. So does their skepticism about the democratic process.

When, then, the Social Democrat worker found himself in the economic crisis which degraded him to the status of a coolie, the development of his revolutionary sentiments was severely retarded by the conservative structuralization that had been taking shape in him for decades. Either he remained in the camp of the Social Democrats, notwithstanding his criticism and rejection of their policies, or he went over to the NSDAP [Nazi party] in search of a better replacement. Irresolute and indecisive, owing to the deep contradiction between revolutionary and conservative sentiments, disappointed by his own leadership, he followed the line of least resistance. Whether he would give up his conservative tendencies and arrive at a complete consciousness of his actual responsibility in the production process, i.e., at a revolutionary consciousness, depended solely on the correct or incorrect leadership of the revolutionary party. Thus the communist assertion that it was the Social Democrat policies that put fascism in the saddle was correct from a psychological viewpoint. Disappointment in Social Democracy, accompanied by the contradiction between wretchedness and conservative thinking, must lead to fascism if there are no revolutionary organizations. For example, following the fiasco of the Labor party's policies in England, in 1930–31, fascism began to infiltrate the workers who, then, in the election of 1931, cut away to the Right, instead of going over to communism.

POLLARD had known better, but instead of pulling rank and insisting that his officers carry out his proposal to sail for the Society Islands, he embraced a more democratic style of command. Modern survival psychologists have determined that this “social”—as opposed to “authoritarian”—form of leadership is ill suited to the early stages of a disaster, when decisions must be made quickly and firmly. Only later, as the ordeal drags on and it is necessary to maintain morale, do social leadership skills become important. Whalemen in the nineteenth century had a clear understanding of these two approaches. The captain was expected to be the authoritarian, what Nantucketers called a fishy man. A fishy man loved to kill whales and lacked the tendency toward self-doubt and self-examination that could get in the way of making a quick decision. To be called “fishy to the backbone” was the ultimate compliment a Nantucketer could receive and meant that he was destined to become, if he wasn’t already, a captain. Mates, however, were expected to temper their fishiness with a more personal, even outgoing, approach. After breaking in the green hands at the onset of the voyage—when they gained their well-deserved reputations as “spit-fires”—mates worked to instill a sense of cooperation among the men. This required them to remain sensitive to the crew’s changeable moods and to keep the lines of communication open. Nantucketers recognized that the positions of captain and first mate required contrasting personalities. Not all mates had the necessary edge to become captains, and there were many future captains who did not have the patience to be successful mates. There was a saying on the island: “[I]t is a pity to spoil a good mate by making him a master.” Pollard’s behavior, after both the knockdown and the whale attack, indicates that he lacked the resolve to overrule his two younger and less experienced officers. In his deference to others, Pollard was conducting himself less like a captain and more like the veteran mate described by the Nantucketer William H. Macy: “[H]e had no lungs to blow his own trumpet, and sometimes distrusted his own powers, though generally found equal to any emergency after it arose. This want of confidence sometimes led him to hesitate, where a more impulsive or less thoughtful man would act at once. In the course of his career he had seen many ‘fishy’ young men lifted over his head.” Shipowners hoped to combine a fishy, hard-driving captain with an approachable and steady mate. But in the labor-starved frenzy of Nantucket in 1819, the Essex had ended up with a captain who had the instincts and soul of a mate, and a mate who had the ambition and fire of a captain. Instead of giving an order and sticking with it, Pollard indulged his matelike tendency to listen to others. This provided Chase—who had no qualms about speaking up—with the opportunity to impose his own will. For better or worse, the men of the Essex were sailing toward a destiny that would be determined, in large part, not by their unassertive captain but by their forceful and fishy mate.

ប្រជាធិបតេយ្យដែលគេបណ្ដុះឲ្យអ្នក... ណាខ្មែរ!! ខ្ញុំឃើញថាខ្មែរឯងបានប្រជាធិបតេយ្យអាណាធិបតេយ្យហើយពេលនេះ ។ ខ្មែរឯងដឹងអត់ថាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យជាការចូលរួមធ្វើឡើងដោយកណ្ដាប់ដៃរបស់ខ្មែរទាំងឡាយ (៥០%+១) ទៅចងច្បាប់គៀបអំណាចរដ្ឋឲ្យមានតុល្យភាពវិញ រវាងពលខ្មែរឯង និង អ្នកកាន់កិច្ចការប្រទេសជាតិរបស់ខ្មែរឯង ។ ម៉េចក៏មិនយល់សោះអឹញ្ចឹង!! បាតុកម្មមិនមែនជាការបង្ហាញឲ្យឃើញថាមានប្រជាធិបតេយ្យទេត្បិតថាជាទូទៅប្រទេសប្រជាធិបតេយ្យពិតគេធ្វើបាតុកម្មទាមទារអ្វីមួយនុះមែន ប៉ុន្តែវាមានសុវត្ថិភាព និង ប្រសិទ្ធិភាពណាស់បន្ទាប់ពីគេរួច ព្រោះអ្នកកាន់ការងាររដ្ឋវាគ្មានអំណាចប្រមូលផ្ដុំ ។ ហើយចុះខ្មែរឯងវិញ យ៉ាងម៉េចដែរសព្វថ្ងៃមានអំណាចក្នុងដៃឬនៅ? ការចូលរួមធ្វើអ្វីមួយដោយមិនប្រកបនឹងការយល់ដឹងទេ នុះវានឹងបង្ករឲ្យការចូលរួមនុះទៅជាភាពអាណាធិបតេយ្យ ឬ បែកបាក់ខូចខាត ឬក៏បរាជ័យជាប្រាកដ ។ អេ!! ឯងទៅណាសំលាញ់? ។ អូ! អូ! គ្នាទៅរកពេជ្រ!! ហា! ទៅរកពេជ្រ តើឯងស្គាល់ពេជ្រទេ? ។ ទេទេ! មិនស្គាល់ទេ! ហា្អក! មិនស្គាល់ពេជ្រទៅរកពេជ្រម៉េចបាន អាភ្លើ!! ។

When people have rejected aristocracy, no longer believe that leadership is inherited at birth, no longer assume that the ruling class is endorsed by God, the argument about who gets to rule--who is the elite--is never over. For a long time, some people in Europe and North America settled on the idea that various forms of democratic, meritocratic, and economic competition are the fairest alternative to inherited or ordained power. But even in countries that were never occupied by the Red Army and never ruled by Latin American populists, democracy and free markets can produce unsatisfying outcomes, especially when badly regulated, or when nobody trusts the regulators, or when people are entering the contest from very different starting points. The losers of these competitions were always, sooner or later, going to challenge the value of the competition itself.

Starting in the early 1970s, members of the PLO responded to these pressures, in particular to the urging of the Soviet Union, by floating the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, in effect a two-state solution. This approach was notably promoted by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (which had split off from the PFLP in 1969), together with Syrian-backed groups, discreetly encouraged by the leadership of Fatah. Although there had been early resistance to the two-state solution by the PFLP and some Fatah cadres, in time it became clear that ‘Arafat, among other leaders, supported it. This marked the beginning of a long, slow process of shifting away from the maximalist objective of the democratic state, with its revolutionary implications, to an ostensibly more pragmatic aim of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, to be achieved via negotiations on the basis of SC 242.

When equal sacrifices are required, equal rights must be given likewise. This has been such commonplace of thought for a hundred and twenty years that one is ashamed to find it still in need of emphasis. I any case, if this principle is applied in an army, and the great saying about the Marshal’s baton that every recruit carries in his knapsack is not an mere empty phrase, everybody feels that he is in his place, whether he is born to command or to obey. If I give any offence by this, I may add that this would be an army composed entirely of Fahnenjunker. Democratic sentiments? I hate democracy as I do the plague – besides, the democratic ideal of an army would be one consisting entirely, not of Fahnenjunker, but of officers with lax discipline and great personal liberty. For my taste, on the contrary, and for that of young Germans in general to-day, an army could not be too iron, too dictatorial, ad too absolute – but if it is to be so, then there must be a system of promotion that is not sheltered behind any sort of privilege, but opened up to the keenest competition. If we are to come to grief in this war it can only be from moral causes; for materially, whatever any one may say, we are strong enough. And the decisive factor will be the defects of leadership; or to express it more accurately, the relation in which officers and men stand to each other. It would not be for the first time in our experience, and it would be another proof that peoples too (for it is on the shoulders of the whole people, not jsut the ruling class) always repeat the same mistakes just as individuals do. The battle of Jena is an instance. This defeat should not be regarded as a great disaster, but as a just and well-deserved warning of the fate to cut loose from an impossible state of affairs; for in that battle a new principle of leadership encountered and overthrew an antiquated one. Every war that is lost is lost deservedly. One must always bear that in mind if one wishes to be the winner.

David Brooks, “Our Founding Yuppie,” Weekly Standard, Oct. 23, 2000, 31. The word “meritocracy” is an argument-starter, and I have employed it sparingly in this book. It is often used loosely to denote a vision of social mobility based on merit and diligence, like Franklin’s. The word was coined by British social thinker Michael Young (later to become, somewhat ironically, Lord Young of Darlington) in his 1958 book The Rise of the Meritocracy (New York: Viking Press) as a dismissive term to satirize a society that misguidedly created a new elite class based on the “narrow band of values” of IQ and educational credentials. The Harvard philosopher John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 106, used it more broadly to mean a “social order [that] follows the principle of careers open to talents.” The best description of the idea is in Nicholas Lemann’s The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999), a history of educational aptitude tests and their effect on American society. In Franklin’s time, Enlightenment thinkers (such as Jefferson in his proposals for creating the University of Virginia) advocated replacing the hereditary aristocracy with a “natural aristocracy,” whose members would be plucked from the masses at an early age based on “virtues and talents” and groomed for leadership. Franklin’s idea was more expansive. He believed in encouraging and providing opportunities for all people to succeed as best they could based on their diligence, hard work, virtue, and talent. As we shall see, his proposals for what became the University of Pennsylvania (in contrast to Jefferson’s for the University of Virginia) were aimed not at filtering a new elite but at encouraging and enriching all “aspiring” young men. Franklin was propounding a more egalitarian and democratic approach than Jefferson by proposing a system that would, as Rawls (p. 107) would later prescribe, assure that “resources for education are not to be allotted solely or necessarily mainly according to their return as estimated in productive trained abilities, but also according to their worth in enriching the personal and social life of citizens.” (Translation: He cared not simply about making society as a whole more productive, but also about making each individual more enriched.)

The explosion of government and spending under Obama insured that while the rest of the nation continued to suffer stagnant job growth and slow housing sales long past the time when a recovery should have been underway, one city was booming like a five-year-long Led Zeppelin drum solo: Washington, D.C. According to the 2014 Forbes ranking of the ten richest counties in America, none were in New York, California, or Texas. Before Obama took office, five of the richest counties surrounded Washington, D.C. Now, seven years after Obama took office on his promise to rid the place of big money lobbyists, and Democrats assumed complete control of the White House and Congress for two years, six of the richest counties surround Washington, D.C. Bear in mind that unlike Texas or California, where money is generated by creating products people actually need, such as oil or computers, Washington, D.C., produces nothing but government. In other words, six of the ten richest counties in America got that rich by being parasites. A case could be made that under the current leadership, crony capitalism is more rewarding than actual capitalism. And with all that government around business people’s necks, it’s certainly a heckuva lot easier.

Congress decided to put him on a committee to write a declaration explaining why the colonies were seeking independence. It was back in the days when Congress knew how to appoint really good committees: Franklin and Jefferson and John Adams were on it. They knew that leadership required not merely asserting values, but finding a balance when values conflict. We can see that in the deft editing of the famous sentence that opens the second paragraph of the Declaration. “We hold these truths to be sacred . . . ,” Jefferson had written. On the copy of his draft at the Library of Congress we can see the dark printer’s ink and backslashes of Franklin’s pen as he changes it to “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” His point was that our rights would come from rationality and the consent of the governed, not the dictates and dogma of any religion. Jefferson’s draft sentence went on to say that all men have certain inalienable rights. We can see Adams’s hand making an addition: “They are endowed by their Creator” with these inalienable rights. So just in the editing of one half of one sentence we can see how Franklin and his colleagues struck a unifying balance between the grace of divine providence and the role of democratic consent in the founding values of our nation.

for the Labour Party – splendid news. That increasingly leftward bound organisation is in process of splitting, and Shirley Williams,fn31 Roy Jenkinsfn32 etc. will found a new Social Democratic Partyfn33 (this oddly repeats events in Oxford circa 1940 when I was chairman of the leftward bound Labour Club and Roy Jenkins led a group to found a new Social Democratic Club. How right he was!). It’s a pity about the Labour Party but given the whole scene the split is best. It is now official Labour policy to leave the Common Market and NATO! And unofficially are likely to abolish the House of Lords instantly and have no second chamber, abolish private schooling etc. And of course (this is perhaps the main point) to have the leadership under the control of the executive committee (and Labour activists in the constituencies) substituting party ‘democracy’ for parliamentary democracy. I blame Denis Healey and others very much for not reacting firmly earlier against the left. A crucial move was when the parliamentary party elected Michael Foot, that wet crypto-left snake, as leader instead of Denis. Now Denis and co. are left behind, complaining bitterly, to fight the crazy left. Shirley still hasn’t resigned from the party so it’s all a bit odd! ‘On your bike, Shirl,’ the lefty trade unionists shout at her!

It is quite unfathomable why the EU leadership fails to anticipate these potentially catastrophic possibilities, and fails to respond to popular concerns with more moderate immigration policies. One possible explanation for these perverse policies that has been put forward by highly regarded scholars, such as Samuel Huntington, is that the current leadership of the EU is composed of left-wing authoritarians who are enemies of the Western liberal tradition. According to Huntington, “Multiculturalism is in its essence anti-European... "and opposes its civilization. The official repression of dissent and pursuance of unpopular policies by undemocratic means suggests that such ideologues wish to turn the EU into a centrally controlled empire similar to the Soviet Union. If that is the case, then their current policies make a good deal of sense, in that they flood the continent with people who have lived under autocratic regimes and never lived in democratic republics. Such people may well be willing to tolerate repressive regimes provided they can maintain a moderate standard of living and their own traditional religious practices. As Hunnngton points out, imperial regimes often promote ethnic conflict among their minority citizens to strengthen the power of the central authority, with the not unrealistic claim that a powerful central authority is essential to maintain civil order. But if that is the case, then Europe will be transformed into an authoritarian and illiberal multiethnic empire, undemocratic, economically crippled and culturally retrograde. Is it any wonder that so many see Europe as committing suicide and its end coming "not with a bang, but a whimper?

Towards the end of the last century the pursuit of Utopia entered the political mainstream. In future only one kind of regime would be legitimate: American-style democratic capitalism – the final form of human government, as it was termed in the fleeting and now forgotten mood of hubris that followed the Soviet collapse. Led by the United States, western governments committed themselves to installing democracy throughout the world – an impossible dream that in many countries could only produce chaos. At the same time they launched a ‘war against terror’ that failed to distinguish between new threats and the normal conflicts of history. The Right was possessed by fantasies, and like the utopian visions of the last century – but far more quickly – its grandiose projects have crumbled into dust. In the twentieth century it seemed utopian movements could come to power only in dictatorial regimes. Yet after 9/ 11 utopian thinking came to shape foreign policy in the world’s pre-eminent democracy. In many ways the Bush administration behaved like a revolutionary regime. It was prepared to engage in pre-emptive attacks on sovereign states in order to achieve its goals, while at the same time it has been ready to erode long-established American freedoms. It established a concentration camp in Guantánamo whose inmates are beyond the reach of normal legal protection, denied the protection of habeas corpus to terrorist suspects, set up an apparatus of surveillance to monitor the population and authorized American officials to practise what in any other country would be defined as torture. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, Britain suffered, in a more limited way, a similar transformation.

America capital has taken up this easy banner of world disorder and we are simply the poor willing fools that follow on behind. We are expected and asked to beat the Russians to death, and yet we are the ultimate victims ourselves: we socialists, we democrats, we progressives, we liberals, we republicans. Though it isn't the private crusade of America, American capital is conducting it, financing it, directing it, and using it, because America to-day is in the hands of violent expansionists, imperialists, capitalists, fascists—call them what you like. They believe the world is theirs, with their atom bomb and their sickening dollars. They are men who have seized America from the feeble hands of a frightened man, and through him they are directing a brazen attack upon the common liberties of all men. With our Imperialists they ask the world to stop Russia! Stop Russia for what?...So that American capital can extend its economic and political dominion over this entire universe, even to the poles! Like our own--these American imperialists are terrified of any movement for social and economic freedom because their Imperialism cannot exist in a better world and they know it. It cannot exist while Russia remains an example in social ownership and social courage. If we ever looked to America for leadership in human affairs, we may have looked to the late President Roosevelt, but these men are not Roosevelt men. Roosevelt's men have gone. Instead we have the new men of America. The men of capital representation, of military ambition, of political threat, of economic force. These are the men we are expected to follow in this great campaign against Russia. But it isn't only Russia that they attack. Their war is upon a world of resisting people who seek self-determination and some ultimate, simple, liberty. Their war is upon every progressive citizen, particularly those desperate partisans who fight for their liberty in America itself. Already the American schemers have the world by the throat. This very nation they have buttered with their silver dollars, saving us from the sins of all-out Socialism. Our entire economy to-day is primed and based on the American loan. What more dominion could one nation have over another?

The National Socialist Movement has, besides its delivery from the Jewishcapitalist shackles imposed by a plutocratic-democratic, dwindling class of exploiters at home, pronounced its resolve to free the Reich from the shackles of the Diktat of Versailles abroad. The German demands for a revision were an absolute necessity, a matter of course for the existence and the honor of any great people. Posterity will some day come to regard them as exceedingly modest. All these demands had to be carried through, in practice against the will of the British French potentates. Now more than ever we all see it as a success of the leadership of the Third Reich that the realization of these revisions was possible for years without resort to war. This was not the case-as the British and French demagogues would have it-because we were not then in a position to wage war. When it finally appeared as though, thanks to a gradually awakening common sense, a peaceful resolution of the remaining problems could be reached through international cooperation, the agreement concluded in this spirit on September 29, 1938, at Munich by the four great states predominantly involved, was not welcomed by public opinion in London and Paris, but was condemned as a despicable sign of weakness. The Jewish capitalist warmongers, their hands covered with blood, saw in the possible success of such a peaceful revision the vanishing of plausible grounds for the realization of their insane plans. Once again that conspiracy of pitiful, corrupt political creatures and greedy financial magnates made its appearance, for whom war is a welcome means to bolster business. The international Jewish poison of the peoples began to agitate against and to coroode healthy minds. Men of letters set out to portray decent men who desired peace as weaklings and traitors, to denounce opposition parties as a “fifth column,” in order to eliminate internal resistance to their criminal policy of war. Jews and Freemasons, armament industrialists and war profiteers, international traders and stockjobbers, found political blackguards: desperados and glory seekers who represented war as something to be yearned for and hence wished for. Adolf Hitler - speech to the Reichstag Berlin, July 19, 1940

With the increasing recognition of Jews as the parasitic germs of these diseases, state after state was forced in the last years to take a position on this fateful question for nations. Imbued with the instinct of self-preservation, they had to take those measures which were suited to protect for good their own people against this international poison. Even if Bolshevik Russia is the concrete product of this Jewish infection, one should not forget that democratic capitalism creates the conditions for it. In this way, the Jews prepare what the same Jews execute in the second stage of this process. In the first stage, they deprive the majority of men of their rights and reduce them to helpless slaves. Or, as they themselves put it, they make them expropriated proletarians in order to spur them on, as a fanaticized mob, to destroy the foundations of their state. Later, this is followed by the extermination of their own national intelligentsia, and finally by the elimination of all cultural foundations that, as a thousand-year-old heritage, could provide these people with their inner worth or serve as a warning to the future. What remains after that is the beast in man and a Jewish class that, as parasites in leadership positions, will in the end destroy the fertile soil on which it thrives. On this process-which according to Mommsen results in the Jewish engineered decomposition of people and states-the young, awakening Europe has now declared war. Proud and honorable people in other parts of the world have allied themselves to it. They will be joined by hundreds of millions of oppressed men who, irrespective of how their present leaders may view this, will one day break their chains. The end of these liars will come, liars who claim to protect the world against a threatening domination but who actually only seek to save their own world-rule. We are now in the midst of this mighty, truly historic awakening of the people, partly as leading, acting, or performing men. On the one side stand the men of the democracies that form the heart of Jewish capitalism, with their whole dead weight of dusty theories of state, their parliamentary corruption, their outdated social order, their Jewish brain trusts, their Jewish newspapers, stock exchanges, and banks-a combination, a mix of political and economic racketeers of the worst sort; on their side, there is the Bolshevik state, that is, that number of brutish men over whom the Jew, as in the Soviet Union, wields his bloody whip. And on the other side stand those nations who fight for their freedom and independence, for the securing of their people’s daily bread. Adolf Hitler – speech to the Reichstag April 26, 1942

The year 1944 was the year of the greatest burdens in this mighty struggle. It was a year that again proved conclusively that the bourgeois social order is no longer capable of braving the storms of the present or of the coming age. State after state that does not find its way to a truly social reorganization will go down the path to chaos. The liberal age is a thing of the past. The belief that you can counter this invasion of the people by parliamentary-democratic half-measures is childish and just as naive as Metternich’s methods when the national drives for unification were making their way through the nineteenth century. The lack of a truly social, new form of life results in the lack of the mental will to resist not only in the nations but also in the lack of the moral power of resistance of their leaders. In all countries we see that the attempted renaissance of a democracy has proved fruitless. The confused tangle of political dilettantes and military politicians of a bygone bourgeois world who order each other around is, with deadly certainty, preparing for a plunge into chaos and, insofar as Europe is concerned, into an economic and ethnic catastrophe. And, after all, one thing has already been proved: this most densely populated continent in the world will either have to live with an order that gives the greatest consideration to individual abilities, guarantees the greatest accomplishments, and, by taming all egotistical drives, prevents their excesses, or states such as we have in central and western Europe will prove unfit for life, which means that their nations are thereby doomed to perish! In this manner-following the example of royal Italy-Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary collapsed during this year. This collapse is primarily the result of the cowardice and lack of resolve of their leaders. They and their actions can be understood only in light of the corrupt and socially amoral atmosphere of the bourgeois world. The hatred which many statesmen, especially in these countries, express for the present German Reich is nothing other than the voice of a guilty conscience, an expression of an inferiority complex in view of our organization of a human community that is suspicious to them because we successfully pursue goals that again do not correspond to their own narrow economic egotism and their resulting political shortsightedness. For us, my German Volksgenossen, this, however, represents a new obligation to recognize ever more clearly that the existence or nonexistence of a German future depends on the uncompromising organization of our Volksstaat, that all the sacrifices which our Volk must make are conceivable only under the condition of a social order which clears away all privileges and thereby makes the entire Volk not only bear the same duties but also possess the same vital rights. Above all, it must mercilessly destroy the social phantoms of a bygone era. In their stead, it must place the most valuable reality there is, namely the Volk, the masses which, tied together by the same blood, essence, and experiences of a long history, owe their origin as an individual existence not to an earthly arbitrariness but to the inscrutable will of the Almighty. The insight into the moral value of our conviction and the resulting objectives of our struggle for life give us and, above all, give me the strength to continue to wage this fight in the most difficult hours with the strongest faith and with an unshakable confidence. In such hours, this conviction also ties the Volk to its leadership. It assured the unanimous approval of the appeal that I was forced to direct to the German Volk in a particularly urgent way this year. New Year’s Proclamation to the National Socialists and Party Comrades Fuhrer Headquarters, January 1, 1945

Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist ideas of national historic flowering and of individual artistic or spiritual genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism’s exaltation of unfettered personal creativity. The fascist leader wanted to bring his people into a higher realm of politics that they would experience sensually: the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a vast collective enterprise; the gratification of submerging oneself in a wave of shared feelings, and of sacrificing one’s petty concerns for the group’s good; and the thrill of domination. Fascism’s deliberate replacement of reasoned debate with immediate sensual experience transformed politics, as the exiled German cultural critic Walter Benjamin was the first to point out, into aesthetics. And the ultimate fascist aesthetic experience, Benjamin warned in 1936, was war. Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. Mussolini exulted in that absence. “The Fasci di Combattimento,” Mussolini wrote in the “Postulates of the Fascist Program” of May 1920, “. . . do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form.” A few months before he became prime minister of Italy, he replied truculently to a critic who demanded to know what his program was: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.” “The fist,” asserted a Fascist militant in 1920, “is the synthesis of our theory.” Mussolini liked to declare that he himself was the definition of Fascism. The will and leadership of a Duce was what a modern people needed, not a doctrine. Only in 1932, after he had been in power for ten years, and when he wanted to “normalize” his regime, did Mussolini expound Fascist doctrine, in an article (partly ghostwritten by the philosopher Giovanni Gentile) for the new Enciclopedia italiana. Power came first, then doctrine. Hannah Arendt observed that Mussolini “was probably the first party leader who consciously rejected a formal program and replaced it with inspired leadership and action alone.” Hitler did present a program (the 25 Points of February 1920), but he pronounced it immutable while ignoring many of its provisions. Though its anniversaries were celebrated, it was less a guide to action than a signal that debate had ceased within the party. In his first public address as chancellor, Hitler ridiculed those who say “show us the details of your program. I have refused ever to step before this Volk and make cheap promises.” Several consequences flowed from fascism’s special relationship to doctrine. It was the unquestioning zeal of the faithful that counted, more than his or her reasoned assent. Programs were casually fluid. The relationship between intellectuals and a movement that despised thought was even more awkward than the notoriously prickly relationship of intellectual fellow travelers with communism. Many intellectuals associated with fascism’s early days dropped away or even went into opposition as successful fascist movements made the compromises necessary to gain allies and power, or, alternatively, revealed its brutal anti-intellectualism. We will meet some of these intellectual dropouts as we go along. Fascism’s radical instrumentalization of truth explains why fascists never bothered to write any casuistical literature when they changed their program, as they did often and without compunction. Stalin was forever writing to prove that his policies accorded somehow with the principles of Marx and Lenin; Hitler and Mussolini never bothered with any such theoretical justification. Das Blut or la razza would determine who was right.

Speech to the German Folk January 30, 1944 Without January 30, 1933, and without the National Socialist revolution, without the tremendous domestic cleansing and construction efforts, there would be no factor today that could oppose the Bolshevik colossus. After all, Germany was itself so ill at the time, so weakened by the spreading Jewish infection, that it could hardly think of overcoming the Bolshevik danger at home, not to mention abroad. The economic ruin brought about by the Jews as in other countries, the unemployment of millions of Germans, the destruction of peasantry, trade, and industry only prepared the way for the planned internal collapse. This was furthered by support for the continued existence of a senseless state of classes, which could only serve to transform the reason of the masses into hatred in order to make them the willing instrument of the Bolshevik revolution. By mobilizing the proletarian slaves, the Jews hoped that, following the destruction of the national intelligentsia, they could all the more reduce them for good to coolies. But even if this process of the Bolshevik revolt in the interior of Germany had not led to complete success, the state with its democratic Weimar constitution would have been reduced to something ridiculously helpless in view of the great tasks of current world politics. In order to be armed for this confrontation, not only the problems of political power but also the social and economic problems had to be resolved. When National Socialism undertook the realization of its program eleven years ago, it managed just in time to build up a state that did not only have the strength at home but also the power abroad to fulfill the same European mission which first Greece fulfilled in antiquity by opposing the Persians, then Rome [by opposing] the Carthaginians, and the Occident in later centuries by opposing the invasions from the east. Therefore, in the year 1933, we set ourselves four great tasks among many others. On their resolution depended not only the future of the Reich but also the rescue of Europe, perhaps even of the entire human civilization: 1. The Reich had to regain the internal social peace that it had lost by resolving the social questions. That meant that the elements of a division into classes bourgeoisie and proletariat-had to be eliminated in their various manifestations and be replaced by a Volksgemeinschaft. The appeal to reason had to be supplemented by the merciless eradication of the base elements of resistance in all camps. 2. The social and political unification of the nation had to be supplemented by a national, political one. This meant that the body of the Reich, which was not only politically, but also governmentally divided, had to be replaced by a unified National Socialist state, the construction and leadership of which were suited to oppose and withstand even the heaviest attacks and severest tests of the future. 3. The nationally and politically coherent centralized state had the mission of immediately creating a Wehrmacht, whose ideology, moral attitude, numerical strength, and material equipment could serve as an instrument of self-assertion. After the outside world had rejected all German offers for a limitation of armament, the Reich had to fashion its own armament accordingly. 4. In order to secure its continued existence in Europe with the prospect of actual success, it was necessary to integrate all those countries which were inhabited by Germans, or were areas which had belonged to the German Reich for over a thousand years and which, in terms of their national substance and economy, were indispensable to the preservation of the Reich, that is, for its political and military defense. Only the resolution of all these tasks could result in the creation of that state which was capable, at home and abroad, of waging the fight for its defense and for the preservation of the European family of nations.

The issue before us now is whether America can continue to exhibit that brand of leadership under a president who doesn’t appear to attach much weight to either international cooperation or democratic values. The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one.

Many Republicans, prodded by self-appointed legal and investigative experts on their favored media outlets, and often reacting to inaccurate or misleading news reporting, seemed certain the former secretary of state had committed the worst crimes since the Rosenbergs gave our nuclear secrets to the Russians in the 1950s and were executed for it. The Democrats, in turn, were dismissive of the case from the outset, claiming the examination of the emails wasn’t even an “investigation” but merely a “review” or some other tortured euphemism.

Three political parties in the United States; Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Supreme Court.

High emotional intelligence is one the most essential characteristic of democratic leadership when taking responsibility in an organization, community or any social settings.

For the future we should understand that this process of democratizing a state legislative system takes time. Changing a few faces is not enough, just as earning majority support of a legislator's constituents doesn't help if he has been put there by special interests. You have to be around long enough to out-organize the special interests, and change the legislature's leadership.

States of course have complex internal structures, and the choices and decisions of the political leadership are heavily influenced by internal concentrations of power, while the general population is often marginalized. That is true even for the more democratic societies, and obviously for others.

...anarchists reject the hierarchical and authoritarian model of organization that erodes freedom and equality; but they do not reject the horizontal model of organization based on democratic decision-making, decentralization, voluntary association, and voluntary cooperation.

There are no individual solutions to collective problems. Nonetheless, it is individuals who must come together and figure out what to do. In all of this, there is the unaddressed question of leadership. The anarchist in me genuinely believes rotating leadership is a solution: people take turns taking the lead in the areas of their greatest competence, interest, or desire. Another similar collaborative idea might be: best idea wins. But art is so subjective, and for five different people five different ideas might each seem best. It has always been my thinking that if someone in the group feels strongly that we should do something, then we should do it, their strong desire shouldn’t be watered or sanded down by the democratic entropy of the group. I want the projects to be open enough to welcome the strongest impulses of each of the participants. This is my ideal, and like all ideals it is something I often fall short of achieving. Perhaps this ideal is not even best for every collaborative situation. In a sense, it is just another way of saying that I want to work in ways that are deeply collaborative while at the same time keeping our most intense individual artistic differences more alive than alive.

When we tell a judge or a jury or Congress what we saw, or found, or heard, they are not hearing it from a Republican or a Democrat. They are hearing it from an entity that is separate and apart in American life. The FBI must be an “other” in this country or we are lost.

I was surprised. Maybe it was because I had become so hardened to the tribal loyalties of Washington, D.C., that it was difficult to believe a Democrat would choose someone who had been a political appointee of his Republican predecessor for such an important post. I also was on record as having financially contributed to President Obama’s political opponents.

Bush could be impatient, and it drove me nuts that he started things early, but I was struck by his strong, and occasionally devilish, sense of humor. That year, 2004, he was in the thick of his reelection battle against Democrat John Kerry, who was hammering him for presiding over what Kerry called a “jobless” economic recovery. In one of our daily morning terrorism meetings with the president, FBI director Bob Mueller told him that a suspected Al Qaeda operative named Babar, whom we were closely monitoring, had just gotten a second job in New York. Mueller, not known as a comedian, then paused, turned his head toward me and added, “And then Jim said…” Bush looked at me, and so did Vice President Cheney. I froze. Before our meeting, Mueller and I had discussed Babar’s second job and I’d made a private joke to the FBI director that I hadn’t expected to repeat to the president, who could occasionally display a temper. Time slowed down, way down. I didn’t reply. The president prompted me. “What’d you say, Jim?” I paused and then, horrified, plunged in. “Who says you haven’t created any jobs; this guy’s got two.

the Koch brothers—owned virtually all of what had become under their leadership the second-largest private company in America. They owned four thousand miles of pipelines, oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, the Georgia-Pacific lumber and paper company, coal, and chemicals, and they were huge traders in commodity futures, among other businesses. The company’s consistent profitability had made the two brothers the sixth- and seventh-wealthiest men in the world. Each was worth an estimated $14 billion in 2009. Charles, the elder brother, was a man of unusual drive, accustomed to getting his way. What he wanted that weekend was to enlist his fellow conservatives in a daunting task: stopping the Obama administration from implementing Democratic policies that the American public had voted for but that he regarded as catastrophic.

Early on in Midyear, the politically appointed leadership—Attorney General Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates—had decided not to recuse themselves. Somehow, they saw the investigation of Hillary Clinton—former First Lady and former secretary of state, current candidate for the presidency, likely nominee of the Democratic Party, who was being supported by the president of the United States, to whom they owed their jobs—as a case they could handle without prejudice. Recusal would have been a reasonable and, I would argue, better decision for those political appointees to have made. A special prosecutor could have been appointed to oversee the case, to work with the career professionals at Justice or other attorneys. It would have been an extreme choice but also a safe one. I don’t know why they didn’t do that. Instead, they made a feckless compromise. They designated career professionals in the National Security Division as decision makers in this case but didn’t unambiguously commit to abide by those people’s decisions. The leadership at Justice chose not to be involved but also not to be recused—the worst possible choice afforded by the situation. They were not far enough removed to eliminate suspicion of partisan motivation, and not closely enough involved to exercise the active discernment that such a sensitive case demanded. It was a fatal choice. Had there been a competent, credible special counsel running Midyear Exam independently—the way Bob Mueller’s Russia investigation has been run—I think circumstances might have been very different, and we would not have been where we ended up in July.

Wikipedia: Iron law of oligarchy According to [Robert] Michels, all organizations eventually come to be run by a "leadership class", who often function as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons or political strategists for the organization. Far from being "servants of the masses", Michels argues this "leadership class", rather than the organization's membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization's power structures. By controlling who has access to information, those in power can centralize their power successfully, often with little accountability, due to the apathy, indifference and non-participation most rank-and-file members have in relation to their organization's decision-making processes. Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountable are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made 'democratically' by members. Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.

In 1931, Japan went broke—i.e., it was forced to draw down its gold reserves, abandon the gold standard, and float its currency, which depreciated it so greatly that Japan ran out of buying power. These terrible conditions and large wealth gaps led to fighting between the left and the right. By 1932, there was a massive upsurge in right-wing nationalism and militarism, in the hope that order and economic stability could be forcibly restored. Japan set out to get the natural resources (e.g., oil, iron, coal, and rubber) and human resources (i.e., slave labor) it needed by seizing them from other countries, invading Manchuria in 1931 and spreading out through China and Asia. As with Germany, it could be argued that Japan’s path of military aggression to get needed resources was more cost-effective than relying on classic trading and economic practices. In 1934, there was severe famine in parts of Japan, causing even more political turbulence and reinforcing the right-wing, militaristic, nationalistic, and expansionistic movement. In the years that followed, Japan’s top-down fascist command economy grew stronger, building a military-industrial complex to protect its existing bases in East Asia and northern China and support its excursions into other countries. As was also the case in Germany, while most Japanese companies remained privately held, their production was controlled by the government. What is fascism? Consider the following three big choices that a country has to make when selecting its approach to governance: 1) bottom-up (democratic) or top-down (autocratic) decision making, 2) capitalist or communist (with socialist in the middle) ownership of production, and 3) individualistic (which treats the well-being of the individual with paramount importance) or collectivist (which treats the well-being of the whole with paramount importance). Pick the one from each category that you believe is optimal for your nation’s values and ambitions and you have your preferred approach. Fascism is autocratic, capitalist, and collectivist. Fascists believe that top-down autocratic leadership, in which the government directs the production of privately held companies such that individual gratification is subordinated to national success, is the best way to make the country and its people wealthier and more powerful.

A democratic style of leadership has been responsible for more ingenuity, prosperity, happiness, and success in human history than any other style of leadership because a democratic style of leadership taps into the core idea that we are made to be free.

There is no shelter from the willful blindness of a politican.

After Germany's collapse in 1918 Jewry became very powerful in Germany in all spheres of life, especially in the political, general intellectual and cultural, and, most particularly, the economic spheres. The men came back from the front, had nothing to look forward to, and found a large number of Jews who had come in during the war from Poland and the East, holding positions, particularly economic positions. It is known that, under the influence of the war and business concerned with it -- demobilization, which offered great possibilities for doing business, inflation, deflation -- enormous shifts and transfers took place in the propertied classes. There were many Jews who did not show the necessary restraint and who stood out more and more in public life, so that they actually invited certain comparisons because of their numbers and the position they controlled in contrast to the German people. In addition there was the fact that particularly those parties which were avoided by nationally minded people also had Jewish leadership out of proportion to the total number of Jews. That did not apply only to Germany, but also to Austria, which we have always considered a part of Germany. There the entire Social Democratic leadership was almost exclusively in Jewish hands. They played a very considerable part in politics, particularly in the left-wing parties, and they also became very prominent in the press in all political directions. (14 March 1946)

Whenever I attempt to understand the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the civilian Intelligence Bureau, whose purpose is to collect crucial information on the security of the state, I am left with biting questions about their true roles in internal and external matters. It is a fact that such countries as India and Pakistan have always suffered from a lack of limits on the role of their intelligence agencies and respect for international law and human rights, including the privacy of individuals within the concept and context of global peace and fundamental freedoms. The ISI, driven by the Pakistan Armed Forces, ignores the supreme constitutional role and rule of a democratic head of state, under which even the Armed Forces themselves fall. This is not only a violation of the constitution but also a rejection of the civilian leadership. This can be interpreted as Pakistan is a country where the servant rules its leader and patron. It is this bitter reality that leads toward the collapse of all systems of society, which the Pakistani nation has faced since the first introduction of martial law by General Ayub Khan in 1958, and such conduct has continued to exist ever since, whether visibly or invisibly. One cannot ignore, avoid, or deny that Pakistan has maintained its physical independence for more than 7 decades. However, its real freedom as conceptualized upon the nation’s creation has been only a dream and abused by its so-called defenders and its power-mongers. Unfortunately, such figures control the ISI and lead it in the wrong direction, beyond the constitutional limits of its power. Consequently, the ISI plays the role of a gang that disrupts the stability of the main political parties and promotes tiny, unpopular parties to gain power for itself. There is thus no doubt that the ISI has failed in its responsibility to support constitutional rule and to secure and defend the state and its people. The failure of the democratic system in the country, directly or indirectly, reflects the harassment practiced by both intelligence agencies without proof or legal process, even interfering with other institutions. The consequences are the collapse of the justice system and the imposition of foreign policies that damage international relationships. The result is a lack of trust in these agencies and their isolation. In a civilized century, it is a tragedy that one dares not express one’s feelings that may abuse God, prophets, or sacred figures. But more than that, one cannot speak a word against the wrongdoing of a handful of army generals or ISI officials. In Pakistan, veteran journalists, top judges, and other key figures draw breath under the spying eyes of the ISI; even higher and minister-level personalities are the victims of such conduct. One has to live in such surroundings. Pakistan needs a major cleanup and reorganization of the present awkward role of the ISI for the sake of international relations, standards, and peace, including the privacy of individuals and respect for the notable figures of society, according to the law.

The more democratic a culture is, the harder it is to appropriate a previous leader. - Andrew Marr, political commentator and broadcaster.

the federal government is broke. Anything more that Congress spends must be borrowed. And interest rates on that borrowed money increased steadily following COVID-related government spending sprees written by Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic House leadership under both President Trump and President Biden.

Conservative elites first turned to populism as a political strategy thanks to Richard Nixon. His festering resentment of the Establishment’s clubby exclusivity prepared him emotionally to reach out to the “silent majority,” with whom he shared that hostility. Nixon excoriated “our leadership class, the ministers, the college professors, and other teachers… the business leadership class… they have all really let down and become soft.” He looked forward to a new party of independent conservatism resting on a defense of traditional cultural and social norms governing race and religion and the family. It would include elements of blue-collar America estranged from their customary home in the Democratic Party. Proceeding in fits and starts, this strategic experiment proved its viability during the Reagan era, just when the businessman as populist hero was first flexing his spiritual muscles. Claiming common ground with the folkways of the “good ole boy” working class fell within the comfort zone of a rising milieu of movers and shakers and their political enablers. It was a “politics of recognition”—a rediscovery of the “forgotten man”—or what might be termed identity politics from above. Soon enough, Bill Clinton perfected the art of the faux Bubba. By that time we were living in the age of the Bubba wannabe—Ross Perot as the “simple country billionaire.” The most improbable members of the “new tycoonery” by then had mastered the art of pandering to populist sentiment. Citibank’s chairman Walter Wriston, who did yeoman work to eviscerate public oversight of the financial sector, proclaimed, “Markets are voting machines; they function by taking referenda” and gave “power to the people.” His bank plastered New York City with clever broadsides linking finance to every material craving, while simultaneously implying that such seductions were unworthy of the people and that the bank knew it. Its $1 billion “Live Richly” ad campaign included folksy homilies: what was then the world’s largest bank invited us to “open a craving account” and pointed out that “money can’t buy you happiness. But it can buy you marshmallows, which are kinda the same thing.” Cuter still and brimming with down-home family values, Citibank’s ads also reminded everybody, “He who dies with the most toys is still dead,” and that “the best table in the city is still the one with your family around it.” Yale preppie George W. Bush, in real life a man with distinctly subpar instincts for the life of the daredevil businessman, was “eating pork rinds and playing horseshoes.” His friends, maverick capitalists all, drove Range Rovers and pickup trucks, donning bib overalls as a kind of political camouflage.

African Americans (as well as other subaltern groups) are not essential Democrats, although in recent history many have tactically aligned themselves with this party. Critical theorists and others on the educational left should recognize that African American articulation to the Democratic Party and other powerful, liberal, progressive, and centrist groups has almost always been tactical. To theorize African Americans as “intelligent” when they show unquestioning loyalty to the Democratic Party and other liberal causes, even when these take their support for granted as they drift to the Right on significant issues, and “foolish” when they tactically participate in other, sometimes more conservative, alliances (such as that around vouchers) grossly misrepresents African American agency, and betrays what I feel is a racist essentialization of Black intelligence. Subaltern groups have always needed to tactically associate in seemingly contradictory ways with powerful groups and individuals, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Democratic Leadership Council, in order to seek to protect their interests.

Jefferson did try. “Nothing shall be spared on my part to obliterate the traces of party and consolidate the nation, if it can be done without abandonment of principle,” he said in March 1801.8 Thirty-four months later, after the partisan wars of his first term, he struck more practical notes, accepting the world as it was. “The attempt at reconciliation was honorably pursued by us for a year or two and spurned by them,” he said.9 As Jefferson well knew, in practice the best he could hope for was a truce between himself and his opponents, not a permanent peace. Political divisions were intrinsic; what mattered most was how a president managed those divisions. Jefferson’s strategy was sound. Believing in the promise of democratic republicanism and in his own capacity for transformative leadership, he took a broad view: “There is nothing to which a nation is not equal where it pours all its energies and zeal into the hands of those to whom they confide the direction of their force.”10 He proposed a covenant: Let us meet the political challenges of the country together and try to restrain the passions that led to the extremist, apocalyptic rhetoric of what Jefferson called the “gloomy days of terrorism” of the 1790s, and perhaps politics could become a means of progress, not simply a source of conflict.11 The prevailing Federalist view was that such a covenant was lovely to talk about but impossible to bring into being. John Quincy Adams was right when he told his diary that political war was to be the rule, not the exception, in American life. “The country is so totally given up to the spirit of party, that not to follow blindfold the one or the other is an inexpiable offense,” Adams wrote during Jefferson’s first term.12

JAY: No, I’m talking about the leadership of the Democratic Party went along with the Patriot Act, went along with the war in Iraq. VIDAL: Have you ever found them? You know where they live? JAY: The leadership of the Democratic Party? VIDAL: You know, they’re not visible. There’s some obviously good people in the party. I like Dennis Kucinich, I like Senator Leahy. There are some very good people in Congress. And let’s hope they start doing some oversight. But I’m not very sanguine.

To prove the existence of a worldwide conspiracy one needs to bring up facts that cannot be denied by opponents of such a principle. The imminence of such a worldwide conspiracy is, along with other facts confirmed, by the existence of organizations that rank above the separate states. These organizations have been operating behind the scenes of official world politics for several decades. Whoever wants to understand how and why political decisions come about needs to study these organizations and their objectives. The real answers cannot be found with the government of the United States or other political powers of this world. In reality the politics of countries are not determined by democratically chosen representatives, but by these powerful organizations and our invisible elite. Many investigators have tried to uncover this worldwide conspiracy. These investigators stem from all ranks of society. In spite of this, they all agree on the existence of this conspiracy. Sooner or later every investigator that researches this matter will come across the secret Brotherhood of the Illuminati. This organization was officially founded in 1530 in Spain. Their goals are based on the famous Constantinople Letter of December 22, 1489, in which plans were made to conquer the leadership of the world.[33] In 1773 the plans stipulated in the Constantinople Letter were restored, modernized and developed further in consultation

As it turned out, my church sent their youth to summer camps more to gain a vision of social justice than of personal religious experience. I was elected to represent Oklahoma at a regional church youth camp in Fayetteville, Arkansas. There the national youth leadership outlined their plan for the future and taught us about the labor movement, grasping capitalists and the need for total disarmament. From then on my intellectual trajectory was poised for leaping much further to the political left. That meant Henry Wallace and the Farmer Labor wing go of the Democratic Party. Those hurdles happened abruptly, and my course was set early. The national Methodist youth movement was a world of its own, with extensive organization and strong political convictions. It was designed for propaganda that promoted social change according to the Social Gospel vision pouring out of the theological schools. My distant ideological mentors for that dream were socialist candidate Norman Thomas, pacifist pioneer A. J. Muste and British Hyde Park Donald Soper. I got this indoctrination second- and third-hand from reading and from going to youth conferences on all levels--local, district, conference, jurisdictional and national levels. As a teenage I was not sufficiently self-critical to see any unintended consequences and such talk was not encouraged.

The ten states where women’s status is highest (measured by economic security, leadership, and health) are strongly Democratic, with strong secular cultures (in order: Maryland, Hawaii, Vermont, California, Delaware, Connecticut, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, and Washington).

waned. Efforts to protect civilian life fell by the wayside and a fourth and final grim phase of nuclear reality settled over the United States. Soon grandiose plans gradually shrank to just a single, all-consuming governmental goal: protect the idea of a democratic leadership and preserve the National Command Authorities—that virtually never-ending succession line of officials authorized to launch the nation’s nuclear weapons. Rather than remake the entire society, the government would protect itself and let the rest of us die. That way, there was a chance that democracy could one day again blossom across