politicians

• May 20, 2014

  Duly Elected Tyranny: Recovering Democracy in the Age of Majority Abuses

  My latest Huffington Post piece examines democracy in the modern world:

  Democracy is dead, long live democracy. Modi has won by a landslide in India. Touted everywhere as the world’s largest “democracy,” India will be ruled by a man who has never repudiated or apologized for the slaughter of Muslims in his state’s riots while he was in charge, a man who is the force behind the most ultranationalist and bigoted Indian political party in modern history. Right here in the USA, Princeton University demonstrates that most every policy and every piece of ‘democratic’ legislation is supporting the rise of an oligarchy and the disappearance of the middle class. From Russia to India to Israel, we have a problem with elected ultra-right leaders who basically embody what John Stuart Mill, one of the greatest modern architects of democracy, referred to as ‘the tyranny of the majority.’

  In every case majority …

• July 29, 2013

  Nonviolence Goes Mainstream: A Surprising Result of the Syrian Tragedy – Part III

  Political Realism Needs to Discover Nonviolent Social Change

  When I start to hear in forums around Washington in the last few months that the people of Syria might have been better off without a violent revolution then we are witnessing a slow learning curve of the political realists. From Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria they are beginning to see the absurdity of embracing guns that give rise to everything they fear the most from the Middle East. The horror of the present makes the courageous crowds in Syria of 2011 something of a wondrous miracle, a proud pluralistic mass movement of social change, without the insanity of ideological extremism.

  The lesson is simple. We activists must be much more prepared to massively support every nonviolent turn in social history across the world, but we also must be accompanied by policy makers who at the very least stay out of the …

• July 12, 2012

  Business that Unifies, Business that Divides

  Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas – The Washington Post.

  The reports demonstrating Bain and Romney’s deep involvement in aiding the steady demise of American jobs for poor people by shipping them overseas and making enormous profits is a tale in American conflict generation. A society first and foremost must be a based on a social contract between in its richest and poorest citizens that they will all do their share for the increased prosperity and welfare of the society. This creates social harmony, this unifies and it is the basis of the peaceful vision of capitalism that Adam Smith had which required a moral sense, intuitions of empathy and compassion that accompanied the profit motive.

  But this is nowhere to be found in the Wall Street of today which has no comprehension of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Bain and Romney symbolize this world …

• June 8, 2012

  Syria’s Christian Conundrum

  by Hind Kabawat, CRDC Senior Research Analyst and Expert on Conflict Resolution

  This article was originally published by CNN here.

  One of the most perplexing aspects of the Syrian revolution is the deep ambivalence felt by so many of the country’s Christians when faced with the prospect of freedom after four decades of authoritarian dictatorship. Some Christians have enthusiastically embraced the prospect of democratic change and a more open civil society, but many have not.

  As a Christian, this provokes a great deal of sadness in me and others who are committed to transforming Syria into an open, democratic, inclusive, secular and religiously tolerant society. But the problem is that many, if not most, Christians in Syria do not believe that this will be the outcome of changing the regime.

  On the contrary, they believe the present regime — corrupt and repressive as it has been — is the …

• February 14, 2012

  Dont trust the world

   

  Dont trust the world – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

  What will you do if we assume risks and sacrifice victims and put our trust in you – and then something goes wrong?

  “What if the other side does not act as it is expected to, and instead hurls at us fire and plagues and poisons and possibly even nuclear weapons?

  “What will you do then? Will you ask for forgiveness? Will you say ‘we were wrong’? Will you send us bandages? Will you open orphanages for the children who survived? Will you pray for our souls?”

  Powerful persuasive words from Israel’s most recent rising politician. Imagine a family in Gaza who lost their children and entire neighborhood in 2008 giving the exact same speech, using exactly these words. Why should they not use these words?

  Ok, now what? After all the emotions, if you want something more in life …