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Foldvary: Local Democracy Established in Iraq!
Editorials	2 Comments
Local Democracy Established in Iraq! by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor
Little reported in the press, the U.S.-led Coalition administration in Iraq has held elections in Iraq, where the people have voted for representatives to local village and urban neighborhood councils. Neighborhood Advisory Councils have been elected under the authority of Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III and the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority. I previously advocated that the Coalition administration quickly establish democracy in Iraq by starting locally. I don’t know if what I wrote had any impact on the officials in charge, but it was the logical thing to do, and the U.S.-led Coalition has indeed begun to fulfill its pledge to establish democracy in Iraq. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) in its May 22, 2003, “Current Situation” news release stated that the development of the Baghdad City Advisory Council, starting at the neighborhood level, was underway. Initial neighborhood councils were formed on May 19, and representatives from each neighborhood created a Municipal Advisory Council. 1st Lt. Jason P. Beck reports in his article Neighborhood Advisory Councils: democracy at the community level that representatives from each of the 88 Neighborhood Advisory Councils elected representatives to send to the next level, the District Advisory Council. The district councils then elected representatives to the Baghdad City Council. Beck states, “Eventually, this example of neighborhood cooperation will be used as a standard throughout Iraq.” May it be so! This is exactly the bottom-up cellular-democracy method I have been advocating! As reported by Bassem Mroue for the Associated Press, the neighborhood councils of Baghdad held a joint session with representatives from the national Governing Council on July 27 to consider the city’s infrastructure and issues. The Interim Advisory Neighborhood Council consists of representatives from Baghdad’s 88 neighborhoods. Samir Shakir Mahmoud, a member of the national Governing Council, declared, “It is the beginning of enfranchisement of the Iraqi cities, especially in Baghdad.” Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who represented Bremer, said “this is a great moment for you and Iraq. It is a great moment of democracy. It is the time when you are taking responsibilities.” Cynics have doubted the U.S. government’s intention to establish democracy in Iraq. While the press has, quite properly, prominently reported the dramatic bombings and continuing killing of U.S. soldiers, the quiet establishment of democratic councils has been little noted, yet this in the long run is a more momentous development. It’s good that the Iraqi national council, appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is working with the elected councils. This process should be carried further. The advisory neighborhood and village councils should become actually governing councils. Provincial and municipal governments should be elected by the local and district councils. Finally, the national council or parliament should be elected by the provincial councils. The new Iraqi constitution should be written by such an elected parliament. The Coalition Authority should declare that sovereignty in Iraq now rests with the people and their local councils. The Coalition would then be working for the councils and the Iraqi people. The Coalition should also hold a nation-wide referendum in Iraq to vote on whether the Coalition troops should continue to be in Iraq or leave. If the Iraqis vote to have them stay for the time being, then this will establish the legitimacy of the Coalition. A problem establishing democracy in Iraq is violence by the opponents of democracy. Old Sadamites and fanatic religious supremacists both oppose democracy and accuse elected councils of collaborating with the occupation. That is why the Coalition should quickly hold a referendum in Iraq so that if the people vote to have the foreign troops remain, then the terrorists will rightly be seen as attacking not just the U.S. and its Coalition allies but also and mainly the Iraqi people. Meanwhile, my view is that the U.S. and its coalition partners should be congratulated and encouraged by this initial establishment of democracy in Iraq. Even those who opposed the war in Iraq should be glad that the seeds of democracy in Iraq have been sown. If these democratic sprouts are carefully cultivated, they will grow into a thriving orchard of democracy that will bear wonderful fruits not just for Iraq but for all the peoples of the conflicted Middle East. – Fred Foldvary Copyright 2003 by Fred E. Foldvary. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, which includes but is not limited to facsimile transmission, photocopying, recording, rekeying, or using any information storage or retrieval system, without giving full credit to Fred Foldvary and The Progress Report.
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2 Responses to Foldvary: Local Democracy Established in Iraq!
Schuyler LakeSeptember 10, 2003 at 12:00 am To percieve goodness, value, and hope in dire circumstances, is the mark of wise leadership. To overlook past wrongs for the sake of future benefit, is the mark of humanism.
Reply	Thomas PaineSeptember 8, 2003 at 12:00 am Hold a Referendum on the occupation? If democracy and self control were the goal then certainly this makes sense. But one would have to believe a lot of lies, and disreguard a lot of evidence to think that this war was for the benefit of the Iraqi people. The fact that such a referendum will not be held can go into the pile of evidence showing ulteriour motives. Motives that would not survive democratic scrutiny. Our democracy is under attack from within.
The local councils may proceed since they control none of the secretly coveted resources. But this war was faught for control, and that will not be completely ceded, until the American public tire of losing lives and money for the masters of the secret agenda.
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shaped by reality. In the 1980′s, the Swedish government doubled its stock transfer tax. Tax receipts, however, rose only 15%, since traders simply fled to London exchanges. Fearing a further exodus, the Swedish government quickly rescinded the tax altogether. (The New York Times, April 20) That willingness to tax anything leads us astray. Pushing us astray is that unwillingness to pay what we owe: rent for land, our common heritage. Assuming land value is up for grabs, we speculate. We cap the property tax on both land and buildings and the rate at which assessments can go up; while real market values rise quicker, assessments can never catch up. Our stewards, the Bureau of Land Management, routinely sell and lease sites below market value, often to insiders, says the Government Accounting Office. Once we grasp that rent is ours to share, we’ll collect it all, rather than let it enrich a few, and quit taxing earnings, which do belong to the individual earner. That shift is geonomic policy.
a way to connect the dots. Making the cyber rounds is “The Cavernous Divide” by Scott Klinger, from AlterNet (posted March 21): “As the number of billionaires in the world expands, so does the number of those in poverty.” Duh. The yawning income gap is not news. Nearly every issue of our quarterly digest carries a similar quote. Yet the connection was worked out long ago by one of America’s greatest thinkers, Henry George, who labeled his masterpiece, Progress and Poverty. Techno- and socio-advances always enrich few and impoverish many. Yet progress also pushes up location values – the geonomic insight (is Silicon Valley cheaper now or more expensive?). Instead of taxing income, sales, or buildings, society could collect those values of sites, resources, EM spectrum, and ecosystem services via fees and dues, which would lower the income ceiling, and instead of lavishing corporate welfare, pay out the recovered revenue via dividends, which would jack up the income floor. Dots connected.
Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments.
Jonathan Haidt, 2011, explaining the theory of Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
You can observe a lot by just watching.
Even if you’re on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
Alfred Korzybski
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”