Obama’s “sovereign democracy”
Untimely Thoughts
Peter Lavelle's blog
I had a good chuckle reading the Wall Street Journal today – the paragon of Western conservatism, hubris and even outright stupidity. Its article “Firms Face Tighter Tax Rules - Obama plan aims to limit use of offshore havens by multinationals and the wealthy.” Well gosh! Is the Kremlin’s so-called grey cardinal and ideologist Vladislav Surkov freelancing for Barack Obama?
The Western mainstream has it in for Surkov. He is the creator and proponent of what is called Russia’s “sovereign democracy.” Over the years I have read how the Kommentariat genuflects before the arrogant Western saying “there should not be an adjective in front of the word democracy” with their noses in the air. I have never understood this. Why shouldn’t there be an adjective in front of the word democracy? We do it all the time: we have parliamentary democracy, presidential democracy, pure democracy, social democracy, Tory Democracy and so on. (This is what I found after a 15 second Google search, by the way).
Surkov is derided on a regular basis for standing up to protect the Russian state in our time when globalization erodes the sovereignty of every country. His thesis is very easy to understand. Russia’s is disadvantaged when encountering globalization. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia was ill-prepared when it embraced market capitalism. As a result hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth streamed out of Russia into so-called “offshores” and “safe havens.” The countries that have experienced a net advantage due to globalization – the West – cheered the Russians on.
Surkov is not against market capitalism – he is for a strong capitalist and democratic Russia that can compete on the global stage. For the last nine years Russia’s political elite has been clamoring for global economic democracy and acceptance that electoral democracy (mind the adjective) comes in many shades and colors. The vast majority in the West are deaf or indignant that a non-Western country should be treated as an equal when preaching the West’s own gospel.
Obama wants to crack down on tax offshores and multinationals. Well, this is exactly what Putin and now Medvedev have been doing. The Western mainstream calls this Russian approach “authoritarian.” In the US the same is called “pragmatism” and even “righteous.”
We need a wake-up call. Russia is pursuing “sovereign democracy” – and so is every country in the world. Just because Russia states up front and center and says what its democracy is about should not mean others should continue to claim they are doing any different.
I guess when all is said and done we will have the term “Obama democracy.”
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