Plutocracy basically. Or "market democracy" as coined by Anthony Lake, President Clinton's National Security Advisor. Within U.S. dependencies in the Third World, Washington defines "democracy" as when local oligarchs linked to the United States rule over the majority, according to internal State Department documents. Superficial democratic functions such as elections are fine, if not preferable, but the population must remain spectators, rather than having substantive influence on government policy. Free trade agreements basically eliminated that threat, as they "lock in" pro-market reforms, which effectively vetos any attempted reversal of economic liberalization policies. In May 1958, one of the leading U.S. planners, George Kennan outlined a major U.S. interest in Latin America, as the need for "the protection of our raw materials," — which happened to be located somewhere else. Who do "our" raw materials need to be protected from? The indigenous populations who "are convinced that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country's resources should be the people of that country," as State Department advisor Laurence Duggan warned in 1945. Another State Department advisor described it as "the philosophy of the New Nationalism, [which] embraces policies designed to bring about a broader distribution of wealth and to raise the standard of living of the masses." Accordingly, at the Chapultepec Hemispheric Conference in February, the United States compelled Latin America to accept the "Economic Charter for the Americas", requiring the "elimination of economic nationalism in all its forms." Throughout Latin America, Washington would continue to ensure a favorable climate for private investment, control of raw materials—particularly oil and other strategic resources—and resisted "excessive industrial development". The "Tyranny of the Weak" During a Cabinet meeting in May 1958, following Vice President Nixon returning from a trip to Latin America: Which is why: A year after the Cabinet meeting: Though, in another Cabinet meeting on November 6, 1959, US ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge cautioned that: Top-Down Forms of Democracy Carnegie Endowment's Thomas Carothers is a former Reagan insider who worked on the administration's "democracy promotion" programs in Central America, while serving at the State Department from 1985-1988. He's also one of the world's leading experts on international democracy promotion and US foreign policy. According to Carothers:
As usual, a little diatribe that has nothing at all to do with the military. Why not post your manifestos in the political section, where they really belong?
