Trust, Transparency, Honesty, Democracy

Once again it's getting play that something Bushnev, his Politburo and Supreme Soviet, and the Pravda media have been saying was false for months is in fact true, according to Georgi himself. Some are even raising questions, here and overseas, about what these lies mean for democracy. The "calmer" minds among us will assume that liars will run honest elections and wait acceptingly for voters to "have their say." That's "what democracy is all about." Others of us see the cliff coming up fast.

Lying, misleading, hiding relevant info, disparaging and ridiculing those who try to get the truth out and those who want it out--those are hallmarks of undemocratic rule and belief. Democracy is not a process. It is an attitude, an operating philosophy. It is based on equality and good faith reciprocity no matter status or position. Otherwise, you end up with hierarchy, distrust, corruption, and "ends justify means" because you can't believe you're being treated fairly, even when you win. Those who subvert that equality and reciprocity, those who cheapen and distort the trust, honesty, and transparency necessary for democracy can be called many things, but not democrats.

Which is why, yet again, I was so disgusted and disappointed by the progressive blogosphere's reaction to the revelation of Jerome Armstrong's fraud judgment and Kos' effort to bury it. And worst of all, by the "progressive" bloggers across the board, even the estimable Greenwald and Digby, who played "Kommandante Kos" games saying he couldn't tell them to deny the story oxygen while they denied the story oxygen exactly as he had told them. The fact that one of the premier bloggers had accepted a civil judgment for using online commentary to mislead readers for his own gain and the fact that this was seen almost universally as something to be lied about, to mislead about, to hide relevant info about, and to disparage and ridicule those who saw it as fundamental to whether we were supporting a return to a real democracy or just wanting our turn at what the Repubs had showed what the correct answer was.

I'm not going to refight. I clearly am in the nut category on this and probably lose this blog hits every time I raise the point. But when Joe McCarthy waved his list the first time and reporters reported it and Dems left it effectively unchallenged, this country started down the road to our current Sovietizing system of government. The Soviets were stopped by reality hitting them hard between the eyes. They would have been better served by a commitment to trust, honesty, and transparency. We are getting hit with the same challenge and require real democracy to confront it. But it's not just Bushnev and his commie crew who need to learn that. Our camp has the same kind of people, telling themselves it's okay because we're the good guys, like like Georgi and Rovov and Cheneyev do in their mirrors every morning. It's not okay and we don't recover until we understand that. As a wise man once said, before we can do God's work, we have to cast the mote from our own eye.