Can You Say Projection?

I love to hear Dick Cheney talk about democracy, especially when he’s referring to democracies other than our own. His recent statements about Russia are so dripping with irony that I had to wash my hands after reading them. From the New York Times:

Mr. Cheney said in his speech that "in Russia today, opponents of reform are seeking to reverse the gains of the last decade."

He said that the erosion of rights by the government affected "many areas of civil society — from religion and the news media, to advocacy groups and political parties."

See what I mean? We have seen a steady erosion of our rights in this country over the last five years at the hands of this reckless administration that appears more and more to be headed by our oh-so-charming democracy-loving Vice President. His comments are laughable considering that protecting, let alone promoting, democracy doesn’t even make it onto Cheney’s radar unless it furthers his agenda, and we know that a strong democracy at home will only hinder his ability to make money. Thus we’re left with media consolidation that allows companies like GE to increase their profits as a defense contractor by using their news divisions to support Bush administration policies that will result in more contracts for them. We are left with advocacy groups backed by big business that purchase support from our representatives and political parties that rely on that same money to fund their campaigns. Yeah, our democracy is thriving under Bush/Cheney.

Thanks to the Patriot Act, we have no right to be secure in our homes and papers. Thanks to the secret NSA domestic spying, we have no right to privacy, let alone the right to even know if we are being spied upon. Thanks to “protest zones”, our right to have our grievances heard by our government is being chipped away, and thanks to the Bankruptcy bill, we have no right to start over if we get into financial trouble. But that’s not the kind of democracy Cheney was referring to when he made his statements. No, he was referring to the rights of private companies to own the natural resources of Russia and the right of U.S. interests to fund “citizen” groups in former Soviet Republics that will support the candidates we choose.

Anyone who thinks that Cheney gives a crap about democracy, of and by the people, is clearly delusional. The kind of democracy that Cheney talks about is really securing freedoms for corporate interests. The freedom of multi-nationals to own the resources of any nation on Earth, the freedom to extract those resources in the cheapest way possible, without regard for environmental protections or fair wages for workers, in short, the freedom to make profits at the expense of the rest of us. There is a name for what Cheney believes in, and it certainly ain’t democracy. A global empire is his goal and a Corporatocracy is the means by which he plans to reach it.