Quote Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff View Post
We are their democratic tradition. People pretend that other people from other cultures are from another planet. Our tradition is theirs and theirs is ours. We will see what will happen, but any nation not jumping into the information revolution will be at a debilitating disadvantage in the developing global economy. People are starting to get this fact all over the world. Many arab kids who use the internet have more in common with American kids who use the internet than either of them do with their own parents. Adults don't seem to understand the world in the ways that the youth do. Years ago it was in reverse, but now while the adults have increased their understanding in a linear way, youth has recieved exponential benefits.

Most people want the same things.
I'm fascinated by the assertion that "we are their democratic tradition". Could you expand on the thesis?

Whereas there are some common threads in Western democracies, each is a product of the individual country's history and culture. Even quite closely related cultures such as the UK and the USA have significantly different democracies and traditions.

The internet is merely a form of communication - it does not surmount cultural biases (any review of the Backroom demonstrates that). I would also note that Western democracies are in a state of (perhaps terminal) decline in the face of corporate power expressed through narrowing oligarchies. None of this is a model - in my opinion - for emerging popular movements in nations which have, for too long, been reliant on autocratic central powers rather than the citizenry and its expressed will.

LEN is entirely right - we have no right to attempt an "export" of our flawed version of democracy to cultures that have entirely different histories and economic conditions. That will not stop the Western powers trying to influence and meddle, because we have too much of our own economies tied up in the region (not to mention the thorny problems of Israel's security and how we view any "will of the people" that installs an Islamic theocracy).