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Imperfect Democracy | 2014 Forum 2000
This roundtable discussion on #39;Imperfect Democracy: Vclav Havel #39;s Concerns About the Development of Democracy, #39; in cooperation with Vclav Havel Library, took place on October 14, 2014....
By: Forum 2000
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Imperfect Democracy | 2014 Forum 2000 - Video
Seeking to shore up reforms in long-isolated Burma, President Barack Obama pressed the country's leader to hold inclusive elections next year and respect the rights of its persecuted Muslim minority. But despite setbacks on those fronts, Obama insisted that he remains optimistic about Burma's move toward democracy.
"We recognize that change is hard and it doesn't always move in a straight line," Obama said following a nighttime meeting with Burma's President Thein Sein at his opulent palace. "But I am optimistic about the possibilities for Burma."
Burma's president said he had a candid discussion with Obama about the need for more progress and insisted that he was committed to that effort. But he said that on some aspects of the political and economic reforms his country has outlined, more time will be needed.
Obama has made democratization in Burma a central part of his policy in Asia. After the country's unexpected shift away from a half-century of military rule, the U.S. rewarded its promises of reforms with suspended sanctions and a flurry of visits from high-level officials, including Obama, who first visited in 2012.
But progress hasn't come quickly to this once-reclusive nation. A nationwide cease-fire with armed ethnic groups has yet to materialize. Burma's pro-democracy opposition figure, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is banned from next year's pivotal elections. Scores of Rohingya Muslims are fleeing for fear of violence at the hands of Buddhist mobs, while roughly 140,000 more remain trapped in camps under dismal conditions.
Obama arrived in Burma Wednesday for a pair of Asia-Pacific summits. But he was using the rest of his time here to push the country's leaders to address those matters or risk losing out on deeper investment from the U.S.
After speeding along an empty eight-lane highway, Obama's limousine passed over a moat and pulled up to an oversized presidential palace, where beams of light cycled through red, blue and purple as they lit up a resplendent bay of fountains shooting water high into the air. Inside, gold carpet and furniture accentuated the white marble of the palace as Thein Sein greeted Obama and his delegation at the start of their meeting.
Obama's meeting with Thein Sein, himself a former member of the junta, offered Obama his first major opportunity to address Burma's state of affairs since he set off Sunday on a weeklong tour of Asia and Australia. But in China, on the first leg of the trip, Obama treaded lightly on human rights issues and other areas where pushing a firm stance could have upset his hosts.
On his first full day in Burma, Obama announced the U.S. would start sending Peace Corps volunteers there in late 2015. The White House said the volunteers would train for three months to learn Burma's language, culture and technical needs, then serve at sites in Burma for two years.
Obama's met briefly Thursday with Burma's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi at a sparsely equipped building in Naypyitaw, a city whose very existence is an ode both to Burma's aspirations for democracy and its challenges in making it work. Carved from scratch out of scrubland in the early 2000s, Naypyitaw has the lush hotels and grandiose public buildings of a modern capital, but its vast empty spaces and eerily empty multilane highways have led to its reputation as a ghost town.
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Obama: Move to democracy in Burma is real
Communism in Albania: A True Story
A narrative about the rise and fall of Commuism in Albania during the cold war.
By: A Rose #39;sthorns
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Communism in Albania: A True Story - Video
Sources:Data are latest available as of Nov. 12, 2014 from thefollowing sources: World Bank, United Nations DevelopmentProgramme, Freedom House, and Transparency International. Methodology:
Gross Domestic Product per capita figures are in 2011 international USD. Life expectancy figures are for all persons at birth. Child mortality rates are the number of deaths of children under the age of 5 per 1,000 live births. Average years of schooling are for all adults 25 years old and older.
Freedom House awards countries two scores: one for political rights and one for civil liberties. Each country receives a score from 1 (best) to 7 (worst). For this presentation, scores are inverted and averaged into an overall freedom score of 1 (worst) to 7 (best)
Data for Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index begin in 1999 for most countries. TI scores countries on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best). This presentation inverts scores so that 100 represents the most corruption, 0 the least. Prior to 2012, TI had an identical scoring system, but on a scale of 0 to 10. These scores were multiplied by 10 to equalize the scale across the entire time span.
UNDP education data is provided at irregular intervals (1990, 2000, 2005 and annually onwards). For gaps between years of data, graphs show interpolated results. For other indicators, gaps between data are treated the same way. If no data exist prior to a certain date, graph data begin at the first available data point.
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Legacy of the Berlin Wall: Communism's 25-Year Shadow
This week we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and with it communism. However, as we approach this anniversary, I am disturbed to see a resurgence of this destructive ideology right here at home.
Communism as a political structure is a failure. We know this to be true based on itshistory. We have seen theimages of despair from behind the Iron Curtin. We know that when the state crushes theindividual that failure of the society is sure to follow.
Why then, with these lessons less than 30 years behind us, do our leaders seek to embody this damaging ideology here in America under the guise of a different name: progressivism?
Our very own president is on the record as having said things such as, You didnt build that. He is also famous for his talking point of everyone getting his or her fare share.
We are a nation of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. This administration hasdedicated itself to replacing the individual with the state. If the current regulatory scheme of the EPA or the IRS is not enough proof that communism is growing here at home, then I present to you exhibit A:Obamacare (or the Affordable Care Act for my liberal friends).
This disastrous policy is the single largest attempt in this nations history to bring theindividual to his or her knees in a state of perpetual dependence upon the government.
This, my friends, iscommunism in the guise of a helping hand.
Just because you do not see Soviet style force in our towns and cities does not mean that the ideology of the former USSR is not present and thrivingwithin academia andgovernment here at home.
Here in America, communism goes by a different name.
Progressivism is communism. Make no mistake about it.
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Stay vigilant against communism