{"id":43536,"date":"2019-02-05T06:48:37","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T11:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43536"},"modified":"2019-02-05T06:48:38","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T11:48:38","slug":"goodbye-freedom-and-democracy-hello-rules-based-international-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43536","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye \u2018Freedom and Democracy\u2019 \u2013 Hello \u2018Rules-based International Order\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2019\/02\/02\/goodbye-freedom-and-democracy-hello-rules-based-international-order\/\">Goodbye \u2018Freedom and Democracy\u2019 \u2013 Hello \u2018Rules-based International Order\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The banner and the clarion call of western countries, and their own asserted legitimation \u2013 especially when they are engaging in illegal wars and coups \u2013 used to be \u201cfreedom and democracy\u201d: the precious gift they were generously and selflessly offering to a backward world \u2013 or one allegedly in the \u2018chains\u2019 of Socialism\/Communism. There was \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Radio_Free_Europe\/Radio_Liberty\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Radio Free Europe<\/a>\u201d, for example, pushing out western liberal propaganda, primarily against the countries of the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Washington-based \u201cFreedom House\u201d organisation, which claims to be independent, has around 150 staff members in Washington and in \u2018field offices\u2019 around the world. Its President is Michael J. Abramowitz, who before joining Freedom House in 2017, was director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum\u2019s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. Before that, he was National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. He is also a board member of the National Security Archive. The Board of Trustees is chaired by Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and co-author of the USA Patriot Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/off-guardian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/map_fiw_2017_svg.png?ssl=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/off-guardian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/map_fiw_2017_svg.png?resize=840%2C421&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52706\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since 1972, Freedom House, whose website sports a warm endorsement by none other than Francis Fukuyama, has produced an annual \u201cFreedom in the World\u201d global map (above), which divides the world into countries which are either \u201cfree\u201d, \u201cpartly free\u201d, or \u201cnot free\u201d. The allegedly \u201cfree\u201d countries are coloured green, the \u201cpartly free\u201d ones a kind of muddy yellow, and the \u201cnot free\u201d ones blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its analysis of \u201cfreedom\u201d covers \u201cthe electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of government, freedom of expression and belief, rights of association and organization, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Goodbye \u2018Freedom and Democracy\u2019 \u2013 Hello \u2018Rules-based International Order\u2019 The banner and the clarion call of western countries, and their own asserted legitimation \u2013 especially when they are engaging in illegal wars and coups \u2013 used to be \u201cfreedom and democracy\u201d: the precious gift they were generously and selflessly offering to a backward world \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[338,24310,24311,827,865],"class_list":["post-43536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-freedom","tag-paul-carline","tag-rules-based-international-order","tag-united-states","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43537,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43536\/revisions\/43537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}