A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

“We Got the Bas***d!”

Trump Loses. Women and Justice Win.

Shortly after arriving in the Philippines in 1987, a year after the peaceful uprising known as People Power deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos, I attended a Manila meeting of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations. I recall the discussion somehow turning to the former strongman. Reflecting on both People Power and the longer-term, unflinching opposition that fueled his fall, the PCFR chair declared, “We got the bas***d!”

From Manila to Manhattan

The same sentiments cross my mind as I reflect on the results of E. Jean Carroll’s case against Donald Trump. In the legal equivalent of a New York minute – less than three hours of deliberations – a Manhattan jury held him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

[Continue Reading]

The Larger Lessons of the January Insurrections: Why Western Democracy Aid Failed

And What Our Own Struggling Democracy Can Learn

Money for Almost Nothing

In January, backers of Brazil’s former President, Jair Bolsonaro, seized the country’s Congress and Supreme Court buildings, as well as its presidential palace. The action represented much more than a repeat of America’s January 6,. 2021 debacle. It signified the failure of several decades of massive democratic development aid across the globe.

Reaching back to at least the 1980s, America and its wealthy European and other allies poured many billions of dollars into buttressing democracy, good governance and the rule of law around the world. The efforts continue to this day. Focusing on post-communist and poorer countries, including Brazil, they have been driven by a mix of cynicism, foreign policy priorities, naivete, idealism and good intentions.

[Continue Reading]

It Takes a Village

A Small City Takes on an Oil Giant

A Great Day by the Bay

Three years ago, my wife Betty and I moved to the small Bay Area city of Benicia, 45 minutes north of San Francisco. We were enticed by its waterside setting, balmy breezes, safe streets, affordable housing (by Bay Area standards), thriving art scene, civic pride, and small town celebrations such as wine walks and dog festivals. Its catchphrase, to attract visitors, is “A Great Day by the Bay.”

The town has an unusual political history. It served as the state capital from 1853 to 1854. According to local lore, during Prohibition its bars and hotels provided an off-the-beaten-track escape where politicians, judges, and the like could engage in, ahem, apolitical indulgences.

[Continue Reading]

The Coup Attempt I Witnessed 35 Years Ago

Can we take heart from our political heart attack?

In 1987, I witnessed a violent, nearly successful coup attempt in the Philippines. If someone had told me back then that a U.S. congressional committee would investigate an insurrection of our own 35 years later, I would have scoffed.

I knew that our own democracy was flawed. I never dreamed it might be fatally so.

But here we are.

[Continue Reading]

Even in Dictatorships, Dictators Are Not Necessarily the Only Game in Town

Back in 1983, I scored a summer fellowship from my law school to research the plight of Cambodian refugees in Thailand. On the way back home, I stopped off in the Manila for a few days to see an old friend who was on his first overseas posting for the State Department. I mainly recall reconnecting with my pal and dealing with the aftermath of some bad oysters. But one discussion stands out…

It was in my friend’s apartment, with a few of his fellow junior embassy staffers, debating the Philippines’ future. One professed no love for then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who’d controlled the nation since declaring martial law in 1972. But he viewed the autocrat as securely in place and thus “the only game in town.”

Marcos was gone less than three years later, deposed by the country’s People Power revolution.

[Continue Reading]