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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: re: On Democracy
Message-ID: <1702@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 14-Feb-86 10:31:06 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1702
Posted: Fri Feb 14 10:31:06 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 22:55:45 EST
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 19

Followup to Michael Lewis: for democracies outside Europe & North
America -- how about India, Ceylon, Chile before the coup?  Or for
stable representative gov't -- Japan?

To describe South Vietnam as the product of our "shoving democracy"
down Vietnamese throats is pretty farfetched (& shows how degraded
the word "democracy" is):  Ngo Dinh Diem was "groomed" as prospec-
tive head of state by Cardinal Spellman.  The South Vietnamese gov't
was pretty corrupt, & once the American intervention began, its
functioning was not that different from say the Marcos regime.
Whatever pressures toward real representative gov't the US may've
brought to bear obviously didn't get far, so they cannot be blamed
for what happened to South Vietnam.  If they had succeeded more,
Saigon would've been stronger, when you consider how important
was the deep discontent with 

Followup to Roeseler: I find this posting a morass of specious
metaphors.  Why not talk about actual governmental forms, like
Frank Adams in his "types of gov't postings"?