National Endowment for … Democracy?
Have you heard about the NED?
The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing more than a costly program that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. What the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in the United States. The NED injects “soft money” into the domestic elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other. Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections “promoting democracy.” How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic development?…
The National Endowment for Democracy is dependent on the US taxpayer for funding, but because NED is not a government agency, it is not subject to Congressional oversight. It is indeed a heavily subsidized foreign policy loose cannon.
Sign an Open letter to the AFL-CIO
The Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee is a coalition of union members and solidarity and peoples’ democracy activists. The open letter calls on the AFL-CIO to end its relationship with the mis-named National Endowment for Democracy and other organs of the State Department, and to open its books and come clear about its foreign relations. Special mention is made about AFL-CIO activities in Venezuela, Haiti, Chile and Iraq.
(Thanks Elainna!)