And then in 1979 the Iranian revolution showed dramatically America’s policy of backing dictators did not work. The Iranian people rose up and toppled the Shah of Iran. The Shah had one of the largest military forces in the world given to him by the Americans. But it proved helpless in the face of the new Islamist ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini. Many in the West saw Khomeini as the resurgence of a dark almost medieval force. But this was wrong. The Iranian revolution was yet again driven by Western ideas of political freedom. ibid.
The other part of Project Democracy was to use military force in secret operations to overthrow foreign regimes that stood in the way of freedom. The main target was the government of Nicaragua, the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas were Marxist revolutionaries who had seized power in 1979; but since then they had held elections and had been democratically elected. The Reagan administration dismissed this though as a sham. And an operation was set up to enforce the right kind of democracy by overthrowing the Sandinistas if necessary. The man in charge was a leading Neo-Conservative Elliott Abrams. ibid.
The Americans started funding and training a counter-revolutionary army called the Contras. But there was enormous political opposition in the United States. And to get round it the leaders of Project Democracy set out to frighten the American public. An agency called The Office of Public Diplomacy was set up that disseminated what was called White Propaganda. It produced dossiers and fed stories to journalists that proved that Soviet fighter planes had arrived in Nicaragua to attack America. Another story from ‘intelligence sources’ said that the Soviets had given stockpiles of chemical weapons to the Sandinistas. President Reagan appeared on television with maps to show how quickly such a chemical attack could be launched on America itself. It was only a matter of time. ibid.
The Neo-Conservatives were beginning to believe that their ideal of freedom was an absolute. And that this then justified lying and exaggerating in order to enforce that vision. The end justified the means. Although they portrayed the Contras as freedom fighters, it was well known that they used murder, assassination and torture. And also were allegedly using CIA-supplied planes to smuggle cocaine back into the United States. And to finance the Contras, the Neo-Conservatives were even prepared to deal with America’s enemy – the leaders of the Iranian revolution. In 1985 those running the Nicaragua operation held a series of secret meetings with Iranian leaders in Europe. They arranged to sell the Iranians American weapons; in return the Iranians would release American hostages held in Lebanon. Then the money from these sales would be used by those running Project Democracy to fund the Contras. The only problem was that this was completely illegal. And the President knew it. ibid.
What was beginning to emerge was the problem of spreading freedom around the world. To do it those leading Project Democracy had turned not just to manipulation and violence but were beginning to undermine the ideals of democracy in America. The very thing they were trying to create abroad. It was the corruption of freedom that Isaiah Berlin had warned of. ibid.
In 1989 across eastern Europe the people rose up to overthrow their communist leaders. It was a remarkable series of revolutions. All driven by the desire for freedom and the ending of tyranny. ibid.
A form of order and a new kind of democracy in which the market, not politics, gave people what they wanted. But things didn’t work out how the theory predicted. ibid.
A new elite was beginning to emerge who snapped up vast sections of Russian industry: they became known as the Oligarchs. ibid.
August 1998: Russia’s economy is out of control tonight and it’s causing an international financial crisis. Huge queues in Moscow. There’s a run on the banks. The Rouble’s lost nearly half its value. And prices are soaring. ibid. BBC News
Overnight, the Americans destroyed the civil structure of Iraqi society. But instead of trying to create new institutions ... The country would then be thrown open to international corporations who in return for investing, would take 100% of their profits out of the country untaxed. Only one of Saddam Hussein’s laws remained: the one that restricted trade unions. Out of this was supposed to come spontaneous order. What resulted was chaos. ibid.
What also resulted was corruption on a huge scale: more than $350 billion has been sent to Iraq for reconstruction. ibid.
The Americans began to turn to violence and torture to enforce their kind of freedom. ibid.
Positive liberty is driven by a vision that freedom is for something. The freedom to do or become something new. Out of which a better world would come. Negative liberty has no such vision. It isn’t for anything. At its heart it has no purpose other than to keep us free from unnecessary constraint or harm. And in using force to create a world based on negative liberty, the democratic revolutionaries have actually led millions people abroad into a world without purpose or meaning. This idea of freedom is still portrayed by many politicians and influential commentators as a universal absolute. They assume it is only a matter of time before it spreads throughout the world. But this may not be true. ibid.
The idea of freedom that we live with today is a narrow and limiting one; it was born out of a specific and dangerous time: the Cold War. It may have had meaning and purpose then as an alternative to communist tyranny but now has become a dangerous trap. Our government relies on a simplistic economic model of human beings that allows inequality to grow and offers nothing positive in the face of reactionary forces they have helped awake around the world. ibid.
Isaiah Berlin was wrong: not all attempts to change the world for the better lead to tyranny. ibid.
Although we feel we are free in reality we like the politicians have become the slaves of our own desires. We have forgotten that we can be more than that. That there are other sides to human nature. Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self
Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Ronald Reagan
Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan, inaugural address January 1967
Freedom or prison – what’s the difference? A man must develop unwavering will power subject only to his reason. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle
Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. Aldous Huxley
Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. Debbie Riddle, Texas state representative
You don’t have to be a man for freedom. All you have to be is an intelligent human being. Malcolm X
This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody, or it’s freedom for nobody. Malcolm X
The only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba – yes Cuba too. Malcolm X
You can’t separate peace from freedom because no-one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. Malcolm X
A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. Adlai Stevenson, speech 1952
See, the greatest sports title mean nothing, mister, if you cannot be free, see. Boys in Vietnam are throwing away, you may say, their lives. I haven’t did that much. They are dying today to free somebody they don’t know. I’m still living. So what in the hell is a heavyweight title and a few sneaker dollar bills for my people’s freedom? Muhammad Ali, television Interview
What’s wrong with freedom? That’s what it’s all about. Easy Rider 1969 starring Peter Fonda & Dennis Hopper & Jack Nicholson & Luke Askew & Phil Spector & Bridget Fonda & Karen Black & Warren Finnerty & Luana Anders & Robert Walker junior & Carrie Snodgress & Dan Haggerty et al, director Dennis Hopper
We kid ourselves on we’ve got free will. But we’ve only got the free will to do what our upbringing tells us to do. Take me: I’m a flawed character; the flaw being I haven’t got any character. Rab C Nesbitt s7e1: New, BBC 1998
None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence. John Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free. ibid.
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind. John Milton, Comus
For so I created them free and free they must remain. John Milton, Paradise Lost
Freedom alone substitutes from time to time for the love of material comfort more powerful and more lofty passions; it alone supplies ambition with greater objectives than the acquisition of riches, and creates the light that makes it possible to see and to judge the vices and virtues of mankind. Alexis de Tocqueville, L’Ancient Regime