Identifying Demagogues;

According to Princeton University a Demagogue is: "a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular passions and prejudices".

I'd like to focus on one particularly extreme example of demagoguery: George Galloway. George Galloway is a politician without substance who relies exclusively on emotionally loaded arguments, and it shows when he is debating someone with a solid historical understanding and years of experience in the region.

This video is a debate held by the Qatar foundation in Doha, Qatar. The motion being debated is Iraq needs a new dictator to bring stability. On one side you can watch the arguments put forth by Rober Baer, an ex-CIA station chief who knows the history of Iraq intimately. Robert Baer argues that Democracy, Freedom and other widely held popular ideals are useless to the Iraqi people without stability. Baer argues that without a strong dictator capable of crushing dissent, reigning is anarchic militias, and bringing some semblance of normal everyday life to Iraqi civilians the nation will continue to self-destruct as foreign interests (USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, The Kurds and Iran) and religious ideology continue to rip the country into pieces. Baer builds his argument on historic fact, and you will notice that he refrains from turning to emotionally loaded ideals.

Galloway on the other hand, builds his arguments on unrealistic ideals of "freedom", "justice", "resistance". Statements such as "think what the Arabs could be if they were free" serve to inflame the passions of the audience but do nothing to address the very real issue at hand: Is democracy worth anything when death squads can torture and mutilate bus loads of people periodically with impunity? When daily life in your country looks like this:



How much is a vote really worth?

Frighteningly enough in the end it is the emotionally loaded, unrealistic and hopelessly idealistic argument that wins the debate by inflaming the passions of the audience. Interestingly enough, while Galloway is staunchly anti-bush, he uses the same political techniques to gain support for a foolish and unrealistic cause. Bush won't be the last politician to pepper his speeches with healthy doses of "freedom", "liberty", and "justice for all" while pushing an unrealistic and unworkable agenda that spits in the face of reason.

The video illustrates Galloway's strategies well. He hides behind emotionally loaded language while supporting his friends in The Islamic Republic of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and the "Glorious Iraqi Resistance Which every honorable and dignified Arab supports".

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Doha Debate:



Al Quds rally in London:



Thought I throw that in too, it's just galloway showing his support of the the government of Iran. For somebody who claims to support freedom, he sure is friendly with some very authoritarian political groups.