Friday, August 04, 2006

Middle-Class Exodus

Tom Ricks, the Washington Post Pentagon correspondent and author of the new book (and now #1 bestseller) "Fiasco" was a guest of Michael Krasny's "Forum" show on KQED radio yesterday. At the very end of the hour, he said something that resonated very strongly with me. He said that it is the middle class that is the "glue of democracy." The doctors, accountants, journalists, engineers, etc. are the people Iraq needs most now, but they are the sort of people who are fleeing Iraq in droves, leaving the process of creating a nascent democracy to "the hard men," the Iraqis of multiple extremes, who are not interested in making the sort of compromises democracy requires.

You can find a link that will allow you to listen to the entire program here. It was an excellent interview, perhaps even better than Terri Gross's talk with Mr. Ricks on one of last week's "Fresh Air" programs.

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