Why the Americas matter?

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, commented on the North American Forum held in Banff to an Ottawa audience in an address entitled Why the Americas Matter.

There’s much to read between the lines, but what I was immediately struck with is the repeated references to “democracy” and how much our societies value same.

Shannon may be right in that, but our governments and elites do not hold democracy in the same regard as regular folks. Real democracy is a thorn in the side to people like George Bush, or Stephen Harper, or David Emerson.