AFP photo
Egyptian protesters surround a statue of Alexander the Great in Alexandria, Egypt. The protesters are demanding the ouster of autocratic Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. A sign that they’re likely to get their wish is that the members of the Egyptian military and the protesters apparently are finding camaraderie, as evidenced by the news photo below that was taken in Cairo today.
Associated Press photo
You gotta love the Egyptians. While we Americans are being buried alive in a slew of hollow slogans by a “hopey-changey” president who adafuckingmantly refuses to significantly alter the status quo, the Egyptians are in the streets with the goal of ousting the fossilized President Hosni Mubarak and his regime.
While we Americans refuse to even get off of our fat asses and into the streets, thus far more than 90 Egyptians have died in more than five days of fighting for democracy (for real democracy, not the brand of “democracy” that the U.S. government loves to impose on nations in the Middle East), according to the AFP.
The increasingly embattled Mubarak, following the playbook of ultra-shitty leaders, fired his cabinet (declaring, “I am dismissing the government and will appoint a new one”) in order to show that they were the problem, certainly not he. In a sign that he knows that his days are numbered, for the first time he named a vice president today, as well as a new prime minister.
But the Egyptian protesters apparently are stopping at nothing short of total regime change. They apparently believe (correctly) that a fish rots from the head down, and they’re going after the rotten fish head. (My hunch is that they should reject Mubarak’s newly appointed vice president and prime minister and new cabinet members, too, and pick an entirely new leadership wholly unaffiliated with Mubarak. Megalomaniacs like Mubarak pick only their ideological clones to succeed them.)
The events in Egypt are inspiring.
If only we could have revolution here at home.
Sure, nonviolent revolution would be nice, but when, in the history of the world, did the corrupts powers that be ever respond to niceness?
That’s why it’s a fucking joke that President Barack Obama has advised the Egyptian protesters not to resort to violence: Violence often, if not usually, is the only way to oust the calcified powers that be. It’s not like you can ask tyrants nicely to pack it up and leave and they will.
While Obama has advised the Egyptian protesters to be utterly ineffective in changing the status quo (just like he is), he has advised Mubarak to institute “reforms.”
“Reforms.”
Bullshit.
Like an 82-year-old man is going to significantly change his game now.
“Reforms” are lame-ass excuses for not doing what needs to be done.
When something is utterly broken, you cannot “reform” it. You can only sweep aside the old, broken system and build something new.
Which is what we need to do here in the United States of America, where the will of the people long has been ignored by an entrenched duopolistic partisan system in which the corporateers and the war profiteers and the others with the millions of dollars to buy off our politicians (like the Israel-first lobby [a.k.a. AIPAC*]) long have been running the show under the guise of “democracy.”
We don’t have democracy (true majority rule) here in the United States of America. We have friendly fascism (as Bertram Gross put it) or managed democracy and inverted totalitarianism (as Sheldon Wolin put it). We have a slogan-spewing smooth operator in Barack Obama, who serves not us, but who serves his corporateering and war profiteering masters (including, of course, AIPAC) who bankrolled his rise to the top.
Obama’s type of tyranny — friendly fascism, inverted totalitarianism — is even more dangerous than is Mubarak’s, because while Mubarak fairly openly is a tyrant, Obama employs a veneer of friendliness — a veneer that confuses many if not most, because while they hear his warm and cuddly promises and his soothing slogans, they see that things in a corporately and plutocratically owned and controlled nation that is at perpetual bogus war continue to get worse, not better.
And a majority of us Americans were, after all, duped by promises of “hope” and “change” to cast a vote for Obama in November 2008. (It happened to the best and to the most well-meaning of us, including to yours truly.)
But I assure you that Obama’s greatest hope is that a critical mass of Americans do not wake up during his watch.
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*Speaking of the devil (AIPAC), while I disagree with newly elected Repugnican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul on most issues, I love his balls for suggesting that the United States of America cut aid to the sacred fucking cow that is Israel.
Both Repugnican and Democratic politicians slavishly kiss Zionist ass for fear of being branded as “anti-Semitic” and for having the Israel-first lobby fund their political opponents over them in their election battles.
The United States this fiscal year is giving Israel $3 billion in military assistance, notes The Associated Press, adding that last fiscal year Israel got $2.8 billion, and starting next fiscal year is slated to get $3.1 billion a year for five years.
In his defense, Rand Paul’s spokesman released a statement that “The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with Senator Paul — our current fiscal crisis makes it impossible to continue the spending policies of the past. We simply cannot afford to give money away, even to our allies, with so much debt mounting on a daily basis.”
Unfortunately, while Paul wants to cut around $20 billion in foreign assistance, and wants to cut $16 billion out of the bogus wars in Vietraq and Afghanistan (while both wars should just be fucking ended altogether; the United States no longer can afford to meddle in the Middle East when things literally are crumbling here at home), he also “would make significant cuts in education, housing and energy,” according to the AP.
Speaking of the fact that charity should fucking begin at home, the AP also reports that on the topic of de-funding Israel,
Rep. Nita Lowey of the New York, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, said the United States cannot renege on its commitment to the only Democratic nation in a dangerous region.
“Using our budget deficit as a reason to abandon Israel is inexcusable,” Lowey said in a statement. “It is unclear to me whether Rand Paul speaks for the tea party, the Republican Party or simply himself. I call on all those who value the U.S.-Israel relationship to make it clear that our nation will not abandon our ally Israel.”
But using our budget deficit as a reason to abandon Americans here at home is perfectly acceptable to the Israel-first lobby, you see. Americans can fucking starve to death — as long as we continue send Israel $3 billion a year with which to slaughter Muslims!
And note that it’s a Democratic politician defending the Israel-first lobby here. No doubt that she gets plenty of money from the Israel-first lobby. I mean, she’s the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees foreign aid — you don’t think that AIPAC & Co. have paid her off?
In fairness, I don’t support cutting Israel off cold turkey, necessarily. Perhaps the assistance could be cut gradually from $3 billion a year to zero a year over a period of five years or so, which would give Israel at least some time to adjust to the new fiscal reality.
But to continue to arm Israel, which then uses these U.S.-funded arms to slaughter Muslims, which then causes even more unrest in the Middle East, which then “justifies” continuing to send $3 billion in military aid a year to Israel — yeah, this bullshit has to stop.
Robert's Virtual Soapbox 