All Things
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What Were They Thinking? You may recall the presidential election of the year 2000. The election was very close, the winner would have to get a majority in the State of Florida. According to some observers, there were a good number of irregularities...
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Dark days for democracy II In a previous blog I noticed how democracy, in our day, has become government by, of and for the rich. As if that were not bad enough, no one seems to be particularly disturbed about this change. It is public knowledge...
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p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } When the people speak … First Tunisia and Egypt, now Bharain and Yemen and… the Catholic Church. No there have not yet been hundreds of thousands of altar boys in St. Peter's Square demanding that the Pope be...
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p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Why are we afraid of Muslims? The American government has been visibly hesitant to support the uprisings in Arab countries. After complaining for many years about the absence of democracy in that part of the world, when...
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What are they thinking? “Secretary of State Clinton announced yesterday that for the first time ever, the United States is imposing sanctions against Iran-based individuals for human rights abuses. She said that President Obama signed an executive order...
All Things
Unrest in the Middle East
The Revolution in Tunisia, the demonstrations in Algiers, Yemen and in Egypt are a profound embarrassment for the United States government. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton and President Obama have presented the US as the champion of democracy. But once confronted with real popular movements in favor of popular self-determination the President is rapidly backpedaling.
The president could not say enough about what a good ally President Hosni Mubarak has been to the United States. (We have been a good ally to Mubarak too- to the tune of $ 1.3 billion a year) There followed some mealymouthed recommendations of allowing free speech. But neither Clinton nor Obama were willing to come right out and say it that Mubarak is an authoritarian ruler, who has for decades arrested and tortured political opponents. Elections in Egypt have been a sham. All through the Mideast, our allies are dictators or absolute monarchs. We have cooperated with them and made it very clear, if only through our actions, that all this talk about freedom and democracy was for local consumption back in the United States and that no dictator need to be worried about US opposition -- with the exception of Ahmadinejad in Iran.
( And even he does not need to be terribly worried. A while ago someone reported that the government had given exemptions from the commercial sanctions against Iran to no less than 10,000 American firms. While our official position is uncompromisingly hostile to the government of Iran, we are willing to allow American firms to make money supplying this enemy, thereby strengthening the Iranian government.)
And indeed, our government’s talk about freedom and democracy is for home consumption. They are trying to persuade us that their primary agenda item in foreign policy is the promotion of democracy. This blatant lie only shows their disrespect for the American electorate. They don’t think they have to tell the truth at home; voters are only there to be manipulated.
To my mind that does not show a lot of respect for democracy either. After all, if people are systematically misinformed by their government, their decisions at the ballot box are not liable to be worth a lot. Perhaps Mubarak is a trusted ally because our government and his play pretty much the same game, except that ours is more sophisticated in its disrespect of its people.
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What Were They Thinking? You may recall the presidential election of the year 2000. The election was very close, the winner would have to get a majority in the State of Florida. According to some observers, there were a good number of irregularities...
-
Dark days for democracy II In a previous blog I noticed how democracy, in our day, has become government by, of and for the rich. As if that were not bad enough, no one seems to be particularly disturbed about this change. It is public knowledge...
-
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } When the people speak … First Tunisia and Egypt, now Bharain and Yemen and… the Catholic Church. No there have not yet been hundreds of thousands of altar boys in St. Peter's Square demanding that the Pope be...
-
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Why are we afraid of Muslims? The American government has been visibly hesitant to support the uprisings in Arab countries. After complaining for many years about the absence of democracy in that part of the world, when...
-
What are they thinking? “Secretary of State Clinton announced yesterday that for the first time ever, the United States is imposing sanctions against Iran-based individuals for human rights abuses. She said that President Obama signed an executive order...