Withing the bowels of the administration (and it would not be different with a different president) it is not a question of democratic rule. Their problem is that they seem unable to stop it, just as with Iran in 1979. So it is a question of how to manage the unrest, how to solidify U.S. dominance even in the face of popular will. They are surely working with the Egyptian military and secret police behind the scenes to keep a lid on things. In the meantime, Obama’s job is to present a public face of pro-democratic governance while working to prevent it behind the scenes. It’s a real balancing act, and the reason why the U.S. needs a smooth spokesperson at this time.
Notice that the official line now is that Mubarak will not stand for “re-election” this September. When was he ever elected? This is a blatant attempt to buy time, probably to work behind the scenes to suppress the dissidents. Egypt is, after all, a terror and torture state.
Are you perceptions under management now? Or, have I introduced cognitive dissonance into your thinking?
Piece of Mindful 
Sleepwalkers on the balance beam. An American epic competition made for ESPN. This won’t wake us, nothing will. Not even close.
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I see the Raghead Cossacks on camels, if that’s what you mean.
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They are surely working with the Egyptian military and secret police behind the scenes to keep a lid on things.
You ascribe too much power to such things.
Maybe Mubarak did the best that could be expected given the underlying economics and demographics. That people want more is nothing new.
Few of these types of revolutions ever deliver more than the previous arrangement.
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Tens of billions in military aid, kept in power despite unpopularity using secret police and state terror and torture, but he “did the best he could”?
Your depth of grasp of strategic alliances is a bit inadequate. The essence of power is command and control – a means and a willingness to enforce your will. Mubarak was given former because he demonstrated the latter.
This “type” of revolution has few precedents, perhaps Iran 1979, which did indeed deliver more than they had before, though Iran has become a mirror image of the US, with a president exercising perceived power while real power is the mullahs behind the scenes. Our mullahs are on Wall Street.
Whatever – the US will seek to suppress democracy, and if that fails, will change course and embrace new leaders, all the while trying to maintain its own control.
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using secret police and state terror and torture
It is an Arab country. Such will be in any regime.
This “type” of revolution has few precedents, perhaps Iran 1979, which did indeed deliver more than they had before
Depends where you look. The Baha’i probably disagree.
I was thinking in general that the Left cheers when the West/American influence is kicked out of places like Cuba, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Venezuela in anticipation of great goodness to follow, when what happens is most quality of life indices fall, or don’t grow as fast as could have been expected under the old regime, so blame has to be assigned to lingering colonialism, embargoes, etc.
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Embargoes, economic strangulation, that sort of thing – it is hard to know how these countries would do if left alone. I think our government and Wall Street very much fear the threat of a good example. Hence a decade of terror against Cuba and half a century of economic warfare.
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“It is hard to know how these countries would do if left alone.”
Boy, that sounds just like those stupid right wingers who are always talking about free markets.
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One of the best zingers of all time.
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Fred – that’s nonsense. Utter nonsense. The embargo of Cuba is real. Economic strangulation in Venezuela is real, as it was in Chile. The overthrow of governments is real. I say that it is hard to know how things would be without this heavy-handed manipulation, and that is plainly true. Perhaps each of these counter-systems would fail, but we don’t know that, do we.
You right wingers with your free market mantras, on the other hand, operate on the assumption that things would work quite well in the absence of interference with your models. However, even slight application of your beleifs, as with repeal of Glass Steagal, for instance, or deregulation of energy markets in California, has led to unmitigated disaster, and you are left to say that well, it wasn’t done right or is the fault of some mechanism having nothing to do with your silly philosophy.
I stand on solid ground, you on a fluffy and untenable philosophy. Check your tenets.
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I’m not one to push free markets as a complete panacea. I’ll acknowledge any and all problems.
You place much stock in the token embargo on Cuba, while apartheid South Africa maintained their economic growth in the face of a much more severe embargo. Maybe there are other reasons involved.
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Far from panacea, free markets cause untold problems. But aside from that, the embargo on Cuba is real and is really enforced. You might laugh at them for driving their old cars without knowing why they drive old cars.
Chomsky discovered at one point that a certain US agency charged with border security or some such thing (Coast Guard? – don’t remember which one) had more resources devoted to the Cuban embargo than to terrorism, indicating where their priorities lie. (That merely told me that they aren’t concerned about terrorists infiltrating any more than I am.)
Now, if you look into the South African embargo, you’ll find that it was not taken seriously and there was no real effort to enforce it. Clinton did an embargo of Haiti as window dressing when the generals overthrew Aristide – it was not real.
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free markets cause untold problems.
I haven’t seen command and control, and socialism, that is problem free.
You might laugh at them for driving their old cars without knowing why they drive old cars.
I admire them for keeping the old cars running. Their central authorities could allow the commerce that would bring in newer cars.
Chomsky discovered at one point that a certain US agency charged with border security or some such thing (Coast Guard? – don’t remember which one) had more resources devoted to the Cuban embargo than to terrorism, indicating where their priorities lie.
Since when is there any relationship between an agencies’ budget and what gets done?
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Thanks – three content-free answers.
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Then I’ve successfully absorbed the vibe of this blog.
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I meant to say this post.
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Look at it this way, Trotsky: The problem with your model communist economies is government interference. So what if it is a different government interfering?
I will take a fluffy philosophy anytime rather than standing knee-deep in manure like you, the Cubans, the Venezuelans, the Egyptians, etc., etc.
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Oh sad, sad day! Our favorite commie country is joining the modern world!
///
The New York Times
02/03/11
In a Shift, Cubans Savor Working for Themselves
By VICTORIA BURNETT
BAUTA, Cuba — Marisela Álvarez spends much of the day bent over a single electric burner in her small outdoor kitchen. Her knees are killing her. Her red hair smells of cooking oil.
She hasn’t felt this fortunate in years.
“I feel useful; I’m independent,” said Ms. Álvarez, who opened a small cafe in November at her home in this scruffy town 25 miles from the capital, Havana. “When you sit down at the end of the day and look at how much you have made, you feel satisfied.”
Eagerly, warily, Cubans are taking up the government’s offer to work for themselves, selling coffee in their front yards, renting out houses, making rattan furniture and hawking everything from bootleg DVDs to Silly Bandz and homemade wine.
Hoping to resuscitate Cuba’s crippled economy, President Raúl Castro opened the door to a new, if limited, generation of entrepreneurs last year, after warning that the state’s “inflated” payrolls could end up “jeopardizing the very survival of the Revolution.”
[…]
“If you have the ability, the dedication to achieve something, you should enjoy it,” said Mr. Barroso, who until November sold fish and pork without a license to a close circle of friends and clients.
About 85 percent of all Cubans with jobs are employed by the state, earning about $20 per month in exchange for free access to services like health and education, and a ration of subsidized goods.
[…]
Ms. Álvarez and Mr. Barroso are relishing life on the almost-free market. Mr. Barroso pores daily over an exercise book where he calculates profit margins. Total sales for the two businesses are around $270 a week, he said. He and his wife each pay about $37 a month in taxes, plus 10 percent on profits at the end of the year.
“I think the government has realized that state business doesn’t function,” Mr. Barroso said. “It’s the private sector that generates competition. We have a habit of doing things poorly in Cuba, but competition is going to put this straight.”
///
Read the rest and weep, Trotsky:
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I think our government and Wall Street very much fear the threat of a good example.
The idealist in you likes to think our elites have the power to quash good examples. It lets you think that one day they will be properly inspired to let the good examples roll.
For that matter, does anyone pay attention to examples? We have had the exemplary dichotomies of East Germany/West Germany, North/South Korea, and we still have you pimping centralized control of our lives. Or were these more stage plays produced by our intrepid elites?
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The failure of the Soviet model has a lot to do with command economies and little to do with socialism as practiced in Western Europe, Canada, Japan and many other places, where it is very successful.
We, on the other hand, merely practice a different variant of socialism, where risk for large concerns, such as Goldman Sachs or Citibank, GM and Chrysler, and all those megacompanies like Boeing and Halliburton sucking on the Pentagon tit, is socialized, while ordinary people are hung out to dry.
But we’re all socialists, with the US variant an odd duck based on command control of large business of our government. All that real and healthy socialism does is contain the excesses of capitalism and fire up that engine e to benefit ordinary people.
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[Readers please note: For the sake of bombast and dogma, we will forgo any discussion of all the “ordinary people” who are earning a living at Goldman Sachs, Citibank, GM, Chrysler, Boeing, Halliburton, etc., etc.]
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…socialism as practiced in Western Europe, Canada, Japan and many other places, where it is very successful.
Well, by all means, then, let’s all channel our inner Scandinavian. All we need to do is equalize school spending.
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If it words, if they are happy and well educated and enjoy good health care, why do you have a problem?
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I don’t have a problem with it. Keep in mind that the listed countries: )are more market oriented than you let on; ) tend to be small with a homogeneous, highly intelligent demographic and border controls; )would be wealthier under a more market driven economy; ) benefit from a US military umbrella.
Such conditions are not reproducible everywhere.
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The US is less market oriented than you let on. Of course the countries are capitalist in essence, they merely have the good sense to reign it in.
Small and homogeneous … is a reach. Germany is an industrial giant … France has untold minorities. You’re making a pointless distinction.
Would be wealthier … how the hell do you know that!!! What self-serving nonsense!
The US military umbrella … if there were enemies, it might mean something. What you call an umbrella are really occupation forces. They know this.
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Oh, boy, now we are occupying France and Germany.
Take a rest, Trotsky, before you blow a gasket.
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I think Mark is busy channeling his inner Egyptian right now.
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Revolution? Be serious, Trotsky. This is just another third-world riot scene.
The funny thing about the liberal media, and liberal wannabe pundits like you, is that whenever some rioters start throwing rocks, a “revolution” is in the making. This is because of the worn-out liberal template derived from the French Revolution and the so-called Paris mob.
Of course, if you read the rest of the story, you soon discover that mobs do not create revolutions. They only create the necessary chaos in which other elements may easily seize power.
The masses always lose.
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Why not do some “solid” research on the mob scene in Cairo? Here is a suggestion:
We know from reliable sources that approximately 800,000 Indians defecate in the streets of India each day. We can therefore assume that a similar situation exists in Egyptian cities without regard to the actual numbers involved.
What would make a fascinating research paper is to know where Egyptians defecate when they are rioting. Recent videos seem to indicate there are no Porta Potties at the riot scenes, and pictures of the street debris created by the rioters are not of sufficient clarity to discern human feces from regular refuse. Furthermore, with all the private and public buildings either burned out or shuttered, there is no place for a rioter to relieve himself. So where does a rioter go?
Questions to be answered:
1. Do more or less Egyptians defecate in the street when a riot is underway?
2. If less, where do they go to relieve themselves?
2a. If less, would it be a good public health policy to have regularly scheduled riots?
3. If more, how do they avoid slipping and sliding and falling down?
Post a draft of your paper in this blog. I am sure many of your readers will give you good feedback.
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[Cue the Rolling Stones—or Rage Against the Machine]
Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
‘Cause a bummer’s here and the time is right for squatting in the street, boy
Tell me what can a poor boy do
‘Cept for flinging rocks by hand
‘Cause in this sleepy Cairo town
There’s just no place for a street shitting man
A street shitting man
A street shitting man
A street shitting man
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Shit, that’s funny.
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America’s greatest modern symbol of liberty: A roll of toilet paper held high, fist clenched. Yep, that’s what I call a true measure of prosperity. Mark had a post some time back on the myth of wiping your ass with paper, no matter how soft and (bleached) white. It’s gotta’ be white, right?
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Wrong. You can thank the Chinese for toilet paper. When they first invented paper, they used it for packing material in shipping crates and for wiping their butts. (Do not ask what they used before!) Europeans found other uses for paper.
It was not until the rise of Mao Tse-Tung when the revolutionary fist was added to images of rolled toilet paper.
PS: Toilet paper is white so the healthy food choice people can check how they are doing. Toilet paper is also soft because we have so many Democrats with sore assholes.
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Interviews I have seen on Al Jazeera and Democracy Now! are of very calm and well-spoken people who know precisely what they are doing and why.
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Yes, take 99 percent of all the information you are receiving and discard it. Pretend that the primates rioting in the streets are not the material that will form a new nation. Focus on the remaining one percent. My goodness, they are people just like you! They are “calm and well-spoken people who know precisely what they are doing and why.” It looks like there is hope after all.
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I suggest you expose yourself to some information not borne of the raging fantasies and fears in your own mind. You’ve constructed imaginary monsters. These are people, like you and me, who see first hand a naked totalitarian government.
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I hate to tell you this, but the raw video coming out of Cairo is full of monsters. Maybe these are people like you and your friends, but I do not know anyone like them. Actually, when I study the insanely distorted faces and hear the primal screams, I am sure these are not people at all. They are obviously animals.
So what’s on your TV? Do you have some kind of filter that takes out all the rioting, burning, looting, beating, and murdering? That’s pretty cool being able to turn a subhuman nightmare into family entertainment.
“Hey, kids, the Sand Savages are on!”
“Oh, dad, that’s so boring. Those people are just like us.”
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…And what do you think of them beating up Anderson Cooper just because he is gay?
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You might want to check in on who did the beating up. I’m not saying that protests don’t get out of hand, by the way. They do. But they didn’t do Anderson.
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As far as I know, Egyptians beat him up.
Whoa! You are not implying the Israelis did it, are you?
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