Not About Egypt

not literally, anyhow, but, of course, it is:

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect....[but]
let me ask you, as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we look -- can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe....

All -- All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.

And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."

This, too:

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment -- The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

and, really, this, too.




Yes. Really.

Democracy ain't pretty.

I came upon this article on the AlJazerra English site. A letter to the Tunisians and Egyptians from Yuliya Tymoschenko, the Ukraine opposition leader. Some thing we here need to consider as well, I think.

Determining the will of the people does require expression through the ballot box. But elections alone cannot solve the fundamental political problems confronting Egypt and Tunisia. In particular, they cannot create a liberal order and open society.

To be effective, elections must be preceded by an extensive debate, in which political arguments are made, attacked, defended - and, ultimately, embodied in ideologically coherent party organisations. Democratic consent can truly be given only when voters know what they are consenting to. Whoever refuses to make a public case for what he or she intends to do when in power, or lies about it – as Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, did during his campaign against me last year – is no supporter of the democracy that citizens risked their lives to establish.

Moreover, democracy must be rooted in the rule of law. There must be accepted rules that are binding on everyone in politics, so that whoever does not accept or obey them is disqualified. Yanukovich’s naked attempt to hijack the election that precipitated the Orange Revolution should have caused him to be banned from running in future elections. Yet he was not.

Now, as president, Yanukovich’s crude instinct is to treat the law and constitution as Karl Marx thought of them: as a mixture of sentimentality, superstition - and the unconscious rationalisation of private interests. Stealing elections, suppressing the vote, and behaving in contempt of the rule of law are negations of democracy. Those who engage in them must be seen as democracy’s enemies - and treated as such.

A second lesson follows from this. The fact that a government has been democratically elected does not mean that the cause of freedom has prevailed. The rest of the world must not turn a blind eye to authoritarian backsliding. Yet today, not only are many of Ukraine’s neighbors silent about Yanukovich’s strangulation of Ukraine’s democracy - but some openly celebrate the supposed “stability” that his regime has imposed. For decades, Egyptians and Tunisians paid a high a price in freedom for the stability of others. They must never be asked, or forced, to pay it again.

Democracy like healthy relationships is oft times very messy, unruly and seemingly chaotic. The free expression of ideas often is. Become concerned when the people are too quiet for they are either being lied too or repressed or both.

Possibilities

One of the areas I have the most trouble with when I construct a project for my radio interests is the physical layout of the larger components. The big variable capacitors and switches and coils and the like. I usually look at how others have done this and sometimes use this as a guide.  But I usually go with some current traditional method and am not always happy with the way it turns out. Oh it works OK but quite often it is larger than I want or not as elegant as I would like. This last time was no different.

Communication is the problem to the answer

I was discussing in chat the other night with a friend about congress and the Wall Street and how we could get real financial reform, among other things. One of the problems that I see with our current political mess is that the people on the left have a major communication problem. Not only do most not know how to communicate their ideas to the general populace, but far too often their message is hollow and hypocritical. 

How can one preach about financial reform and how the uber rich do not pay enough tax or get obscene compensation or play fast and loose with the money they have when you yourself engage in or those activities or secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) wish you could do so yourself ?

Those that are struggling to make it are not going to listen to some ones ideas if these ideas come from people who drive over priced BMW or Mercedes Benz SUVs, live in expensive gated communities and pull in 6 figure salaries and justify to the nines their right to do so.  And when they do speak, they talk at people rather than with them and come of as preachy, arrogant and self righteous.  Instead of honest gut level expression.

How can anyone talk about having a fair and just economy and society when they are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary themselves to bring it about.  You have to be willing to walk the walk before you earn the right to talk the talk.

The big news now of course is Egypt and the Middle East. I wonder how many on the left would be willing to take the risks and put out the effort and make the sacrifices the Egyptians have these last 12 or so days for what they say they want ? How many would be able to communicate their desires in an honest, gut level way instead of some intellectual BS that sounds good on the surface but says essentially nothing. 

The left and the Democratic party was strong up through the 1960s because it consisted of working people, blue collar and white collar, that were able to express what they wanted and were willing to make the kind of commitments necessary to bring it about.  And tried to the best of their ability to live what they believed. Most had some humility and lived modestly. Not like Wall Street Wannabees or republicans in waiting.

Presidents

We watch with rapt attention as a "President" never elected in a remotely legitimate way see his "regime" crumble before the primogeniture he thought to be his due could be put in place. The Glenn Becks of the world notwithstanding, this is a purely middle eastern event, well described during the week by the remarkable journalists working under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Richard Engel, on scene, and Rachel Maddow providing context and asking the right questions, stand out, but there are many who have done great work this week and this, for instance, must be read by everyone interested in the subject.

There is little to add to what the great Sleepin' Jeezus posted yesterday. In the meantime, we, back here, will have to endure yet another attempt to sell President Reagan as some who was great, instead of vacant at best, and the front man of the meanest group of people to form a U.S> government in my lifetime


It is unlikely that Meet the Press originated from Hyde Park, New York on the 100th anniversary of the birth of our greatest president in 1982 but, of course, the Sunday talk shows did not stray from Washington in those days. Some say it was not widely celebrated except in New York, but speaking from New York, mu recollection is somewhat different.

The New York Times archives (which are slightly out of whack right now), tells us that New York Governor Hugh Carey, noticing the zeal in which the Reagan administration, then beginning its second year was dismantling the New Deal, told a gathering at Hyde Park that President Roosevelt was "need now more than ever" but, of course, he had no idea what things would be like when President Reagan's centennial came around.

Tomorrow, David Gregory and others who want to ignore the cruel way President Reagan and his acolytes attacked those who most need the help of the federal government, will celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. They will not discuss that he began his successful campaign for the presidency in Philadelphia, Mississippi, an unmistakable signal that the murders of Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner were now relics of a past his presidency would remove from our history, much as Congr Bachmann would purge the sin of slavery from it today.

President Reagan was an amiable fellow and, of course, well able to play the part of President, even if the responsibilites of the office did not interest him. He was happy to be the front man for the greedy among us who see no reason why the problems of others are their concern. Forgive me for republishing the following, from February 4, 2008, but time is precious this weekend, and the following, in italics to identify it as recycled stuff, roughly makes the point about the supposed Great Reagan the right wing, and David Gregory are saluting:

This is not literally about The Election, though really it is. It is not actually meant to be yet another one of those what was so great about President Reagan pieces which show up every now and then, such as during the orgy of memoriam when he finally passed away after a long and, for his family, very painful illness. It probably will resemble one anyhow.

It was hard, though, to watch Anderson Cooper swoon about the great Reagan, and see that Air Force One behind the Republicans debating the other night without wondering again about when this actor pretending he was the President of the United States became a great president. He was never the real president, of course; that was, briefly General Haig (who slipped on the day that President Reagan was shot and told the nation not to worry since he was in charge), then Don Regan, then sort of Nancy Reagan, or Don Regan or whichever got to the microphone first and then, when the complete play acting fell apart with the "President" telling the country, in character, that he would never approve of selling arms to Iran, only to find out that "he" had done just that, Howard Baker.

Just as Katrina somehow "proved" to people holding on to a reed of fiction that President Bush was not actually running a government as providing a face to cover all sorts of corrupt misuse of the powers and financial resources of the government, something that any fool with a hint of objectivity could have seen as early as the summer of his first year in office when he told Secretary Powell to stop talking to North Korea, and anybody still open minded about the subject had ample basis to reconsider when they saw the guy reading to school children as the country was under attack, the unmasking of President Reagan by "Iran-Contra" could only shock the utterly unshockable. Here was a supposed President who had to be reminded that Samuel Pierce was a member of his cabinet, whose every speech was filled with stories that were verifiably false and who appeared to have neither a thought or care.

He looked like a president, though, and, in that B actor sort of way, sounded like one. Tom Hanks, a much better actor, has never pretended that he actually flew Apollo 13, but Ronald Wilson Reagan not only got to pretend he was president he was, under the law anyway, actually the office holder.

It was a great idea to prop this guy up so that his henchmen and such could do their dirty work behind this amiable actor. After all, his immediate predecessor was a very intelligent man, who hadn’t a clue as to what being president meant and was elected only because in his humble, goofy way he appeared to be the antithesis of the Crook named Nixon who we had dumped only at great cost, and the nice enough guy who finished his term but did not seem even close to being prepared to do what a president was supposed to do (to the point that he forgot that Poland was a communist country at the time while in a political debate.)

So by 1980, what the country wanted was someone who did not seem to be a crook, but looked and sounded more like what we hand in mind: you know, like Franklin Roosevelt, or, Dwight Eisenhower. (There is a big difference there, but the point was that we have someone who could, uh, play the part.)

From the minute he was elected, until his vice-president, running to succeed him tried to distance himself a bit from the clueless guy who beat him in the 1980 primaries by making him look like a fool, by saying that his administration would be "kinder and gentler" it seemed that the country had lost its collective mind. The Vietnam War was finally over, and the Iraqi hostages released, and the whole thing, from the day President Kennedy was killed until then seemed so difficult that maybe we would be better off without a real president for a few years and just have an actor there. So when AIDS started to infect gay men, he could console us by pointing out that we weren’t gay men so there was nothing to worry about.

And so, here we are in 2008, seven years after our country was attacked on its own soil for the first time since 1941 by people we have chased into a volatile part of the world in which a least one country apparently has a nuclear bomb, and who are undoubtedly plotting to attack us again and one of the major political parties in this country, the one whose latest pretend president was unwilling to cut short a photo op while the country was under attack, fields a slate of candidates who fall over each other to proclaim themselves the next Reagan. And television news commentators act as if this makes sense.

And one final point in this world of movie acting that we care about so much more than the actual world. The Associated Press reported last week about huge build ups of something, unlikely to be Santa’s elves, in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but some movie actor died of something in Soho and that relegated these stories to the dustbin. And Senator McCain: before you or the other dwarfs tell us about how this phony president you gave us (and remember: had Senator McCain run with Senator Kerry in 2004, they would be trying to get re-elected right now) has kept us from further attacks since 2001, keep in mind that the people who are out to get us, got us in 1993, at the World Trade Center and didn’t come back to do it again until 2001. They wanted to get it right and time was on their side, because we do everything we can to help them.

This is not pretend or play acting. This is why we have a president; not to read to children (we call those people "teachers" and we pay them ridiculously low salaries to do this and then whine that they aren’t doing a good job). The idea is to have a president to lead a government that at minimum will protect us from those who want to hurt us. Not to smile while they do and tell us stories about what might have been.

GLENN BECK ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH

            THE PEANUT GUY'S WORK STATION

I discovered this 5 year old radio tape of Glenn Beck’s show by accident:

I come to you this fine February morning to discuss the media-made fiasco called Black History Month.

Our country got along just fine for two hundred years without any Affirmative Action History.

Now I am sure that you all had plenty of American History discussing that great American Uncle Tom as well as that guy who gave us peanut butter.

But now we are to believe that Black men and Black women have been short changed as far as our history texts.

Garbage; this is all nothing but garbage.

Nonetheless, my staff and I have looked into this matter of history—you know of course that I run my own university and you can become part of it for only $10.95 a month. Oh and you can get a discount on even from this small amount if you act now and purchase ten gold coins.

Getting back to our most recent research into this area I found some troubling data I would like to share with you all today.

Going back to the forties and fifties in this country you would find thousands upon thousands of African Americans—we called them Negroes back then—with names taken from our Founding Fathers. There were Adams and Washingtons and Jeffersons and even a Lewis or Clark—do you remember The Jeffersons? One of my favorite shows as a kid, really.

Anyway, somewhere along the line beginning in the 1960’s a conspiracy was developing.

A Jihadist conspiracy that nobody was really aware of came to the fore.

All of a sudden, little Tommy Jefferson changed his name to Allah or Mohammed or Ali or El-Weigh.

I recall this great fighter by the name of Cassius Clay receiving that name from a Transylvanian scholar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Clay_%281810%E2%80%931903%29

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying that the original Cassius Clay was Dracularian or anything, but he certainly was what we might call a ‘Freethinker’.

Anyhow that was all fine and good but after the Jihadist Communist got ahold of this great fighter, we lost Cassius Clay and ended up with Mohammed Ali.

There I said it.

Here was a man who proved that it did not matter what the color of your skin was, you could still be world champion.

And after receiving all this acclaim and all that money, this ingrate refused to enlist in the military and protect us from the Communists overseas.

And do you know why that is?

We are told by Dick Cheney that he refused to enlist because he had another agenda ahead of him which was to save us from communism in other ways. Besides we all knew he had this cardiac condition since his first heart attack on his high school football field.

Well Cassius Clay was hijacked by those commie Jihadists and taken to Babylon for some period of time.

Now few people know this. And do you know why this prize fighter was taken to Babylon?

So here it is. The Tower of Babel as most people know it is these people got together and the king said let’s build a tower and it will reach the sky and it will reach heaven and then God got pissed off and came down and destroyed them, confused their language and they all scattered. That’s really not the way the story goes, and it’s important that you understand the story. It has affected us do you know that Bugs Bunny actually used to call Elmer Fudd Nimrod? And do you know why? He used to call Bugs Bunny was the one that really made Nimrod really popular because Bugs Bunny was the one that called Elmer Fudd Nimrod, Nimrod, Elmer Fudd was the hunter. He wasn’t a king at first. He’s first described in the in Genesis as a hunter, but not a hunter of animals. A hunter of men. A hunter of people. And the people, after Noah, they all, they get off the boat and they do what two and two do and they make four and six and et cetera, et cetera. And so then they repopulated the Earth. And they’re all focused on God. And that’s when the first time an oppressive government, the idea of a totalitarian leader comes to the forefront, and it’s done by a hunter of men, Nimrod. And what he says is he gets together and he says to everybody, "Hey, let’s build bricks." Why would you say let’s build bricks? Does that sound like anything anybody would want to do? Let’s build bricks? Oh, and then we’re going to build a big tower and it will reach heaven.

That’s right. These Nimrodders got ahold of one of our greatest athletes and turned him into a raving lunatic; a raving communist; a raving Jihadist.  A shame, a damn shame and something that should be remembered for all time. And look at Cassius Clay today. Do you know why he looks like that?

Implants. They chloroformed Cassius and too him to Babylon and implanted Manchurian doodads into his brain.

Those implants were what made Cassius a communistic Jihadist and when that machinery wore out, it left the poor man a mere shadow of himself.

A similar thing happened to Malcolm Little. Here was a kid born in Omaha with a bright and happy future and ended up a ruthless felon, sentenced to prison for sins committed against his fellow man and his personal God.

Well, the communist Jihadists got ahold of him while he was in prison and turned him into that hateful Malcom X. Actually it was worse than that. I mean at first they turned him into El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

Now I think he took his first jihadist name to fool people into thinking he was not that Malcolm Little guy anymore. I mean it would make it easier for him to get a job. 

A lot of violent felons change their names you know.

Frankly, Malcolm Little spit on Jesus and took a new road straight to hell thinking he might end up in heaven with all those virgins.

A shame. Just a damnable shame.

And of course, as soon as Malcolm figured all this out, the Jihadists shot him dead.

Ferdinand Lewis "Lew" Alcindor, Jr. is another sad case of a good man, a great athlete who turned to the devil at the behest of communist jihadists.

Here was a kid who was born with everything. I mean he had all this talent, he was so very tall and muscular, he folks were hard working middle class people, he had a good Catholic School education—you know without that pope fellow, a Catholic School education aint half bad.

And what happened to this kid who had everything?

Well the commie Jihadists got ahold of him and turned him into a devil worshipper.

Now I found this statement on the net that gives one pause:

Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "sky hook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kareem_Abdul-Jabbar

This strange development in Alcindor’s basketball play was code ladies and gentlemen.

Bending his body into a straw was a way of telling Sunni’s to kill Christians all over the world.

Since he began bending like this with mass media televising this code all over the world, over 5 million Christians have been killed by Jihadists.

And it’s a damn shame I tell you.

Well that is enough Black History for today. 

Stick with the original Cassius Clay and that guy who knew how to make good peanut butter.

The rest of it is all communist jihadist code.

Why Egypt Matters - An Historical perspective.

We - and by we I mean the Western world and most especially the USA - have a nasty habit of forgetting some of the past history that makes us uncomfortable. This is especially true when it comes to the Middle East. The current situation in Egypt can trace its roots back to just after WWII. When Egypt became a state separate from Sudan and the monarchy was overthrown.

The second president of Egypt was Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein. This Wikipedia entry on him is well worth reading as he was the head of Egypt up until his death in 1970. This is what makes Egypt so important because he was not only the head of Egypt for so long, but was also the main mover and shaker in the Arab world for this time - from 1956 - 1970. His Vice President was Anwar Sadat who became president after Nasser's death. But Sadat was not wholly loved by the Egyptian people due to his friendliness with the west, the elimination of a lot of Nasser's social policies and most of all the peace treaty with Israel. 

The current political party in Egypt, the NDP, is simply the continuation of the original party established by Nasser but under a different name. Basically made up of military and ex-military men.  Nasser himself was very anti-imperialistic and fought hard against western hegemony.  Not only in Egypt but throughout the Arab world forming the United Arab Republic (UAR) and seeing the formation of Israel as another attempt at this hegemony. He was also instrumental in nationalizing the Suez Canal as well as a number of Egyptian industries. He was friendly with and accepted help from the Soviet Union though also suspicious of their intentions as well.

Our rewriting of history include the 6 day war with Israel which Israel began.

In early 1967, Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin sent Nasser a warning through Sadat, who was visiting Moscow, that Israel was about to carry out a large-scale assault against Syria. More warnings followed in the next few months, and King Hussein, aware of the intelligence situation, cautioned Nasser in April not to be dragged into a war. That same month, pressure on him to act by Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the PLO, as well as the general Arab populace, mounted after an aerial battle between Syria and Israel resulted in the downing of six Syrian planes. Convinced that Israel was determined to attack Syria, he asked UN Secretary-General U Thant to withdraw UNEF forces from Sinai. On 23 May, Egyptian troops moved into Sharm el-Sheikh and Nasser ordered the Straits of Tiran closed to Israeli shipping. After the blockade, he gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 29 May saying, "the issue was not UNEF or closing the Strait of Tiran; the issue is the rights of the Palestinian people."^[108] This was the same message delivered a week earlier during a visit to an air base in the Sinai. The speeches signaled that Nasser believed war was inevitable.^[108]

So when I hear how Egypt has been our friend and ally for so long, I am aghast. Since this is at best an exaggeration.   The one thing that I can see being a big concern for the US is not some Islamic government in Egypt, but the rise of a person of Nasser's power and influence with the rest of the Arab world. 

The protests in Egypt are in my opinion long overdue.  The subtle and not-so-subtle imperialist actions of the US are now being challenged from the ground up. This has got to be causing some people to piss in the pants big time.