Adding to this Michael Fellman article

QUOTE: "The Egyptian people, leading themselves, have burst the bonds tyrants have imposed on them for decades"

As noted, with our consent and assistance; Reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's slaughtering of Kurds with the Empire's blessing.

QUOTE: "It would be a very tall order indeed to build effective political parties, draft a democratic constitution and hold elections this year, or next year or the next. The democratic impulse needs a home, and homes take support and time to be built."

From Democracy Now with Amy Goodman interviewing Chomsky, where she similarly cites Ethan Bronner, New York Times, quoting a top Israeli official:

"We know this has to do with the desire for freedom, prosperity and opportunity, and we support people who don’t want to live under tyranny, but who will take advantage of what is happening in its wake?" The official goes on to say, "The prevailing sense here is that you need a certain stability followed by reform. Snap elections are likely to bring a very different outcome," the official said.

To which Chomsky replies:

The comment of the Israeli official is standard boilerplate. Stalin could have said it. Yes, of course, the people want peace and freedom, democracy; we’re all in favor of that. But not now, please. Because we don’t like what the outcome will be. In fact, it’s worth bearing—in the case—it’s the same with Obama. It’s more or less the same comment. ...

But he [Thomas Carruthers] concludes from his studies, ruefully, that the U.S. supports democracy, if and only if it accords with strategic and economic objectives. Now, he regards this as a paradox. And it is a paradox if you believe the rhetoric of leaders. He even says that all American leaders are somehow schizophrenic. But there’s a much simpler analysis: people with power want to retain and maximize their power. So, democracy is fine if it accords with that, and it’s unacceptable if it doesn’t.

(con't from above)

QUOTE: "I hope that this pessimistic assessment by a 67-year-old political historian is dead wrong and that democracy will grow and flourish in this harsh desert of tyranny."

The Portuguese revolution was dead, stillborn.

The events in Egypt cannot help but remind me of Portugal. Here, there, and everywhere, now and before, the United States of America, as always, is petrified of anything genuinely progressive or socialist, or even too democratic, for that carries the danger of allowing god-knows what kind of non-America-believer taking office. Honduras 2009, Haiti 2004, Venezuela 2002, Ecuador 2000, Bulgaria 1990, Nicaragua 1990 ... dozens more ... anything, anyone, if there's a choice, even a dictator, a torturer, is better.

Evidently William Blum shares your sentiment, above: Cited in Anti-Empire Report #90 LINK.

People love dictatorships

People love dictatorships because it absolves them from thinking and making decisions. The vast majority of history's democracies have been killed by their own citizens, demanding "strong leaders"

Here in Canada, or shall we say BC, we elect and re elect political majorities to act as dictators for their term, because "they create jobs,job,jobs and prosperity by welcoming foreign investment"

In other words, by selling the country and inflating house and land prices, welcomed by governments and the public.

NAFTA and the rest of these fraudulent deals and "agreements", are daily growing dictatorships and and nobody complains???????????

Ed Deak.

Oh yes Ed, people do

Oh yes Ed, people do complain but they don't have a soap-box to stand on. The various 'spin-doctor' institutions have them all, like the mass-media and professional-liar clubs like the Fraser Institute.

Dictatorship and Frustrating Real Democracy...

"Getting rid of Mubarak while preserving his regime will be no victory for democracy." author.

Precisely. And yet it is, of course, precisely the preservation of "the regime" toward which The Empire, AND all the "outlawed" and "legitimate" so-called "parties opposition" in Egypt are working... to frustrate the will of the people for real democracy. The people of Egypt, it would appear anyway, are about to be betrayed by their own vanguard "party system" only somewhat more than we in the so-called Western "democracies" are again and again.

the lesson for the Egyptians, and what will doubtless be their ongoing revolutionary drive to truly transform their society, is the same one we have to learn... Vanguard parties are a part of the problem not the solution. "The People" have to learn how to take economic and political power themselves, and create their own democratic institutions paradigm.

Fait, who is often right, is here wrong.... "the people" do not love dictatorships, even though sometimes they can be persuaded or bamboozled into believing they may be preferable "for a time", to other forms of chaos. A perceived "benevolent" dictator can seem preferable here and there in rare circumstance, to a bumbling, fumbling incompetent party system democracy. For sure. Which latter we currently have in this country.

But this is not the expressed preference of the people in Egypt over these days. It is perhaps the choice of all the "vanguardists", who fear power slipping away from their parties in the public sentiment and the initiative of the mass street movement.

Nor do Canadians love dictatorship. Though we have a quirky one at present in the "shared ideology" of capitalism "party system". (We have a, what I call, "Button, button. Who's got the button?" kind of dictatorship) It is merely that Egyptians and Canadians, in my view, do not understand this yet, nor if there is even another alternative to it. I am confident however, that they and we WILL sooner or later figure it out, and how to rid ourselves of this capitalist and imperialist "global regime". The next phase of which is to draw the appropriate conclusions about all the "vanguardist parties" to bullshit bourgeois democracy.

Again, they are part of the problem, not the solution. Likewise, it is a wealthy ruling class ownership and control of the economy that frustrates real democracy there, in the economy, AND in the political system.

The forces of change producing chaos, in both the capitalist global economy and its political system presumptions, are well underway however.... and unlikely incapable of being called back.

ERROR... ERROR... ERROR

"... and unlikely incapable of being called back." erroniously written by myself.

Should actually have been written"... and LIKELY incapable of being called back."

Three slaps across my pee pee with a wet noodle. :-) Ooooooo...me bad. :-)

Mubarak

Do you know what he's planning to do to the revolutionists? What he's capable of? He'll run them down with his army and huge police force and torture them death.
He ought not go free. He must be sent to The Hague and tried for his long history of torture, murder, deprivation, suppression. The Egyptian people must solicit the ICC or a special tribunal to try him.

Jerry, I grew up and was

Jerry, I grew up and was educated as a fascist in a string of dictatorships, and can assure you, people love them, because they're told and believe they're "free", until even the dictatorships go that one step too far.

What took the Egyptians hundreds of years, 30 under the present gang, to rise ? The same for the rest, especially under the religious dictatorships, murdering people as "the Will of God"

Millions of Germans and satellites died in WW2 fighting for " Freedom, Christianity etc" including myself in one of the satellite armies.

Why do some women, even in this country wear tents and facemasks, and guys with the funny headgears, if they're free and don't want them, but to show their "freedom" ?

Ed Deak.

Fait... I Still Think You Draw a Wrong Conclusion...

Fait, my friend,

I know where you grew up. And I wouldn't question that the folks you knew in that time and place "perhaps" loved their dictatorship. Keeping in mind that Germany had a very particular militaristic history... Had gone through one war in which it was defeated in competition with greater imperialist powers, had to pay them extremely onerous reparations for that defeat, and then of course, in midst of that financial bleeding extracted, hit the Great Depression of the '30s.. which rendered the German people even more desperate. Enter the Benevolent and Charismatic Great Leader... who promptly got the trains running on time, and everyone employed again in another wartime preparations production round, to again take a run at being a major imperialist power in competition with France and Britain.

A very particular history, my friend, from which, for all the great esteem in which I hold you, in my view of people and history, one should not too quickly draw the conclusion that all the working class of the world want and love a dictatorship. Like I say, sometimes in very particular and desperate circumstances, it can "seem" preferable to the alternative.

I think human history is more complex and nuanced for any such, again in my view, over simplification on the nature of people, including we Great Unwashed Masses.... of which I am one. And I hate dictatorship in all its manifestation forms.

Jerry, nobody hates

Jerry, nobody hates dictatorships more than I. Fighting communism for 45 years with everything I could find and now fighting its idiot twin, capitalism, for the rest of my life.

I have it made and could just close the door and let the world go by, but what I see scares the hell out of me for the sake of my grand and great grand children.

Hope you're right, but when people don't vote, or are voting for obvious dictators, the kind we have now, disguised as "conservative" democrats, they're asking for more and more oppression.

Our whole economic system is built on robbery, theft and dictatorship, so why do people put up with it, until it is too late ?

Ed Deak.

Hard to be sanguine when

Hard to be sanguine when hopes are placed on negotiations led by the long-time chief of security (a security maintained in part by Orwellian surveillance and systematic torture). The most likely outcome is that the protesters--who are a minority of the total population -- will be subdued, initially by minor concessions, and later, by application of the traditional tools of Orwellian surveillance and torture. Expect the West, after pro forma regret, to support the new-old regime. Hope I'm wrong.

Isn't Mubarak dying?

Not only is Suleiman as bad or worse as Mubarak, last July the usuals seem to have been eyeing the signs for a replacement anyway.

CAIRO, July 19 (UPI) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is thought by intelligence agencies to be dying of cancer affecting his stomach and pancreas, The Washington Times reported.

U.S. and Western intelligence agencies, determining the 82-year-old leader was terminally ill, have been watching for a transition of power in the Middle Eastern nation that is a vital U.S. ally, the Times reported Monday.

Earlier this month, several newspapers in the region said Mubarak sought treatment at a French hospital, but a senior Egyptian government official interviewed by the Times said the accounts were "without any factual basis whatsoever."

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2010/07/19/Report-Egypts-Mubarak-dying-of-cancer/UPI-63291279547386/#ixzz1DJDJt6Vw

I wonder how much Mubarak

I wonder how much Mubarak spends on hair dye ?

Also, how do you introduce democracy in a country that has never known any?

We have enough examples in the world of fraudulent democracies all over. Pretty shaky here in Canada, with people like Harper and Campbell et al. Are the Tar Sands of Alberta democratic ? Or NAFTA and TILMA ?

Real democracy is dying all over under the presently ruling economic theory, building a new, global dictatorship with "free trade", "bank deregulation" and "continental" and ultimately "world" governments ?

Ed Deak.

The Playbook of Gangster Imperialism...

"CAIRO, July 19 (UPI) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is thought by intelligence agencies to be dying of cancer affecting his stomach and pancreas, The Washington Times reported."

The fact is, US and Western "intelligence" agencies frequently get it wrong. And then compounding that additionally for the US especially, is their sense of Divine Right Imperialist Mission and simple superiority in all matters of power.

The US, since before the time of Vietnam has attempted to write its own Playbook on Imperialism and failed badly at it. They lost Cuba, and are now losing hegemony over the whole of Latin America. There is not a total wipe-out appearance of things in Iraq, in that they at least seem to be getting the oil, but even there is not over yet, and resistance grows again. And it is becoming ever clearer that they and their "flunky states" like Canada, and Europe, are in a time running rapidly out phase in Afghanistan.

In the case of Egypt, the artificial state of Israel and the rest of the Middle East, now suddenly, they are going back to the older Playbook of British Imperialism. Which is fundamentally based on the "solidarity of gangsters" principle: You stand by your thug lieutenants and fellow gangster bosses until they bring danger down on your whole House. Then you bring them back to safety in the Mother Country, or more typically kill them off, send flowers to their women folk, and put on a big lavish funeral for them, where you cry over their casket.

Which is itself the same as the old aristocratic solidarity of kings and the nobility. You stand by each other for so long as one does not bring jeopardy down on the entire class. The class comes first, and if necessary even nobles, or even Kings can be put in the tower or have their head lopped off. The class then gathers and weeps in their port or whiskey and smokes cigars.

Mubarak and the other Royal and ignoble tyrants that have served British and now US imperialism since the end of WW2, and oppressed their own peoples for these Empires, are coming to the end of their usefulness. Their peoples are finally beginning to rise up against them, and threatening to bring down the whole edifice of US Empire hegemony over the Middle East. And cut off the oil supply.

continued next post...

The Playbook of Gangster Imperialism II...

continuing from previous post...

In which case you abandon your old ally quickly, and seek to find and set up a new one, that will still leave the Old Empire Regime, oppressing its people in a different, more devious, with the "appearance" of democracy way. But what has to remain untouched is the flow of oil and other cash, trade and goods riches in favour of the Mother Imperial Country.

Which is where and what the US is about now in Egypt. And it may work for awhile. The problem is that "the people" of the Middle East, the Arab people, have set themselves in motion. The genie is out of the bottle. They have yet though, it "seems", to find a way and a voice or voices to manifest and seize that power they seek, over their own lives. They still have the problem of the treachery, like I say, of their own "party system".

Though events are not yet over in Egypt... not by a long ways. We shall see.

USA and Israel need to start

USA and Israel need to start butting the hell out.

Subverting democracy -Egypt, Canada, USA ...

The article certainly could be seen as applying to most current states. Just look at Canada's political situation. If any party were to suggest a policy that would not be welcomed by major corporations or the banks, there would be a huge outcry in the media and the person would be demonized. It's a sort of modern form of crucifixion.
Nothing new under the sun.

Don't blame the politicians,

Don't blame the politicians, they're only the pimps.

Blame the universities where the crap is being taught as the "science of economics" to put the world under a corporate dictatorship, or else they won't "invest".

Yes, imaginary capital "created' from the air by some bank. to colonize and enslave the world.

We can hear it already with Egypt, how much "investment" left the country in the past couple of weeks.

Ed Deak.

Love of Dictatorship

Fiat lux ~ I grew up and was educated as a fascist in a string of dictatorships, and can assure you, people love them, because they're told and believe they're "free", until even the dictatorships go that one step too far.

Whether it is love or not, it is certainly the path of least resistence for the masses. And it seems quite clear to me that people tend to opt for this path whenever clear thinking is needed.

As for voting, Fiat lux, when the government shows it is responsive to the people and peaceful protest, voting might be in ones interest to do so. Otherwise -- and I admit I struggle at times not doing so -- voting for the lesser creep is no solution. It's just a last grasp response to stop the hemmoraging, hoping to buy time; but it must always be weighed against the voting act itself, perpetuating the oppresive political paradigm against the people.

It is a matter of pride, for partaking in the broken system propagandized as democracy too often serves the political abusers interests far more than the peoples. I'd rather tell them all to fcuk off. I'd rather NOT even remotely aligning myself with their exploitation.

No, Fiat lux, I do blame the politicians

Fiat lux ~ Don't blame the politicians, they're only the pimps.

...because in my view, everybody must be accountable for their own thinking and behaviour, subject to opportunity.

Are there worse people on this planet than those who command coutries to engage in Imperial warfare to advance hegemonic interests, murdering millions and ruining the lives of tens of millions, and more?

As Bertrand Russell put it, "the trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." Politicians strongly reside in the camp of the 'cock-sure', thinking they have answers primarily because of the forceful impact indoctrination has had on their lives.

The indoctrination and future indoctrinators cannot be separated.

Reality

No one rules Egypt without the overt or tacit support of the military and the military will not support anyone who is not former military - it's as simple as that. The Egyptian military has been quite frank to American officials (yeah Wikileaks) that they would stage a coup if anyone tries to rule without their support

"Mirage' is a good choice of word.....

An interesting article that highlights the complexities of revolution not only in Egypt but through out the world.

Power, now, is so thick with subterfuge, layer upon deadly layer of it, and it is also so dependent upon, and thus consumed by the creation of counterfeit identities that it is increasingly hard for the people to find a survivable air pocket anywhere midst all the contrived jumble of intentional deceit.

The question for the people is, as always, one of trust:

As Michael Fellman astutely remarks:

Quote:

"But surely it is obvious that the thugs who attempted to break up the demonstrations are the security establishment itself. That tactic did not break the will to resist in the square, but it served to reinforce the popular, and false, belief that that army was the defender of the people. To repeat, the army is the core of the regime they hate." End of Quote

I, too, hope the brave people on the streets will win out....that the simple but profound yearning for the right to a life based on human dignity will carry them....and that they, (and we, as this is the common struggle round the world) will finally come through.

But it is a highly precarious crossing:

In an article in 'The Atlantic' on the 'manufactured safety' of Egypt's army, an analysis by Joshua Stacher is quoted:

Quote:

"Since January 28, the Mubarak regime has sought to encircle the protesters. Egypt's governing elites have used different parts of the regime to serve as arsonist and firefighter. Due to the regime's role in both lighting the fire and extinguishing it, protesters were effectively forced to flee from one wing of the regime to another. ... By politically encircling the protesters, the regime prevented the conflict from extending beyond its grasp. With the protesters caught between regime-engineered violence and regime-manufactured safety, the cabinet generals remained firmly in control of the situation."