Saturday, January 29, 2011

Mark My Words ...

I don't know what's going to happen in Tunisia or Egypt. Neither does the amoral, deluded, scum-bag administration of Barack Obama. But mark my words, they're sitting there waiting to see how this all plays out. If some Mubarak-clone military strongman manages to replace the original version, tosses out some cosmetic reforms and brutalizes the people into submission, the Obama administration will welcome them into the fold of the international community.

If it turns out that a genuinely independent movement, representing the general will takes over, the US-Americans will be horrified (as will the Israelis) and they'll waste no time in demonizing them. The US mainstream media will happily fall into line as well, presenting themselves "as sad as anyone else" that the revolution was betrayed.

They'll do this the same way they demonized Chavez (who has never used death-squads the way US Latin American client-states did while receiving copious amounts of US military and financial aid). They'll do this the same way they've demonized Wikileaks for exposing their crimes, convincing the gullible and the ignorant that Wikileaks has "blood on its hands." The same way they portrayed deposed Honduran president Zelaya and deposed Haitian president Aristide as erratic authoritarians while elevating genuine murderers and thieves to replace them.

The same US government that turned a blind eye to Mubarak's dictatorship and oppression will pretend to be "concerned" with "excesses" of a genuinely democratic Egyptian or Tunisian government. And the gullible and the ignorant will buy it.

On a somewhat different note: One of the problems with revolutions like these is that in some respects, all bets are off. Nobody knows who is going to be in charge or how they're going to do it. In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt this was probably unavoidable. I would prefer a peaceful, democratic revolution here in Canada. I've explained how elsewhere and I unfortunately have no time to expand upon this tonight.