And took a ton of heat for saying so at the time.

Just saying.

... for having the audacity to bring it up.

What exactly did you see coming a mile away?

I take no glee in this. Many posters here were concerned about the amount of involvement that the Muslim Brotherhood had at the time...which didn't bode well for either democracy or women's rights.

And now we're seeing the results.

boss" situation. It's very disheartening, but I can't say they are worse off than they were under Mubarak.

They shouldn't have gotten rid of Mubarek?

Plenty of us recognized that the correct system of checks and balances should have been put into place before the elections . Are you saying no revolution at all should have happened. What about Tunisia? Are you saying the U.S. should have just continued to hypocritically support the same old dictators?

that we don't stop to consider what that revolution will look like in reality. In this case, I was very concerned about Morsi's MB ties and it dismayed me that we were backing him so enthusiatically.

That's all I'm saying.

Doubtful.

Who's we? The US Govt.? I never saw much support for Morsi there. DU? Didn't see much support for him here either. The fact is the Arab Spring is something that was going to happen sooner or later. No govt. is eternal. Its better that these countries go through the motions now and get it over with so they can hopefully move on to true democratic representation in due time.

If someone here expressed support for him. I just didn't see it (not saying there might not have been an exception but unlikely). Now I do remember people supporting Muhammad El-Baradei. Which I still maintain would have been a welcome change.

Sometimes I wonder how we ever got to be known as the Party of open-mindedness. Lately DU seems like a place where "observations" are interpreted as judgement. So sad. Knee jerk comes to mind.

otherwise they will be unfree! THINK OF THE CHILDREN! And the US corporate profits...


Between this thread and the Gaza stuff the amount of anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia (and I say this as a very militant atheist) is sickening.

How's it feel?

Its more likely you'll just out another group of assholes in charge.

Lasting change won't occur in one season.

Sadly, it's true. Once the revolutionaries gain power -- even if it was a popular revolution -- they naturally want to keep that power and start using the methods they revolted against.

It's very rare that that doesn't happen. George Washington could have easily proclaimed himself King (and he would have had plenty of support; most of the colonists were fine with monarchy and only opposed the abuses of one particular king).

Not for winning independence. Such wars are easy and common.

They were great men instead because they gave up power once they had it and with no one forcing them to do so. George in particular.

Such men are rare. We were incredibly fortunate to have so many in the right time and place.

He was likely less interested in kingship because he had no son to pass the crown to. He became President instead.

The American "Revolution" was really a "War for Independence" from Great Britain. The founders collectively consolidated power by driving out Tories and adopting the Constitution to centralize power in the federal government. Ultimately, the primacy of the Federal government over the state was established by the Civil War.

where are you getting this speculation?

The country's founders actually ceded to the states, but after trying that for a while, saw that states often fought each other over rights of issues like commerce and citizenship. So a federalist system was created out of necessity.

He didn't refuse to be a king, or accept the presidency, for any real noble reasons. He more than likely just wanted to retire.

The "founding fathers" certainly had their flaws. When they spoke about protecting the minority against the majority, they were really thinking about the minority of wealthy landowners and the large "unwashed masses". But flawed as the individual men were as people, the system they came up with was certainly brilliant. Not perfect, but still brilliant.

Founding fathers, great wise people. Great wise people who just happened to (many of them at least) own slaves and didn't think working class whites should vote or if they did needed strong "checks" on democracy to make sure they didn't pick on the poor, minority that is the ruling class (check out Federalist Paper Number 10--it basically spells this out).

Give me a break.

I never claimed they were saints.

If you're looking for perfection you may want to leave this planet.

/although I suspect if you found heaven or nirvana or whatever you'd still be upset as "it's a bit too perfect ya know? A bit offputting".

Deserve credit for beating the British Army.


The were not soldiers. They had no military experience. They were thrown together to take on the British Empire, and won.


They had a tough and long road ahead on them. They pulled together, got through some hard times and we're able to defeat the biggest army on the planet.

I say that deserves some credit.

I'm glad that the millions who have made the Arab Spring a reality don't have to look to you for approval or support.

They don't need allies who give up and throw their hands in the air at the first sign of difficulty.

It has taken them thousands of years to get this far. They will progress with or without you.

This isn't over. The Arab Spring was a beginning to long process that continues today. Nothing has withered. Watch how the people of Egypt react and don't forget that Syria has hardened into a civil war. How can you say the movement has withered?

...by the Muslim Brotherhood.
There are 2 million in Tahrir Square as we post.

that their revolution is not a 'one and done' affair. They will have to continue to fight for it.

The good thing is, is that at least one country's revolutionaries kicked Islamist ass, too; our friends in Libya!

I kind of think this is far from over. The American Revolution to FAR longer than this has been going on. Good thing they didn't give up as easily as some comfortable observers do.

Opportunistic or engineered, it makes little difference. The end result has been an entirely predictable regional spread of religious-based civil war between the Sunnis and Shi'ia as a proxy war between the Saudis and Iran.

Unfortunately, urged on by the Israelis and Gulf Arabs, the US and EU took sides. More and bigger Blowback is inevitable. I can see no easy way out of this now.

It's nice having some backup.

The USA comes out as quite hypocritical when one compares our actions, known and unknown to public, in Libya, Syria, etc compared to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other nations of the GCC.

Egypt may be a different story, however, as it's been posited by some that the Muslim Brotherhood over there's has had links with the CIA for some time.

It's the CIA and those conniving Israelis again. Do you have any proof to back this up or is it something you read on the internet?

As for Israel's support for that, one needs to go back to the beginning, the seminal 1996 regime change document prepared for then and now PM Netanyahu, "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" (a Greater Israel) by a group of American neocons that went on to positions of great influence in the Bush Administration and whose thinking still pervades some corridors in Washington. See, http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm, (excerpted version). A Clean Break, authored by Richard Perle and fellow Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP) policy planners, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser (the guys who carried out the intelligence deceptions that led to the Iraq War), is a remarkably prescient and accurate plan for the string of of regime change operations, and the campaign to derail Iran's leadership of Shi'ia Islam, that were actually implemented during the next 15 years.

Wiki: Journalist Jason Vest wrote that the report was "a kind of US-Israeli neoconservative manifesto." In Vest's analysis, it proposed "a mini-cold war in the Middle East, advocating the use of proxy armies for regime changes, destabilization and containment. Indeed, it even goes so far as to articulate a way to advance right-wing Zionism by melding it with missile-defense advocacy." He wrote that because of the shared organizational membership of the paper's authors the report provides "perhaps the most insightful window" into the "policy worldview" of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and Center for Security Policy, two United States-based thinktanks.[11]

An October 2003 editorial in The Nation criticized the Syria Accountability Act and connected it to the Clean Break report and authors:

"To properly understand the Syria Accountability Act, one has to go back to a 1996 document, 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,' drafted by a team of advisers to Benjamin Netanyahu in his run for prime minister of Israel. The authors included current Bush advisers Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. 'Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil,' they wrote, calling for 'striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.' No wonder Perle was delighted by the Israeli strike. 'It will help the peace process,' he told the Washington Post, adding later that the United States itself might have to attack Syria. But what Perle means by 'helping the peace process' is not resolving the conflict by bringing about a viable, sovereign Palestinian state but rather - as underscored in 'A Clean Break' - 'transcending the Arab-Israeli conflict' altogether by forcing the Arabs to accept most, if not all, of Israel's territorial conquests and its nuclear hegemony in the region."[12]

John Dizard claimed there is evidence in the Clean Break document of Ahmed Chalabi's involvement. (Chalabi, an Iraqi politician, was an ardent opponent of Saddam Hussein.):

"In the section on Iraq, and the necessity of removing Saddam Hussein, there was telltale 'intelligence' from Chalabi and his old Jordanian Hashemite patron, Prince Hassan: 'The predominantly Shi'a population of southern Lebanon has been tied for centuries to the Shi'a leadership in Najaf, Iraq, rather than Iran. Were the Hashemites to control Iraq, they could use their influence over Najaf to help Israel wean the south Lebanese Shi'a away from Hizbollah, Iran, and Syria.

Honestly thought is was going to end well...

Except WAY worse for women and religious minorities.

I hate to say I predicted it, but I did. I've been there, done that and bought the damn tee shirt...way back in 79.

even in the so-called "Free World".

No revolution creates a perfect society from day one.

It's really something watching people in the west sit back in casual judgement of a process, a couple of years in, that it took us seven centuries to passably pull off, isn't it?

\

It was during Ramadan, iirc. Lots of hope. Lovely people, lovely country, as modern a country you'd hope to find. Also a functioning democracy and probably the best treatment of women on that continent.

Keep in mind that they did what they had to do to keep the repressionist Israelis and American republicans out of the sequence. THAT is far more important than a minor uprising that will take care of itself and establish a progressive, socialist Arab society that will coalesce with our global mandate. In fundamental transformation, there will be a few broken eggs; this is merely one of them.

The Muslim Brotherhood did nothing to improve the situation. NOTHING. If the MB stays in power, I can guarantee they'll be headed in the exact opposite direction. You'll see......the people of Egypt were really badly screwed.

And there is indeed some hope, as Libya's thrown off the Islamists for the most part, and Syria may, too, be able to escape Egypt's fate. I just hope, like everyone else here, the efforts of all the good people out there pay off.

Since when did Israel discriminate against women? Since when did Israel's Pres. grab power like Morsi did? Are women suppressed in the US? Has Pres. Obama grabbed power like Morsi?
You actually approve of this power grab by Morsi?
He's no better than Mubarek and hopefully the Egyptian will either force him to change his mind or throw him out on his ass.

We're not doing very well in the democracy sphere ourselves, not that we were ever very good at it. Ask Eugene Debs or Fred Hampton about American civil liberties.

men ANYWHERE do no really care about women's rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a religious fundamentalist organization. Sorry, but fuck fundamentalists of any stripe- be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim.

Most of the regimes in the region are profoundly anti-woman and patriarchal at their heart. The Saudi version of Islam that they have pushed all over the Muslim world is anti-woman from top to bottom.

You really aren't fooling anyone with your nonsense.

when exactly does this happen?

Morsi won the election, now he consolidates power. If this is tyranny, it is the tyranny of the majority.

Meanwhile, more or less democratic states are emerging in Tunisia and Libya.

Syria is engulfed in civil war pitting secularists against Islamists.

The Jordanian monarchy wobbles.

Lebanon trembles.

And it's still the Arab Winter in the Sunni oil monarchies.

It is a new era, whether we like every single development or not.

winning a popular election doesn't give anyone the right to "consolidate power" -- it gives them the right to govern according to their elected position. Examples of popularly elected people who then become monsters are legion -- with Hitler being the prime recent example.

Tossing the judiciary and making unilateral decisions is a bad sign for anywhere that wants to retain human rights or any form of democracy.

is why anyone would be surprised.

It seems they want a religious caliphate and not a democracy.

So silly anyone expected different.

I'm sure Syria and Palestine will be the exception.

Morsi will just be another short paragraph in a history book.

Egypt is still in a period of revolution. They're empowered by what they've been able to achieve thus far and will hold Morsi's feet to the fire.

With other democracies serving the world as a blueprint, it's a process of rapid evolution.

Whether the Soviet Union or the end of the colonial orders in Africa or the Indian Subcontinent or even the end of British rule in the 13 colonies or the collapse of the old South following the American civil war - to say nothing of the French Revolution - there was always a very, very, long and very unstable, volatile and dangerous transition period. Putting all the pieces back together "again" is very difficult when they have never been together in the first place. It is too soon to say how well it will work out. It is probably too soon to say how the American democratic-capitalist experiment will work out. It is always too soon.

According to this article your declaration is premature.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/egypt-protesters-torch-islamist-party-hqs-tv.aspx?pageID=238&nID=35309&NewsCatID=352

I believe the rest of the 21st Century is fucked, but after the massive resource wars in 2065 and 2118, the surviving people will FINALLY understand and start to work together.

May not be exact with the dates, but I honestly believe this is our future.

expect dramatic change in a short time. That's a sure road to disappointment.

Screw rights
Screw women
Screw minorities

It's all about power, Islamic caliphate and duping the public.

it is the one thing the leaders have in common...it is just too expensive in many respects for them to try...and fail miserably...again.

Uprisings & revolutions often take a LONG time to "resolve"....and we can never know how they will end up..

Our own history proves that...

revolution starts 1776
constitution isn't final until 1789
British come back 1812

we have a few decades of relative "calm"
then we have a civil war that is not truly "over" for many , and it's 2012

1. America got all the corporate sock puppets installed they hoped for.
2. Damn Arabs installed the wrong people.
3. Palestinians wanted some of that.

How do you figure that?
What corporate sock puppets ?

They have had to walk a tight rope since president Obama made his 2009 speech. I stand by my statement if the US does not get who they want it will be turmoil for the foreseeable future.

misery, and oppression into the world.

Progressives throw a revolution, and religious fascists steal it.

What a wonderful world it would be for the rest of us if, right now, right at this moment, every religious extremist was raptured in glory to the planet Kolob, or wherever else their respective big daddy in the sky lives.


A win-win for everybody ~ they get what they want, we get peace, love, compassion, freedom, and sanity.

Imagine that.

these things are not cut and dried and over immediately. There are always defeats and setbacks. Anybody who looks to make any sort of radical change ANYWHERE (yes even in the good ole USA) needs to get used to the idea of a long and winding and, yes, bumpy road. Revolution is NOT for sprinters.

.. with a vengeance.

It could take years maybe decades.

Meanwhile the largest country in the Mideast is now a totalitarian state that doesn't respect women, minorities or the rule of law.

You seem a lot more patient than I am.

and that doesn't bode well for women, gays or minorities

meh...who cares,

A pretty stupid view of folks in the Middle East.

We just give them what they want, like Coca Cola and blue jeans, right?

(Actually, the Saudis paid for most of them) Guess that's what makes it a "Humanitarian Intervention", in some books.

imho