Parrhesia in Egypt, and How the US should be standing for universal freedom, but isn't

Real patriots of the United States (as opposed to drum-beating nationalists, or realpolitik bloggers/hobbyists with delusions of self-importance, for whom politics is first and foremost a kind of spectacular soap opera), have every reason to be infuriated with the Obama administration's pathetic series of public statements and ongoing policies regarding Egypt.

Here is the man Obama sends to Egypt. Unfortunately for Obama's meticulously-maintained image campaign, Wisner doesn't mince his words and reveals a little bit too much truth of the situation for comfort.

Here is the man the US currently and openly supports to replace Mubarak, and that only once Mubarak steps down more or less at his own pace. Plus ça change...suffice to say, Suleiman is a well-known US-trained torturer reviled in Egypt, a CIA stooge and all-around bad, bad man, no different than Mubarak with the exception that instead of remaining in a self-imposed protected bubble he actually has real blood on his hands(much more here, also here and here).

As always, the real news (and inspiration) is on ground level with the people. (Much more here.)

If only we had governments around the world capable of acting on their behalf in such moments in true democratic fashion, that is to say, willing to take risks for actual democracy (as opposed to being lapdogs to the violent corporate cycles of rape and repression, with a status quo of mass poverty, unemployment and privatized misery dialed up every new and wondrous "technological breakthrough" moment to make even Reagan's former criminal high finance advisers and thieves blush). Is appeasing Israel, and following the crazed and thoroughly discredited ongoing mandates of Bush's "WAR ON TERROR" really that important to Obama (let alone the vast majority of Americans), such that we in the US must throw all our weight behind the only alternative to Mubarak we still trust to torture people for us, and keep the ministers of high finance assured of some working illusion of order?

If the Egyptian people have demonstrated anything over the past two weeks of caring for one another, and in courageous solidarity against both state brutality and World Bank oppression, it is that they deserve better.

Update: via Huffington:


Part 2 and Part 3.



Hell, even Anderson Cooper seems to have woken the fuck up, after some admirable reporting from the streets and in harm's way (where real reporting used to be done and still is, full-time at least by one of the best remaining genuine news organizations on the planet).

Update II: Also some rag called the NYTimes: Mr. Suleiman’s Empty Promises