Archive for category Keith Olbermann

Recently on firedoglake, Glenn W. Smith opined:

There are very few people around the globe who are not moved by the solidarity and passion of the Egyptian people as they unite to topple their bullying, authoritarian leader, Hosni Mubarak. Here in America, there’s an egocentric temptation to think the Egyptian freedom fighters want to be like us. It’s no longer “they hate us for our freedoms,” it’s “they want to emulate us because of our freedoms.” Both self-centered notions are dead wrong.

…Egyptians don’t want to become like us. They already are like us, and like everyone else, too.

Of course, the consistent media narrative we are exposed to day in and day out tells us that Egyptians are not like us, and our country — America The Exceptional — is not the least bit similar to Egypt. Why, just look at the glaring contrasts!

Egypt is governed under an emergency law that gives its government extraordinary powers in the name of fighting terrorism. This “temporary” law was renewed last May for another two years. The U.S. government has nothing like that, and never will. [See update below]

Egypt is an oligarchy, and everyone knows oligarchies are bad for democracy. In completely unrelated news, Jeb Bush may be running for President next year, and Hillary Clinton might run in 2016.

In Egypt, according to The New York Times, “Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt has long functioned as a state where wealth bought political power and political power bought great wealth.” That could not possibly happen in America.

Glenn Greenwald had some fun with this on Monday:

One would never, ever find in The New York Times such a sweeping denunciation of the plutocratic corruption and merger of private wealth and political power that shapes most of America’s political culture. Just like “torture”– which that paper has no trouble declaring is used by Egypt’s government but will never say is used by ours — such systematic corruption can exist only elsewhere, but never in America. That’s how this genre of Look Over There reporting is not just incomplete but outright misleading: it actively creates the impression that such conditions are found only in those Primitive Foreign Places, but not here.

Unlike Egypt, in the USA you won’t find any election fraud, media censorship, massive unemployment, real estate bubbles, over-spending on the military, or religious fundamentalism. Income inequality is unknown in America — you might as well look for deserts or pyramids.

UPDATE: Maybe I should have dialed back my cynicism about the USA PATRIOT Act extension. There were 26 House Republicans who broke with their party, enough to stall re-authorization of key provisions of the Act set to expire at the end of this month.

UPDATE: USA PATRIOT Act cynicism back on. Out of the 52 members of the House Republican Tea Party Caucus, 44 voted to extend the Act’s Constitution-shredding provisions. That means only 15 percent voted to uphold the Constitution – Tea Party FAIL. Utah Rep. Rob Bishop voted against re-authorization, but not fellow Republican Jason Chaffetz or Democrat Jim Matheson.

Also, Steve Benen notes:

For Patriot Act critics, this was a pleasant surprise, but the satisfaction will very likely be short-lived — the reauthorization will come back to the floor later this month under regular order, and will need only a simple majority to advance to the Senate.

UPDATE: Looks like Mubarak is going to step down, with a military-run interim government taking over Egypt.

UPDATE: In his speech on Egyptian TV, Mubarak indicated he plans to keep his title as President but transfer power to the Vice President, Omar Suleiman. “Angry crowds are chanting as Tahrir Square erupts following the Mubarak’s refusal to step down.”

UPDATE: After yesterday’s false start, today it was announced that Mubarak is out and the Supreme Military Council will run Egypt at least for now. “The euphoria is unimaginable,” writes Spencer Ackerman.