sex and drugs behind
the left hand,
you could park a battle carrier behind
the right hand, and
no one's gonna f----n' notice."
--[dialogue from the movie Charlie Wilson's War]
.................... Thinking about Egypt makes me think of that movie.
Reading yesterday or day before, news reports and comments from other readers, learned:
++ Hosni Mubarak has been in power 30 years
++ It's not a democracy: it's authoritarian (totalitarian? -- is that different?)
++ There's no minimum wage in Egypt, so most people work hard and are very poor.
++ Only a small number of people in Egypt make a lot of money, and they are the "friends and cronies" of Mr. Mubarak.
++ In the street protest situation currently going on, there are 3 entities:
1. demonstrators, who want Mubarak out, & to have democracy
2. group of people who support Mubarak and sounds like they're picking fights with the demonstrators, and
3. the army; they're watching. (Or -- that's what they were doing when I was reading.
That country's citizens are having a "Network" Moment: like in that movie, they are having the feeling of, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
-------------------------
On some spots / You Tube, people are Commenting in:
"Power to the people"
and
"We are all Egyptians"
------------ ok
-----------------------------
------------------------
[Charlie Wilson's War]:
-- It's not that simple -- when an Afghan freedom fighter gets captured, it can't be with an American made weapon on him. That's how a Cold War turns into an actual war, & that's something you want to keep a good eye on.
-- So anything we give them, has to look like it could've plausibly been captured from the Soviets.
-- You know who's good at that?
-- Israel and Egypt.
-- That's right.
----------------
That film chronicles the covert war in Afghanistan during the 1980s, when the U.S. allied with Israel, Egypt, & Pakistan, to help the Afghan freedom fighters drive the Soviet communists out of their country.
(And the minute the communists left, terrorists moved into the vacuum...):
In the film the CIA guy says, "The crazies have started rollin' into Kandahar like it's a fuckin' bathtub drain...."
---------------------------
---------------------------
-- You're going to be our man inside the Israeli Parliament.
-- I'm not in the Israeli Parliament.
-- That's what's gonna make you so effective!
[that's why I love this film...]
-- We're gonna need your arm around Menachem when he finds out that we're workin' with Egypt and the Saudis.
the process
of forming the alliance...
NOW -- the alliances shift.
What happens in Egypt affects Israel, and all the relationships over there -- it will re-balance, for better or worse, whole world, in some way.
Mubarak may be a louse, but things can always get worse, that's the problem.
-30-
That's such an amazing movie. I watched it (on Netflix) with my jaw dropping. I kept wondering how did they let this kind of truth get out? But truth doesn't matter any more, I fear. Although maybe they're talking some in Egypt. But as you say, it may get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your great comment on my blog about TV. I left a reply, saying you've hit on why I've come to hate TV so much. It's because it's the medium that has allowed foreign billionaires to buy their own propaganda network (How many people know Fox is 100% foreign owned, partly by the Saudis?)They've now got control of one of our political parties by making Americans fear their own democracy. And NOBODY questions this. It's "entertainment."