Saturday, August 20, 2011

Arab Springs Into Fall, Rick Ron and Michele: A Confederacy Of Dunces


"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S Thompson


I just read an interesting analysis at the website stratfor.com on the Arab Spring movements. Because we Westerners are irrepressible idealists, we somehow believe that the end results from the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt will result in democracies that will emulate the kind of governments that we have. It was pointed out that in Egypt, all that changed was the ruler, that the country is still managed by a military committee, most of whom were doing the same thing under Mubarak. Even if a civilian government were elected, it's doubtful that it would be strong enough to replace the military. Women have already been co-opted from political positions.

The Libyan rebels can only function beneath a blanket of bombings from NATO, and they haven't produced anyone more competent than those already in the Qaddafi government. The main problem when a family ruler for over 40 years, like in Libya and Syria, is there is a large section of folks making money and don't wish to change their situations, coupled with what I call the group of mindless marching morons, or lack of leadership. I have no doubt that Bashar al Assad is being locked inside his bedroom and only let out on alternative Tuesdays, while his family and fellow Allowites wreak havoc on the general population. Right now, I'll bet he wishes he were back to practicing dentistry and able to keep those fantasies of being a Nazi war criminal deep inside his head...

Regardless of how things turn out in Libya and Syria and Yemen, the resulting governments may not be what we are wishing for. They could be just as fascist, but without the strong-arm ruler at the top. Maybe all the citizens want is to be able to have a cup of coffee without feeling they are being spied on by the police. Kids want to be able to listen to and play any music they like, and to experiment with ideas in free discussion. By alienating the younger generations, they radicalized their parents, and now we have had over six months of protests in Syria, the one country where it was least expected.

There has been a wave of global conservatism, affecting every country, and it manifests differently in each country. How the forces of good and light choose to deal with this is due to how conscious each set of leaders are. From shooting teenagers in Norway, to using suicide bombers during Ramadan, to unleashing a highly weaponized military on unarmed towns, express the darkest part of this wave. Our challenge is how we confront these evils and create a more positive outcome. So far more darkness has been created, threatening to engulf all of the Middle East once again and most of Africa, despite Turkey's attempts to help Somalia... As for the Israelis, they remain a part of the darkness as long as Benjamin Netanyahu remains in charge...

Iran just sentenced the two American hikers it has kept in jail for the past couple of years, to eight years for spying. Usually in spurious cases like this that are all politically motivated, after the sentencing comes some kind of agreement to deport the defendants. That may not happen here, unless Russia agrees to sweeten the pot with some more up-to-date nuclear technology... Iran is getting ready for their Fall PR  offensive, hooking up Ahmadinejad to the battery charger... We haven't heard much from him because of the internal game of whack-a-mole that was going on, using him as the mole. Now that he has been appropriately humbled, it's unclear if he has the heart to attack the US. Instead, he may arrange for the CIA to extract him and he can retire to a condo in Miami, baybee...

Where is Obama in all of this mess? Has he been handcuffed and tossed in the closet while his robot double travels about making watered down speeches for him? What does it mean whenever people watch Rick Perry, the Texan they wax nostalgic over is Ross Perot? On the down side, Ross's defunct party gave us Jesse Ventura and Pat Buchanon as presidential candidates. On the plus side, he has made $3.7 billion while sucking at the government contractor's tit, another success story using your tax dollars at work... Anyway, those of you who oppose Mr Perry can use my new bumpersticker and slogan:

NAT: Not Another Texan

I am so looking forward to another year of gaffes and electioneering from the like of Mrs Marcus Bachmann and Rick Perry and Ron Paul. They have shown a willful ignorance of realities like economic policies and the birth date of Elvis Presley, and we have months more of this to go! I was getting grumpy because the tea partiers in Congress weren't being funny anymore, they were just being dumbasses. Now that we have a trifecta of dumb people bound to make even dumber statements, I have something to look forward to whenever I turn on the news at night. God bless the state of Michigan and God bless the state of Texas, for reaching deep into its heart and producing a yellow rose for us to contemplate. Yellow from having been urinated on or yellow as a form or cowardice, or yellow as the finest that Texas has to offer? Yes, they really are a confederacy of dunces




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