The People, the Puppets and the US
Covering the Revolutions
By Saul Landau
Counterpunch: February 13, 2011
TV showed seemingly interminable telephoto images of protestors against
Mubarak's dictatorship; then, of his thugs disguised as pro-government
protestors. Suggesting chaos?
On February 3, the media focused on its own pain: Anderson Cooper got
punched; Katie Couric harassed; and camera operators roughed up and
prevented from taking pictures. On February 4, the goons hit Al Jazeera and
destroyed its property. The Mubarak side intimidated some high profile TV
personalities to leave.
The distant fuzzy shots, resembling 1960s Andy Warhol films with rarely
changing fuzzy image and poorly informed reporters babbling behind them,
threw little light on why Egyptians hit the streets en masse. Despite Dick
Cheney's bleats about Mubarak's virtues (obedience and a friendly smile),
Egyptians saw 30 years of theft, corruption and brutality that more recently
merged with Washington-dictated neo liberal economics (low wages and high
profits), and dramatic price rises in the cost of food -- in part because of
climate change. ("World food prices at historic peak in January seventh
month running," says FAO. MERCO PRESS, February 3, 2011)
Like millions in Tunisia, Yemen and Jordan, Egyptians responded to pain and
outrage: a tiny rich minority favored by the system engaged in the pleasures
and excesses of Saudi princes; the poor suffered hunger.
Ironically, a London tabloid outdid TV presenting both a more amusing and
pithier picture than TV "news" On January 31, The Sun's Rhodri Phillips
reported that "the panic-stricken family of President Mubarak has reportedly
fled Egypt for the luxurious refuge of their £8.5 million London townhouse."
The inner clan and its "ninety seven pieces of luggage," arrived on a
private jet to its "six-floor Georgian mansion a stone's throw from Harrods
in Knightsbridge, West London."
"Egyptian baggage handlers at Heathrow" reported their arrival. According to
The Sun, "Mubarak is said to have amassed a £25 billion - other sources
estimate as high as $70 billion) fortune for his family since grabbing power
in 1981."
His wife and two oldest sons "have become symbols of excess and corruption
in Egypt." Hosni's wife, "Half-Welsh Suzanne has even been nicknamed Marie
Antoinette after the opulence-loving Queen who lost her head in the French
Revolution."
Thus Britain's "masses" receive news of an event that threatens to alter the
course of geo politics.
Foxy right wing ideologues Frank Gaffney and Glen Beck refer to the events
as part of the secret Muslim fanatic, foreign-born Obama's plot to betray a
loyal ally -- what's a little theft compared to loyalty? More importantly,
Al Jazeera viewers learned about an unfolding "revolution" spreading through
the Arab world.
For 50 plus years Washington has backed ruthless tyrants like Mubarak and
Ben Ali in Tunisia. In return, the despots obeyed orders and stole fortunes
from the Arab majority - and tortured, imprisoned and executed dissenters.
Then, in Tunisia, a courageous man on fire provoked others to take to the
streets: "Enough!" millions chanted. "Time to change!"
The regimes' goon squads and police, symbols of intimidation, no longer
maintain obedience in the face of angry masses pointing to governmental
injustice, corruption and perfidy.
Enter the enigmatic military, in charge of almost 1/3 of the Egyptian
economy. On February 2, as Barry Lando observed, disciplined gangs of
hoodlums somehow passed "through military checkpoints to attack the
anti-Mubarak crowds, while the military stood aside, and watched."
(http://barrylando.blogspot.com/2011/02/egytian-army-big-unknown-updated.html)After
Mubarak announced he would not run again for the presidency, the top
military clique wanted to restore order without its members using force
against fellow Egyptians. So, the hooligans got blamed, not the men in
uniform, for the bloodshed. But the people stood their ground.
As Lando explains, the military hoi polloi worry "about their own skins."
After Khomeini's 1979 revolution Iranian generals received their just
desserts. Like other third world military elites, Lando reminds us, Egypt's
brass "have also enjoyed a pampered existence .spacious, subsidized
condominiums. nurseries, schools and military consumer cooperatives
featuring domestic and imported products at discount prices." Washington
rewards Egypt's military with $1.3 billion -- "aid" -- that depends on
obedience to U.S. policies re Israel.
Last week Yemen and Jordan also erupted. The "spreading" syndrome inflicted
Washington. Not good to show millions of angry poor people demanding rights.
No sightings of the super rich who rely on the military to protect their
wealth and privilege. They watch on TV - from London or New York.
What will Washington do - other than hand wring and emit "democracy"
platitudes through press secretaries? Democracy, as the world has learned,
is replaced by more serious U.S. concerns: assured oil supplies and Israel.
But the White House also knows the majority in the region think Israel and
the United States, not Iran, constitute the great threat. (88 percent said
Israel, 77 percent the United States, and 10% thought Iran was a threat.
Noam Chomsky, "Democracy Now," February 3)
The U.S. military learned in Vietnam not to fight enemies that fight back.
Neither W. Bush nor Obama ingested that lesson; W did destroy the integrity
of Iraq as a nation and started war in Afghanistan, which fell into Obama's
lap. If he dumps it -- like he's dumped Ben Ali and Mubarak - he'll become a
target of the Republican hawks. Shudder!
What will the courageous President do if Egyptian and other Arab masses
continue to occupy the streets? U.S. puppets look to Washington while its
policy "experts" prepare compromise proposals that slimes the status quo
under the revolutionary door.
Mubarak has fled, but for "American policy towards Egypt, iy means replacing
a dictatorial regime that did what the U.S. told it with a democratic regime
that will do what the U.S. tells it." Josiah Swampoodle (Sam Smith's
Progressive Review Feb 5)
Saul Landau's new film is WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP.
Counterpunch published his BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD
***
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/14-9
Republican Lawmakers Face Grassroots Pressure Over 'War On Contraception'
by Amanda Terkel
Huffington Post : Monday, February 14, 2011
WASHINGTON - Women's-rights activists are taking the fight to preserve
family-planning funding outside the Beltway, calling on grassroots activists
to pressure their representatives into maintaining the Title X program.
Enacted in 1970 as part of the Public Health Service Act, the
family-planning program was designed to focus on low-income Americans. The
preventive-health services it provides include information and access to
contraception, earning the ire of social conservatives.
Though there is no mention of Title X in President Barack Obama's proposed
budget for fiscal year 2012, Republicans have placed a high priority on
cutting the $317 million the program received in FY 2011 appropriations,
which would effectively eliminate it. The stopgap budget proposal the GOP
released last week includes no money for the program, and Rep. Mike Pence
(R-Ind.) has introduced separate legislation to "deny Title X funds to
Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider."
The abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America launched a campaign on
Monday to mobilize activists in six districts where abortion-rights
advocates lost to "anti- or mixed-choice representatives" in November's
midterm elections. The campaign targets Republican Reps. Charlie Bass
(N.H.), Robert Dold (Ill.), Chris Gibson (N.Y.), Richard Hanna (N.Y), Nan
Hayworth (N.Y) and Steve Stivers (Ohio).
NARAL is also stepping up pressure on longer-serving members, including
Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski (Ill.) and Republican Reps. Judy Biggert
(Ill.), Charlie Dent (Penn.), Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), Rodney Frelinghuysen
(N.J), Leonard Lance (N.J), and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.).
"And where is your alleged 'moderate' representative on this?" reads the
email going out to activists in Stivers' district. "We don't know. Rep.
Stivers has said nothing of this proposed cut, and it's very possible that
he could choose to vote for an anti-choice budget that decimates family
planning."
"Politicians who campaigned on the promise of focusing on jobs and the
economy need to be held accountable if, at the first possible opportunity,
they join with John Boehner to launch a full-fledged war on contraception,"
NARAL President Nancy Keenan said. "It is the height of hypocrisy for
anti-choice politicians to seek to abolish a program that helps prevent
unintended pregnancy and thus reduce the need for abortion. How many jobs
will be generated by eliminating women's access to birth control?"
Democratic lawmakers are working to increase public attention to Pence's
bill and two other measures that would restrict abortion access.
"We have to make this issue too hot to handle," House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) said during a Thursday conference call with reporters. "I
would like to make the fight in the House and see where some of these
Republicans are -- maybe we could win it on Title X. I can't believe that
everybody who is anti a woman's right to choose is anti-birth control and
contraception and family planning. But we don't know that, and we don't have
any idea -- or I don't, anyway -- where the Tea Party people come down in
all of this."
In an interview with The Huffington Post at the Conservative Political
Action Conference last week, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) disagreed with the
argument that this focus on social issues is a distraction from the economy.
"It is an economic and a moral issue, so anytime you can kill two birds with
one stone, we ought to do that," King said. "And if we can kill the whole
flock with one rock, we ought to do that."
© 2011 Huffington Post
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