Egypt

[Bungalow Bill]

One can only hope the military coup boomerangs on these assholes and the
generals stay in power a long time. Then if they are allowed to demonstrate
again, maybe it will dawn on them they were wrong to cheer on the overthrow
of a democratically elected government by the military. They deserve whatever
they get.

[Bungalow Bill]

It was a close election, but I don't recall any proof of there being fraud.
Folks protesting, fine. Folks cheering on a military coup, well they deserve
what they get. Time for the Brotherhood to take it to the streets, not that
it will likely do much good.

Jonathan Karl put it well on ABC News tonight--the U.S. is more interested in
stability than democracy. Hasn't it always been. They have to pretend in public
to be against it, but in private, I'm sure they're glad to see Morsi go, as long as
the military moves quickly to return to a democratic system. Yep, time will tell.

[Bungalow Bill]

I don't consider him a dictator. A lot of people didn't like where the economy was
going, but I don't see that as a reason for the military to take over, put him under
house arrest, suspend the Constitution, round up Brotherhood leaders, and shut
down their media outlets. Sounds like a typical military coup to me.

There probably would be a less severe reaction to a coup in the U.S., though that
reality is not likely to happen.

[k9nanny]

Shush! We are not allowed to call it a military coup, or we will have to stop writing those big checks.

I won't pretend to understand the long term consequences of what's going on in Egypt. However, I do know that drunken camel ride isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[Bungalow Bill]

Now I get it. Yes, maybe people did feel that Morsi might becoming dictatorial,
but having a military coup seems to be a case of the cure being worse than
the supposed disease.

Yeah, I'd be surprised if the Egyptian military doesn't get its $1.3 billion dollar
payment as usual.

[JTA]

Looks like we're in a bit of a pickle.

[Dryer Vent]

Puts the free world in a quandary. Morsi was duly elected, a democratic process at work. However, he could have been trouble down the road. How can we support a military take over? How can we not?

[Ombudsman]

Puts the free world in a quandary. Morsi was duly elected, a democratic process at work. However, he could have been trouble down the road. How can we support a military take over? How can we not?

As was Chavez, Ahmadinejad as well as many members of Hezbollah and Hamas and countless other undesirables. Democracy ain't all it's cracked up to be.

[Bungalow Bill]

The problem is one could say of anybody they could be a problem down the road.
In a true democracy, they would have had to gut it out for another three years, but
the military decided to go the coup route, so now they're back where they were just
after they deposed Mubarak.

[billy.pilgrim]

Puts the free world in a quandary. Morsi was duly elected, a democratic process at work. However, he could have been trouble down the road. How can we support a military take over? How can we not?

As was Chavez, Ahmadinejad as well as many members of Hezbollah and Hamas and countless other undesirables. Democracy ain't all it's cracked up to be.

I kinda like cousin Hugo; he had some good ideas but lacked on implementation

and you can thank ike for overthrowing iran's democracy and installing a murderous brutal dictator, resulting in the backlash of the religious crazies
too bad we can't support real democracies that have somehow located their country on top of our oil

or even the ones who replace brutal dictators with economic systems that don't meet out approval
kennedy blew the chance to work with castro and we are still acting like babies over that
and ol ike again - refused to allow the free and fair elections agreed to for viet nam, when he learned that his buddy dictator was down in the polls 15% to 80% w/ 5% undecided 3 million died

sometimes real democracy is messy, but it will work out if the people are educated, have access to accurate information and aren’t brainwashed by the bullshit and lies of organizations such as faux news

[Cowboy]

How can we support a military take over? How can we not?

The military forced Mubarak out of office.

[Ombudsman]

...but it will work out if the people are educated, have access to accurate information and aren’t brainwashed by the bullshit and lies of organizations such as faux news

That would only matter if an intelligence test were required to cast a vote.

[billy.pilgrim]

...but it will work out if the people are educated, have access to accurate information and aren’t brainwashed by the bullshit and lies of organizations such as faux news

That would only matter if an intelligence test were required to cast a vote.

what?

intelligence has very little to do with it

our problem is ignorance of what is actually going on in this country

I do believe the crap pushed by hagee types and the faux news bullshit has caused a significant portion of our population to see boogie men instead of advancement in even the most simple matte

[Ombudsman]

...but it will work out if the people are educated, have access to accurate information and aren’t brainwashed by the bullshit and lies of organizations such as faux news

That would only matter if an intelligence test were required to cast a vote.

what?

You said it will work if the people are educated. If there is no test to assure they are, it doesn't matter. The educated and non-educated have an equal say.

[Ombudsman]

ElBaradei's Nobel lecture is worth a read. Some excerpts:

...Consider our development aid record. Last year, the nations of the world spent over $1 trillion on armaments. But we contributed less than 10 per cent of that amount - a mere $80 billion - as official development assistance to the developing parts of the world, where 850 million people suffer from hunger.

My friend James Morris heads the World Food Programme, whose task it is to feed the hungry. He recently told me, "If I could have just 1 per cent of the money spent on global armaments, no one in this world would go to bed hungry."

It should not be a surprise then that poverty continues to breed conflict. Of the 13 million deaths due to armed conflict in the last ten years, 9 million occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poorest of the poor live.

Consider also our approach to the sanctity and value of human life. In the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, we all grieved deeply, and expressed outrage at this heinous crime - and rightly so. But many people today are unaware that, as the result of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 3.8 million people have lost their lives since 1998...

..I have hope because the positive aspects of globalization are enabling nations and peoples to become politically, economically and socially interdependent, making war an increasingly unacceptable option.

Among the 25 members of the European Union, the degree of economic and socio-political dependencies has made the prospect of the use of force to resolve differences almost absurd. The same is emerging with regard to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, with some 55 member countries from Europe, Central Asia and North America. Could these models be expanded to a world model, through the same creative multilateral engagement and active international cooperation, where the strong are just and the weak secure?

I have hope because civil society is becoming better informed and more engaged. They are pressing their governments for change - to create democratic societies based on diversity, tolerance and equality. They are proposing creative solutions. They are raising awareness, donating funds, working to transform civic spirit from the local to the global. Working to bring the human family closer together.

We now have the opportunity, more than at any time before, to give an affirmative answer to one of the oldest questions of all time: "Am I my brother´s keeper?"

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statemen ... 5n020.html

[billy.pilgrim]

...but it will work out if the people are educated, have access to accurate information and aren’t brainwashed by the bullshit and lies of organizations such as faux news

That would only matter if an intelligence test were required to cast a vote.

what?

You said it will work if the people are educated. If there is no test to assure they are, it doesn't matter. The educated and non-educated have an equal say.

education and intelligence have little to do with each other. Ignorance is curable with education.

I have no problem with people of lower or higher intelligence participating in our democracy - I do have a problem with the brainwashed ignorant pushing ideas and values with no basis in reality

[Ombudsman]

...but it will work out if the people are educated, have access to accurate information and aren’t brainwashed by the bullshit and lies of organizations such as faux news

That would only matter if an intelligence test were required to cast a vote.

what?

You said it will work if the people are educated. If there is no test to assure they are, it doesn't matter. The educated and non-educated have an equal say.

education and intelligence have little to do with each other. Ignorance is curable with education.

I have no problem with people of lower or higher intelligence participating in our democracy - I do have a problem with the brainwashed ignorant pushing ideas and values with no basis in reality

My point is that a person's right to vote is not based on their knowledge. Whether you want to call it education or intelligence is irrelevant. Until we make a right to vote tied to some sort of test of their knowledge of the issues, democracy will continue to result in poorly qualified people being elected.

[billy.pilgrim]

it's not me who wants to differentiate between words with different meanings – that would be the different meanings attributed to these two very different words
and no need for a knowledge test to weed out the uninformed.
The 1st step as described by President Jefferson would be to work toward a more educated citizenry. I believe in free speech but outright lies designed to inflame the ignorant and to create further ignorance of important issues is no different than crying, “Fire” is a crowded theater – it is destroying this country and has to stop
Weather it comes from the home sculed, those sucking on the fox teat or from many other liberal and conservative sources, this lack of informed decision making will destroy our society.
I know the libs do it too, but Reagans war on the middle class can have not other outcome than a return to something very like feudalism – king george would be loving the Koch bros manipulation of the uneducated masses
Education is the key but more and more we are turning our educational system into a vocational training ground for worker ants – time to put philosophy, art, literature, civics and all those other “hard to measure” classes back into the basic education and leave much of the vocational training to the jobs that require training. Let’s educate our population to understand history, cause and effect, critical thinking before we teach them how to put pegs in holes.

[Ombudsman]

it's not me who wants to differentiate between words with different meanings – that would be the different meanings attributed to these two very different words
and no need for a knowledge test to weed out the uninformed.
The 1st step as described by President Jefferson would be to work toward a more educated citizenry. I believe in free speech but outright lies designed to inflame the ignorant and to create further ignorance of important issues is no different than crying, “Fire” is a crowded theater – it is destroying this country and has to stop
Weather it comes from the home sculed, those sucking on the fox teat or from many other liberal and conservative sources, this lack of informed decision making will destroy our society.
I know the libs do it too, but Reagans war on the middle class can have not other outcome than a return to something very like feudalism – king george would be loving the Koch bros manipulation of the uneducated masses
Education is the key but more and more we are turning our educational system into a vocational training ground for worker ants – time to put philosophy, art, literature, civics and all those other “hard to measure” classes back into the basic education and leave much of the vocational training to the jobs that require training. Let’s educate our population to understand history, cause and effect, critical thinking before we teach them how to put pegs in holes.

In Jefferson's time they attempted to weed out the uneducated by refusing to allow women and blacks the right to vote. It was more difficult to cast a vote then, sometimes requiring a great deal of travel, and as a result only those very serious about the process did vote. Today it's so easy to vote, you're likely to get all types to vote.

[billy.pilgrim]

it's not me who wants to differentiate between words with different meanings – that would be the different meanings attributed to these two very different words
and no need for a knowledge test to weed out the uninformed.
The 1st step as described by President Jefferson would be to work toward a more educated citizenry. I believe in free speech but outright lies designed to inflame the ignorant and to create further ignorance of important issues is no different than crying, “Fire” is a crowded theater – it is destroying this country and has to stop
Weather it comes from the home sculed, those sucking on the fox teat or from many other liberal and conservative sources, this lack of informed decision making will destroy our society.
I know the libs do it too, but Reagans war on the middle class can have not other outcome than a return to something very like feudalism – king george would be loving the Koch bros manipulation of the uneducated masses
Education is the key but more and more we are turning our educational system into a vocational training ground for worker ants – time to put philosophy, art, literature, civics and all those other “hard to measure” classes back into the basic education and leave much of the vocational training to the jobs that require training. Let’s educate our population to understand history, cause and effect, critical thinking before we teach them how to put pegs in holes.

In Jefferson's time they attempted to weed out the uneducated by refusing to allow women and blacks the right to vote. It was more difficult to cast a vote then, sometimes requiring a great deal of travel, and as a result only those very serious about the process did vote. Today it's so easy to vote, you're likely to get all types to vote.

are you trying to deliberately miss my point.
jefferson had slaves too - does that make everything he said and did wrong? I don't think so.

jefferson believed in education - we have lost that belief in our current corporate owned government - an educated populous doesn't put up with as much bullshit and tends to be more unruly

could that be why jebbie removed "civics" from the required high school curriculum and why all the corporate cons are trying to destroy the public school system by diverting resources to the flat earth home schulers?