Saudi Arabia has had only municipal elections that don't matter much politically. It makes more sense to compare, say, Iran and Egypt. For those who have already made up their minds, like most people on this mailing list, comparisons like this are useless, but if you meet those who haven't, out there in the real world, it may be useful.
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/10/iran-and-egypt.html> Iran and Egypt
Electoral turnouts are one indicator of the legitimacy of government. I'll compare Iran and Egypt, the most important powers in the MENA region.
* Iran
2005 Presidential Elections
Turnout: 62.7% (the first round) and 59.6% (the second round)
2004 Parliamentary Election
Turnout: 50%
* Egypt
2005 Presidential Election
Turnout: 22.9%
2005 Parliamentary Election
Turnout: 23%
I'd venture to say that Iran's electorate regard their government as more legitimate than Egypt's electorate do theirs.
But guess which government is Washington's target for "regime change," and which government is the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel?
On 10/23/07, Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> Andie's position is that we should concentrate on condemning the crimes of
> the U.S. but if we don't condemn the crimes of the Islamic fundamentalist
> clerics "we" are giving up on the people in Iran.
On 10/24/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Is it related to Yoshie's preposterous
> idea that if we tried harder we could have stopped the ____ war (fill
> in the blank)?
Two questions:
1. Why don't leftists in the USA trust the people of Iran to condemn the crimes committed by their own government and deal with them appropriately in due course?
2. Given the fact that leftists in the USA haven't been able to stop their own government from committing crimes at home and abroad (more of them abroad than at home), what makes them think that they can stop other peoples' governments from committing crimes?
On 10/23/07, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> Doug wrote:
>
> >On Oct 23, 2007, at 10:52 AM, Michael Smith wrote:
> >
> >> I started prowling back through
> >> it to see what terrible thing she's done this time. As usual,
> >> I took away the impression that she's taking a lot more personal
> >> insults than she's handing out, and in general, her tone is
> >> much more temperate and on-topic that her detractors'.
> >
> >Saying Andie, someone I know fairly well in the real world, and not
> >just as a dotcomrade (a word I just learned today, thanks to the
> >Urban Dictionary's word of the day), is just like Phyllis Chesler and
> >Little Green Footballs - repulsive entities, both of them - is a
> >slur, and a desperate one at that...
>
> "Just Like?" Yoshie said no such thing--she responded to a ridiculously
> intemperate (that she wanted to "let"...) insult by pointing out where
> in the real world such language is to be found.
And all that (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20071022/020182.html>) in response to my remark on "bourgeois wealth and liberties" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20071022/020177.html>).
I take it that in the USA there is an unwritten law that makes a crime of "insulting bourgeois wealth and liberties" -- not unlike, say, the crime of "insulting Turkishness" in Turkey -- enforcement of which, unlike in Turkey, is deputized to citizens in the USA.
On 10/23/07, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-10-23 at 11:17 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Saying Andie, someone I know fairly well in the real world, and not
> > just as a dotcomrade (a word I just learned today, thanks to the
> > Urban Dictionary's word of the day), is just like Phyllis Chesler and
> > Little Green Footballs - repulsive entities, both of them - is a
> > slur, and a desperate one at that. She's said similar things to me
> > many times.
>
> But at the risk of repeating myself, I don't think she did say that.
> She said what he wrote on a particular occasion wouldn't have
> been out of place on FR or LGF. That seems perfectly parliamentary
> to me, whether one agrees with it or not.
>
> > So if she apologizes to Andie and witdraws the slur, then she can
> > continue to post her three a day.
>
> You the commissar, comrade. But once more: I don't see the "slur."
Invent a crime, blame it on a perceived enemy, and demand a public recantation on pain of punishment. Now, that sounds all too familiar, doesn't it?
On 10/23/07, Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
> I suppose one could compare Yoshie's politics to those of, say, Abu Musab
> al-Zarqawi, whose video beheadings were an expression of anti-imperial
> resistance, at least in Yoshie's mind. But that would be unfair, since I
> doubt that Yoshie has the political fortitude to personally saw through a
> captive's throat and neck. But could she defend such practices at tedious
> length? If anybody could, it's Yoshie. That could be the next taboo she
> smashes.
Many liberals and some leftists follow their dumb and dumber rhetoric to its logical conclusion. You've been there before: <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20070917/017831.html>; and you're welcome to go back there again. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/>