On Jul 2, 2013, at 12:04 AM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
>
> On 02/07/2013, at 1:45 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
>> There was nothing "democratic" about Morsi's election. The first
>> round was falsified to present Morsi as the alternative to a
>> Mubarek supporter, so the voters in fact had no choice. The
>> "parliament" was illegal and dissolved. The "constitution" was
>> written by the MB and imposed by plebscite. The most democratic
>> outcome would be the popular overthrow of Morsi's "democratically
>> elected" regime. But a destitution of Morsi followed by military-
>> supervised democratic elections would be second best.
>
> We may well quibble about the definition of "democratic", but the
> process you describe sounds like the conventional democratic process
> practiced, for example, in the USA. (Though I'm not sure Americans
> ever got a plebiscite about their constitution. but that, again, is
> quibbling.) Anyway, it may not be ideal, but it is "democracy" as
> we know it.
I don't accept the idea that the US is in any sense a democracy--that notion was shredded definitively by the US Supreme Court in its authoritative Bush v Gore decision. And Bush, in every sense was a MORE democratic president than Morsi.
> The point is I guess, Egyptians are new to the idea of democracy.
What snobbery! The millions of Egyptians demanding the resignation of Morsi the public squares, the twenty-two million signing petitions demanding the resignation of the MB government, that is a grasp of the idea of democracy--not the depressing reality of "leftists" endorsing electoral farces as "democratic."
> They are having a bit of trouble swallowing the depressing reality
> of it. Perhaps many would prefer a military dictatorship? (Or
> "military-supervised democratic elections", as you put it.)
And who exactly is to hold the elections? The Muslim Brotherhood?
Oh, Morsi has a "four year term" and so elections would be "undemocratic" unless put off for another three years of MB dictatorship!
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64