Sunday, March 20, 2011

Oh, Shit! The Revolution Was Televised!

Oh Shit! The Revolution Was Televised!

This essay was written before the new developments with the U.N involvement with the approval of the Arab League of a ‘No Fly Zone’ over Libya. So of course my readers (whoever you are) must please excuse the datedness of this essay. As it stand the next essay to follow ‘A fine time to be neutral! Do something Washington!’ title will of course have to be changed. The new title ‘Situation Libya- The ‘No Fly Zone debate.’ There is always an apparent down side to writing a blog article when you have other interests beyond trying to add your thoughts to the various opinions out there in the world. (One of these days if my “readers” are really, really, good I might right an essay on why I do this facata thing in the first place.) Meanwhile the upside to be just one step behind all the news out there in the world is that I get to have a fresh new take on situations. Believe it or not it’s not always not the smartest move to be stuck in your opinion, being set in your ways about an opinion you feel strongly about can really leave you looking like a fool, a stubborn one at that, plus you can never learn new experience in life if you never have an open mind. That being said I still believe some of my original premise that the current situation needs to be supported. However this preface is turning into another article. So ‘readers’ here’s “Oh Shit! The Revolution Was Televised!”

And it was on the internet where it all started. Wow! I mean wow! Talk about coming out of left field. Like I said at my introduction to this piece; who would have bet on a revolution happening in the Middle East? Not me? Not all the political pundits out there who were to busy demonizing Middle Eastern cultural, religion, and politics. Not the many people who were buying all the propaganda since 9/11. I being one of those people, after a while of course I went back to using my sense of fairness and realize the difference between Muslim Fundamentalist Terrorists and every other Muslim in the world. The powers that be of course just love it when we fight and fuss at each other for shear bullshit. It takes away from all the cold callus crap that they throw at us year after year, decade after decade. But I digress.

Any who, when I first heard the second shot heard around the world my first thought was of course as mentioned earlier was “Wow” then I listen to the anchorpersons on the T.V news networks and the pundits on Charlie Rose. (By the by if you really want all the real deal blow by blow your best bet is to watch Charlie Rose on PBS. More lately in other articles about how the Republican government in Congress screwed the American People out of another positive free thinking organization.) It really brought home the real ideals of Democracy.

Now when your average person, no matter where they from, think about democracy they automatically think America. No matter the varying opinion of American Foreign policy or American Government interference. But ask any political historian that hasn’t been indoctrinated by the American mythos and they’ll tell you; democracy did not start nor does it end with the United States Of America. I could go on about the Greeks, Romans, and the Magna Carta-brought to us ironically from England, but then I do not think there is any person that has patience with a ten page essay on that? Sufficed to say anyone with half a brain must realize that the foundation of most democratic countries owes a debt to those mentioned and many more. Democracy can be found in Italy, France, England, and Canada. Look east in Eastern Europe and people were fighting for their unalienable rights in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

Many people like myself had doubts that in regions like Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and yes especially Libya. I mean along with almost everybody that watches the news and hears every C.I.A conspiracy theory or story out there has heard about the U.S government support of countries such as this, (for the exception of Libya believe or not), facing the facts or stories that because of one interest or another; Oil, so-called Political Stability, plain ole Economics. Whatever! You name it there always seems to be a reason for letting civil liberties falter. People, brave people have been thrown into prison, killed, tortured, because they dared to blow the whistle on these dictatorships that flourish for whatever cold-hearted, so-called logical reason that some governments can name. The thinking that someday, some how the security of Democracy in Democratic countries, the interests that seemed important at the time will do some good in the long run.

We citizens in these democratized countries who live in shear bliss of ignorance of the hard fought revolutions that brought us here have no idea what our current democratic governments have done in the name of stability and how unstable these countries under these dictatorships were and are. So we’re so surprised at this because we have forgotten that civil rights didn’t start with Martian Luther King or Gandhi, freedom wasn’t something that was forged at Valley Forge, for a people to feel like they have some sort of control over their lives in these countries they just can’t pick up a picket sign and protest in front of their local government with no more stress than standing behind some barricade and a couple of local police force. No in order to fight for the same democracy that you and me take for granted these people have to face military force, detainment, torture, and martial law. One day we in the Western democracy will have to face the fact that freedom aian’t free for anyone. Working for it takes work that I don’t think the average person in a free democracy would have the strength for.

So bravo to the brave people in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya! Unlike that old saying from the sixties. The revolution has been televised!

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