Ok, so, let me get this straight:
The U.S. called on the Palestinians to hold free and fair democratic elections.
The Palestinians held free and fair democratic elections.
Hamas won the elections.
The U.S., not liking the outcome, cut off all support payments in an effort to starve out the Hamas government.
Palestine essentially has a two-party system: Fatah and Hamas. Fatah was in power. When Hamas won the election, the U.S. didn't like it. So that begs the question:
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF CALLING FOR ELECTIONS IF THE PARTY YOU WANTED IN POWER WAS ALREADY IN POWER?
It also begs another question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM WITH DEMOCRACY?
Can someone please name for me one point since the founding of our democracy that the United States has actively engaged in "spreading democracy"? Various administrations have talked about it ad nauseum, but I can't think of a single instance where our global policy has been the fostering of democracies.
And, because of this, when democracy does happen despite the government's best attempts to crush it, it's a democracy that hates our fucking guts. I wonder why that is?
-pb
The U.S. called on the Palestinians to hold free and fair democratic elections.
The Palestinians held free and fair democratic elections.
Hamas won the elections.
The U.S., not liking the outcome, cut off all support payments in an effort to starve out the Hamas government.
Palestine essentially has a two-party system: Fatah and Hamas. Fatah was in power. When Hamas won the election, the U.S. didn't like it. So that begs the question:
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF CALLING FOR ELECTIONS IF THE PARTY YOU WANTED IN POWER WAS ALREADY IN POWER?
It also begs another question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM WITH DEMOCRACY?
Can someone please name for me one point since the founding of our democracy that the United States has actively engaged in "spreading democracy"? Various administrations have talked about it ad nauseum, but I can't think of a single instance where our global policy has been the fostering of democracies.
And, because of this, when democracy does happen despite the government's best attempts to crush it, it's a democracy that hates our fucking guts. I wonder why that is?
-pb
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pbagosy- Paul Bagosy
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The period during and immediately after the second world war. Japan, West Germany, Italy, Phillipines, South Korea were examples of these. None of these countries hate our fucking guts. Most of these are our allies these days, and have been for many decades.
I knew I was going to walk into it with that statement, which is why I carefully worded it: I don't think, at any time, our "global policy" has been to spread democracy. Any instances of actual democracy-spreading are few and far between, and almost always in our own military and economic "best interests" and contingent upon that democracy dancing to our beat. The second they step out of line, wham bam here comes Pinochet and his CIA backers.
-pb
-pb
The Japanese are not at all happy with us. They feel rightly that we've done a lot of cultural polluting. Our soldiers rape and murder their children with some regularity, particularly in Okinawa, the totally unwilling host of a Marine Corps. base.
The Phillipines threw us out of there in the 1980's!!! The dictator we put in there, Marcos, raped the shit out of his people economically, so much so that it is now a death penalty offense there to loot the national treasury while in office and at least one official has faced those charges (although they let him slide)!!!
We were abusing the Phillipines terribly, which they documented in great detail in a film that was banned in the USA by the Federal Government until the mid-1980's, and seeing this film is one of the things that eventually led me into the Left. The Phillipines were the Thailand of America's Military. We culturally indoctrinated and ablated these people, and they've never really recovered from it. Another thing they've never really recovered from is how we colonized the hell out of them economically and crippled their ability to get their legs after we were forced to pull out by a deeply angry populace that literally chased our abusive military personnel into their bases.
Today, the Filipino people have become a nation of temps, and it's at least in large part our fault.
When the guys we didn't like got power in Palestine, it was because the Palestinian people know and see things that we do not: Israel is hateful and genocidal, and must be stopped at all costs. As usual, however, the USA is on the side of the hegemonic genocidalists.