Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Wall Street Journal flaunts its support for dictatorship

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Wall Street Journal flaunts its support for dictatorship

by David Walsh from World Socialist Web Site.

The editors of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal have therefore felt it necessary to come to the defense of the dictatorships propped up by Washington. In an editorial February 16 (“Egypt and Iran”), the Journal uses the occasion of police repression by the Iranian regime to make the case for US-backed dictators.

The WSJ argues that "...pro-American dictatorships have more moral scruples."

I've read elsewhere (can't remember where) some observations by people on the ground in Egypt that the Egyptian Generals didn't trust their army to fire on the people, and feared that the guns might be turned on them.