America's Dictator Addiction -- Sirota

[Donnachaidh]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/david-sirota/34120/americas-dictator-addiction

As the Obama administration continues to treat the U.S.-taxpayer-financed dictator Hosni Mubarak with kid gloves, media outlets like Salon have rightly pointed out that our support of undemocratic tyrants is not limited to Egypt. It has become more the norm than the exception. The question is: why? Why are we, a supposed beacon of democracy, so invested in so many dictatorships?

Obviously, there are many answers to that question. Some of it has to do with imperial aspirations, as taboo as that is to even mention. Some of it has to do with good ol' fashioned Big Money lobbying, as I showed yesterday. And some of it has to do with what Dr. Martin Luther King identified in his Riverside Church speech: We back dictators over democracy because we "refuse to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments" -- profits often guaranteed by dictators where they wouldn't be so guaranteed by popularly elected governments.

As powerful as these motives are, however, there is still one other factor at play: addiction.

Dictators are, in a way, like a drug. We start out backing them, perhaps thinking it will be a momentary alliance, just like a person might take a single hit from the pipe. But then, the subjugated population begins to revolt, just like the body begins to revolt without the drug. So we start intensifying our support for the dictator to keep the increasingly restive population down, just like the addict starts to consume more drugs to prevent the body from going into a more painful withdrawal.

More at the link --

[mmonk]

1. Quite an old age story with us.

It's why they hate us (remember that question?).

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[Billy Burnett]

3. And yet we spend millions/year trying to overthrow and undermine Cuba.

Cuba, that has 100% literacy, full and complete world class universal health care, and full and complete world class universal education, full social gender equality, has achieved WWF sustainability goals (the only nation to do so), and has no army occupying anyplace, plus sends Drs and teachers all over the word to better the conditions of the downtrodden. None of these are hallmarks of dictatorship.
This, we spend millions to undermine and bring to an end.

[chimpymustgo]

4. Thanks for posting. The scales are beginning to fall off SOME eyes.

[treestar]

5. Stability is likely the bigger value

but why are we responsible for every government in the world?

Do we get credit for the democracies too then? Sheesh!

[tekisui]

6. We support and prop the dictators up. They wouldn't be there if not for our support.

Get it?

We work against democracy in those situations. We can take credit for not interfering in another county's democracy, if in fact we don't.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. We're up in everyone's business. eom

[treestar]

10. What would be there?

If we had not supported whatever is there?

Are you saying that any country, like Egypt, has no say in what their government is, and that WE alone determine other countries' governments?

[tekisui]

11. No, that is the position Obama's WH is taking.

He should support the people, not the oppressors.

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[leftstreet]

9. So that's why "we" de-stabilize governments first? To plead stability later?

Got it

[Cleita]

16. I like David but I disagree with his addiction theory.

I believe he hit the nail on the head with MLK's assertion. We back dictators over democracy because we "refuse to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments" -- profits often guaranteed by dictators where they wouldn't be so guaranteed by popularly elected governments.

That simply put is it. I witnessed this M/O in action in the years I lived in South America.