I think I've figured it out

[Duer 157099]

We, Americans, are spectators.

We are vicariously experiencing what is happening in Egypt, in exchange for actually doing anything ourselves here.

[lame54]

1. Just another reality show

[el_bryanto]

2. Well also perhaps we don't believe our government to be quite so irredeemably corrupt

Although many do. Those tea partiers for example, seem to think some sort of revolution might be in order.

Bryant

[Duer 157099]

4. I don't mean overthrowing the government, per se

just to protest in large numbers for what most of We The People actually want in our lives and country (namely, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness)

[Raster]

5. Our government is so irredeemably corrupt. We're just better at presentation.

We're also just diabolical enough to outsource our truly evil shit, case in point: Egypt and Pharaoh Hosni. Egypt was our top-of-the-list rendition destination when we needed someone barbarically tortured and/or disappeared. It's truly amazing to hear American politicians talk about "our special relationship with Egypt;" we are the evil monarch preferring not to get our hands dirty while Mubarak's secret police acted as our faithful torturer in the palace dungeon called Egypt.

"They hate us for our freedoms." No they don't. They hate us because we are evil, self-serving bastards.

[el_bryanto]

7. You should run for President

"My fellow Americans, we are evil, self-serving bastards."

Bryant

[CrispyQ]

9. "They hate us because we are evil, self-serving bastards."

:applause:


A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present
by William Blum

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html

snip...

The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:

* making the world safe for American corporations;
* enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;
* preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
* extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a "great power."

This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not.

The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations in this period.

~more at link

[Raster]

3. Bread and circuses. We really are the New Rome.

[elocs]

6. In this country the overwhelming majority of people are too comfortable and too satisfied

with life here. If Egypt had the huge political schism and bitter division that this country has it is likely what has happened would not have occurred, or at least not without a lot of bloodshed.

A big percentage of people eligible to vote in the U.S. simply cannot be bothered to do so. Yet in third world countries or places which get democracy for the first time you find its citizens willing to walk for miles and to risk their lives to cast a vote.

Ironically, those who might be motivated to do something Egypt-like would be the teabaggers, but also at the heart of them they are far, far too comfortable with their lives to risk losing anything.

[CrispyQ]

8. We just want cheap trinkets & to be entertained.

As long as we have Walmart, reality TV, NASCAR & the next blockbuster Hollywood movie, we are fine. We have been successfully anesthetized by the corporate elite.

The key to this success, however, is that there are still too many people with too much to lose. How far are the rich going to push it? When they take it all, we will finally be free & the pitch forks will come out.

"You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again." ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn