PERHAPS ALL WE NEED IS A LITTLE RE-EDUCATION

8/2/11

The first paragraph of a page A1 story entitled “Egyptians Turn on Liberal Protesters” in today’s (i.e., Tuesday, 8/2’s) Wall Street Journal reads as follows:

Mobs of ordinary Egyptians joined with soldiers to drive pro-democracy (MQ—Pro democracy???!!!!, but I digress.) protesters from their encampment in Tahrir Square here Monday, showing how far the uprising’s early heroes have fallen in the eyes of the public.

The story goes on to say

Their (i.e., the “pro-democracy” protesters) continuing protests have also angered many Egyptians who want an end to unrest they say has frightened away foreign tourists, damaged the country’s economy, and increasingly undermined their livelihoods.

and to quote Mr. Tareq Shawky, a 42 year old toilet equipment vendor who took the time from his work (a concept with which the “pro-democracy” demonstrators have scant familiarity) to help dismantle the encampment of the “pro-democracy” yahoos. Mr. Shawky opined

“The Egyptian citizen wants only two things—security and low prices. The millions of Egyptians will do anything the army tells us to do.”

Where, oh where have you heard that the anti-Mubarak demonstrations (riots, really) had their origin in economic deprivation borne of a worldwide commodity inflation, not in a sudden awakening to the wisdom of the “pro-democracy” demonstrators who saw an opportunity to get on worldwide television and perhaps impose their vision of “democracy” on those who actually work for a living? Loyal readers, of course, remember, that such prescient sentiments were expressed in the following posts on this very website:

YOU BREAK IT YOU BOUGHT IT… 1/28/11
“…HE’S AN EGYPTIAN…” ??? 1/29/11, and
AFTER ALL THESE CENTURIES, THE EGYPTIANS STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH US, Parts I and II 2/3/11

What went on in Egypt and is going on now is a story as old as time: a group of overeducated, understimulated, extravagantly pampered yet remarkably doltish children of the very well off decide, with very little evidence other than being told their whole lives that they are just the most wonderful things ever to grace our universe, that they should be able to tell everyone else how to run their lives. Egged on by a consanguineous media, they act on their delusions of superior wisdom and insight by demonstrating, rioting, legislating, or otherwise seeking to impose their oddball visions of utopia on the those who actually work for a living, know better, and don’t need to be told how to conduct their lives by a bunch of kids whose most salient traits are a hyper-inflated self image that manifests itself by bad cases of diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the mind.

We saw this phenomenon in the ‘60s and ‘70s in this country when the sons and daughters of the wealthy decided it would be fun to cure their boredom, demonstrate their manifest insight, avoid having to deal with the real world, and maybe even get lucky by burning down the nation’s campuses. Such miscreants have since gone on to positions of great authority in government, politics, education, and the non-profit sector, positions from which they finally realize their dreams by wreaking even greater and more enduring damage on the nation they so despise.

The “pro-democracy” demonstrators in Egypt are cut from the same cloth as the self-determined superiors who continue to tear at the fabric of our society. Despite what they call themselves, they seek not that the people govern themselves but that they, the demonstrators, govern the people. The evidence of this “I’m going to impose on you what you need whether you like it or not” attitude is provided in the words of Mr. Mahmoud Abdallah, a “pro-democracy” demonstrator thus quoted in the Journal article:

“The people don’t know what is good for them. They don’t have any awareness. They just want to make money.”

Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, and Abby Hoffman, who never had to worry about making money because their parents gave it to them, couldn’t have said it better. I am sure that Mr. Mahmoud, like his American predecessors of the ‘60s, would be glad to impose on average Egyptians what is good for them, by force if necessary, just as a similar band of young, ever so self-confident idealists did in Russia in 1917.

The Journal quotes Sahdi Hamid, director of research at the Brooking Institution’s Doha Center as saying

“The liberal and leftist groups that were at the forefront of the revolution have lost touch with the Egyptian people.”

Mr. Hamid is wrong in this particular contention; the liberal and leftist groups, over which the American media fawned so effusively a few months ago, never were in touch with the Egyptian people.