a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

I'm with you re this one.

we like giving lip service to democracy but what we really want more than anything else is stability and our economic interests secure. that trumps everything.

In the world of realpolitik those have always trumped everything. And an oligarchy is more likely to align with our interests than would a democracy atm, because current U.S. government functions as an oligarchy more than a democracy.

i think it's facile to say that an oligarchy will necessarily have the same or similar interests as another oligarchy. that would make geopolitics much simpler than it is.

also US foreign policy has never been subject to the sort of "democracy" that domestic politics have

but you'll get no argument from me re. our egypt policy being atrocious

Q: is "realpolitik" really just a 20th Century term for "the way empire has always functioned"?

we don't have an empire, i heard Bill Maher say so.

this is the thread where we self-congratulatorily affirm the fact of an american empire to one another

http://www.feelnumb.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/album-cover-rage-against-the-machine-evil-empire.jpg

woah lol huge soz

@sharifkouddous
State Dept official in 2010 email from Egypt to Hillary Clinton about Mubarak government: "They love you here"

https://twitter.com/sharifkouddous/status/711883543601942528

Ergodan below 50%

🔴#SONDAKİKA | Anadolu Ajansı'na göre Tayyip Erdoğan'ın oyu %50'nin altına düştü. (%49.99)

— ibrahim Haskoloğlu (@haskologlu) May 14, 2023

*Erdogan