So What the Hell Do You Want Lebanon?

Lebanese Flip Floppers
Originally uploaded by hellmar.

I feel a little silly for getting too excited about "freedom on the march" or "democracy on the traipse" that the media has been hyping in Lebanon. Look at the picture from Time magazine on top. Note the headline. The image evokes the epic heroism of the famous Iwo Jima monument. This must be BIG. Bush's policies of spreading democracy in the region are working! Isreal is pulling out of Palestine, Egypt wants to hold elections, Iraq already did, the Lebanese are demanding freedom and self-determination... oh wait, give it 24 hours, and its back to the same old middle east we've grown to love (occupying.)

At first glance it might appear that the picture above the blue line and the pictures below the blue line are from the same demonstration. Uh uuuhhh! Notice the Time magazine picture on top, the pro democracy demonstration, has a guy holding up a sign saying, "we just want to be free and to live in peace!" Of course they do, everybody wants that. Awesome. Now note the signs in the bottom pictures, "America is the source of terrorism," and "no for the American interference."

Just when we though the hearts and minds of the Arab world were starting to come around and realize that living in oppression, poverty and war are not as good as living in freedom, peace, and prosperity; the next day, Hezbollah, labelled a terrorist organization by the US, (although so are Tommy Chong and the NRDC) organized a huge 'pro-Syrian oppression' rally that dwarfed the pro-democracy rallies of the previous days. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Hezbollah supporters showed out to demonstrate that these progressive-liberal-anti-Lebanon-unpatriotic-socialist-pinko-commies that oppose Syrian totalitarianism are in the minority. "We want an oppressive, human rights trampling, al qaeda sympathizing, theocracy! When do we want it? NOW!" they chanted. Oh yeah, we already have it. "Well we don't want that to change!"
So what the hell DO they want? So many of them want prosperity, but even more seem to want evil to reign. Don't they know what's good for them?

I suppose any remotely intelligent persons living outside the United States probably asked the same thing about America on November 3rd. They probably asked, "gee, it seems like a large portion of Americans are very angy that their country is dominated by a fascist militaristic regime that seized power in a political coup and has proceeded to declare war on civil rights, the poor, the middle class, the Constitution, secularists, and the environment; handed control of the government to private industry; pushed the country into the deepest national debt in history; was caught blatantly lying and crying wolf, and sabotaged its role as leader of truth and justice in the free world. So how come so many people seem to be in favor of all that? Why did the Destruction-of-America party win?" I think that people are afraid of change. People prefer a framiliar oppression over a change for the better. Consider how many slaves, after the emancipation, stayed on their plantations for the rest of their lives. They didn't know how to live any other way. When you've been trampled your whole life, freedom can be scary.
Its interesting that such vehemently anti-American Hezbollah and vehemently jingoist pro-fascist-America red staters can be diametrically opposed yet still have so much in common.