No, the Egyptian protesters have not given up.
Agence France-Presse reports:
AFP journalists overlooking the square confirmed it was the biggest gathering yet in a movement which began on January 25. Witnesses in Egypt's second city Alexandria said a march there also attracted record numbers.
A new Gallup poll shows that Americans support the protesters. As Salon notes:
Gallup is out with a new national poll on Americans' views of the pro-democracy protests in Egypt. The results show that fear-mongering by some in the media about a post-Mubarak Egypt has apparently not taken hold, with huge majorities expressing sympathy for the protesters:
Overall, are you sympathetic or unsympathetic to the protestors in Egypt who have called for a change in the government?
Very sympathetic 42 | Somewhat sympathetic 40 | Somewhat unsympathetic 6 | Very unsympathetic 5 | No opinion 6
So 82 percent of Americans are sympathetic to the protesters. Among those who are "following the situation in Egypt very or somewhat closely," that number actually goes up slightly, to 87 percent. The irony here, of course, is that Americans are on the side of protesters fighting a regime that the U.S. government has been propping up for decades.
Salon also indirectly questions whether we currently have a Democratic system of government in America, let alone Egypt:
And it's an open question whether public opinion in the U.S. will have an impact on the Obama administration's Egypt policy, which has notably shifted in the past few days away from calls for immediate change.
Indeed, for years, the American government has largely ignored what the people want. See this, this, this, this, this and this.
Another interesting poll would ask:
ReplyDelete1. How much money people think we have given the people who rule Egypt/US defense contractors over the last three decades.
2. If people know whether any Egyptian elections have been described as free, fair etc.
3. If people are aware of human rights violations in Egypt, specifically torture.
4. If people are aware of the role of Egypt in extraordinary rendition.
5. If people are aware of the VP and his role in torture as well as his relationship with the US.
If an honest accounting were given of these issues, would those poll numbers changes? I hope the answer would be "yes" and that there would be even more support for the people of Egypt.
Read this, please.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marketskeptics.com/2011/02/frank-wisner-president-mubaraks.html
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2011/02/frank-wisner-is-in-cairo-at-request-of.html