Reply #136: Ah, Northzax, you need some old-fashioned CIA training to be able to write

[Peace Patriot]

better propaganda for Exxon Mobile and the war profiteers! This won't do. Exxon Mobile shareholders = prisoners in very rough prisons, indeed, who may or may not get military tribunals to decide their fates.

But what has Exxon Mobile to do with human rights in Egypt? This must be puzzling to some readers of this thread. Advice to them: find any current thread about Chavez and Venezuela, and see Northzax defending Exxon Mobile's "property rights" against the interests of the vast poor majority of Venezuelan, whose democratically elected government and president offered Exxon Mobile a 40% share of the oil profits from Venezuelan oil, a deal which Exxon Mobile snootily turned down and went running into first world courts to freeze $12 billion of the assets of the Venezuelan poor--to kneecap Venezuela into giving more profits to Exxon Mobile--which just reported the highest profits of any U.S. corporation, ever. The Venezuelan deal was fine for France's Total, and Conoco is in talks about it. Not Exxon Mobile. They have another plan. Read about it here:

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

Economic warfare against Venezuela, destabilization of the country, to be followed by "swift" U.S. action in support of "friends and allies" in South America (i.e., fascist thugs planning coups).

Northzax wants us to believe that Exxon Mobile is just like the corner "mom and pop" grocery store, and wants to invest Exxon Mobile--a gigantic multinational with loyalty to no one--with human rights and personhood. But Exxon Mobile is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. Only people are mentioned. And only people have rights. Exxon Mobile has no rights--no right to exist, no right to profit, no right to own property and amass fantastic wealth and power in perpetuity. They are a mere consortium--which must be chartered by a sovereign people to do business, and must be licensed, and must follow whatever rules the sovereign people require of the officers of the corporate entity. They are, in other words, nothing--Exxon Mobile has no sovereignty. It is a mere investment convenience for people with cash at hand.

Northzax is here equating the human rights of ACTUAL PEOPLE with this nothing entity, Exxon Mobile and its mythical "right" to the oil that belongs to the people of Venezuela. And for the same reason, I think--in support of Exxon Mobile's mythical "right" to the oil in Iraq, and Iran, which is closely related to what is happening in Egypt.

I don't care what the Muslim Brotherhood believes or advocates. The people at risk are HUMAN BEINGS, in prison with vague or no charges against them, facing military tribunals (kangaroo courts--as in Guantanamo). It does no good to smear over the issue by saying they are undesirables--they have beliefs we don't agree with, or to associate INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE with the views or actions of an organized group of people--guilt by association! We had quite enough of that, thank you, during the red-baiting, anti-communist Joe McCarthy era. You DON'T HOLD SOMEONE IN PRISON FOR THE GROUPS THEY BELONG TO. Otherwise you have witch-hunts, and that's what's going on in Egypt. You must charge individual prisoners with a CRIME, and prove they committed the CRIME. Belonging to a group is not a crime!

And who is to say that the Muslim Brotherhood's ideas are not better for Egypt than George Bush's and Donald Rumsfeld's? That's up to the Egyptian people to decide. Some Islamic peoples are seeking the communal power of Islam as a bootstrap, after the slashing and burning of Middle Eastern societies--and the deliberate destruction of their democracies by western powers (as in Iran, for instance)--for a couple of centuries now. They need unity. They need LITERACY. They need informal community banks and micro-loans. They need plumbing and electricity. They need family and community strength--because of what we have done to them. We are responsible for the rise of Islam as a unifying force. We drove the Iranians into the arms of the mullahs, by destroying their democracy. We support dictators! --because we don't give a crap for these people, we just want their oil!

And the Bush Junta has probably blown any chance we had to liberalize Islamic society. "Muslim brotherhoods" of various kinds, in various countries, are grass roots movements, from the people up. They are far more representative than Exxon Mobile, or the Bush Junta. We may have learned, from our own history, the extreme peril of the state establishment of religion, but we can't share that lesson with them--they are deaf to us--because of the cruelty and mass murder and greed of the few in our own society.

I think it's quite visionary of Cindy Sheehan to see past all the bullshit of our society, and to reach out to the WOMEN of Egyptian society who are being harmed by repression, torture and jailings of their fathers, sons and husbands. These women are trapped. They have few rights without the protection of male family members. That is not their fault. That is a social condition that the U.S. has fostered ! Look at Saudi Arabia, the Bush Junta's favorite Arab country! Making common cause with oppressed women, and abused prisoners, is a good thing. It's what America should stand for in the world. And I have no idea why Cindy Sheehan took up this particular cause. Perhaps it's personal--a personal contact. Or because she was able to get into Egypt. But it is consistent with her position on human rights--which should be our country's position--in many other activities, including protests of Guantanamo Bay. And who are we to question it? We, who do nothing. We, who let Bushites torture prisoners, with complete impunity. We, who descry Sharia Law, and have no control over own government, and who let them 'count' all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code, owned and controlled by rightwing corporations. We have a lot of nerve criticizing Cindy Sheehan for supporting international law, the Constitution, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Geneva Conventions--when we can't get our own laws enforced here.

And guess why that is? Because Northzax's buds at Exxon Mobile--this monstrous, out-of-control corporation--are running our government!