No army can stop an idea whose time has come

According to Juan Cole, some 300 Egyptians were shot dead in the last week, protesting the dictator Hosni Mubarak's regime.  One can reasonably estimate a couple of thousand (at least) have been wounded.  The resolve of the demonstrators, in the face of the usual tactics of the American Empire, remains.  It is on that basis that I conclude that real change is under way in Egypt.

The present president of the US, to the adulation of the Establishment news media, has declared our support for a Mubarak substitute who is a known CIA agent.  He once offered to chop the arm off a suspected terrorist, if the US wanted.  United States embassy cables from Cairo, posted by Wikileaks, show Omar Suleiman, the new "vice-president" of Egypt, wins praise from officials of the Israeli military, not a group known to favor Arab democracy.  To replace Hosni Mubarak with Omar Suleiman would be the equivalent of replacing George W. Bush with Barack Obama, so far as the American Empire is concerned.  Met the new boss, same as the old boss.

A progressive movement that continues to put thousands of non-violent demonstrators in the streets every day, in the face of hundreds of violent deaths, forms the basis for optimism, however, even when confronting cynical manipulation.  Such a movement, recall, brought down the Soviet Union in 1991 and secured civil rights for blacks in the United States in 1965.

Intelligent tactics by the Green Party of the United States are highly desirable; the choice of a slogan which resonates well is valuable; due deliberation in how we present ourselves is a necessity.  But let us not imagine that we can obtain our aims by means of glitter or glamor: real change requires the lifetime commitment by millions.