Potter Off Key on Iran
Andrew Potter, in his piece using the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew the shah as an example of the way hopeful protests can result in totalitarian rule (“Paradox In The Middle East,” March 24, 2011), somehow neglects to mention that the shah was only in power because the CIA, in the first of what would become a long string of its regime changes, in conjunction with the British secret service in 1953 overthrew the progressive, democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and replaced him with Shah Reva Pahlavi, the former constitutional monarch who had previously fled the country. The shah became the hated U.S. puppet tyrant overthrown in 1979, and there is little doubt that the quarter-century of simmering resentment at what the U.S. and Britain had done enabled the power grab of the ayatollahs.
Jim Collins
Brimfield
*
It is impossible to address everything that is wrong with Andrew Potter’s “Paradox in the Middle East: Why revolution and liberalism just don’t mix” in the space allowed here, but I will try to touch on a few points.
To begin with, I have to ask how Potter knows that what the revolutionaries in the Arab world want is “what we want” for them, which he claims is “Western-style democracy.” If by “we” he means Western governments, they have had a funny way of showing it considering their long-standing financial, military and political support for practically every dictator or absolute monarch in the region. If he means the general populace, he may be correct, given polls showing broad popular support in the U.S. for the Egyptian revolution.
But it is not clear that this support in the West is confined to democratic demands alone, given the popularity of signs at pro-union rallies in Wisconsin expressing support for the Egyptian uprising. And it is clear that from the beginning, the uprisings in the Arab world have been about much more than political freedoms. In fact, the earliest protests in Tunisia included calls to rectify unemployment and high food prices, crises caused in large part by the introduction of the “free market” principles Potter lauds as a necessary component of the liberalism Arabs are supposedly striving for.
The aspirations that Potter projects onto the Arab uprisings reflect his own belief in a Western system that does not exist in reality.
He describes “our system” as “the basket of legal, political and social principles that include individual rights, the rule of law and the separation of church and state.”
Yet individual rights have been trampled in the U.S. as our government has engaged in deplorable practices such as indefinite detention and torture, both of which undermine the “rule of law,” which has been further exposed as a sham as the high-level Bush administration officials responsible for these crimes have gone unpunished.
That our markets are anything approaching “free” is similarly laughable, as Wall Street tycoons who crashed the economy through massive fraud have almost to a head escaped punishment while receiving trillions in taxpayer dollars in bailouts and low-interest loans, an unprecedented injection of public money into private institutions.
Most disturbing is Potter’s equation of solidarity with “tribalism and blood lust,” which he uses to smear those who protest the G20 for many of the outrages I describe above. We live in an age of unprecedented inequality, not to mention wars and occupations that fuel much of the anger of protesters in the Arab world and beyond. Over 30 million people, including millions of children, die of malnutrition each year, despite enough food being produced to prevent each death and allow each child to develop normally.
In this country, foreclosures continue to rise and unemployment hovers near 10 percent (or declines slightly as many give up searching for work for good), while corporate profits reach record levels. Meanwhile, public sector unions and the social safety net are being further eroded under the pretext of a budget crisis caused by Wall Street.
Now, more than ever, solidarity is needed to turn back this attack on the living standards of the majority of people here and around the world. Anger and solidarity is for most of us a logical reaction. Rather than imagining that “we” are in a position to teach the people of the Arab world about “democracy” or “liberalism,” it is we should learn from their solidarity and willingness to stand up for what is right and just.
Gary Lapon
Northampton
*
Walker and Forgotten History
How much history does this idiot governor [Scott] Walker [of Wisconsin] want us to forget? The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where 100 years ago 146 people died in a fire for lack of exits? Republican Joe McCarthy from Wisconsin, who 60 years ago forever scarred the Senate with his anti-“commie” ramblings and persecutions? And Kent State, too, where 40 years ago Republican Nixon’s National Guard shot and killed unarmed Vietnam war protesters, as might happen to Walker’s protesters?
And where’s Obama? Where’s Biden? Where’s Hoyer, Reid, Franken, Feingold, Conyers, Towns or even Pelosi? Where is anyone to stand up and speak out for the Wisconsin 14, for protesters of this blatant class warfare, for unions, for unionization itself, for labor, for the working class—that is, for the majority of America?
J. Andrew Smith
Bloomfield, NJ
*
Tax Policy Exposes Nation’s Values
A recent letter to the editor (March 10, 2011) stated that people who think that the reason the states are having troubles are woefully and truly misinformed, and then went on to state that if the top 50 percent of income earners were to contribute their entire income, it would not solve the deficit problems of the federal and state governments.
Excuse me: this is a person accusing others of being misinformed? According to the Perot chart in 2005, those “top 50” paid over $930 billion in income tax. Because the wealthy have so many loopholes and dodges, and corporations pay such a tiny fraction of their profits, if anything, we have no way of knowing how much they (the top 50) actually made. But it would be hard to dispute that they probably made at least $5 trillion if they paid almost a trillion in taxes. Is the writer suggesting this would not help solve the deficit? In three years it would be completely paid off.
The writer goes on to say that it is not the role of government to make anyone’s life easier. I can only assume this person is talking about a totalitarian or dictatorial government because he certainly is not talking about ours. The Constitution, which so many give lip service to but so few seem to really care about, states in the preamble, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”
Promote the general welfare; why, yes, I believe the founders did feel that a function of the government is to help make people’s lives better.
It is not poor people’s ever-increasing expectations that are pushing us off a cliff. The poor can expect what they want. It is the rich and powerful who are driving and, if you don’t want to go over that cliff, railing at those who are hopelessly watching from the back of the bus is not going to accomplish anything, unless of course, you can get everyone to get up and remove the driver while there’s still time to change direction.
Stan Green
Greenfield
