Protesters in Tahrir Square yesterday protesting SCAF's constitutional declaration and recent court decisions
Photo, Al Jazeera
It wasn't exactly a re-enactment of last years Arab Spring in Cairo's Tahrir Square yesterday as thousands of people gathered there in support of Mohamed Morsi, the apparent winner in this past weekend's presidential runoff election while protesting against the recent decisions by SCAF, the military council ruling Egypt, that restricted the powers of a new president as well as the Supreme Court dissolving the popularly elected parliament.
But it was a sign, according to a statement by the Muslim Brotherhood, which said, "The Egyptian people will not stop making sacrifices and will continue the revolution in order to ensure sovereignty and prevent the domination of the military and their coup against democracy".
Protests also spread to Suez, Alexandria and other cities in Egypt.
If anything, the protests yesterday were a direct challenge to the continued authoritarian rule by the military and its assertion made on Sunday it will retain "the power to control the prime minister, lawmaking, the national budget and the declaration of war without any supervision or oversight", which was widely interpreted by many people as a coup by the military.
Now some in the U.S. may wonder why dwell on the events in Egypt, the militarist's coup and their openly announced intention of retaining the ultimate power in Egypt?
Well what is happening in Egypt is a microcosm of our problems here in the U.S. but the militarist's coup in the U.S. is saluted rather than condemned, where triumphalism and extolling our military is exalted while our elections are auctioned off to the highest bidders.
In Egypt there has been an openly avowed coup by the military who contend they are in charge "without any supervision or oversight".
In the U.S. we have a military/industrial/political complex that has quietly, yet inexorably placed weapons manufacturing and production in 44 states with a defense budget, when considering all related expenditures i.e. wars, weapons manufacturing, homeland security, some 834 military bases worldwide, veterans expenses, payments to private contractors, State Department security related expenses et al, is close to a trillion dollars per year, all enacted by Congress signed into law by the president with hardly a murmur of objection or any questioning.
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