Ah, but who gets the cheese? And, more importantly, what will they do with it when they have it? These are the questions most worth asking (albeit modified to suit your perfectly apt metaphor).

The Muslim Brotherhood overplayed it's hand when it attempted to preclude Shafiq, one of the top two vote getters in the initial presidential election, from running in the run-off. The courts viewed this as an illegal law and decided to take action. Instead of just overruling that one law, they decided to take it a step further and completely disband the Islamist controlled Parliament. The MB should have allowed the Presidential runoff to take place as planned with their candidate and Shafiq both in the running. By trying to essentially steal the presidency by taking Shafiq out of the race, leaving only their candidate, the MB and the parliament they controlled lost all claim to legitimacy. It will be interesting to see who wins the runoff this weekend, but I would be shocked at this point if it was not Shafiq. The people of Egypt were starting to become very worried about the direction the MB was taking the country so I doubt that they are going to elect their candidate to the presidency. I think that the MB realized this and that is why they used their control of parliament to try and take Shafiq out of the running to guarantee a win for their candidate and their control of the country. They overreached and have now basically lost everything.

And after all that, the Egyptian Military dissolves Parliament, assigns Constitution writing Committee, lets Egyptians have their silly little President Election....and Nothing has changed...The Military still rules Egypt...The New Egyptian President will have even less power than the Queen of England....

Just think....If they didn't have their "Arab Spring"....Mubarak would still be just as almost dead as he is and Egypt is just where it would have been anyway...

Poor folks, they get to chose between the lesser of two evils, now where else has that happened?

To be honest I'd rather have the Egyptian military in charge than a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists. The Egyptian military actually has a good record of working with the US against Terrorism. If Islam took over it would turn Egypt into another Pakistan or Iran.

Looks like Egypt might end up with US style Democracy after all...a choice between two candidates who don't deserve to be voted for...oh well

God help Egypt if the MB comes into power. That country will go backwards 1000 years. it would be best if the dust of the revolution were allowed to settle, and moderate candidates come forward. Unfortunately, the radicle Islamists have a foothold in Egypt, the middle east and Africa.

True enough.

@John

With respect to Egypt, I think the US acted exactly as they should have. We asked for Mubarak to step down peacefully in accordance with the will of the people. That was the right move, all clusterf*cks subsequent notwithstanding.

Libya was a bad move. We should not have run sorties, though admittedly I backed the move initially, in hindsight, it was the wrong move. Worse, it was a military action initiated without congressional approval, which is always wrong.

Syria... remind me again, have we even made any real decisions there? Other than wagging our finger at Assad, I mean...

To me, they have a choice of evils-and neither is a "lesser", unfortunately for the Egyptians, after all they've been through to get where they are. In our country, voting for either candidate is to cast a vote for what set of corporations are financially sponsored the candidate. That applies to both the White House and Congress. In the Supreme Court, they are simply wooed by the winning sponsors.

People in the US don't need to vote for a lesser of two evils, something I used to say also. They need to get off their apathetic b utts and impose change on an ineffectual government corrupted by the flood of money and staffers from big money America. The people, and small businesses, supply the revenue to run the operation, but big business and the wealthy run the show. They control the writing of our laws and government policy. Until that changes, we will never have a "government by the people", and voting for the lesser of two evils will always result in more of the same.

I wholeheartedly agree, tbrownjt (about our US problem). But how do we change it? As you say, (and it's absolutely true); "The people, and small businesses, supply the revenue to run the operation, but big business and the wealthy run the show. They control the writing of our laws and government policy."

I thought it was going to change with the OWS uprising, but the corporate puppets successfully brainwashed their drones among us into bashing their efforts by convincing said drones and certain media outlets that they had no cohesive agenda and just wanted socialistic redistributing of America's wealth. I thought the agenda was to force our politicians to start representing us instead of the corporations, Wall Street and banks. I didn't have any problem figuring that out. So how do we effect change when the 'money' controls who gets to run for President or Congress (therefore, who we can vote for), and 'money' squashes any voice of logic or reason against the status quo? Nobody that we might 'slip' into the Senate, for example, who would speak for us or who would legislate for us can possibly be effective or accomplish anything against 49 other Senators and the lobbyists who reward them to squash that one voice. Without a revolution, I just don't know how to do it.

It did not help burning the flag and vandalizing public property, they lost middle America the second that happened.

I actually remember when you would write a Congressman or Governor and get a written response back.

You can still get one. Just costs thousands of dollars to their campaign fund. Or corporate connections.

By the way, I'm referring to BOTH parties.

And frankly, we have the choice of what to cure our ailments? Castor oil or artificially flavored castor oil.

Too a lesser degree, we are in the same boat as the Egyptians.

Hey Steel Toed Boot-you too, put it correctly. I also thought OWS would be a catalyst for change, but when I saw the skewed focus, I emailed them, explaining that they had identified the villain but needed to go after the enablers, i.e. our government. Railing against Jamie Dimon wasn't going to amount to anything. Never got a response. They blew it and it was a waste of a huge opportunity.
When talking to friends about what's wrong, I find people look at me cross-eyed when I go off about our corrupted government. It tells me that people, for the most part, have yet to realize the problem and why nothing changes (and I used to wonder the same thing, starting with my first vote for a president in 1972).

My thoughts? The Gandhi approach. If and when people get angry enough, shut off funding of the operation by refusing to file and pay income taxes, while simultaneously flooding DC with millions of people to bring it to gridlock, and present petitions to all three branches with a set of reforms that eliminate, once and for all, the money flow and it's influence that it has on our politician's. And slam the revolving door shut between corporations and government when it comes to staffing at any level. It would be a silent protest-people just start showing up and fill up the city. Just gotta get 'em mad first.

When the CEO of Goldman Sacs can leave his job after making billions flooding the world with CMO's and get appointed Treasury Secretary to clean up the financial meltdown those same CMO's caused with taxpayer money, there's something seriously wrong. He made Bernie Madeoff look like a purse snatcher! But when I get into that with friends, they yawn. There's nothing you can do with that kind of apathy in the land-people need to get angry like they once did in the 60's and 70's.

I'm all done voting for the lesser of two evils, and I am looking for a real catalyst for change that will be effective and that I can throw my time and support into instead.

Jerry you be too funny. Of course here at home:

A. If a Repuglican wins it was rigged.

B. If a demorat wins it was a fair election.

@Jerry

It wasn't rigged. There was just a very wide field of candidates, which diluted the power of individual votes. Both of the current candidates initially won only about 20% of the overall vote each-- but that was more than any of the other candidates. Essentially, 60% of the country voted for other people, which is why they have no appetite to vote for these schmucks. No matter which one wins, they only have the blessing of a minority of the population to govern. The rest wanted someone else.

wakani-I checked it out and you're right, that IS an outstanding video!

Joe: Bush is gone. Do you fear GW that much? I sort of understand it but you after all we all must grow up.

wakani, i was trying to make a point about stolen elections in general. do i fear w bush? i fear anyone who would squander a trillion dollars and kill a quarter of a million people based on a lie.

Actually , you're forgetting the ballots found in the trunks of cars after the election. But that was after the final tally.

I'd love to find out how many absentee voters vote in another state in their so called absence. Remember, they pay taxes in both places.

That's exactly the attitude your ancestors had that we are now dealing with a major problem from the Islamists in this world. Wait until your neighborhood becomes Egypt then even if you care it won't matter.

Santa Clara: Are you referring to the Madison doctrine??

Remember ,"the halls of Tripoli"??? Our forces attacked, killed the bad guys, did NOT REBUILD.

Wonder how our budget would look like if we kept to that policy.

So the enemy of our enemy is our friend??

Isn't that why the CIA helped Bin Laden vs the Russians??

How well did that work for us???

@Scar

Actually, most US funding went to Ahmad Shah Massoud, the "Lion of Panjshir." He was assassinated by the Taliban. Meanwhile, the Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, married off one of his daughters to Osama.

The mujahideen backed by the US in Afghanistan are not the Taliban nor Al Qaeda. Some individual members of either group may have seen some impact from US resources, but the vast majority of the mujahideen were murdered by the Taliban after the Soviets left-- mostly for having "western sympathies."