Fwd: [news] Iraq vote unfaq

"?I couldn?t think of a scene more beautiful than that …?

… So say Mohammed and Omar at Iraq the Model, and we?re not about to disagree. People who live in countries where liberal democracy is far too easily taken for granted - and even, appallingly, sneered at by the converging elitists of the right and the pseudo-left, who imagine that they could do much better if only the masses would turn to them - are in no position to carp at the courage and determination of those who voted in Iraq on Sunday, a day that will be right up there in the history of political progress with Christmas Day 1989, when Romanians risked their lives to get rid of their own Stalinist dictatorship. It?s one more nail in the coffin of dictatorship, and, for the deranged apologists of fascism and terrorism, who have read too little Marx and not understood even what they have read, one more kick up the backside (where their brains appear to be located).
Harry?s Place and Normblog have lots of links to news and comment and photographs, and the saner commenters at the former blog are doing a fine job of squashing the moronic nonsense from the usual suspects […] The best one-liner so far comes from Phomesy: ?Anti-imperialism - the right for white middle-class blowhards to tell other people what to do!?
[…] we?re in the mood for joyful laughter right now, so we?ll single out this, from Scrappleface [via Normblog]:

Iraqi Voting Disrupts News Reports of Bombings
Scott Ott

News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi ?insurgents? voting by the millions in their first free democratic election.
Despite reporters? hopes that a well-orchestrated barrage of mortar attacks and suicide bombings would put down the so-called ?freedom insurgency?, hastily formed battalions of rebels swarmed polling places to cast their ballots - shattering the status quo and striking fear into the hearts of the leaders of the existing terror regime.
Hopes for a return to the stability of tyranny waned as rank upon rank of Iraqi men and women filed out of precinct stations, each armed with the distinctive mark of the new freedom guerrillas - an ink-stained index finger, which one former Ba?athist called ?the evidence of their betrayal of 50 years of Iraqi tradition?.
Journalists struggled to put a positive spin on the day?s events, but the video images of tyranny?s traitors choosing a future of freedom overwhelmed the official story of bloodshed and mayhem. "

http://marxist-org-uk.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_marxist-org-uk_archive.html#110714544215544103
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2005/01/people-have-won.html
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/
http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/002047.html

- Rob.

> People who live in countries where liberal democracy is far too
> easily taken for granted - and even, appallingly, sneered at by the
> converging elitists of the right and the pseudo-left, who imagine that
> they could do much better if only the masses would turn to them - are
> in no position to carp at the courage and determination of those who
> voted in Iraq on Sunday, a day that will be right up there in the
> history of political progress with Christmas Day 1989, when Romanians
> risked their lives to get rid of their own Stalinist dictatorship.
> It?s one more nail in the coffin of dictatorship, and, for the
> deranged apologists of fascism and terrorism, who have read too little
> Marx and not understood even what they have read, one more kick up the
> backside (where their brains appear to be located).

If only our elections could prove so effective a nail…
but perhaps i'm reading Marx from the wrong end.