If Mubarak is 82 years old, and he and his son are unpopular isn't a change inevitable?

[dkf]

Wow what is the point of fighting this?

[Ozymanithrax]

1. He aspires to be the Kim Jong Ill of the Nile. n/t

[dkf]

2. That is what this is about isnt it?

You'd think someone 82 could retire in peace. But nooooo they need to perpetuate the line.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. There's a word for that kind of government, where power is transmitted from father to son . . .

. . . and its not democracy.

[dkf]

4. But if they have been a kingdom then at least there is a history.

But someone not born into the role who tries to do this...that won't work.

[demosincebirth]

5. King...

Farouk? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_of_Egypt

[AndyTiedye]

6. And About 30 Dynasties Worth of Pharaohs

Egypt has been ruled by (mostly hereditary) autocrats for over 4500 years, except for some periods of rule by foreign overlords.

Not to say that democracy can't happen there, but it never has before.

There were some that ruled during the Intermediate Periods who might have been as bad as Mubarak,
we don't know as much about those pharaohs because they usually didn't last very long and
their monuments tended to get vandalized as soon as they died.

[enlightenment]

7. Umm - officially, the Arab Republic of Egypt

has a 'democratic' form of government. Mubarak is the 4th ELECTED President. The difference is that he has held power by keeping the country under the state of Emergency Law that was instituted in 1967 (after the 6-Day War).

The Republic was declared in 1953; the current constitution adopted in 1971.

It is incorrect to say that they have 'never' had a democracy. Democracies come in different flavors; they have one, but their leaders have never allowed it to flourish - and Mubarak seems determined to end the practice of electing a leadership at all.

[Jack Rabbit]

10. it sounds like the the opposition lraders need some recommended reading from your humble hare . . .

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- Walt Whitman

[leftstreet]

8. Are you saying the Egyptian people should just 'hang in there?'

Or, are you saying Mubarak should just go?

:shrug:

[dkf]

9. I'm saying it doesn't make sense for us to insist on keeping them.

We will just get on the bad side of the next crew.

[SoCalDem]

11. M O N E Y ...and.... P O W E R ... n/t