Turns out I just typed out a response I was unable to post because we briefly lost internet between moving out of our old place and into this one (ironically, I found this response beneath another response to you written in MSWord. ) Anyway:


McKinney makes Michael Moore seem fair and impartial by comparison, and she's insane on top of that. Nominating her for President was probably the worst thing the Green Party could've done for its credibility and mainstream appeal (a statement that covers a lot of ground). I’m not aware of her PROMOTING violence, but wouldn’t put it past someone who assaulted a Capitol cop for having the temerity not to recognize her on sight (which was pretty much the last straw not only for me but for the Democratic Party that expelled her.) As far as Moore himself, I think you covered his Castro rationale: I'm not sure he really supports them or the Cuban government so much as he just likes their healthcare system; respecting Hitlers Depression era revitalization of German industry doesn't make someone an anti-Semite. Kucinich sought an additional pretext for his suit alleging US actions in Libya violated the War Powers Act, but calling that "the Left" ignores decidedly "Right" Republicans who joined that suit. It also ignores the host of "Right" (e.g. Tea Party) critics of US intervention in Libya (and everything else Obama has done since literally the day he was born). I don't think Kucinich likes Qadaffi any more than the Tea Party does, but both dislike the Libyan rebels, too, and see a good way to score political points sticking it to Obama. From a Left vs. Right perspective all that proves is that isolationist jobs-oriented Republicans have far more in common with dovish anti-"free" trade Dems than either do with leaders in both parties who embraced realpolitik, NAFTA and the WTO with open arms.

A harder question is why Obama and some on the American left (e.g. me) dragged our feet during the ouster of Mubarak, but "realpolitik" is much of the answer: The Third Worlds systemic instability discourages supporting anyone (or should,) particularly those trying to upset what has long been one of the more stable governments within one of the most volatile regions on Earth. Venezuela is a great example; on the one hand, Chavez arresting judges and critis is unacceptable, but on the other hand it is UNDERSTANDABLE after an attempt to violently overthrow him, while on yet a third hand he was only elected after prison time for his own failed attempt at violent revolution. Endorsing any product of a totalitarian environment, be it Chavez or Pinochet, almost guarantees being held partly responsible for past or future crimes the ruling junta commits to seize, maintain and/or simply exploit power. How many times have people demanded Bush and Obama supporters justify the US supporting Afghan tribal leaders who stone people for "immorally" dating the wrong person or not being Muslim, as if the Taliban never did the same thing?

Personally, I think things like that are a great argument against endorsing any Medieval Third World junta, but I can't speak for every cat in the herd. A lot of people insist refusing support for RELATIVELY more democratic regimes inhibits regional democratic reform, because reformers can expect no outside support but much internal opposition, while the locals see the US still condemns anything less than total rehabilitation. However, putting that in partisan terms only confuses the issue; that's how I got accused of defending Mubarak because he's a socialist (?!) when I simply said I refused to endorse the opposition without some evidence they won't be just as bad or worse (evidence I still await). That's the kind of irrational morally ambiguous world we enter when we decide the enemy of our enemy is our friend; it was a great way for Hitler to play Churchill and Stalin off against each other, but all the US got out of it was a State Dept. riddled with Soviet spies and a nascent CIA riddled with Nazi spies.

It's harder to accurately view "the Left" monolithically than "the Right", IMHO, because the lefts views on civil libertarianism, dissent and diversity result in a chaotic political arena whose members are all over the place. The ACLU can recruit challengers to laws against teaching evolution AND send lawyers to defend Jehovahs Witnesses' right to preach house to house, with equal vigor and without seeing any conflict. Consequently, some on the left do support leftist dictators as such, some support their policies while decrying their methods and some simply withhold support for opposition groups they consider as bad or worse. Some also support those opposition groups despite their excesses, on the grounds that a chance for improvement is better than the certainty of continued repression--which has an unfortunate tendency to make supporters of todays "liberators" defenders of tomorrows "dictators".

Sorry for the delay and dredging up an old discussion, but I very much intended to respond at the time and felt obliged to do when I discovered I only thought I had. Hopefully that clarifies my own reasons for not rushing to endorse Egypts rebels (a very different thing from actively supporting Mubarak, which I did not, and I do endorse Lybias rebels at least as an alternative to an unacceptable leader.) Many liberals support some dictators for the same reason many conservatives voted for Obama: Not out of loyalty, but because they feel they must support someone and therefore choose the least objectionable option because a truly GOOD one is either unviable or simply unavailable.