Did you hear about the uprising?

Not the one in Tunisia, or Egypt.

No, not the one in Libya, though what has been happening there is certainly riveting. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in several cities, defying the forty-year rule of Muammar el-Qaddafi under threat of death.

Not the similar one in Bahrain, where several died and many more were injured.

Not the similar one in Yemen, which has been going on for more than seven days.

Not the really interesting one in Iran, which has been a long time coming & which prompted the ruling elite to call for the immediate murder of anyone & everyone who is not down with the sickness.

Not the one in Iraq, which involved a demand from the city of Baghdad for one billion dollars from the US to pay for the damage done to the city from the war.

No, not there. It looks like this, there:

A fog of smoke, tear gas and fresh unease descended over cities throughout the region, with demonstrations & rolling street battles lurching in violent new directions as governments fought to blunt their momentum & reassert control of the streets. States imposed curfews & ordered people to stay home, & those who defied the orders risked gunfire or beatings at the hands of security forces, private guards or pro-government crowds.

Not there.

There .....

In America.

In the great state of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin, of all places, where the Governor has threatened to turn loose National Guard troops & State Police officers on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who have assembled to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

Here's the deal, in case you've missed the news: Wisconsin's newly-minted Republican governor, Scott Walker, has wreathed himself in folly during the slender six weeks he has disgraced the office.

First, he imposed a series of ridiculous proposals on the state, which do nothing whatsoever to help the economy but cost upwards of $140 million.

Second, he ignored the judgment of the state's fiscal bureau - whose responsibilities are akin to the Congressional Budget Office - which said the state's financial situation was not nearly dire enough to require "austerity measures," & would in all likelihood finish the year with a surplus...said surplus prediction, it should be noted, got screwed out of existence by Walker's absurd & expensive policy initiatives.

Third, & in fulfillment of what appears to be a life-long loathing of anything relating to union or public-sector workers, Walker demanded that any & all collective bargaining rights be abolished, & that all state employees & union members eat what amounts to a massive & unprecedented pay & benefits cut across the board...cuts which, by the by, will do almost nothing to stimulate Wisconsin's economy, but will fulfill Mr. Walker's ambition to destroy union labor in the state.

Walker's bill wended its way to the Wisconsin legislature...& that's when the magic began to happen. Teachers walked, shutting down schools. Protesters began massing & then thronging, at the Wisconsin capitol building. Firefighters, cops, students & state employees of every stripe boiled into the streets & then into the capitol dome itself, to shout down Walker's draconian measures.

To top it off, fourteen of Wisconsin's congressional Democrats blew town on the eve of the controversial vote in order to deny the Republican majority a quorum, thus stalling the legislation & thrilling the mass of protesters who cheered their absent representatives like conquering heroes.

No tear gas .... yet.

No military forces deployed ... yet.

No one dead ... pray never.

But remember, as the great hypocritical fugly, Dillary Clinton, lectured US satraps in the middle east about the importance of 'respecting people's freedoms', she stood by & said nothing as those same rights were denied to a member of her audience.

Yes folks, as one of the truly ugliest of Americans intoned her usual pious bullshit, a 71-year-old US veteran Army officer, a man who spent 27 years in the CIA & daily delivered presidential briefs, a peace activist & proponent of non-violence, the man who famously confronted Donald Rumsfeld for his war lies, Ray McGovern, stood & turned his back in silence.

At that point, McGovern was hauled from the auditorium by security personnel. McGovern suffered minor injuries & was jailed. McGovern is reported to be legally represented by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.

What makes all this so striking is that Clinton was speaking on the issue of state oppression of civil protest in Egypt, as the security guards hauled a McGovern away right in front of her. Clinton never even acknowledged that it was happening, choosing instead to allow the impression nothing was amiss.

Clearly, McGovern intended to conduct a protest in the auditorium, but it is equally evident that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed at that moment, and now, to demonstrate that there is any difference in the way civil protest is treated by the US government than it was by the Mubarak regime it supported in Egypt for decades.

By the way, whilst McGovern was being denied his freedoms in front of Dillary, & whilst she lectured middle east leaders about the 'freedoms' they should be according their peoples, the Obama administration was busy announcing that it intends to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution, sponsored by 122 nations, condemning Israeli settlement expansion.

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last Thursday:

"We have made very clear that we do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues. We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having that arise there. And we will continue to employ the tools that we have to make sure that continues to not happen,"

There is so much wrong with Steinberg's statement that it is hard to know where to start.

First is the obvious. Opposition to Israeli settlements is perhaps the only issue on which the entire Arab & Muslim world is united. Iraqis & Afghanis, Syrians & Egyptians, Indonesians & Pakistanis don't agree on much, but they do agree on that. They also agree that the US policy on settlements demonstrates flagrant disregard for human rights in the Muslim world (at least when Israel is the human rights violator).

Accordingly, a US decision to support the condemnation of settlements would send a clear message to the Arab & Muslim world that we understand what is happening in the Middle East & that we share at least some of its peoples' concerns.

The settlement issue should be an easy one for the US. There 'official policy' is the same as that of the Arab world: it opposes settlements & considers them illegal. The US has repeatedly demanded that the Israelis stop expanding them (although the Israeli government repeatedly ignores them). The Obama administration feels so strongly about settlements that it recently offered Israel an extra $3.5bn in US aid to freeze settlements for 90 days.

It is impossible, then, for the United States to pretend that we do not agree with the resolution (especially when its language was carefully drafted to comport with the administration's official position). So why will the US veto a resolution that expresses its own views?

Steinberg says that: "We do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues."

Why not? It is the Security Council that passed all the major international resolutions (with US support) governing Israel's role in the occupied territories since the first one, UN Resolution 242 in 1967.

He then added, with clear pride that:

"We have had some success, at least for the moment, in not having that [the settlements issue] arise there."

Very impressive. The US has had no success whatsoever in getting the Netanyahu government to stop expanding settlements - to stop evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem to make way for ultra-Orthodox settlers - & no success in getting Israel to crack down on settler violence, but it has had "some success" in keeping the issue out of the United Nations.

The only way to resolve the settlements issue, according to Steinberg, "is through engagement through the parties & that is our clear & consistent position". Clear & consistent it may be. But it hasn't worked. The bulldozers never stop.

Of course, it is not hard to explain the Obama administration's decision to veto a resolution embodying positions that we support. It is the power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is lobbying furiously for a US veto (actually not so furiously; AIPAC doesn't waste energy when it knows that its congressional acolytes - & Dennis Ross in the White House itself - will do its work for them).

The power of the lobby is the only reason the US will veto the resolution. Try to come up with another one. After all, voting for the resolution (or, at least, abstaining on it) serves US interests in the Middle East at a critical moment & is consistent with US policy.

But it would enrage the zionist lobby & its friends who will threaten retribution in the 2012 election.

Simply put, US Middle East policy is all about domestic politics. And not even the incredible events of the past month will change that.

That is why US standing in the Middle East will continue to deteriorate. The US simply cannot deliver. After all, there is always another election on the horizon & that means that it is donors, not diplomats, who determine US policy.

And, of the half a dozen countries who will support the US position in the UN, are you surprised to find Orstrayla amongst them? Don't be. The zionists have Julia's government trussed & stuffed just as effectively as the US.

Seems to me that, sooner or later, we will all need to be Egyptian!