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Why are people protesting in Egypt?

I’ve been watching CNN and checking Drudge the last few days and what I’ve noticed is that amidst all of the footage and on-scene reports, no one was talking about the cause of the situation.  Maybe I missed the segments that covered the background but all I saw was that people want Mubarek out of power. There is a lot of discussion about what is happening but very little about why.

Thankfully a professor from Colgate University who specializes in modern Egypt has given some helpful background. Here are the main points but you should take a few minutes to read the entire post.

  1. They want a real democracy.
  2. The prevalence of torture by police who are protected by the Emergency Law.
  3. Government and bureaucratic corruption.
  4. Government and bureaucratic inefficiency.
  5. Massive disparity between rich and poor.

HT: Abraham Piper

[Edit: Just saw this NY Times article on the emerging role of religion in the protests.]

Too often, and for too long, American “Christianity” has been a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it. There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barabbas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.

Leaders will always be tempted to bypass the problem behind the problems: captivity to sin, bondage to the accusations of the demonic powers, the sentence of death. That’s why so many of our Christian superstars smile at crowds of thousands, reassuring them that they don’t like to talk about sin. That’s why other Christian celebrities are seen to be courageous for fighting their culture wars, while they carefully leave out the sins most likely to be endemic to the people paying the bills in their movements.

Where there is no gospel, something else will fill the void: therapy, consumerism, racial or class resentment, utopian politics, crazy conspiracy theories of the left, crazy conspiracy theories of the right; anything will do. The prophet Isaiah warned us of such conspiracies replacing the Word of God centuries ago (Is. 8:12–20). As long as the Serpent’s voice is heard, “You shall not surely die,” the powers are comfortable.
Russell Moore, “God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck”.
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Liberal Lies in National Health Care: Second in a Series - Townhall.com

Excerpt: “There are three certainties in life: (a) death, (b) taxes, and (C) no health care bill supported by Nita Lowey and Rosa DeLauro and signed by Barack Obama could possibly fail to cover abortions. I don’t think that requires elaboration, but here it is:” [Full Article]

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Pull The Plug on Obama Care

Excerpt: “Here’s another thing that didn’t work. (I write as if health-care reform or insurance reform or whatever it’s called this week is already a loss, a historic botch, because it is. Even if the White House wins, they lose, because the cost in terms of public trust and faith was too high.)” [Full Article]

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Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare

A great column from the WSJ about the problems in Obama’s proposed nationalized health care and the growing public sentiment against it.

An excerpt:

“I suspect voters, the past few weeks, have been giving themselves an internal Q-and-A that goes something like this:

Will whatever health care bill is produced by Congress increase the deficit? “Of course.” Will it mean tax increases? “Of course.” Will it mean new fees or fines? “Probably.” Can I afford it right now? “No, I’m already getting clobbered.” Will it make the marketplace freer and better? “Probably not.” Is our health care system in crisis? “Yeah, it has been for years.” Is it the most pressing crisis right now? “No, the economy is.” Will a health-care bill improve the economy? “I doubt it.”

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Here the Congressional Budget Office report that a health care bill would not save money but would instead cost more than a trillion dollars in the next decade was decisive. People say bureaucrats never do anything. The bureaucrats of CBO might have killed health care.”

[Click on the title or arrow to read the whole thing.]