02.01.2011 06:36 AM

In today’s Sun: The devil we know, the devil we don’t

A few years ago, during a wonderful trip to Israel, I asked a local if he was looking forward to the happy day when the much-despised PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, would be no more.

My Israeli acquaintance shrugged, seemingly indifferent.

“Here, you have to be careful what you wish for,” he said. “The next guy could be way worse.”

9 Comments

  1. I think your article is correct – these are extraordinary times for Egypt and we can only hope democracy prevails.

  2. smelter rat says:

    Given they have absolutely no history of democracy, I doubt that will be the outcome.

  3. P.Martin says:

    ” The devil you know versus the one you don’t ” ???? The same can be said of Prime Minister Harper and Iggy…..One , although not perfect has a proven track record….the other…an academic with no managerial experience except the classroom…Hmmmmm…not much of a choice

    • Namesake says:

      Hmm: except the devil we do know has shown some mighty poor CEO behavior, like: a blatant disregard for balanced budgets & the bottom line; an abandonment of core principles; a marked & damaging hostility to evidence-based decisions; a tendency to pander to minority shareholders at the expense of the majority; a reckless disregard to long-term public and corporate interests like environmental and safety concerns; a pig-headed approach to international negotiations; and much more that a responsible Board of Directors would be well-advised to remove him for.

      And it also begs the question: just how many of Canada’s 22 Prime Ministers to date — more than two-thirds of whom have been lawyers — have had significant managerial experience akin to that of a major CEO, before assuming office, anyway? Mulroney, Martin… any others?

  4. DL says:

    Gee Warren, when people were protesting in the streets of Warsaw and Prague and Bucharest in 1989 to get rid of those despotic regimes led by Ceaucescu and co…did you also write articles saying “better the devils we know than the devils we don’t” and openly hoping that Nicolai and Elena Ceaucescu would retain power in the interest of “stability”? Or perhaps you also shed a few tears when righwting military dictatorships in places like Argentina and Chile bit the dust – after all the conventional wisdom from the neocons in the US in the 80s was that we needed to prop up people like Pinochet otherwise those countries might go Communist (substitute “communist” for “islamist” and you get the same rationales now for why we need to support blood thirsty dictators in the Arab world). Maybe it was a mistake to pressure the white supremacist regime in South Africa to step down – since for all we know majority rule might have been worse – after all Mandela was supposed to be a Communist!!

    Maybe you can also write a follow up article about why it would be a terrible thing if the fascist dictators in Myanmar were forced out of power – after all how do we know if Aung Sang Suu Kyi wouldn’t be even worse!!

  5. smelter rat says:

    P.martin—another channel changer.

  6. Steve Gallagher says:

    For me there are significant elements of Woodstock, Altamont and Kent State slouching towards Cairo to be born. The Suez canal is the hub of a wheel, just as the Panama Canal and the good old St. Lawrence Seaway are. Whatever threatens to stop a wheel from turning usually is just a penny on the railway tracks of time.
    My prayers are with the people of Egypt. God knows they deserve a break.

    • Namesake says:

      So why the flashback to three counter-culture events of 40 years ago in the USA (two of which were rock concerts that had nothing to do with democracy) rather than to the major demonstration of just seven months ago here in Canada in which protesters were suppressed? (And please, ixnay on all the mixed metaphors, eh?)

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