** Among other things, what is happening with Hosni Mubarak calls to mind Mao's pungent observation that it is no fun being a lackey of imperialism! Mubarak has, for decades, been kept in power and backed to the hilt by U.S. imperialism, whose interests he has faithfully served and enforced, while collaborating as a junior partner with Israel, in oppressing and suppressing the Palestinian people as well as the people of Egypt.

These imperialists cannot be allowed to get away with keeping in power brutal oppressors of the people, in one country after another...and then, dumping and denouncing them when they prove to no longer be a benefit but a liability to these imperialists.

** Along with all the other outrages—and something which gets at only a part of the towering crimes U.S. imperialism has used these regimes (like Mubarak's) to commit, and the utter hypocrisy of Obama and other U.S. ruling class figures in now condemning the thuggishly repressive nature of these regimes—the questions must be raised: How many of these countries, where hated regimes are now the target of mass upsurges, has the U.S. government "rendered" people to, in order for them to be tortured as part of the so-called "war on terror"? To how many of these countries was the U.S. government, under Obama, continuing to "render" people to be tortured, right up to the time that these mass upsurges against these regimes erupted?

** Amidst the palaver once again, from Obama and other representatives of imperialism, about "free and fair elections" in Egypt and other countries, it is important to point out that what they mean by "free and fair elections" is that things must not be dominated by just one bourgeois, pro-imperialist party, but at least two parties must be allowed to compete, within a framework in which upholding the interests of imperialism is the standard and measure of what is legitimate and acceptable. Look at the U.S. itself as a "model" in this regard: Every election, what do you have? The Democrats and Republicans compete. Two bourgeois, imperialist parties.