"You Want the 32 oz. or the Large?"*

*--link.

Naomi Klein writes in The Guardian:

Last Tuesday, George Bush delivered a major address on his plan to fight terrorism with democracy in the Arab world. On the same day, McDonald's launched a massive advertising campaign urging Americans to fight obesity by eating healthily and exercising. Any similarities between McDonald's "Go Active! American Challenge" and Bush's "Go Democratic! Arabian Challenge" are purely coincidental.

Sure, there is a certain irony in being urged to get off the couch by the company that popularised the "drive-thru", helpfully allowing customers to consume a bagged heart attack without having to get out of the car and walk to the counter. And there is a similar irony to Bush urging the people of the Middle East to remove "the mask of fear" because "fear is the foundation of every dictatorial regime", when that fear is the direct result of US decisions to install and arm the regimes that have systematically terrorised for decades. But since both campaigns are exercises in rebranding, that means facts are besides the point.

Klien, like Juan Cole, also notes some odd procedural elements to Ameraqi democracy, namely, that the Iraqi government seems to be the only 'democracy' saddled with the burden of requiring a super-majority for something as simple as establishing a majority party...interesting. Klein also notes that Bush's "committment" to democracy ignores things like Israel's border wall, or the fact that torture is "systematic" in Iraqi jails (according to Human Rights Watch), or even that, in a stunning show of thickheadedness

Bush's freedom triumphalism glossed over the fact that, in the two years since the invasion, the power of political Islam has increased exponentially, while Iraq's deep secular traditions have been greatly eroded. In part, this has to do with the deadly decision to "embed" secularism and women's rights in the military invasion. Whenever Bremer needed a good-news hit, he had his picture taken at a newly opened women's centre, handily equating feminism with the hated occupation. (The women's centres are now mostly closed, and hundreds of Iraqis who worked with the coalition in local councils have been executed.) But the problem for secularism is not just guilt by association. It's also that the Bush definition of liberation robs democratic forces of their most potent tools.

Jeez--talk about a bunch of lardheads. Well, what would you expect from the country that brought you the Big Mac?