Consistently Inconsistent

The US government talks a good game when it comes to people using civil disobedience to seek their rights in nations like Iran or Venezuela. Even in the days of the Tunisian uprising and in the later stages of Tahrir Square (once Mubarak’s fate seemed sealed) the US government talked a quite positive line about civil disobedience.

But, as with everything our huge, entrenched government does – and, here, there is no difference between a Bush or an Obama administration – US foreign policy is about self-interest and military tradition. When it’s anything to do with Israel, the unquestioned policy is to go along with whatever Israel demands. The flotilla is no different.

What is different is the fact the flotilla is a civil disobedience action on the high seas against an entrenched Middle Eastern regime (albeit a Jewish regime) refusing to budge on issues that have plagued it for decades, a fact that interestingly places the flotilla in the context of the wide range of civil disobedience actions in the Arab Spring.
~ from The Gaza Flotilla: Fear of Unscripted Non-Violent Action by John Grant ~

Grant's essay mirrors something I've been thinking the last few days. In some instances -- like the recent uprising in Egypt -- US leaders wax eloquently about everyday citizens engaging in peaceful protests and civil disobedience. However, in other instances, those same leaders paint other concerned citizens of the world as renegade provocateurs.

As Grant aptly points out, how we officially view such actions always is bound up in the Rubicon of "national interests" and those interests seem to go hand-in-hand with what benefits US capitalists the most!