You can always rely on the hard-left Seumas Milne in the Guardian to articulate the far opposite of what any normal person is thinking – a handy public service he gives us here, helping us all formulate our thoughts so precisely in opposition to his.

Click on the picture above his latest article on Egypt – the staring eyes are scary enough, let alone the text.

Some of it indeed is ostensibly sensible:

The strikers are also demanding the removal of bosses tied to the regime, along with officials in the unions, universities and professional bodies corrupted by the old order. That’s because only the ageing autocrat has gone. The regime itself to all intents and purposes remains in place.

But Seumas Spart keeps bursting through, in contorted mixed metaphors:

Even the police who were dispatched to use lethal force against the people to save Mubarak’s skin are now demanding decent pay and conditions – as their counterparts are in Tunisia. And although the impact of neoliberal reforms and economic crisis in Europe was a crucial trigger for the uprising, these aren’t just bread and butter stoppages.

An impact is … a crucial (sic) trigger!

A political or social revolution is not a single act, but a process. The Egyptian upheaval has its own context and will take its own path. But the great popular revolutions all followed a similar initial pattern. Neither the French revolution of 1789 nor the Russian revolution of February 1917 nor the Iranian revolution of 1979 were headed from the start by ready-made leaders.

Does this person seriously seek to try to persuade us (a) that the Russian Revolution was a ‘great popular revolution’, as if (b) somehow that was a good thing?

Of course he does:

This is not some phoney western-backed "colour revolution", after all, swapping one elite for another with a stage army made for TV.

Geddit? Revolutions by modern Europeans calling for multi-party democracy and opposing Stalinism and post-Stalinist KGB structures don’t count.

The evidence of the scale of popular self-organisation and collective commitment reflects a profound social process that is unlikely to be derailed before it has delivered much more radical change.

Zzzzzz.

As usual, we get no insight from Seumas into what ‘profound’ social change or indeed ‘radical’ change would look like. Personally I favour shallow social change. Less likely to end up with millions of people murdered or starved to death. But, then, me – I’m old-fashioned.

Quick! Get out your fine Egyptian cleaning products:

The greater the democratic cleansing of an economically parasitic regime dependent on foreign support, the more a country that has been the pivot of western power in the Middle East is likely to take an independent course.

Well, fine by me if Egypt takes an independent course. Not just independent of the USA, but also independent of meddling by Iran, France, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and anyone else inclined to meddle.

Oh, and by the way – if Egyptians want to borrow our money I think we reserve the right to ‘meddle’ by insisting that it be spent sensibly. See below.

Back on earth, what in fact is the problem facing Egypt, a subject not mentioned by Seumas Spart?

I previously here have praised John Mauldin’s newsletters: johnmauldin@investorsinsight.com His latest one takes me to a hard-nosed analysis by Stratfor, reproduced over at businessinsider.com.

Check it out. It’s readable.

Basically, Egypt is unable to pay its way in the world. The combination of a poor natural resources base, decades of mismanagement, a decadent banking sector and our familiar friend soaring state debt already presented a grim enough picture. Now the latest turmoil is hammering tourist revenues and making it all much worse.

So the Milnean masses can ‘demand’ better pay and conditions all they like. They won’t get them without a massive dose of pro-market liberalisation of the economy backed by some hard-love international money.

That money will make a difference on a scale that matters only if it is invested wisely, which in turn means an improbably (impossibly?) speedy transformation of Egyptian political life towards transparency and respect for the rule of law.

In short, away from the Seumas’s inhuman glee at the prospect of yet more anti-Western revolutionary mayhem, Egypt’s only chance to improve its lot in the coming decades lies with the sort of neo-liberal policies (backed ultimately by Western taxpayers’ money) which, says Seumas, Egypt must reject decisively in favour of ‘profound social change’.

Timothy Garton Ash (also in the Guardian) at least makes some arguments attached to common sense:

The path forward for Tunisia and Egypt is far less clear than it was for east European countries – and there is no warm, safe house of EU membership beckoning at the end of the road...

In the confusion of a new semi-freedom, some very nasty old worms will come out of the woodwork. I got a small taste of this from a young Moroccan sitting at a bus stop here.

Apropos nothing in particular, he started telling me that "all the problems in the world are the fault of the Jews". The prophet Muhammad had a problem with the Jews, he explained, and ever since the Jews have been making trouble for the Muslims. He worships at a mosque where the chief imam is from – how did you guess? – Saudi Arabia.

Trying to jam the lid back on young Arabs’ manifest discontents by propping up corrupt Arab autocracies – including the Wahabi Imam-funding Saudi Arabia – as America and Europe have done for far too long, is merely to trade bad trouble today for worse tomorrow.

We must now seize the chance, take the risk, and concentrate our best minds on working out how with the limited means at our disposal we can help freedom-hungry Arabs to reach the best possible destination.

Fine.

Anyone know how?