Live: Al Jazeera coverage of Egypt’s growing revolution

[elfismiles]

February 17th Revolution
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2011/02/217.html

[AlicetheKurious]

A revolution far from over
Saturday's army crackdown in Cairo's Tahrir Square highlights deepening tension between protesters and army.
Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 26 Feb 2011 09:00 GMT

Ain't that the truth. The bad news is that the army turned off the lights in Tahrir Square and used cattle prods against protesters and arrested some of those who were still in Tahrir Square after midnight and who intended to spend the night there. Some reported that there were some agents provocateurs who infiltrated the demonstrations to cause trouble among the demonstrators.

Egyptians are frustrated and angry because some cabinet ministers appointed by Mubarak or who were part of the Mubarak regime are in power, especially the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Justice Minister, the Minister of Labor, the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Petroleum (the latter is particularly provocative because when Mubarak's corrupt long-time Minister of Petroleum was finally removed, he was replaced with a Board Member in the company formed to export gas to Israel). Nobody's talking about the Minister of Defense for obvious reasons, but he's the elephant in the room.

The army's excuse is that they've approached many competent people to take the cabinet positions but it's hard to find those willing to join a tainted, lame-duck government which could destroy their future in politics. The army has a point: my husband is friends with two of the new cabinet members (including the Minister of Culture who's a really cool guy) and they're both good people but have no political ambitions, and I personally know one great woman (a firebrand lawyer who does have political ambitions) who was offered a cabinet post and refused for just this reason.

On the other hand, there seems to be no good reason why the current government can't simply be dissolved and a special, transitional caretaker government of clean-handed, widely-respected technocrats totally untainted with any connection to the previous regime manage the country's affairs until a new constitution is prepared and the groundwork laid for proper elections. In fact, that's exactly what the people are demanding.

The good news is that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has issued a formal apology for the soldiers' attack in Tahrir Square, promised to release everyone they arrested and reiterated its commitment to never use force against peaceful demonstrators, though the people are not mollified and have called for ever bigger demonstrations -- not only to press the revolutionary demands, but to protest the army's attack in Tahrir Square, as well. One reason the people are not mollified is that simultaneously with the attack in Tahrir Square in Cairo, there was a similar attack against demonstrators in the Delta town of Tanta, indicating a high-level decision to use force to disperse demonstrators who remain after midnight.

According to eyewitness reports, the attack was scary, but as far as I can tell it has only hardened the people's will to keep up the pressure until their demands are met. Only from now on, they'll have to be better organized and if they're staying on after midnight, it'll have to be in greater numbers. Nobody said it would be easy...

[AlicetheKurious]

Got a nice SMS on my cell-phone this morning:

From the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces: We are fully informed and aware of the demands of the honorable people and citizens and we are working to fulfill them.

I predict that the Ahmed Shafiq government won't last the week, and that we will be hearing other good news very soon.

[Plutonia]

Alice, heads up!

Neocon Senators McCain and Lieberman are mucking about in Egypt. Their presence in the region doesn't seem to be being reported in western media:

Politics at the water’s edge? McCain and Lieberman conduct parallel foreign policy on Libya
February 27, 2011 ·


McCain and Lieberman in Tahir Square. [bleh!]

John McCain and Joe Lieberman gave interviews to U.S. media outlets during a trip to Egypt Sunday, in which the two neoconservative Senators seemed to be conducting their own foreign policy; criticizing the president from foreign soil, calling on him to encourage protests in Iran, and even saying the Obama administration should supply arms to the Libyan opposition.

In the CNN “State of the Union” interview and in an earlier appearance on “Meet the Press” — where the Senator is frequently booked — McCain said the Obama administration should have imposed a “no fly zone” over Libya to prevent the Gaddafi government from using its Air Force against civilians.

In contrast, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, also appearing on “Meet the Press,” said politics should stop at the water’s edge, in declining to criticize the adminsitration’s conduct on Libya. Not so McCain and Lieberman. They sounded familiar neoconservative notes: calling not just for an immediate recognition of the opposition groups who have seized control of part of Libya as the new de facto government, but also calling for American weapons to be shipped to the region.

McCain echoed support for a “military option” in Iraq, and even called on Obama to call for pro-democracy demonstrations in China. He called on Obama to “reverse his terrible 2009 decision of not supporting the demonstrators in Tehran.”

Lieberman acknowledged, when questioned by CNN reporter Candy Crowley, that the president was right to be cautious in the early days of the Libyan uprising, which the administration did in order to ensure the safety of American diplomats and other civiloians seeking to lead the country. But he went on to say the president should instead have warned the Libyans that the U.S. would use military force if any Americans were to be harmed.

On the “no fly zone,” McCain said on MTP:

“They’re using air power and helicopters to continue these massacres,” he said. “We’ve got to get tough.”

While McCain said the U.S. should recognize a provisional government and offer assistance, he also said he was “not ready” to introduce U.S. ground forces.

“Look, Qaddafi’s days are numbered. The question is how many, and how many [people] are going to be massacred before he leaves, one way or another?” he said.

McCain also suggested that anyone fighting for the Qaddafi regime should know they run the risk of finding themselves “on trial at a war-crimes tribunal.”

While the president himself has called for Qaddafi to step down, saying he has lost all legitimacy to rule, and the U.S. and U.N. have imposed sanctions and frozen the Libyan dictator’s assets, and the fact that the U.N. resolution, to which the U.S. is a key signatory, already refers Qaddafi and his goons to the International Criminal Court, the hawkish presentation by the two Senators, who visited Tahir Square for a photo op earlier in the day, were the harshest attack on the administration by U.S. politicians to date. So far it has been mostly commentators, including Christopher Hitchens — a strong supporter of the U.S. military invasion of Iraq, Bush-era neocons like Paul Wolfowitz, who also slammed the administration on CNN Sunday, and liberal commentators who have attacked the Obama administration for not being forceful enough in supporting the demonstrations breaking out across North Africa and the Middle East.

Agree or disagree with the criticisms, only McCain and Lieberman are making such statements from a perch outside the United States.

Meanwhile, asked about Egypt, the Senators did not seem clear on the fact that the Egyptian army is now in control of the country, so that any criticisms of the use of force against the continuing demonstrations was in fact a criticism of the new government, but when pressed on that fact by Crowley, McCain said emphatically that the army did not want to rule Egypt.

Also on Sunday, the president of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, announced he will run for president of Egypt when elections are held, perhaps as soon as this fall. Moussa is said to be a popular figure in Egypt, and would likely be a strong candidate. That could further disturb Israelis, since his popularity comes in part from his scathing critiques of Israel. Still, the Arab League in recent years offered Israel a comprehensive peace settlement (which Israel rejected) — and that could signal he is willing to be a player in the peace process as president. The constitutional reform panel rewriting Egypt’s constitution is moving to limit presidents to two terms, a first for Egypt.

Sharks are in the fish tank!!!



I don't suppose that there is anyway for the Egyptian people to seize them for crimes against decent human values?

No, I guess not. Too bad.

[Nordic]

Wow, two of America's biggest assholes making the rounds.

What diplomacy.

[MacCruiskeen]

Politics at the water’s edge? McCain and Lieberman conduct parallel foreign policy on Libya
February 27, 2011 ·


McCain and Lieberman in Tahir Square. [bleh!]

How do these grotesque grinning gargoyles get away with it? Why aren't they being lynched? The so-called "Arab street" is clearly a hell of a lot more patient and kindly than most streets in my own home town would be.

On the “no fly zone,” McCain said on MTP:

“They’re using air power and helicopters to continue these massacres,” he said. “We’ve got to get tough.”

What's that cold, sour, pungent, masculine scent? Eau de Vieux.

[DevilYouKnow]

Looks like speculation that the Egyptian Central Bank's gold stash may have been just modestly plundered is starting to play out. According to Reuters. "Egypt has issued a ministerial decree immediately banning the export of gold in all its forms, including jewellery and ornaments, until June 30, the official news agency MENA said on Sunday. "This decision, which comes in light of the exceptional circumstances the country is passing through ..., is to preserve the country's wealth until the situation stabilises," MENA said. Egypt's currency has come under pressure after some of the country's main sources of foreign currency, including tourism and foreign investment, collapsed after the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak erupted on Jan. 25." Obviously, this "emergency" step would not be required if the E(gyptian)CB was still in full possession of its purported stash of the inedible metal. Whether the decline is due to alleged Mubarak sequestering of the shiny metal, or by other members of the former ruling regime is unclear, but one thing is certain: the WGC is long overdue in adjusting the Egyptian gold holdings from 75.6 tonnes to their real current value... far lower. As for Egyptian fiat: that is as freely exportable now as ever. If only anyone wanted it. But yes, somehow emerging markets are manipulating their currencies lower than fair value, the conventional wisdom claims.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/egypt-bans-export-gold-any-form

[Nordic]

They are all welcome to FedEx their gold to me, disguised inside Egypt tourist souvenirs or books. I will take one ounce out of every ten for myself, then they can fly to Los Angeles and I will deliver their gold to them in person at the expensive international hotel of their choosing.

[vanlose kid]

Democracy is no panacea
It will be harder for the people of the Arab world to uproot a corrupt economic regime than to topple a dictator.
Lev Grinberg Last Modified: 28 Feb 2011 14:25 GMT

Democracy does not necessarily resolve problems related to poverty and economic inequality [GALLO/GETTY]

The Egyptian people have every reason to be proud. They have provided the world with a shining example of how to overthrow a dictator within three weeks with hardly any violence - their message of freedom, unity and solidarity will remain for years in the collective memory of the Middle East and the entire world.

The road to democracy is still long, of course, but given the political wisdom shown hitherto by the Egyptian demonstrators, there is good reason to believe that they will overcome the difficult obstacles expected for their country in the near future.

However, I would like to warn the democratic activists in Egypt and even more so their would-be followers in the Middle East that democracy is not the solution to all problems. Democracy does not necessarily solve problems related to poverty and economic inequality, nor does it resolve cultural conflicts related to the common identity of the nation's citizens.

A Western formula

The basic reason for democracy's lack of solutions to such problems is that its principles have been formulated in industrialised capitalist societies characterised by considerable cultural homogeneity and relatively small economic gaps.

Democracy is a set of formal principles developed in Western Europe with the aim of facilitating the representation and articulation of the middle and working classes and designed to contain peacefully the conflicts between them and the upper class.

In the absence of a balance of power between classes, and a consensual unifying national identity, the automatic installation of formal democratic principles might only make matters worse.

In order to prevent such developments, it is necessary to comprehend the peculiar social and economic conditions of each country and install not only formal democratic principles, but also additional constitutional, institutional and policy elements.

The dangers of democratisation

I will briefly suggest here the dangers of democratisation that must be faced in advance.

When there is a systematic link between cultural identity and economic status, democracy becomes a problem, rather than a solution. It exacerbates cultural conflicts to the point of violence, because it provides a formal opportunity for the majority to force their will on the minority.

Political sociologist Michael Mann has shown that in these cases democracy only serves to intensify conflicts among racial and ethnic groups, to which I would add, in the Middle Eastern context, the conflict between confessional groups and between the religious and the secular.

The most recent example of this has been the democratisation of Yugoslavia, which led to 10 years of war and the division of the country into seven states, accompanied by genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The oldest case, mind you, is the US - the cradle of the democratic constitution which announced a "government of the people" and began the massacre of the American indigenous people because they were not considered part of "we, the people" of America.

This warning is probably irrelevant to Egypt, with its exceptional national heritage, cultural homogeneity and tradition of tolerance towards religious minorities such as the Christian Copts and Jews, as well as mutual tolerance between the devout and the non-devout.

However, the adoption of the Egyptian model in other Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Bahrain and Libya already suggests other possibilities, and this is what we can also expect should a similar process begin in Jordan - with conflicts between its Bedouin and Palestinian populations - as well as in Syria - between the Sunni and Alawi - and this is also the background for ongoing social tensions in the formally democratic Iraq and Lebanon.

In Israel, the violent repression of the Al-Aqsa Intifada proves that the ruling ethnic group will not give up its political control or its material assets, neither by democratisation nor by granting independence, unless the powers of both sides are more evenly balanced, as in the Sudanese case.

In search of political consensus

Whoever wants democracy under these conditions must first come up with a creative and consensual formula, according to which each cultural group would be free to live its unique cultural life without attempting to force its identity and customs on the entire citizen body.

In other words, demonstrating for democracy is not enough. What the countries of the Middle East require is political consensus on mutual recognition of rights and coexistence, guaranteed by a constitution and institutionalised by electoral procedures and representative institutions.

Egypt does have to worry, however, about economic inequality and the severe daily hardships suffered by most of its population. Without providing solutions to these problems, even the most democratic regime can be toppled by massive protests, possibly leading to new forms of dictatorship. A good example of such a failure of democracy was December 2001 in Argentina, when the masses flooded the streets calling for "all politicians to go home" and toppling five presidents in a row.

This happened only two years after democratic elections swept a broad leftwing front to power, which had promised to bring the country out of its deep economic crisis, but failed. The elected government pursued the policy dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which protected the interests of foreign investors against those of the local middle and salaried class. The crisis caused all holders of local bank deposits to lose 70 per cent of their money, with the blessing of the IMF.

Therefore, Egypt must realise that although democracy is essential, any formal constitution or system of government will not solve its economic problems. Immediately after the elections, Egypt's new policymakers will have to switch from the formal liberal discourse of democracy to face and discuss the fundamental questions of Egypt's economic structure. In the process, they are liable to discover that it is far more difficult to uproot a corrupt economic regime than to topple a single dictator.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/op ... 93541.html

*

[DrVolin]

Hmm, Alice, if there is a Mossad line on this, I would look for it here:

Democracy is no panacea
It will be harder for the people of the Arab world to uproot a corrupt economic regime than to topple a dictator.
Lev Grinberg Last Modified: 28 Feb 2011 14:25 GMT



The basic reason for democracy's lack of solutions to such problems is that its principles have been formulated in industrialised capitalist societies characterised by considerable cultural homogeneity and relatively small economic gaps.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Apparently Mr. Grinberg never read The Condition of the Working Class in 1848.

[JackRiddler]

Political sociologist Michael Mann has shown that in these cases democracy only serves to intensify conflicts among racial and ethnic groups, to which I would add, in the Middle Eastern context, the conflict between confessional groups and between the religious and the secular.

The most recent example of this has been the democratisation of Yugoslavia, which led to 10 years of war and the division of the country into seven states, accompanied by genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Shockingly slanted view of what happened in Yugoslavia, I really must say. I can hardly believe people get away with being paid to write such rubbish.

Egypt does have to worry, however, about economic inequality and the severe daily hardships suffered by most of its population. Without providing solutions to these problems, even the most democratic regime can be toppled by massive protests, possibly leading to new forms of dictatorship. A good example of such a failure of democracy was December 2001 in Argentina, when the masses flooded the streets calling for "all politicians to go home" and toppling five presidents in a row.

Methinks the author is profoundly unsettled by the stink and tumult of real democracy. Because that was what democracy looked like, in Argentina in 2001. The Argentinean uprisings brought no terror and no coups. They resulted in popular governments that have served the people's interests more faithfully.

This happened only two years after democratic elections swept a broad leftwing front to power, which had promised to bring the country out of its deep economic crisis, but failed. The elected government pursued the policy dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which protected the interests of foreign investors against those of the local middle and salaried class. The crisis caused all holders of local bank deposits to lose 70 per cent of their money, with the blessing of the IMF.

"Broad leftwing front" they no longer were, once they broke promises and enforced IMF dictates to rob the majority. That is why an impromptu democratic front arose to sweep them out of power for having been such liars. We should wish our people were as active and especially smart in defending their own interests.

This was my answer once to the self-posed question, "Choose the most important event of the last decade."

Argentina and Venezuela uprisings of 2002
Thu Nov 25th 2010, 12:37 PM

I shall say the weeks in 2001-2002 when the Argentinean people took to the streets to successfully resist an IMF-dictated austerity plan, and toppled five presidents until they got one (Kirchner) who was willing to redefine the terms of Argentina's debt, i.e. default and free that country from its unjust debt. Since then the country has been an economic success story (undeniable in relative terms), putting the lie to neoliberal ideology, and has undergone a political transformation in which exponents of the old dictatorship were finally exposed and punished.

A few months later, in April 2002, the Venezuelan people took to the streets to overturn a coup d'etat by oligarchic elements backed by the US government who had attempted, for two days, to establish a bloody dictatorship, restoring their rightly-elected populist president, Hugo Chavez. These two events catalyzed Latin America's gradual emergence from many decades of disasters caused by the neoliberal paradigm and US imperialism, with leftist and center-left governments coming to power in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua (as well as an election victory in Mexico that was overturned by a fraud leading to the present disasters there of drug war and impoverishment).

After so many deadly CIA coups, the Venezuelan example was a historic case in which the US security state, finally, was broken in its power to overthrow a democracy and establish a client dictatorship. The Argentinean example shows that there is a way forward for all nations currently struggling under bankster-induced debt and austerity regimes. It is possible to default and to survive and prosper. Sooner or later, it will be mimicked by many others.

.

[Nordic]

Not familiar with any of these sites or people involved, but this story smells far more "true" than the "official" one about what happened to Lara Logan.

http://femalefaust.blogspot.com/2011/02 ... -what.html

Eyewitness: The Shocking Truth About What Happened To Lara Logan

The place is Tahrir Square, Cairo, and the context is revolution, long sought, long expected, and long overdue.

Nobody is perfect; we all make mistakes, and compassion is called for when reviewing the errors of others: we cannot know with certainty what another experiences in any given situation; we cannot be sure that any account is complete and unembellished, not even our own. That kind of precision, however, is thankfully not necessary for an accurate assessment.

What really happened to Lara Logan?

The Main Stream Media's (MSM's) internal inconsistencies alone should disabuse one of the notion of their authority. A basic, if determined, search session or two and I can tell you what did not happen: krugerrands to Krispy Kremes, she was not gang raped. Double or nothing: she did something to get herself singled out as and accused of being an Israeli operative, a crime for which, from what I understand, discovery, trial, verdict, and sentencing are performatively implicit in the accusation itself. In other words, they hold such crimes to be self-evident: that all Israeli spies merit being dragged off, for starters. The dragging away and the subsequent protection by soldiers - men - let me repeat that - protection by male soldiers, not women - was a detail corroborated by another eyewitness account, personally related to me. FWIW.

Like many others who no doubt will emerge in the coming weeks, Témoris Grecko was there.

He describes in detail everything he himself observed – Read more at Ubuntu, Témoris' Blog http://temorisblog.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... ara-logan/ – and records interviews he conducted of colleagues and fellow bystanders:

Rape? Women? Stripped? What really happened to Lara Logan

I witnessed part of the mob attack against CBS’s Lara Logan at Cairo’s Tahrir square on the evening of Friday, February 11th. I was struck when I read CBS’s February 15th communiqué describing the attack as a “brutal and sustained sexual attack”, and attributing her rescue to “a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.” This account does not fit with what I, and others, witnessed.

The TV network’s communiqué, which came rather late, as noted by Richard Cohen in The Washington Post, was promptly interpreted by many in the international media to mean rape, and in these terms it became a debate that soon adopted racist and sexist overtones. Egyptian and Muslim men are portrayed as wild beasts and Islam as an inherently violent religion. Attractive women, many commentators have said, should avoid taking on risky tasks, and if they insist, then they had it coming.

I was buying tea from a vendor in Tahrir with two friends, Amr Fekry, a 26 year old Egyptian call center agent, and Andi Walden, a San Francisco political science student. Then we heard the noise and saw the mob coming. A blonde woman, neatly dressed with a white coat, was being dragged and pushed. It didn’t seem to me she was panicking, but rather trying to control the situation. They passed us in an moment. They were yelling “agent!, agent!”

I tried to run to intervene, but some Egyptians I didn’t know prevented me from doing it. There was nothing I could do and, as a foreign journalist, I’d surely end up being accused of being an agent too, and attacked. Fekry did go there and disappeared into the crowd, 50 or 100 people strong.

Later I spoke with two young male activists who helped the person I later learned was Lara Logan (I didn’t know her before, I don’t usually follow US networks). They were Omar El Shennawy, a 21 year old teacher of English, and Abdulrahman Elsayed, a 25 year old teacher of physical education. They said they had formed a human chain with other young men to protect Logan, and then delivered her to the Egyptian Museum military post.

When I read CBS’s story and it’s interpretation by other media outlets, I felt troubled. It seemed misleading. “It didn’t make sense to me”, said Benjamin Starr, from Boston who arrived as a tourist on January 24th, and stayed to witness the uprising. He also saw the mob pass by with Lara Logan. “I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe something happened in another part of the square, but from what I saw, she was being taken by men to the soldiers, and her clothes were not torn off. There were no women, I didn’t see a single woman in the crowd around her.”

Similarly, in hearing the CBS’s communiqué, Amr Fekry wrote on my Facebook wall: “It’s a little bit ridiculous what we hear that she was raped in Tahrir!! We were there! You remember she was about two meters away from us when we were buying tea! Maybe someone harassed her, but she ran and people protected her from being hit! I tried to go and help her but many people pushed me hard to go away as they thought I was trying to hit her. The only thing that some people only thought she was an Israeli spy!”

“I think it is a big exaggeration”, said Alshimaa Helmy, a 21 year old Egyptian biotechnology student and cyber-activist. “It couldn’t happen. How can someone risk to rape a foreign woman in the most important square of Egypt, in front of tens of witnesses? If those were bad guys, what about all the good people who were celebrating? She doesn’t deserve what happened to her, no one does, but if you are going to a revolution, you should protect yourself.”

I went to ask Abdulrahman Elsayed, and he related a similar account. “I was in front of her, one metre away. This was after I saw her running with a man beside her. They stopped, maybe because someone blocked their way. We formed a human chain to protect her. Only young people, 10 or 15, all men. We surrounded her. People behind us were pushing and trying to grab her, someone might have touched her. I saw her top was uneven. There was a women and children’s tent (Tahrir sq. had become a campsite) and we tried to take her there, but we couldn’t because of the pressure. Someone had a taser and he held it high, making electric noises and threatening the attackers. He told them to move away. So we could go to the Museum’s military post and deliver her to the soldiers. Then we stood there blocking the people who tried to follow her. We brought her two doctors, first a young male, then an older female. The doctor and Lara were the only women around.”
(Read more

http://temorisblog.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... ara-logan/

I have heard reports that corroborate this story from sources close to me. It checks out, as it does internally. More than what can be said for other versions of the story, including the official.

For the record, I am not saying Ms. Logan is responsible, although it would certainly be a ray of integrity were she to own up to it. Or even maybe just tell us what really happened. What a revolutionary concept.

[AlicetheKurious]

Hmm, Alice, if there is a Mossad line on this, I would look for it here:

Democracy is no panacea
It will be harder for the people of the Arab world to uproot a corrupt economic regime than to topple a dictator.
Lev Grinberg Last Modified: 28 Feb 2011 14:25 GMT

I'm not the only one to suspect that the Al Jazeera English website has long been a conduit for "the Mossad line". Al Jazeera English is far more subtle but just "off" enough to make it virtually indistinguishable from BBC World or CNN International, none of which I watch (although all of them have individual reporters who do a great job).

Al Jazeera Arabic is very, very different. It's radical, it's challenging, it provides a depth and breadth of coverage and analysis that no other news channel comes close to matching and perhaps most importantly, it strives to provide comprehensive historical and cultural and global context. Its journalists are determined and brave, frequently heroic. Their guest analysts include some of the best minds, representing the widest range of viewpoints. They're given plenty of time to communicate their perspective. I think of it as very smart, very informed guerrilla journalism. Others have described it as the vanguard of the new pan-Arabism.

I can't explain the discrepancy between the English and the Arabic channels, but I do know I miss watching the latter, desperately: over the past 5 weeks, it's been jammed for longer than it's been available here. Every day I waste a lot of time patiently going through nearly 1000 satellite channels hoping that Al Jazeera will pop up at the frequency of another channel, as it did for a few days in early February. In contrast, neither the English Al Jazeera nor the BBC World nor the CNN or Al Arabiya nor any of the others has been jammed even for one minute. Last week, two Lebanese channels, Al Jadeed and Al Manar, were briefly jammed, but came back within less than a day.

In addition to all the more vital reasons, I can't wait for Qaddafy to bugger off so that I can watch Al Jazeera again.

@ Nordic: thanks. The Lara Logan story struck me from the first as an updated version of Jessica Lynch.

[vanlose kid]

Hmm, Alice, if there is a Mossad line on this, I would look for it here:

Democracy is no panacea
It will be harder for the people of the Arab world to uproot a corrupt economic regime than to topple a dictator.
Lev Grinberg Last Modified: 28 Feb 2011 14:25 GMT



The basic reason for democracy's lack of solutions to such problems is that its principles have been formulated in industrialised capitalist societies characterised by considerable cultural homogeneity and relatively small economic gaps.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Apparently Mr. Grinberg never read The Condition of the Working Class in 1848.

"if".

i don't know. taken at face value i think he has a point seeing that "democracy" – as long as the junta (economic and military) are in place – will be dropped by helicopter from above, Bernanke style. remember, the US and Eu nations are democracies, even Israel. so reading the piece in that light, i'd say the point being made is entirely valid.

here's the thing: lupercal is over in his own thread saying this was not an uprising, but a coup. and he is right, to a certain extent. there has been a military coup. but that does not mean there hasn't been an uprising. both have taken place. – the problem is, in my view, that it is the coup-makers who will introduce, with help from their international friends in high places, democracy.

from there we can discuss the semantics of "democracy". earlier on in this thread i made mention of the achievement of the people in Tahrir square while under siege. no parlament, no "representational" government, no voting system, no parties, no "leaders", or nothing but leaders, really, each and every one of them, resulting in "chaos", "anarchy", and i relished that showing. but from forcing the junta to shove off Mubarak because his person was disrupting business and profit to actually achieving independence is a long way.

now, however, we have McCain and Lieberman, the arch bipartisan representatives of amerikan freedom and democracy touring Tahrir square – bringing light and happiness to Egypt. that's ominous.

also, at this time, according to Reuters, by way of ZH, the US is "Repositioning Forces In Area Around Libya To Be Able To Provide Flexibility And Options" and "US Military Counter-Libya Preparation Update: USS Enterprise Now Back In Mediterranean". the empire will not let its grip slip so easily.

so, read in that light, maybe there is something to your "if…" maybe. – maybe not. in actual fact, when i read it and before i posted it i was of two minds myself, because one could say the article is not entirely clear. then again, read in light of my own thinking, it fits. democracy is no panacea. look around you.

systems-think

two things are being conflated across the board from the far left to the far right: (1) "the wish to be rid of tyranny" and (2) "the wish for democracy" these are not identical. the first in no way entails the second. neither logically nor empirically.

part of the illusion here is that we are conditioned/taught to think in terms of stable and functioning systems that are necessary and that, one set up, are self-correcting and keep everything flowing smoothly. this is a throwback to the dream of the enlightenment rationalists: based on Newtonian mechanics, the rationalists sought to establish, by supplying (or "discovering") self-evident formal proofs, the "belief in celestial stability" [i.e. that a system can be exhaustively described and formalized in a set of 'laws' that would, once and for all, give human beings a handle on the assumed deterministic character of the 'natural system' (cf., the "Three Body Problem")].

once physics had established that one need only transpose or build upon it theories of social organization, of economics, of the most rational political system that most faithfully conformed to nature. these were dreams and remain so. the idea of such total(itarian) systems reeks of nothing but tyranny, to me at least. – modern economics and the social sciences that have adopted many, if not all, of the "methods" of "economic science" still cling to this chimera.

this systems think is the real demigod upon whose alter men, women, and children are sacrificed. this is the "owl" that is worshipped in bohemian grove. the meaning of the pyramid. the true Moloch is not some creature but the State – Leviathan, viz:

Howl II

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unopbtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksuker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in who I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! The wild eyes! The holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! Into the street!

– Allen Ginsburg

nature is not rigid. – anarchy? more power to it.

*

on edit: as far as democracy goes, good ol' Rambo pretty much nails it for me:

Democracy



“The flag’s off to that filthy place, and our speech drowns the sound of

The drum.

“In the metropolis we’ll feed the most cynical whoring.

We’ll smash all logical revolts.

“On to the languid, scented lands!-in the service of the most gigantic

industrial or military exploitation.

“Farewell here, anywhere. Conscripts of good intention, we’ll have

savage philosophy; knowing nothing of science,

depraved in our pleasures; to hell with the world around us…

This is the real advance. Forward… march!”


– Arthur Rimbaud

i have a thing for poets. terse and concise.

*

[AlicetheKurious]

here's the thing: lupercal is over in his own thread saying this was not an uprising, but a coup. and he is right, to a certain extent. there has been a military coup.

coup d'état
or coup

(French: “stroke of state”) Sudden overthrow, often violent, of an existing government by a group of conspirators. Coups are most common in countries with unstable governments and in countries with little experience of successful democracy. Their success depends on surprise and speed. Coups rarely alter a nation's fundamental social and economic policies or significantly redistribute power. See also military government, revolution. Link

What occurred in Egypt was certainly not a coup, military or otherwise. I'd describe it right now as a popular uprising or intifada which pits a very wide spectrum of the Egyptian population against a particular regime that exists to represent a combination of very narrow national and foreign elite interests. In stark contrast to 1952, the military is not perceived and does not describe itself as a revolutionary vanguard, nor does it give itself a political role. The people asked the military to step outside its legitimate role as defender of Egypt's external borders on a purely temporary and emergency basis, to enforce a very limited number of specific demands, during a very limited period (4 to 6 months maximum) until a representative civilian government can take over. The military has made it clear that it has no mandate and no legitimate role beyond this and no desire for one. Furthermore, its resources are already stretched to the breaking point.

In fact, one source of tension is the military's insistence on handing over governance to an elected civilian leadership within the specified time limit, while the revolutionaries are demanding more time to mobilize the grassroots into effective political parties capable of competing with those that existed under the previous regime. Every day there are intensive meetings between the two sides to hammer out the mechanics of a transition to civilian rule that can satisfy the needs of both.

It is not a revolution yet, though it certainly has the potential to develop into one. Since it's still ongoing, and very much in its embryonic phase, it's far too early to predict whether and to what extent this potential will be realized.

Despite the fact that much the previous regime's top leadership is now behind bars or confined to house arrest pending trial, with new ones added to the list every day, in my opinion, one that is shared by millions of other Egyptians, the most urgent issue facing Egyptians at this time is the remaining second and third and even fourth-tier collaborators and servants of the old regime -- including many of those who are currently heading vital ministries in the "transitional" Egyptian government. These represent a fifth column of deeply corrupt individuals who are doing everything possible to subvert the popular will and sabotage the country's ability to move forward.

These individuals are neither qualified nor competent nor motivated to work on Egypt's behalf, at a time when Egypt is particularly vulnerable and facing an unprecedented conflagration of internal and external crises.

The Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, is screaming that Egypt's antiquities are being looted and destroyed at remote excavation sites every night by mysterious armed thugs, at a time when there is virtually no police or security presence to stop them. Burundi just signed an agreement with five other Nile Basin countries that reduces Egypt's already insufficient share of the Nile waters, giving the agreement a 2/3 majority that merely awaits ratification by those six countries' parliaments to come into effect. Forty thousand Egyptian refugees from Libya are stuck at the Libyan-Tunisian border awaiting rescue, with more joining them every day, and Egypt's Foreign Ministry is desperately trying to come up with enough ships and planes to get them home. The remittances sent by these and the nearly 1.5 million Egyptians living and working in Libya had been an important source of income for Egypt, which is now gone. Egypt's stock exchange has been closed for weeks and there is a real danger that it will collapse when it reopens on Sunday. The tourism industry, which employs 12% of Egypt's labor force and provides around 15% of Egypt's GDP, has been devastated. Builders are taking advantage of the lack of police to erect buildings or make additions that violate construction codes, including all over agricultural land. With the Egyptian army preoccupied with internal matters, Egypt's eastern border is virtually unprotected against Israeli encroachment and violations, not to mention Israel's exploitation of the world's inattention to escalate its project to Judaicize Jerusalem and kill Palestinians. There are reports that weapons and personnel are being smuggled into Egypt from Israel, and there have been violent attacks against civilian targets in Rafah, including against a church, by unknown assailants wielding rocket-propelled grenades (RPG's).

And that's just a sample of the challenges Egypt is facing, without a properly functioning government and state institutions, during its very vulnerable period of transition. Whether all this is a fire that will consume the revolution in its infancy or a crucible from which it will emerge stronger, remains to be seen. I'm personally betting on the latter.

earlier on in this thread i made mention of the achievement of the people in Tahrir square while under siege. no parlament, no "representational" government, no voting system, no parties, no "leaders", or nothing but leaders, really, each and every one of them, resulting in "chaos", "anarchy", and i relished that showing. but from forcing the junta to shove off Mubarak because his person was disrupting business and profit to actually achieving independence is a long way.

That sounds great, and it was, in the context of Tahrir Square, for a very limited time. Believe me, "chaos" and "anarchy" are a lot less fun when you're talking about a country of 85 million people, at least 40% of whom live in deep poverty, facing the kind of internal and external dangers I mentioned above.

now, however, we have McCain and Lieberman, the arch bipartisan representatives of amerikan freedom and democracy touring Tahrir square – bringing light and happiness to Egypt. that's ominous.

The visit of McCain and Lieberman, escorted by the American ambassador, got a lot more attention from their US target audience than it did here. It barely rated a mention in the Egyptian press and besides, few people here know or care who those silly grinning Americans draped in the Egyptian flag were. Egyptians have far more pressing concerns.

also, at this time, according to Reuters, by way of ZH, the US is "Repositioning Forces In Area Around Libya To Be Able To Provide Flexibility And Options" and "US Military Counter-Libya Preparation Update: USS Enterprise Now Back In Mediterranean". the empire will not let its grip slip so easily.

Yes, that is a very serious and worrying matter. One more reason why we need to get our act in order as soon as possible, starting with the replacement of the regime squatters currently paralyzing the state, with competent, qualified individuals who enjoy the people's trust and respect.

two things are being conflated across the board from the far left to the far right: (1) "the wish to be rid of tyranny" and (2) "the wish for democracy" these are not identical. the first in no way entails the second. neither logically nor empirically.

You're very wrong if you think that the Egyptian people rose up merely to get rid of Mubarak, or even that they perceive democracy as an end in itself. Far from it: the passion that drove and continues to drive not only Egyptians but people across the Arab world is rooted in a very old struggle, a deep yearning, going back at least to the turn of the previous century. It's the struggle for not only individual, but more importantly for collective freedom, in a context that prioritizes and nurtures the development of their unique cultural and historical and spiritual heritage, for unity, for the right to develop and enjoy the fruits of their own wealth, for the right to determine their own destiny and to be sovereign within their own lands. It's a dream that's been remarkably consistent and vibrant across time and space within the Arab world despite the many efforts to kill it and the failed experiments along the way. At this point in time, a consensus appears to have emerged that genuine, grassroots democracy provides the greatest hope for realizing this dream. Should this latest effort fail, the consensus may eventually converge around some other means, but the dream itself will not die. If you really want to understand what's happening in Egypt and within the region, you first need to understand the cultural and historical background, and then you have to be capable of listening to what people say they want and what their actions show, not through the filter of intermediaries and their external agendas, but directly.