Tunisia's color-coded regime change: Bogus, fake, or..??

[lupercal]

Try and convince me, cos I am open to it.

But you'll need to show the motive, the means and the opportunity and relate them to what happened in Tunisia and elsewhere.

Seriously, whats their motive? Why? What do they gain?

So far nothing I can see. I may be wrong, but honestly I cannot see Mubarak ever rebuilding his army to attack Israel. Not in a million years. If Egypt under the ... well I'm gonna call it previous ... regime was so unaccepting of Israel they haven't shown it with their attitude to gaza.

And why would anyone in the west want instability in Egypt? Especially with a hostile Egypt as a possibility. The IDF could barely hold it together in Lebanon a few years ago. They basically lost that fight, despite the casualty rates. Egypt has a much better military and can access Gaza and use it as a fortress. No way would you want that if you were a western hegemonist.

I can't see a reason for it.

If you can then can you explain it?

Well if you're asking me to explain why I think these are bogus color revolutions, the answer is that in two cases, Tunisia and Yemen, the colors have already been announced, so it's not an opinion, it's a fact. I imagine if Mubarak steps down, which I hope he doesn't, we'll start hearing about their wonderful Twitbook-stinkyleak inspired lotus revolution or maybe they're saving that one for China. The point is we're seeing a full-court press to restructure the Middle East in the form of "market friendly" debtor nations just like Greece, Ireland, Portugal and all the other poor sods who took the bait and lost their shirts. No doubt there are other insidious designs afoot but if these were actual indigenous uprisings led by actual leftist organizers I can assure you we'd either a) hear nary a peep, tweet or fart on BBC-CNN or b) get 24/7 code-red terror alerts from Yemen and other scary places just like we normally do whenever US-UK profiteers hit a little resistance.

And why would anyone in the west want instability in Egypt?

Because chaos and instability create profit opportunities for vultures. I guess Naomi Klein gets credit for the phrase "disaster capitalism" but as far as I can tell it's a very old business.

[JackRiddler]

^ oh come on, I'm sure the point wasn't lost even on you vanlose, or maybe it was, so let's see if this helps: the supposedly intolerable conditions in these countries are nothing of the kind, and the "yearning to be free" actually pushing all this fake astroturf along is more likely to be coming from Wall Street than the Arab street, and let's not leave out Langely and Houston and London and as it appears Paris.

Okay, you sly one, last chance to admit you are a moderately failed satirist, and not really this much of an idiot.

[lupercal]

^ run along Scooter, I think I hear Thomas Friedman calling out to you from the pages of the NYT.

[wintler2]

Well if you're asking me to explain why I think these are bogus color revolutions, the answer is that in two cases, Tunisia and Yemen, the colors have already been announced, so it's not an opinion, it's a fact.

It may be a fact that somebody has announced colours for these uprisings (link?), and is trying to pin those colours to some faction within those demonstrating for change (say the pro-US one, just for arguments sake), but that doesn't at all prove they are significant in formenting the uprising among any significant portion of the population, or addressing their needs etc.

.. if these were actual indigenous uprisings led by actual leftist organizers I can assure you we'd either a) hear nary a peep, tweet or fart on BBC-CNN

err, wrong! there is no revolution that can resist being terrorised, at least to an audience willing to take Becks word for it. The little coverage i've heard has been neutral at best with Mubarak cast in sympathetic light, as would expect from Oz compliance to US policy.

And why do you think an indigenous uprising needs leftist organisers?

or b) get 24/7 code-red terror alerts from Yemen and other scary places just like we normally do whenever US-UK profiteers hit a little resistance.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has raised the level of caution for Australians considering travelling to Egypt.

[lupercal]

It may be a fact that somebody has announced colours for these uprisings (link?)

It is a fact. From the Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, January 27, 2011:

SANAA, YEMEN - Inspired by the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, thousands of Yemenis took to the streets Thursday demanding an end to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled this impoverished Middle Eastern nation for more than three decades.

The rally, one of the largest demonstrations in this capital in recent memory, unfolded in four neighborhoods. Protesters wore pink scarves and pink bandanas and clutched pink placards. Some described their struggle as "the Pink Revolution," an allusion to Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02081.html

Moving along:

err, wrong! there is no revolution that can resist being terrorised,

That's option B, to be used if option A, ignoring it altogether, fails. The point is that most real demonstrations, indigenous or otherwise, go under- or un-reported. I've been in enough to know that personally. The ones that get media attention are the bogus ones like Tea Party rallies.

And why do you think an indigenous uprising needs leftist organisers?

If people are going to turn out for a demonstration somebody has to organize it, publicize it, make transportation arrangements, make signs, arrange for speakers, etc etc and oh yeah somebody has to shell out for those pink scarves and bandanas. Despite what flacks on TV would have you believe these things don't just materialize spontaneously through the magic of Twitter. Somebody is doing a considerable amount of coordination. Who? See OP for your answer.

Anyway here's what I came here to post: Webster Tarpley lays it out for the Ruskies in terms I can't disagree with, so see if you can:

[JackRiddler]

.. if these were actual indigenous uprisings led by actual leftist organizers I can assure you we'd either a) hear nary a peep, tweet or fart on BBC-CNN

err, wrong!

Come on, Egypt. If Mubarak goes, it's the most significant fall of a US client dictatorship since Iran, if not ever. Someone has to be living in Saddam's spider hole to think there'd be no coverage. Take pity on loopy. Everyone, stop beating up on the weak. (It's irresistible, I obviously know. But we're bullies.)

.

[lupercal]

Go to bed Scooter.

[JackRiddler]

Go to bed Scooter.

Just got up, grandpa.

[vanlose kid]

... The point is that most real demonstrations, indigenous or otherwise, go under- or un-reported. I've been in enough to know that personally. The ones that get media attention are the bogus ones like Tea Party rallies.
...

i think this is wrong in two ways: 1) if it hadn't been for AJ the "normal" western coverage would have fit with your "thesis", and that's says more about western media than anything; 2) Seattle 1999, was widely reported on and was not bogus, unless your definition of bogus riots is "those i did not take part in or approve of".

*

[vanlose kid]

... The point is that most real demonstrations, indigenous or otherwise, go under- or un-reported. I've been in enough to know that personally. The ones that get media attention are the bogus ones like Tea Party rallies.
...

what's more, these aren't "demonstrations" like the antiwar demos in 2003, they're riots and more like LA post Rodney King. those were widely publicized.

*

[vanlose kid]

... The point is that most real demonstrations, indigenous or otherwise, go under- or un-reported. I've been in enough to know that personally. The ones that get media attention are the bogus ones like Tea Party rallies.
...

what we're seeing in egypt, it's a lot more like this:



*

[Gnomad]

Now my local rag says "Al Jazeera banned from reporting in Egypt". Lets see what happens, will they ignore it? Will the ban be enforced?

[nathan28]

Take pity on loopy. Everyone, stop beating up on the weak. (It's irresistible, I obviously know. But we're bullies.)

No, I tried that "dialog" thing and presented a sound argument that had more nuance than an unsubstantiated, monomaniacal idee fixe on American newsmedia, but am still waiting on an answer.

The simple fact that loopycal here argued that "Jasmine Revolution" meant that the Tunis revolt was the same as the failed Green Revolution--which was only partly a western ploy--in Iran b/c the anglosphere media had assigned a color name to both, when in Tunis it was named after Bouzazi, not "jasmine", is symptomatic of this one-sided focus that replicates the same myopia of the anglophone major media outlets--somebody once warned about the side-effects of gazing into the abyss.

I'm going to post this quote from Feral Scholar:

If “the enemy” has an infinite capacity to deceive, then they might be behind everything we see and hear, and we have to be hyper-vigilant. When we see something that looks like it has beaten the Great Oz, then it must be an illusion. It has to be the Great Oz himself who is behind it, trying to trick us again.

Hyper-vigilance is a symptom of post-traumatic shock, and it is understandable when we live in a period that might be symbolized by a blood-drenched question-mark about the future. But is it no substitute for a modicum of the intellectual rigor which acts as a prophylaxis against paranoia.

Paranoia

While associated with mental illness, paranoid ideas are rarely symptoms of schizophrenia. Paranoia is an attitude forged in a world where anxieties are so ubiquitously cultivated on behalf of agendas that we have adopted the premise that to pursue an agenda effectively, one has to mobilize the fears of others. That this is a fallacious premise does not take anything away from its power, because the premise is unexamined.

Once we are in the habit of mobilizing fear (usually followed by hatred of the feared enemy to remobilize after the fear breaks you down), we begin to assume that anyone who questions this fear is the enemy.

[Searcher08]

I think that the Tarpley arguments are very out of touch, an analysis that makes sense in it's own terms, but which is suffering from a lack of adequate sampling of reality and hamstrung by an inadequate refresh rate with actual real world events.

With a 'personal development' hat on, they are also very un-empowering arguments. They are not wishing the people of Egypt well, they ignore reality, they do not suggest alternatives for a way forward and provide no impetus forward for dare I saw, any Egyptian person of goodwill who might be reading them. They are a call to inaction, a rallying whose emblem is the sofa and the mouse. For me, they speak of someone who no longer thinks the world 'allows' dreams to happen.

[JackRiddler]

No, I tried that "dialog" thing and presented a sound argument that had more nuance than an unsubstantiated, monomaniacal idee fixe on American newsmedia, but am still waiting on an answer.

Nah, allow me my own groundless paranoia, will ya? Loopycat's the cutting edge of the Sunstein plan. He's going to embarrass all away from entertaining anything officially designated as a conspiracy theories.

Do you remember the thread where Jackie shot JFK? To win, I realized that I would have to jump straight to JFK shooting himself (with a pen gun you can see him reaching for!). We are way past subtle escalation, salami tactics be damned, the logic is always first-strike nuclear. You must figure out where the last viable non-plus ultra lies -- no planes? no buildings, I say! no New York at all! -- and occupy it immediately. Gradually, as the range of debated ideas expands in the wake of an event, people will begin to reach the ground you first staked out, but they initially avoided as extreme. They called Nico crazy, but eventually he found his cult! Mwahahahaha!

Beyond paranoia, and being half-serious for a moment, and having dealt with a lot of lobbercans in person, I don't think you can rule out the artistic drive (egoism, desire for recognition, call it what you will) as a big part of this. The conspiracy artist wants to be first at the most creative, most paranoid and outlandish solution that is still physically possible (within the "physical laws" as accepted by the particular audience to which he speaks, so these for example may or may not include Antarctic Nazi UFOs), short of being obvious parody (which nowadays is dwindling to a set of zero among all audiences, leaving no limit at all!).

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