Yes indeed. Me too, intoxicated by the sound of revolution on that feed.
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The next few months are going to be truly historic. I'm pulling for the Egyptians, I really am.
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i think this is an astonishing and beautiful moment.
there's a lot of faith in the military at the moment floating about in egypt, in part because they managed to get through the revolution without shooting up the people they're supposed to protect---that was the job of the police and interior ministry goons---which loops around to the idea---prevalent in many quarters---that the army benefits from being behind the scenes far more than they would were they to take a role in governing. so---for the moment anyway----it appears that egypt is moving in a radical new direction. there are already reports that the council will abolish mubarak's puppet government and dissolve parliament---and end the 30 year state of emergency. as for the next steps---i don't think anyone knows quite yet. |
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i would hope you champions of democracy on the right do exactly as your worldview tells you with capital---and i would hope that your moves get a lot of publicity so that it becomes quite apparent---and publicly so---just what kind of champions of democracy you are. i think it'd be funny. i think lots of people would find it funny. oops, there's whole lot of people who've managed a non-violent revolution in quest of basic freedoms. run away. run away now. bad for business. dictatorship and martial law---we like it. stability uber alles.
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Yeah pretty much as I said at the beginning... the Military would be the decider.
By not cracking down on the protesters, by not entering the fray they have by default thrown their support to the cause. Hopefully they'll actually hand over the power once the vacuum starts. |
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Freedom, democracy is all about individuals making choices, there is no centralized control of world capital markets. Capital flows based on the convictions held by those who control capital. The average Egyptian has virtually nothing, the average American has significantly more and can pressure organizations and government to do more. If you don't know your next move, what was all your rhetoric about? Was it empty? |
that the military was going to run the show was clear from early on--from before even.
the council issued a statement outlining the initial steps this morning. the mubarak cabinet stays on until another government is appointed. personally, i'm dubious about this, but it's not my show. i would hope that the next government takes the form the opposition has been demanding and that they are integral to moving toward elections. it is not in the military's interest to explicitly hold power. they also affirmed existing treaties and arrangements. if the capital wants to effectively punish egypt for tossing out a dictator who was good for business---because capital doesn't give a fuck about the nature of political regimes or other piddling things like freedom and human rights, only about continuity of circulation---then let them. i think this is pretty great, this revolution. the next moves are uncertain, but that's part of what democratic process is about when the notion of democratic process is more than a synonym for oligarchy. |
btw here's an interesting piece on the structure of the egyptian military:
The vast and complex military machine will decide its nation’s future - Africa, World - The Independent |
the more i am finding out about the egyptian military the more it appears as the elephant in the room---the central patronage system that comprises the oligarchy that dominated the egyptian economy under mubarak---motor of the egyptian economy as the 1.5 billion from the us along percolates out into suppliers and related contractors---an important (though highly stratified) machine for social mobility---a classic post-1945 national security state apparatus.
one of the main things that the egyptian revolution seems to have done is made the power structure explicit. it seems to me that the military has every interest in reducing its own visibility, so it seems likely that they'll carry out the transition---form a functional interim government, address constitutional questions etc. today the existing constitution was suspended and parliament dissolved---but the cabinet mubarak appointed is still place and is full of allies of mubarak.... and it's hard to see how the state of emergency could be lifted if the constitution is suspended---which is a definition of state of emergency---- but if there's been a state of emergency for 30 years, what meaning is there in suspending the constitution? i am curious to see whether the legal status of the military is altered under a new constitution. at the moment it does not answer to anyone---it is not subordinated to civilian power---it is a parallel world. the elephant in the room. |
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And I will say at this point, with my financial "vote", I am on the sidelines and would encourage our government not to provide any financial support until it is clear that Egypt will be run as a real democracy with freedom of speech and religion (including women) for all. That is still an issue unresolved. I think the power vacuum is an unnecessary risk, and military control can prove to be more oppressive than Mubarak and his pledge to continue to lead until free and open elections. |
Word on the street is that Mubarak wants to make me his neighbour.
rumours galore amongst the egyptian community here in the UAE that he's moving to Dubai. He'd probably be safer in israel than an arab country though. |
protests this morning in yemen, iran and bahrain.
algeria on the weekend. not sure capital can run away from all of them. meanwhile, things in egypt seem ambiguous. the military is obviously trying to get some handle on tahrir square, shutting down press coverage, attempting to get protestors to leave. at the same time, there is a proliferation of specific actions about pay, corruption and working conditions from the ministry of antiquities to state employees to transit workers. the protest movement has reportedly formed a council to "protect the revolution"---it's also a form that enables dialogue with the military. lots of euphoria still about the actions in egypt...personally, i am wary of the military and do not think anything a foregone conclusion in terms of outcomes. there are reports that mubarak is in a coma, too, btw. edit: this is a good outline of what revolution ought to mean from this point forward in egypt. Quote:
seems to me that what we're now looking at is the exposed bones of a national security state apparatus confronted with a democratic revolution. the constrictions that are generated for political freedom by a national-security apparatus are being performed....it'll be interesting to say the least to see how this plays out. complicated. not simple. |
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The per capita GDP in Egypt is $2,161. The per capita GDP in Yemen is $1,182. The per capita GDP in Bahrain is $27,248. The King has actually tried to pay protesters about $3,000 not to protest. The per capita GDP in Algeria is $4,588. The per capita GDP in Iran is $4,732. These are all nations with real national wealth with the wealth concentrated at the top and people being oppressed and having a difficult time providing for their families. Those with wealth either are moving it out of the country or have done it already. If other sources of capital are not made available the people in these countries will suffer further and risk isolation from the rest of the world depending on how they handle their "revolutions". You can pretend this is a concern to joke about or pretend some invisible magical capital infusion event is automatically going to take place just because people protest, if you want - I just hope people who can make a difference understand what is really the issue. |
ace, once again you alternate between imaginary arguments and restatements of the obvious.
it is self-evident to anyone who looks at egypt at all---which you've not really done---that class stratification there is extreme. it is also self-evident that this class stratification as it has taken shape over the past 30 years of dictatorship has been intertwined with patronage/corruption that centered on the twin power sources that ran the country---the military and the mubarak regime. it is entirely obvious that getting rid of the mubarak regime has not gotten rid of the effects of that regime in either the military or the economic oligarchy that relied on one or the other or both for their wealth. it is self-evident that this concentration of wealth played a fundamental role in sparking this revolt. it is self-evident that the reason this concentration of wealth sparked a revolt now as opposed to at some other time has a lot to do with wikileaks and tunisia and longer-term mobilization---but really, it's conjuncture that allowed people to bring down the mubarak dictatorship. if class stratification and/or the massive transfer of wealth into the hands of a few and away from most people was on its own reason for revolution, i would expect that you would be in hiding in another country as you support the economic ideology responsible for the most massive transfers of wealth in recorded history in that direction. what is also obvious is that there are segments of the population of egypt who benefitted greatly from the corruption of the mubarak period who are very very concerned-to-panicked because of what they stand to loose. these are the people who are running away. these are the interests represented by short-term capital flight. this is the perspective you are arguing, as if it were not obvious--but your knowledge of the situation is so small that you can't even figure out what political interests are being expressed through the infotainment you adduce. it is also self-evident that nothing has changed in the distribution of wealth or the sturcture of the economy yet. things **could** change now---but there's no magic wand that was waved about. so nothing has happened yet. the revolution in egypt has just started. the hard stuff begins from here. that too is self-evident. the economic order---and the question of qui bono---will change as the political situation changes. as for the rats that flee the sinking ship of the mubarak regime---who cares? |
Yes, ace, it's really simple. Capital tends to flow away from instability and towards stability. Protests and revolutions aren't forms of government.
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al jazeera reporting that there are protests in morocco planned for next week. looks like its spreading, but i dont see it going east into saudi or into the UAE.
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society and history and politics: all "some theoretical b.s."
wow, ace. amazing stuff. you should do stand-up. |
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ace, dear, what the fuck are you talking about?
i'm merely tracking what is happening in egypt. nothing you post evinces the slightest understanding of that. the few factoid you post are obvious. so nothing you are saying is accurate, useful or insightful. therefore i dont know or care what you're on about. welcome to the consequences of posting the way you do. |
i usually don't cite editorials, but in this case, because i should have guessed...
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and this for a quite eloquent viewpoint on egypt and its regional ramifications as signaling the crumbling of american-dominated neo-colonialism: The toxic residue of colonialism - Opinion - Al Jazeera English and not a moment too soon. |
rb-
ALL media is editorial nowadays. It seems to me that both parties are having a difficult time with their response to this event. The struggle is that, what is good for the people of Egypt, could be very bad for the US. It's this simple struggle which has politicians waffling. If anything, an elected official should be most interested in the advancement of the people he serves. Since some of the possible outcomes in Egypt would not advance the people he serves, I can see the messaging trouble. I, for one, am pleased that the GOP message is all over the place. It implies those guys might actually be expressing an opinion as a single person with a set of convictions rather than page 432 in a playbook. |
good lord. Rick Santorum is going to run for president? yikes.
anyway, I think the editorial piece hits the nail squarely on the head: 1. it's dangerous to praise praiseworthy things on Obama's watch and 2. if it involves a considerable amount of non-white people without an agreeable figurehead willing to kiss their ass, conservatives only support democracy in theory |
the americans have paid the egyptian military a shit-ton of money to look out for their interests---namely preserving the figleaf of legitimacy on the united states' degenerate policies regarding israel. oil is a minimal interest. american paranoia about islam is in the best of circumstances thinly concealed racism and in any event is a non-problem in egypt.
so i don't know what the right is on about. particularly not that fuckwit john bolton, who apparently feels the need to repeat the bromides of henry kissinger with reference to the election of salvador allende in chile, 1972. we all know how that turned out. go conservative geopolitics! the al jazeera edito is more interesting. faulk gets it right here: Quote:
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wrong again ace darling.
i enjoy being challenged. but i don't suffer fools. meanwhile, back in the world.... [/COLOR] Quote:
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once there's some advantage to be gained relative to iran of course the united states gets much less ambivalent about this revolution stuff....
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and yemen. and maybe morocco. and maybe algeria. what's odd is that none of these actions have the slightest resemblance to pro-capitalist pro-western markety face things. they're more politically oriented. they're directed against the fossilized political orders that the americans have supported quite consistently (and some that they haven't) that are of a piece with the reality of neo-colonialism. |
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As us capitalist pigs are known to say, it all about the Benjamins. http://maxdb.co.za/sound/uploads/new...3d6f548108.gif |
i was reading an article about the bizarre-o coverage in the wall street journal of egypt. it is in le monde and it's in french. that's one of them there complicated languages.
Les Etats-Unis face à la nouvelle donne égyptienne - LeMonde.fr on the opinion pages, the mouthpiece for the american financial oligarchy seems to have made it a little mission to reassure its readership that there's nothing to these political demands, that it's all really about the same old same old. that way the official mouthpiece for the american financial oligarchy can pretend to its readers that there are not political problems with radically skewed distributions of wealth---no no, it has to come from something else, some imaginary distortion in the otherwise perfect functioning of capitalism imaginary style. |
ace,
I think you just started arguing the same point as rb. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe his point is that the US supported government of Egypt created an environment where the average citizen can not break free of poverty. He views this revolution as a way for that government to be replaced by one which will allow those people a chance. I guess I don't see how your posted article differs from that. ---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:31 PM ---------- rb- In French class, do they teach you how to say "I surrender" on the first day or the second. :D I love ya, man. Just kidding. |
the second. the bring it up by way of a really bad joke.
Q. why do the french have tree-lined streets? A. so the germans can march in in the shade. they musta forgot about napoleon. but that was pre-germany. ace...look. it's not obvious how things are going to play out in egypt. the situation is at an interesting impasse, but that impasse is political. the economic situation is self-evident. the problem that economic situation creates for the united states is that the united states bankrolled mubarak for a very long time as a payment---in effect (there's a bunch of evidence about this in the thread)----for signing onto the camp david accords. the wsj line is basically to argue for some imaginary separation between mubarak and capitalism. now the bad state---which the united states supported fully in all its oppressive glory because it suited geo-political interests (typically as parsed by neo-cons) was the problem. and some imaginary capitalism--associated for the editorial writers of wsj (and no-one else) with the united states---is about to somehow rescue folk. all of which is a therapeutic story told to people who don't know anything about what's happening on the ground. it has no bearing on the political situation. in that political situation---as the guardian article i posted earlier points out---and as i've been saying for days----the military could very easily----*very* easily---hijack the revolution. they've given some commission 10 days to write a new constitution. 10 days to start from scratch. something strange is afoot. some folk say that it's theater, it's about showing seriousness in getting away from military rule. but it's the fucking constitution in 10 days. rehearsing the economic situation right now is basically repeating some of the major, underlying causes of the actions of the last 19 days. **some** of them. it says nothing about where things stand now in egypt because the revolt is in another place. and there's no way to know from here how things are going to shake out. parallel movements are happening all over the region, some more advanced, some less. they're not **all** about access to a better standard of living, but that's certainly part of it. access to a better standard of living is a **political** matter. it's only amongst the most orthodox free-markety set that the economy is somehow not political. but no-one believes that. certainly people in egypt don't. no-one does except maybe people who watch too much american tv and read ibd and wsj editorial pages and like simplicity at the expense of reality. |
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People will revolt for: A) an enigmatic political concept B) ability to feed their family Of course you won't answer and i know your pick was A, which I believe is because you have not been told what the real issue is by your ideological sources. Catch up, the food crisis is very serious. I know it is not impacting intellectuals in ivory towers or Americans yet, but it is impacting everyone else. Quote:
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I believe any political system can fail and be subject to abuse, even democracy. They all have some strengths and some weaknesses. I doubt Roach shares that view either. The political system in Egypt became "the" problem because of the lack of economic opportunity. The connection with the US is that our current economic policies are supposedly good for the US but they are severely hurting the rest of the world excluding China. |
ace,
The thing is, you yourself have revolted for A. You've been to tea party events. You and I both know we would still be able to feed our families, even if the federal government took "more" of our paychecks. Yet we still "revolted". ...as to your most recent post: I guess my point is that we, the US, knew the limitations this Egyptian government placed on its people and we still sent them billions a year. We've withheld aid to other countries for similar reasons. So, one has to be honest about why we sent that money to people who were surpressing their people. |
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Why not just give us your list of approved sources? Quote:
http://www.the24hoursecretary.com/bl...nomyStupid.jpg |
this is a relatively conservative analysis of the constitutional situation in egypt at the moment:
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but it's interesting i think...i did not know much about the existing constitution as a document and the ways in which its history shaped how the opposition framed it's overall political project. this also explains to some extent why many in the opposition (including the folk behind "we are all khaled said") consider the military junta (de-facto) and rapid constitution-making process (10 days? really?) to be less ambiguous a situation than it appears to folk who observe what's happening from outside. nothing makes any sense without an idea of the complexity of recent history. there is no separation between economic and political spaces; each impacts upon the other. |
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Unfortunately, the real world is more complex as are causes and effects. Sources? How about the April 6 Movement or the Coalition of the Revolution's Youth......the folks on the ground and at the heart of the revolution who took to the streets to protest an end to police brutality, the abolition of emergency law, free and fair elections, constitutional changes....concepts that were not enigmatic to them. |
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