Revolution in Tunisia & Egypt, Protests in Libya, Bahrain, Oman & Yemen - Page 6 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ring · 02-11-2011, 11:31 AM

Yes indeed. Me too, intoxicated by the sound of revolution on that feed.

aceventura3 · 02-11-2011, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

Ever considered that perhaps you're mistaken about what they're fighting for? Or maybe you might not be in the best position to judge their strategy?

Yes.

---------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:25 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Come on Egypt!!

There is the potential for a major out-flow of financial capital from Egypt. Egypt is going to need substantial support from capital markets and national governments. In addition I wonder if those talking the most smack are prepared to put their own money where their mouths are and invest in Egypt. One fast way to do it is with an Egyptian ETF like this one.

Quote:

An exchange-traded fund designed to track Egypt is open for business, and has been drawing in money, even though the Egyptian stock market remains closed amid antigovernment protests.

Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF (trading symbol: EGPT) has rebounded about 10% this week after civil unrest triggered a roughly 20% decline.

The ETF was trading after a brief halt Monday morning. The fund has temporarily suspended the creation of new shares, although shares continue to trade hands on the secondary market.

Because Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF is operating similar to a closed-end fund, it can experience premiums and discounts to net asset value, or NAV.

Ed Lopez, marketing director at manager Van Eck Global, said the ETF was trading at a premium of about 10% on Tuesday morning. In other words, traders were betting on a rebound in Egyptian stocks when the nation's market reopens.

Yet if selling pressure materializes, the Egypt ETF could trade at a discount to NAV.

Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF has seen assets roughly double to about $24 million since last week, he said.

Launched in February 2010, the fund is thinly traded, with daily trading volume rarely exceeding 100,000 shares. Friday, volume exploded to a record 1.2 million shares, as worries over protests in Egypt shook global markets.

The ETF tracks an index intended to give investors a means of tracking the overall performance of companies that are domiciled and primarily listed in Egypt, or that generate at least 50% of revenue in Egypt, according to 4asset-management, the index provider.

Van Eck's Mr. Lopez said some of the ETF's components are traded in other markets, such as London and Canada.

Asked how the ETF is determining NAV while the Egyptian stock market is closed, he said Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the fund's custodian, is responsible for pricing. An ETF official at the bank couldn't be reached to comment. Mr. Lopez said that when determining fair value, factors such as futures prices and other markets may be considered

Egypt ETF Lures Investors - WSJ.com

Willravel · 02-11-2011, 01:43 PM

The next few months are going to be truly historic. I'm pulling for the Egyptians, I really am.

roachboy · 02-11-2011, 01:52 PM

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.

aceventura3 · 02-11-2011, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

as for the next steps---i don't think anyone knows quite yet.

Everyone with "skin" in the game knows what their next steps are...like I suggested perhaps one of your next steps would be to help mitigate an out-flow of financial capital. that would be a vote of confidence that actual has some meaning.

roachboy · 02-11-2011, 02:04 PM

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.

Seaver · 02-11-2011, 02:23 PM

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.

aceventura3 · 02-11-2011, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

What are you going to do?

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?

roachboy · 02-12-2011, 07:51 AM

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.

roachboy · 02-12-2011, 10:05 AM

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

roachboy · 02-13-2011, 09:53 AM

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.

aceventura3 · 02-13-2011, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

Stop being dense. People control the flow of capital. Even you control capital. Capital flows based on what people do with it, including you. If people give a "fuck", there is not going to be a problem. I consider it a form of conviction - when people actually "vote" with their dollars (the fruit of their labor, put their financial future at risk, make short-term sacrifice) for the causes they believe in - it is truly a beautiful thing. Otherwise, sitting on the sidelines cheering or whatever, while others put their lives on the line is b.s. in my book.

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.

dlish · 02-14-2011, 02:49 AM

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.

roachboy · 02-14-2011, 05:01 AM

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:

Egypt's revolution has just begun
The transition to civilian rule will not be easy - if the military are capable of delivering on their promises.

"Whatever happens, nothing will ever be the same again" – Tahrir Square demonstrator.

Mubarak has fallen. February 11, 2011, has inscribed itself on the page of world history. Now the struggle for the 'heart and soul' of the revolution begins. It's a testing time, and all will be tested.

Test 1: Procedural and institutional change – the establishment of legality

At what point will the uprising be sufficiently secure from counter-revolution to begin construction of a truly transformed democratic polity? What are the minimum security requirements for its immediate defence and subsequent extension? What structural changes will have to be demanded - and fought through to a successful conclusion – in order to neutralise and dis-articulate the still formidable powers of the Mubarak state and its - temporarily silenced - backers?

Test 2: The shape and boundaries of revolutionary democracy – the contours of freedom and the struggles surrounding inclusive or exclusive participation

How will the emergent revolution realise itself, consecrate itself? What shall be its core tasks, boundaries and limits? Who is to be included, who excluded? And on what basis, what grounds? That is to say, how much scope will there turn out to be for accommodation of the previous regime's constitutive 'outsiders' or 'others' – the youth - and women, and organised workers - who have so decisively driven the process to its tipping point; but then, additionally, all those other 'subaltern' sectors and social-confessional groupings that the old regime of power more or less successfully froze as differentiated, isolated, mutually separated and antagonistic identities: Coptic Christians, ethnic minorities, peasant producers, 'tribal' communities, labour immigrants and, finally, those hitherto 'unmentionable deviants' – gays and lesbians – for which Cairo, at least, has always been famous.

The provisional shape that the revolution takes on in the coming months will be determined by emerging struggles and acute antagonisms reflecting the demands of a plurality of political forces and constituencies all seeking a place in the sun in the new democratic Egypt. While the 'naturalisation' of oppressively fixed differences evaporates in the moment of revolution, those tumultuous, heady moments of equal belonging and joyous mutual recognition do not, unfortunately, last forever. When the dust finally settles and Egyptians survey the new landscape of their own making, where will the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion have been drawn?

Let's begin by looking at the issues that define the likely outcomes of Test 1. First, the immediate struggle for survival – of the revolution on the one hand; of the 'Mubarak bloc' on the other. This is critical for obvious reasons: if that bloc cannot be swiftly and decisively defeated – politically isolated, ideologically disarticulated and institutionally broken – then the revolution remains in mortal danger. As things stand, on February 12, 2011, only the head of the regime was cut off. The tentacles remain. So any under-estimation of the capacity for recuperation of power remaining in that wounded octopus could yet prove fatal to the revolution.

Transition - and reconfiguration of the State

With everything now to play for, the transitional role of the army has to be situated in the context of an exhausted model of repression and exploitation fighting for its survival. Let us quickly look at these two dimensions of the transition in turn.

The army

Its role as democratic guarantor and 'neutral' public identity has probably already peaked. With the political burden for shaping the transition now firmly on its shoulders, strategic decisions will very soon have to be taken; and these will quickly reveal the extent to which the most senior officers in the Supreme Military Council have understood the dimensions of the earthquake they are facing. The omens are not good. Military Communique No.1 tersely promised that "all the people's demands will be met". Communique No.2 back-tracked, supporting Mubarak's surprise refusal to step down. Communique No.3 lamented his passing from the stage and praised his heroic contributions to the Egyptian nation.

In short, the current stance of the senior officer cadre reveals an anxious - but still defiantly 'Mubarakite' - resistance to the changes it is meant to be overseeing. The 30-year-old state of emergency remains in place. The generals appear to believe that it is still possible to subject Egypt's democratic masses to paternalist homilies enjoining them to 'leave everything to us'.

Given the impossibility of a violent crackdown - in the short term at least, they will no doubt give maximum tactical priority to the search for 'safe' interlocutors between the power elite and the democratic forces that now confront it head on. But within what longer term strategy of containment will the military leadership continue to act? Something will have to give, and give soon, because the time for a first reckoning up of accounts is just around the corner. Popular aspirations will likely crystallise around a number of key initial demands:

• An immediate lifting of the state of emergency;
• The establishment of a civilian-dominated Transitional Council and Constituent Assembly – to draw up a new constitution - with full participation of representatives put forward by the popular democratic forces;
• All political parties to be legalised, all political prisoners released, labour unions fully recognised and labour legislation revised;
• Mubarak to stand trial;
• The state prosecution service to be purged and reorganised under uncompromising professional leadership;
• The state's thugs – and, more importantly, those who organised their actions and let loose criminal elements from Cairo's jails – to be arrested, charged and convicted;
• The Interior Ministry police force to be disbanded;
• The regular police force to be purged at its most senior levels and reconfigured as a force for citizen protection, rather than repression;
• The structure and operational practises of the intelligence services to be brought into the light of public scrutiny, the records of murder and torture to be revealed and those responsible arrested, charged and prosecuted;
• State corruption and embezzlement to be subjected to immediate judicial investigation and followed by prosecutions;
• Restructuring of the economic sphere and reorientation of economic policy towards at least some minimal variant of democratic developmentalism.

How many of these demands will the current army leadership – and the still unreconstructed wider state apparatus behind it - be able to accommodate? How many of them will it be able to sidestep, postpone or deflect? At what point will the temptation to fall back on all-out coercive force present itself as the only way of retaining an order that protects the compromised from popular justice?

The reconfiguration of state and 'people'

Merely to set out the potential scope of popular demands is to bring into full focus the revolutionary dimensions of the process that is already, inescapably, under way. The old structures, it is quite clear, can no longer contain the democratic energies that have been released from below. At the same time, those energies have already been shaped and disciplined by ordinary citizens' experience of having to organise defence mechanisms to combat the thugs and looters illegally unleashed by the old regime.

It is perfectly well understood that these very forces – and those that stand behind them – will be out for massive revenge if the democratic people meekly surrender the squares, streets and neighbourhoods so heroically protected for 18 days in the name of restoration of 'order and normality'.

In this context, the root-and-branch restructuring of the repressive apparatus is already inescapably on the agenda; a non-negotiable necessity for the protection of life and limb. If it is refused, it may well be the case that citizen militia will have to occupy the protective role that the state continues to deny to the people. In which case, Egypt will be entering the terrain of dual power, and the army will come under unbearable pressure, allowing for only two possible outcomes: unleash mass bloodshed – or split. Only then will the wider and deeper dynamic of the revolution begin to be released - and the questions of inclusion and exclusion presented earlier begin to be settled.

Finally: given Egypt's pivotal position in the geopolitical dynamic of the Middle East – with Iran and Israel-Palestine at its core, and a wider imperial 'arc of disaster' stretching from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Tunisia - it is not to be expected that the Egyptians will be allowed to settle their own future without massive external interference, subversion, and covert – or even open - intervention. The sustainability of an entire historic system is at stake; and no country is likely to be able to avoid the spill-overs from this Middle Eastern drama.

All those who consider themselves progressive will be called upon to find concrete, practical ways of supporting their Egyptian brothers and sisters – not just through expressions of solidarity, but by calling their own states fully to account when Washington and its allies attempt to enforce the next 'coalition of the willing'.

Adrian Crewe is the national director of Public Policy Partnership, based in Cape Town, South Africa.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...458448460.html

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.

aceventura3 · 02-14-2011, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

protests this morning in yemen, iran and bahrain.
algeria on the weekend.

not sure capital can run away from all of them.

complicated. not simple.

How about this for simplicity.

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.

roachboy · 02-14-2011, 09:18 AM

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?

Baraka_Guru · 02-14-2011, 09:22 AM

Yes, ace, it's really simple. Capital tends to flow away from instability and towards stability. Protests and revolutions aren't forms of government.

dlish · 02-14-2011, 10:09 AM

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.

aceventura3 · 02-14-2011, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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?

this line of posts started with your post #204 where you suggested that there was uncertainty regarding the next steps, I then suggested in post #205 that there is no uncertainty regarding what people are going to do - implying that the only uncertainty is with people like you. Your suggestion of uncertainty is grounded in some theoretical b.s., however people actually needing to make decisions make them. the sum of those individual decisions governs the general direction of this or any other "revolution". The sum of those individual decision is not difficult to predict.

---------- Post added at 06:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:53 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Yes, ace, it's really simple. Capital tends to flow away from instability and towards stability. Protests and revolutions aren't forms of government.

My position is that Mubarak was made powerless and that the insistence on his resignation prior to free and open elections, was symbolic. The result of which put the country in a state of unnecessary uncertainty that will have consequences - many of which will not be for the good of democracy or the people. Even Mubarack staying on as a figure head would have sent a message of an orderly transition.

roachboy · 02-14-2011, 11:37 AM

society and history and politics: all "some theoretical b.s."

wow, ace.
amazing stuff.
you should do stand-up.

aceventura3 · 02-14-2011, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

society and history and politics: all "some theoretical b.s."

wow, ace.
amazing stuff.
you should do stand-up.

The "b.s." comment was a reference to the way you avoid directly supporting your positions when challenged. Some of your comments clearly have no merit in context and are solely ideologically driven. You do it in the guise of - if you say it, it is so, and any question or challenge is obviously from an individual not worthy of your exceptional world view. But by the time an issue has run its course your superficial presentations surrounded in a shroud of verbosity and pleonasm has little value.

roachboy · 02-14-2011, 09:46 PM

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.

roachboy · 02-15-2011, 08:02 AM

i usually don't cite editorials, but in this case, because i should have guessed...

Quote:

The GOP loves freedom, but not for Egypt

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, February 15, 2011;

Why don't conservatives love freedom?

Judging by last week's Conservative Political Action Conference, that's a fair question. As Egyptians overthrew the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak, politicians who spoke at the annual CPAC gabfest in Washington ranged from silent to grumpy on the subject.

Mitt Romney, perhaps the leading Republican presidential contender, gave a speech without once mentioning the upheaval in Cairo that may signal the most important geopolitical shift since the end of the Cold War. You'd think that anyone who wanted to be president would be paying attention and might have an opinion or two.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, also believed to be considering a presidential run, likewise seemed not to have noticed that the world was changing. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty confined himself to criticizing President Obama for somehow appeasing "Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood." Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who won the CPAC presidential straw poll, was at least forthright: He said the United States has no "moral responsibility to spread our goodness around the world" and urged the administration "to do a lot less a lot sooner, not only in Egypt but around the world."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was all over the map. At CPAC, he mentioned "what's happening in Egypt" without commenting further. On Saturday, he told the Associated Press that Mubarak's resignation was "good for the future" but criticized Obama for publicly supporting the dictator's ouster. On Sunday, Gingrich explained on ABC's "This Week" that Obama was right to side with the freedom-loving protesters in Tahrir Square but should have done so privately - as if whispered encouragement, of which there was plenty, had a prayer of making a difference.

Meanwhile, protests sparked by the Egypt uprising are raging across the Arab world - Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain. On Monday, the clamor for democracy surfaced in Iran with the first consequential street demonstrations against theocratic rule since 2009.

House Speaker John Boehner, at least, has come out forcefully on the side of freedom. But why the ambivalence from so many prominent conservatives?

For one thing - and I think this applies to most of the tongue-tied potential candidates - there's the fact that all of this is happening on Obama's watch. If everything turns out well, heaven forbid that the president get any credit.

The administration's public comments as the Egyptian revolution unfolded seemed to take two steps forward and one step back, but there was never any real question about Obama's sentiments. The United States was by no means in control of events, but the White House used whatever influence it had to push for a transition.

The conservative mantra has been: Obama Is Always Wrong. Therefore there must be something wrong with the way he handled Egypt - even if it appears, from what we've seen so far, that the result is a historic opening for democracy in the world's most troubled region.

The other possible explanation for the lukewarm conservative reaction is a lack of faith in our most cherished democratic values - at least where majority-Islam countries are concerned.

I'm not talking about Glenn Beck's paranoid fantasy of a vast leftist-Islamist conspiracy for world domination; that's a job for a licensed professional with a prescription pad. I'm talking about people such as former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, who told CPAC that "democracy as we see it" in Egypt would be all right but grumbled that "a democratic election can produce illiberal results."

In other words, some Egyptians might vote for candidates put forth by the Muslim Brotherhood. It is unlikely that the group would win a majority in free and fair elections - or even that a government headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, if it came to that, would necessarily be more dangerous or hostile than the Mubarak regime. But Bolton and some others seem to believe that only political parties of which the United States approves should be allowed to participate in Egyptian elections.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, another presidential contender, used his CPAC speech to blast Obama's handling of Egypt; for weeks, Santorum has been claiming that elections there would lead straight to "sharia law." Pam Geller, the conservative blogger who led opposition to the Lower Manhattan mosque, crashed the CPAC conference and told an interviewer from Mother Jones magazine that Mubarak's fall was "catastrophic" and would lead to sharia law throughout the Middle East.

These conservatives are arguing that the world's 1.2 billion Muslims cannot be trusted to govern themselves. That's not what I call loving freedom.

Eugene Robinson - The GOP loves freedom, but not for Egypt

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.

Cimarron29414 · 02-15-2011, 08:13 AM

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.

mixedmedia · 02-15-2011, 08:22 AM

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

roachboy · 02-15-2011, 08:36 AM

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:

Here is the crux of the ethical irony. Washington is respectful of the logic of self-determination, so long as it converges with the US grand strategy, and is oblivious to the will of the people whenever its expression is seen as posing a threat to the neoliberal overlords of the globalised world economy, or to strategic alignments that seem so dear to State Department or Pentagon planners.

As a result there is an inevitable to-ing and fro-ing as the United States tries to bob and weave, celebrating the advent of democracy in Egypt,complaining about the violence and torture of the tottering regime - while doing what it can to manage the process from outside, which means preventing genuine change, much less a democratic transformation of the Egyptian state. Anointing the main CIA contact and Mubarak loyalist, Omar Suleiman, to preside over the transition process on behalf of Egypt seems a thinly disguised plan to throw Mubarak to the crowd, while stabilising the regime he presided over for more than 30 years.

I would have expected more subtlety on the part of the geopolitical managers, but perhaps its absence is one more sign of imperial myopia that so often accompanies the decline of great empires.

aceventura3 · 02-15-2011, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

ace, dear, what the fuck are you talking about?

Reading and responding to questions is not difficult to follow and understand.

Quote:

i'm merely tracking what is happening in egypt.

You often include unsubstaiated ideologically driven statements here and there, and those are normally the basis of my challenges and or questions.

Quote:

nothing you post evinces the slightest understanding of that.
the few factoid you post are obvious.

On one hand you write that you are merely tracking what is happening which is as obvious as it gets, yet you have a problem with "the few factoid"s I post??? Isn't this a political forum, isn't it about digging deeper into the facts and about how events relate to political views. Or, is this simply about you tracking what is happening?

Quote:

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.

What are the consequences? The way I see it, it is you that generally avoids addressing direct questions and you who is unable or unwilling to support your views when challenged. I have not suffered any "consequences" based on how I post. I know what I do, I understand what I do and I know why I do what I do.

---------- Post added at 05:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:19 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

Is the above tracking what is happening? You write some b.s. like what appears above and you want people to rollover and live with it, because after all it came from - you. You don't want challenge, you can not support your views above and then you get pissed if someone asks you about it, looks for clarification or challenges it. And you pretend that I have a problem!

roachboy · 02-15-2011, 10:48 AM

wrong again ace darling.
i enjoy being challenged.
but i don't suffer fools.

meanwhile, back in the world....

[/COLOR]

Quote:

Egyptian army hijacking revolution, activists fear

Military ruling council begins to roll out reform plans while civilian groups struggle to form united front

Egypt's revolution is in danger of being hijacked by the army, key political activists have warned, as concrete details of the country's democratic transition period were revealed for the first time.

Judge Tarek al-Beshry, a moderate Islamic thinker, announced that he had been selected by the military to head a constitutional reform panel. Its proposals will be put to a national referendum in two months' time. The formation of the panel comes after high-ranking army officers met with selected youth activists on Sunday and promised them that the process of transferring power to a civilian government is now under way.

But the Guardian has learned that despite public pronouncements of faith in the military's intentions, elements of Egypt's fractured political opposition are deeply concerned about the army's unilateral declarations of reform and the apparent unwillingness of senior officers to open up sustained and transparent negotiations with those who helped organise the revolution.

"We need the army to recognise that this is a revolution, and they can't implement all these changes on their own," said Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent youth activist. "The military are the custodians of this particular stage in the process, and we're fine with that, but it has to be temporary.

"To work out what comes next there has to be a real civilian cabinet, of our own choosing, one that has some sort of public consensus behind it - not just unilateral communiques from army officers."

There is consternation that the army is taking such a hard line on the country's burgeoning wave of strikes, which has seen workers seeking not just to improve their economic conditions, but also to purge institutions of bosses they accuse of being corrupt and closely aligned to the old regime.

"These protests aren't just wage-specific," said Abd El Fattah. "They're also about people at ground level wanting to continue the work of the revolution, pushing out regime cronies and reclaiming institutions like the professional syndicates and university departments that have long been commandeered by the state."

The ruling military council has called on "noble Egyptians" to end all strikes immediately.

Egypt's post-Mubarak political landscape has grown increasingly confused in the past few days, as the largely discredited formal opposition parties of the old era seek to reposition themselves as populist movements. Meanwhile younger, online-based groups are trying to capitalise on their momentum by forming their own political vehicles, and the previously outlawed Muslim Brotherhood has announced that it will form a legal political party.

After decades of stagnation, the country's political spectrum is desperately trying to catch up with the largely leaderless events of the past few weeks and accommodate the millions of Egyptians politicised by Mubarak's fall. "The current 'opposition' does not represent a fraction of those who participated in this revolution and engaged with Tahrir and other protest sites," said Abd El Fattah. But with a myriad of short-lived alliances and counter-alliances developing among opposition forces in recent days, uncertainty about the country's political future still prevails.

"Despite various attempts to form a united front, there's nothing of the kind at this point - just a lot of division," said Shadi Hamid, an Egypt expert at the Brookings Doha Centre. "You've got numerous groups, numerous coalitions, and everyone is meeting with everyone else. There's a sense of organisational chaos. Everyone wants a piece of the revolution."

This week a number of formal opposition parties, including the liberal Wafd party and the leftist Tagammu party, came together with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and a wide range of youth movements to try and elect a steering committee that could speak with a unified voice to the army commanders and negotiate the formation of a transitional government and presidential council.

Yet those plans have been overtaken by the speed of the military's own independent proclamations on reform, raising fears that civilian voices are being shut out of the transitional process.

Some senior figures inside the coalition believe the army is deliberately holding high-profile meetings with individuals such as Google executive Wael Ghonim and the 6 April youth movement founder Ahmed Maher in an effort to appear receptive to alternative views, but without developing any sustainable mechanism through which non-military forces can play a genuine role in political reform.

"The military are talking to one or two 'faces of the revolution' that have no actual negotiating experience and have not been mandated by anyone to speak on the people's behalf," claimed one person involved with the new coalition. "It's all very well for them to be apparently implementing our demands, but why are we being given no say in the process?

"They are talking about constitutional amendments, but most people here want a completely new constitution that limits the power of the presidency. They are talking about elections in a few months, and yet our political culture is still full of division and corruption.

"Many of us are now realising that a very well thought-out plan is unfolding step by step from the military, who of course have done very well out of the political and economic status quo. These guys are expert strategic planners after all, and with the help of some elements of the old regime and some small elements of the co-opted opposition, they're trying to develop a system that looks vaguely democratic but in reality just entrenches their own privileges."

Egyptian army hijacking revolution, activists fear | World news | The Guardian

aceventura3 · 02-15-2011, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

wrong again ace darling.
i enjoy being challenged.
but i don't suffer fools.

What I wanna know is, do your comrades know that you are actually a capitalist pig? In your support of the Egyptian "revolution" and call for democracy, you do realize that it also includes Egyption's gaining the right hold legitimate title to real property and to be able to sell valued goods and services in a free market to provide profits and individual wealth for a prosperous future? Oh, and that they will want to do this without an oppressive centralized government or military rule? I never would have thought based on your writing that you were such a supporter capitalism.

roachboy · 02-15-2011, 12:54 PM

once there's some advantage to be gained relative to iran of course the united states gets much less ambivalent about this revolution stuff....

Quote:

Obama urges Mideast allies to 'get out ahead' of protests, denounces Iranian crackdown

By William Branigin, Thomas Erdbrink and Liz Sly
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 15, 2011; 2:18 PM

President Obama on Tuesday warned Middle Eastern nations, including longtime U.S. allies, that they need to "get out ahead" of surging aspirations for democracy, and he sharply criticized what he described as Iran's hypocritical response to protests.

In a news conference at the White House, his first of the year, Obama said governments in the region "can't maintain power through coercion."

"The world is changing," he said in a message directed to Middle East leaders. "You have a young, vibrant generation within the Middle East that is looking for greater opportunity. . . . You can't be behind the curve."

In particular, Obama sought to draw a distinction between Egypt's largely peaceful popular uprising and the brutality of the Iranian government in cracking down on opposition demonstrators.

He spoke after Iranian hard-liners called Tuesday for the arrest or execution of opposition leaders involved in street protests the day before, as gatherings of Egypt-inspired demonstrators in Bahrain and Yemen again resulted in bloodshed. Violent protests erupted in all three countries Monday as the revolutionary fervor unleashed by the toppling of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rippled across the Middle East, propelling people onto the streets to demand change from a spectrum of autocratic regimes.

In Tehran, at least one person was killed during the banned opposition rally, officials told the student news agency ISNA on Tuesday. The demonstration was the largest in Iran since a crackdown on the opposition 14 months ago.

In Washington, Obama told reporters: "We have sent a strong message to our allies in the region saying, 'Let's look at Egypt's example, as opposed to Iran's example.' You know, I find it ironic that you've got the Iranian regime pretending to celebrate what happened in Egypt, when in fact they have acted in direct contrast to what happened in Egypt by gunning down and beating people who were trying to express themselves peacefully in Iran."

As in Egypt, Obama said, people in Iran "should be able to express their opinions and their grievances and seek a more responsive government." He said he hopes Iranians continue to "have the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedoms and a more representative government." However, "America cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran any more than it could inside of Egypt," he cautioned.

"What we can do is lend moral support to those who are seeking a better life for themselves," Obama said.

While the United States is "concerned about stability throughout the region," it has sent a message "to friend and foe alike," the president said. Part of this message, he said, is "that if you are governing these countries, you've got to get out ahead of change."

As a result of events in Egypt and, earlier, Tunisia, governments in the Middle East and North Africa "are starting to understand this," Obama said. "And my hope is is that they can operate in a way that is responsive to this hunger for change, but always do so in a way that doesn't lead to violence."

In Tehran earlier Tuesday, pro-government legislators at an open session of the Iranian parliament demanded that opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami be held responsible for Monday's clashes between protesters and security forces, the Associated Press reported.

Pumping their fists in the air, the lawmakers chanted, "Death to Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami."

"We believe the people have lost their patience and demand capital punishment," 221 lawmakers said in a statement.

In the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, thousands of demonstrators marched Monday to call for reforms to their hereditary monarchy and clashed with police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. In Yemen, a key U.S. counterterrorism ally, government supporters armed with sticks and knives attacked pro-democracy demonstrators calling for the ouster of the country's dictatorial president.

Crowds massed in both Bahrain and Yemen again on Tuesday, with one person killed in Bahrain, the Associated Press reported. The death in Bahrain came when security forces fired tear gas and bird shot at thousands of people joining a funeral procession for a man who was slain in Monday's protests.

Thousands of protesters poured into a main square in Bahrain's capital waving Bahraini flags and chanting: "No Sunnis, no Shiites. We are all Bahrainis," AP said. In a clear sign of concern over the widening crisis, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa made a rare national TV address, offering condolences for the protest-related deaths, pledging an investigation and promising to push ahead with reforms, which include loosening state controls on the media and Internet.

In the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, hundreds of anti-government demonstrators and government loyalists fought with rocks and batons on Tuesday in a fifth straight day of political unrest. Four of the anti-government protesters were wounded, two of them in the head, Reuters news agency said.

But it was in a non-Arab country, Iran, that the fallout from Egypt's uprising seemed to be most acutely felt on Monday. In Tehran, large crowds of protesters defied tear gas Monday to march down a major thoroughfare, chanting "Death to the dictator." It was the biggest demonstration in the Iranian capital since the government effectively crushed the opposition movement in December 2009.

The crowds, which numbered in the tens of thousands, suggested that the seemingly cowed Green Movement that emerged to challenge Iran's theocratic regime after disputed elections in June 2009 had been inspired by the success of Egypt's revolutionaries. Many protesters wore green ribbons, the symbol of Iran's opposition movement.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised the Iranian demonstrators, saying White House officials "very clearly and directly support the aspirations" of the protesters. She also accused the Tehran government of hypocrisy for claiming to support pro-democracy demonstrators in Egypt while squelching dissent at home.

Clinton's comments appeared to signal a shift in tone by an administration that previously refrained from directly endorsing the Iranian opposition out of fear that U.S. support would backfire on the protesters.

"We think that there needs to be a commitment to open up the political system in Iran to hear the voices of the opposition and civil society," Clinton told reporters after a meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
'We are here for Iran'

Throughout the day in Tehran, people converged on Azadi, or Freedom, Square in the heart of the city, the symbolic epicenter of the protest movement that brought millions of people out on the streets in the summer of 2009. Some witnesses said the Monday protests drew more than 100,000 people.

The demonstration had been called more than a week in advance by Mousavi, the de facto leader of the opposition movement and former presidential challenger. Mousavi was placed under house arrest Monday, opposition Web sites said, joining another opposition leader, former parliament speaker Karroubi, whose house arrest was reported by the sites Thursday.

Police were deployed in smaller numbers than usual in the morning, enabling protesters to gather, and at one point in the afternoon, as the numbers swelled, the security forces appeared to retreat, witnesses said. But by nightfall, as more and more people converged, there were reports that members of the feared pro-government Basij militia had taken to the streets on their trademark motorcycles and were beating demonstrators with batons.

The semiofficial Fars News Agency reported that at least one person had been killed and several wounded in a "shooting incident" connected with the protests, and there were reports of violent clashes in other Iranian cities.

Iran has had strained relations with Egypt since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979, after a popular uprising against the U.S.-backed shah that many in Iran and beyond have compared to the revolution in Egypt.

Iran's leaders have made numerous statements over the past few weeks in support of the Egyptian protesters, and state media have hailed the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt as "new Islamic revolutions."

At the same time, Iran's Green Movement has clearly been seeking an opportunity to assert itself since the security apparatus overwhelmed its efforts to mobilize people on the streets.

"We are here for Iran," one protester told a witness to the demonstration Monday. "What they did in Egypt, we have been trying since 2009. If the government supports them, why are we not allowed to protest on our streets?"

Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, said the size of the crowds on Monday showed "that this protest movement is alive and kicking."

"Anyone who said the Green Movement was a flash in the pan was way off base," Ansari said.

The protests coincided with a visit to Tehran by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who expressed support for the Egyptian protests in a comment that could also have been taken as applying to the demonstration in Iran. Turkey, which enjoys a close relationship with Iran as well as the United States, has emerged in recent years as an increasingly influential regional power, whose democracy is hailed as a model by many in the region.

"When leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the demands of their nations, the people themselves take action to achieve their demands," Gul said at a packed news conference, according to Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency and other reports.

In Syria, there were signs that the government was cracking down on the opposition. A court there on Monday sentenced a 19-year-old blogger, under arrest since 2009, to five years in jail, after ruling that she had illegally revealed information to a foreign country.
Bahrain, Yemen roiling

The protest in Bahrain had also been called ahead of Mubarak's resignation on Friday, with campaigns on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook billing it a "Day of Rage," echoing the way Egypt's revolt was organized.

News photographs showed pictures of people who had purportedly been injured by riot police in the protests in the capital, Manama, and there were reports that thousands had taken to the streets in other towns across the kingdom. It was the most serious unrest in the normally placid emirates and kingdoms of the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula since the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings.

Bahrain is considered more vulnerable than most other regimes in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, because of its restive 70 percent Shiite majority, which has long chafed under the nation's Sunni monarchy.

But as the first Persian Gulf nation to discover oil, and the first to be running out of it, Bahrain confronts problems that other gulf nations may also eventually confront, including a growing fiscal deficit and an expanding population that cannot find jobs, said Jane Kinninmont of the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit.

"You could see Bahrain having an impact on Kuwait and the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia," where there is a Shiite majority, she said. "Bahrain is being watched quite closely there. Bahrain is different because of its sectarian makeup, but it also has problems that other gulf countries are going to have to deal with," Kinninmont said.

The protests in Bahrain, as well as Yemen, have nonetheless been much smaller than those that forced Mubarak to resign. The protest in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Monday was less well-attended, but also more violent, than others in the city in recent weeks, highlighting the potential for instability in a nation reeling from internal conflicts, deep poverty and a resurgent branch of al-Qaeda.

A few thousand protesters marched in Sanaa, chanting "Hey Ali, get out," a reference to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has governed the impoverished nation since 1978, three years longer than Mubarak ruled Egypt.

But they were confronted by a crowd of government supporters waving pictures of Saleh and chanting slogans in his support. The Saleh supporters chased the pro-democracy demonstrators with sticks, knives and stones, reportedly injuring dozens.

Obama urges Mideast allies to 'get out ahead' of protests, denounces Iranian crackdown

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.

aceventura3 · 02-15-2011, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

Funny, your point of view is...as Yoda who say it. Other might say something like this:

Quote:

The headline that appeared on Al Jazeera on Jan. 14, a week before Egyptians took to the streets, affirmed that "[t]he real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalization."

The Egyptian government has long been concerned about the consequences of this marginalization. In 1997, with the financial support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government hired my organization, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy. It wanted to get the numbers on how many Egyptians were marginalized and how much of the economy operated "extralegally"—that is, without the protections of property rights or access to normal business tools, such as credit, that allow businesses to expand and prosper. The objective was to remove the legal impediments holding back people and their businesses.

After years of fieldwork and analysis—involving over 120 Egyptian and Peruvian technicians with the participation of 300 local leaders and interviews with thousands of ordinary people—we presented a 1,000-page report and a 20-point action plan to the 11-member economic cabinet in 2004. The report was championed by Minister of Finance Muhammad Medhat Hassanein, and the cabinet approved its policy recommendations.

Egypt's major newspaper, Al Ahram, declared that the reforms "would open the doors of history for Egypt." Then, as a result of a cabinet shakeup, Mr. Hassanein was ousted. Hidden forces of the status quo blocked crucial elements of the reforms.

Today, when the streets are filled with so many Egyptians calling for change, it is worth noting some of the key facts uncovered by our investigation and reported in 2004:

• Egypt's underground economy was the nation's biggest employer. The legal private sector employed 6.8 million people and the public sector employed 5.9 million, while 9.6 million people worked in the extralegal sector.

• As far as real estate is concerned, 92% of Egyptians hold their property without normal legal title.

Editorial Board Member Matt Kaminski on the anti-Mubarak revolt

• We estimated the value of all these extralegal businesses and property, rural as well as urban, to be $248 billion—30 times greater than the market value of the companies registered on the Cairo Stock Exchange and 55 times greater than the value of foreign direct investment in Egypt since Napoleon invaded—including the financing of the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam. (Those same extralegal assets would be worth more than $400 billion in today's dollars.)

The entrepreneurs who operate outside the legal system are held back. They do not have access to the business organizational forms (partnerships, joint stock companies, corporations, etc.) that would enable them to grow the way legal enterprises do. Because such enterprises are not tied to standard contractual and enforcement rules, outsiders cannot trust that their owners can be held to their promises or contracts. This makes it difficult or impossible to employ the best technicians and professional managers—and the owners of these businesses cannot issue bonds or IOUs to obtain credit.

Nor can such enterprises benefit from the economies of scale available to those who can operate in the entire Egyptian market. The owners of extralegal enterprises are limited to employing their kin to produce for confined circles of customers.

Without clear legal title to their assets and real estate, in short, these entrepreneurs own what I have called "dead capital"—property that cannot be leveraged as collateral for loans, to obtain investment capital, or as security for long-term contractual deals. And so the majority of these Egyptian enterprises remain small and relatively poor. The only thing that can emancipate them is legal reform. And only the political leadership of Egypt can pull this off. Too many technocrats have been trained not to expand the rule of law, but to defend it as they find it. Emancipating people from bad law and devising strategies to overcome the inertia of the status quo is a political job.

The key question to be asked is why most Egyptians choose to remain outside the legal economy? The answer is that, as in most developing countries, Egypt's legal institutions fail the majority of the people. Due to burdensome, discriminatory and just plain bad laws, it is impossible for most people to legalize their property and businesses, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

The examples are legion. To open a small bakery, our investigators found, would take more than 500 days. To get legal title to a vacant piece of land would take more than 10 years of dealing with red tape. To do business in Egypt, an aspiring poor entrepreneur would have to deal with 56 government agencies and repetitive government inspections.

All this helps explain who so many ordinary Egyptians have been "smoldering" for decades. Despite hard work and savings, they can do little to improve their lives.

Bringing the majority of Egypt's people into an open legal system is what will break Egypt's economic apartheid. Empowering the poor begins with the legal system awarding clear property rights to the $400 billion-plus of assets that we found they had created. This would unlock an amount of capital hundreds of times greater than foreign direct investment and what Egypt receives in foreign aid.

Leaders and governments may change and more democracy might come to Egypt. But unless its existing legal institutions are reformed to allow economic growth from the bottom up, the aspirations for a better life that are motivating so many demonstrating in the streets will remain unfulfilled.

Hernando de Soto: Egypt's Economic Apartheid - WSJ.com

As us capitalist pigs are known to say, it all about the Benjamins.

roachboy · 02-15-2011, 02:31 PM

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.

Cimarron29414 · 02-15-2011, 02:33 PM

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.

I love ya, man. Just kidding.

roachboy · 02-15-2011, 02:55 PM

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.

aceventura3 · 02-16-2011, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

Let's play a game, its called Pick One. The rules are simple, you just - pick one.

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:

Global food prices have surged to dangerous levels, pushing 44 million more people into extreme poverty since June, according to the World Bank, which warned some nations may make the mistake of imposing curbs on shipments.

“The price hike is already pushing millions of people into poverty and putting stress on the most vulnerable, who spend more than half of their income on food,” President Robert Zoellick said yesterday. During the 2008 food crisis, the bank said 100 million may be driven deeper into poverty. The bank defines “extreme poverty” as living on less than $1.25 a day.

The bank’s food-price index rose 15 percent between October and January, led by wheat, sugar and edible oil. The gauge is 3 percent below a 2008 peak, when surging costs sparked riots in more than a dozen countries. The outlook for rice, staple for half the world, “appears stable,” the bank said in a statement.

Food security across the Middle East region has become more of a prominent issue,” Tom Puddy, head of grain marketing at Perth, Australia-based exporter CBH Group, said today. Governments “are looking to try and secure food stocks to curb rising inflation and food prices to prevent any civil unrest.”

Surging food costs contributed to protests in Tunisia that ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president on Feb. 11 following more than two weeks of unrest.

Corn has surged 86 percent in the past year, and wheat is up 69 percent after drought and floods damaged crops from Russia to Argentina. The Food & Agriculture Organization’s World Food Price Index gained to a record in January for a second month.
‘Dangerous Levels’

“Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people,” Zoellick said, commenting in the statement and a conference call. “If we don’t get a relief on the weather side, then I foresee conditions getting worse, and mistaken policy actions such as exports bans or other tax or price controls will exacerbate the problems.”

Trade curbs were a feature of the 2008 spike in food prices, when India and Vietnam were among nations that restricted or suspended shipments. Russia banned wheat exports last year after drought hit its harvest. Russian Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said yesterday that the government may decide whether to extend or lift the ban after crops are reaped, or in October.

Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, has no plans “for the moment” to curb shipments as the nation has abundant reserves to ensure food security, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in an interview last month. “We should all continue to benefit from the world market,” Abhisit said.
‘Good Harvests’

Unlike in 2008, rice prices have made more moderate gains and “good harvests in many African countries” have “prevented even more falling into poverty,” said the Washington-based World Bank, which defines its mission as fighting global poverty.

While rough-rice futures traded in Chicago have gained about 53 percent since the end of June, they remain below the record $25.07 per 100 pounds reached in April 2008.

“It is important to ensure that further increases in poverty are curtailed by taking measures that calm jittery markets and by scaling up safety net and nutritional programs,” the bank said.

Group-of-20 finance ministers and central bankers meeting this week should make food a priority, Zoellick said. The G-20 should sponsor a code of conduct on exports bans, better information on inventories and long-range weather forecasts.

As food costs gain, consumers even in developed nations are using more of their income to pay for food, Caroline Spelman, the U.K. secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said at a conference yesterday. “In poor countries we’ve seen the cost of bread can spark riots.”

Food Surge Is Exacerbating Poverty, World Bank Says - Bloomberg

---------- Post added at 04:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cimarron29414

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.

I don't think the US support of Egypt is relevant. The problem with Egyptians not economically thriving is because of the lack of capitalistic style opportunity. For example Egypt compared to Israel in terms of economic opportunity is directly related to the level capitalism in each country. I am of the school of thought that free market capitalism will have a bigger impact on living standards in a country than its political structure. I doubt Roach shares that view.

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.

Cimarron29414 · 02-16-2011, 08:26 AM

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.

aceventura3 · 02-16-2011, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

You don't seem to get the fact (yes, fact) that economic issues drive politics.

Quote:

the wsj line is basically to argue for some imaginary separation between mubarak and capitalism.

The argument is that Mubarak rule not allowing capitalistic opportunity is the reason for the "revolution".

Quote:

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.

Right. WSJ = no credibility. Got it.

Why not just give us your list of approved sources?

Quote:

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.

Yes, yes, I bet history is full of revolutions over political systems and not things like food - I am just not aware of them.

roachboy · 02-16-2011, 08:42 AM

this is a relatively conservative analysis of the constitutional situation in egypt at the moment:

Quote:

February 15, 2011
SNAPSHOT
Egypt's Constitutional Ghosts

Deciding the Terms of Cairo’s Democratic Transition
Nathan J. Brown
NATHAN J. BROWN is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and a nonresident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Egyptians seeking to build a new future after the rule of Hosni Mubarak hope to draw on, as well as correct, the flaws in the country's longstanding constitutional tradition. In the days since a military council took power from Mubarak, the country's political opposition has been quick to articulate its demands in the language of dry legal texts and procedures.

The current constitution was first enacted in 1971 and amended several times in the years afterward, but its precursors date back to a century before. Egypt's first constitutional effort came in 1882, when an assembly approved a basic law to govern its relationship with the cabinet. In 1923, when the country gained its independence from the British Empire, a second and more comprehensive document was written to combine, however uneasily, a parliamentary system with a monarchy.

When the 1923 constitution was scrapped in the wake of a 1952 military coup, Egypt's legal scholars set to work designing a republican constitution based on liberal and democratic values. Their work was shelved in 1954, however, by the country's new military rulers, who issued instead a series of documents to serve their own ideological and institutional needs. These new rules delivered the Egyptian polity into the hands of a one-party system in which all power rested with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's president until his death in 1970.

In 1971, Egypt received a new constitution, which would prove to be a more complicated and long-lived document. When Anwar al-Sadat succeeded Nasser, he found himself with rivals in various institutions, such as in the sole political party and the security apparatus. At the same time, he looked to recalibrate the regime's ideology, moving gently away from socialism and toward religion. Both problems, he realized, could be addressed with a new constitution. Sadat convened a large and remarkably diverse committee: feminists, Islamic legal scholars, liberals, socialists, nationalists, and representatives of the Christian church were all represented. On the whole, the group moved in the direction Sadat wanted: weakening the party, nominally strengthening legal institutions, and promising Egyptians a move away from the harshest aspects of Nasserist authoritarianism.

The result was a document that promised a little bit to everybody -- but everything to the president. The constitution contained guarantees for individual freedoms, democratic procedures, and judicial independence. It made nods toward socialism and Islam. But for every commitment, there was also a trap door; for every liberty, there was a loophole that ultimately did little to rein in the power of the president or the country's determined security apparatus.

Over the next four decades, Egypt's presidents tinkered with the text. Sadat took further steps against socialism and made greater concessions to Islam; he dismantled the single-party system and replaced it with a nominally pluralistic political order in which the party of the president -- today's collapsing National Democratic Party -- enjoyed a dominant role. For every step forward, there was a step back: after the single party that had controlled the press was disbanded, authority was handed, in 1980, to a new state press council.

Mubarak left the constitution alone for most of his presidency, arguing that Egypt needed stability rather than further ideological and institutional gyrations. But Egypt did change in some gradual ways, sometimes toward liberalism. Mubarak widened the limited party pluralism allowed by Sadat; he permitted an opposition press to grow in the 1980s and an independent press to flourish in the 2000s.

Yet the country's political movement was far from linear. In the 1980s, the state's reliance on harsh authoritarian tools gradually abated; yet in the 1990s, these repressive tools were resurrected and used not just against radical Islamists but also the far tamer Muslim Brotherhood.

But on the whole, beginning in the 1980s, some of constitution's liberal elements began to come to life, largely led by Egypt's judiciary. A new judicial law in 1984 gave Egypt's civil and criminal judiciary more autonomy, and the State Council -- a set of courts that have jurisdiction over cases in which a state body is a party -- proved surprisingly friendly to ordinary citizens.

Most striking was the Supreme Constitutional Court, a structure originally designed to keep the rest of the judiciary in check. But as it gained an autonomous voice during the 1980s and 1990s, it actually began to enforce some of the rights and freedoms embedded in the Egyptian constitution. A set of court decisions on electoral laws, for example, forced a more open balloting process. By 2005, parliament had one-fifth of its seats controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Most of the other deputies were allied with the regime, but a looser party system made them more difficult to control.

In 2007, the Mubarak regime introduced a series of constitutional amendments that slammed shut most of the liberal openings in the 1971 constitution. The changes took elections away from full judicial supervision and placed them under the control of regime-dominated commissions; allowed multicandidate presidential elections on paper but sharply restricted viable candidacies in practice; constitutionally barred the Brotherhood from forming a political party; and took steps to insert formerly extraordinary emergency measures (such as the president's ability to refer cases to military courts for swift and reliable convictions) into the constitutional text.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that the protest movement that brought down Mubarak no longer looked to the constitution for guidance. For years, opposition activists and reform figures focused their efforts on a few constitutional provisions in the hope that fixing those could bring the liberal and democratic elements of the 1971 constitution back to life. But the 2007 amendments had carefully placed booby traps throughout the document. Tinkering was no longer enough. When Egypt's opposition leaders began talking of "revolution," they wanted not only to end the Mubarak presidency but also to sweep aside the 1971 constitution.

Thus, the crowds in Tahrir Square were elated by the abandonment of constitutional procedures on February 11 and the suspension of the constitution on February 13. If the country is to be governed by a military junta, then fundamental restructuring would seem to be on the table. This is an extremely risky strategy for the opposition, however, since it depends on the regime's willingness to negotiate with the opposition and agree to a truly inclusive process of political reconstruction.

It might seem that the past century would make Egyptians cynical about the power of paper to build a proper political order. But just the opposite seems to be the case: it has taught them that they need to pay far more attention to the fine print. Today there is a remarkably wide consensus on the elements of a new constitutional order. Almost all political forces outside of the regime -- from the Muslim Brotherhood to labor-oriented activists -- would agree on a general package of reform.

The opposition would like to see a whittling down of the powers of the presidency; firm institutional guarantees of judicial independence, largely in the form of a more autonomous and powerful judicial council; judicial monitoring of elections; an end to exceptional courts and Egypt's state of emergency (in nearly continuous effect since 1939); more robust instruments for protecting rights and freedoms; and a truly pluralist party system.

Taken together, the proposed changes would have three effects. First, they would greatly increase accountability of existing institutions to the people. Second, they would give real protection to individual freedoms and provide guarantees for a pluralist political system. Third, they would activate mechanisms of horizontal accountability, so that Egypt's various constitutional institutions could patrol one another.

In this third element, Egyptians show a sophisticated understanding of their constitutional past. Egypt is a state of institutions -- but those institutions have all been accountable to the presidency. By giving these institutions true autonomy, the vague promises of a constitutional text can take on real meaning. This does not necessarily suggest a U.S.-style system of "checks and balances," however -- Egyptian constitutional architects are more likely to speak of "separation of powers," in which institutions are contained within well-defined boundaries.

Is this a quixotic task? There are two reasons for hope. First, Egypt has a strong set of constitutional institutions with deep roots and professional standards. Second, there is a remarkable degree of consensus on what needs to be done. Of course, any constitutional process will spark symbolic debates about identity and Islam, but even on these potentially contentious issues, some version of the formulas in the country's current constitution are acceptable to most political camps.

The real obstacles to Egypt's constitutional revolution lie elsewhere. For starters, there is no real procedure in place for writing a new constitution. If Egypt starts from scratch, how is it to proceed? Past constitutions have been drafted by committees working in private. The country has no tradition to draw on for more protracted and inclusive practices, such as an elected constituent assembly. The only way to design such procedures is to bring all parties to the negotiating table and agree on the process. Yet this will be difficult because as much as they might agree on matters of substance, the diffuse nature of the opposition makes agreement on tactics and procedures slow and arduous.

Such consensus will become even more difficult if the military rulers push for a less radical solution. And this is the most significant obstacle by far: the Egyptian state is currently controlled by a committee of military leaders who have made very polite general sounds but suggested very limited intentions. Indeed, they have given strong signs that they wish simply to amend the current draft, and they have shown little inclination toward either a democratic or an inclusive process. Such a procedure looks suspiciously like the ones used to change the constitution or elect the president in the past -- the people are invited to vote only after their leaders have made their choices for them. To be fair, the apparent appointment of Tariq al-Bishri, a leading public intellectual with a reputation for integrity and independence, as chair of the new constitutional committee is a very hopeful sign.

At this point, much depends on the intent of the Egyptian military leaders. They still have the chance to correct a mistake that some of their predecessors made. In 1952, the group of officers that overthrew the regime was headed by General Mohammed Naguib, who promised a return to civilian rule. Most of the work on the draft liberal constitution was performed under Naguib's presidency.

But Nasser deposed Naguib in 1954 and set to work building the system that the Egyptian revolutionaries have just brought to its knees. If the Egyptian revolution is to succeed in building a new system, Naguib's ghost will have to work its magic on the generals who now control the country.
Copyright © 2002-2010 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

Egypt's Constitutional Ghosts | Foreign Affairs

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.

dc_dux · 02-16-2011, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Let's play a game, its called Pick One. The rules are simple, you just - pick one.

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.

We know that in ace world, everything is black and white, as you often remind us. It is the only way you can rationalize your narrow and ideological thinking.

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.

aceventura3 · 02-16-2011, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cimarron29414

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".

My Tea Party participation is directly related to my ability to earn a living and keep more of what I work for. It is not at all complicated, and has nothing to do with choice A.

Quote:

...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.

I do agree, mostly, with Roach regarding the US sending military aid to Egypt in exchange for a promise of peace. Other than military aid I am not aware of any other type of material aid being sent to directly help the Egyptian people.

---------- Post added at 04:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:45 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

We know that in ace world, everything is black and white, as you often remind us. It is the only way you can rationalize your narrow and ideological thinking.

You confuse me, are you of the belief that people are protesting for the concept of democracy or something at a more base level like simply being able to feed their families, have a job, earn a living, have a better future?

Quote:

Unfortunately, the real world is more complex as are causes and effects.

Sources?

Have you not read the articles I cited? Have you thought about my question regarding the historical causes of revolutions on this planet? The causes of revolutions are normally pretty simple and in my study of history they are almost always due to some form of economic opportunity.

Quote:

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.

What is your source? to me it seems that the Western media romanticizes over certain concepts like those you present above. I again ask what is different this time as compared to a year ago, five years ago, 25 years ago? I say the severity of food inflation and the global economic slow down.

02-11-2011, 01:52 PM	#204 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-11-2011, 02:04 PM	#206 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-11-2011, 02:23 PM	#207 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	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. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

02-12-2011, 07:51 AM	#209 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 02-12-2011 at 08:24 AM..

02-12-2011, 10:05 AM	#210 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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 __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-11-2011, 11:31 AM	#201 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	Yes indeed. Me too, intoxicated by the sound of revolution on that feed.

02-11-2011, 01:43 PM	#203 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	The next few months are going to be truly historic. I'm pulling for the Egyptians, I really am.

02-13-2011, 09:53 AM	#211 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-14-2011, 02:49 AM	#213 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	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. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

02-14-2011, 09:18 AM	#216 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-14-2011, 09:22 AM	#217 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	Yes, ace, it's really simple. Capital tends to flow away from instability and towards stability. Protests and revolutions aren't forms of government. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

02-14-2011, 10:09 AM	#218 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	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. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

02-14-2011, 11:37 AM	#220 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	society and history and politics: all "some theoretical b.s." wow, ace. amazing stuff. you should do stand-up. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-14-2011, 09:46 PM	#222 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 02-14-2011 at 09:57 PM..

02-15-2011, 08:13 AM	#224 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

02-15-2011, 08:22 AM	#225 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	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 __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

02-15-2011, 02:31 PM	#232 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-15-2011, 02:33 PM	#233 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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. I love ya, man. Just kidding. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

02-15-2011, 02:55 PM	#234 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-16-2011, 08:26 AM	#236 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly." Last edited by Cimarron29414; 02-16-2011 at 08:30 AM..