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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 02/06/2011 - 02/13/2011
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And, yes, I DO take it personally

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Small house movement

egypt was uplifting in an earth-shaking way... here's something else uplifting, not on as grand a scale, but still big in its own right...

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Friday, February 11, 2011

Crossing the "fear barrier"

listening to rania, a human rights activist, speaking to al jazeera from the 6th of october bridge in cairo... she says that once the egyptian people crossed the "fear barrier," there was no stopping them...

i've said all along that fear is the principal tool used by our overlords to keep us in our place... if you look at just how much fear gets stoked on a daily basis - terrorists, swine flu, home foreclosure, crime, even losing one's job - we are mercilessly manipulated on a daily basis...

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Celebrating Egypt - fireworks in Beirut, Gaza and Tunisia... Even some good words from a former Israeli cabinet minister

there's no historical precedent... i've said before, i've been waiting for something like this all my life...
Celebrations erupted across the Middle East on Friday after Hosni Mubarak stepped down as Egypt's president. From Beirut to Gaza, people rushed into the streets, handing out candy, setting off fireworks and shooting in the air.

Even in Israel, which had watched the Egyptian protesters' uprising against Mubarak with concern, a former Cabinet minister said Mubarak did the right thing. "The street won. There was nothing that could be done. It's good that he did what he did," former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who knew Mubarak well, told Israel TV's Channel 10.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and there are fears the 1979 accord could now be challenged.

Moments after Egypt's Vice President Omar Suleiman made the announcement of Mubarak's resignation, fireworks lit up the sky over Beirut. Celebratory gunfire rang out in the Shiite-dominated areas in south Lebanon and in southern Beirut.

On Al-Manar TV, the station run by the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah faction, Egyptian anchor Amr Nassef, who was once imprisoned in Egypt for alleged ties to Islamists, cried emotionally on the air and said: "Allahu Akbar (God is great), the Pharaoh is dead. Am I dreaming? I'm afraid to be dreaming."

In Tunisia, where a successful uprising expelled a longtime leader only weeks earlier, cries of joy and the thundering honking of horns greeted the announcement. "God delivered our Egyptian brothers from this dictator," said Yacoub Youssef, one of those celebrating in the capital of Tunis.

[...]

In the Gaza Strip, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas, thousands rushed into the streets in jubilation. Gunmen fired in the air and women handed out candy. "God bless Egypt, it's a day of joy and God willing all corrupt leaders in the world will fall," said Radwa Abu Ali, 55, one of the women distributing sweets.

yes, god willing, all the corrupt leaders in the world will fall...

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While we celebrate Egypt, let's not forget what's going on here at home - the plutocracy is playing for keeps

john cole with thanks to glenn greenwald...
One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything that empowers the little people or that threatens the wealth and power of the plutocracy must be destroyed. [emphasis added] There is a reason for these clowns going after Think Progress and unions, just like there is a reason they are targeting wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald, Planned Parenthood, and Acorn. To a lesser extent the fail parade that was the Daily Caller expose on Journolist was more of the same.

You have to understand the mindset- they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth isn’t enough. They want it all. Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. They don’t care if they poison every stream or crack the foundation to your house or if your daughter dies getting a back alley abortion or if every one in your mining town has an inoperable tumor. They just don’t give a shit.

And they are well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations dedicated to running cover for them. They’ve even created their own mythical ideology in which they are superhero Galtian overlords, and this lets a few rubes who babble ignorantly about the free market get to feel like they are playing along, when they are really just being played. It’s these guys versus all of us, yet half the people being rogered (Republicans and glibertarians and hell, half the Democrats) have been convinced the other side is a bigger threat to their well being than the people with all the power, money, and resources. Hell, even in this post I can guarantee that at least five shitheads will come in and tell me they don’t like Glenn Greenwald because he uses too many words or that Jane Hamsher is shrill or because neither of them fellate Obama to satisfaction. Talk about not fucking getting it.

I don’t even know why we bother to hold elections any more, to be honest, the game is so rigged. We’re a banana republic, and it is just a matter of time before we descend into necklacing and other tribal bullshit.

you can be sure that what's taking place in egypt is scaring the ever-loving shit out of our super-rich overlords... there's nothing - NOTHING - these people want to see less than ordinary people re-claiming their power...

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They didn't fight, they didn't kill, and they didn't rely on someone who claimed to "lead" them

they simply came out en masse, took care of each other and said, in no uncertain terms -

NO MORE...!!

they've reclaimed the power that is the birthright of every one of us...

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Power to the people of Egypt...!

tahrir square is exploding with joy...!

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after 30 years, it took the combined will of the egyptian people 18 days to topple the regime... god bless them... i'm in awe of their courage and pray for better days for them, their country and, indeed, for all of us...

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MUBARAK STEPS DOWN...!!

egyptian army tanks guarding the presidential palace in cairo with their gun barrels pointed at the protesters just turned them aside... is that symbolic or what...?

suleiman is making a statement right now... watch al jazeera here...

he just announced that mubarak has stepped down and handed over control of the country to the army council...

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Twitter of the day: Mubarak is Egypt's first zombie president

i love it...

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Thursday, February 10, 2011

The uprising in Egypt has discredited every Western media stereotype about the Arabs

john pilger...
The uprising in Egypt has discredited every Western media stereotype about the Arabs. The courage, determination, eloquence and grace of those in Liberation Square contrast with “our” specious fear-mongering with its al-Qaeda and Iran bogeys and iron-clad assumptions, bereft of irony, of the “moral leadership of the West”. It is not surprising that the recent source of truth about the imperial abuse of the Middle East, WikiLeaks, is itself subjected to craven, petty abuse in those self-congratulating newspapers that set the limits of elite liberal debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps they are worried. Across the world, public awareness is rising and bypassing them. In Washington and London, the regimes are fragile and barely democratic. Having long burned down societies abroad, they are now doing something similar at home, with lies and without a mandate. To their victims, the resistance in Cairo’s Liberation Square must seem an inspiration. “We won’t stop,” said the young Egyptian woman on TV, “we won’t go home.” Try kettling a million people in the centre of London, bent on civil disobedience, and try imagining it could not happen.

can you imagine what's happening in tahrir square transcending national boundaries and spreading across the world...? men, women, old, young, christians, muslims, buddhists, light skin, dark skin, rich, poor, singing, holding hands, taking care of each other, knowing and believing in their own power and refusing to surrender it to the super-rich elites who have come to believe that it's their birthright to tell us all what to do...

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The Egyptian regime has tested positive for cancer but Mubarak and Suleiman think they only have a migraine

on al jazeera live...

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Mubarak keeps givin' the same speech

it's the same speech he gave two weeks ago and i have the same reaction i did then...



what an arrogant asshole...

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This isn't just about Egypt [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

it's about ALL of us and we would all do well to pay attention... the tectonic plates are shifting and this will have ripple effects around the world in ways that we can only guess at...

obama is scheduled to take the stage in michigan in about 10 minutes and i suspect that mubarak will be making his appearance at about the same time...

watch al jazeera here...


[UPDATE]

guessed wrong... obama mentioned that we "witnessing history unfold", his usual non-committal statement...

[UPDATE II]

egyptian state television says mubarak will address the nation within the hour... it's currently 11:04 a.m., u.s. pacific time, 9:04 p.m., egyptian time...

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The Egyptian Supreme Military Council just issued a statement [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

there's quite a lot of room for interpretation, but it sounds like the military announced that the protesters demands are going to be met... the people in tahrir square are pretty energized and the rumors are flying...

watch al jazeera here...


[UPDATE]
Egypt's Mubarak to step down
Sources tell NBC News that Vice President Suleiman to take over as leader

the bad news...?
Vice President Omar Suleiman will take over

yes, that's BAD NEWS...

[UPDATE II]

mubarak to address the nation...
Hosni Mubarak to address Egypt; protesters are told demands will be met

A general tells protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square that their demands will be met, and the military says it is taking the 'necessary measures to protect the nation and support the legitimate demands of the people.' Protesters have been adamant that Hosni Mubarak step down.

please don't let the interim government be headed by suleiman...

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Wednesday, February 09, 2011

The universal obsession with identifying a "leader" for a self-organizing system - the anti-government protesters in Egypt

it would be laughable if it wasn't so sad... even the most comprehensive and generally straightforward reporting (yes, i believe that would be al jazeera), seemingly can't get past the fact that no leader has yet emerged to be anointed as the spokesperson for the protesters in tahrir square... nobody can quite grasp that truly empowered people - as the demonstrators have consistently shown themselves to be - don't NEED a goddam leader...

the correct technical term for what's happening in egypt is a phenomenon that is an element of complexity theory - the "emergent properties" of "self-organizing systems," to be specific - a phenomenon that has only recently been identified and studied, principally through the efforts of the santa fe institute... i can't do it justice in attempting to describe it here, but basically it means that, if the various independent actors in a system - in this case, the protesters - are sufficiently well-connected and in agreement on what they're all about, they don't NEED a leader...

as you can imagine, the entire concept of a group involved in changing the dynamics in an entire region, upending the power structure and insisting on being recognized and dealt with that doesn't either HAVE or NEED a leader scares the ever-loving shit out of our super-rich elites and their bought and paid-for governmental puppets...

p.s. i can't tell you how many times i've been looked at like i'm crazy when i say that empowered, informed, well-intended, decent people don't need a leader... the persistent myth is that there HAS to be a leader, a myth that's as strong and as durable an article of faith as the myth of "if there's a winner, there HAS to be a loser"...

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Tuesday, February 08, 2011

For the first time in history, "mankind is politically awake" - Zbigniew Brzezinski's darkest fear

dr. evil 'splains it all for you in this excerpt from a speech to the council on foreign relations in montreal last may...

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The UK isn't afraid to ask the banksters to shoulder their fair share, why is the U.S.?

yes, of course, the uk banksters are boo-hooing about how unfair it all is, but, c'mon... they're making all the goddam money, why shouldn't they pitch in in equal measure...
Britain saddled banks with an extra 800 million pounds ($1.3 billion) in tax on Tuesday, drawing protest from the industry as talks between bosses and ministers over bonuses and lending come to a head.

Finance minister George Osborne said he hoped the move would hurry along a deal under the government's Project Merlin, which is designed to encourage banks to lend more and rein in bonuses for top bankers.

"What I am absolutely focused on is two things: One, the banks paying a fair share in tax and making sure that they are contributing to the economic recovery. Second, that they lend to businesses -- that is an absolute priority because that is how we are going to get this economy moving," Osborne said.

The British Bankers' Association said it understood the need to raise money from banks but added that "constant chopping and changing risks making the UK a less attractive place for businesses to operate."

ya gotta love the choice of words - "saddled" - and the banksters' response - "making the UK a less attractive place for businesses to operate"... wah, wah, wah...

now, why can't the u.s. do something similar...? huh...?

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More people in Tahrir Square than ever before

watch al jazeera live feed here...

meanwhile, mubarak, israel and the u.s. are still angling to keep the status quo...

mubarak remains defiant...

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square for the latest protest calling for Hosni Mubarak's government to step down.

The BBC's Jim Muir, in the Egyptian capital, says it is the biggest demonstration since the protests began on 25 January.

It comes despite the government's announcement of its plans for a peaceful transfer of power.

President Mubarak has said he will stay until elections in September.

In Tahrir Square, attempts by the army to check the identity cards of those joining the demonstration were abandoned because of the sheer weight of numbers.

and wikileaks diplomatic cables show that israel the u.s. israel the u.s. israel would like to see the cia operative torturer vice president suleiman step in...
Hosni Mubarak, the current president, according to a leaked diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, and published by the UK daily, The Telegraph.

The August 2008 cable said David Hacham, a senior adviser at the Israeli ministry of defence (MoD), told US officials the Israelis expected Suleiman, spelt Soliman in some cables, to take over.

"Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim president if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated," the cable sent from the US embassy in Tel Aviv said.

"We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman," the memo cited US diplomats as saying.

i am so impressed with the peaceful determination of the egyptian people in their desire to get rid of their corrupt and vicious overlords...

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Monday, February 07, 2011

Glenn's back with a roar

this is only glenn's second post since being released from the hospital after a bout with dengue fever, not something you just bounce back from... in any case, the episode didn't dampen glenn's piercing insight one bit... he's literally on fire here as he rails against the ceaseless hypocrisy demonstrated so consistently in the u.s. news media, in this case an article in today's nyt, pointing out egypt's corrupt "intersection of money, politics and power"...
One would never, ever find in The New York Times such a sweeping denunciation of the plutocratic corruption and merger of private wealth and political power that shapes most of America's political culture. Just like "torture"-- which that paper has no trouble declaring is used by Egypt's government but will never say is used by ours -- such systematic corruption can exist only elsewhere, but never in America. That's how this genre of Look Over There reporting is not just incomplete but outright misleading: it actively creates the impression that such conditions are found only in those Primitive Foreign Places, but not here.

it also fosters the completely bogus notion of american exceptionalism, a notion that so many in this country have been spoon-fed since birth, a notion that is best dispelled by spending time outside u.s. borders, not in a bubble that replicates the coddled home environment, but actually living day-to-day like the locals...

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Mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors in D.C.

worth noting...
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is convening an unprecedented mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors.

The top envoys from nearly all of America's 260 embassies, consulates and other posts in more than 180 countries will be gathering at the State Department beginning on Monday. Officials say it's the first such global conference.

no doubt going on as i type this...

the key word is "unprecedented"...

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"Good" democracies vs. "bad" democracies - the dirty secret of the US call for "orderly transition" in Egypt

pepe escobar writing in the asia times via alternet...
For bipartisan Washington, there are "good" democracies (those that keep serving US strategic interests) and "bad" democracies which vote "wrong" (such as in Gaza, or in a future Egypt, against US interests).

This is the dirty secret of the "orderly transition" in Egypt - which implies Washington only meekly condemning the bloody Mubarakism wave of repression of protesters and international media. That's considered OK - as long as the military dictatorship remains in place and the glacial status quo is maintained. Moreover, sacrosanct Israel came out swinging praising Mubarak; this also means Tel Aviv will do everything to "veto" Mohamed ElBaradei as an opposition leader.

[...]

In a sane world - and if Obama had the will - the White House would back people power unconditionally. One can imagine, in terms of improving the US's image, what a roaring success that would be.

i'm always interested in reading perspectives like this one from the well-respected mr. escobar... i'm a keen observer of world goings-on and, while certainly not an expert, i think i do a pretty good job of putting the pieces together... watching the developments over the past 2+ weeks in egypt and putting them together with what i have personally experienced and already know, it seems pretty clear to me what manipulative crap mubarak has been up to and how weaselly, equivocating and self-serving the u.s. response has been... nonetheless, it's good to have my perspective validated...

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Sunday, February 06, 2011

Al Jazeera reporter Ayman Mohyeldin detained by Egyptian Army [UPDATE]

this happened just a few hours ago and they don't know where he's been taken... reporters without borders is on the case...

watch here...


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[UPDATE & BUMPED]

good news...
Ayman Mohyeldin, an Al Jazeera correspondent who was detained while covering the unrest in Egypt, has been released.

He was seized by the Egyptian military near Tahrir Square in Cairo on Sunday, but was freed seven hours later following a concerted appeal by the network and supporters of Mohyeldin.

There had been many calls on Twitter for the release of Mohyeldin, who has more than 20,000 followers on his page.

Dozens of journalists have been detained, injured and threatened while covering events in Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets calling for an end to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, the president.

Nadia el-Awady, president of the World Federation of Science Journalists, told Al Jazeera that both foreign and Egyptian media workers were being specifically targeted during the protests.

Speaking about her experiences reporting from Tahrir Square, she said: "There were pro-Mubarak civilian-clothed people planted within the square that were trying to instigate other protesters to get angry.

"They tried to create this kind of mob mentality among protesters to get angry at the journalists."

classic strategy of the super-rich elites and their puppets - incite, divide, polarize, provoke violence, and conquer...

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I swear to God, the U.S. and the E.U. are fucking clueless about Egypt

but, in the process of being clueless, nevertheless reveal their true dark intentions...
West Backs Gradual Egyptian Transition

The United States and leading European nations on Saturday threw their weight behind Egypt’s vice president, Omar Suleiman, backing his attempt to defuse a popular uprising without immediately removing President Hosni Mubarak from power.

American officials said Mr. Suleiman had promised them an “orderly transition” that would include constitutional reform and outreach to opposition groups.

c'mon... let's get really real here... super-rich elites are behind their political and governmental puppets in most of the world but never more so than in the eu and the u.s. and have zero interest in seeing the status quo change... so, how to respond to egypt...? back an incremental, phased "transition" approach headed by mubarak's intelligence chief, the very one who was the lead in arranging extraordinary renditions with the cia and who, reportedly, enjoys an occasional hands-on torture session himself (see: The Torture Career of Egypt's New Vice President: Omar Suleiman and the Rendition to Torture Program)... supporting a transition government under suleiman is going to lead to true democracy in egypt how...?

and then we have dick - darth vader - cheney...

Cheney calls Mubarak a good friend, US ally

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a good friend and U.S. ally, and he urged the Obama administration to move cautiously as turmoil continued to shake that nation's government.

[...]

"There is a reason why a lot of diplomacy is conducted in secret. There are good reasons for there to be confidentiality in some of those communications. And I think President Mubarak needs to be treated as he deserved over the years, because he has been a good friend," Cheney said at an event commemorating the centennial of President Ronald Reagan's birth.

that's right dick-wad... just reconfirm what we all know... the u.s. has absolutely no reservations about propping up the vilest regimes in the world as long as they toe the u.s. line... and if there's any doubt about the "propping up" part, it was reported the other day that slimeball mubarak has as much as 70 BILLION DOLLARS squirreled away in u.s., uk and swiss banks... now, just where exactly did all that money come from, huh...?

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