Seizing a Moment, Al Jazeera Taps Arab Anger
The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next.
Al Jazeera has been widely hailed for helping enable the revolt in Tunisia with its galvanizing early reports, even as Western-aligned political factions in Lebanon and the West Bank attacked and burned the channel’s offices and vans this week, accusing it of incitement against them.
January 2011 archive
Jan 28 2011
Six In The Morning
Jan 28 2011
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.
| I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
–Alexis de Tocqueville |
 Fuzzy 2 |
Jan 28 2011
On The View From Egypt, Part Five, Or, The Emergency Is Here
It has been a couple of years since we first started writing about Egypt; at that time we did a series of stories that described how the country’s Constitution is designed to ensure that the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) remains the ruling party, how corruption and torture and rape are part of the justice system, how there’s a looming Presidential succession crisis, and how we better pay attention, because one day all of this was going to blow up into a national emergency, with the potential for disastrous consequences that ripple all the way from Turkey to Morocco to Pakistan.
And now…that day has arrived.
After protests that led to a change of government (sort of) in Tunisia, rioting is spreading across Egypt, quickly, the ISI (Egypt’s internal security police) is out grabbing citizens and doing what they do (we’ll talk more about that later), and the question of Presidential succession, which many people thought was headed in one direction, may now be headed off to a place that outside observers might not have previously considered.
Lucky for you, I have some reach inside Egypt, and we’re going to get a peek inside the story that you might not have seen otherwise.
Jan 28 2011
Zuckerberg, the Accidental Emperor of Facebook
With each passing day, the Facebook phenomenon looms larger as a precursor of a global networked society. It is such a potent political organizing mechanism that it has been central to the recent upheavals in North Africa, and it may prove instrumental in bringing down multiple dictatorships. But the most important story about Facebook is the one that nobody in the American media is willing to write. It is the story of an accidental emperor.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is the world’s youngest Billionaire. At the tender age of 26, he personally controls the development of a global digital social network that is increasingly taking on the characteristics of a political entity. It is easy to conceive of Facebook creating its own currency, citizenship regulations, and judicial and legislative structures. Yet all of these profound potential developments are under the control of a callow young man who stumbled into fame and fortune by building a wildly popular Internet service.
Zuckerberg’s character is that of a bright super-achiever, intensely focused on growing a business. He has no interest, aptitude, or concern for governing a political institution. Indeed, his current focus is on raising vast sums to fuel further growth of Facebook. The frightening fact is that Zuckerberg doesn’t really care what Facebook becomes, as long as it becomes the world’s dominant social network. In this respect, he is quite similar to Bill Gates, who was once another young hyper-achieving billionaire. Had it not been for antitrust actions brought against Microsoft in America and Europe, Microsoft might have crowded out every competitor and put a virtual coin box on every desktop computer in the world.
Unlike the case of Microsoft, there is nothing to stop Facebook from becoming the defacto precursor of an Internet world government. This government would not be a democracy; it would be an empire, and its emperor would be 26 year old Mark Zuckerberg. What is wrong with a profit-seeking corporation, led by a super-competitive businessman, creating a global Internet social network? The problem is that corporations are not designed to govern people. They have no interest in justice or the public good. Corporations are profit-seeking engines narrowly devoted to the interests of the stockholders. In the case of Facebook, Emperor Zuckerberg controls the stock.
It is a peculiar irony of contemporary American politics that it is increasingly dominated by corporations at a time when the model of the corporation is increasingly unsuited to solving global problems. The environment is being poisoned by the toxic effluents of corporations that view pollution as an “externality.” Economic inequality is increasing everywhere as corporations tear down social safety nets and take over legislatures through bribery disguised as campaign contributions. Organized labor is being crushed by corporations intent on minimizing wages. Financial markets are destabilized by unchecked corporate greed and unlimited bailouts. The biggest corporations are not only too big to fail; they are too big to jail, and they flout the laws with impunity.
So behold Emperor Zuckerberg, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we poor citizens of his empire hope for justice and mercy. What will he decide to do to us tomorrow?
Jan 28 2011
US Foreign Policy: Ignoring the Revolutions
In case you missed it because the American MSM mostly buried it, Tunisia had a revolution overthrowing it’s US backed dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia with most of his family. The upheaval arouse from the streets out of the frustrations of a well educated public that is suffering with high unemployment and skyrocketing prices for basics. The streets protesters were joined by the police and the military. The “revolution” is spreading across Africa to Egypt with major protests in the streets condemning the rule of ailing President Hosni Mubarak and his hand pick successor, his businessman son. Inspired by the Tunisian revolution, Egypt poverty stricken youths have taken to the streets demanding the end of Mubarak’s 30 year rule.
For decades, Egypt’s authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak, played a clever game with his political opponents.
He tolerated a tiny and toothless opposition of liberal intellectuals whose vain electoral campaigns created the facade of a democratic process. And he demonized the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood as a group of violent extremists who posed a threat that he used to justify his police state.
But this enduring and, many here say, all too comfortable relationship was upended this week by the emergence of an unpredictable third force, the leaderless tens of thousands of young Egyptians who turned out to demand an end to Mr. Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
Now the older opponents are rushing to catch up.
“It was the young people who took the initiative and set the date and decided to go,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Wednesday with some surprise during a telephone interview from his office in Vienna, shortly before rushing home to Cairo to join the revolt.
ElBaradei, who has been targeted for assassination by Mubarak supporters, is returning to Egypt today. in his statement issued prior to his departure, ElBaradei has some disparaging comments about Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton:
When Egypt had parliamentary elections only two months ago, they were completely rigged. The party of President Hosni Mubarak left the opposition with only 3 percent of the seats. Imagine that. And the American government said that it was “dismayed.” Well, frankly, I was dismayed that all it could say is that it was dismayed. The word was hardly adequate to express the way the Egyptian people felt.
Then, as protests built in the streets of Egypt following the overthrow of Tunisia’s dictator, I heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assessment that the government in Egypt is “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people”. I was flabbergasted-and I was puzzled. What did she mean by stable, and at what price? Is it the stability of 29 years of “emergency” laws, a president with imperial power for 30 years, a parliament that is almost a mockery, a judiciary that is not independent? Is that what you call stability? I am sure not. And I am positive that it is not the standard you apply to other countries. What we see in Egypt is pseudo-stability, because real stability only comes with a democratically elected government..
If you would like to know why the United States does not have credibility in the Middle East, that is precisely the answer…
(emphasis mine)
Now, it has spread to one of the poorest Mideastern countries, Yemen, as their youth take to the streets to protest their government.
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Yemen, one of the Middle East’s most impoverished countries and a haven for Al Qaeda militants, became the latest Arab state to witness mass protests on Thursday, as thousands of Yemenis took to the streets in the capital and other regions to demand a change in government. . . . . .
The demonstrations on Thursday followed several days of smaller protests by students and opposition groups calling for the removal of President Ali Abdallah Saleh, a strongman who has ruled this fractured country for more than 30 years and is a key ally of the United States in the fight against the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda. . . . . .
Yemen’s fragile stability has been of increasing concern to the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a visit to Sana earlier this month, urged Mr. Saleh to open a dialogue with the opposition, saying it would help to stabilize the country. His current term expires in two years, but proposed constitutional changes could allow him to hold onto power for longer.
How many despotic regimes will the US continue to bolster? For how long? US policy in the region has been on the wrong track for decades. Time to reassess is coming fast.
Jan 28 2011
Blowback: Hacktivists versus Dictators
The Egyptian government shut down most of the internet on Thursday, on the eve of what should be a massive protest march.
A group of internet activists collective, Anonymous, warned the Egyptian government against this very action just hours before.
“Anonymous wants you to offer free access to uncensored media in your entire country,” it said in a Facebook posting.
“When you ignore this message, not only will we attack your government websites, we will also make sure that the international media see the horrid reality you impose on your people!” it said.
“Operation Egypt” has already been in effect ever since Egypt cut access to Twitter on Tuesday. Today it kicked into full operation.
An image posted on Facebook urged interested individuals to join IRC chat rooms, where, Netcraft said, new recruits were being asked to download and install the Low-Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), software that makes DDoS attacks easy to stage.
What we are seeing in Egypt, where the social media is on the front lines, is a repeat of events that happened in Tunisia just a few weeks ago, events that continue even today.
Jan 28 2011
Sh*t hurling towards the fan
Excerpts from 3 very disturbing articles….
WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury on Thursday initiated the first in what is likely be a series of maneuvers aimed at preventing it from hitting a legal debt limit as a political battle over spending intensified.
The action to reduce the amount of money the Treasury holds in a special account at the Federal Reserve marked only a small step in freeing up new borrowing capacity, but was symbolically important as the Obama administration and Republican lawmakers stake out ground in a wider budget debate.
As of Tuesday, Treasury’s remaining borrowing authority was down to $279 billion — all that remained before it bumps against a legally set $14.294 trillion debt ceiling. link
Jan 27 2011
“It was like watching Colonel Sanders give a speech that never mentioned chicken.”
Who was that smiling congenial man who gave the opposition party rebuttal to the State of the Union address by the president?
He’s the ranking member, Committee on the Budget. He has published a plan that is his notion of what is best for America during this time of financial crisis. You can find it online at the following website.
As for his post-SOTU rebuttal speech, I also noted the following as written in the Washington Post Business section:
Ryan managed to get through the speech without mentioning, or even alluding to, his Roadmap. Nor did the words “Medicare” or “Social Security” pass his lips. It was like watching Colonel Sanders give a speech that never mentioned chicken.
Jan 27 2011
WWL Radio #96 – Frances Fox Piven Interview
Friday, January 28th at 6pm EST!
Listen live by clicking the link icon below:
The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation!
The live chat link will go live around 5:45.. found at the bottom of the show page when you listen, or by clicking the link below. Chat will be monitored for comments and questions by the host.
Tip: In order to comment in chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds.
Miss the show? The podcasts are available at the link above, or at Wildwildleft.com.
Tonight, I have the rare honor of speaking to one of the premier architects of Social Reform, a humanitarian who’s life work has been in helping the poor, Professor Frances Fox Piven.
Piven has been a target of demonization by right-wing mouthpiece Glenn Back of Fox News this past year, ramping the hate up to frightening levels as of late.
It is amazing that anyone can attribute the destruction of society to helping the poor, and giving voice to the ordinary citizens to better their lot. Not so amazing when viewed under the harsh realities of the Class War… the Elite Class now fears the huge underclass they have created by their extraction capitalism, and certainly wants to make an example of anyone who has spoken for People’s Rights and Reformation so that we continue to be powerless.
Distinguished Professor Frances Fox Piven received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Before coming to the Graduate Center, she taught at Boston University, Columbia University, New York University Law School, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Bologna. She is past Vice-President of the American Political Science Association, has served as program co-chair of the annual political science meetings, and is a past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. She is currently President of the American Sociological Association. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the President’s Award of the American Public Health Association, and the American Sociological Association’s Career Award for the Practice of Sociology, as well as their award for the Public Understanding of Sociology. Her books deal with the development of the welfare state, political movements, urban political, and electoral politics. Among them are REGULATING THE POOR (winner of the C. Wright Mills Award ub 1972, and updated in 1993); POOR PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS (1977); THE NEW CLASS WAR (1982; UPDATED 1985); WHY AMERICANS DON’T VOTE (1988); THE MEAN SEASON (1987); LABOR PARTIES IN POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES (1992); THE BREAKING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL COMPACT (1997); WHY AMERICANS STILL DON’T VOTE (2000); and THE WAR AT HOME (2004); Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (2006).
Join us tonight, as Professor Piven helps to enlighten us on what can be done NOW, in a society that has crushed Unions, dissolved voting blocks, and damaged our economy to likely a point of no return.
Join Wild Wild Left Radio every Friday at 6pm EST, via Blog Talk Radio, with Hostess and Producer Diane Gee to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective…. her Joplinesque voice speaking straight from the heart about the real-life implications of the Political and the Class War on everyday American Citizens like you.
Controversy? We face it. Cutting Edge? We step over it. Revolutions start with information, and The Wild Wild Left Radio brings you the best in information and op/eds from a position that others on the Left fear to tread…. all with a
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Jan 27 2011
Six In The Morning
They’re Number1 In Guns And The NRA Likes It That Way Number2? Yemen
Amid gun lobby criticism, assault weapons reporting rule delayed
The White House, facing fierce criticism from the gun lobby, has delayed approval of a proposed rule that federal law enforcement officials say could help them stanch the flow of U.S. assault rifles and other high-powered weapons to Mexico’s drug cartels.
The proposed rule, announced by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms acting director Kenneth Melson on Dec. 20, would require U.S. firearms dealers in four southwest border states to report multiple sales of long guns, such as semi-automatic assault rifles which are frequently purchased by so-called “straw buyers” for the cartels. Melson had said he expected the proposed “emergency rule” would receive approval in early January 2011.