February 2011 archive

Feb 04 2011

“The True Face of Hosni Mubarak” is Now Being Televised Across the World

Democracy Now! Reports Live from Downtown Cairo:

Reporting that “Violent clashes continue in Egypt. The most recent reports out of Cairo show that seven demonstrators have been killed and more than a thousand injured. Many of the pro-Mubarak agitators have been shown to be undercover security forces. In Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising, thousands of Egyptians remain peaceful and defiant. We get a live report from Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is on a rooftop near the 6th October Bridge, and from Mona El Seif, an activist who has remained in Tahrir Square since yesterday.“, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of DemocracyNow.org talk today by telephone with Democracy Now! Senior Producer reporting from Cairo Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and with Egyptian pro-democracy activist Mona El Seif, live from Cairo, Egypt, who describe violent attacks on “a couple of hundred thousand” peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square by Mubarak faction thugs on camels and on horses, using knives and guns.

Amy also talks with “Sandmonkey” – Egypt’s most well known English-language blogger – who calls downtown Cairo a “war zone”, and who said in his last blog post:

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t.



DemocracyNow.org – February 03, 2011

transcript below

Feb 04 2011

I Want You – Open Thread

The drunken politician leaps

Upon the street where mothers weep

And the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you

And I wait for them to interrupt

Me drinkin’ from my broken cup

And ask me to

Open up the gate for you

Feb 03 2011

from firefly-dreaming

Regular Daily Features:

Essays Featured Thursday, February 3rd:

Feb 03 2011

Social Security: Where’s Our Tahrir Square?

We have seen some amazing days in Egypt, and it’s provided a better lesson than anyone could have ever wanted for how taking action, against long odds, can really get something done.

A secret police mechanism has been pushed aside, an Army has chosen not to attack The People, and a President who was backed by the “full faith and credit” of the US Government on Friday was being told by that same US Government on Tuesday that it’s time to go.

The People, in fact, spoke so loudly that Mr. Mubarak has informed Egyptians that he’s going to “pursue corruption”, which, if taken literally, could eventually look like a puppy chasing its own tail.

The People, however, are unhappy with his answer, and they’re speaking even louder yet…even to the point of being willing to take beatings, gunfire, and, believe it or not…camel charges…to make their voices heard.

And that got me to thinking about Social Security.

You know, we are facing the potential for a great big Social Security fight for pretty much the entire term of the 112th Congress-and it seems to me that a series of great big “Cairo-style” marches might be the way to make our voices heard, so that this Congress understands that great big benefit cuts are something that we will not tolerate.

Feb 03 2011

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Our regular featured content-

And these articles-

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Feb 03 2011

The Eighth Wonder of the World


PARIS-At a press conference Tuesday, the World Heritage Committee officially recognized the Gap Between Rich and Poor as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” describing the global wealth divide as the “most colossal and enduring of mankind’s creations.”

“Of all the epic structures the human race has devised, none is more staggering or imposing than the Gap Between Rich and Poor,” committee chairman Henri Jean-Baptiste said. “It is a tremendous, millennia-old expanse that fills us with both wonder and humility.”

“And thanks to careful maintenance through the ages, this massive relic survives intact, instilling in each new generation a sense of awe,” Jean- Baptiste added.

The vast chasm of wealth, which stretches across most of the inhabited world, attracts millions of stunned observers each year, many of whom have found its immensity too overwhelming even to contemplate. By far the largest man-made structure on Earth, it is readily visible from locations as far-flung as Eastern Europe, China, Africa, and Brazil, as well as all 50 U.S. states.

“The original Seven Wonders of the World pale in comparison to this,” said World Heritage Committee member Edwin MacAlister, standing in front of a striking photograph of the Gap Between Rich and Poor taken from above Mexico City. “It is an astounding feat of human engineering that eclipses the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, and perhaps even the Great Racial Divide.”

Feb 03 2011

The Week in the Wild

Headlines from The Wild Wild Left…the last Island on the “LEFT” in a Sea of Wildly Wrong Rightness…a Harbour of Sanity for Liberals, Progressives and Radical Leftists – Get Wild, Get Left – JOIN IN!

~Fake consultant asks Social Security: Where’s Our Tahrir Square?

~Rusty1776 adds his poetic voice to honor the spirit of the Egyptian People in We Gave Each Other Courage

Edger frames a warning, full of linky goodness to WikileaksA Warning To The US Government

~Cassidorus continues his series on THE question of our times, how to envision post-capitalism Envisioning postcapitalism: Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature

~Diane Gee weighs the likelihood of Egyptian autonomy and democracy with Imperialist Forces (the US) stacked against them in I Know Where This is Going…

~New member Al Osorio grieves for the children of war in If Tamerlane’s mother cried for him, would Persia have mourned her tears?

~You can also join in on Wild Wild Left Radio every (or nearly every) Friday Night at 6pm Eastern Time. You can catch podcasts there or on our homepage, for interviews with some fairly prestigious guests: Noam Chomsky, Frances Fox Piven, and others….

Feb 03 2011

The Revenge of Milo Minderbinder

Milo informed him solemnly. “A strong Egyptian-cotton speculating industry means a much stronger America.”…

“You see?” said Yossarian. “You’re much better at it than I am. You almost make it sound true.”

– Joseph Heller, Catch-22

 The price of Egyptian cotton, now at its highest level since post-Civil War Reconstruction, is causing concern on Wall Street.

 Despite the fact that Egypt doesn’t produce much oil, the price of crude oil has now reached $103 a barrel, and Egypt’s protesters are being blamed.

 “Economic interests have been exposed to real danger,” Al Desouky said.

 If there is one thing that we can be certain of, as far as the financial markets are concerned it’s never a good time for people to demand basic human rights and dignity. Financial markets tend to applaud military coups, and frown on popular democracy.

 The trick is recognizing that the financial markets only represent a very small, elite, section of society.

Feb 03 2011

Six In The Morning

Send In The Thugs Bring In The Thugs, Wait They’re Already Here  

The sky was filled with rocks. The fighting around me was so terrible we could smell the blood

Robert Fisk: Blood and fear in Cairo’s streets as Mubarak’s men crack down on protests

“President” Hosni Mubarak’scounter-revolution smashed into his opponents yesterday in a barrage of stones, cudgels, iron bars and clubs, an all-day battle in the very centre of the capital he claims to rule between tens of thousands of young men, both – and here lies the most dangerous of all weapons – brandishing in each other’s faces the banner of Egypt. It was vicious and ruthless and bloody and well planned, a final vindication of all Mubarak’s critics and a shameful indictment of the Obamas and Clintons who failed to denounce this faithful ally of America and Israel.

Feb 03 2011

Imbolc – the Spiritual Garden Cycle Begins

Punxatawney Phil of Ground Hog Day fame showed his furry face this morning. Woodchucks, aka groundhogs [LATIN], tend to be ornery critters so you’ll have noticed that he was handled with gloves. Legend had is that if Phil sees his shadow the morning of 02 Feb then there will be six more weeks of winter, else winter weather will soon end. I have two takes on this (in gardener-geek speak): {if (TRUE==shadow) then remaining_winter = six_more_weeks else remaining_winter = 1.5 months};. The second take is that Phil’s ritualistic hauling out of his well fed cage represents a last hanging thread of our human heritage on this planet; that we unconsciously and subconsciously had this day chosen for us by the rotation of the Earth around the Sun.

Phil’s looking prosperous state is well matched by his burgher handlers. None of them really know what’s going on. In Nature’s course they would be thinned considerably now having burned off their body fat in surviving the winter. They are acting out a ritual ingrained in our collective sub-conscious from the time before written words. from the time of giant stone celestial calendars and rocks that mark each hill top of Ireland at a tilt of [NEEDSDATA] towards the sun – the exact tilt of the Earth’s axis which brings us our seasons.

The Great Celtic Wheel of the Year is marked with eight spokes and all are determined by the position of the Sun and the Four Seasons. The Wheel breaks these four seasons into eight smaller seasons call cross-quarter [NEEDSLINK] days. This further division of the sun’s relative latitudinal position marks important times in the agrarian life cycle. [NEEDS LINK?]. These days are marked in our DNA since we began to settle down, plant seeds and form communities.

In the age of Michael Pollans’ Omnivore’s Dilemma we unknowingly continue to celebrate these pre-BCE days with a little time out from the diurian dreariness of mid-winter to acknowledge that the spring is coming and it’s time to shift gears in the garden activities. The time has come to plan the crop rotation, choose the seeds, begin the indoor seedling starts and in this strangest of years here on the coastal plain of SE Mass, wait for the two plus feet of seven weeks continuous snow cover to melt into the ground and make it workable for the direct seeding and early transplants. [P NEEDSWORK]

Feb 03 2011

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson


Openings

Feb 03 2011

Reportng the Revolution: Day 7 with Up Date 1800 hrs EST

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

class=”BrightcoveExperience”>The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 3

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English and I am posting this at early so everyone can watch the events in Egypt as they happen.

Violence erupted yesterday in Cairo and continued through the night on the ninth day of anti-government protests. There are reports of five deaths and countless injuries, some burned by thrown molotov cocktails. The Egyptian army has mostly stood by watching doing little to stop the violence that was begun by the pro-Mubarak supporters. The anti-government protesters stood strong against the “thugs” as they were labeled by most of the news media. They formed a line of protection around the Egyptian Antiquities Museum using sheet metal shields to push back the mob that was intent on getting inside to do more damage.

Sharif Kouddous: Live From Egypt: The True Face of the Mubarak Regime

February 2, Cairo, Egypt-The Mubarak regime launched a brutal and coordinated campaign of violence today to take back the streets of Cairo from Egypt’s mass pro-democracy movement.

Pro-Mubarak mobs began gathering near Tahrir Square shortly after Mubarak’s speech on Tuesday night and held a rally in front of the state TV building on Corniche El Nile Street. In the morning, they began marching around the downtown area in packs of fifty to 100.

These were not the same kinds of protesters that have occupied Tahrir for the last few days. These crowds were made up mostly of men, in between 20 and 45 years old. Many wore thick leather jackets with sweaters underneath. They chanted angrily in support of Mubarak and against the pro-democracy movement. They were hostile and intimidating.

Up Date 1800 hrs EST: Christiane Amanpour had a 30 minute face to face interview with Hosni Mubarak. Here is a short video from ABC News:

Gangs Hunt Journalists and Rights Workers

CAIRO – The Egyptian government broadened its crackdown of a 10-day uprising that has shaken its rule Thursday, arresting journalists and human rights activists, while offering more concessions in a bid to win support from a population growing frustrated with a reeling economy and scenes of chaos in the streets.

With fighting between pro- and antigovernment forces escalating throughout the day, supporters of President Hosni Mubarak attacked foreign journalists, punching them and smashing their equipment, and shut down news media outlets that had operated in buildings overlooking Tahrir Square, which has become the epicenter of the uprising.

In interviews and statements, the government increasingly spread an image that foreigners were inciting the uprising that has prompted tens of thousands to take to the streets to demand the end of Mr. Mubarak’s three decades in power. The suggestions are part of a days-long Egyptian news media campaign that has portrayed the protesters as troublemakers and ignored the scope of an uprising that has captivated the Arab world.

From The Guardian:

10:41 pm GMT: More on the protests spreading to Yemen, where tens of thousands of protesters staged unprecedented demonstrations, with chants of “Down, down, down with the regime” and signs calling on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.

10:03 pm GMT: NBC’s Richard Engel reports that many journalists have been forced to remain undercover today, making it more difficult for cable news channels to cover the protests in Egypt without cameras and reporters out on the street.

Engel says there are more protesters in Tahrir Square tonight, barricading themselves in to offer protection after last night’s attacks by “goon squads”. Metal shields have been put up around the square, now “turned into a military camp,” according to Engel.

The protesters on Tahrir Square have also set up an “interrogation centre” in the subway under the square, Engel reports.

9:54 pm GMT: More on the raid on the Hisham Mubarak law centre in Cairo, mentioned below. Among those taken away by members of the police and army is Human Rights Watch researcher Daniel Williams.

“Human Rights Watch is currently unaware of the whereabouts of those who were detained,” the organisation said in a statement, adding:

   Williams’s detention is part of a clear campaign against independent eyewitnesses of the violence in Egypt, including journalists and civil society activists. Human Rights Watch condemned the crackdown and called on the Egyptian government to release those detained immediately.

9:41 pm GMT: Egyptian state television, in between showing footage of trees and flowers, has a brief report of the country’s prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, telling the interior ministry “not to obstruct peaceful marches on Friday”.

9:30 pm GMT: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has called the treatment of journalists “completely and totally unacceptable” during a briefing onboard Air Force One, which is flying President Obama back from Pennsylvania:

   I want to say a word for a second on the systematic targeting of journalists in Egypt. This also is completely and totally unacceptable. Any journalist that has been detained should be released immediately.

   I think we need to be clear that the world is watching the actions that are taking place right now in Egypt. And I’ll reiterate again that the actions of targeting journalists, that is unacceptable, and that those journalists should be, if they are detained, released immediately. I know the President has been briefed on this as part of the daily briefing this morning.

9:11 pm GMT: The US military is starting to get more involved, with the Pentagon announcing that officials are gathering details on the attacks on journalists in Egypt. It held back from censuring the hands-off stance of the Egyptian armed forces.

“To date, we have seen them act professionally and with restraint. Again, it’s a very fluid situation so we are watching every single day,” said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan.

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