Huge Protests In Egypt Options

If anyone here is willing, please monitor #Egypt or #jan25 on Twitter.

Egypt is currently under near complete Internet lockdown. Multiple fatalities...police setting fire to cars and city squares. Please let anyone know what is happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtTUsqra-MU

This post has been edited by Petrus: Jan 28 2011, 12:56 AM

Apparently at least in Dubai (Arab Emirates) there's a complete media blockout in progress. No foreign media is allowed on TV.

It does not seem that Mr. Mubarak will remain in office much longer; let us hope that this does not become a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and anti-Western fanatics in general. Oppression is a terrible thing, but losing one's kin to deranged virgin seekers is more terrible.

^ Amen. It seems like such a large percentage of the Muslim community is of the fundamentalist-fanatic sort.

^ Amen. It seems like such a large percentage of the Muslim community is of the fundamentalist-fanatic sort.

For myself personally, I've long felt a strong disgust at the fact that the USA supports oppressive governments.

Saudi Arabia in particular supports a system of goverment and "justice" that is totally opposed to just about everything the US is supposed to value. It's about time they were cast down by the teeming masses! I see from the press releases that they are scrambling to defend their tyrannical regime as a result of the situation. Prince Abdullah is so terrified that he is calling for peace with Israel. Every young woman in Sri Lanka ought to be thrilled that their days of slavery are coming to an end.

Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are all poised to collapse. The satellite nations who depend on the support of the corrupt governments in those places, like Somalia and Sudan, will probably also fall.

For myself personally, I've long felt a strong disgust at the fact that the USA supports oppressive governments.

Saudi Arabia in particular supports a system of goverment and "justice" that is totally opposed to just about everything the US is supposed to value. It's about time they were cast down by the teeming masses! I see from the press releases that they are scrambling to defend their tyrannical regime as a result of the situation. Prince Abdullah is so terrified that he is calling for peace with Israel. Every young woman in Sri Lanka ought to be thrilled that their days of slavery are coming to an end.

Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are all poised to collapse. The satellite nations who depend on the support of the corrupt governments in those places, like Somalia and Sudan, will probably also fall.

Yes...I noted today on NPR how American officials seemed most concerned that Mubarak might be replaced because his spot could be taken by a person or political group that wasn't pro-western. Forget democracy, forget liberty and justice for all! As long as oppression works on our behalf in the third world, great...

I was is Cairo last December 2010 and the city was very dirty (trash was literally everywhere on the side of the streets), heavy traffic wherever I go, old beat up cars crammed the streets, and most houses was rarely completed. I was told that it's the way people do to avoid paying building taxes. Basically its the worst major city I've ever visited. It's a no brainer they want to replace Mubarak and it's cronies. What a terrible country.

^ Amen. It seems like such a large percentage of the Muslim community is of the fundamentalist-fanatic sort.

News pictures of house wives doing grocery shopping sells a lot worse than someone burning a flag.

Because someone has to play the devil's advocate:

Before massively endorsing the breakdown of oppressive and dictatorial governments, consider that democracy is a process and as a process, it needs significant scaffolding in the form of overall freedom, a more generally educated population, and a variety of other factors. And sometimes, its not always appropriate. Augusto Pinochet was a horrible tyrant, but I would honestly credit Chile's present economic strength: the highest nominal GDP per capita to it and thus, the improved welfare of hundreds of thousands to his oppressive methods that nonetheless benefitted the essentially effective structure of a free market economy.

And sometimes, one has to prop up devils and monsters when necessary; there are many mercenaries who are former felons and criminals, but you might consider them quite differently when you're guarding you from taking a 45 caliber in the head. Sometimes the relative value of a partner is not in their overall morality, but in their present necessity.

That said, it doesn't particularly justify most Middle Eastern governments who are genuinely outdated and pathetically corrupt institutions that do little except to perpetuate themselves. I am hopeful that Egypt will reform effectively, though the fear that it will descend into chaos and bloodshed is yet present with me.

As a final aside, I actually work for an Islamic institution in one of my jobs. I think it would be immensely patronizing to consider the Islamic culture to be identical to our own without considering it on its own merits and weaknesses. It is generally, at least a slightly more aggressive religion in atittude. If you go into a Catholic high school, you will see a lot of scripture, but not much praise of the Crusades. In an Islamic school, its not infrequent to see a lot of praise of the 'power of Islamic' as reflected in their heydays of conquest as it is often seem as indistinguishable from Allah's promise of love and blessing to his people.

That said, they're still human beings - just because they are different or may even have a culture that's more vulnerable to extremism does not change that indeed, they still have housewives who need to shop, boys who want to annoy people and girls trying to get colorful headscarves so they'll be looked at. People are still people.

This post has been edited by Lichdar: Feb 1 2011, 07:48 AM

Because someone has to play the devil's advocate:

Before massively endorsing the breakdown of oppressive and dictatorial governments, consider that democracy is a process and as a process, it needs significant scaffolding in the form of overall freedom, a more generally educated population, and a variety of other factors.

To really play devil's advocate, I'm getting to the point of wishing that we could try something other than "democracy," personally; or at least in terms of the federated/centralised euphemism that people usually seem to refer to. Centralised government, in the context of many millions of people, is IMHO both unnatural, and is too large for human cognition to be able to cope with it. That's why, I think anyway, we have such endemic corruption in government, among other things. There can't be accountability with so many people.

http://neotribe.tribe.net/thread/ebb13ba4-...09-d327977fbdf7 - A post on neo-tribalism.

Here's the thing, as Jay Leno (!) pointed out in his monologue the other night--despite the rioting and unrest in Egypt, no one's blaming the Jews this time. This is progress.

I think people are tired of Mubarak playing Pharaoh and keeping them at heel. Half the population of Egypt lives on less than $2 a day and there is *no* opportunity for those with an education to get ahead and improve their lives over there. They know there's a better way and are fighting for it. Whether they choose another autocrat or try to hash out some sort of democracy remains to be seen.

Monkman: as they used to say, 'He may be a son of a bitch, but he's OUR son of a bitch.' The US propped up a lot of dictators during the Cold War as buffers against the USSR--never mind that they were despots to their own people. At least they weren't allied with Russia, and that's all we cared about at that time. :/ Now it's all about terrorism. :/ Things don't really change much--only the names do.

Lichdar: very true. Machiavellian, but very true. And when those felons are no longer necessary, we throw them under the bus.

Petrus: the nation in the modern sense is also pretty alien to a lot of people around the world. It's a European construct that we've exported/forced upon a lot of people. Some have taken to it better than others.

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This post has been edited by Darkmage: Feb 2 2011, 06:43 AM