And, might as well consolidate funny videos, have you somehow not seen these Charlie Sheen interviews yet? Because you GOTTA watch em. They are so much better than the radio interviews. I think they may have broken my funny bone. RIP, the rest of the things that were or would have been funny. You had a good run.
"Given the miserable political situation that we are experiencing, isn't it obvious that it is us who have everything to learn from the current popular uprisings? Shouldn't we, in all urgency, closely study what has made possible the overthrow through collective action of governments that are oligarchic, corrupt and—possibly, above all—humiliatingly the vassals of Western states?"
"That a revolt against state power can be absolutely victorious is a lesson universally available. This victory always indicates the horizon where all collective action, subtracted from the authority of the law, stands out, the horizon that Marx called 'the failing of the state'.
"That is, one day, freely associated in the spreading of their own creative power, peoples could do without the gloomy coercion of the state. And it is for this reason, for this ultimate idea, that a revolt overthrowing an established authority can determine unlimited enthusiasm throughout the world."
"Tens of thousands of Iraqis surged into the streets Friday in at least a dozen demonstrations across the country, storming provincial buildings, forcing local officials to resign, freeing prisoners andotherwise demanding more from a government they only recently had a chance to elect.
"At least 23 protesters were killed as Iraqis braved security forces to vent shared frustrations at the nearest government official. Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians, they shouted for simple dignities made more urgent by war - adequate electricity, clean water, a decent hospital, a fair shot at a job.
"I have demands!" Salma Mikahil, 48, cried out in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, as military helicopters and snipers looked down on thousands of people bearing handmade signs and olive branches signifying peace. "I want to see if Maliki can accept that I live on this," Mikahil said, waving a 1,000-dinar note, worth less than a dollar, toward Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's offices. "I want to see if his conscience accepts it.'"
I wonder how much longer these protests can continue, and in how many countries, before people start naming the real root of their problems...... CAPITALISM.
Some of the complaints are dictator-specific, but a common thread that seems to be running through all of them seems to be anger with the sort of radical income inequality that is an inherent component of free-market capitalism. Take for instance, the widespread reporting on the shocking amount of wealth consolidation among a very small portion of the population in these Middle-Eastern countries that the press keeps dutifully reporting as abhorrent. What would it be like to live in such a country?!?! I can't imagine.
This is your favorite new video game, with an even better (in a world where "better" means baffling, reprehensible, and gross, all at the same time) commercial.
Dude, I'm worried about you. That should not be your favorite game! And, furthermore, who is that trailer trying to appeal to?! Well, you, I guess. But that's fucked up. What is the demographic of this blog, anyways? Yikes. If there are some among you who are not gross and are as bummed out by all of this as I am, I've got a foolproof cure for your mental maladies:
First of all, before we get any further, I would like to point out the unrivaled awesomeness of the LGBT flag. They may be a ruthlessly discriminated against group in this world, but at least they have the best flag. Which, granted, is not a great consolation prize for civil rights, but still. The Best. I dare you to prove me wrong.
More significantly, President Obama and his crew of ne'er-do-wells announced that they are going to stop pretending that DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act, dummies) is constitutional, because it is not. My first thought is: That is great! It's about time! It was really weird that he was defending it before. Which leads me to my second thought: Why did he decide that it was okay to tell the truth now? Obama is obviously not against gay marriage. That is obvious. Much like his official position on many other so-called social issues, he was pretending to "struggle" with gay marriage due to his persistent, always infuriating attempt to get Republicans to like him on Facebook, or something like that. This interview with a law professor who knows things and teaches at some school on the East Coast answers some questions about this. The argument that they were waiting until after the midterms makes some sense, but I can't imagine that people who would consider voting Democrat would change their minds because Obama showed a modicum of support for same-sex marriage.
Regardless, what I found interesting about what this scholar of law had to say was this:
"Eric Holder has proven an extremely political attorney general, much in the same way as the Bush attorneys general. His position not to prosecute torture, his decision to defend DOMA, and his prior decisions on DOMA were all driven by political considerations in the view of his critics."
Truth. Another truth: as long as our legal system takes it's queues from politicians (instead of, you know, laws), all will not be well.
Update: Glenn Greenwald was on Last Word tonight talking about Obama's reversal on DOMA and why it is something that we should celebrate without qualifications. Here's that:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln, first Republican U.S. president
That's Wisconsin right now, where the Governor tried to crush public employee unions, and, furthermore, threatened to call the National Guard to impose martial law if people didn't like it. Well, people didn't like it, and now this is happening. Protests were 30,000 strong in Madison yesterday, and 25,000 today. Who knew people would actually fight to protect unions in this bastion of free-market individualism of a country! Rising star of the Republican party Paul Ryan (who represents Wisconsin in the House) said, "It's like Cairo has come to Wisconsin," while supporting the governor's plan. Haha, good one Paul Ryan, but not even close. Also, whoops! You just insinuated that the uprisings in Egypt were a bad thing! HuffPo's got your live blog again. America, fuck yeah! We are all Wisconsin....ians?.....ites? Something like that.
Look, I realize that talking about the shenanigans of people like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, et. al., is generally not all that poignant or useful, which is why I try not to do it very often on here. If bloggers and/or journalists who write about US politics re-allocated the time and brain power that they spend on the cult of personalities in our political culture to considerations of things like the many struggles for and denials of civil liberties; our exorbitant, indefensible, unprecedentedly high annual military budget and the endless war it requires to sustain and justify itself; the largely unspoken, seemingly taboo, but very real class warfare the ultra-wealthy and political class are waging on the poor in this country; the unwinnable, highly damaging, often racist War On Drugs; or dozens of other substantive issues, we'd be much better off as a society. Adjectives! However, I couldn't let this video pass without comment:
Alright, this video doesn't seem to be working. Find it here, with transcript.
This is absolutely revolting, even for Glenn Beck. When he set out his "vision" last week for the apocalyptic world we are fast approaching (one where there is a Muslim caliphate that controls the Middle East and parts of Europe, Russia reclaims the entirety of the former Soviet bloc, plus "maybe the Netherlands" (?), and China takes the rest of the world), one could easily shrug it off with a casual "Hahahaa, you crazy for this one Glenn." It was pure fiction, and easily recognized as such by humans with functioning brains. This, however, is a level of disingenuousness I cannot stomach. Pinpointing NGO's like Invisible Children and the Save Darfur Coalition and saying:
"...who are these groups? Who are they? Are they right? Are they left? Are they clean? Are they dirty? Are they front groups? I don't know."
while asking "Is anyone willing to do their own homework?" [on these groups] requires unbelievable gall. IF YOU'RE GOING TO CALL THEIR INTEGRITY INTO QUESTION, GLENN, THEN DO YOUR OWN FUCKING HOMEWORK! Just Journalism 101. (FYI, Glenn, Invisible Children, at least, is run by Evangelical Christians) And then claiming that Google MIGHT be a "shill now for the US government" because one Google employee took part in the uprising in Egypt also displays a shocking disassociation from reality. As has been well documented just about everywhere, including here, the uprising in Egypt was absolutely not in the US government's interest, and they had absolutely no hand in the events in Egypt, nor did any other country's government.
This is the way Glenn Beck gets away with consistently spewing knowingly false poison: by couching all of his nonsense in the "I'm just asking questions!" guise (Edit: For another example of this on Fox News recently, see this post regarding their coverage of the story of Lara Logan's horrific sexual abuse in Egypt. It really doesn't get worse than some members of the media trying to "spin" the group rape of a reporter courageously working in a hostile environment.). This is, of course, an old favorite of bigots, fear-mongerers, and conspiracy theorists (and Glenn is all of these), and is as intellectually dishonest as it gets. One peer who springs to mind off of the top of my head is Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose crusade was similarly based in "if you have nothing to hide, why would you mind this insane interrogation?" logic.
And then, to top it all off, he equates community organizing with propaganda. Fuck you very much, Glen Beck. I'm officially convinced that viewers of Beck's program must have the lowest IQ amongst all TV viewing demographics in the US (Sorry, fans of Two and a Half Men. You had a good run, but you've officially been out-stupided.). This is me watching Glenn Beck talk:
It can be difficult for even the most vigilant news junkies among us to keep track of all these revolutions in the Middle East, these days. Luckily, the Guardianhas our backs.
Lastly, I don't know if anyone who reads this blog is a basketball fan, but I am, and this pass from last night's Miami Heat game is the best I've ever seen, I'm pretty sure:
Edit: While we're on the subject of deception on Fox News, here's the latest in a long list of outright lies via doctored videos they were just busted on:
It's obvious why they did this, right? Cast doubt on the (admittedly pointless) result of the poll, just because they didn't like that result, for one. Secondly, and just as importantly to Fox News, they got to squeeze the name Sarah Palin in there, thus making it seem like people still buy into her bullshit. Well, people other than Fox News and their merry band of idiots. And, uniting the Sarah Palin and Glenn beck threads of this post, does anyone remember this? So creepy! I'm worried for Sarah Palin, you guys.
"Egypt's Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday, bowing down after a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. "The people ousted the president," chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo."
"The power and pride that the peaceful masses exhibit in the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities are Bin Laden’s worst nightmare. Peaceful masses, not the murder of innocents, overthrew a regime most thought was entrenched. If the demonstrators fail to fulfill their aspirations, it will be America’s nightmare."
Though, I would say that it would be a nightmare for America if the demonstrators do fulfill their aspirations, casting aspersions on the US government's seeming belief that the only way to accomplish things like this is for them to go bomb the shit out of the country in question, giving them control over the political situation in the country and region. Really, if the Egyptian people establish a free and just democracy, complete with a just economic system that provides for the lower class, it's not going to benefit any ideologically driven party (just, you know, the Egyptian people). This is going to be the hard part, though. We'll see how it goes, and whether the Egyptian people can continue to weather the storm of outside influence.
President Obama acknowledged this morning:
"There are very few moments in our lives when we have the privilege of witnessing history taking place. This is one of those times."
"The people of Egypt have spoken, the voices have been heard and Egypt will never be the same.
"By stepping down, President Mubarak responded to the Egyptian people's hunger for change. But this is not the end of Egypt's transition. It is a beginning.
"I am sure there will be difficult days ahead and many questions remain unanswered. But I am confident that the people of Egypt can find the answers and do so peacefully, constructively, and in the spirit of unity that have defined these past few weeks"
On the contrary, as one protester remarked, "the more delayed or the more late his [Mubarak's] decision to go away is, the more creative, more beautiful is the revolution. So, I want him to give us some more time to do or to make a more beautiful revolution, a more historical revolution, a more creative one, a more distinguished one."
But the government is also using other methods to try to stifle the momentum of the protests, resorting to tactics of outright intimidation and torture that will only amplify its desperation and illegitimacy.
-Slavoj Zizek has weighed in again, and cuts right to the chase:
"When President Obama welcomed the uprising as a legitimate expression of opinion that needs to be acknowledged by the government, the confusion was total: the crowds in Cairo and Alexandria did not want their demands to be acknowledged by the government, they denied the very legitimacy of the government. They didn't want the Mubarak regime as a partner in a dialogue, they wanted Mubarak to go. They didn't simply want a new government that would listen to their opinion, they wanted to reshape the entire state. They don't have an opinion, they are the truth of the situation in Egypt. Mubarak understands this much better than Obama: there is no room for compromise here, as there was none when the Communist regimes were challenged in the late 1980s. Either the entire Mubarak power edifice falls down, or the uprising is co-opted and betrayed."
And again:
"One of the cruellest ironies of the current situation is the west's concern that the transition should proceed in a "lawful" way – as if Egypt had the rule of law until now. Are we already forgetting that, for many long years, Egypt was in a permanent state of emergency? Mubarak suspended the rule of law, keeping the entire country in a state of political immobility, stifling genuine political life. It makes sense that so many people on the streets of Cairo claim that they now feel alive for the first time in their lives. Whatever happens next, what is crucial is that this sense of "feeling alive" is not buried by cynical realpolitik."
-Finally, there will be another solidarity rally today (February 11) in San Diego in front of the Federal Building. I encourage any San Diegan who feels at all concerned with what Zizek calls "the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity" to be there.
There's an article on the New Yorker's website (here) that mentions Suleiman as being the US's point man in the Middle East for the infamous extraordinary renditions of the Bush years. Even more interesting, though, is this bit of information:
"Further documentation of Suleiman’s role in the rendition program appears in Ron Suskind’s book, “The One Percent Doctrine.” Katherine Hawkins, a sharp-eyed human-rights lawyer who did legal research for my book, points out that, according to Suskind, Suleiman was the C.I.A.’s liaison for the rendition of an Al Qaeda suspect known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi. The Libi case is particularly controversial, in large part because it played a role in the building of the case for the American invasion of Iraq.
"In late November, 2001, Pakistani authorities captured Libi and turned him over to U.S. officials at Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan, for questioning. There he was questioned by two F.B.I. agents from New York who had worked on terrorism cases for years. They believed they were making great headway—getting valuable, actionable intelligence from Libi. But back in Washington, a custody battle broke out between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. over who should get to lead his interrogation. Suskind writes,
"The debate went up to [F.B.I. director Robert] Mueller and [C.I.A. director George] Tenet, and Tenet—appealing directly to both Bush and Cheney—prevailed. Al-Libi was bound and blindfolded for a trip to Cairo, where he’d be handed over to Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s intelligence chief and a friend of Tenet’s.
"What happened to Libi in Egypt, while in the custody of the Egyptian intelligence service, is documented in detail in a bipartisan report released in 2006 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. According to the report, Libi later told the C.I.A. that the Egyptian authorities grew dissatisfied with his level of cooperation, so they locked him in a tiny cage for eighty hours. Then they took him out, knocked him over, and punched him for fifteen minutes. The Egyptian officials were pressing Libi, who knew Bin Laden personally, to confirm the Bush Administration’s contention that there were links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In particular, the Egyptians wanted Libi to confirm that the Iraqis were in the process of giving Al Qaeda biological and chemical weapons. In pushing this line of inquiry, the Egyptians appear to have been acting in accordance with the wishes of the U.S., which wanted to document its case for going to war against Iraq. Under duress, Libi eventually gave in. Details from his confession went into the pivotal speech that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to the United Nations in Feburary of 2003, making the case for war.
"Several years later, however, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq turned up no such weapons of mass destruction, or ties between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, Libi recanted. When the F.B.I. later asked him why he had lied, he blamed the brutality of the Egyptian intelligence service. As Michael Isikoff and David Corn first reported in their book, “Hubris,” Libi explained, “They were killing me,” and that, “I had to tell them something.'”
So it should be no surprise that, as this typically tone deaf NYT article points out, those in the US administration have "made it clear that their preferred outcome would be for Mr. Suleiman to take power as a transitional figure." However, even if you're an American elite, you can't always get what you want. Addressing the preference expressed by the US for Suleiman to take power, one Egyptian official said this:
“What they’re asking cannot be done,” one senior Egyptian official said, citing clauses in the Egyptian Constitution that bar the vice president from assuming power. Under the Constitution, the speaker of Parliament would succeed the president. “That’s my technical answer,” the official added. “My political answer is they should mind their own business.”
And now come the most egregious parts of the article. First:
"Officials familiar with the dialogue between the Obama administration and Cairo say that American officials have told their Egyptian counterparts that if they support another strongman to replace Mr. Mubarak — but without a specific plan and timetable for moving toward democratic elections — Congress might react by freezing military aid to Egypt.
"On Thursday, the Senate passed a resolution calling on Mr. Mubarak to begin the transfer of power to an “inclusive, interim caretaker government.'”
Again, I repeat: the fucking hubris of the US government is unbelievable!!!! The US Senate passed a resolution about what should happen in Egypt right now. Let that sink in for a second. Vapid, shallow, self-interested to an extent that toes the line of sociopathy, the US government is like a reality television star.
And then the worst of all:
“'The worry on Mubarak’s part is that if he says yes to this, there will be more demands,” said Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “And since he’s not dealing with a legal entity, but a mob, how does he know there won’t be more demands tomorrow?'”
From that disgusting quote, calling the protesters a "mob," you would think that the protesters were holding the country hostage for millions of dollars and a chartered jet destined for a country that doesn't allow extradition to Egypt, rather than democracy and equality. God forbid, they ask for more than a superficial passing of the torch! What would the Egyptian elite do then?! Absolutely disgusting, and maybe the worst part is that the New York Times quotes this like it's a valid "worry," citing the credentials of the propagandist spewing this particular brand of bullshit.
Edit:Here's a good article on n +1's website about the causes of political unrest in Egypt, that starts with the obvious and oft-recited (Tunisia, WikiLeaks, etc.), and then goes deeper and further back in the country's history in the second half of the article. It was written a week ago, so keep that in mind when reading the author's skepticism about Mubarak leaving office.
Tony Blair has recently joined Joe Biden in the ranks of politicians whose remarks about Mubarak and Egypt have put them completely beyond the pale in terms of credibility, with these remarks:
"Where you stand on him depends on whether you've worked with him from the outside or on the inside. I've worked with him on the Middle East peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians so this is somebody I'm constantly in contact with and working with and on that issue, I have to say, he's been immensely courageous and a force for good."
Put aside for the moment the fact that he is here defending a known dictator whose latest crimes against his own people Dave describes very well in his post, and just let the venomous irony of his assertion that as an "insider" he is somehow more fit to judge Mubarak sink in. As if the people of Egypt lack some kind of crucial perspective. Maybe if they were all world leaders, they'd see where Mubarak was coming from!
Oh he also said these things:
"Where it’s best to end up is in free elections at a certain point in time, but in the mean time to get a managed process of change …"
"The important thing now is that we allow this process to happen in an orderly and not chaotic way …"
"I don’t think that Western governments should be the slightest bit embarrassed about saying we’ve worked very closely with president Mubarak …"
Edit #2: More Chomsky. This editorial contains some important arguments which bear on Blair's remarks:
"A common refrain among pundits is that fear of radical Islam requires (reluctant) opposition to democracy on pragmatic grounds. While not without some merit, the formulation is misleading. The general threat has always been independence. In the Arab world, the United States and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism."
"Arab opinion is so hostile to Washington’s policies that a majority (57 percent) think regional security would be enhanced if Iran had nuclear weapons. Still, 'there is nothing wrong, everything is under control' (as Marwan Muasher describes the prevailing fantasy). The dictators support us. Their subjects can be ignored—unless they break their chains, and then policy must be adjusted."
"Today President Mubarak seems to have decided to crack down on the democracy movement, using not police or army troops but rather mobs of hoodlums and thugs. I’ve been spending hours on Tahrir today, and it is absurd to think of this as simply “clashes” between two rival groups. The pro-democracy protesters are unarmed and have been peaceful at every step. But the pro-Mubarak thugs are arriving in buses and are armed — and they’re using their weapons.
"In my area of Tahrir, the thugs were armed with machetes, straight razors, clubs and stones. And they all had the same chants, the same slogans and the same hostility to journalists. They clearly had been organized and briefed. So the idea that this is some spontaneous outpouring of pro-Mubarak supporters, both in Cairo and in Alexandria, who happen to end up clashing with other side — that is preposterous. It’s difficult to know what is happening, and I’m only one observer, but to me these seem to be organized thugs sent in to crack heads, chase out journalists, intimidate the pro-democracy forces and perhaps create a pretext for an even harsher crackdown."
They even beat up American Treasure Anderson Cooper (oh, and are shooting and killing Egyptian citizens)! Cooper, pro that he is, kept his flip cam rolling while being assaulted:
"An orbiting NASA telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibilities in the search for alien life, including more than 50 potential planets that appear to be in the habitable zone.
"In just a year of peering out at a small slice of the galaxy, the Kepler telescope has spotted 1,235 possible planets outside our solar system. Amazingly, 54 of them are seemingly in the zone that could be hospitable to life -- that is, not too hot or too cold, Kepler chief scientist William Borucki said.
"Until now, only two planets outside our solar system were even thought to be in the "Goldilocks zone.'"
So, really, this just proves what Blink-182 were on top of way back in the day.
Edit:Although, Bill O'Reilly makes a VERY compelling argument, seemingly rooted in the belief that our solar system is the only one in the universe.
Update: Rachel Maddow cited historical precedents for the propaganda tactics Mubarak has employed in the past couple of days and illustrated very well how the Egyptian people and the world media have been able to thwart these efforts this time around.
