Month: January 2011

Little Egypt

by digby

Since I am not an expert on Egypt and have no special knowledge to impart beyond “look at that” I’m not blogging much on the topic other than to share links and pictures if I think they’re worth sharing.

This blog, called The Arabist, was passed on to me by email and I think it’s worth reading. He said something that struck me as an interesting insight:

Something very fishy is taking place — the Egyptian people are being manipulated and terrified by the withdrawal of the police yesterday, reports (some of them perhaps untrue) of widespread looting, and yesterday’s (during the day) relatively low military presence in the city. I can only speak about central Cairo, I suspect the situation is much worse in the Suez Canal cities, Alexandria and the Delta, and perhaps most of all the Sinai. I spoke to my former bawaab (doorman) who is near Aswan, where is he the police is still out and there is no military, although the local NDP office was ransacked and set on fire. So the situation is different from place to place, and there is very little national-level visibility.

There is a discourse of army vs. police that is emerging. I don’t fully buy it — the police was pulled out to create this situation of chaos, and it’s very probable that agent provocateurs are operating among the looters, although of course there is also real criminal gangs and neighborhoods toughs operating too.

That reflect quite a few comments I heard on various new broadcasts last night — the fear of chaos. We have had some experience with that here, during Katrina. It tends to favor the authoritarian impulse — which is why authoritarians use it.

Another blogger in Egypt, Jonathan Wright, posts this:

On the face of it, President Mubarak’s decision to appoint intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as vice president and Ahmed Shafik as prime minister is hard to understand, and the analyses I have heard and seen haven’t been very profound or convincing. Perhaps that’s because outsiders assume that Mubarak’s purpose was to placate the uprising in some way, so they have jumped to the conclusion that the appointment of Suleiman was a superficially ‘honourable’ way to abandon any plan to have his unpopular son Gamal succeed him. Others see it as part of a plan to arrange a safe exit for himself at some future date, under some highly speculative deal with the army which has saved him.

Others, including many of the protesters, suspect that Suleiman has the approval of the U.S. government, but reactions from the United States don’t corroborate that theory in any way. Certainly that theory was widespread in Tahrir Square this morning and this has given Egypt’s relationship with Washington more prominence in the uprising than at any time in the last five days, when the foreign dimension was largely absent. Protesters this morning called Suleiman a U.S. agent and banners recalled his collaboration with Israel and the United States in imposing the blockade of Gaza, which most Egyptians see as criminal.

That’s not good. But it is understandable. If you haven’t read Jane Meyer’s New Yorker piece about Suleiman, read it:

One of the “new” names being mentioned as a possible alternative to President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, is actually not so new to anyone who has followed the American policy of renditions for terror suspects. After dissolving his cabinet yesterday, Mubarak appointed Suleiman vice-president, and according to many commentators he is poised to be a potential successor, and an alternative to Mubarak’s son and intended heir until now, Gamal Mubarak. Suleiman is a well-known quantity in Washington. Suave, sophisticated, and fluent in English, he has served for years as the main conduit between the United States and Mubarak. While he has a reputation for loyalty and effectiveness, he also carries some controversial baggage from the standpoint of those looking for a clean slate on human rights. As I described in my book “The Dark Side,” since 1993 Suleiman has headed the feared Egyptian general intelligence service. In that capacity, he was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances.

Read the whole thing. It’s not pretty.

Unsurprisingly, John Negroponte on CNN a couple of minutes ago didn’t seem to concerned about Suleiman taking over. Money quote: “the street is not democracy, let’s not forget that.”

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Lady in a cage

By Dennis Hartley

Every which way but Toulouse: Nenette

Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.
–Paul Simon

Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore!’
–Edgar Allan Poe

The cat, of course, said nothing.
–Kinky Friedman

Humans are silly creatures, particularly with our compulsive need to anthropomorphize our animal friends. You see what just happened there? I had an uncontrollable compulsion to say, animal “friends”. How do I really know they’re my “friends”? When I was a kid, I loved the Hanna-Barbera cartoons. There was nothing I enjoyed more than spending Saturday mornings watching Yogi and Boo-Boo copping picnic baskets. Now, let’s say I’m taking a nature hike on Kodiak Island, and suddenly, I find myself face to face with a 1500 pound bear. What would be my first “compulsion” then? Give him a cheerful greeting (Hey, Yogi! Whassup?”) and a high five? Not likely. I would probably acquiesce to my lizard brain response (i.e., soil myself and flee in the opposite direction).

In Nicolas Philibert’s Nenette, a documentary centering on a beloved 41 year-old female orangutan who has resided in the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris since 1969, a zoo visitor hypothesizes likewise. “The thickness of the glass…it’s in proportion to our fear of getting closer,” he muses. “She seems familiar to us, because we’re protected. But, if the glass were to break all of a sudden…you wouldn’t hear ‘my sweet Nanette’ anymore. You’d only hear, ‘Run for your lives!’.” Like I said- humans are silly creatures.

And, throughout the four decades since she was captured in her native Borneo and transplanted to the Jardin des Plantes, Nenette has watched the daily parade of silly creatures that point and gawk and endlessly pontificate about what she might be thinking. The director gives us lots of time to study Nenette’s (mostly impassive) reaction to all the fuss; because the camera stays on her (and to a lesser extent, her three fellow orangutans) for nearly the entire 70-minute running time of the film. The zoo visitors are largely heard, and not seen, save for their ephemeral reflections in the thick glass that separates the simians from the homosapiens. “She looks sad,” says one little girl. “I think she looks very depressed,” one woman opines; “Maybe she misses her husband?” wonders another.

Nenette has actually been “married” three times over the years, and has borne four offspring. One of her adult sons keeps her company (and to address the inevitable question that arises concerning the particulars of that living arrangement, a handler assures us that when Nenette’s son matured, it was decided that she be put on the pill, surreptitiously dropped into her daily bowl of yogurt). In my favorite scene, one visitor attempts to bond with Nenette’s son. Speaking in almost reverently hushed tones, she tells a companion that, unlike most zoo patrons, she “knows how to communicate” with the orangutans. “Sing for me,” this Jane Goodall wannabe coos seductively, and then begins kissing the glass (we assume, as the orangutan appears to be aping the gesture from his side). I suspect she is one of those people who, according to a handler, drop by for daily chats with the orangutans, as if visiting with a family member who is in prison.

Nenette, of course, says nothing. Orangutans are taciturn by nature, and not overtly demonstrative like some of the other great apes. I suppose this makes Nenette’s inscrutable countenance an ideal “blank canvas” upon which each chatty visitor can paint their own unique projection (if you planted a microphone behind the Mona Lisa, you would likely have a very similar collage of comments). Not surprisingly, it takes the observations of (someone we assume to be) an actor to ultimately put Philibert’s enigmatic and meditative film study into perspective. As he marvels at “the quality of (Nenette’s) idleness” which she executes “with astounding virtuosity” he is reminded of an exercise from acting class, in which the teacher instructs the students that “the space is yours…just be there.” He concludes, “She is fully there, that’s all.” Then again, for all we know, she’s pondering about how yummy a nice banana might taste right about now.

Previous posts with related themes:

Where the Wild Things Are

Ponyo

My Friend Tulip

Saving The Museum

by digby

Here’s the fullest account I’ve seen of what’s happening at the Egyptian Museum. As I write this, it is being threatened by fire from the neighboring NDP building. keep your fingers crossed that this doesn’t happen. These are among the most valuable antiquities in the world and it would be a catastrophe if they were harmed.

The army is on site. But the really good news is that people formed a human wall to protect it from further damage and looting.

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Disunion

by tristero

Digby’s recent post debunking the latest bullshit from the right wing about slavery and the Founders reminded me that I wanted to let the hive mind know about a fantastic blog at the NY Times called Disunion which is a daily retelling of the Civil War 150 years later. There is a terrific array of Civil War scholars. Here’s the kicker:

The don’t assert that the reason the Southern states seceded was primarily to protect the institution of slavery rather than “states rights.” Instead, they prove it. They prove it over and over again. They prove it over and over again by quoting contemporary documents written by leading secessionists, Southern legislators, newspaper publishers, and also Northern sympathizers.

It is quite clear, as if anyone sane and educated ever doubted it. Slavery wasn’t one of many issues that led to disunion: It was by far the principal issue. It would hardly be much of an exaggeration to say that it was the only issue. Time and again, the states rights rhetoric was tied directly to the issue of slavery. Time and again, slavery was said to be an essential component of the effort to bring Africans closer to Christianity.

But Disunion is hardly focused on debunking modern racists. Mainly, the blog is telling an exciting and compelling story with the kind of detail and complexity it deserves. Through its multiplicity of voices, viewpoints, and styles, it’s rarely less than a must read. And the many parallels between then and now are as striking (and as eerie) as the many differences.

Happy Birthday Tom

by digby

It’s Tom Paine’s birthday. And considering what’s going on in the world, this seems to be an auspicious day to read this:

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR.

h/t to @joshua_holland

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The Founders Freed The Slaves

by digby

I thought Michelle Bachman’s bizarre comments about the founders ending slavery came out of her own fevered brain. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Seems the Teabag professor was there first, teaching it to his followers:

BECK: Yesterday — or was it today? I don’t even know. It was yesterday that they read the Constitution in Congress. It was today? Read the Constitution in Congress. And it was — no, it was — they edited the Constitution, not for time, but because they didn’t want to offend anyone. And parts of it were outdated. You got to be kidding me. This, we’re getting from the Republicans. Hmm. Parts of it are outdated and parts of it are offensive.

The three-fifths clause was offensive, and so they didn’t do it. This shows such a — either lack of understanding of our history, who the Founders were, what the Constitution says, or it is just cowardice in Washington. Three-fifths clause. African-Americans: three-fifths in the South, three-fifths of a human being. That’s an outrage, unless you know why they put that in there. They put that in there because if slaves in the South were counted as full human beings, they could never abolish slavery. They would never be able to do it. It was a time bomb.

Progressives should love that. It was a way to take a step to abolish slavery. It is a tremendous story about our Founders, about the genius of the Constitution — but that might offend some people, so they skipped it. They skipped it. That’s offensive to me. [Fox News’ Glenn Beck, 1/6/10]

I’m guessing he actually believes that.

Click the link to find out the truth, if you need to. Many historians (obviously aghast that anyone’s uttering this nonsense in public) respond. Here’s one:

Beeman: “My Goodness — Glenn Beck Got It Completely Wrong.” In response to a Media Matters email about Beck’s comments, Beeman wrote:

My goodness — Glenn Beck got it completely wrong. They put [the three-fifths clause] there because delegates from the Southern states would never have agreed to the Constitution unless some weight was given to their slave populations in the apportionment of representation. They wanted slaves counted 100%, but when they saw that they could not get that, they settled for 3/5. The practical effect of that, far from making easier to abolish slavery, made it more difficult. It gave added weight to southern political power in Congress, it inflated Southern power in the apportioning of electoral votes, which led to a succession of Southern presidents. Ironically, the best thing that could have been done with respect to making it easier to abolish slavery would have been to have given slaves NO weight in the apportioning of representation.

Well, yeah. it’s not like the slaves got 3/5th of a vote.

This makes my head hurt. But keep in mind that Beck is hugely influential in the Tea party — he is their most admired man. Millions of people are like Bachman and believe him, they home school their kids to believe the same garbage and you finally reach a point where it’s open to interpretation as to whether the 3/5th compromise ended slavery.

There’s a lot of this going around lately. Recall Haley Barbour has been telling us that Jim Crow wasn’t all that bad and that white southerners were the biggest proponents of the civil rights movement. Next thing you know we’ll be told that slavery didn’t happen at all — it’s just a sob story made up by a bunch of liberals and blacks to demonize southerners. After all, if the founders ended slavery …

By the way, responding to Chris Matthews uncivil comments about Bachman’s ignorance in which he called her a balloon head, Beck had this to say:

“You sir, are a balloon head that was taught by a balloon head and all you did because you’re a balloon head was sit in your stupid balloon head Ivy League classroom and be indoctrinated by a balloon head and never ever used your balloon head to ask an intelligent question of the balloon head in the tweed jacket! You self-sanctimonious, self-important balloon head, America has had enough. Do your own homework.

“

Matthews went to Holy Cross, but whatever. Do your own homework anyway.

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I Want My Al Jazeera

by digby

If you are trying to follow the story this week-end on CNN and Fox you will have noticed that the anchors they’ve called in couldn’t find Egypt on a map. Or worse. Raw Story caught this one:

CNBC contributor Erin Burnett said Friday that oil prices would skyrocket if countries in the Middle East broke out from under the rule of brutal dictators.

Appearing on a Friday broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Burnett said that the ongoing revolution in Egypt could threaten US interests in the region due to Egypt’s history as an ally on matters pertaining to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

She added that as one of the most developed economies in the Middle East, it was surprising to see many of the society’s wealthiest individuals supporting regime change. Tens of thousands of protesters across the country have taken to the streets the last few days, demanding President Mubarak resign.

“One more thing,” Burnett remarked. “If this spreads, the United States could take a huge hit because democracy in a place like Saudi Arabia, you’ve talked about who might come in power, what that means for oil prices. They’re going to go stratospheric.”

“There’s no doubt about it,’ MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said. “No doubt about it!”

You’ll find quite a bit of “gas price” scaremongering all over the place, usually among the anchors,not the analysts.

Unfortunately, most of the nation is not allowed to see Al Jazeera English television because our corporate overlords are convinced that it will be used to brainwash us into joining Al Qaeda or something. (Since every network now has at least three channels on my system, I doubt it’s a matter of money or availability.)

Anyway, you’ve noticed that there is often news from the middle east. And by all accounts Al Jazeera is the best at providing it. It’s a legitimate news organization and it should be available to the American people. Not all of us are children. Not even the Republicans. (I’m kidding … civility, civility.)

If you think it’s nuts that you can’t watch Al Jazeera on your cable system, check out their site to see how to email your cable provider.

Meanwhile, you can watch it online, here.

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Parasites R Us

by digby

Oh my:

An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand’s law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand’s behalf she secured Rand’s Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O’Connor (husband Frank O’Connor).

As Pryor said, “Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out” without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn “despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently… She didn’t feel that an individual should take help.”

But alas she did and said it was wrong for everyone else to do so.

Oh my my:

With his father’s passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college. To make ends meet, Paul’s mother returned to school to study interior design. His siblings were off at college. Ryan remembers this difficult time bringing him and his mother closer.

That’s Paul Ryan, Rand worshipper and scourge of social security.

I have to wonder if his mother took out federally funded school loans “to make ends meet” as well. It doesn’t make a lot of sense otherwise.

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Iconic Image

by digby

We don’t know what will happen in Egypt, but I think this footage will be one of the one’s we remember: it’s protesters crossing the Kasr Al Nile bridge.

The vans you see moving in reverse are the police.

Update:

Here are some interesting articles and resources if you’re wondering about the current thinking among the thinkers.

Five things you should know about the riots in Egypt

Time to rethink US-Egyptian relations

The Project for Middle East Democracy blog

Marc Lynch(Abu Aardvark)

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Birth Pangs

by digby

Reader JS writes in:

Clearly the Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld plan for mass regime change in the middle east went something like this:

1. Get the US bogged down in Iraq and Afgjanistan.

2. Greatly weaken our international standing, destroy our ability to
project power, raise the level of Arab resentment against us and our
puppet regimes, and bankrupt the country.

3. Print dollars to bail us out, thereby stoking massive inflation in
commodities and food prices that spark global riots.

4. Regime change dominos!

It’s so brilliant, why didn’t we see it ten years ago?

Giving birth to democracy is very untidy.

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