a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

hard not to assume the worst - seems like anti-govt ppl are brutalizing some pro-mubarak truck driver that they surrounded

i'm hearing what sounds like automatic fire elsewhere too

Oh AJE, there's been gunfire off and on the past hour from the pro-Mubarak side at Tahrir square.

Any definite reports on what's happening or just attempts to work it out from general confusion?

oh, AJE, good idea, thanks rev. anything's better than ed schultz now that maddow's off the air.

engel is reporting there's a lynching occurring

Oh AJE = On AJE

Btw, what up Clay! Sorry I never returned your message on fb. I am horrible about that.

engel is reporting there's a lynching occurring

i hate to ask this, but who is allegedly lynching who?

i can't tell either

would guess anti-s are lynching pro-s but can't say

hopefully he's just mistaken

s?

sup rev! (don't want to clutter up this thread too much with personal stuff, but yeah, no biggie. i'm the worst at email/fb/texts etc. hit me up sometime, though, let me know what's going on!)

lol im kinda drunk, that's my ignorant way of pluralizing xp

here's a characteristically grim take:

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/02/02/hyper-realism-to-the-rescue/

no matter what you think of that, the idea that the military is just hanging back and chillin out of, what? loyalty? patriotism? needs to be second guessed maybe.

eh out of not killin ppl presumably

larison makin me depressed as usual

Someone on AJE just said "twitteratti". u_u

this is absolutely terrifying and there's about zero chance it doesn't get way, way worse.

fascinating, terrifying, confusing.

It is still unclear what exactly happened in the events that followed, but rumor has it that one of the ministers responsible for the security of the nation didn't react well to Mubarak asking him to resign and ordered the police to leave and opened the doors to dozens of prisons so that more than 2000 prisoners could leave. Others say Mubarak was responsible because the minister couldn't have ordered anything once resigned. Either way, prisoners escaped, thugs went into empty police stations and stole all the weapons.

That's when real fear spread around the nation. We didn't fear the government or Mubarak but our own people. The triggering of this event brought out the best and worst of Egyptians. The looters started breaking into homes, raping girls (one of them the daughter of a friend of mine), stealing whatever they could and threatening citizens with the guns they stole. The sound of gunfire echoed all over the city.

Sounds like creating pretexts for imposing martial law.

unfortunately I agree with that

Anyone know if the shooting is still going on? Not finding any reports from the last couple of hours.

Doesn't sound like it. Looks like things have calmed down some as morning has broke.

A bunch of video from down on the ground at Tahrir Square here: http://bambuser.com/channel/RamyRaoof/broadcast/1378380

well, i mean, per the guardian, the army is "dispersing" the mubarak goons, so that's (obligatory bet-hedge here) promising/better than them being allowed to let rip

I think one bit of the army dispersed one lot of Mubarak thugs, but that does not mean that the army is definitively intervening in favour of the pro-democracy people.

horrible footage of one of the supporters being dragged from his horse.

The one famous Egyptian politician we haven't heard from yet is the geezer in charge of the pyramids etc, the guy in the Indiana Jones hat who's usually always trying to get his face on the telly

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/11/xin_372020612081229610051.jpg

http://progressiverealist.org/blogpost/al-jazeera-spotlight

Al Jazeera is generally hesitant to shine a critical spotlight on states and political organizations that it views as a part of the Islamist "resistance" against Israel. This explains its sympathetic reporting towards Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah. It also provides some insight into why its coverage of the PA, Fatah, Egypt, and other Western-leaning states tends to be so hostile.

Again, though, the point is the following: that despite the extremely important role that Al Jazeera has played in Tunisia and Egypt, it is not a given that the network will continue to be at the forefront of propelling future protest movements in the region. Al Jazeera has its own editorial line, and it is also restricted by its Qatari patrons. The network was very late in covering the initial demonstrations in Egypt, for example, which some analysts speculate may have been because Mubarak's government cut some sort of deal with Qatari authorities. Or perhaps it was because the Qatari monarchy was worried about its own skin -- that another burgeoning protest movement, so soon after Tunisia, might eventually encourage an uprising back at home. Whatever the case, this is not to say that Al Jazeera won't cover additional uprisings in the Arab world -- the network most certainly will, or it risks losing credibility (not to mention market share.) But it is quite possible that, in countries like Syria or Saudi Arabia, about which the network has historically tended to give more favorable coverage, that its reporting will be much less sympathetic towards the ambitions of the protesters.

i have to admit that nearly as fascinating to me as the events themselves has been the insanity of the right wing in analyzing it. insane in a more confused and self-contradictory way than usual.

here's a pretty good "yup, they went there" roundup from tpm

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/right_wing_reacts_to_egypt_protests_obama_is_in_le.php

i hadn't heard some of these

http://gawker.com/5749601/

i have to admit that nearly as fascinating to me as the events themselves has been the insanity of the right wing in analyzing it. insane in a more confused and self-contradictory way than usual.

how so? are they, for instance, reserving the right to take credit for a potentially successful uprising, based on the iraq invasion, but contemporaneously reserving the right to blame democrats if an anti-american dictator rises to power?

oh! messages crossed paths. thanks, max.

love this

Advanced by: Rush Limbaugh
Sample quote: "Well, the same question needs to be asked about Pharaoh Obama. Why didn't the Pharaoh see this coming, particularly given his wonderful relationship with this regimes and their people? Obama went over there, made a speech...even grew a quasi-mustache there for the appropriate facial hair."

WAKE UP, PEOPLE; HE GREW FACIAL HAIR!

The greatest comic genius in history couldn't make some of this up

i'm gonna grow a pseudo-beard in protest

It still just absolutely blows my mind that Limbaugh is broadcast on Armed Forces Network radio.

he is a real american, fight for the rights of every man.

gj max!

this event is really interesting to me in how much "see, bush was right!" is a minority opinion on the right.

no real mystery there. they only wanted to expand democracy to um, gov'ts we don't actually like. whereas Mubarak was a bro/friend of Israel, etc.

This event is really interesting in a lot of ways, but IMHO the reaction of the American right-wing is not one of them.

like, Syria, Iran, yeah let's get rid of 'em! Egypt and Saudi and Jordan, eh not so much.

xp

ugh Suleiman on state TV mouthing total lies is really disgusting

This event is really interesting in a lot of ways, but IMHO the reaction of the American right-wing is not one of them.

― Super Cub, Thursday, February 3, 2011 10:58 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

well, fair enough, but, you can't really talk about egypt w/o talking about america. $billions a year since camp david is part of the story. those are abrams tanks in the streets, you know? plus, i'm in america so this is the environment i'm in.

fascination with a narrow spectrum of showbiz righty-pundits: The Official Hobby of ILE Politics Posters

yeah, i admit to being interested in the reaction across the spectrum of united states political thought.

but i think you have a point -- here, and in general -- that it's in some sense a smug mocking excercise to focus on the reaction of the hard right, or it's silly pundits, or the tea party.

yeah, as i say, dr. m has a point.