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

Except, like always, it's just the miltary making sure that their poltical liability goes away. What are the chances Egypt will really get a truly democratic regime where the Emergency Law is gone and the Mukhabarat are disbanded or at least disempowered and restrained?

i think theyll get something, as far as ~truly democratic~ not likely, tho who knows theres an opening which is more than before

http://i1.nyt.com/images/2011/02/11/world/11egypt3/11egypt3-hpLarge.jpg

whats up w/grabbing this guys head

itll be interesting to see across the middle east the effect of egypt/tunisia acting as a proof of concept - will these governments be able to put the genie back in the bottle

What are the chances Egypt will really get a truly democratic regime

Probably about the chance any of us will anywhere -- not terribly likely. But any kind of representation is better than no kind of representation.

What are the chances Egypt ends up like Turkey used to be, "democratic" with a military that acted with impunity

itd be a big improvement

If there is a tacit understanding, as there was under the Ataturk regime, that 'this is the system you get, guaranteed by the Army, and here's how representative it will be' and they stick to those rules, it will at least assure the ppl that the regime is sticking to its rules.

The same problem besets Iran; they fake elections, eschew any kind of accountability for their excesses, blame 'foreign spies', etc...

"truly democratic"

I can't think of a single country that is "truly democratic" lol

I am cheering improvement here, not the attainment of perfection

you could replace 'truly democratic' w/'liberal democracy' if that helps

Okay, fine, let's not quibble over what is 'truly democratic', let's just say a regime where there is enough freedom of assembly to form parties, fair enough elections that they are properly represented in the Majlis Al-Sha-ab, a chance to get rid of the 1980 constitutional amendment which gives the President 88 votes in the Al-Shura and some kind of fair balance btw civilian and military auhtority.

Also some kind of real habeas corpus.

well I am hopeful for all those things. but we'll see.

I am cheering improvement here, not the attainment of perfection

true, the protestors would grow old and gray in that square waiting for the military to cede power. will take decades.

^ yeah, i'd agree with that, but that's fine in a historical sense.

just talking out my ass here, in order for liberalism to take hold and be a force to be reckoned with in a society, a constituency of liberals has to grow. the events of the past few days point to a lot of bottled up energy in egypt for such a thing but it's hard to know numbers, and decades of emergency/military/autocratic rule means there aren't any other institutions to turn to

Frankly, giving the military their due maybe the only guarantor of liberalism, perhaps more so than democracy.

O RLY? Egypt's army 'involved in detentions and torture'

yeah didn't mean to snark, this is a real improvement. xpost

what army isn't involved with that

there are plenty of countries that have made transitions from authoritarian gov'ts to better ones, all people want to talk about is iran or maybe turkey. there are plenty of latin american examples... pinochet still has his defenders!

you could replace 'truly democratic' w/'liberal democracy' if that helps

― ice cr?m, Thursday, February 10, 2011 12:00 PM

liberal! u mean moonbat!?!?

that's a little fractured, what i meant is that the 'bad regime' never really disappears because there are always people left who loved it.

xp

Egypt Charges Government Figures with Corruption

Egypt's state prosecutor has launched a corruption investigation against three former government ministers and a member of parliament from Egypt's ruling National Democratic party, as protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square continued anti-government demonstrations for a 17th day.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Egypt-Charges-Government-Figures-with-Corruption-115720774.html

Murbarak quits tonight

amazing. so awesome.

― lmao reminisces about his days in southern china (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, February 10, 2011 11:25 AM

it is!

― ice cr?m, Thursday, February 10, 2011 11:28 AM

http://www.biomedresearches.com/root/images/Animated-Flag-Egypt.gif

like the CIA guy said to Charlie Wilson, "We'll see."

morbs just outed himself as a company man, knew it!

morbius did 9/11!

question i guess is to what extent the military are willing to yield to reform and how the protestors react

― ice cr?m, Thursday, 10 February 2011 11:04 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm guessing the military will take a Turkish style role, with the threat of a coup hanging over the civil government if they stray too far from what they deem acceptable.

What they will always deem unacceptable is the kind of economic reform Egypt needs, alas.

ironically there's an idea floating around out there that the regime flirted more and more with neoliberalism recently, but with an economy that is majority informal (!!) and there aren't clear lines of ownership of most of the land it's hard to know what that really meant or whether it was any good. there's a stock market! yaaay.

ignoring what's actually going to happen, it's totally obvious to me and hernando de soto that the ideal situation would just be to give legal title to the people that are already on the land (i don't know much about population distribution in egypt but i assume this would lead to pretty widespread land ownership.)

any alternative points of view here? it's such a kneejerk neoliberal response for me that i'm interested to have it tested.

is anybody else watching CBS' live feed...? the size and scope of the tent village/protesters in the square is nuts

stock market's lost 25% since this all started. unsurprisingly it's worst performing stock market this year (dunno why mongolia's is the best)

Egypt's information minister has just told Reuters Mubarak "definitely not going to step down"

Sky are translating a supposed leaked draft from al Arabiya just now - it will be a timetable for change, plus tinkering with various minor articles of the constitution. If that's right, it's not what everyone's expecting.

here we go

this fucking guy

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

watching on al jazeera english. politicians everywhere in all the fucking same shocker. shameless

this fucking guy

not bothering watching the rest of this tbh

this is terrible

so more riots then eh

DEMONSTRATORS IN LIBERATION SQUARE WAVE THEIR SHOES AT HOSNI MUBARAK

like the CIA guy said to Charlie Wilson, "We'll see."

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, February 10, 2011 12:55 PM

that could not have been more underwhelming

otm.

not at tv or real computer, what'd he end up saying?

I'm not stepping down, we'll amend this and that, here's two committees, violence will not be tolerated yadda yadda yadda

this dude is gonna end up with his head on a pike unless he gets the army to crush the opposition