Egyptian riots

goman wrote:

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion

Here are some Haaretz, Israeli newspaper, opinion pieces. They are sane and looking at reality. Egypt cannot be a dictatorship forever.

As long as they improve their economy and make their people rich, yes they can. Make your people too fat and lazy to care about anything else. We see that to some degree here in the USA.

Rat Boy wrote:

Saw something on Twitter last night during the Super Bowl in response to the controversial Groupon ads. Can't find the original tweet but it went along the lines of, "Hundreds of people have been injured during democracy riots in Egypt, but my friends and I got a tour of the pyramids for just pennies through Groupon!"

Nice. The Groupon ad was truly stupid at best. I'd be surprised if there isn't a GrouponPR Twitter feed in the vein of the KennethColePR Twitter feed.

DSGamer wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Saw something on Twitter last night during the Super Bowl in response to the controversial Groupon ads. Can't find the original tweet but it went along the lines of, "Hundreds of people have been injured during democracy riots in Egypt, but my friends and I got a tour of the pyramids for just pennies through Groupon!"

Nice. The Groupon ad was truly stupid at best. I'd be surprised if there isn't a GrouponPR Twitter feed in the vein of the KennethColePR Twitter feed.

They did the same thing with Tibet. I'm not sure yet whether those ads are stupid or genius. They're either tone deaf or laughing at us, the American people, and our consumerist natures that supercedes our belief in Democracy and Equality.

Dirt:

I'm fairly sure it's not consumerism that counteracts your beliefs in democracy and freedom. I'm of the impression that Americans have long since ceased to believe in freedom for everyone - especially for people who they don't believe as being part of themselves.

When the Philippines was annexed by force by US invasion, the American people had a chance to show the world that they walked their talk. To be sure the issue was a hot topic, but ultimately, Americans chose to forgive their leaders for using their name to occupy a country they had no legitimate reason to invade.

LarryC,
Given the state of your country, I'm surprised you guys aren't rioting. With your population and natural resources, your country should be as rich as Japan.

Dirt wrote:

LarryC,
Given the state of your country, I'm surprised you guys aren't rioting. With your population and natural resources, your country should be as rich as Japan.

I've been thinking this since the riots started. Can you imagine? A nation where people are imprisoned without due process and often die in custody. A nation where a small number of people wield disproportionate power and influence and control most of the country's wealth? That place must suck.

I think the difference is that Americans, even the poor, have it better than most of the rest of the world in terms of security, access to food and shelter, etc. There's American poor and then there's global poor.

Yeah, the middle class in a lot of countries wish they were as poor as poor Americans.

I think that it may be a bit late for that now though. If he had thought of it a few years ago then I'm sure you're right.

Exactly. Mubarak, if he lasts long enough, doesn't need to make any political changes, he needs to make economic reforms. He just needs to make his people richer and he can continue to stay in power and politically oppress his people. Equality between races and religion is over-rated.

Edit: I mean, the world keeps trying to portray some Pharoahs as being black, but even back then, the blacks were the slaves, they could never have been Pharoahs.

Well, my friend's friend was released from custody. Turms out his arrest and release have garnered some media attention and micro-celebrity (as he names it). His blog and Twitter account, if you're interested.

Whose taking bets? Will this be Tehran 1979, Berlin 1989 or Beijing 1989?

Dirt wrote:

Whose taking bets? Will this be Tehran 1979, Berlin 1989 or Beijing 1989?

It will be Egypt 2011.

Vienna 1848? (But yeah, it will be its own thing. Although it's never bad to think about historical parallels, it won't be identical to anything in history.)

goman wrote:
Dirt wrote:

Whose taking bets? Will this be Tehran 1979, Berlin 1989 or Beijing 1989?

It will be Egypt 2011.

Or Taiwan February 28, 1947.

York 306?

Or maybe USA 1861. Canada 1837? Tang 755? How far back are we going? What's the point of going back so far?

Rome 73 BC. Booyah!

Babylon, 626 BCE!

IMAGE(http://www.cute-factor.com/images/smilies/onion/075.gif)

Punching Anderson Cooper = one pissed off Anderson Cooper

Twitter is saying that Mubarak is going to cede power to his VP tonight.

Doesn't mean he'll be entirely out of the picture, but it's a step.

Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian VP, is not the direction I suspect you want to go, garion. I'd be very worried for those people in the square if he ends up in power.

Axon wrote:

Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian VP, is not the direction I suspect you want to go, garion. I'd be very worried for those people in the square if he ends up in power.

Yeah. He knows something about torture and abuse of power himself.

DSGamer wrote:
Axon wrote:

Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian VP, is not the direction I suspect you want to go, garion. I'd be very worried for those people in the square if he ends up in power.

Yeah. He knows something about torture and abuse of power himself.

Of course he does, he was Mubarak's right hand man in suppressing the people.

The military just came on Egyptian tv, but didn't really say anything. Kinda ambiguous.

Kinda conflicting reports. Some say the VP is in charge, others say the military and a few say both. Looks like somebody didn't stay on message.

garion333 wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Axon wrote:

Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian VP, is not the direction I suspect you want to go, garion. I'd be very worried for those people in the square if he ends up in power.

Yeah. He knows something about torture and abuse of power himself.

Of course he does, he was Mubarak's right hand man in suppressing the people.

The military just came on Egyptian tv, but didn't really say anything. Kinda ambiguous.

Actually, he was our man. He made the CIA's extraordinary rendition program possible. We turned over suspects and Suleiman got information out of them while still allowing the Bush administration to technically be right when they insisted that America doesn't torture people.

OG_slinger wrote:
garion333 wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Axon wrote:

Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian VP, is not the direction I suspect you want to go, garion. I'd be very worried for those people in the square if he ends up in power.

Yeah. He knows something about torture and abuse of power himself.

Of course he does, he was Mubarak's right hand man in suppressing the people.

The military just came on Egyptian tv, but didn't really say anything. Kinda ambiguous.

Actually, he was our man. He made the CIA's extraordinary rendition program possible. We turned over suspects and Suleiman got information out of them while still allowing the Bush administration to technically be right when they insisted that America doesn't torture people.

That's a lot of dot connecting. All arab countries torture people, so anyone we turn over to an Arab country is likely to get tortured. On one hand, you can say this means we're supporting torture, and just letting others do the dirty work. On the other, you can say it's an inevitable consequence of international cooperation.

Shoal07 wrote:

That's a lot of dot connecting. All arab countries torture people, so anyone we turn over to an Arab country is likely to get tortured. On one hand, you can say this means we're supporting torture, and just letting others do the dirty work. On the other, you can say it's an inevitable consequence of international cooperation.

And here's a straight line.

Axon wrote:

Kinda conflicting reports. Some say the VP is in charge, others say the military and a few say both. Looks like somebody didn't stay on message.

It's sounding more like the VP may not end up with power, but the military will. It is believed there was a split in the military and Mubarak and Suleiman didn't come out on top. Clearly we'll still see if that's what happening, but it somewhat makes more sense of why the military counsel made that strange nonstatement earlier.

I hope that Mubarak's regime completely steps down as the people in Tahrir Square are celebrating like they won. I'd hate to see them be disappointed.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleybaccam/unconventional-objects-used-as-helmets-during-the

Found this today. Kind of amusing. Egypt already has hipsters.