Tag: TMC Politics

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Nicholas D. Kristof: We Are All Egyptians

Cairo. Inside Tahrir Square on Thursday, I met a carpenter named Mahmood whose left arm was in a sling, whose leg was in a cast and whose head was being bandaged in a small field hospital set up by the democracy movement. This was the seventh time in 24 hours that he had needed medical treatment for injuries suffered at the hands of government-backed mobs. But as soon as Mahmood was bandaged, he tottered off once again to the front lines.

“I’ll fight as long as I can,” he told me. I was awestruck. That seemed to be an example of determination that could never be surpassed, but as I snapped Mahmood’s picture I backed into Amr’s wheelchair. It turned out that Amr had lost his legs many years ago in a train accident, but he rolled his wheelchair into Tahrir Square to show support for democracy, hurling rocks back at the mobs that President Hosni Mubarak apparently sent to besiege the square. . . . . .

The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square are risking their lives to stand up for democracy and liberty, and they deserve our strongest support – and, frankly, they should inspire us as well. A quick lesson in colloquial Egyptian Arabic: Innaharda, ehna kullina Misryeen! Today, we are all Egyptians!

Dean Baker: The Great British Austerity Experiment

With deficit hawks poised in the US, we watch with great interest UK economic policy. It’s not looking an enviable example so far

Three months ago, I noted that the United States might benefit from the pain being suffered by the citizens of the United Kingdom. The reason was the new coalition government’s commitment to prosperity through austerity. As predicted, this looks very much like a path to pain and stagnation, not healthy growth.

That’s bad news for the citizens of the United Kingdom. They will be forced to suffer through years of unnecessarily high unemployment. They will also have to endure cutbacks in support for important public services like healthcare and education.

But the pain for the people in England could provide a useful example for the United States. After failing to see the $8tn housing bubble that wrecked the US economy, the austerity crew in the United States has been newly emboldened by the hugely partisan media that desperately want to eviscerate the country’s bedrock social programmes: social security and Medicare.

Mark Weisbrot: Haiti’s Growing Momentum Towards Democracy

The possible return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and a pushback against the electoral fix give hope

It didn’t get much attention in the media, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did something quite surprising on Sunday. After taping interviews on five big Sunday talkshows about Egypt, she then boarded a plane to Haiti. Yes, Haiti. The most impoverished country in the hemisphere, not exactly a “strategic ally” or a global player on the world’s political stage.

Inquiring minds might want to know why the United States’ top foreign policy official would have to go to Haiti in the midst of the worst diplomatic crisis she has faced. The answer is that there is also a crisis in Haiti. And it is a crisis that – unlike the humanitarian crisis that Haiti has suffered since the earthquake last year – Washington really cares about.

Like the Egyptians, Haitians are calling for free and fair elections. But in this case, Washington will not support free and fair elections, even nominally. Quite the opposite, in fact. For weeks now, the US government has been threatening the government of Haiti with various punishments if it refuses to reverse the results of the first round of its presidential elections. Washington wants Haiti to eliminate the government’s candidate and leave only two, rightwing candidates to compete in the second round.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Afghanistan’s “Too Big to Fail” Bank Is Failing — Guess Our System Doesn’t Work There, Either

The collapse of Afghanistan’s largest bank will seem familiar to Americans, and so will the upcoming reports of its bailout. We’ve heard the story before: Unheeded warnings. Lax (or nonexistent) law enforcement. An American auditor who said nothing as the books imploded. Sloppy, reckless, and greedy lending. Politicians in bed with banks. And a corporate crime wave led by bankers who can break the law with impunity, knowing they won’t be punished even if they’re caught.

The Kabul Bank story is a sad inversion of nation-building. It might have provided some moments of black humor for the recession-ravaged middle class, if only Americans and Afghans weren’t paying for it with their lives. We promised to teach the Afghans everything we know about running a modern economy.

Apparently we did.

David Sirota: How Money Has Framed the Egypt Debate

The question of why the American government has been so hesitant to push dictator Hosni Mubarak from power is typically answered in our media through the construct of “pragmatism.” If Mubarak leaves, the talking point goes, there could be a new government in Egypt that could threaten “regional stability” with an Iranian-style revolution. This talking point is both bigoted and imperial: It assumes that all Muslims and revolutions are monolithically the same (despite Egypt being Sunni and Arab and Iran being Shiite and Persian), and it assumes that “regional stability” is automatically threatened if a nation exists in the Mideast that isn’t under our thumb.

Nonetheless, the “pragmatism” talking point persists, and thus our government continues to deal with the dictator with kid gloves. But here’s the thing: We’re playing footsie with Mubarak not just because of the self-serving neoconservative construct of “pragmatism” — but also because of cold, hard cash.

Bill McKibben: A Revolution in Our Atmosphere, From Burning Too Many Fossil Fuels

If you were in the space shuttle looking down yesterday, you would have seen a pair of truly awesome, even fearful, sights.

Much of North America was obscured by a 2,000-mile storm dumping vast quantities of snow from Texas to Maine — between the wind and snow, forecasters described it as “probably the worst snowstorm ever to affect” Chicago, and said waves as high as 25 feet were rocking buoys on Lake Michigan.

Meanwhile, along the shore of Queensland in Australia, the vast cyclone Yasi was sweeping ashore; though the storm hit at low tide, the country’s weather service warned that “the impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations,” especially since its torrential rains are now falling on ground already flooded from earlier storms.

Kristen Breitweiser: Egypt: Skin in the Gam

How absolutely exhilarating to watch the events unfold in Egypt. As I sit with my daughter who has been studying Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia telling her to watch closely since history is unfolding right before our eyes, I can’t help to worry and wonder what impact this will have on our troops that are still fighting in Iraq. Will this affect the complete U.S. troop withdrawal date of December 31, 2011?

Of course the irony is not lost on me.

Nearly 8 long years ago, the Iraq War was wrongfully started under the guise of spreading democracy in the Middle East. And now, I sit and watch real democracy take to the streets of Cairo and Alexandria brought on by — not armies, intelligence officers, and private contractors from misguided nations — but regular, average Egyptian citizens who are simply fed up.

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 3

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English and I am posting this at early so everyone can watch the events in Egypt as they happen.

Violence erupted yesterday in Cairo and continued through the night on the ninth day of anti-government protests. There are reports of five deaths and countless injuries, some burned by thrown molotov cocktails. The Egyptian army has mostly stood by watching doing little to stop the violence that was begun by the pro-Mubarak supporters. The anti-government protesters stood strong against the “thugs” as they were labeled by most of the news media. They formed a line of protection around the Egyptian Antiquities Museum using sheet metal shields to push back the mob that was intent on getting inside to do more damage.

Sharif Kouddous: Live From Egypt: The True Face of the Mubarak Regime

February 2, Cairo, Egypt-The Mubarak regime launched a brutal and coordinated campaign of violence today to take back the streets of Cairo from Egypt’s mass pro-democracy movement.

Pro-Mubarak mobs began gathering near Tahrir Square shortly after Mubarak’s speech on Tuesday night and held a rally in front of the state TV building on Corniche El Nile Street. In the morning, they began marching around the downtown area in packs of fifty to 100.

These were not the same kinds of protesters that have occupied Tahrir for the last few days. These crowds were made up mostly of men, in between 20 and 45 years old. Many wore thick leather jackets with sweaters underneath. They chanted angrily in support of Mubarak and against the pro-democracy movement. They were hostile and intimidating.

Stocks are up but housing prices are down. While Wall Streeters are cheering that “The U.S. economy is back!” with the Dow, S&P, and the NASDAQ on the upswing, the housing market continues to sink.

As economist Robert Reich notes the upswing in the stock market is only good if you’re member of the elite 1% that owns half the stock traded on the market and part of the 9% that owns another 40%.  Plus the recent turmoil in the Middle East has  foreign investors “pushing more foreign money into the relatively safe and reliable American equities market.”

The average American isn’t a member of that club. For the average American the biggest investment they have are their homes and the housing market is a rumbling bear. That’s the real story about the economy.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of housing-market conditions, home prices continue to drop. They’ve dropped in all of the 28 major metropolitan areas, compared to a year earlier. And remember how awful things were in the housing market a year ago! In fact, the size of the year-to-year price declines is larger than the previous quarter’s in all but three of the markets surveyed.

Home prices have dropped most in cities already hard hit by the housing bust – Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago. But declines increased in other markets that had before escaped most of the downdraft, such as Seattle and Portland.

Reich also  points out that there are a record number of homeowners facing foreclosure, are seriously behind in their mortgage payments and the number of American’s owing more on their home than the home is worth is increasing. Many will just walk away which will further increase the foreclosures and weaken the housing market.

Low wages and unemployment also plague the economy. No, the American economy is not back, at least for the average American.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Science, yes. But don’t forget the poor

In a speech to the National Academy of Sciences shortly after taking office, President Obama, while faced with a teetering economy, vast numbers of unemployed and uninsured, and two seemingly endless wars, nonetheless paused to embrace a vision of the future. He spoke of President Lincoln’s commitment to science and innovation, even in the midst of great turmoil and uncertainty. . . . . .

So it came as no surprise, then, that a central theme of President Obama’s State of the Union address last week was the modern extension of Lincoln’s commitment to science and innovation and of his insistence that we add “the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” . . . . .

But while Lincoln was committing himself to the advancement of science and innovation, he remained focused on ending the nation’s more immediate and immobilizing crises. President Obama must do the same; it is today’s job market, not tomorrow’s, and the victims of our historic chasm between great wealth and deep poverty, that deserve his primary focus now.

We live in a country with nearly 15 million unemployed, and many millions more underemployed. A country where job creation can barely keep pace with population growth, where for a staggering number of people, the pain of recession continues without any real relief. These are people who cannot wait for a decade-long economic transformation; they need relief – and jobs – now.

And yet, with more Americans now mired in poverty than at any time in the last 40 years – a record 47 million – the president did not include a single mention of poverty or the plight of the poor in his speech.

Laura Flanders: Killing the Internet Not Just a Problem in Egypt

As we speak, Egypt is struggling with a near-total Internet and communications shut-off, and not just Egyptians are grappling with the implications. Can the flow of social media information to an entire country simply be cut? Apparently, yes. And that’s not just an Egyptian concern.

It’s very much an American concern, in that a US-based company seems to be the maker of the Internet off-switch. As Tim Karr of Free Press notes, the US company Narus was founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts. Based in Sunnyvale California, Narus has devised what business fans call a “social media sleuth.”

As boosters put it: “Narus is the leader in real-time traffic intelligence for the protection and management of large IP networks…. Used by the world’s service providers and governments, Narus has developed and patented state-of-the art algorithms to detect network anomalies and manage unwanted IP traffic. Additionally, Narus has the unique ability to precision target and fully reconstruct all types of IP traffic, including e-mail, Web mail and instant messages.”

Maureen Dowd: Bye Bye, Mubarak

If only W. had waited for Twitter.

And Facebook. And WikiLeaks.

Revolutionary tools all, like the fax machine in the Soviet Union.

The ire in Tahrir Square is full of ironies, not the least of which is the American president who inspired such hope in the Middle East with his Cairo speech calling around this week to leaders in the region to stanch the uncontrolled surge of democracy in the Arab world.

Egyptians rose up at the greatest irony of all: Cleopatra’s Egypt was modern in ancient times and Mubarak’s was ancient in modern times. The cradle of civilization yearned for some civilization.

President George W. Bush meant well when he tried to start a domino effect of democracy in the Middle East and end the awful hypocrisy of America coddling autocratic rulers.

CLASHES HAVE BROKEN OUT BETWEEN PRO AND ANTI GOVERNMENT FORCES IN TAHRIR SAQUARE

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 2

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English and I am posting this at early so everyone can watch the events in Egypt as they happen.

This is day eight of the protest in Egypt demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down. Late last night on Egyptian state television, Mubarak said that he would not run for reelection on September but would not step down. His tone and words at times were aggressive and confrontational condemning the demonstrators, echoing the speech given by former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali the day before he fled by private jet to Saudi Arabia.

President Obama said he spoke to Hosni Mubarak after the Egyptian president’s announcement to serve out his remaining term, and told Mubarak an orderly transition of power in Egypt ‘must begin now’.While the meaning of the last phrase was deliberately vague, it appeared to be a signal that Mr. Mubarak might not be able to delay the shift to a new leadership.

Mubarak’s speech did little to quell the demands for his immediate departure. The opposition leaders have vowed to keep up the protests and said they would get bigger until Mubarak is gone. Angry Chants of “Erhal! Erhal!”, or “Leave! Leave!” could be heard and scenes of protesters waving their shoes and using them to beat pictures of Mubarak were common.

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

FireDogLake now has a direct link to all their coverage.

This is day eight of the protest in Egypt demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down.

After a day of protest that drew more than a million peaceful demonstrators to Tahrir Square in Cairo and around other cities in Egypt, there are still tens of thousands of protesters in the streets, many having vowed to remain until Pres. Hosni Mubarak leaves office. News agencies are reporting that Mubarak will make a televised address possibly announcing that he will not run for office in September. Whether that will satisfy the protesters and the opposition parties is in doubt. President Obama is also urging Mubarak not to run:

The message was conveyed to Mr. Mubarak by Frank G. Wisner, a seasoned former diplomat with deep ties to Egypt, these officials said. Mr. Wisner’s message, they said, was not a blunt demand for Mr. Mubarak to step aside now, but firm counsel that he should make way for a reform process that would culminate in free and fair elections in September to elect a new Egyptian leader.

This back channel message, authorized directly by Mr. Obama, would appear to tip the administration beyond the delicate balancing act it has performed in the last week – resisting calls for Mr. Mubarak to step down, even as it has called for an “orderly transition” to a more politically open Egypt.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Paul Krugman: A Cross of Rubber

Last Saturday, reported The Financial Times, some of the world’s most powerful financial executives were going to hold a private meeting with finance ministers in Davos, the site of the World Economic Forum. The principal demand of the executives, the newspaper suggested, would be that governments “stop banker-bashing.” Apparently bailing bankers out after they precipitated the worst slump since the Great Depression isn’t enough – politicians have to stop hurting their feelings, too.

But the bankers also had a more substantive demand: they want higher interest rates, despite the persistence of very high unemployment in the United States and Europe, because they say that low rates are feeding inflation. And what worries me is the possibility that policy makers might actually take their advice.

To understand the issues, you need to know that we’re in the midst of what the International Monetary Fund calls a “two speed” recovery, in which some countries are speeding ahead, but others – including the United States – have yet to get out of first gear.

Jeremy Scahill: Washington’s Sudden Embrace of Al Jazeera Won’t Erase Past US Crimes Against the Network

If it weren’t for Al Jazeera, much of the unfolding Egyptian revolution would never have been televised. Its Arabic and English language channels have provided the most comprehensive coverage of any network in any language hands-down. Despite the Mubarak regime’s attempts to shut it down, Al Jazeera’s brave reporters and camera crews have persevered. Six Al Jazeera journalists were detained briefly on Monday, their equipment seized. The US responded swiftly to their detention with the State Department calling for their release. “We are concerned by the shutdown of Al Jazeera in Egypt and arrest of its correspondents,” State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley tweeted. “Egypt must be open and the reporters released.”

The Obama White House has been intently monitoring al Jazeera’s coverage of the Egyptian revolt. The network, already famous worldwide, is now a household name in the US. Thousands of Americans-many of whom likely had never watched the network before-are livestreaming Al Jazeera on the internet and over their phones. With a handful of exceptions, most US cities and states have no channel that broadcasts Al Jazeera. That’s because cowardly US cable providers refuse to grant the channel a distribution platform, largely for fear of being perceived as supporting or enabling a network that for years has been portrayed negatively by US officials.

Laura Flanders: Inequality Drives Egyptians to Streets, But Ours Worse

It’s amazing what inequality can drive people to, eventually. Just look at Egypt.

“These big guys are stealing all the money,” one 24-year-old textile worker standing at his second job as a fruit peddler told a reporter this weekend. “People are desperate.”

“I wish we could be like the United States with a democracy, but we cannot,” said another.

And so they protest, regardless of police batons, curfews and shootings. With over a 150 estimated dead, a march of millions is scheduled for Tuesday.

In spite of what some on Fox News (and the Israel lobby’s camp) sought to argue this weekend, namely that the protests were all the work of Islamist radicals, every report from the ground contradicts that. As in Tunisia, the protesters are driven by fury at poverty, lack of options and the looting of their state by the super-powerful.

It’s an equation we understand-elsewhere: a massive gap between rich and poor is inconsistent with democracy. But before you get carried away with third world conditions there, try here. On Friday a guest blogger at Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism blog noted a remarkable fact: the US actually has much greater inequality than Egypt-or Tunisia, or Yemen.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Mark Levine: President Obama, say the ‘D-Word’

US appears to shy away from talk about democracy in Middle East, despite historic anti-government rallies in ally Egypt.

It’s incredible, really. The president of the United States can’t bring himself to talk about democracy in the Middle East. He can dance around it, use euphemisms, throw out words like “freedom” and “tolerance” and “non-violent” and especially “reform,” but he can’t say the one word that really matters: democracy.

How did this happen? After all, in his famous 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, Obama spoke the word loudly and clearly – at least once.

“The fourth issue that I will address is democracy,” he declared, before explaining that while the United States won’t impose its own system, it was committed to governments that “reflect the will of the people… I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

“No matter where it takes hold,” the president concluded, “government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power.”

Simply rhetoric?

Of course, this was just rhetoric, however lofty, reflecting a moment when no one was rebelling against the undemocratic governments of our allies – at least not openly and in a manner that demanded international media coverage.

Now it’s for real.

And “democracy” is scarcely to be heard on the lips of the president or his most senior officials.

E. J. Dionne, Jr: Can Obama Make Sense of Government?

A cynic might be justified in seeing a call for a sweeping reorganization of the federal government as the last refuge of a politician who doesn’t want to ruffle any ideological feathers.

For example, President Barack Obama could have used last week’s State of the Union address to propose a ban on those high-capacity gun magazines that made the recent Tucson tragedy so lethal. But doing this would have brought down the wrath of the National Rifle Association. So, sadly, he took a pass.

The president’s aides were quick to say he would address the gun issue soon, explaining that Obama didn’t want a hot-button issue to divert attention from his theme of “winning the future.”

So giving Obama the benefit of the doubt for now on guns, what is one to make of his pledge to build a “21st-century government that’s open and competent” and “driven by new skills and new ideas”?

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

FireDogLake now has a direct link to all their coverage

This is the seventh day of protests in Egypt against the repressive Mubarak government. The police have returned to the streets after having been absent for three days leaving only a military presence that did little to stop the protesters.

Excellent interview from Fareed Zakaria GPS. Fareed’s entire program on CNN was devoted to the situation in Egypt.

(I will post the transcript as soon as it is available)

Up Date #1: It’s now early morning in Egypt. Al Jazeera’s live blog reports that many protesters slept in the streets and in Tahrir Square, some shared their food with the soldiers.

This first hand account by Sharif Kouddous, a journalist and senior producer with Democracy Now! who lives in Egypt, was posted at The Nation and Democracy Now!:

Live From Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger

January 30, Cairo, Egypt-In the second day of defiance of a military curfew, more than 150,000 protesters packed into Tahrir Square Sunday to call on President Hosni Mubarak to step down. The mood was celebratory and victorious. For most, it was not a question of if, but when, Mubarak would leave.

Military tanks have been stationed at entrance points around the square with soldiers forming barricades across streets and alleyways. In another departure from ordinary Cairo life, people quickly formed orderly queues to get through the army checkpoints. Soldiers frisked people and checked their identification cards. One soldier said they were making sure no one with police or state security credentials could enter.

Reports are widespread that many of the looters in Cairo are, in fact, remnants of the police and state security forces that were forced into a full retreat during Friday’s mass street revolt. In addition, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners were released from prisons in Fayyoum and Tora. Many believe it’s all part of an organized campaign by the regime to create lawlessness in the city in a last gasp attempt to maintain its grip on power. The headline of Al-Masry Al-Youm today blared: “Conspiracy by Interior Ministry to Foment Chaos.”

Just when you need a laugh category: Somebody at Fox News failed Geography.