MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
|
|
|
From the Readers
- barefooted 9 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 11 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
Creative corner
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
From the Dagbloggers
- Michael Wolraich 1 year 4 days ago
- Danny Cardwell 3 years 3 months ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 5 days ago
- PeraclesPlease 4 years 2 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 4 years 2 months ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 2 months ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 2 months ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 2 months ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 3 months ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 3 months ago
In Egypt It's The Military That Now Faces Tens of Thousands Protesting in Tahrir Square
By artappraiser on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 6:02pm |By Mona L. Nagger and Micheal Slackman, New York Times, April 8, 2011
CAIRO — A blogger was jailed recently for “insulting the military.” Human rights advocates say that thousands of people have been arrested and tried before military courts in the last two months. Protesters have been tortured and female activists subjected to so-called virginity tests.
Fed up and angry with Egypt’s military rulers, tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out on Friday in Tahrir Square here for one of the largest demonstrations since the former president, Hosni Mubarak, stepped down on Feb. 11. The protest was being called the “Friday of Warning.”...
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/world/middleeast/09egypt.html?hp
- Add new comment
- 937 reads
Comments
by artappraiser on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 6:15pm
The biggest problem with any revolution is that people far too often do not know what they want to replace what they got rid of.
All they really know for sure is that they hate what they had.
And it's simply not practical or even possible to try out new governments until you find one you like. Like hats at the department store.
by cmaukonen on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 6:42pm
Everyone in the pro-democracy movement knew a confrontation with the army was inevitable; the military is just too integrated into the corrupt old order. "The army and the people are one" was a convenient lie for both sides: the protesters needed Tantawi to dislodge Mubarak and Soleiman for them, the brass needed the revolution's backing if they hoped to retain their privileges.
The question was how far down the road they could kick that can of worms. Maybe till after the legislative and presidential elections? Apparently not. Unless some younger, less hidebound members of the Supreme Military Council elbow Tantawi aside (some are in their 50s or 60s; I have no idea if they're democratically inclined).
Egyptians want an end to the old order. Even the Muslim Brotherhood is seeing key defections by members tired of its internal authoritarianism.
by acanuck on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 9:19pm
The difference between a revolution and an angry mob is the revolution knows where they want to go while the angry mob knows they're angry with the current state of affairs. A revolution can do something whereas the angry mob is venting their frustration. The revolution is comprised of leaders whereas an angry mob is a rag-tag bunch without any sense of purpose or direction. Egypt wasn't a revolution...just an angry mob venting its frustration. Since nature abhors a vacuum, so too does politics. Egypt will get the government they deserve because they let their anger rule instead of their minds. Mubarak will just be replaced by another chameleon and the old order will re-emerge with a new coat of paint and decorated with flowers, but still the same meat-grinding food processor as it was before.
by Beetlejuice on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 10:18pm
Totally wrong, Beetle. The western media talked about this as a leaderless uprising because it lacked well-known names and established parties. The meme was: all these people have known is one-man rule; who will step into that role? They were all "ElBaradei returns in triumph; Amr Moussa announces candidacy; could Wael Ghonim be the leader these people lack?"
Meanwhile, the people who put together this improbable grassroots revolution kept beavering away, and continue to beaver away. Did you notice they just filled Tahrir Square to capacity again -- in a "Day of Warning" to the military. Right, their program was not very detailed: Just Mubarak's ouster, an end to the emergency law and the repression and torture it allowed, a new constitution, free elections. Fairly ambitious, doncha think? Not all accomplished yet, but the revolution isn't over.
by acanuck on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 1:17am
While I appreciate your points, you have to admit they created a political vacuum in the process of conducting their grassroots revolution. And vacuums can't exist as a stand-alone entity...it must be filled with something. This opens Egypt to whatever unscrupulous scoundrels have what it takes to harness the dilapidated political machinery of the Mubarak regime, the military, the financial sector, and industrial and agricultural base. Well-known names and established parties are what revolutions are about...that's what the people are rebelling against. It's all about an idea being brought out into the light that the public agrees needs to be implemented and those who, with public support, bring the concepts to fruition. There's too much rambling talk about singular concepts with raged edges that can't be melded together and no one person or group is taking the lead to steer the formation of a constitutional congress much less a new governing entity that is responsible to the wants, desires and needs of the public. I have no doubt Egypt will get a new government. It won't be like the one under Mubarak and it won't be anything near what they think they're going to get either. It might even be worst simply because the format the public chose opens the process to those with ulterior motives that could very well undermine what the public wants, needs and desires. They've left too much to chance to fate rather than formulate what they wanted and the steps necessary to achieve their goals.
by Beetlejuice on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 4:07am
No revolution has ever occurred in the way you think revolutions occur.
by acanuck on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 2:39pm
by artappraiser on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 6:56pm
by artappraiser on Mon, 04/11/2011 - 3:54pm
by artappraiser on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 3:58am