Articles with the Tag Egypt

Wisconsin, Libya and Beyond — Your Happening World (19)

Linky Linky, Real Life Revolutions, Unions, Video
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Wisconsin state representative Gordon Hintz on the Budget repair bill and the dirty tricks the Republicans have been using to undermine the democratic process.

As I’ve said before, the revolution is global and the support for the Wisconsin strikers from Egypt is not just symbolic:

MADISON, Wis. — Someone in Egypt has been paying attention to what’s happening in Madison and wanted to send a message of solidarity from across the globe — so they ordered a pizza.

It might seem like a small gesture, but it’s overwhelming to the staff at Ian’s on State Street — a campus staple mere blocks from the Capitol — where in the last few days, they’ve fielded calls from concerned citizens of 12 countries, and 38 out of 50 states looking to donate money to provide free pizza to the Wisconsinites who have congregated here.

At Unfogged, more suggestions for how to support the Wisconsin unionists:

If any commenters with some disposable income would like to donate something for the protesters, here are some helpful numbers:

To supply protesters with WATER contact (Capitol Center Foods at 608-255-2616). To supply protesters with FOOD contact (Burrito Drive at 608-260-8586, Silver Mine Subs at 608-286-1000, Ian’s Pizza at 608-257-9248, Pizza Di Roma at 608-268-0900, or Asian Kitchen at 608-255-0571

(Ian’s seems like it’s at capacity, so I suggest giving some of those other places a little love.)

(If anybody has a suggestion of how to support the pro-democracy forces in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain et all with a little monetary love, let me know.)

This is our revolution too. What’s happening in Libya and Egypt and Bahrain and Yemen and even Wisconsin is important to us too. Their struggle is our struggle.

Someone has been missing in action in the Middle East wave of democratisation…

Won’t somebody please think about the Egyptian cats?

Kittens!, Media, Real Life Revolutions
Published on 2 Comments on Won’t somebody please think about the Egyptian cats?

What The Times thinks is important about the Egyptian revolution:

While the world has focused on the many troubles faced by humans during the 18-day uprising, the four-legged residents of Cairo have been left to fend for themselves. Many Egyptians, expats, and tourists have been forced by authorities to flee the country without their pets; zoos and pet shops were also abandoned. The chaos of the uprising put a tremendous strain on the nation’s largest animal rights organization, the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals (ESMA), of which Khalil serves as treasurer. “It’s very common to see stray cats and dogs on the street, but not for us to see [abandoned] Persians and Siamese,” she says.

Reminds me of that (apocryptic?) prewar newspaper headling: “Earthquake hits Japan: two Americans feared lost”. Taking care of stray cats and other animals is a noble cause, sure, but somewhat less important than what’s also been happening in Egypt this past month, no?

Obama — Egypt’s secret saviour

Media, Real Life Revolutions
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Bah humbug:

Now to anyone paying the slightest attention, “Our President” notably and loudly vacillated and hedged through the first two weeks of Egyptian protests, for which he was routinely criticized by everyone from the softy liberals with the first hint of a hard-on in years at the Egyptians’ spirit of 68 right through Glenn Beck who thought the President had orchestrated an Islamic revolution, or whatever. The President loudly and firmly planted himself at precisely the point of having no position at all whatsoever, hinting only vaguely and in mostly veiled terms that Uncle Hosni probs oughta not appoint the fruit of his own loins as his successor and might want to think about maybe not fixing elections quite so dramatically in the future . . . until at last, when it became obvious to every other human being in the world that Mubarack had to go and that the military would probably see to it that he did if it came right down to it if only to preserve their own vaunted legitimacy within the aparatus of the Egyptian state, only then did Barack Obama step to the mic and issue his habitually schoolmarmish declaration that Egyptias too could Win The Future, a chicken in every pot, an MBA in every Jr. Executive Office.

Like the rest of us Obama was scrambling to catch up to what the fuck was happening in Egypt and why a people that stayed obedient and meek for the past three decades suddenly decided enough is enough. But where most of us little people could see that nothing but the removal of Mubarak and the end of his regime would do for the protestors, our socalled betters still thought meaningless gestures like making the chief torturer Mubarak’s vice president could save America’s investment in Egypt.

Egypt is what happens when a people takes its future into its own hands again, to be able to make its own mistakes again and not be afraid anymore. No wonder our elites are so out of touch. They’re not used to this.

On to the next one

Real Life Revolutions
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Lenny:

Those middle class activists who think that Egyptians will now return to work to labour under a military regime – Wael Ghonim, the Google employee incessantly puffed by the Anglophone media as the ‘leader’ of this revolution, ‘trusts’ the army and urges people to go back to work – are about to be disabused and disillusioned. The protesters in Tahrir today are chanting that they want a civil, not a military government. The workers are still on strike. The steel mills, the sugar factories, public transport… they are not going to return to work just because the army now says it’s in control. In the last week, the hard cutting edge of this revolution was the working class, and those whose revolutionary agenda did not include the interests of the working class are likely to find themselves left behind by events very soon.

Ken:

In Tahrir Square last week thousands of people stood up to a counter-revolutionary mob and fought it back, yard by yard over a long day and night, with sticks and stones. In those few hours they proved in practice that the human being’s conscious will can change history. They brought the human subject and human emancipation back into politics. Whatever the immediate outcome in Egypt, this consciousness will not go away. We can all go back to being human. That doesn’t mean we will all love each other. It means we can fight each other for good reasons.