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Mubarak was pretty close to death already, he'd been in an out of hospitals for some time. Don't see his health failing now after the stress and depression he is experiencing (he is apparently refusing medication) any surprise at all. Ben Ali is a little more interesting, however I am not aware of his health previous to his ousting.

 

Neither Mubarak or Ben Ali have gone to Israel post ousting. There's no way they would and there is no way Israel would want them there.

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Neither Mubarak or Ben Ali have gone to Israel post ousting. There's no way they would and there is no way Israel would want them there.

 

yea that's definitely my bad the israel thing but i was honestly hearing that repeated in a lot of media outlets.

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Been in Bahrain for a while now. Was nowhere near the protest when shit got crazy. Have seen quite a few of the pro government demonstrations near the grand mosque only because I live in the area.

 

Work and not wanting to get caught up in a bad situation has kept me from going to the roundabout area since the protesters have set up camp. My connection here is shit and so I don't have much to upload now, but here is some pics and stuff from bike rides around Manama (roundabout) and the National museum. All are from around January.

 

Most of it is just random sightseeing pics but may be interesting nonetheless.

 

note: one of the pics of the bahrain world trade center (windmills) the blag flags in the distance are markings of a shia neighborhood almost every one i have seen in the past has those flags. and those places are rough looking. I would rather walk down the wrong street in oakland than some of those areas.

 

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egypt-supports-wisconsin-workers-one-world-one-pa-10369-1298125345-1.jpg

 

 

 

For the Past week I (along with 70,000 others), have been protesting in Madison, WI over the Governor's latest budget proposal attacking public servants and teachers pensions and their right to collectively bargain for their wage to make up for the millions in tax handouts he gave to all his cronies that funded his campaign. There's a lot of fucked up shit going on right now here (nothing compared to Egypt or Tunisia) and I have plenty of flicks and video if y'all are interested maybe I will start a thread? The national and international coverage is pretty fucked up, FOXnews is just plain awful and the "left" stations like MSNBC have it wrong too. No one in the corporate media has raised the point that teachers, street sweepers, police officers, sanitation workers etc are not responsible for this recession and no one has even suggested going after the greedy fucks that caused the recession (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Chase etc) or going after the several corporations operating in the state of Wisconsin that pay little to no taxes at all such as Apple, Microsoft, Epic, McDonald's etc.... A lot of people see this attack on teachers and other public service unions as an attack on the Middle class, but for some reason no one seems to be having this discussion outside of the protesters on the streets and taking breaks in coffee houses and restaurants on Madison's capital square..

 

My mom teaches special ed kids for $21,000 a year and the only reason why she works for such a pathetic wage is for the reasonably good benefits that come with it.. My dad works for a different sect of city govt so my family is looking at a loss of about $8,000 a year.

 

I'm not really here to debate anyone about this, but I will say if anyone wants to support the cause, you can donate pizzas to the protestors through http://twitter.com/iansonstate#

 

Also boycott Miller, Coca-Cola, Johnson&Johnson and if you have one, Culver's Butterburgers and Frozen Custard. They supported Governor Walker's campaign and supplied neo-con counter protesters with buses.

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Saw Rev. Jesse Jackson Friday night and he gave a 15 min speech. Agreed with most of it besides the small part on pacifism and remaining non-violent.

 

Also Tom Morrello of Rage Against the Machine, and members of Against Me, Rise Against, Dropkick Murphy's and MC5 will be playing on the square for free in support of our mission to kill the bill!

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Been in Bahrain for a while now. Was nowhere near the protest when shit got crazy. Have seen quite a few of the pro government demonstrations near the grand mosque only because I live in the area.

 

Work and not wanting to get caught up in a bad situation has kept me from going to the roundabout area since the protesters have set up camp. My connection here is shit and so I don't have much to upload now, but here is some pics and stuff from bike rides around Manama (roundabout) and the National museum. All are from around January.

 

Most of it is just random sightseeing pics but may be interesting nonetheless.

 

note: one of the pics of the bahrain world trade center (windmills) the blag flags in the distance are markings of a shia neighborhood almost every one i have seen in the past has those flags. and those places are rough looking. I would rather walk down the wrong street in oakland than some of those areas.

 

 

thanks!

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Big pro government demonstration started at the grand Mosque about 4 hours ago. They are supposed to be marching to the Diplomat Hotel, which is the halfway point between the mosque and the roundabout Considering the government has let the anti-government protesters stay in the pearl roundabout, I am wondering how far the supporters will go and what will come of it.

 

There are so many people there right now a 20 minute commute home took us 3 hours. And still more are coming by our place with no signs of letting up yet.

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Egyptian Military Cracks Down on New Protest

By LIAM STACK

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/middleeast/26egypt.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

 

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of protesters returned Friday to Tahrir Square, the site of demonstrations that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two weeks ago, to keep up the pressure on Egypt’s military-led transitional government.

 

But by early Saturday, the military made it clear there would be limits to further dissent as soldiers and plainclothes security officers moved into the square, beating protesters and tearing down their tents, witnesses said.

 

In a day that had begun with equal parts carnival and anti-government demonstration, protesters’ called for the quick cancellation of the Emergency Law, which for three decades has allowed detentions without trial, and the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force general appointed by Mr. Mubarak days before he stepped down.

 

But after night fell, the protest transformed into a tense standoff between protesters and the military, whose neutrality during the uprising, and unwillingness to fire on the protesters, had turned them into popular heroes.

 

The first sign of tension arose when hundreds of people rallied in the intersection in front of the prime minister’s office, barred from taking their protest any closer to the ornate building by armored personnel carriers and a line of soldiers armed with Tasers.

 

The crowd returned to a chant heard often in the days before Mr. Mubarak fell, replacing his name with the prime minister’s: “The people want the overthrow of Ahmed Shafiq!”

 

Military police surrounded the protesters and kept them from leaving until late at night, witnesses said, while in Tahrir about a thousand people began to pitch tents and settle in for the night.

 

After midnight, soldiers and police officers took over the square.

 

Salma Said was asleep in a tent when it began to fall down on top of her. Outside people were screaming, and she emerged to see people being beaten by soldiers and armed plainclothes security officers wearing masks.

 

“They had their faces covered like criminals,” she said, “They only showed their eyes.”

 

“One of the officers threatened to shoot us and said he was going to set our tent on fire,” she said.

 

During the day Friday, the atmosphere could not have been more different. Many protesters had brought their families and were resting on blankets spread out in a grassy traffic island. A man sold chopped liver grilled on a portable stove, vendors offered cheese sandwiches and cups of sweet tea and others sold revolution souvenirs like t-shirts and headbands.

 

Solidarity with the antigovernment protesters in Libya was also a major theme. Crowds circled the square carrying two massive flags more than 25 feet long, one Egyptian and one of the Libyan monarchy overthrown by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 1969. Throughout the day protesters chanted “Long live free Libya.”

 

Protesters called on the military-led transitional government to fulfill demands made during the 18-day protest in Tahrir Square, including the release of political prisoners, the removal of all ministers appointed by Mr. Mubarak and the prosecution of the former president and high ranking members of his party for corruption and abuse of power.

 

The military has shown little interest in firing Mr. Shafiq, but many Egyptians see him as a proxy for the former president, who has been keeping a low profile in the resort town of Sharm el Sheik since his ouster on Feb. 11.

 

“We overthrew the President and now we want to get rid of the rest of this corrupt government,” said Ashraf Abdel Aziz, a businessman accompanied by two daughters, ages five and two, who wore tight pigtails and whose faces were painted in the colors of Egypt’s flag. He described the girls, who came to daily protests with him for 18 days earlier this month, as “revolutionaries.”

 

The spirit of the revolution, which had included people from all segments of Egyptian society, was still evident in the mix of secular leftists, members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and women wearing full Islamic veils with children in their arms.

 

Ismael Abdul Latif, 27, a secular writer, chatted with the religious women, only their eyes showing, as they drew revolutionary posters.

 

“I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that we would be talking to a munaqaba”— as women in full veils are called — “in Tahrir Square,” he said. “A secular artist is having a political debate with a fully veiled lady and having a meaningful conversation. What’s the world coming to?”

 

But after midnight that answer was less clear.

 

Ms. Said, after fleeing her tent, ran with a group of other protesters to a nearby plaza, where they began to plot their next move. “In the morning,” she said, “we are going back to Tahrir.”

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  • 3 weeks later...

well, the pessimists may have been right

 

while i will never agree with a conspiracy theory that places western forces at the heart of the revolution, i do agree that the military is dangerously close to re-establishing the dictatorship.

it saddens me to learn that the fight is horribly far from being over.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-military-is-above-the-nation/2011/03/04/ABYTfcW_blog.html

 

 

i'll still wait and see what happens, but these early reports are truly damning.

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I rarely see reason to be optimistic when regarding revolutions and uprisings.

 

See the most famous examples and look at their outcomes:

 

 

1789 French revolution ended in the Robespiere show trials, executions and in the end went back to the monarchy

 

1848 European wave of revolutions, all put down with great violence and achieved practically nothing

 

1916 revolutions in Russia started with the liberals and idealists and ended up with Lenin, Stalin and the communists.

 

1949/1966 Chinese Communist revolution started with bringing stability and equality to China ended with the Great Leap forward that killed around 30 million, the Great Proletariate Cultural Revolution that ended in around 5 million brutally killed and many millions more sent to labour camps

 

1979 Iranian revolution started with leftists/liberals, intellectuals, etc. and ended with the Ayatollahs (who are very rich and more about power than any actual theology)

 

1987/2000 the first and second Intafada in Palestine/Israel started in an action of supposed peaceful resistance and ended in lots of dead people, walls around the Palestinians and greater influence for IRan in the Palestinian Territories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are some that may have been good for some one somewhere but when looking at the biggest revolutions in history it's hard to say that they did much good.

 

 

Now we're seeing the 'New Arab Spring' and all we've had is military coups, dead people and civil wars. I'm not saying the alternative of doing nothing is any better, just that I think most revolutions don't end up in better lives for those that actually take the risks.

 

 

Revolutions are won by those that are the most organised.

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i'm still waiting to see what happens. .

just going to reserve judgment for now.

 

f'real, I started this thread and reached this point like 2 days later... I'm still so hot for it all and interested but...

 

I agree to an extent with what Christo-f says about the 'people' being largely overrun by the implications of revolution historically but... setting aside cynicism entirely, it always helps someone. The problem is a function of scale... the bigger it gets, the more folks get screwed.

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the waiting game continues...

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/03/28/egypt.politics/index.html?hpt=T2

 

 

Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Voters in Egypt will elect members of parliament in September and cast ballots for president sometime after that, a member of the ruling military council said Monday.

 

Gen. Mamdou Shahen said the elections would not be held under Egypt's emergency law, though he did not specify when the law would be lifted.

 

In addition, the general announced an amendment that bans the formation of political parties on a religious, sectarian or geographic basis.

 

In addition, authorities also denied news reports that former President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted after weeks of protests in February, has left Egypt for Saudi Arabia.

 

..............

 

 

..still not ready to decide they're fucked.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011328112429904209.html

 

Egypt's first parliamentary election since the fall of president Hosni Mubarak will be held in September, and the country will lift emergency laws before the vote, a top military officer said.

 

"The legislative elections will be held in September," Mamdouh Shaheen, a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, said on Monday.

 

"We have said before that parliamentary or presidential polls will not be held while emergency law is still in force," he added.

 

The legislative election date means parties that were crushed under Mubarak's rule have some five months to prepare for the first free parliamentary polls in decades.

 

The military council has ruled Egypt since Mubarak was toppled from power on February 11, following mass protests against his rule.

 

The council plans to relinquish power to a civilian government once a presidential election is held. But no date has yet been decided for a presidential vote, Shaheen said, without elaborating further.

 

The military council also approved a law that eases restrictions on the formation of political parties.

 

Shaheen said new parties would need the approval of 5,000 members from at least 10 of Egypt's 29 provinces.

 

Earlier this month, Egyptians voted overwhelmingly in favour of constitutional amendments, paving the way for elections this year.

 

 

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/377676

 

ElBaradei rejects military council's transition efforts

 

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/379401

 

Egypt’s new Political Party Law fails to please everyone

 

Politicians voiced mixed reactions on Tuesday to the army-backed Political Party Law, dismissing the provision requiring new parties to garner 5,000 members at application time as crippling.

 

“The law answers the demands of the majority of the Egyptian people, but requiring parties to have 5,000 members is an exaggerated condition,” said Essam al-Erian, a prominent leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

On Monday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) unveiled the much-anticipated replacement for the existing the law on party formation. The new legislation stipulated that nascent parties should notify a legal committee once they have at least 5,000 members from at least ten out Egypt’s 29 provinces.

 

This legal committee is required to decide on the party’s eligibility within 30 days. In case the committee has any objection to the application, it should refer the matter to the Supreme Administrative Court within eight days. If party founders receive no reply within a month, the party automatically acquires official status.

 

The amendments also lifted the notorious stipulation that a new party platform should be distinguishable from that of existing parties. This particular clause was used pervasively by the old regime to turn down dozens of party applications.

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The legislative elections are designed to keep the power in the hands of those who already have it.

 

 

They have been set for Sept., you try being anyone but the military supported parties of the Mus. Bros. and getting a party together, deciding the hierarchy, getting enough members to be legal and then getting your message out and convincing enough people to vote for you in 5 months.

 

Not going to happen.

 

 

The people that led the revolution will not be the ones in power when the fat lady sings. The people most organised are the ones that win the revolutions. In this case first place goes to the military (or SCAF) and second place goes to the MB.

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