Category: politics

Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable than it actually is, according to a new study. Full article.

jan 30, 2011: 150,000 protesters have gathered in tahrir square to demand the end of the hosni mubarak dictatorship.

watch al jazeera’s live stream here.

lucid analysis of how the egyptian uprising might shape the politics of the middle east and what it will mean for american foreign policy. check it out.

brilliant in-depth interview with codepink’s tighe barry, who has been on the streets of egypt all week long. worth a listen here.

jan 28, 2011: the egyptian consulate is not letting us get thru to leave a message, let alone talk to a human being. all emails r being bounced back. let’s keep calling the white house (202-456-1414), their comments line (202-456-1111) and the state dept (202-647-4000) to show our solidarity with the people of egypt.

Thousands of Egyptians are planning to take part in peaceful marches and sit-ins in major cities. There are rumors that the intelligence services will release a group of thugs under the name Brothers of Truth that will charge through the streets with swords and caustic acid to splash on the protesters – thus placing all the blame of a peaceful uprising gone violent on a certain kind of Islamic extremism. Full article.

jan 27, 2011: hundreds of egyptian activists r being arrested right now, at this moment. don’t leave them on their own. call egyptian embassies and consulates. tell them to stop the arrests and respect the will of the egyptian people.

This was a protest that crossed class, ideology and religion, and that is what scares the government, so long used to successfully playing divide and conquer among the opposition groups. “The psychological barrier of fear has been broken,” says Shadi Hamid. Full article.

The two-state solution is now dead and buried by Israel and the PLO. Impossible for anyone (even the BBC) to pretend that there can be an independent Palestinian state. A long crapulent depression is bound to envelop occupied Palestine, but whether Israel likes it or not there will one day be a single state in the region, probably by the end of this century. That is the only possible solution, apart from genocide. Full article.

jan 25, 2011: just got this from an egyptian friend: in cairo we are now more than 10,000, all saying one thing: “step down mubarak.” pray for us.

nationalism supported by violent militarism against the “other” is something that transforms societies. u cannot have one face for those outside the sacred circle and another one for those inside.

“It is too easy to demonise Israel, in part because the government, the army and some of the people do things that make it so easy.

But one of the ugliest truths about Israel – a truth that must be faced in both the US and Europe, where xenophobic and anti-Islamic sentiments are also on the rise – is that Israel offers the Western world a reflection of itself.

Of course, it is an exaggerated, hyperbolic image. But it is a picture of nationalism gone wrong. It is a picture of what can happen when a state believes that its very survival depends on maintaining a certain demographic balance. It is a picture of what happens when any country believes that those who change these numbers are an existential threat.”

Full article.

If Tunisia can become the Arab world’s Turkey, a functioning democracy where Islamism is part of the electoral mosaic rather than a threat to it, the tired refrain of all the Arab despots that they are the only bulwark against the jihadists will be seen for the self-serving lie it has become. Full article.