Three cheers for the valiant people of Egypt, struggling to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, who has been "president" there for 31 years. Events there are unfolding so quickly, that by the time you read this, quite a bit will have changed, since our writing.
The Mubarak regime in Egypt, actively supported by the US government with billions of dollars in aid over the past 31 years, has a history of jailing and torturing any individuals or groups opposing it's policies. Corruption of the police force there is endemic and has been worsening over the past 20 years especially. And, the policies they follow, under the dictates of the World Bank, and the global (but mostly US) financial/corporate sectors, has guaranteed that little would change for the masses of poor people in that country, with extremely high unemployment, rising prices, and little opportunity for any improvements in their low standards of living. It took the inspiration of the popular uprising in Tunisia last month to act as a catalyst for their actions.
Now, the global elites in all the "developed" countries, and especially the US, are quite uneasy, because there are signs that masses of people in other countries are waking up to the injustice of the current socio-political and economic system. Where goverments prop up corrupt financial and corporate sectors that swindle their populations and perpetuate policies guaranteeing massive unemployment and poverty, which keeps wages and benefits low, and people afraid. Countries ripe for popular uprisings like Tunisia had, and Egypt now undergoing, are these: In the middle east /Africa- Syria, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, in Asia - Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and in the Western Hemisphere - Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and Colombia.
All these countries are controlled by corrupt, despotic, oligarchical governments that rely on torture and intimidation to stay in power and prevent any real change in living standards to occur in the masses of the people's lives there, in support of multi-national corporate profit. Most supported by the US government and corporatocracy (really, one and the same thing).
A good summation of the situation in Egypt, and it's ramifications, can be found in this article, off of Common Dreams. We'd like to quote the first several paragraphs, as they are very astute:
Tunisia's Spark & Egypt's Flame: The Middle East Is Rising
Is this how empires end, with people flooding the streets, demanding the resignation of their leaders and forcing local dictators out? Maybe not entirely, but the breadth and depth of the spreading protests, the helplessness of the U.S.-backed governments to stop them, and the rapidly diminishing ability of the United States to protect its long-time clients, are certainly resulting in a level of revolutionary fervor not visible in the Middle East in a generation. The legacy of U.S.-dominated governments across the region will never be the same. The U.S. empire's reach in the resource-rich and strategically vital Middle East has been shaken to its core.
There's a domino effect underway in the Arab world. Tunisia was the spark, not only because its uprising came first but because the people of Tunisia won and the dictator fled. Egypt remains for the United States the most important strategic Arab ally.The fall of Hosni Mubarak, the U.S.-backed dictator in power for more than three decades, would mean an end to Washington's ability to rely on Cairo to stave off Arab nationalism and independence and an end to Egypt's role as a collaborator in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Whatever happens, what's likely, though not inevitable, is that never again will Tunisia be used as a transit point or Egypt as a "black site" secret prison for U.S. agents engaged in the "extraordinary rendition" of detainees for interrogation and torture.
Stirrings of popular dissent are already underway in Yemen and Jordan too. All the other U.S.-backed monarchies and pseudo-democracies across the region are feeling the heat. The U.S. empire in the region is crumbling.
Tipping Points
The alliances of the last half century are being shattered, the old order is ending. What's next? As is always the case when revolutionary processes erupt, it's still too soon to tell. Things move slowly until a sudden tipping point, and then it's all too quick, too sudden to keep up.
The breadth of public participation is key for understanding the implications of these uprisings. In Tunisia, the protests involved workers and middle class professionals, but were composed at the core by disenfranchised, disempowered, and educated unemployed people. Mohammed Bouazizi, a young man in the impoverished town of Sidi Bouzid, symbolized these demonstrators by setting himself ablaze to protest not only unemployment and poverty, but also the humiliation and degradation he faced.
Among the hundreds of thousands across Tunisia who marched, chanted, demanded, and won the abdication of their longstanding dictator, thousands are the young men and women whose college degrees have provided no security, whose lives were constrained by the lack of jobs, lack of opportunities, and lack of hope.
In Egypt, participation was even broader. The thousands and hundreds of thousands filling the streets, occupying Cairo's famed Tahrir (Liberation) Square, include not only the most impoverished of Egypt's urban slums and rural farmers and peasants. They also include the educated, the middle classes, even many of the wealthy, all finally saying no to the paucity dignity and freedom of their lives. Their demand was clear: not just reform, not just new elections, but an end to the Mubarak regime.
It is also important to recognize what the demands in Tunisia and most essentially in Egypt were not about. They were not about opposition to the United States; we have not seen the U.S. flag burning or crowds attacking the U.S. embassy. They were not even about Egypt's thirty years of collaboration with Israel's occupation, especially its role in maintaining the siege of Gaza – opposition to which is arguably the greatest point of political unity in the country. People have been very clear – and very public in the media – about their awareness of and outrage towards the U.S. history of arming Mubarak with the very weapons killing protesters in the streets; the "Made in USA" tear gas canisters from Jonestown, PA are featured all over the media. But the demands of this mobilization are directed to domestic, internal issues, aimed at changing the very nature of the ruling structures of the country and its impact on the people who live there. Foreign policy will come just a little bit later.
It's very telling that today in Jordan, King Abdullah sacked the current government cabinet, and appointed a new prime minister, as popular unrest there grows.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12336960But will that be enough to satisfy the demands of the people of that country for political and economic justice? Probably not, with the active inspiration now being provided by the people of Egypt. So Jordan may be next in line to finally see a more democratic government. Isn't it amazing and inspiring, how quickly and suddenly positive changes like this can occur, that seemingly come out of the blue. These events are reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, as East Germans finally were able to achieve their dream of reunification with the West.
But we here at A.P.R. view these events in Tunisia and Egypt, as even more hopeful. As they are so inspirational, showing that the aspirations of long-suffering impoverished peoples can be achieved, when they come together in solidarity, and stand up to the forces of oppression. It does almost seem like a wildfire, or even, conflagration, is beginning, of uprising against the global corporate oligarchy.
Major ramifications of these events for the U.S. empire are many. For one thing, whatever new government Egypt ends up with, and other countries (and there will be others), will be less likely to follow the unjust economic policies that kept most of their population in poverty. They will demand more control, and more just compensation, for their resources, which are usually extracted by US and European corporations. Of course, oil springs instantly to mind here, so the major oil companies will probably have to make concessions to these new governments. Oil prices will most certainly rise greatly in the US and Europe, over the next few years, leading to inflation, and an even worse economic situation for most people. With the already high unemployment levels, significant inflation and even worsening job creation prospects, we think it will only be a matter of time, before significant pressure begins to develop in this country. For things like jobs programmes, and universal health care. The US corporate media so far hasn't really been able to demonise the Egyptian protestors, and have even (some of them, not Faux News of course) shown rather thorough coverage of the situation there.
This will only help to embolden people in the US, and we must, all of us, when we talk with people about what is happening in Egypt, and other countries, spread the word, that yes, positive change, can happen here!
In spite of the billionaire-supported ravings of racist fringe people like Glenn Beck:
Frances Fox Piven Defies Death Threats After Taunts by Anchorman Glenn Beck
Frances Fox Piven is not going into hiding. Not yet.
![[Frances Fox Piven]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vaBQyy3QrPzsQDANq27Q9MQCYCfSMf8BbD0qm4iMKioGkQMRMukcdjF0We89zbbUbjIWmk9yqxUIqQL0FnH_JR5PvtDPSCQy3huMeLNt9V3JHEBCstbMonVsY0ZpAj507RzctCpxVu6k0=s0-d "frances_fox_piven.jpg")
Frances Fox Piven"At the start I thought it was funny, but now I know that is dangerous... their paranoia works better when they can imagine a devil. Now that devil is me."
For the past three weeks Beck has relentlessly targeted Piven via his television and radio shows as a threat to the American way of life, seizing on an essay that she and her late husband wrote in 1966 as a sort of blueprint for bringing down the American economy.
Called The Weight of the Poor, it advocated signing up so many poor people for welfare payments that the cost would force the government to bring in a policy of a guaranteed income. For Piven, a committed voice of the left, known in academic circles but little recognized outside them, it was just one publication in a lifetime dedicated to political activism and theorizing.
For Beck, however, Piven is a direct threat to the US. In show after show, the rightwing commentator has demonized Piven and framed her as part of a decades-old conspiracy to take over the country that culminated in the election of President Barack Obama. Beck's heated language has provoked a tidal wave of death threats against both Piven and her academic colleagues at the City University of New York.
The threats are blunt and - in light of the recent shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords - truly frightening. Many appear on Beck's news website, The Blaze. "One shot... one kill," wrote one. Others are sent directly to her email address or those of her colleagues. There are so many that she has contacted the police and this week will ask her college to make a formal complaint to the FBI.
Despite that real security fear, she refuses to back down. Indeed, for someone portrayed as a revolutionary communist, Piven's choice of a meeting place with the Observer was a sly poke back at her critics: a Cuban hangout called Havana Central.
It is typical of Piven. The spry, twinkle-eyed academic pulls no punches when talking of Beck. "He is a very neurotic and peculiar type of person. I don't think he is capable of sane discussion," she said. And his supporters? "They creep me out."
One thing to remember, the numbers of the mainly aging, white, male, racist people in the US are dwindling. So even though the corporatocracy/oligarchy are using/supporting people like the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, to continually scapegoat and demonise progressives and minorities, their influence will continue to decline. Especially now, in light of current events. Amen to that!
So, again, here's to the valiant people of Tunisia and Egypt, and the other countries to come! Thank you for your courage and inspiration, lighting the way for people all over the World, in their quest for sane and just political and economic systems! Cheers.
