Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere

The journalist and writer Paul Mason recently gave a brilliant talk to a large audience at SOAS, London University - based on his book -

 

Our world is changing dramatically. The global economic crisis has given way to social crisis: corrupt and dictatorial politics enmeshed with a global financial elite - and an ever-widening gulf between the haves and have-nots. In 2011 this profound disconnect found expression in events that we were told had been consigned to history: revolt and revolution. In this compelling new book, Paul Mason sets out to explore the causes and consequences of this new wave of struggle. From London to Cairo, Wisconsin to Tehran, he charts the new forms of collective action: fluid networks of agile, Twitter- and Facebook-savvy networks of youthful protesters who understand how power works. The events, says Mason, reflect the expanding power of the individual and call for new ways of thinking about political alternatives, elite rule and global poverty.

http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=523&oo=41439044 - This is an interesting review of the book, which includes this paragraph:

If we go back to the early 19th century, any idiot could use a printing press, but it took real skill as a writer and business owner to produce interesting, entertaining, informed and well-distributed works. Similarly, and as he should know, it takes real skill for a historian to dig through (still mainly material) archives, and real skill for a journalist to assemble facts through documents and interviews. The internet does create the social network he discusses, and it does make publication and communication not only substantially easier, but completely different in many ways than what came before. But it doesn’t lend creativity, ingenuity, or good organising skills where it didn’t exist before. No matter what the invention – the press, the railway, the telephone – it still needs people of intellect and dedication to do something remarkable with it, and his over-enthusiasm unfortunately brings to mind a quote from Alan Partridge’s recent autobiography: ‘Wikipedia has made university education all but pointless’.

Here's Paul Mason speaking on the Guardian's website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/jan/23/paul-mason-revolts-capitalist-realism-video



The new edition of Paul's book:

Layer 536 . . . Hollande's Victory, Clegg's Nonsense, and a Web of Privilege

Brilliant news yesterday from France - every bit as uplifting as the day Berlusconi was booted out of power in Italy -

French president François Hollande promises 'a new start' for Europe

After victory over Nicolas Sarkozy, Socialist says he will fight back against German-led austerity measures

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/francois-hollande-becomes-french-president

François Hollande has won the presidency of France, turning the tide on a rightward and xenophobic lurch in European politics and vowing to transform Europe's handling of the economic crisis by fighting back against German-led austerity measures.

The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France's first leftwing president for 17 years. Projections from early counts, released by French television, put him on 51.9% and Nicolas Sarkozy on 48.1%.

His victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung right since the economic crisis broke four years ago.

From the town of Tulle in his rural heartland of Corrèze in southwest France, Hollande declared victory. "May 6 should be a great date for our country, a new start for Europe, a new hope for the world," he said. "I'm sure in a lot of European countries there is relief, hope that at last austerity is no longer inevitable."

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Meanwhile, here in Poundland, we have the Guardian giving column space for Nick Clegg to make himself look as big a dickhead as he undoubtedly is:

Local elections: this coalition is stable and the centre will hold

The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition isn't about to lurch to the left or the right. We spent two years on rescue. Now it's reform

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/06/nick-clegg-coalition-local-elections

This is a classic, as are the dozen or more pages of comments beneath it. Enjoy.

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The wonderful Gary Younge wrote this superb column today:

A web of privilege supports this so-called meritocracy

On both sides of the Atlantic, the social ties that bind our political, legal and corporate forces lie exposed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/06/leveson-murdoch-cameron-brooks-privilege

Class privilege, and the power it confers, is often conveniently misunderstood by its beneficiaries as the product of their own genius rather than generations of advantage, stoutly defended and faithfully bequeathed. Evidence of such advantages is not freely available. It is not in the powerful's interest for the rest of us to know how their influence is attained or exercised. But every now and then a dam bursts and the facts come flooding forth.

The Leveson inquiry has provided one such moment. It was set up last year to look into the specific claims about phone hacking at the News of the World, alleged police corruption and the general culture and ethics of the British media. But every time it probes harder into the Murdoch empire it draws blood from the heart of our body politic, telling us a great deal about how Britain's political class in particular and ruling class in general collude, connive and corrupt both systemically and systematically.

Issues of alleged criminality will eventually be determined in the courts. But while illegality would be more damning, much of what we now know that is legal is no less corrosive. The evidence has laid bare the intimate, extensive and insidious web of social, familial and personal ties between the political, corporate and legal forces that govern a country: a patchwork of individual and institutional associations so tightly interwoven that to pick at one part is to watch the whole thing unravel. The "sit downs", pay-offs and class camaraderie on display owe more to a cross between Downton Abbey and the Sopranos than the functioning of a 21st-century democracy.

Now that Brooks has agreed to hand over her text messages to Cameron, we are about to learn whether rumours that they exchanged as many as 12 texts a day are true.

Brooks was arrested both on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption last year. She was arrested again this year with her husband, Charlie Brooks, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Charlie went to Eton with Cameron – as did the Tory mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Such is the incestuous nature of the British ruling class and the gene puddle from which it draws its stock. Such is their brazen venality, complicity, contempt and mendacity. Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon, Westminster – if you're looking for a tiny minority who are struggling to integrate, look no further than the cabinet.

The issue here is not class envy but class entrenchment. The fact that they were born rich is irrelevant. They had no choice in the matter. But the fact that they appear to want to give even more to those who already have a great deal while denying much to those who have little is unforgiveable.

Rocked in the cradle of power from birth so that its rhythms become second nature, these people imbibe their sense of entitlement with their mother's milk. But the personal tutors, private schools, the most expensive universities do not, somehow, suffice. As though the benefits of wealth were not enough, they apparently feel the need to game the very system they already control.

Which brings us to the manner in which these interactions mock the very notion of democracy on which the nation's illusions are based. For the meetings, lunches and visits showcase a parallel, unaccountable universe where actual decisions are made and deals are done. 

Layer 532 . . . The Guardian, Banks of Ideas and a Progressive Counterculture

For years I've put up with people going on about my apparent obsession with the Guardian. This has nothing to do with the political stance of the paper. It's more the fact that I have piles of old copies lying around, some of them half or a quarter read, some with articles highlighted in various shades of green, yellow, blue and magenta. (And no - I'm not organised enough to use any thought-out colour-coding  scheme as such - the shades are random depending on which highlighter is closest to hand.)

The point I'm getting to is this. I don't have an obsession with the Guardian - I get enormous enjoyment and stimulation from reading the paper. Every day is like the Saturday and Sunday of the Guardian's "Open Weekend" - there's an amazing feast of brilliant brain food on offer. What's not to like, and to want to keep in a collection? [OK - you can go online and 'clip' favourite articles to a virtual file - and I do that as well - but it's not the same thing at all as having real bits of hard copy. Don't ask why - it just isn't.]

As for throwing away brilliant articles - I've never understood why people would throw away or give away brilliant books, or brilliant DVDs for that matter. Life of Brian? Oh yes - I watched that last week. Threw it away yesterday. Shakespeare? Read it already. Thrown it away. What's not to like about having a fantastic library, or libraries, at home?

And you don't have to be 'an intellectual' to enjoy the Guardian, any more than you needed to be an intellectual to enjoy the Guardian Open Weekend. All you need is to allow good stuff to enter your brain. Take yesterday's paper, for example.

* A front-page story about the latest Tory party funding scandal and cash-for-access to Cameron and Osborne - "Two hundred grand to 250 is premier league - the first thing we want to do is get you at the Cameron/Osborne dinners."
* Four pages on the Open Weekend at Guardian HQ.
* An article on Obama's healthcare reforms being challenged by more than half of the states in the Supreme Court.
* An article on the latest moves to privatise education and to make it 'for profit'.

Plus a wealth of 'Comment' articles by the usual array of brilliant and not so brilliant columnists, plus the editorials, plus the letters page. So what is not to bloody like?

And then there's the sports section, and of course there's G2, which yesterday featured

* A four page Decca Aitkenhead interview with Grayson Perry
* A two page feature on Julian Baggini's 'Heathen Manifesto'
* A column by Ian Martin, who's a writer for 'The Thick of It:

Life under the Tories: don't say you weren't warned

Some of us saw it coming – but it doesn't have to be this way

by Ian Martin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/25/tory-nightmare-dont-say-werent-warned

The anxiety of living under a Tory government is that you're only ever a few days from the next national bad luck lottery draw. You know something spectacularly horrible will be announced next week. You just don't know whose unlucky balls they'll be holding.

Don't say you weren't warned. We told you what the Tories were like, we of the wilted generation, two years ago. We'd seen it all before. We were struggling young parents ourselves in the 80s when Thatcher's deregulation of the market led to class war, video nasties and Bananarama. We told you. You wouldn't listen.

Come on, you simpered, the Tories can't be any worse than that other crate of soft fruit, with the Britpop on their iPods and their impenetrable jargon. And, OK, I too froze in horror when I heard Labour's schools minister Jim Knight announce through his trimmed facial ladygarden that the challenge was "not simply how to divide the cake, but how to grow the cake". They've made him a Lord now, by the way. Presumably for services to advanced metaphor.

This is why we warned you about the Tories. We knew it would be easier for them to deconstruct the welfare state this time round as they spent much of their last time in office loosening the bolts. The print unions and the miners were defeated early on. The rest of the Tory era was spent dismantling a working class power base it had taken a century and a half to build. They had plenty of time. My son was born in 1979, the year Thatcher became prime minister. He was 18 before the Tories were turfed out again.

Local authorities were humiliated, their stock of affordable housing sold in a right-to-buy fire sale, their powers gradually whittled down to bins and dog waste. The Public Finance Initiative, greatly expanded under the auspices of Blair, was originally introduced as a buccaneering Tory programme, an innovative way of "synergising" public and private sectors. In much the same way that partnerships are forged between a desperately broke family and a loan shark.

Look, the reason this government's moving so quickly to divide the NHS into privatised contractual fiefdoms for its mates, and to divert education budgets into "free" schools for its mates' children, is because it can. Resistance has been atomised. Working-class rage, once articulated by powerful unions representing people doing proper jobs, has dissipated. 

There's no hope of reunionising the country is there? You might as well try to unionise comedy writing, and … oh, wait.

I'm a member of two writers unions. One here, and one in the US I had to join for an American gig last year.

If you can unionise joke-writing you can unionise anything. People who do "silly" jobs of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

It would be interesting to see how long Westminster could function if the Amalgamated Union of Baristas and Sandwich Fillers called a strike. And the civil servants came out in sympathy. And the drivers and the cleaners and the couriers and the receptionists and the child-minders and, now I come to think of it, the grandparents.

All this guff the government's spinning about choice and the individual: that's what they want. The last thing they want is collective action. They're always sneering about "Guardian readers". Well, we pay our daily sub of £1.20, let's call ourselves a union. Comrades, to the barricades! Or if you're a Times reader, the paywall!

http://writing.ie/meet-the-authors/special-guests/358-ian-martin-and-the-coalition-chronicles-.html

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Coincidentally I'd spent time at the Open Weekend thinking about the cumulative benefits of all those people at the event taking part in all those discussions on such a wide range of subjects - political, social, cultural, educational, psychological, scientific, economic, etc.

In the early part of the last century - pre-television - people used to go in large numbers to meetings of political parties, trade unions and other interest groups. There was true citizenship in action - direct participation in discussion, debate and policy-making. People listened to speakers giving out information and opinions, and had a chance to ask questions for clarification, as well as give direct feedback with their own opinions.

Our politics and our party system is busted, and everyone knows it. There's very little difference between three dinosaur parties full of young and middle aged prats who represent the political spectrum from the centre right to the hard right. There is NO coherent progressive or alternative opinion. And of course there's little or no actual participation by regular citizens. No wonder those of us who wanted to see the back of New Labour had no-one credible or coherent to vote for. No wonder we're stuck with a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

The Guardian HAS to become even more of a focal point for the positive energy of all those who took part in the weekend gathering of the tribes, plus all those who couldn't get there or didn't know it was happening. Back in the 60's - fully 50 years ago - we built a counterculture and a movement. This has to happen again. Glastonbury's fine, but it's not enough. Music isn't enough. We need ideas to shift a moribund culture and kick it into new life. We now have the Internet, email, Skype, Facebook and Twitter to help build links. We are the many - and the one percent are the few. We need a government that's genuinely of the people, by the people, for the people. We've had enough of rule by Westminster and the City.

We need regular gatherings and debates all over the country. We need young people and old people to be involved in them. We need to make connections and we need to form affiliations. The Open Weekend had no particular agenda and no identifiable leaders. It had organisers. It was led by ideas and opinions. Thank goodness.

Television and radio are more or less closed shops - run by professionals for professionals. We need organised gatherings and spontaneous gatherings where people actually talk to one another, learn from one another and enlighten one another. We need to learn the arts of participation and discussion. The Bank of Ideas needs to have branches in all our towns and cities, and the Guardian can surely help with this.

Love Me Do was released on 5 October 1962. This was the first record released by The Beatles, and was more or less the beginning of the Sixties. By the 5th October 2012 at the latest we need to make sure we've organised a 50th anniversary party, which will recognise the beginning of a whole new era and a whole new way of running a vibrant and progressive culture, one in which progressive ideas are as important as they were back in the Sixties. Get on the bus, tune in and turn on.

Knowledge is power. Watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_fIjX1_gLw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/user/freedominfonetwork

http://www.freedominfonetwork.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5nVk5MU70

*  "Love Me Do" with its stark "blunt working class northerness" rang "the first faint chime of a revolutionary bell" compared to the standard tin pan alley productions occupying the charts at the time. - Wikipedia

Layer 451 . . . Creativity, Education, Protests, Democracy, Mervyn King, Bankers, Economic Literacy, Bill Nighy, the NHS and Jamie's School

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"To be human is to create."

Try telling that to our schools. Creativity? What's that? May as well talk about enlightenment.

Also heard on the radio this week - Michael Gove is apparently one of those who believe that this country should continue to carry out aggressive military interventions in other countries. Quelle surprise.

To think that this jumped-up little twat, who clearly has no experience, no knowledge and no wisdom of any sort, is a senior member of our government . . . How can someone like Gove have any credibility - let alone be the minister responsible for children and for education throughout this country?

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Positive news this week - the latest (Barnsley) by-election results. Massive split in the Tory vote. UKIP second to a resurgent Labour. (Very good news for Brother Ed.) Conservatives nowhere. LibDems wiped out. How can the moderate leftists in the LibDem camp continue to put up with what the coalition is doing and where they're taking the country? How can they just ignore what their leadership is doing to whatever credibility they may have had as a party of sound government and social justice?

Ballot box backlash: Byelection and referendum
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/05/byelection-labour-editorial

Dan Jarvis (Lab) 14,724
Jane Collins (UKIP) 2,953
James Hockney (C) 1,999
Enis Dalton (BNP) 1,463
Tony Devoy (Ind) 1,266
Dominic Carman (LD) 1,012
Kevin Riddiough (Eng Dem) 544
Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 198
Michael Val Davies (Ind) 60

So here we have it - the LibDems are less popular than (and the Tories are only slightly more popular than) the BNP - the nearest we have to a fascist party.

There was an interesting letter in the Guardian this week regarding the split in the Labour party that cost them the 1983 election. This has real implications for what UKIP might do to the Tories in the future.

Why the Labour party lost in 1983

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/04/why-labour-party-lost-in-1983

Polly Toynbee refers to the splitting of the anti-Tory vote by the SDP but her conclusion seems to be that "Thatcher's Falklands victory made her triumphant". Can we knock this on the head? In 1979 the Tories got 13,697,923 votes (43.9% of the total). In 1983 they got 13,012,316 (42.4%). Not much of a drop but a drop nonetheless. There was no swing of support to Thatcher because of the Falklands. Thatcher won in 1983 precisely because the 16,237,883 votes which would have defeated her were split between Labour and the SDP.

Alan Gray
Brighton

Also -

Polly Toynbee (Some SDP thinking might strengthen Labour's nerve, 1 March) peddles the usual myths about the SDP's split from Labour. Chief among these myths is the evils of the 1983 manifesto. In fact this was timid compared with the 1974 manifesto, which put Labour in government and pledged to nationalise shipbuilding, ports, aircraft manufacture, and sections of pharmaceuticals, road haulage, construction and machine tool manufacture, as well as North Sea oil and gas. Tony Benn, a stalwart defender of the gains of the working class, is described as a "ruthless destroyer", while Margaret Thatcher is "positively pragmatic" compared with the current government. Unfortunately the liberal commentariat continues to fear the democratic will of the working classes being given a political voice. The Labour party should fight for the class it was founded to represent. The evidence from the 1980s and today is that the Tories have no shame in fighting for their class of fellow millionaires.

Andrew Fisher
Joint secretary, Labour Representation Committee

Can anyone seriously argue that back in the 1980s a national effort to support our key industries and to channel our oil wealth into the public purse wouldn't have been better for the country than allowing our industries to be sold off and asset-stripped, and our national  oil wealth to be siphoned off into private wealth?

Since Germany has managed to strengthen its manufacturing sector decade upon decade, why couldn't Britain have done so? Was it really inevitable that our major industries - shipbuilding, aircraft manufacture, motor vehicles, pharmaceuticals, construction, machine tool manufacture, etc - should decline or disappear? Or was it just the case that the City and other wealth-holders got rich out of selling off our industries, converting their land assets to property development and speculation, etc? Did it also suit the suits that a by-product of decimating our industries was a decline in the power of the unions and the working classes?

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Mervyn King slams banks for putting profits before people and preying on the vulnerable

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363235/Mervyn-King-slams-banks-putting-profits-people-preying-vulnerable.html

The Governor of the Bank of England has slammed high-street banks for preying on the 'gullible or unsuspecting' and urged them to take a longer-term approach to their business and not simply try to 'maximise profits next week'.

Mervyn King also warned Britain risks suffering another financial crisis unless fundamental reforms of the profit-obsessed banking sector are pushed through.

He said problems still remained and 'imbalances' in the system were 'beginning to grow again'.
The intervention, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, comes as a Government commission is considering whether financial institutions should be forced to separate retail and investment banking arms.

'We allowed a (banking) system to build up which contained the seeds of its own destruction,' Mr King said.

'We've not yet solved the 'too big to fail' or, as I prefer to call it, the 'too important to fail' problem. The concept of being too important to fail should have no place in a market economy.'
Asked if there could be a repeat of the financial crisis, Mr King said: 'Yes. The problem is still there. The search for yield goes on. Imbalances are beginning to grow again.'

Mr King suggested that the culture of short-term profits and bonuses could be to blame for the issues. Traditional manufacturing industries had a more 'moral' way of operating.

Do banks prey on the 'gullible or unsuspecting'? Are banks completely amoral and immoral? Do bears shit in the woods? Is the Pope a Catholic?

There's NO WAY that a regular person can be anything other than gullible and unsuspecting in its dealings with the banks. A bank will contact a 'customer' to tell them about its latest 'financial product' that offers a return of, say, 4%. Do they tell you that they will then take your money and make 20% and sometimes 50% interest from it? Er . . . no.

Our entire financial and economic system is now geared towards making outrageous profits from their dealings with the 'gullible or unsuspecting'. This is not my opinion - it's a fact. When someone like the governor of the Bank of Bloody England says it's so - then it's so. The only surprise is that Mr King takes it upon himself to speak truth like this. Maybe he's just afraid that if he doesn't 'out' himself and proclaim his views publicly then Wikileaks or some other whistleblower will eventually do it anyway.

Clearly Mr King is surprised that people haven't yet taken to the streets to demand social and economic justice. In Egypt, Tunisia and Libya the people have not only woken up to the fact that the kleptocrats have stolen all their national wealth - they're trying to do something about it. Here in trickle-down Britain most people have a roof over their heads, a TV, a sofa, enough money for food and fags - so why rock the boat? "What good would it do anyway?"

Here in Britain there's no sense of class or social solidarity, no belief, no hope, no optimism, no ideallism. At least we have democracy, eh?

Indeed we do. The kind of 'democracy' that gives us the kind of government that nobody voted for, nobody wanted, nobody needed. A government that's using the neo-conservative Shock Doctrine ("We have to do these things! The country's in a mess!!) and neo-liberal economic theory to asset-strip the remains of the national wealth, to marketise health and education, to turn our entire country into a privatised, profits-driven entity where all power and wealth is concentrated in the fewest possible hands, with most bonuses and profits safely deposited in overseas accounts and tax havens - way beyond the reach of those who would see justice in taxing them and allowing them to be used for the good of the nation as a whole.

An interesting idea that's come from the North African revolutions and revolts is that you don't need to be a Marxist or a communist or even a trade unionist in order to see through the existing social injustice and demand proper democracy and a decent life for everyone. It's not clear as yet whether the people of North Africa will realise their ambitions, but common sense (aka spiritual intelligence), and not political theory, unites them and makes them willing to become activists who put their personal wellbeing on the line in a struggle for power, self-government and justice for all.

We'll just have to wait and see how many will turn out to support the TUC-organised demonstrations on Saturday March 26th. It could be the beginning of something significant. I reckon Mervyn King would like it to be so. Maybe he'll be out with a placard himself.

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Angry at the banks? Of course we are!


Mervyn King misreads the public mood on the bankers. He should look at our Robin Hood campaign


by Bill Nighy


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/02/deficit-cuts-banks-robin-hood-tax


When you've been going on about something for a while, it is always satisfying to discover that other people agree with you. I have been arguing for the last year that the banks, hedge funds and other titans of the City of London whose gambling got us into this trouble should pay to clean up the mess they caused.


Now, no less a figure than Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, has laid the blame for cuts in public services and welfare squarely at the door of the City. "The price of the financial crisis is being borne by people who did absolutely nothing to cause it."


But King's subsequent comment that he was "surprised that the degree of public anger has not been greater than it has" suggests that either he had a very high expectation, or that he has misread the public mood.


I'm an ambassador for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, which calls for a tiny tax of just 0.05% on every casino-style financial transaction in order to help poor people, reverse public service cuts at home and abroad, and tackle climate change. In this role I've seen how people's sense of fairness has been stretched to the limits by the continued spectacle of huge pay increases and bonuses in big companies while ordinary people suffer. Every time people turn on the television news they are bombarded with stories of job losses, disabled children forced into care, public sector cuts or young people left without a future. Meanwhile one of the country's leading bankers claims "the time for remorse and apologies needs to be over". If there has been any remorse it has escaped my notice. Of course people are angry!

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Continuing with Oxzen's campaign for economic literacy -

The business press must prove its economic literacy


The media reported the financial crisis and stimulus poorly. Now the story is deficit and cuts, is it equal to the task?


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/02/economics-economy


Press reports about business and economics are often not much help to the ordinary reader trying to understand these subjects.


In recent weeks, there have been a lot of stories about how normal people would be affected by the budget cuts, and the media have certainly voiced the argument that reducing government spending is a bad idea while unemployment is [high]. But there is room for more reporting about the larger macroeconomic picture . . .


The concept of a Keynesian stimulus is not immediately intuitive. It would have been nice if there had been more in-depth explanations . . . 

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The dying light of NHS care


My wife received near miraculous care in her final days – until private enterprise intervened


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/02/dying-nhs-care-private-enterprise


The NHS had, I later gathered, been obliged to take the second-class service offered by a disorganised offshoot of some US corporation: unsurprisingly its low standards allowed it to undercut Marie Curie's bid for the work. It seemed bizarre that the NHS was manoeuvred by an aggressive privatisation lobby into accepting a clearly inferior service from a company run from a country incapable of organising a health service for its own citizens.

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How often do you see your parents?


With more and more adults finding they're too busy to see their elderly parents, we ask you to share your experiences


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/02/visiting-parents


According to the research, more than 10% of 55- to 60-year-olds with parents still living haven't seen their mother or father in the past year, with many of those questioned saying they were simply too busy to stay in touch with ageing relatives.


A third of the baby boomers polled said they felt guilty for not seeing their parents enough and four out of 10 felt that their own children didn't get in touch with them enough either.


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According to Jamie Oliver (and other enlightened souls), “We’re not doing enough for those who fail; they need a more physical, tactile approach, involving people skills, team building, problem-solving, building things. These skills need to be taken as seriously as the sciences.”

TV review: Jamie's Dream School


Forget the pupils, the real problem at Jamie's Dream School is the history teacher, David Starkey


by Sam Wollaston


http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/02/tv-review-jamies-dream-school


There's some very bad behaviour in the history class at Jamie's Dream School (Channel 4). Not from the teens who have dropped out of conventional education with very little in the way of GCSEs, though, but from the teacher, the historian David Starkey.


Poor Jamie, he does his best to pretend this isn't happening. The idea was to get amazing people in to inspire these kids to learn. And what he's got with Starkey is a bigot and a bully, a horrid man who may know about the Anglo-Saxons, but who knows very little about the modern world or about humanity. And a crap teacher, too.


Jamie is really the only one who makes any connection with the kids, respects them and earns their respect back. And also the only one who shows any kind of self-awareness. "We're so used to people being interested in what we talk about," he says. There's plenty to be learned at his Dream School – by the students but equally by the teachers. Like maybe they're not quite as interesting as they thought they were, and that just because you know about something doesn't mean you know how to teach it. 


There's always a hard part at the beginning of Jamie's shows, when he's up against it and against the world. There are tears then and there will be here, too. He always turns it around; I'm sure he will do again. But he needs to sort out his staffroom first. And begin by firing David Starkey.

There are some good comments on CiF, including

PhoebusApollo


They should have got Melanie Phillips to teach condescension too.


Why would anybody expect Starkey or Callow to be able to teach? They're not teachers, are they? I'm sure that [Jamie's] pedagogy will work out fine in the end and he'll sell loads of books explaining how he rescued the nation's education system with a few celebrities and his unique brand of Artful Dodger 'charm'.


Failing that Alistair Campbell will be able to teach them how to knock up a dossier that'll allow them to beat up somebody and take their lunch money in just half-an-hour.
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Layer 449 . . . Dignity, Justice, Human Rights, Protests and Peaceful Revolutions

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One of the Egyptian protesters said, "This is not just a revolt to topple the regime. This is a revolt for our dignity and for justice."

Meanwhile, on TV yesterday, a reporter said, "Outside Tripoli he (Gaddafi) has no control whatsoever."

When people start to demand the right to some dignity and social justice, then it becomes more unlikely they will replace one set of ruling bastards with another set that's pretty similar, as has happened in Britain. If people have overcome apathy and fear, and come out on the streets to demand the right to be the rulers and not the ruled, they have reached a different level of consciousness. Awakening a higher level of consciousness is like letting a genie out of a bottle. What sort of trickery (or power) might be required to persuade it to go back in the bottle?

This past month has been amazing. Last weekend the Gaddafi regime lost control of all areas of Libya apart from the capital city. What's it going to take to put that genie back in its bottle? Incredible. At the same time the regime in Bahrain, of all places, was forced to withdraw from the central square and allow the protestors to occupy it. It was also a symbol of what's now happening that the regime was also forced to cancel its forthcoming Grand Prix - a lucrative part of the biggest capitalist circus on the planet, the benefits of which reach NONE of the Bahraini people, except maybe a handful employed at the racing circuit on minimum wages.

The previous weekend had seen the beginning of the challenge to the regime in Algeria.

The weekend before that we saw, of course, the downfall of Mubarak in Egypt.

From protest to revolution

Anger at inequality isn't confined to Tunisia or Egypt - where uprisings give a blueprint for other nations.

by Dan Hind

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112131580638716.html#

The popular uprising in Egypt is still less than three weeks old. We still cannot know how it will end - whether the ruling party will make some concessions and cling on to power within a new government - or whether a united opposition will sweep away Mubarak's apparatus. And we cannot tell what kind of regime will emerge.

The revolutions that overthrew the Soviet system in Central and Eastern Europe did not always empower the dissidents who risked the most in the struggle for freedom. Former secret policemen and their allies in organised crime often proved more adept in the years that followed than the idealists they once tormented.

But for all the uncertainty, Egypt has already shaken the region and the world. For those watching in Europe and the US, it has put an end to any lazy notion that the alternative to corrupt dictatorship in the Middle East is chaos or Islamic extremism. The worldly realists, with their regretful talk of the need for moderation, now stand exposed as power-worshipping fantasists. The Christians and Muslims crying "one hand, one hand", as they call for an end to Mubarak's tyranny have made a farce of decades of Western commentary and analysis.

Standing as one

The regime itself did all it could to encourage sectarian tension in the country, while its supporters in the West pretended it was a bulwark against religious violence. But, despite all the efforts to destroy civil society through torture and the organised suspicion of a police state, people have found each other.

Millions are being transformed by the experience of a public life without fear. In the words of one of the protestors, Wael Gawdat: "At Tahrir Square you see different Egyptians from the ones you see on the subway or the bus. No fights and no discomfort from the crowded setting. In short, Egypt is more beautiful in Tahrir Square."

The decision of the Egyptian people to take responsibility for their future - their decision to become citizens - enlivens, even delights. This is a movement that isn't being orchestrated by leaders in the way we have been led to expect. People are acting as though they are free and so becoming free. 

The Egyptians, like the Tunisians - like people all over the world - want a share in the vast wealth that their rulers and a handful of insiders have hoarded for themselves. They want dignity and a life they can call their own. For the moment they are not afraid and they are united. They are showing us the truth of David Hume’s remark that our rulers 'have nothing to support them but opinion'. The Egyptian people no longer believed the Mubarak regime was as good as any other that might be established. They have seen for themselves that there can be stability without torture.

Rejecting injustice

They do not believe that the distribution of property is just and they do not accept the legitimacy of their government. They have changed their opinion of what is possible and right. Every day of freedom they enjoy is a message to the rest of us; things do not have to be as they are.
So the Egyptians and the Tunisians have swept away the prejudices that have so long confused and corrupted the understanding of people in the West. More than that, they have also reminded Europeans and American what political action can achieve - and what it feels like to be free.

We have long been entranced by the idea that shopping and voting once every four years for one wing or other of the pro-business party would be enough to give us the good life. Vast public relations campaigns fostered the sense that a better future could be had, if only we chose wisely from the list of approved candidates. All the while the rich have taken more and left the rest of us to struggle with insecurity, anxiety and mounting debts. The people in Cairo didn't look to charismatic politicians or party machines to do the work for them. They moved faster than their leaders.

You can do it, too

In the West, there have been stirrings of dissent as the scale of the economic crisis becomes apparent and the reassurances of the mainstream media - that good times are just around the corner, come to sound ever more threadbare. Students, and young people in particular, have already shaken off the wishful passivity of the previous generation. But for the most part the outrage and sense of betrayal have expressed themselves in ways that pose no real threat to the governing establishment or the opulent minority who control it.

The Tea Party in the United States and Conservatives in Britain promise change while working to ensure that everything that matters stays the same. The right in both countries has benefited from the failure of their centrist opponents to address the fundamental causes of recession, unemployment and social breakdown. It is as though the entire political establishment has adopted the stultifying uniformity of a one-party state. There is a bankruptcy of policy and of principle that will, perhaps, finally compel us to take matters into our own hands.

In the presidential campaign of 2008, Barack Obama never tired of telling voters they were the change they had been looking for. The people of Tunisia and Egypt have turned a clever slogan into an undeniable fact. They did not wait for permission to take action. If we want another world we must all learn from them.

Can we look beyond the stereotypes offered by our media, and see that the Egyptians and the Tunisians are now daring us to be free?

Yes, we can.

Dan Hind has worked in publishing since 1998 and is the author of two well-acclaimed books: The Return of the Public and The Threat to Reason. He is also a regular contributor to The Guardian.

Follow him on Twitter: @danhind

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Al-Jazeera:

Social networks, social revolution 


Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have become the new weapons of mass mobilisation.


http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/empire/2011/02/201121614532116986.html


Information is power, but 21st century technology has unleashed an information revolution, and now the genie is out of the bottle.


Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have become the new weapons of mass mobilisation; geeks have taken on dictators; bloggers are dissidents; and social networks have become rallying forces for social justice.


As people around the world challenge authorities, from Iran to Tunisia, Egypt to Yemen, entire societies are being transformed as ordinary citizens see the difference, imagine the alternative, and come together to organise for a better future.


So, are social networks triggering social revolution? And where will the next domino fall?


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

Reflections: Egypt Revolution


Egypt's Uprising is only the first in many steps,the challenge ahead is to build a society on fair principles.


http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121414422998168.html

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What makes a revolution succeed?


While the aspirations are different, Egyptians could take five lessons from Iran's 1979 revolt.


http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121393446561799.html


On February 12, 32 years this week, Iran proclaimed its revolution a success: the Shah was gone, the military had been decimated, and a new era could dawn.


Although what followed turned out very differently than what the Egyptians are hoping for, Iran's was one of the great revolutions of the 20th century, and Egyptians might well look to it for inspiration in their effort to oust an entrenched regime and gain new rights.


Today, the Egyptian military has assumed command, with promises of free and fair elections. Does this mean the demonstrators can go home and trust their army? Egypt and Iran are very different, their aspirations and media eons apart, and, one hopes, the future the Egyptians construct will be more democratic and safe for those reaching for popular victory.


Nonetheless, for those along the Nile facing quickly changing events, the Iranian revolution offers some useful lessons.


Lesson one: Revolutions take time

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Egypt's revolution has just begun


The transition to civilian rule will not be easy - if the military are capable of delivering on their promises.


http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/2011213134458448460.html


"Whatever happens, nothing will ever be the same again" – Tahrir Square demonstrator.


Mubarak has fallen. February 11, 2011, has inscribed itself on the page of world history. Now the struggle for the 'heart and soul' of the revolution begins. It's a testing time, and all will be tested.


Test 1: Procedural and institutional change – the establishment of legality


At what point will the uprising be sufficiently secure from counter-revolution to begin construction of a truly transformed democratic polity? What are the minimum security requirements for its immediate defence and subsequent extension? What structural changes will have to be demanded - and fought through to a successful conclusion – in order to neutralise and dis-articulate the still formidable powers of the Mubarak state and its - temporarily silenced - backers?


Test 2: The shape and boundaries of revolutionary democracy – the contours of freedom and the struggles surrounding inclusive or exclusive participation 


How will the emergent revolution realise itself, consecrate itself? What shall be its core tasks, boundaries and limits? Who is to be included, who excluded? And on what basis, what grounds?
.

Layer 445 . . . A Larger Global Consciousness, Solidarity, Unity, Defiance, Paths to Democracy, Algeria, Egypt and Learning How to Demonstrate

.

More excellent photos here -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/gallery/2011/feb/11/egypt-protest#/?picture=371625685&index=0

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A Larger Global Consciousness
What I like about Al-Jazeera is that its presenters and the people who contribute to its coverage seem to have no great egos, are good communicators, and are extremely knowledgeable about their subject matter, without having a particular axe to grind.

The format of the programmes is less about achieving "balance" than it's about targeting the truth - as any fair-minded and intelligent person might perceive it. Unlike the British (and American!) media they have no compulsion to bring on tedious neo-conservatives to drone their way through the usual rubbish on any given topic or event - for the sake of 'balance'. If we want to hear right-wing bullshit - well we know where to go in order to get it.

Similarly there's no space on Al-Jaz for people advocating violent solutions to political problems. There are no ranting pseudo-Marxists or fundamentalist jihadis.

The other great thing is that it's not Euro-centric or North American. It's bloody good to hear the voices of journalists, commentators and intellectuals from North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, etc, talking about things from a global perspective.

The exciting news this weekend is that people in Algeria are now out on the streets - protesting against their regime, which is similar to the Mubarak regime in virtually every respect. Thousands of police personnel have been deployed against the protesters - just as they were in Egypt on their initial 'day of rage'.

There was a brilliant programme yesterday on the al-Jazeera website showing how citizen activists have been carrying out training programmes on how to demonstrate peacefully - putting a strong emphasis on unity, discipline, planning, clarity about aims, how to get people to turn out, etc. It's what might be called training in the key skills needed for emotional, social and spiritual intelligence.

I loved the intensity, energy, commitment, seriousness, unity and determination of the people featured in the film. They have a kind of controlled rage about them - an attitude that says, "Don't get mad - get even." But they're not interested in power for power's sake - they're interested in poverty, oppression, inequality, torture and corruption - and how to get rid of these evils from their societies.

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

Yesterday Egypt, today Algeria

This was the slogan of the brave protesters in Algiers on Saturday, making the first breach in Algeria's wall of fear

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/algeria-egypt

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Amnesty International

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/

We are ordinary people from around the world standing up for humanity and human rights. Our purpose is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied.

Egypt: Stand in solidarity and defiance

As events unfold in Egypt, please join us pledging solidarity with their calls for freedom and basic human rights. Today we held a rally in Trafalgar Square Today as part of a global day of action in support of the people of Egypt, and the wider Middle East and North Africa. We stand in defiance against all those who try to suppress the growing movement of people standing up for their rights, facing down injustice and offering hope for a better world.

We can all do our bit towards keeping up the momentum for worldwide engagement.

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

Hosni Mubarak is gone, but can Egypt's digital revolution unite the country?

Twitter and Facebook played an integral role in helping to topple Hosni Mubarak, but if Egypt is to be reformed, the online momentum of recent events must go beyond mere protest

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/13/hosni-mubarak-egypt-digital-revolution

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Twitter's five-year evolution from ridicule to dissidents' tool
People laughed in 2006 when Twitter started. Now it's hard for me to imagine life without it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/13/twitter-mainstream-dissidents-protest

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

Anti-Christ

Blair on the Marr programme this morning said that he's discovered during his time in the Middle East in the past couple of years that religion is very important to people who live there. Well fucking hell - the man's a genius. No wonder we needed him as our PM for 10 years. Who'd have thought? Thanks, Tone, for your brilliant insights. What a pity that Tone believed for so many years that Muslims didn't really feel that religion was important to them - not like it is to Christians, obviously.

It's interesting how the media, who befriended him and schmoozed him for so long, continue to believe that Blair's opinions are worth listening to - when everybody else just wants to see the bastard locked away for war crimes and for being such a neo-con psychopathic prick. The man's a total fuckwit - always has been - and it's almost unbearable listening to that slimy 'tone' of his ever again.

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

Army and protesters disagree over Egypt's path to democracy

Activists reject army appeal to leave Tahrir Square as new leadership resists pressure to hand power to civilian administration

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/12/egypt-military-leaders-fall-out-protesters

Egypt's new military administration and the pro-democracy protesters who brought down Hosni Mubarak are at odds over the path to democratic rule.

The army sought to stave off pressure from jubilant protesters to swiftly hand power to a civilian-led administration by saying that it was committed to a "free democratic state".

The military leadership gave no timetable for the political transition, and many of the demonstrators who filled Cairo's Tahrir Square for 18 days rejected the military's appeal to dismantle the barricades and go home.

They said they were waiting for specific commitments from the military on their demand for a civilian-controlled interim administration, the lifting of the oppressive state of emergency and other steps toward liberalisation.

The shockwaves of Mubarak's fall were felt across the region, particularly in Algeria and Yemen. Thousands of anti-government protesters, apparently inspired by events in Cairo, turned out in Algiers to confront the police. There were reports that hundreds had been arrested. In Sanaa, a protest by about 2,000 people to demand political reform was broken up by armed government supporters.

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

Meanwhile . . .
I've been neglecting domestic matters recently - so it's worth making a note of a couple of Polly Toynbee's latest pieces:

These brutal cuts form a turbo-charged programme for accelerating inequality

Beware the tales of statistics-wielding ministers – the poorest areas will be hit hardest by the council cuts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/11/defence-brutal-cuts-attack-lies-blame

Big society's a busted flush, but who will admit it first?

Politicians should quail: the nasty party detoxifier has not worked – and for public servants, silence is no longer an option

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/big-society-is-not-working

Even the pro-market Blairites know the NHS faces chaos

Alan Milburn, a former health secretary and now a David Cameron aide, has no dog in this fight. But he says the reforms are a fatal mistake

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/04/cameron-nhs-reform-dishonest

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Layer 444 . . . End of an Era, Egypt's Joy, Hope for the Future

.
Unlike the events of 1968, which brought NO regime changes to any of the countries in which they took place, 2011 has begun with regime changes in both the countries where people have taken to the streets and demanded that their Head of State stand down.

The danger now is that having got rid of both their presidents, the people of Tunisia and Egypt will see no real political, social and economic changes. "Meet the new boss - same as the old boss." [The Who]

There's a grave danger that the peaceful revolutions of 2011 will go the same way as the non-violent revolutions in Eastern Europe in '89, where turbo capitalism and neo-conservatism rushed in as soon as the doors opened to 'freedom' and 'democracy'.

Somehow, though, I doubt it. The Egyptian people have put up with shit for 30 years or more, and in the age of the internet and satellite TV I don't think they'll get fooled again. [The Who]

A friend suggested recently that 2011/2012, far from being the end of the world, will be the proper dawning of an age of Aquarius. I'll go with that as a working hypothesis.

I've been saying for ages that leaderless, peaceful uprisings of people who gather together in the streets and the squares of any nation and refuse to go home until their voices are heard and their wishes are understood are the way to do politics - especially in countries where politics are the exclusive preserve of rich elites and a rigid party system, especially if it's a first past the post system.

The people of Tunisia and Egypt have shown that this is the model for participatory politics in the future, just as politics was done in the open air by citizens in ancient Greece. Tahrir Square should remain as the open-air political HQ of the Egyptian people. The rest of us can connect with them via broadband, as is already happening.

Peoples of the world unite!

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

Mubarak's departure marks the end of an era for Egypt

If real reforms are achieved, Egypt will have witnessed a real revolution – and its impact will be felt across the Middle East

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/mubarak-resigation-progress-egypt-analysis

Hosni Mubarak's dramatic departure marks the end of an era for Egypt and the Middle East.

Rule by the military can only be temporary. Mubarak's exit, the dissolution of what is seen as an illegitimate parliament, constitutional reforms and abolition of the emergency laws are all non-negotiable. If those reforms are achieved, then Egypt will have witnessed a real revolution – beyond the removal of a stubborn 82-year-old president long past his sell-by date.

With good will it should be possible to amend or rewrite the constitution to allow the election of a new parliament and president. It could, however, all still take months to agree, risking impatience in the streets and new unrest.

What happens in the Arab world's most populous country matters for many millions of other Arabs, who also suffer from unemployment, inequality, corruption and unresponsive, unaccountable governments – and share the language in which it is being covered in media such as al-Jazeera and social networking sites that official censors cannot easily block.

Other authoritarian regimes, shocked first by the uprising in Tunisia and now in Egypt, have been trying to pre-empt trouble by promises of reform, sacking ministers, maintaining subsidies or raising wages to buy off critics and defuse tensions. The symptoms are visible from Yemen to Jordan, from Algeria to Syria.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Egypt was a Soviet client, but it changed sides in 1979 by signing a taboo-breaking peace treaty with Israel, after four wars that cost it thousands of lives.

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

hotdoc
Mubarak's downfall and disgrace has a huge symbolic reality that will spur the momentum for change across the Muslim world since he represented a neo-colonial system that has been drammatically cast aside and thrown into the dustbin of history!

Now the opportunity presents itself to Egypt and the other Muslim countries of the region and beyond to bring a new political reality to these lands that will be aligned with the aspiration and values of the people, that will harness the energy of the youth and that will bring genuine independence from western states.

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

                                                     (c) Martin Rowson

lightacandle

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

The people have spoken and their voices have been heard. Today is the dawning of a new era and the reverberations shall be heard worldwide especially amongst those leaders who continue to abuse the majority to maintain the priviledges and misrule of the minority. There is hope for the future after all. Thank you Egypt for leading the way.

sue18

Good luck to the people of Egypt ... let's hope that this will not lead to another sell out by the army and the USA.

In the UK, we're being sold out every day ... the government has withdrawn the selling off of the forests until the Public Bodies Bill gets passed into legislation. This will give every relevant minister total power to abolish, amend or merge any quango or other. So in a few months time, Caroline Spelman will be able to sell off any piece of public woodland she wants.

In fact, I'm coming to believe that the whole fiasco of the consultation was to knock the horrors of the NHS privatisation off the news. They needn't have bothered. The lunacy of our media's reporting meant that all the reporters had shot off for a jolly in the sun.

We need to be on the streets like the Egyptians to stop this government's destruction of the welfare state.

lightacandle

One of the most heartwarming scenes of these past few weeks has been to see families and young people out on the streets making their voices heard standing up for what is right even though it could have impacted on them so badly. Their courage and incessant efforts to speak out against those who have used and abused them over the years is a fine example to set to the rest of the world. And I am sure, as with my own son, there are many young people worldwide looking on and seeing that the status quo does not have to be maintained if it goes against the will of the people and more importantly if it is in fact inherently wrong and unjust.

Many leaders including those closest to home will now hopefully take heed of the warning signs emerging and realise they can no longer go against the will of the people for their own questionable political and economic aims.

The winds of change are blowing afresh and those who decide to ignore them do so at their peril. I wouldn't be surprised if those same winds are feeling decidedly chilly to the likes of Mr Cameron and others on the right who know deep down that they do not act on behalf of the people but rather on behalf of a privileged few who hope to maintain their grasp on power solely in order to maintain the inequality they foster and the social injustices they espouse. Enough is enough. Lets hope those winds can reach further afield and bring about a new era worldwide where voices are heard and acted upon and change where needed can come about for the good of the people and for the sake of social justice. Oppression in whatever form it takes can no longer and should no longer be accepted. Yes I do believe, thankfully, that this is indeed the dawning of a new era.

charliecocorosie

I better write quickly before the daily mailers get here.....

The wonderful people of Egypt have shown us the way. Good luck to them - they have shaken off oppression.

Let's get out there and stay out too till we get rid of the threat to the NHS by the CON-DEMs and send the monster waiting to be born that is their NHS Bill, back to the wastelands of their ideology


Gauss

@charliecocorosie

    Let's get out there and stay out too till we get rid of the threat to the NHS by the CON-DEMs and send the monster waiting to be born that is their NHS Bill, back to the wastelands of their ideology

I think we should be a tad more ambitious than that, no? Let's stay out there until they're gone, and put any prospective government on notice that we will be back out there if they don't start doing what the people want as opposed to what their super-rich paymasters are demanding.

There's more of us than there are of them. It's about time they were reminded of it. We are all Egyptian.

lightacandle

And as for the inscription 'Made in USA' we should add 'Made and upheld by the UK too"...........

"GENEVA – The Swiss government on Friday froze any assets belonging to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or his family in Switzerland.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said the order took effect immediately but gave no details on what bank accounts or other assets Mubarak or his family might have in Switzerland.

He spoke as pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo were jubilantly celebrating the announcement that Mubarak has resigned after nearly three decades of authoritarian rule and handed power over to the military.

"(The Swiss government) wants to avoid any risk of misappropriation of state-owned Egyptian assets," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It also forbid the sale of any assets, especially real estate holdings."


Tonight many Egyptians have mentioned that even if Mubarak's personal fortune stolen from Egypt and its people is only half of what they say it is it would in fact pay off Egypt's international debt which would in turn play a part in starting to help those 40% of the population who have been and still are living in poverty.

Recent reports have mentioned that part of the real estate empire of the Mubarak's is located here in the UK, that there has been the involvement of British businesses connected with his ill gotten personal fortune and also the possibility that British Banks are involved too.

Over to you Mr Cameron. Will he do the right thing or will the interests of the conservative party's friends in the business, finance and banking world take precedence over justice and the rights of the people. Somehow I think we already know the answer to that as I'm sure vested interests are as we speak busily getting their hands on what is not theirs. The Swiss government are trying to resolve matters to ensure the Egyptian people receive that which has been stolen from them. I wonder if our government will do so too?

Charliecocorosie

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

lightacandle

We all owe it to the Egptian people to read the following article by Pankaj Mishra and ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated , instead being part of a movement worldwide which will ensure this new dawning will not be so easily cast aside by those with vested interests whether they be economic, ideological or political. If you really are on the side of the Egyptian people please take the time to read the following which will help us all understand more the mistakes of the past whilst making sure we will not play a part in the repitition of those mistakes worlwide in the future.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/mubarak-egypt-roots-of-despotism?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

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The tyrant has gone. Now the real struggle begins for Egypt

The protesters have stripped Mubarak and his foreign backers of their authority. But the roots of despotism run deep

by Pankaj Mishra

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/mubarak-egypt-roots-of-despotism?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

For the last two weeks I have, like innumerable others, careened from the television news to internet updates and back, longing for the moment that came last night, when the tyrant finally yielded to a brave and spirited people. History has been made; celebrations are in order. But it is not too early to ask: what next?

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Egypt's joy as Mubarak quits

With Hosni Mubarak's departure, the age of political reason is returning to Egypt and the wider Arab world

by Tariq Ali

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/11/egypt-cairo-hosni-mubarak

A joyous night in Cairo. What bliss to be alive, to be an Egyptian and an Arab. In Tahrir Square they're chanting, "Egypt is free" and "We won!"

The removal of Mubarak alone (and getting the bulk of his $40bn loot back for the national treasury), without any other reforms, would itself be experienced in the region and in Egypt as a huge political triumph. It will set new forces into motion. A nation that has witnessed miracles of mass mobilisations and a huge rise in popular political consciousness will not be easy to crush, as Tunisia demonstrates.

Huge assemblies in symbolic spaces posing an immediate challenge to authority – as if to say, we are showing our strength, we don't want to test it because we neither organised for that nor are we prepared, but if you mow us down remember the world is watching.

This dependence on global public opinion is moving, but is also a sign of weakness. Had Obama and the Pentagon ordered the Egyptian army to clear the square – however high the cost – the generals would have obeyed orders, but it would have been an extremely risky operation for them, if not for Obama.

The show of popular strength was enough to get rid of the current dictator. He'd only go if the US decided to take him away. After much wobbling, they did. They had no other serious option left. The victory, however, belongs to the Egyptian people whose unending courage and sacrifices made all this possible.

Having unleashed security thugs only a fortnight ago, Vice-President Suleiman's failure to dislodge the demonstrators from the square was one more nail in the coffin. The rising tide of the Egyptian masses with workers coming out on strike , judges demonstrating on the streets, and the threat of even larger crowds next week, made it impossible for Washington to hang on to Mubarak and his cronies. The man Hillary Clinton had referred to as a loyal friend, indeed "family", was dumped. The US decided to cut its losses and authorised the military intervention.

Omar Suleiman, an old western favourite, was selected as vice-president by Washington, endorsed by the EU, to supervise an "orderly transition". Suleiman was always viewed by the people as a brutal and corrupt torturer, a man who not only gives orders, but participates in the process. A WikiLeaks document had a former US ambassador praising him for not being "squeamish". The new vice president had warned the protesting crowds last Tuesday that if they did not demobilise themselves voluntarily, the army was standing by: a coup might be the only option left. It was, but against the dictator they had backed for 30 years. It was the only way to stabilise the country. There could be no return to "normality".

The age of political reason is returning to the Arab world. The people are fed up of being colonised and bullied. Meanwhile, the political temperature is rising in Jordan, Algeria and Yemen.

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US can celebrate Egyptian people's triumph

Critics say Obama didn't lead, he followed. This was appropriate: Egypt is on a path to democracy and no one got invaded

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2011/feb/11/egypt-barack-obama

by Michael Tomasky

My God, what a moving day this is. To think that just 18 days of largely peaceful protests can accomplish this. Remarkable.

President Obama's remarks on Friday afternoon were appropriate and powerful: the people of Egypt have inspired the world.

Critics, neocons especially, will say he didn't lead, he followed. That's true. And that was appropriate. It was up to the Egyptian people to lead this, not the United States.

And the Egyptian military. Someday, we'll get the back story on how, in just 24 hours, the military went from evidently backing Mubarak to ditching him. This was crucial, and I doubt very much the US played no role in this. I'd wager that Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Mike Mullen, the heads of the joint chiefs of staff, had quite a lot to do with that.

With the Egyptian army relying on US military aid basically to exist, their words surely carried weight. Maybe all that aid over years, excessive as it has been in many ways, paid important dividends in the last two weeks. The army behaved professionally, not like some tinhorn's personal secret security service. That was one of the most breathtaking things about this, and could stand as one of the most hopeful in terms of serving as a model for future situations like this.

There's a long way to go from here, of course. This is a happy beginning, not a happy ending. But now, the US can and should start playing the less ambiguous role it took on, as of Thursday night. We need to be on the side of democracy and rights and freedoms, and stay on that side . . .

I will not say that Obama deserves much credit for this. At the same time, I have no doubt in my mind that if President McCain had given a speech on democracy in Cairo 20 months ago and now this happened, the neocons and Fox News and the usual suspects would be calling it "the McCain Revolution" and baying about how it proved that a bold stance by an American president had made all the difference.

I won't parrot that kind of inanity. I'll simply say that, from his Cairo speech until today, Obama has helped this process more than he's hindered it. And we didn't have to invade two countries, either. That's the right side – for him, and for us, the people of the United States. Now, we need to stay there.

This is a great opportunity for the US, and all of the west, to help a people learn the habits of freedom, and for those habits to spread.
Posted by Michael Tomasky Friday 11 February 2011 21.48 GMT guardian.co.uk

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Shermanator
I give Obama high marks for the way he handled the Egyptian revolution.

The US - and the rest of the world - was caught totally offguard by this and had little time to formulate a strategy.

True, Mubarak was a dictator but he was also a close friend of the US. If Obama was to have overtly backed Mubarak he would have earned the enduring enmity of the Egyptian masses. However, if he turned his back on Mubarak he would have made the US appear untrustworthy. By this, I mean that it would have looked awful if the US suddenly turned on a long-time ally when things suddenly became tough for him.

Obama had to walk a tightrope in handling the uprising. In this respect he did a good job.

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Hosni Mubarak resigns – and Egypt celebrates a new dawn

• President surrenders power to army and flies out of Cairo
• Egypt rejoices as 18 days of mass protest end in revolution
• Military pledges not to get in way of 'legitimate' government

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/hosni-mubarak-resigns-egypt-cairo

"We have brought down the regime, we have brought down the regime," chanted the crowd.

Mohammed Abdul Ghedi, a lifeguard who had come from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to which the ex-president and his family flew yesterday, held up a sign in English saying: "Mubarak you are nothing, you are heartless, without mind, just youkel, worthless, fuck off."

"This is my first day here, and he is gone. Mubarak is a liar. When he promised to leave in three or six months we don't believe him. We only believe him when he is gone," he said. "Now Egyptians are free. All of Egypt is liberated. Now we will choose our leaders, and if we don't like them, they will go."

Another protester, Karim Medhat Ennarah, said with tears in his eyes: "For 18 days we have withstood teargas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, Molotov cocktails, thugs on horseback, the scepticism and fear of our loved ones, and the worst sort of ambivalence from an international community that claims to care about democracy.

"But we held our ground. We did it."

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