Obituary

On Mayday, a day of pagan symbolism and working class solidarity, Usama Bin Laden, the greatest trickster, the Loki of the planet, the closest reality ever got to having a real super villain, died. 

He died eerily, in the most absurd of hiding places.  As they've been saying, it were as if he'd been hiding in West Point, NY.  How absurd!  How embarrassing for Pakistan, and how embarrassing for him.  Burning his own trash?  What kind of comedy is this?  This bearded idiot out there at night with his henchmen, fanning the flames of a huge junk pile?  In a walled luxury McMansion in a Pakistani suburb?  

I want to know what it was like, to sit shoulder to shoulder with other suicide bombers, kneeling and listening with awe, looking up at his white robes, brilliant like an angel against the blue desert sky.  How did he sound?  What the fuck did he say?  He must have said the kinds of things that uplift the lost from their despair.  I hear he had a very gentle and soothing voice. 

He orchestrated mass murder for television.  He was a reality show host who charged us trillions of dollars to watch and participate as a contestant.  He charged us what little economic equality we had left.  He provided the consternation to distract us while our economic system became what Rachel Maddow tonight called "feudalism with cable."  He knew how weak our leadership would be, how the Bush administration would respond like a blustering ineffectual man o' war about to lose its empire.  For a man who hated music so much, Usama bin Laden's timing was perfect.

He knew us better than we knew ourselves.  

Hamas-Fatah Rapprochement

Fatah and Hamas have announced that they will form a unity government, ending several years of division.  Bad idea.  C'mon guys.  I can't begin to imagine how how hurtful the rift between Gaza and the West Bank must be, and how strong the desire for rapprochement with Hamas is.  But don't you see how much the Fatah/Hamas schism does for the Palestinian cause as a whole, crappy though it is?

Israel's entrenched right wing will always try to stop a Palestinian state from forming, whatever the cost.  To do that, they need the United States to back them 100% regardless of the moral consequences.  In order to ensure this, the specter of Hamas as anything more than an isolated faction must be rekindled.  So in order to shame the Israelis and obtain representation at the U.N., Hamas must remain your enemy.  As long as Israeli warmongers need Hamas, you can't need them.  They're terrorists in the classic milieu of Arab/Israeli bullshit.  They will get you nowhere.

So at the moment when the U.S. has the most Palestinian-friendly president ever, at a time when everyone's sympathy is with the struggling Arab protester (a role to which the entire Palestinian people have been consigned for so long), why do you sabotage yourselves??  The Israeli hawks are wetting themselves with excitement, reveling in your grave miscalculation.  They can now happily build more settlements on your land, justified by the need for more security ('cause you know building houses right next to people who want to kill you is like mad safe, right?).  Just as the Israelis know that building more settlements will destroy negotiations, you must know that negotiating with Hamas will do the same.  Perhaps you could have gotten away with it - but only after a decisive UN resolution in your favor!

Why did Fatah do this?   According to a UCLA history professor quoted in the above CNN article, both factions fear the spread of the Arab protest movement to their doorstep.  This professor, James Gelvin, considers the move insurance against possible unrest.  If they're more afraid of their own people than Israeli cluster bombs, well then that's really sad.

Whatever the reason, it seems like no one in this conflict is willing to make the right choices.  In fact, it seems as though both sides seek to make exactly the wrong choice at the most crucial juncture.  It seemed just as illogical, for example, when Israel began a settlement-building Blitz DURING the last round of negotiations.  But these choices only sound wrong or illogical to those of us who believe that peace is the right choice.  If neither side believes peace is a good choice - indeed, if both sides believe they have more to gain by carefully building up a fake peace process designed to be dashed at the most critical yet hopeful moment - well then, I guess it suddenly all makes sense.

PS of course, the rapprochement itself could topple a week from now.

PPS: I was about to post just now when I remembered a recent string of incidents where Gaza was infiltrated by Al-Qaeda militants.  Despite their similarities on the surface, Hamas and Al-Qaeda are enemies.  Most Al-Qaeda militants are from other Arab states, and the truth is most Arabs hate the Palestinians.  Could these skirmishes be an underlying cause for the rapprochement?  Only time will tell...

Uh oh...

Volatile scene unfolds in Cairo as opposing sides clash - CNN


Very smart, Mubarak.  You know the Egyptian army won't harm any protesters, so you send out thugs of your own.  The pro-Mubarak protesters appear to be destabilizing the situation in an attempt to destroy the prevailing spirit of solidarity, as well as the stable grass-roots structures set up by the revolutionaries in their effort to keep things running.  I really hope this bout of instability doesn't provide the reactionaries in the U.S., Israel or other Arab states the rhetorical ammo they need to put the kibosh on this nascent democracy movement.

More on Egypt

This blog was originally meant to serve as an expose on my post-college life living unemployed at home in Westchester Co. New York.  But Egypt seems so much more pressing.

I think it is very important that the rebels realize that they have effectively won the battle against Mubarak.  To continue to put all of their energy into resisting his illusory grip on power will only cause a rebound effect and restore the ancien regime.  Here's why:  with the destruction of the state apparatus, chaos has begun to reign, and although urbanites in Cairo are forming local militias to prevent crime, their patience will quickly run out, if their food doesn't run out first.  The protesters must find a means to organize a grass roots, democratic framework for keeping basic goods and services available.  Otherwise Mubarak, or a hand-picked successor like the current Vice-President, can make the case that the protesters are unfit to provide basic stability and quality of life.   Currently, Mohamed ElBaradei has joined with a group of tech-savvy protesters to form a party of sorts around which a new organized political apparatus could form.  Ideally, they will use the power of social media to coordinate efforts across Egypt.  Ideally...

This is not the time to rally around one leader, entrust power in him, and then call it a day.  This is what the governments of developed democracies like the U.S. would like to see.  But that's the problem with the Arab world:  there's exists a tendency to find a strongman who serves as the singular savior of the people in their time of need.  The Egyptian people must find the confidence not only to defy the oppression of the now crumbling Mubarak regime, but to come together to replace it in a holistic way.  Otherwise, the old strongman will be replaced with a new one.  To borrow from the Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World: 

By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

I've taken this quote from the syndicalist IWW mostly because it, more than anything else, captures what I believe the Egyptian protesters should do if they want to create a democratic society.  If defeating political enemies becomes the sole focus and habit of this movement, it could easily be redirected toward, say, harming religious and political minorities, or a fruitless war against a long-hated foreign bogyman (*cough*Israel*cough*).  That's the kind of barbarism a strongman would affect so as to keep the hands of discontent occupied, and away from the torches of liberty and democracy. 

The people of Egypt must carry the spirit of solidarity and grass-roots action over to meeting the practical needs of the country.

PS: I have chosen this topic in response to Mohammed Sameer's plea that anyone and everyone endeavor to get the word out on events in Egypt.  I encourage readers to do the same if they can. 

Revolution

I suppose you were expecting me to introduce myself, and to state the purpose of this blog.  I was going to do just that, but then I found this plea for help on the site of one Mohammed Sameer, a Linux programmer in Egypt.  Right now, revolution is brewing in the Middle East.  The government under Ben Ali has fallen in Tunisia to street protests sparked by the self-immolation of a single disaffected young man two years my senior.  In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak is unwilling to yield to the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people.  Communications in Egypt have been almost entirely blocked, and it is possible that a crackdown is imminent.  There has already been a massacre reported in Suez. 
 
Here are a couple of articles documenting what has become the first wholesale shutdown of the Internet anywhere in history:


http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/01/egypt-leaves-the-internet.shtml


http://bgpmon.net/blog/?p=450


Both are from companies that monitor Internet traffic.  I found both on the wiki for a hacktivist group: 

http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Egypt/Main_Page#Recieved_messages


This page in particular appears to be a repository for messages coming out of Egypt.  


Some are in Morse code. 


The winds of a storm like this can change at any moment.  Those who began revolution might not be the ones to finish it.  I cringe when I think what might happen in Cairo on this morning of January 29th, 2011.    


If anyone is reading this debut post of mine, share what's happening in any capacity you can.  If you feel it is within your power to strike a blow at the government forces arrayed against the protesters, please do so.  But bring it up in conversations with friends and co-workers.  This is important history in the making, and its outcome will affect us all.  There is a very real possibility that despotism in the land that invented despotism will be snuffed out forever.


The common wisdom up until now has been that authoritarianism in the Arab world is intractable for a number of unique and interrelated reasons.  They are namely the wealth produced by oil, the strategic oil-based partnerships with western nations, and a global fear that radical Islam is the only other option.  This may all be proven wrong any minute. 


Nice to meet everyone.  May the force be with you.


photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Day_of_Anger_marchers_with_out_signs.jpg