Monday, January 31, 2011

Getting information via Twitter on #Egypt or whatever -- Live from Cairo

With the way corporate media handles things, and with AlJazeera tossed out of Egypt (as best they could), there remain other avenues.  Most of you who get this via e-mail or surf to it, have an aversion to Twitter and for good reason.

However, it can be very helpful at times.  Before I post the live report on Egypt from Democracy Now, I'll tell you a few things you should know about twitter if you want to try that out.

First of all, you have to steel yourself for a lot of childish language and forget all about grammar and spelling.  It's for information, or can be.

You can Google Twitter and log on.  It'll ask you for an e-mail address (you need to give them a correct one) and your real name (you can fake that).  Then you have to chose a "screen name" and password.  Be sure the password has both numbers and letters in it.

Ok.  Once you are on, you can get a great deal of information by using what they call a "hash" mark or what I always called a pound sign.  It's the mark above the number 3, #.  Put that in the slot above a list of "trending" topics followed by whatever you want to find out about.  It would look much like #Egypt or #Science.  Then, all the "tweets" with that word in it will flash by on your screen.  As you scroll down, you will find more.  The screen will seem to jump from time to time.  That is twitter telling you more "tweets" have been posted, you need to go up to the bar with that message, and click on it.  It could say 20, 30, 40, 80, or whatever.  You will never catch up.

Some of the 'tweets" have a "tiny url" which is a link to other stuff that is probably more interesting than the tweets (that is where you could find the famous helicopter video that #wikileaks released.  If you are interested in Wikileaks, use #wikileaks or for the latest type #cablegate which also has some information fanatics.  That is where they plan retaliation against whomever attacks Assange.

Ok, enough of that.  Here is the Transcript from Democracy Now:

    * Uprising in Egypt: "This is the Biggest Political Challenge the Regime Has Yet to See from the Streets"

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Related Links

    * Follow Sharif Abdel Kouddous on Twitter
    * "Live From Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger." Blog By Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! Senior Producer
    * Democracy Now! Complete Coverage of the Egyptian Protests

Related Democracy Now! Stories

    * Guardian Reporter Jack Shenker on Egypt Protests: "Fear Barrier Seems to Have Been Broken" (1/27/2011)
    * Uprising in Egypt: "This is the Biggest Political Challenge the Regime Has Yet to See from the Streets" (1/28/2011)
    * Thousands Protest in Egypt in Largest Popular Challenge to Mubarak in 30 Years (1/26/2011)
    *

AMY GOODMAN: The massive protests in Egypt have entered their seventh day as tens of thousands pack into Tahrir Square in Cairo. Protesters are vowing to stay in the streets until President Hosni Mubarak resigns. A general strike was called for today, and a "million man march" is being organized for Tuesday.

The Egyptian government continues to crack down on protesters and the media. Earlier today, six Al Jazeera journalists were arrested, their equipment seized. On Sunday, Egyptian authorities closed Al Jazeera’s offices in Egypt and removed the news station from the main TV satellite provider.

The internet has been completely shut off across most of Egypt. One of the only internet service providers still operating is the Noor Group, the company that manages the service for the Egyptian Stock Exchange and banks. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been completely shut down.

Well, Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous is in Egypt, and we’ve developed a workaround to circumvent the Mubarak regime’s internet blackout. His round-the-clock tweets are being read around the world. Last night, CNN International highlighted one of them.

    CNN INTERNATIONAL: Let’s go to a trends map here that we’re looking at to see the trending topics out of Cairo on Twitter. Now, still at the top here is Mubarak. But what’s interesting to note is how ElBaradei has come up in a popularity so much in the last few hours. That’s referring to Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, let’s see what some Twitter users there are saying about him.

    "Baradei seen as non-corrupt, is respected. But he lived away too long, didn’t join earlier protests & this revolt was done w/o his help."

AMY GOODMAN: That was CNN International last night reading one of Sharif’s tweets. Sharif grew up in Mubarak’s Egypt. He was only three years old when the current regime came to power. He comes from a prominent Egyptian family with a long history in the arts, literature, film and politics.

Sharif, you landed in your home city of Cairo just a few days ago, but it was not the same country you grew up in. Describe your feelings and what you have found, but start at the airport.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, I’ve traveled to Egypt countless times from the United States after I moved there for college and then work, and when my plane from JFK touched down in Cairo International Airport on Saturday, the day after the massive protest where the protesters beat back the Interior Ministry, police and state security forces, I did land in a different country than the one I had known my entire life. Egypt has been reborn. This is not the Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt anymore. And no matter what happens next, it will never be again.

This is a unprecedented popular uprising, the likes of which myself and many others never thought they would see under President Mubarak. They are taking to the streets, men and women, rich and poor, all segments of society. They are defying the curfew for the past few days, packing into Tahrir Square. And their mood is celebratory, and it’s victorious. They are sure. They are sure that they will not leave until Mubarak does. And they are chanting in the streets every day.

They talk about what has taken place over the past week with such pride in what they have done. Tomorrow marks a week from the January 25th National Police Day, when the first protest began, and culminated on Friday. Friday was essentially a battle between the Interior Ministry and the people, and the people won. They talk about how they came up on the bridges leading to Tahrir, faced off with hundreds and hundreds of riot police from the Interior Ministry, from the state security forces, and were met with violence. They talk with how they walked with their hands up in the air, showing that they were coming peacefully, chanting, "Salmiya! Salmiya!" which means "Peacefully." And they were beat down. They were tear-gassed over and over again.

And I’m not talking about, you know, hardcore activists and protesters, which have been taking to the streets increasingly over the last few years; I’m talking about people who had been depoliticized over the last few years, people from the middle class, young, the Facebook generation. What one person told me, this is the revolution of the Facebook generation. They came out in droves, old and young, and they took the streets. And what one person told me was, when they would be beat down and tear-gassed, others would come in and rush the police, and then they would fall down, and others would come back after them. And they said, "We gave each other courage."

And as of 5:30 p.m., the police completely disappeared, reportedly on order, from the streets of Cairo. They were in full retreat, and they have disappeared. There is not a traffic policeman in Cairo. There’s not any police anywhere. They have come down to the streets today.

But since then, the military came in. And as many saw the images on the screens of how the military was greeted warmly on the streets of Cairo, you know, crowds were roaring with approval as tanks rolled in. And what’s important to understand is that, you know, over the past decades, three decades, the state, the security forces and the police have been brutalizing, have been torturing the Egyptian people, have been wrongly imprisoning them, have been corrupt. But the army has not done this. The army has not had an interaction with the civilian population since the 1973 war with Israel. And so, people trust the army. I’ve seen unbelievable scenes in Tahrir Square, where tanks have been just covered with people riding on the turret of the tank and all over the tanks, chanting. They pray on the tanks. They chant, "Al-gysh al-sha’ab yd wahda," which means "The army, the people are one hand." And I’ve seen soldiers carried on the shoulders of crowds through the crowds, chanting, holding flowers.

Now, it remains to be seen what will happen going forward. Yesterday in Tahrir, at 4:00, there’s been a 4:00 p.m. curfew yesterday. Today it’s actually 3:00 p.m. I’m talking to you, and the curfew is now in effect. I will be going to Tahrir after this interview. But people are in defiance of any kind of authority until Hosni Mubarak leaves. And yesterday we saw, in Tahrir, military jets, two fighter jets, and a helicopter continually swoop and do flyovers over Tahrir Square right at 4:00 p.m., when the curfew went into effect. And the jets kept getting louder and louder as they came lower. And whether it was an act of intimidation or not is unclear. But the crowds did not care. They waved and whistled and shouted to the planes as they passed overhead.

There really is an unbelievable feeling of community now, of people coming together. I’ve never seen Egypt this way. People are picking up trash in Tahrir Square. People are handing out food. People are helping each other. People are sleeping in the middle of Tahrir Square and setting up tents in the middle of the square. It is a scene that is very emotional. It’s something that no one thought could come together. It’s largely leaderless. I mean, no one—there’s no one organizing group. This is a popular uprising across all segments of society. Opposition groups have come now into the fold. They are—the Muslim Brotherhood is here, and other opposition groups. But people don’t want it coopted. And, you know, one of the things that I witnessed that was very moving was a lot of the Brotherhood started chanting, "Allah Akbar," and then—which means "God is great" in Arabic. And then the counter chant that was much louder, reverberating over them, was to "Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian." And that really symbolizes what’s happening here in Egypt today.

And, you know, Amy, I’ve seen some reports—I’ve had very little access to any kind of outside news. They really have shut down—the internet is completely shut down here. Cell phones do work now, and people are starting to be able to call each other. There is no texting; no SMS texting goes out. And they are very afraid of the internet, because Facebook was how they organized this uprising, to begin with. It was organized on Facebook. And there’s also mass SMS texting that is very common here in Egypt. And so, they’ve kept that shut down to try and cut off the communications from people. But people in Cairo do not care. They are going right now—I can see droves heading to Tahrir. And what’s significant, they go at the time of the curfew. They go when the curfew is there, and that’s when they start heading out.

And there’s been many reports of violence, of looting. And I just want to be very clear about this, that there was a significant amount of looting on Friday after the police completely disappeared from the scene. Certain places in Mohandessin in downtown Cairo were burned. Banks were burned. Some shops were looted. And, you know, there’s been reports of armed gangs coming around and robbing houses. Some of that did happen, yes, but what’s been amazing and what’s also kind of another phase of how this is Egypt coming together in this popular movement is that people have taken to the streets and formed these very efficient neighborhood watch committees. Where I live here in Zamalek, there’s groups of men, young and old, they stand, they form barricades. They are armed with metal pipes, some with bats. Some do have guns. And what they do is they check people coming in. They check their IDs. They’re very courteous. They allow people to go through if they believe you live in the neighborhood. They have really—they’re protecting their own. They’re protecting their homes. They are directing traffic. Well, the traffic cops are back in the streets of Cairo today, but before that, they were directing traffic. I’ve never seen Cairo traffic so smooth. One former diplomat I spoke with said, "It’s amazing. These 15-year-old kids are doing such a much better job than our traffic police."

That’s the story of what’s happening here. And people are so fed up with Mubarak, it’s hard to describe. They curse him. They want him to step down. And they will not leave the streets of Cairo, the streets of Egypt, until he does.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Sharif Abdel Kouddous on the ground in Cairo, who has figured out a workaround and is tweeting tweets, being seen around the world. You can go to our website at democracynow.org, so you can see what Sharif is reporting throughout the day, as well as his blogs each day of what is happening in Cairo.

I wanted to turn now, Sharif, to the Nobel Peace laureate, the former head of the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, who came into Tahrir Square this weekend and spoke. Well, on Sunday, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria questioned ElBaradei about the Muslim Brotherhood.

    FAREED ZAKARIA: One of the visions that haunts Americans is of the Iranian Revolution, where a dictator, pro-American dictator, was replaced by an even worse regime that was even more anti-American and more threatening to the region. People worry about the Muslim Brotherhood. Are you confident that a post-Mubarak Egypt will not give rise to some kind of Islamic fundamentalist force that will undermine the democracy of Egypt?

    MOHAMED ELBARADEI: I am quite confident of that, Fareed. This is a myth that was sold by the Mubarak regime, that it’s either us, the ruthless dictators, or a Muslim al-Qaeda type. You know, the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the Iranian model, has nothing to do with extremism, as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places. The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people. But they have a lot of credibility because all the other liberal parties have been smothered for 30 years.

    They are in favor of a secular state. They are in favor of working on the base of a constitution that have red lines, that every Egyptian have the same rights, same obligation. The state in no way will be a state based on religion. And I have been reaching out to them. We need to include them. They are part of the Egyptian society, as much as the Marxist party here. I think this myth that has been perpetuated and sold by the regime has no—has no iota of reality. As you know, Fareed, I’ve worked with Iranians. I have worked here. There is 100 percent difference between the two societies.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Mohamed ElBaradei speaking on CNN over the weekend. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, can you talk about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, first of all, Amy, it’s not for Fareed Zakaria or anyone else to decide what groups or what people are palatable to the United States to lead Egypt. That is up for Egyptians for themselves to decide. And so, I reject the way he asked that question.

But as far as the Muslim Brotherhood is concerned, Mohamed ElBaradei did have some good points. They are a religious group. They are the largest opposition group here in Egypt, which doesn’t say much because of the clampdown on any kind of opposition and dissent. They have renounced violence decades ago. They fulfilled a lot of the services that the state abandoned. And so, a lot of people have gone to—do support them.

But again, they were not the ones that organized this uprising. They were not the ones that were in the streets. They were not the ones who fill Tahrir right now. Tahrir is being filled, and Cairo and Egypt is being, filled by people of all segments of society. In the future, will the Brotherhood play a part? I’m sure they’ll be a significant force; there is no question of that. And it is true, they are different from the Iranian regime. But again, whether the Muslim Brotherhood or anyone else fits the U.S. model of what democracy should be like—democracy is for people to choose for themselves.

And the Egyptian people want to choose for themselves. That’s all they’re asking. They’re very politically aware. They’re aware of the U.S. support for the Mubarak regime for the last 30 years. I’ve had protesters come up to me—people come up to me holding up tear gas canisters, fired tear gas canisters, showing me the "Made in U.S.A." sign, showing me how, you know, the weapons used against them were made in the U.S. They realize this. And all they ask for—you know, this isn’t a big anti-American rally. You don’t see burning of American flags or anything like that. All they ask for is to be left alone to be able to decide for themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, I’d like to ask you to stay on the phone. We’re going to be joined by two guests in Washington and in New York, but I’d like you to join in at any point, as your observations are key on the ground in Cairo. Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a senior producer here at Democracy Now! He flew into Cairo over the weekend. You can follow his blogs, his tweets at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We’ll be back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! senior producer, is on the ground in Cairo. Sharif, I wanted to continue to discuss how—your feelings as you flew into the country. You come from one of the most prominent families in Egypt, your grandfather one of the most famous writers, Ihsan Abdel Quddous. Your great-grandmother, Rosa al Youssef, a magazine she founded still exists today. And your uncle—you came into Tahrir Square, where you saw him being greeted by many. Describe the scene.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, my uncle is Mohamed Abdel Quddoos. He’s a leading opposition protester. He’s now head of the Freedom Committee at the Press Syndicate, and he has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood himself. And, Amy, he’s been protesting for years. There’s been a growing movement here in Egypt of protests, of people trying to voice their dissent. But they have been harshly clamped down on. And what we typically used to see was people like my uncle and other opposition voices speaking in Tahrir on the steps of the Press Syndicate, but they would be about a dozen and then surrounded by hundreds of police, and it would be quickly shut down. They would be arrested. They would be driven out into the middle of the desert and left there, without their wallet or phone, to find their way back, which is a common tactic by the police—completely shut down. And for years, my uncle was—his standard attire, he would leave the building wearing a suit, holding a megaphone and a flag of Egypt in his hand, and he would go into the streets.

And this was—I saw him yesterday in the square. He was there with his megaphone and flag and his suit all crumpled because he had spent the night in Tahrir. And I sat down next to him, and I said, "How are you feeling now?" And he was overwhelmed with emotion. He said, "This is a dream come true." And he pointed over to where the Press Syndicate is, and he said, "You remember when I used to stand on the steps of that Press Syndicate to protest? I would stand alone. Now look at everyone. They’re all here with me."

And he went on to say how this was not his uprising, it was not his revolt. He said this was done by young people. And he’s the one who called it "the revolution of the Facebook generation." He said there’s been—he said, "Tunis was the catalyst and the spark, but it’s been building for so many years." And he said there’s three similarities between Egypt and Tunis that he saw. He said this was organized through Facebook and was a leaderless movement—that’s one. He said the president will fall; of that, he is sure—that’s two. And three, he says the army supports the people and won’t harm them; of that, he is sure, too.

But it was a very moving scene being with him there. And the people in Tahrir, the people who came out to protest, who recognized him, his years of struggle alone—and as I was talking to him, dozens of people would come shake his hand, kiss him hello, take pictures with him. And they paying tribute to his years of struggle that have helped to bring about this mass uprising in the streets.

And just one last thing, Amy, before you move on. I know—

AMY GOODMAN: Just one point, Sharif, just one point—

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: In the first few days of this uprising, he was one of the first arrested. Is that right?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Oh, yes. On Tuesday, the first day, on January 25th, he was on the steps of the Press Syndicate with other journalists. They were protesting. He was arrested by five plainclothes police officers. There was a picture of him being dragged away that was circulated widely on the internet and on Facebook. He was held for several hours at a police station. When they realized who he was, they let him go. He refused to leave until other students, 20 other students that were arrested with him, were let go. And so, he remained in the prison for about six more hours, until the students were let go, as well. He was also arrested again on Friday and driven out, in that same tactic, out into the desert. But he came back.

And one thing, Amy, I think there’s been this fear of the police force and of the interior state security forces for so long. Regardless of what happens, if they come back in the streets, if they come back into power, I don’t think the Egyptian people will ever fear them in the same way again, because they went to battle against them and they won. And I think they are the ones who will be afraid of the people now.

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, reporting from the ground in Cairo, Egypt.
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Friday, January 28, 2011

Keep up with #Egypt



Here is the link.  No time for for other stuff.

Mubarak is an idiot.

Obama is an idiot.

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, et al.




Last time, we more or less took care of the absurdity of the domestic situation, or at least Rocky Anderson did.

Now let's look at the Mideast.  Tunisian people got rid of their dictator, a far more onerous individual than Saddam Hussein ever was.  He systematically broke every liberation listed in the Code of Personal Status that was law in the country.

Now Egypt is about to go, as are Algeria, maybe Jordan, and perhaps a few others.  All of these represented not only mismanagement and greed on the part of their rulers, but sycophancy towards the United States.  Why not?  We helped them to their status.  Watch what happens on the 28th of January, 2011.

Even more obvious is the perfidy of the Palestinian Authority as discussed below.  What is also shows, and this is not even pointed out in the coverage anywhere, including Al-Jazeera or the BBC, is that Israel has been offered so much that it is patently obvious that it will never negotiate seriously.  The leaks constitute proof that Israel does NOT want any "peace plan" or agreement.  The
Palestinian Authority has given away almost everything, or offered to, and received nothing back.  There is no longer any question why Hamas won the election George Bush forced on the Palestinians.  It also proves that about the only thing that will help resolve anything is a full and complete boycott of Israel.

Finally, a Senator has called for an end to all foreign aid, including to Israel which would be a good step.  One Senator with any integrity on this issue and he is nearly insane -- Rand Paul.   




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Total Capitulation

The 'Palestine Papers’ being published this week by al-Jazeera confirm in every detail what many Palestinians have suspected for a long time: their leaders have been collaborating in the most shameful fashion with Israel and the United States. Their grovelling is described in grim detail. The process, though few accepted it at the time, began with the much-trumpeted Oslo Accords, described by Edward Said in the LRB at the time as a 'Palestinian Versailles’. Even he would have been taken aback by the sheer scale of what the PLO leadership agreed to surrender: virtually everything except their own salaries. Their weaknesses, inadequacies and cravenness are now in the public domain.

 

Now we know that the capitulation was total, but still the Israeli overlords of the PLO refused to sign a deal and their friends in the press blamed the Palestinians for being too difficult. They wanted Palestine to be crushed before they would agree to underwrite a few moth-eaten protectorates that they would supervise indefinitely. They wanted Hamas destroyed. The PLO agreed. The recent assault on Gaza was carried out with the approval of Abbas and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, not to mention Washington and its EU. The PLO sold out in a literal sense. They were bought with money and treated like servants. There is TV footage of Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton at Camp David playfully tugging at Arafat’s headgear to stop him leaving. All three are laughing. Many PLO supporters in Palestine must be weeping as they watch al-Jazeera and take in the scale of the betrayal and the utter cynicism of their leaders. Now we know why the Israel/US/EU nexus was so keen to disregard the outcome of the Palestinian elections and try to destroy Hamas militarily.

 

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

 


From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/total-capitulation-by-tariq-ali

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Leaked Palestinian Files Have Put A Region In Revolutionary Mood

The Palestine Papers are as damning as the Balfour Declaration.

 

The Palestinian "Authority" – one has to put this word in quotation marks – was prepared, and is prepared to give up the "right of return" of perhaps seven million refugees to what is now Israel for a "state" that may be only 10 per cent (at most) of British mandate Palestine.

 

And as these dreadful papers are revealed, the Egyptian people are calling for the downfall of President Mubarak, and the Lebanese are appointing a prime minister who will supply the Hezbollah. Rarely has the Arab world seen anything like this.

 

To start with the Palestine Papers, it is clear that the representatives of the Palestinian people were ready to destroy any hope of the refugees going home.

 

It will be – and is – an outrage for the Palestinians to learn how their representatives have turned their backs on them. There is no way in which, in the light of the Palestine Papers, these people can believe in their own rights.

 

They have seen on film and on paper that they will not go back. But across the Arab world – and this does not mean the Muslim world – there is now an understanding of truth that there has not been before.

 

It is not possible any more, for the people of the Arab world to lie to each other. The lies are finished. The words of their leaders – which are, unfortunately, our own words – have finished. It is we who have led them into this demise. It is we who have told them these lies. And we cannot recreate them any more.

 

In Egypt, we British loved democracy. We encouraged democracy in Egypt – until the Egyptians decided that they wanted an end to the monarchy. Then we put them in prison. Then we wanted more democracy. It was the same old story. Just as we wanted Palestinians to enjoy democracy, providing they voted for the right people, we wanted the Egyptians to love our democratic life. Now, in Lebanon, it appears that Lebanese "democracy" must take its place. And we don't like it.

 

We want the Lebanese, of course, to support the people who we love, the Sunni Muslim supporters of Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination – we rightly believe – was orchestrated by the Syrians. And now we have, on the streets of Beirut, the burning of cars and the violence against government.

 

And so where are we going? Could it be, perhaps, that the Arab world is going to choose its own leaders? Could it be that we are going to see a new Arab world which is not controlled by the West? When Tunisia announced that it was free, Mrs Hillary Clinton was silent. It was the crackpot President of Iran who said that he was happy to see a free country. Why was this?

 

In Egypt, the future of Hosni Mubarak looks ever more distressing. His son, may well be his chosen successor. But there is only one Caliphate in the Muslim world, and that is Syria. Hosni's son is not the man who Egyptians want. He is a lightweight businessman who may – or may not – be able to rescue Egypt from its own corruption.

 

Hosni Mubarak's security commander, a certain Mr Suleiman who is very ill, may not be the man. And all the while, across the Middle East, we are waiting to see the downfall of America's friends. In Egypt, Mr Mubarak must be wondering where he flies to. In Lebanon, America's friends are collapsing. This is the end of the Democrats' world in the Arab Middle East. We do not know what comes next. Perhaps only history can answer this question.


From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/leaked-palestinian-files-have-put-a-region-in-revolutionary-mood-by-robert-fisk

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Thousands Protest in Egypt in Largest Popular Challenge to Mubarak in 30 Years


(1/26/2011) AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Egypt, where tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across Egypt in the largest popular challenge to longtime president Hosni Mubarak since he came into office 30 years ago. Drawing inspiration from the recent uprising in Tunisia, an estimated crowd of 15,000 people packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The demonstrators were forcibly removed from the square at around 1:00 a.m. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, filling the square with a cloud of smoke and chasing protesters into nearby streets. Protests were also held in the port city of Alexandria and the northeastern city of Suez. Three people were killed in the unrest: protesters and a police officer.

 

We go now to Cairo, where we’re joined by independent journalist and blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy. He was at the protest yesterday.

 

Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you describe what has happened in these almost unprecedented protests, Hossam?

 

HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY: Well, it’s an honor to be on your show. And I think I need to make it clear in the beginning that I was not in Tahrir Square yesterday, but I was monitoring the situation and following it with my fellow journalists and activists on the ground.

 

Egypt yesterday witnessed its strongest protests in probably four decades, since 1977, where tens of thousands have taken to the streets in virtually all the cities of our country, chanting against Mubarak, chanting against the U.S., which is backing Mubarak, calling for internal reforms and for democracy. Others were chanting for a revolution and saluting the Tunisian people.

 

The police have responded with iron-fist tactics we’re used to, although they showed some self-restraint in the first few hours, by using rubber bullets and tear gas and mass arrests against the protesters both in Cairo and in other provinces. As I am talking to you now, there are at least 200 political detainees locked up in the notorious state security facility in Nasr City. The government has blocked Twitter and has blocked, just in less than an hour ago, Facebook and has blocked yesterday also Bambuser, which is an online live-streaming video platform on the internet.

 

These protests, more or less, have settled down after midnight. But today, more protests took place around the Press Syndicate and the Lawyers’ Syndicate in downtown Cairo. And we’re receiving reports that the secretary-general of the syndicate, of the Press Syndicate, Galal Aref, has been detained. There are also waves of arrests for activists in the Nile Delta, both in Tanta and in Mahalla. The government, fearing similar unrest to what happened in April 2008 in Mahalla, had actually given the Mahalla workers yesterday a vacation, a holiday. And today they’ve let them leave work pretty early. But the situation is still tense. Those demonstrations were spontaneous, and we expect that they will be resumed anytime soon, because the reasons for which those protests have broken out are still there.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Something went around Twitter very quickly yesterday, Hossam. I wanted to ask if you know if this is true: the son of Mubarak, who was considered a possibility for running, has left with his family to London. Have you heard about this?

 

HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY: We have heard about those rumors, but I can’t really confirm them.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the effects of Tunisia, the uprising there, on what’s happened in Egypt and about what Secretary of State Clinton said, that Egypt is stable.

 

HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY: Revolutions spread by the domino effect. And the Tunisian revolution against Ben Ali proved to be a major source of inspiration to the Egyptian people, in the same way that Egyptian dissent over the past five years has proven also to be a catalyst for other Arab people to step up their fight against their dictators and also in the same fashion that the Palestinian intifada in 2000 steered the Arab street into action. We are living in the age of satellite TV stations and the age of social media. Whenever dissent explodes in one area, the imagery can be transmitted to other areas. And people here in Egypt can draw parallels between Ben Ali and Mubarak. We don’t have only one Ben Ali in the Arab world; we have 22 Ben Alis, and they all need to go. And the chants yesterday that the people were chanting in Cairo and in the provinces were very similar to the chants that our Tunisian brothers and sisters have been chanting over the past few weeks in their uprising. We salute their struggle, and we hope that we can pay them back by overthrowing our dictator.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Hossam el-Hamalawy, I thank you very much for being with us. Of course, we will continue to follow what is happening throughout Egypt right now, not to mention what is happening in Tunisia.


From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/thousands-protest-in-egypt-in-largest-popular-challenge-to-mubarak-in-30-years-by-hossam-el-hamalawy

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

State of the Mind and Other Idiotic Notions






Illustration: A brilliant summary by Keith Tucker at www.whatnowtoons.com -- a site well worth visiting.

You all know that Keith Olbermann has left MSNBC, thereby raising the ratings for CNN.


Too little is going on for the coverage it gets, and too much for the coverage it doesn't.

Relax, I'm not going to rant about the so-called "media".  Why bother?

I am getting tired, however, not of the right-wing nuts we expect to be rabble-rousers, but the so-called "liberal"
press and it's defense of Obama's remarks. 

The entire speech is available in text form at wegoted.com, so you can see what he said without having to listen to
his irritating voice or see the moronic faces of the "important" people.

Most people did miss the secondary response given by the idiot Michelle Bachmann of MN.  The only thing noticable
about it was the fact that she did not want to look at the camera, or did not know where it was.  But then, it is
not the only thing she can't locate.

As Keith departs from MSNBC, he joins Phil Donahue who left over the Iraq war (who was right about that?), Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez, Nadia Nasr, and others who actually tried to report what REALLY was happening.  This
leaves Jon Stewart of Comedy Central the most accurate current events reporter on television, and he is kidding!

Well, with everyone blathering over what a great speech it was, here are a few people who commented on it
and actually saw the reality behind it.  They appeared on Democracy Now which is still free to report accurately
as it is not corporate owned (although there have been attempts on it).

The first is the ex-mayor of Salt Lake City, Rock Anderson and the next Harry Belefonte:
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Park City, Utah, and we’re joined by two guests. Joan Claybrook is a longtime consumer advocate, and she’s former president of Public Citizen. Rocky Anderson is also with us. He’s the former mayor of Salt Lake City and the founder and director of High Road for Human Rights.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Rocky Anderson, your overall response to President Obama’s State of the Union address?

ROCKY ANDERSON: Well, I listened to every word very carefully, and he has a great way of presenting himself, but there was so much missing and so many major disconnects. We’re at a time in our country where we need to define who we are, where we’re headed, what we have become. He didn’t mention human rights at a time when he has assassination lists for the first time in our nation’s history, that include U.S. citizens. No due process—we don’t just have indefinite detention anymore; we just go out, put their name on a list, and kill them. The invocation of state secrets, it’s absolutely obliterated any notion of checks and balances. Our courts have been removed from that equation, by and large, when it comes to torture, when it comes to warrantless wiretapping by our government. No discussion about that, of course. And we’re seeing, really, an institutionalization by this president of some of the worst abuses and what we, a lot of us, thought were just aberrations during the Bush years.

But also, the disconnect between saying that we’re at a "Sputnik moment," we’re going to make all these great investments and build our economy, and then, what’s he building the economy on? He says it’s based on tax cuts. He sounded like Ronald Reagan. It sounded like trickle-down economics. And how do you freeze domestic annual spending and at the same time make these tremendous investments that are needed in our infrastructure and doing what’s required to get people back to work? He didn’t mention the middle class, the huge disparity between the very wealthy—there hasn’t been a greater disparity in this country in wealth and income since the 1920s. The top one percent have more net wealth than the bottom 90 percent in this country. These are the basics; these are the fundamentals. And it was all ignored. And it really seems that these two parties, bought and paid for by the same interests, by and large, are not providing the kinds of solutions or addressing the fundamentals that the American people are most interested in, that impact the American people the most.

And then, of course, I heard the word "purpose" when he was talking about Afghanistan. And I thought, finally we’re going to hear an explication by the President of the United States about why we’re there. And then it wasn’t there at all. He talked—in one sentence, it was basically just an aside about how we’re seeking to control the Taliban to stop al-Qaeda, ignoring, it seems, the fact that al-Qaeda has become the cellular network around the world, driven in large part, probably in greatest part, by the fact that the United States has invaded and occupied these Muslim countries and continues to kill innocent Muslim civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: Joan Claybrook, you’re a leading consumer advocate. You’re the president emerita of Public Citizen. You’re here in Park City at the Sundance Film Festival—actually, we played a clip of a movie yesterday called Hot Coffee, where you talked about legislation that limits people’s ability to access the courts. But first, overall, your response to what President Obama had to say last night?

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Well, first of all, I think that this was his first campaign speech of 2012, and he was attempting to preempt the Republicans from going after some of the things that he’s advocated. And the thing that—but the thing that really bothered me the most was that he’s going to cut domestic spending for programs that are essential for Americans. And I look at his new framework of being a business-friendly administration and say to myself, have they earned this? Have the Wall Street guys who robbed and plundered America, have they earned a seat at the table from this president? Have the guys who harmed homeowners and sent all these poor families into foreclosure, have they earned a seat at the table in a, quote, "business-friendly" administration? Not to me.

I also look at the whole issue of regulation. He has issued an edict that says that every government agency ought cut some regulations. Now, we’re not talking about some obscure thing. We’re talking about the environment, global warming, health, safety, pharmaceutical issues, auto safety, truck safety—all these issues that matter every day to Americans. And what that sends is a message. It sends a message to the civil servants who sweat to try and get these issues dealt with and to protect the American public that their president isn’t going to support them if they get into a controversial issue. And every regulation, almost, is controversial, because somebody doesn’t want it, particularly Big Business. And it sends a message to the business interests that they can go with impunity and oppose these regulatory programs, and they know that the President is probably going to clamp down on the people who are issuing the rules. And these rules matter. They really matter, when you have, for example, a very controversial one pending is hours of service for truck drivers. And it kills 5,000 people a year and injures, you know, almost 100,000 people a year. Just think of the consequences for American families with just that one rule. And then it sends a message to Congress, and particularly Congressman Issa of California, who is the new head of the Oversight Committee, who wants to go after the regulatory program, who went to the business interests and said, "What do you want to kill?" So, I see that the President is not really addressing the issues that matter to American people.

AMY GOODMAN: [Darrell] Issa, believed to be, I think, the wealthiest member of Congress.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Yes, right, right.

AMY GOODMAN: "Step away from the car" is his line. I think it’s in his voice.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Right, right.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s where he got his wealth—

JOAN CLAYBROOK: That’s right. Right.

AMY GOODMAN:—from the—what was the—the system for protecting cars, the car alarm system.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Right, right.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn for a minute to something else President Obama talked about, and it’s about limiting what they call frivolous lawsuits. This is President Obama in his State of the Union address.

    PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This means further reducing healthcare costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. The health insurance law we passed last year will slow these rising costs, which is part of the reason that nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the healthcare law would add a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars to our deficit. Still, I’m willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama talking about "medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits." Your response, Joan Claybrook?

JOAN CLAYBROOK: My response is that I am outraged to hear this. First of all, they’re not frivolous lawsuits in the medical malpractice area, because the lawyers who take these cases don’t get paid unless they win. So they’re not going to take frivolous lawsuits. That’s the first thing. Secondly, medical malpractice kills between 40,000 and 100,000 people a year. Five percent of the doctors cause 55 percent of the medical malpractice in this country. The medical system does not discipline themselves. And so, the only way that you can have any kind of redress against repeat offender doctors is to have the opportunity for people to sue and to make sure that these doctors are eventually disciplined. The harm is horrific.

And what he wants to do is to put a cap on damages, so that the President is deciding the value that these poor people who are injured should get, and the individuals are then limited, under such arbitrary caps, caps on the amount of money they can recover, they’re limited to that amount. And I met a family that was in this Hot Coffee movie that had awarded—the jury awarded them for their baby who was born with brain damage. They were awarded almost $6 million. The cap on damages got them $125 million. So who pays the difference?

AMY GOODMAN: One-point-two-five.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Oh, $1.25 million, sorry. And so, who gets the difference—who pays the difference? It’s the state, the taxpayers. They have to pick up the care. And this family have no capacity to make sure their child is taken care of when they die. And it’s a 24/7 job for the mother to take care of a brain-damaged child. And she gets no compensation whatsoever. And the doctor walks away scot-free.

AMY GOODMAN: And the insurance industry wins?

JOAN CLAYBROOK: And the insurance industry, you know, who should be paying for this, charges high fees to the doctors that don’t pay the benefits.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Dr. Atul Gawande. He is well known, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a doctor in Boston. We asked him about the issue of healthcare overhaul. In the State of the Union address, President Obama defended his healthcare overhaul and invited Republicans to help him move forward with essential fixes to the law.

    PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Now, I have heard rumors that a few of you still have concerns about our new healthcare law. So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses.

    What I’m not willing to do—what I’m not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a preexisting condition. [...]

    As we speak, this law is making prescription drugs cheaper for seniors and giving uninsured students a chance to stay on their patients’—parents’ coverage.

    So I say to this chamber tonight, instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing, and let’s move forward.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama in his State of the Union address. A few weeks ago, I spoke to Dr. Atul Gawande, the surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who’s a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, and I asked him to assess President Obama and his whole approach to healthcare reform and to talk about how President Lyndon Johnson passed Medicare legislation 40 years ago.

    AMY GOODMAN: What was the clincher that secured Medicare, which they do seem to be trying to unravel right now, even now, 40 years later?

    DR. ATUL GAWANDE: Presidential leadership. I told about the president sending inspectors into the South and confronting the hospitals that were—basically a stare-down that occurred. But with the physicians, he was more conciliatory.

    He had this amazing moment where the president of the American Medical Association came to the White House to explain that the AMA was going to vote on potentially boycotting Medicare as a whole. And the president sat down with the leaders, and they came to the Oval Office. And so, he sat down, and almost—they were about to start talking, and he stood up. And when the president stands up, you stand up. And so, they all stood up, and then he sat down. And then they sat. They were about to talk again, and then he stood up again, and he scratched his belly, and they waited, and then he sat down again. And then he did it a third time, and suddenly it was clear who was in control of this meeting.

    And before they could even start talking, he said, "You know what I’m worried about? I’m worried about Vietnam. You know, the citizens there, the civilians, we see terrible healthcare problems there. Do you think the American Medical Association would be willing to help us with a volunteer corps of doctors to help the civilians in Vietnam?" And the president of the AMA said, "Absolutely. We’d be happy to do that." And he said, "Great! Let’s call the press in here, have a press conference right now." Got the press in, explained that the AMA is going to back this voluntary program to send doctors to Vietnam.

    And then, of course the next questions from the press were, "Well, what about this boycott we hear is going to happen?" And the president says, "You mean to tell me that these doctors, who would volunteer to help the poor in Vietnam, wouldn’t help our elderly here at home?" and turned to the president of the AMA and said, "You tell them what you think." And the president of the AMA said, "Well, we will support Medicare." And they entered a period of several months of a negotiation that led to "improving" amendments, but moved them from total opposition to talking about how to get them under the fold so that you could make this thing work.

    Only thing that can move the public to recognize the value and the meaning of what we have with policy—we will have the battle back and forth between pro and con and so on—but the only person who can lead that same kind of experience is going to be the president.

    SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, what did you think of his leadership in the healthcare reform debate?

    DR. ATUL GAWANDE: I was frustrated by it. The leadership with Congress was incredible—getting the votes, getting the detailed understanding of what you need to get everybody together. It was a Lyndon Johnson masterful performance. In fact, the whole year has been an incredible Congress that has been able to pass all kinds of blocked reforms that have been important to make some progress on. But you also have a role—there’s leadership needed to give meaning to the policies for the public and to explain what the value is. And that communication, from one of our great communicators in the campaign—I’m not sure the reasons why; I understand the energy is divided between trying to focus on the congressional job and so—but it allowed the opponents to brand every one of those policies as failures, even though they passed. And that—and it’s not just about branding. It’s about being able to tell the story of where we have been, where we are going, and help people understand the vision of what we—of what we need for the economy, for healthcare, and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. In a minute, we’re going to go to Harry Belafonte assessing what President Obama has accomplished in this two years, but before we go to him I want to get your assessments. Joan Claybrook, you actually worked with Johnson in the administration to pass Medicare.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Right, I was at the Social Security Administration, and it was very tough. And Johnson was unrelenting, and he went after every member of Congress and got their vote that he possibly could. And it gave such enthusiasm to the people who were trying to help design the program. And it’s changed America. You know, America is a different place because of Medicare.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, many in Congress are saying, particularly the Republicans, but Democrats joining them, it’s Social Security and Medicare that are bankrupting us.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: That’s right. But we should have Medicare for all. And if we had Medicare for all, then, you know, this nation would be so much healthier, and the costs would go down, because people would go to the doctor when they needed to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, your overall assessment of President Obama at this point, Rocky Anderson, mayor, former mayor of Salt Lake City, who took on the Bush administration perhaps like no other mayor in the United States?

ROCKY ANDERSON: We need leadership on these issues. It’s just what we’ve been talking about, comparing the Johnson administration on Medicare. Look at what FDR did on Social Security. We have none of that leadership anymore. And I think money, the corrupting influence of money in politics has a great deal to do with that. But look at what this president could do on issues like climate change. He didn’t even mention it last night. The Rasmussen Reports survey just showed that 41 percent of Americans think that President Obama either believes that climate change is just a natural process, or they don’t know his position—41 percent of Americans. Why don’t they know? He didn’t even mention the issue during his State of the Union. And in terms of climate change, the state of the union, state of the world, is very, very poor and dangerous.

AMY GOODMAN: Tea Party is powerful here in Utah.

ROCKY ANDERSON: The Tea Party—because of the Tea Party, Senator Bennett was defeated. And I think Senator Hatch is going to be threatened by the Tea Party here.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, the response, do you think, if President Obama wants to be president again?

ROCKY ANDERSON: I think that what we need is somebody who will stand up. You know, he sounds like a broken record about this bipartisanship. What we really need is a strong leader who believes in setting the course back straight. And it’s not through trickle-down economics. It’s not through these massive tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s not in backing down on climate change. It’s taking a stand and saying we’re going to provide healthcare for everybody in this country, and we’re going to address the problems that are going to impact not only those of us today, but our children and our grandchildren for a very long time. And it’s not being done by this administration or by this congress.

JOAN CLAYBROOK: Look what happened with Bush. A lot of people didn’t agree with George Bush’s policies, but they respected him because he fought like a dog to try and get those things enacted into law. And I think that the American public respects strong leaders, even if they don’t always understand or completely agree with everything they say.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there. Joan Claybrook, president emerita of Public Citizen, and Rocky Anderson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City and founder and director of High Road for Human Rights. That does it for this segment. When we come back, we’ll hear from Harry Belafonte, and then we’ll go to Egypt, unprecedented protests, at least for, well, more than 30 years.
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AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Park City, Utah. For a response to President Obama today, we also have a unique voice to turn to. I’m talking about the legendary singer, actor, humanitarian, activist, Harry Belafonte. A film about his life called Sing Your Song, that was co-produced by his daughter, Gina Belafonte, premiered and opened the Sundance Film Festival this year.

Well, this weekend I had a chance to sit down with Harry Belafonte here in Park City for an extended conversation, which we’ll be playing for you in the coming days. But at the end of the interview, I asked him about President Obama and his upcoming State of the Union address.

    AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at a headline, as we sit in Park City, Utah, today, from the front page of the New York Times, and it’s before President Obama gives his State of the Union address. And the headline is "Obama to Press Centrist Agenda in His Address." What is your assessment of President Obama?

    HARRY BELAFONTE: If I take a shift from how confused and how complicated the politics of this country is, I’d have to first of all say that the fact that the collective power of the voters of this nation, among all of its citizens, should have chosen to elect him as the president of the United States says something about America’s deeper resonance. Where really lies Americans’, America’s passion? What does its citizens really hope for? Having said that, I must then say that I am somewhat dismayed that there has not been a greater revelation of the use of his power to make choices, not only for legislation, but for public discourse and debate, in a greater way than he has availed us of.

    And I’m reminded very quickly of a story, sitting with Eleanor Roosevelt, told us one night up there in Hyde Park after dinner. We loved—we reveled in her stories. And she told me the—told us the story of her husband and his first meeting with great, powerful labor leader named A. Philip Randolph, who was the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a job that was quite menial but very critical to the American railway system. And she loved A. Philip Randolph and his intellect and his evaluations as a union organizer, and in bringing him to the White House for dinner, invited A. Philip Randolph to tell the President his view of the state of the union from the Negro perspective and from the perspective of the black workers. And as a great mind and thinker, very much engaged, A. Philip Randolph held forth, and Roosevelt listened very carefully, and very stimulated by what Philip Randolph had to say. At the end of that moment, A. Philip Randolph was waiting for a response. And Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said to him—of course, paraphrasing, he said, "Mr. Randolph, I’ve heard everything you have to say, the way in which you’ve criticized the fact that I have not used the power of my platform sufficiently in the service of the workers of this nation, and particularly the Negro people, that I didn’t use my bully pulpit more vigorously. And I cannot deny that that may be the case. As a matter of fact, I believe that is the case. And in that context, I’d like to ask you to do me a favor. And that is, if that is so, I’d like to ask you to go out and make me do what you think it is I should do. Go out and make me do it."

    And when you ask me about Barack Obama, it is exactly what happened to Kennedy. We, the American people, made the history of that time come to another place by our passion and our commitment to change. What is saddened—what is sad for this moment is that there is no force, no energy, of popular voice, popular rebellion, popular upheaval, no champion for radical thought at the table of the discourse. And as a consequence, Barack Obama has nothing to listen to, except his detractors and those who help pave the way to his own personal comfort with power—power contained, power misdirected, power not fully engaged. And it is our task to no longer have expectations of him, unless we have forced him to the table and he still resists us. And if he does that, then we know what else we have to do, is to make change completely. But I think he plays the game that he plays because he sees no threat from evidencing concerns for the poor. He sees no threat from evidencing a deeper concern for the needs of black people, as such. He feels no great threat from evidencing a greater policy towards the international community, for expressing thoughts that criticize the American position on things and turns that around. Until we do that, I think we’ll be forever disappointed in what that administration will deliver.

    AMY GOODMAN: And to those who say, "If you want President Obama re-elected, you will undermine him if you criticize him; and consider the alternative"?

    HARRY BELAFONTE: I think we will not only undermine him, but undermine the hopes of this nation, if we don’t criticize him. Absence of protest in the times of this kind of national crisis—Theodore Roosevelt once says, "When tyranny takes over the national agenda, it is that time that the voices of protest must be awakened. And if you don’t raise your voice in protest, you are a patriotic traitor." And I believe that patriotism is betrayed by those voices that are not heard. Those who would detract you from that fact are those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Nothing will happen but good for Barack Obama and the United States of America, and indeed the world, if everybody stepped to the table and said, "This is the course we must be on."

    AMY GOODMAN: Have you let President Obama know your views? You have been with him.

    HARRY BELAFONTE: Every opportunity I’ve had to put that before him, he has heard. I have not had a chance to put it to him as forcefully as I would like to, because he has not yet given us the accessibility to those places where this could be said in a more articulate way and not always on the fly.

    But he once said something to me during his campaign for the presidency, and he says—he said, you know—I said, "I’ve heard you"—he was talking before businessmen on Wall Street here in—there in New York. And he said to me—I said, "Well, you know, I hope you bring the challenge more forcefully to the table." And he said, "Well, when are you and Cornel West going to cut me some slack?" And I got caught with that remark. And I said to him, in rebuttal, I said, "What makes you think we haven’t?" And the truth of the matter is that we were somewhat contained even at the extent to which we criticized him during the campaign, in the hopes that it would energize his capacity to get elected and that, once he was elected, that burden would be off his back and he would use this new platform to do things other than what we have been experiencing. And I think any further retreat from bringing truth to power and forcing him to hear the voice of the people would be a disservice to this country and all that it promises to be.

AMY GOODMAN: Harry Belafonte, singer, actor, humanitarian. A film about his life and about grassroots movements of the 20th century premiered at this Sundance Film Festival. It opened the festival. It’s called Sing Your Song.
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Creative Commons License The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to "democracynow.org". Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.