well I have to say that I never expected Obama to say that the entrepreneurial spirit of the young protesters would bring business opportunities to Egypt. I cannot tell if he is just hoping this or he really thinks that these folks confuse democracy with capitalism. Good luck with Gaza, fella.
I'm pretty sure Barack Obama - and everyone he's ever spent more than thirty seconds talking to for the past ten years - confuses democracy and capitalism.
All that aside, this is the most amazingly inspirational thing I've seen in fucking ever. All my life I've lived in a political culture in which public protest is seen as an anachronism at best, in which political change is limited to choosing between different flavors of neoliberal corporate fuck-you every two-to-four years, in which I've always assumed that the ruling class is going to fuck the working class until the end of fucking civilization, and here in under three weeks a bunch of ordinary people in a bona fide police state can take to the streets and topple a dictator.
I don't know where this is going - for all I know the fix is in and the US and Israel have already bought off a new replacement strongman and all these people are going to be fucked tomorrow - but right this second I feel awestruck, and just wish to god Americans had a fraction of the courage these people have shown.
Jack, I've wondered for years how to spell kee-rice't, haha. Everything I could think of ends up being pronounced more like key wrist.
Christopher, your first comment: Excellent point. What an insular life you must lead when you're in power. Too bad the membrane is porous only one way: they don't let our influence in to them, but they sure as hell let their influence out to us. Fuck 'em.
Your second comment: If I had the words, I would have written something much like that. Thank you.
the most amazingly inspirational thing I've seen in fucking ever
During the friends-over-for-dinner that I mentioned the other day, I said something like this (I think it was more "I can't remember the last time I was this excited") and the Baronette reminded me of my reaction to Aaron Bady's analysis of Wikileaks, which was a level of excitement verging on euphoria, much like my reaction now to Egypt. Obviously they're two very different things (though, as Jack pointed out the other day, not entirely separable), and my judgment here is the very definition of subjective, but I wonder if it means something that the frequency of serotonin-pumping events seems to be increasing.
Oh, and specifically on the capitalism = democracy falsehood, yeeeeeeesh to that, for the trillionth time. On a related note, everyone saw JRB's post the other day, right?
Could it be that these "serotonin pumping experiences" are increasing because the world order is collapsing in on itself in more than one location, especially along the peripheries global capital's central zones?
One hopes. I look at my kids, and I allow myself to hope...
Ethan's working through his music collection in alphabetical order
The next five artists he'll be listening to:
The Clash The Clientele Jimmy Cliff Patsy Cline Clinic
(Project began May 29, 2010. Finished through the letter B on April 1, 2011 with 460 items catalogued on Rate Your Music.)
Ethan's reading
Samuel R. Delany Triton aka Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
Thoughts that aren't getting whole posts
- I just caught my cat licking one of my dirty shirts. When he saw I was watching, he pretended he'd been cleaning himself all along. -ethan 9/23/11
- I didn't know The Pixies covered "I've Been Waiting for You"! So on Heathen, David Bowie covered The Pixies AND a song they covered? Weird. -ethan 9/21/11
- Dangerous Visions is so goddamn macho. And like half the writers are military or "intelligence" or government or advertising dudes. It largely bites. -ethan 9/10/11
- I wish people would figure out that "HD" is not even close to "like you're actually there"--it's completely different from how we really see things. If they figured that out, maybe it would occasionally be used interestingly. -ethan 9/9/11
- Robinson Crusoe on Mars has its major problems, but it looks like a series of living Nicholas Roerich paintings. -ethan 9/3/11
- I just plain don't like Brian Aldiss. -ethan 8/31/11
- Here, at least, it was a good hurricane. I'm embarrassed by how happy I was when the electricity came back on. -ethan 8/28/11
- Is it my imagination or is IOZ way more open about genuinely caring about things since his return? -ethan 8/26/11
- Does Firefox constantly tell British people that they're spelling labour and programme and theatre wrong? -ethan 8/25/11
- There is a huge (and hugely important) difference between knowing that events a, b, and c happened between years x and y, and understanding that they were happening at the same time. -ethan 8/24/11
- Among the many things bugging me about the crappy novel I'm reading is that it keeps referring to a woman whose "late teens" were "forty years ago" as a "little old lady." Come on now, she's 59 at the oldest. -ethan 8/22/11
- Spending a day in the woods is the best thing in the world. -ethan 8/21/11
- Maria Mies: "Powerless groups, particularly if they are totally integrated within a system of power and exploitation, find it difficult to define reality differently from the powerful." -ethan 8/20/11
- The funniest sentence in Frankenstein: "I found that I could not compose a female without again devoting several months to profound study and laborious disquisition." -ethan 8/18/11
- Chumbawamba: "Nothing ever burned down by itself/Every fire needs a little bit of help." -ethan 8/18/11
- We'll see if I use this. Idea stolen from Davidly. -ethan 8/18/11
14 comments:
well I have to say that I never expected Obama to say that the entrepreneurial spirit of the young protesters would bring business opportunities to Egypt. I cannot tell if he is just hoping this or he really thinks that these folks confuse democracy with capitalism. Good luck with Gaza, fella.
drip
drip,
Did Barack effing Obama really say that?
That's what I heard, but I can't find a text yet.
drip
I'm pretty sure Barack Obama - and everyone he's ever spent more than thirty seconds talking to for the past ten years - confuses democracy and capitalism.
JC:
http://ochairball.blogspot.com/2011/02/obamas-statement-on-egypt-feb-11-2011.html
at about 2:20
(apologies to ethan)
drip
All that aside, this is the most amazingly inspirational thing I've seen in fucking ever. All my life I've lived in a political culture in which public protest is seen as an anachronism at best, in which political change is limited to choosing between different flavors of neoliberal corporate fuck-you every two-to-four years, in which I've always assumed that the ruling class is going to fuck the working class until the end of fucking civilization, and here in under three weeks a bunch of ordinary people in a bona fide police state can take to the streets and topple a dictator.
I don't know where this is going - for all I know the fix is in and the US and Israel have already bought off a new replacement strongman and all these people are going to be fucked tomorrow - but right this second I feel awestruck, and just wish to god Americans had a fraction of the courage these people have shown.
Kee-rice't, drip. Thanks.
drip, why apologies?
Jack, I've wondered for years how to spell kee-rice't, haha. Everything I could think of ends up being pronounced more like key wrist.
Christopher, your first comment: Excellent point. What an insular life you must lead when you're in power. Too bad the membrane is porous only one way: they don't let our influence in to them, but they sure as hell let their influence out to us. Fuck 'em.
Your second comment: If I had the words, I would have written something much like that. Thank you.
the most amazingly inspirational thing I've seen in fucking ever
During the friends-over-for-dinner that I mentioned the other day, I said something like this (I think it was more "I can't remember the last time I was this excited") and the Baronette reminded me of my reaction to Aaron Bady's analysis of Wikileaks, which was a level of excitement verging on euphoria, much like my reaction now to Egypt. Obviously they're two very different things (though, as Jack pointed out the other day, not entirely separable), and my judgment here is the very definition of subjective, but I wonder if it means something that the frequency of serotonin-pumping events seems to be increasing.
Oh, and specifically on the capitalism = democracy falsehood, yeeeeeeesh to that, for the trillionth time. On a related note, everyone saw JRB's post the other day, right?
Ethan,
Could it be that these "serotonin pumping experiences" are increasing because the world order is collapsing in on itself in more than one location, especially along the peripheries global capital's central zones?
One hopes. I look at my kids, and I allow myself to hope...
apologies for using your comments section like a message board.
Thanks for keeping me interested in what became this real day of joy.
drip
Jack, hope hope hope. I hope.
drip, no apologies needed! Conversations.
At CPAC they're selling t-shirts with Capitalism = Freedom printed on the front.
Oh, and the Egyptians aren't revolutionaries. They're dissent entrepreneurs!
You can't make this shit up, indeed.
I read the essay at that link and...I don't know, maybe it's the illness, but I don't understand it.
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