Friday, February 11, 2011

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

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

Jack Crow said...

drip,

Did Barack effing Obama really say that?

Anonymous said...

That's what I heard, but I can't find a text yet.

drip

Christopher M. said...

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.

Anonymous said...

JC:

http://ochairball.blogspot.com/2011/02/obamas-statement-on-egypt-feb-11-2011.html

at about 2:20

(apologies to ethan)

drip

Christopher M. said...

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 Crow said...

Kee-rice't, drip. Thanks.

Ethan said...

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.

Ethan said...

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?

Jack Crow said...

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...

Anonymous said...

apologies for using your comments section like a message board.

Thanks for keeping me interested in what became this real day of joy.

drip

Ethan said...

Jack, hope hope hope. I hope.

drip, no apologies needed! Conversations.

dah_sab said...

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.

Ethan said...

I read the essay at that link and...I don't know, maybe it's the illness, but I don't understand it.