more news fragments about Egypt

10:08 AM 2/13/11

This is an example of distorted news.


I googled the words: timeline of events in egypt (without quotes). I wanted to find out how it began, since, as I said, I haven't read articles or watched TV.

Compare these two pages:

"Timeline: 17 days of protests against Hosni Mubarak"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/us-egypt-protests-events-idUSTRE7197R920110210

"Timeline of Egypt’s revolution: week 1"
http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=26690

I looked at the Reuters one first, then I looked at the bikyamasr one, whatever that is. The Reuters one said that it started with some guy setting fire to himself in December when somebody confiscated his vegetable cart in the marketplace. Red flags went up immediately. Some self-destroying person reacted violently and suicidally when the government did something that they normally, ordinarily do every day (seizing other people's property), which we all usually passively submit to and endure. I'm now asking, 'Which psychiatric drugs was he on that caused him to react in a suicidal way? Prozac? Zoloft? Something else?'

So that was the impression I got from reading the first couple sentences on Reuters.

Then I looked at the second one. It didn't even mention anything about somebody setting fire to himself. Since I haven't been reading any news at all or watching TV, I wouldn't have known about the guy setting fire to himself. If I had only read the second article first, I would have seen that people randomly, spontaneously, for no reason, JUST DECIDED on January 25th, 'Hey, I've got an idea! Let's flood the streets with rioters!' and all his buddies said, 'Yeah! Great idea!' and they all rushed out the doors of their houses all at once.

First, about the guy setting fire to himself: This is just another type of 'suicide bombing' incident, just like any other incident of somebody killing themselves in a public place. There are hundreds and hundreds of these incidents going on in many countries in the Middle East, but they don't spark a revolution every single time somebody kills themself (pardon my 'themself' - I hate how the English language doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun for either sex). This is just the same as other incidents where a car bomb goes off and kills a bunch of innocent bystanders, or a suicidal person with a bomb under their hijab runs into a crowd and kills themselves and a bunch of people. All those incidents DO NOT CAUSE REVOLUTIONS.

So what caused this?

Twitter? Ha ha.

They vaguely suggest that it has something to do with people suffering economically - money problems, unemployment, that kind of thing.

What causes that?

The banking system in the United States and other powerful countries. It causes economic hardship all over the entire world. The local governments can do things to make this worse, or better, but the root source of it is the banking system. That's why it happens all at once all over the whole world at the same time.

What does that have to do with the government of Egypt?

I am going to read more...

"Mubarak orders troops and tanks into cities overnight to quell demonstrations. Thousands cheer at the news of the intervention of the army, which is seen as neutral, unlike the police who are regularly deployed to stifle dissent."

You mean... the military taking over the entire country is a GOOD THING??? But it comes from the same government! There is no such thing as a 'neutral government military!' WTF!!!

"February 2 - The army calls for protesters to leave the streets and curfew hours are eased.

-- Troops make no attempt to intervene as violence breaks out between pro- and anti-Mubarak groups in Tahrir Square.

-- The government rejects U.S. and European calls for political transition to start immediately."

Yeah, of course. The USA has to express its 'opinions' (also known as threats) about what they think the Egyptian government should do. Why do they have an opinion 'all of the sudden?' Just a few months ago, the USA hadn't been complaining about Egypt. It was like Egypt didn't even exist a few months ago, but the 'evil government of Egypt' was just as 'evil' back then, wasn't it? We should have been publicly complaining about Egypt all these months and years, shouldn't we have been? But 'all of a sudden' the USA 'happens to have an opinion' to add about the 'spontaneous' rebellion going on!!! What a coincidence!

Troops don't intervene when pro- and anti-Mubarak fights break out? I guess that's what they mean when they say the military is 'neutral.' What exactly are the military expected to do, anyway? Why would people be cheering and happy because the military took over? Are they happy because the military will stand there and let them fight amongst themselves without doing anything about it? That's how it sounds.

Okay, so I read this and I understand that Hosni Mubarak has been in power for 30 years.

It's easily visible when a particular person is 'in power' for a long time. It's not as easily visible as a 'dictatorship' whenever lots of different individuals become 'president' of a government where the evil institution, the evil bureaucracy, continues no matter which particular person is in power (like in the USA). If you get that one particular 30-year dictator out of office, that's a visible, obvious, noticeable change, and everyone gets excited about it. But what about all the bureaucracy which will still be there? They are talking about rewriting Egypt's Constitution. I KNOW that the USA will be standing there looking over their shoulder 'expressing its opinions' about what to write. And it will invade if it disapproves. This is JUST ANOTHER EXCUSE TO SEND TROOPS OUT THERE. We have another USA war brewing. Just wait. The 'freedom and democracy' that is supposedly being created in Egypt means: The USA is coming to take over now. If it doesn't, I'll be pleasantly surprised.