1001 words or tiny url

It was my mother who first turned me towards Twitter for breaking news and developments during the media blackouts in Egypt during this crisis of state.

Not really having tried it before--though I do not really foresee myself doing the Twitter--I dismissed it too soon as short attention-span theatre, an obnoxious venue for spouting off unfinished ideas, but I see the message and the medium really can be something outstanding.  Reading the stream of quick updates limned a full picture and one felt immersed in the experience, the scene, like a bat in the night twirling through a field of impressions made up of sonar.

Echo-location certainly seems to leave up more to the imagination than available, substantiated footage and facts.  In a contradictory move, journalists are rounded up but the floodgates of the internet are  gradually restored, but I find that I am rather endeared to having my news as unfiltered, telegraphic dispatches.  Succinct and unvetted, spinning in an array of blurbs become whole galleries together.  These avatars are from the brilliant and prolific Ape Lad, who always has something new to offer.

cornflower revolution or oh mary, don’t you weep, pharaoh’s army got drown’ded

The establishment is attempting to simonize some fatalistic pronouncements, wresting the revolt from the people and recasting it as a choice, between stability and chaos, which is really no kind of choice. The co-opting of the movement came lightly on a couple of haughty and angry promises and continued, first with the US equivocation and staunch neutrality that transformed into a well-place claim for support and influence, though infinitely deniable and far-removed depending on what proves the most expedient, and then to long-discredited leadership belittling and perverting the very nature and message of the protest—saying it itself had been co-opted by radical elements that were denaturing the people’s grievances.

Seamlessly, these players were introduced and quickly and violently degraded the situation and endangered everyone as clashes escalated and reporting was shut out. The theater and methodology of control was diabolical. Regardless of what factors are being transposed on to this struggle, however, it will not fail. The message has gotten out and this is not abortive, whatever help or hindrance may come. Hopefully, others in the world will find their apathy and tolerance quenched, recognizing without idleness, their own mounting injustices: governments and welfare pawned off to corporate interests, robber barons and carpetbaggers, who are only kept at arm’s length by ransoming one’s livelihood and dignity and liberties to a system that is forever demanding more and more.  Though the usual cover for such activities is Saint Swithin appearing in a burrito or some football game, it is no coincidence that the tempo of legislation has picked up during this crisis.  Surely this is the single most important news story going on now, and all focus is on Egypt, but there are forces who would use this to their peripheral advantage, like the motion to rescind the health care reform that would have brought the greater part of the US on par with the greater part of the world.  That is being presented with a choice that is no choice.

baud

At the risk of ignoring all the other suffering endured, Egypt's censorship and blockading of internet services and trying to hide and hinder the people's voice is a rather grinchly thing to do.  After a long succession of insults, this one may seem slight, but the history written by the victors may be vanquished, ignored and forgotten in a day when all else is documented, finger- and foot-printed, live and as it happens.  But they came--they came all the same, without bizzle-binks and floondazzlers.  The major internet players have teamed up to bridge the government imposed digital divide and cobble together a network accessible without the internet, helping to focus the movement's leadership and continue to report from Cairo to the outside world.

simoom, samoom

The popular uprising in the Egypt has many hopeful and many pensively watching. Either through revolt, control slouching away in great chunks like with the military forces, or peaceable retirement--however, concessions, negotiations, revisions are not none too convincing, emanating from the same tenacity that has kept the country under a never-changing aegis of emergency powers called regional stability, called peace.

Elite security forces are policing in the original sense of the word, busting up idleness and giving general vagrancy no quarter, and though it may deflect the feeling of chaos, state police seemingly, however ranks splinter, are only interested in preserving the arena, the conditions that have provided them with prosperity and power. The military forces, however, have pledged to safeguard the public welfare, and because of Egyptian's compulsory service requirements, the army is the public and its welfare, all ranking as someone's son, brother or father and some exclusive force of mercenaries working for graft and bribe and job-security. There is an overwhelmingly influential and democratic apparatus in this, unlike deputized goons that by turns seize and are ceded too much authority.  This support, tacit but growing, is significant, and ought to awaken intolerances and apathy for divisiveness and injustice.