Weekend Sober Thread: Shit's Gettin' Real in Egypt

...That they're in the business of making money, that money comes with ratings, and that ratings come with giving the people stories they want/"need" to hear about.

Unfortunately (sadly), hearing about how some of America's biggest enemies (i.e. Lybia, North Korea, and to an extent, China) are facing revolutions isn't something most Americans care about. Speaking as someone from the midwest, I can honestly say that no one here that I've talked to in the past week has cared. The idea of Lybia undergoing a revolution (or Egypt, for that matter) is too abstract to them. It doesn't directly affect them except for, say, a jump in oil prices, which we've been conditioned to expect anyway. Why should John from the midwest give a fuck what is going on in Lybia when there is a debate raging in Wisconson (and Indiana, for that matter) about collective bargaining where the (insert the party that is the opposite of how you normally vote) is trying to DESTROY US ALL if we don't stop them now!

At this point, Americans who watch 24-hour news networks* want to know about one of two things:

--How are liberals fucking us and destroying the country?
--How are conservatives fucking us and destroying the country?

That is what the 24-hour news networks are all about, now. Want to know how liberals and the left are destroying American values and trying to force you to get an abortion while killing your grandmother (without guns, because they'll be illegal)? Watch Fox News. Want to know about how conservatives want to go back to the "good old days" of child labor and blatant racist/homophobic/misogynistic tendencies, lynchings, and slavery? Watch MSNBC. Want to watch CNN? So you're the one! Want to know about international news? Get the fuck out of America, commie/nazi/terrorist/insult-of-the-week, we don't give a fuck unless we can use it to make the opposing party look bad!

Objective news reporting died in this country a long time ago, and it isn't ever coming back.

*I feel the need to state that I realize not all Americans soak their brains in this bullshit, but a lot of them do. I do think that the majority of Americans want fair and objective reporting (HA!), but their voices get drowned out by the crazies on both fringes, who just do their best to scream louder and manipulate the facts more so that they convince more people that the other side is their sworn enemy. The news networks just feed into this because they know that a person who is scared of how the other side is trying to destroy them and their beliefs is a person who will tune in and bring in those sweet, sweet ratings and ad revenue. The bigger the fringe crazy contingencies, the bigger their ratings, so their entire network is geared towards creating more radical left/right people who NEED to watch nothing but their news network. Both sides do it, and it is all about the money/ratings.

 

This might be a little off topic, but it's things like this that are the reason why I'm part of a "prepper" movement and always have a backup plan. People always say "oh, it will never happen here". Right jackass, look what's happening all around the world. It can happen just as easily here folks.

At best you look the paranoid fool, at worst you look very dead.

 

Day of Rage: Iraq Edition

<a class="postlink" href="http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/02/20112251357722580.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://english.aljazeera.net//news/midd ... 22580.html</a>

So much for Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc looking to Iraq as a model of democracy.

 

They cant because they don't have their own currency. Greece is a Euro-zone country.

 

A little off topic but interesting:

A couple months back a very successful local business owner pulled his kids out of school to begin homeschooling. Had a bunch of construction on his estate, modifying structures to include panic rooms with all the air and water filtration systems you could imagine. He's claims to have over 1 year of food and water stock piled, enough fuel to run generators and his farm equipment for a season, and simply put enough fire arms and ammunition to worry the ATF. The kicker though is he's stock piling gold like his residence is the new Ft. Knox.

He recently got a BMW and a Suburban with the armored packages, his family can only leave the compound in one of these.

Guy is nuts.

 

The problems being faced in Greece are very much the fault of the man in the street. Global Macro conditions were just the tipping point, a culture of not paying taxes nor wanting to work beyond 55 was always waiting to explode.

 

AJE has a very convenient synopsis of what's going on in various countries (because, damn, even if you are trying to follow all of this, it's hard to keep up).

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/2011/02/2011222121213770475.html

 

Uhm, did you know that all those members of the Libyan army who defected are preparing to go to war on Tripoli?

*edit* Holy fucking shit!!

Ok, maybe I'm just retardedly optimistic, but I really don't see a way in which this isn't good for, well, the entire rest of the world.

 

Actually, they can print their own money (assuming they have the same abilities as Ireland who printed a few billion lately*). Not really sure how each country printing however many Euros they want fits into the ECB's policy's but, at this point, I'm not sure there is a policy.


*http://www.businessinsider.com/ecb-allows-ireland-to-counterfeit-51-billion-euros-2011-1

 

Within two years the Euro will not exist. I have a couple of smallish positions in anticipation of this.

 

Either way, I doubt he'll ever the inside of a U.N. courtroom. Too late for that. The Libyans don't want him dying in a Hague prison cell like Milosevic. Gaddafi had better hope the crowds catch him first, though. That'll be a relatively quick death. If the military gets their hands on him, though, he'll learn just how effective Libyan prison torture can be.

 

I cannot wait to read the book that puts this all together. From the first underground inklings of revolution in Tunisia, if it even really started there, and how it spread out to the region and all the way to the end, what ever end that turns out to be. It will be fascinating reading.

BTW if anyone has any suggestions for any reading about this that I can do now other than the links to news articles and AlJ that would be great.

 

You do not jail dictators. You do not exile them. You execute them. See: Napoleon.

 

Eh?

Elba
St. Helena

EDIT: Unless I'm misinterpreting what you wrote to mean that you don't exile dictators because they might come back and regain power the way Napoleon did the first time around.

 

Yeah, I meant Napoleon as an example of why you execute them.

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.foreignpolicy.com</a> has decent material. You have to register, but it's free and worth it.

 

Yeah, I wonder...

 

It's all just a big joke

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12587455

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MB25Dg01.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MB25Dg01.html</a>

I don't know how much I believe this, but it seems there has been some rioting in North Korea inspired by events in the Middle-East.