By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
Russia has recently had a number of protests against President Vladimir Putin. The protests constitute a challenge of urban Russians against Putin’s rule.
If you’ve ever seen pictures of these protests, one interesting thing stands out. This is the fact that the protestors don’t wave Russia’s national flag. Instead, they always wave different flags:
What are these flags? What do they represent? I’ve done a bit of digging to get at these answers.
More below.
And what are we looking at?
This, happening right now at the state capitol in Austin:
It is a People’s Filibuster and it is gaining momentum.
Liveblog from Texas Tribune
The clock is ticking for the legislation. To reach Gov. Rick Perry’s desk for final approval, the measure must be approved in the House and Senate before the special session comes to a close Tuesday. Opponents of the legislation hope to delay the proceedings long enough to stymie its passage.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” -Warren Buffett to The New York Times, November 26, 2006
The Left constantly accuses the Right of favoring the economic elite at the expense of the rest of the country. It continually flummoxes those of us on the left why anyone who is not rich would support the Right’s attack on the middle and working classes. Yet they continue to do so in large enough numbers to keep the Greedy Ol’ Plutocrats (GOP) viable as a political force. It boggles the mind.
It’s not like the GOP makes a secret of its goals. When the “Masters of the Universe” otherwise known as the financial sector crashed the world economy the Right managed to convince their supporters that it was all the fault of minorities and the poor. While this analysis of the GOP report on the financial crisis doesn’t call out those evil black people in clear language it isn’t difficult to understand who they mean by “high-risk borrowers” who took out “weak mortgages.”
“While the housing bubble, the financial crisis, and the recession are surely interrelated events, we do not believe that the housing bubble was a sufficient condition for the financial crisis,” the document states. “The unprecedented number of subprime and other weak mortgages in this bubble set it and its effect apart from others in the past.” […]Citing several government agencies, the document argues that “the government subsidized and, in some cases, mandated the extension of credit to high-risk borrowers, propagating risks for financial firms, the mortgage market, taxpayers, and ultimately the financial system.”
Human Rights Watch reports that security forces in Libya killed 24 protesters Thursday during anti-government demonstrations. Inspired by demonstrations and uprisings in other nations, opponents of Muammar al-Gaddafi, Libyan leader since 1969, called for demonstrators to continue the protests and named Thursday a “Day of Rage.”
Deadly protests continue to rock Libya. According to Human Rights Watch, Libyan security forces have killed 24 protesters at anti-government demonstrations during the past few days, and many others have been wounded in the spreading unrest in the North African country.
The organization said in a statement that hundreds of peaceful demonstrators had taken to the streets of the Libyan cities of Baida, Benghazi, Zenten, Derna, and Ajdabiya on Thursday, the the day opposition activists had called for an anti-government “Day of Rage” on social networking sites. The human rights group, quoting several witnesses, said Libyan security forces shot and killed protesters to disperse the crowds.
Last night in Cairo hundreds of thousands of people of all walks of life stood in Tahrir Square waiting for their ‘President’ of thirty years to announce his resignation.
Instead, the crowd was presented with the face of a crooked old man lost inside the stained-glass windows of the billionaire palace lifestyle his people have paid for.
It is past dawn in Egypt today, and the forces aligned against each other will play out one way or another.
Consider this an Open Thread
In Cairo and across Egypt things are settling into a Next Phase it would seem. Enough time has passed that people on all sides – including musicians – have been able to think and produce and prepare for…?
What’s your take, Mooses? Is it The Calm, and if so, what is it Before?
Update Al Jazeera Liveblog is a great source for tracking the general trend.
Good summary in this video coverage:
Consider this an Open Thread.
Today President Obama gave his thoughts on the incredibly complex and potentially wonderful events occurring in Egypt. World leaders have struggled to find their voices in this instance as they tried to come to grips with the potential unraveling of the most dangerous region of the world.
There was much anticipation as the world waited to here The Position of the world’s most powerful country. Doubters on both flanks had already carved a virtually hopeless maze of tiger traps and pitfalls. What could the President say that would speak to the intricate needs of the situation?
In four minutes and fifty three seconds he told us.