Monday, February 14th, 2011
DAVID CARR, - The New York Times
Stephan: This is where we are on the trend away from paper media, and traditional newspaper and magazine news aggregators. This phase is not ultimately sustainable. It is ethically out of balance, and economically problematic. My view of this trend is that the new media are, in the process of their continuing evolution, going to sort themselves out into two general communities: The fact-based and the 'values' based. It is an extension of the Great Schism.
For those who are guided by actual data, media will be sorted out for reliability and insight. Because my personal attitudes, and my reading of the this trend coincided I began SR. It is fact-based, and my editorial observations are always separate. There is no better way to support a trend you believe to be correct than becoming what that trend would have you be. But as with all things human there is a shadow, that is its antipode. This trend's shadow is Willful Ignorance. Ghandi's central teaching was that 'what mattered was the nature of our character.'
I didn't begin SR for money; it was and is my service to the compassionate and life-affirming. Corny it may sound, but there it is. The reason I put the 'contribute' link on SR, was explore the point this article makes. I wanted to see whether readers would support it. So far nowhere near what someone would need to live on doing this. Yet SR's readership just keeps going up. That tells me we are in the middle of an emerging phase. The real challenge in a future clodded with digital information is to tell which information is worth attending, and what it is worth to support it. And on the other side will be the shadow, of which Fox News, and FM Talk Radio are the root stock. It gets down to one's personal, and through that one's social capacity to deal with fear. The Great Schism (see SR archives) is driven by the reaction to fear. One side sees opportunity, the other sees loss.
We are standing at the threshold of a new paradigm, what will prevail will depend on the choice of individuals -- each of us.
Some of the fizz, if not a great big bubble, seems to have returned to media, depending on how you define ‘media.
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
Stephan: The Right wants another Cold War; it's a familiar model, and it gives them a place to put their hate and anger. China is their other option, but radical Islam is so easy, because it's not really much of a threat to the United States, and it is so amorphous that it can be any kind of threat you like.
It is always important to keep a sense of perspective. Here's a data point that will help. On 9/11 approximately 3,000 people were killed by 19 Islamists. From that day to this 270,000 Americans in the United States have been killed by gunfire, mostly by other Americans -- 84 people died today because they were shot with a gun, 84 more will die tomorrow for the same reason. Which do you think is a bigger threat to your life?
While a gay rights controversy drew headlines at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, another – and even more bitter – dispute rippled as views varied widely on how to reconcile the conservative movement with Islam in the United States.
At the 38th annual conservative gathering, there was no shortage of accusations of Islamist sympathies, Muslim Brotherhood infiltration and charges of fear-mongering. Republican presidential hopefuls, including Newt Gingrich and John Thune, also drew applause with suggestions that the Obama administration has taken a politically correct blind eye to the connection between radical Islam and terrorism.
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Freshman Rep. Allen West also drew thunderous applause in his keynote speech about the threat to America posed by Islam and other security threats. And as Republican candidates define their national security stands in the 2012 elections, conservative discomfort with Islam in America will be a feature of the debate.
‘We are also faced at home and abroad with a mortal threat in political Islam,
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Sunday, February 13th, 2011
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, Op-ed Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan:
CAIRO — In the end, President Obama made a hugely important but unintended contribution to the democracy revolution in Egypt. Because the Obama team never found the voice to fully endorse the Tahrir Square revolution until it was over, the people in that square now know one very powerful thing: They did this all by themselves. That is so important. One of the most powerful chants I heard in the square on Friday night was: ‘The people made the regime step down.
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Sunday, February 13th, 2011
DONALD MACINTYRE, ALASTAIR BEACH, DAVID USBORNE, KUNAL DUTTA and DAVID RANDALL, - The Independent (U.K.)
Stephan:
After the momentous events that climaxed in the deposing of Egypt’s oppressive dictator, our experts look at where the country goes from here
Why did the protesters prevail?
Many of the younger protesters in what has been become known as the 25 January revolution told stories of being stopped in the street by older Egyptians and told how proud they should feel. Clearly those with longer memories were impressed at the speed of Mubarak’s fall from grace. One of the things which facilitated it was the internet. As one administrator of the Facebook page which first called for the protests said: ‘Before our webpage went up people were interested only in football. But afterwards everything changed.’ Then there was simply the steely grit of the protesters, which the army initially acknowledged, and then supported. Anyone who witnessed the 28 January clashes with police will know that, without the bravery of the first wave of activists, the anti-government movement would never have reached Tahrir Square in the first place. Ultimately, Egyptians felt they had had enough. One of the economic aspects of Mubarak’s legacy most mentioned on the streets since 25 January was the yawning gap between rich and poor. Striking busmen in […]
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Sunday, February 13th, 2011
FLORIAN GATHMANN, ULRIKE PUTZ and SEVERIN WEILAND, - Der Spiegel (Germany)
Stephan: Over and over we make the same mistake. Just think through all the despots we have backed whose narrative arc is some variant of this.
In the end, the refusal of pro-democracy protesters to back down sealed his fate. The people on the streets of Egypt insisted that Mubarak leave. But the West stood by the leader almost to the end, despite the fact that the despot had turned his country into a police state and plundered its economy.
It was exactly 6:00 p.m. local time in Cairo when the decision was made public. In a curt statement, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that President Hosni Mubarak, due to the ‘difficult situation’ in the country, was leaving office. Power, Suleiman said, would initially be transferred to the Egyptian army.
The resignation is a triumph for the opposition. Weeks of growing demonstrations continually increased pressure on Mubarak. Three times, the president addressed his people. Three times he said he would not step down.
The 82-year-old Mubarak ruled his country for three full decades, but in the end, even he realized that he could not stand up to the mass protests that have rocked Egypt for the last 18 days. The demonstrators simply refused to give up. And even those who had long stood by Mubarak’s side — United States President Barack Obama; leaders from across Europe — began […]
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