Good news from Carthage

[BeidAmmikon]

One - down.
...
Counting.

[Sorkvild]

I wonder why there is such low media coverage of the ongoing situation in Tunesia. Cnn,Bbc,Euronews,RT. Just skip it.
Only Al-Jazeera [both web and tv] provides a good coverage on what;s going in Tunisia.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/tunisia/

I've been to Tunesia couple of years ago and did few travels along the country on my own. Since then I've become interested in this country and it's rich culture.

[BeidAmmikon]

Because the "we the people" have not disappeared from the face of the Earth, and the young having nothing to lose, have the guts to put their intelligence and courage to good use raising voice and hand against tyranny over their parents and themselves, and "this time" there's no need for an ideology-bearer (Marx, Lenin, Hitler) to lead the masses, who are simply sick and tired of it all. Eternal gratefulness goes to the corrupt, and the mafia, and the tyrants that rule over millions, who have made possible by their behavior events like this. A good example, to be eagerly followed everywhere there's a need! Heartfelt thanks, stoopid oppressors!
God willing, fear will be left aside and "leaders" will be swept aside here, there, and everywhere, without external intervention that would start all sorts of "colored revolutions". And why talk openly, in the mainstream media, about the fall of the corrupt "friends"? If it wasn't planned to go this way, then nobody will make a ruckus about it until it's too late to keep it under the rug. Also, why give ideas and encourage discontent in sad, poor and resentful people, since corruption has no race, nor color, nor is it confined to a single country?
The days of corrupt leaderships that are acting against their own people are so utterly numbered.
Counting.

[Elucca]

Plenty of TV news coverage about it over here in Finland. It's also on the BBC news website as the most prominent front page news piece.

[BeidAmmikon]

When people get out in the streets demanding basic sustenance and a stop to corruption, like in Tunisia and here, the corrupt leaderships, the mafia and any puppets with a hold over people's lives have a huuuuge problem on their hands.
In logical progression, systems and paradigms will come down one after the other just like when Jericho fell, after the people have shouted their hearts out at it.

[imperium3]

Good to see people standing up for their rights, for once. If the Jordanian one gains even a modicum of success then we could be seeing a chain reaction across the world, as other nations realise the truth: that despite their strength, dictatorships really only rule through fear alone and if you take away that fear, they are powerless.

Sadly I doubt it will lead to long-term improvement - even if such protests succeed in destroying their dictatorships, history tells us that few revolutions actually produce any form of improvement. The American one may be the only exception I can think of, but even that didn't really last (as in, mainly due to Lincoln it's ended up as a vast centralised plutocracy like most other countries, rather than the conglomeration of free states that the founders intended it to be).

[BeidAmmikon]

Strike Two.
Now we know better, about why there isn't peace in that God forsaken land. The "whole world" has been foolishly expecting peace and understanding to come at last between those people, with each of their meetings.
Oh, how certain upsetting things have started to come up here, there and everywhere... Truth-lovers should rejoice seeing this kind of filth coming up, even if it would bring bloody anarchy for a time. "Let there be justice, though the world perish", heh?
Counting.

[Lyth]

history tells us that few revolutions actually produce any form of improvement.

Incorrect, I can think of 20 off the top of my head.
Most successful in the last few decades was Portugal.

On Tunisia, it's still too early to tell how it will go. The lack of military and civil forces support the protests recieved leave it too unstable for serious long-term comment. I wish them all the best.

On the Palestinian/Israeli negotiation documents, I just hope this wasn't a Hamas ploy to generate more military action as they are the only ones who seem to profit from it.

[Aye Capn]

... Lincoln ...

No way. It was FDR. His court-packing scheme gave him the power to ram the Commerce Clause into everyone's business on everything from growing one's own food to regulating the practice of medicine.

America is still suffering from the damage done to the Supreme Court's independence by the Judiciary Reorganization Bill.

If freedom dies in America it will have been Wickard v. Filburn that killed it. That decision would never have happened without FDR's Judiciary Reorganization Bill.

[imperium3]

Incorrect, I can think of 20 off the top of my head.
Most successful in the last few decades was Portugal.

Yeah, fair point, and even the French Revolution did get people to a (generally) better life even if they had to go through a huge amount of bloodshed and carnage to get it. Perhaps I was being excessively cynical at that point.

No way. It was FDR

I confess my American history knowledge to be hazy, and being American yourself I expect you can probably correct me on quite a few things. But it was my impression that Lincoln was the one who really established the power of federal government over the states, which was then gradually extended and misused by his successors.

As regards the main topic, I hear the army has declared its support for the revolution, though I'm not sure if that's genuine or just playing politics.

Edit: Good grief, Aye Capn, I had a look at that court case and that is horribly wrong-headed. Should never have gone through.

[travisdh1]

Edit: Good grief, Aye Capn, I had a look at that court case and that is horribly wrong-headed. Should never have gone through.

Sadly just one of many cases that have almost completely eroded the rights of states, localities, and people.

[BeidAmmikon]

Strike three.

So, on the background of decades-long rule of king-like leaders, now the economic woes have struck these countries. I don't doubt the people (read: the young, 30 and less) are sick of old men that would tell them which Internet sites they are allowed to visit (to make it simple), but now the rulers are in the position to stand up both to the pretenses of the generation that is the future of their countries, and the rising prices of food and fuel that affect the quasi-entirety of their population.
Even if one can live without the Internet, one cannot live without food and cannot move around without fuel, and I think the latter problem will spark similar riots in other places. Internet may be global, but poverty was too, long before.

I have knowledge of two situations that have been going on in Europe for about several years. There are large swaths of uncultivated land there, but the soil is nonetheless healthy and fit for holding certain crops. They just don't plant anything there, thanks to the politics of the EU. Result: lack of food. Part two - since the price of wheat has almost doubled in the past year, partly caused by the fires in Russia last summer, some clever businessmen in wheat-producing countries have sold the local yield abroad and made a good profit from it, and now those countries are in position to buy wheat from - guessed it - external partners, with the same businessmen making a profit out of this, too.
That's the situation, as I know it, with the "food" prices in Europe, and I admit I don't know too much. Now, I can only imagine what... movements are going on in the "business" world, in countries where you barely have enough land to plant crops that would sustain your own population.
Bottom line is - lack of food will certainly cause people to do something bad. Any ruler should know better, but money has made many of them totally blind.

As an anecdote - yesterday, a 70-yard wide "crop circle" has been found in Indonesia, in a rice field, and the peasants there request money, as a tax, from those who want to see it. Not a week has passed since their government told the citizens to try and grow their own food, because, of course, the prices have soared. I wonder if those peasants would destroy their crops, in exchange for money from tourists? Perhaps that particular rice field was already fouled by something, so they decided to make a profit out of it anyway, who knows...

[amtct]

Even if one can live without the Internet, one cannot live without food and cannot move around without fuel, and I think the latter problem will spark similar riots in other places.

Amen

Yes ,I'm a violent sick bastard

[BeidAmmikon]

This could come in handy

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[Warenwolf]

It seem that revolutions are in vogue in the north africa. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is facing demonstrations similar to the ones in the Tunisia. However, so far they are limited in the scope (only 15.000 protestors in Kairo which is kind of little)...

If the eternal president fails to contain the protests it would be interesting to see whether the potential successful revolution will have avalanche like effect on the middle east.

May the leaders in ME experience interesting times...

[Antilogic]

May the leaders in ME experience interesting times...

"May you live in interesting times"

The curse is 1000's of years old, don't get it wrong now

[BeidAmmikon]

Here, from ~01:10 onward, a sample of Winning Attitude.
Since these people have done away with subservience and the Stockholm Syndrome, it means that there's still hope, for the entire humanity.

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[Incubi]

This could come in handy

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Yeah coverage of Tunisia is so under covered that I did not even know it existed. But then its too small to even show up on most globes

[BeidAmmikon]

Incubi, ain't that a riot, that "2012" image...
Anyway, a good point, but God forbid! Freedom right before The End I could not live with that...

Now then. Tunisia could have been be much larger if they wouldn't have been crushed at Zama by the Romans and their lackeys. Yeah... coulda, woulda, shoulda.

[Aye Capn]

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Not afraid of 2012.

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