I have become a devotee of Al Jazeera/English, and do admire the job they are doing reporting Egypt, which is blessedly free of the endless ads that appear on CNN and the rest of the American TV channels. I watch AJ on the web since my TV cable company does not offer it.
Israel Shamir says the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings are to be largely credited to the impact of Wikileaks and therefore the world services of Julian Assange. That seems reasonable to me. I find it hard to go with suggestions Assange is a "limited hangout" of the CIA. That's one level too deep into double-dipped conspiracy for me. Assange has embarrassed our govt., which richly deserves embarrassment. And Bradley Manning is being very badly treated in a military prison. He's the most celebrated home-grown political prisoner of the U.S. since Ezra Pound, or so it seems to me. Apparently nothing of this deflects even a little from Obama's sense of himself, his apparently iron-clad amour propre: "I'm OK and doing just fine, thank you."
As I have also noted I am also a fan of Charlie Rose, although I do not think he is as free to go against the Establishment. In fact he is a true hero of the E. But it interesting to watch his guests as they fishtail around the central point of the Arab "revolution," if that's what it is. In the Arab world Israel is a foreign body and their ultimate goal is to get rid of it, as one would take a cinder out of one's eye. Fancy the demographics: just for starters, Egypt, 80 million with a majority under 30; Israel 6 (?) million with a sclerotic mandate that is bound to fail. I do not look forward to the final payout of this mess.
Israel Shamir says the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings are to be largely credited to the impact of Wikileaks and therefore the world services of Julian Assange. That seems reasonable to me. I find it hard to go with suggestions Assange is a "limited hangout" of the CIA. That's one level too deep into double-dipped conspiracy for me. Assange has embarrassed our govt., which richly deserves embarrassment. And Bradley Manning is being very badly treated in a military prison. He's the most celebrated home-grown political prisoner of the U.S. since Ezra Pound, or so it seems to me. Apparently nothing of this deflects even a little from Obama's sense of himself, his apparently iron-clad amour propre: "I'm OK and doing just fine, thank you."
As I have also noted I am also a fan of Charlie Rose, although I do not think he is as free to go against the Establishment. In fact he is a true hero of the E. But it interesting to watch his guests as they fishtail around the central point of the Arab "revolution," if that's what it is. In the Arab world Israel is a foreign body and their ultimate goal is to get rid of it, as one would take a cinder out of one's eye. Fancy the demographics: just for starters, Egypt, 80 million with a majority under 30; Israel 6 (?) million with a sclerotic mandate that is bound to fail. I do not look forward to the final payout of this mess.
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