Egypt's Future??

[lawinkle]

What do you think?  Do you think Egypt will become a democracy given the passion of the young people who drove this movement?  Or do you think that the country will eventually come under control of the radical Islamists? 

[Kay/NC]

As much as this subject had held the US media captive for the past couple of weeks, I have not been too absorbed in it...probably preoccupied with trying to breathe.  From what I have grasped, the military will be in control for now...is that right? 

This is a generally class war sort of conflict as I understand it...the masses subsisting on less than two dollars a day, and their leader amassing 70 BILLION dollars in his family's coffers.  As much as we champion the cause of the people in other lands, we need to understand that half or more of the world's people live this poorly, and so leveling the field may mean we who have had so much may have to learn to live with less. 

This is part of what I meant to get at when I wrote earlier today about whether we'd live simpler lives if we could.  Frankly, I doubt it will catch on as a popular movement. 

While we might all say we'd be glad to live with less in the interest of fairness or economic justice, most Americans cannot wrap their heads around the next generation having less than their parents have had for the amount of effort they've expended.  It would just feel like a loss of forward progress as a nation.   I think a lot of people our age are feeling cheated...and I can only imagine how our children will eventually feel when the other shoe drops.   

Your earlier post about delayed retirement and entitlements - which I wholly support philosophically - is a great case in point.  It is fine for others to have more, as long as we do not have to work harder than ever in order to have less to provide for that improvement. 

It's a moral quandary...and one I am learning more about as I view and read more about the maldistribution of wealth worldwide.  I wrote last year about "Zeitgeist," and the "Addendum" is even more focused on the economic ills of the world.

If I heard the film right when I watched it for the first time earlier today, we spend enough on defense every year to educate every high school senior for four years of college.  A handful of huge banking cartels and defense contractors are reaping the benefits of this fear-based walk through the world.   So much money has been created out of thin air, we are all in hock up to our chins, even if our personal debt load is zero. 

I think the veil is thinning, and the view of what's on the other side is becoming more and more apparent.  Egypt is one of many that may start to topple like dominoes.  You either have to keep people placated or face their demands. 

Mubarek miscalculated, but he will pack his family up and move into one of their many mansions in Beverly Hills, and never miss a beat.  Osama bin Ladin may well be his next-door neighbor.  His family's connections to the Bush dynasty are deep and old.  I am looking forward to understanding more about these things...but I think it will make me even more jaded when I do. 

We can applaud what looks like the birth of a democracy elsewhere, but have hardly maintained even the pretense of one here at home. 

[wt510151]

The US population on average may not have the choice to live on less. The wages are not keeping up with the costs of living. The economy did slow down with reduced demand for US goods. More importation of cheaper Chinese goods is occuring as consumers substitute. It is a vicious circle with the taxpayers paying more to foreign interests than to our own.

Was reading an article about one of the proposed budgets. Cuts to police, environmental, food safety, but they left their own congressional budgets untouched. The elections aren't coming soon enough for me.

[turkey feather]

I just read an interesting article in Newsweek written by an Egyptian and explaining the history. It is interesting that these dictators all came from lower classes. This writer is giving credit for the uprising to a young man who set himself on fire after trouble with the gov because of his vegetable cart in Tunisia, I believe. I think it will be very difficult to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of the gov and life in the region.

I am sure many people are seeing this as part of the plan for the end times.

[curley or moe]

Kay, you make some very good points. We as a country are so in debt to China that most of us can't imagine it. As a country we can't continue to export quality jobs to foreign countries and replace them with minimun wage jobs in the service sector. At one time it was thought that the informational age would be a boon for everyone, but with a lot of IT jobs that are on the phone or internet being in foreign countries we are not reaping the benefits. The CEO's who make over $100,000,000 per year aren't really concerned about whether we have a sustainable middle class. The middle class in this country is disappearing. What will this country do when there is no middle class left? There will only be the ultra wealthy and the poor. Kind of like having the landowners and the serfs. As for me, I know I don't want to be in the serf catagory, but we will not have a choice. Will this end up happening to our country. As Deep Throat said during Watergate "follow the money".