The Wikileaks debate continues

[Walsingham]

If we're not careful we're going to try and build a perfect society.

 

This is pehaps the point. You're talking about a perfect democracy full of free information. I'm saying that won't work because the democracy will have enemies outside its government. Your saying the converse won't work because the democracy will have enemies inside its own goverment.

 

However, unlike you (I guess) I'm not arguing for one extreme or another. I'm simply arguing against the extreme notion of having completely free information exposure.

[Calax]

I don't think anyone is trying to take the argument to that level.

 

 

BUT I also think that a larger level of disclosure is needed to protect the people from their "representatives".

[213374U]

The problem that its permeating is that; to follow your analogy, your cup of tea it's being pushed over by your cup of coffee.

It's not just about democratic behavior, is mostly about self interest, one of the great faults of representative democracy. The organizations, the senators and even the president have all their own goals that are sometimes at odds with each other or the public well being. With this vie for power and constant struggle the system cannot rightly operate, so the question remains of how do you make sure that your representatives are fair?

That's not a fault with representative democracy, or any other configuration you can think of - it's a "fault" with human nature. But defining such a basic and prevalent trait as a fault -and therefore suggesting that public servants be free from it- is a specious exercise of applying Judeo-Christian moral tenets instead of reason. Of course politicians are self-interested. If only because working for the community results in a better world for themselves. That does not mean they are incapable of being good managers.

 

The fairness question is one of balance. When whoever's at the helm becomes more trouble than he's worth, it's time for him to go. That's the chief advantage of democracy over autocratic regimes, on paper. A good king is the best thing, a bad king is the worst. But you can't vote kings out of office. In a sense democracy is the result of the realization that humans beings are unfit to rule over human beings, and therefore assurances are needed that nobody will hold too much power for too long.

 

 

BUT I also think that a larger level of disclosure is needed to protect the people from their "representatives".

Unfortunately the latter doesn't follow from the former. During WWII, thousands of Japanese Americans were interned in camps for no other reason than their Japanese ancestry. Whether this was necessary or not is irrelevant, the fact that it was an overt violation of the constitutional rights of those people is not. However, those who at the time held the power to overturn that decision chose not to do so. The general public doesn't need to know everything, and knowing everything doesn't in fact protect the general public.

[Zoraptor]

That's a fundamentally poor argument as it is analogous to saying "because a seat belt didn't save someone in this accident seat belts are useless". All that has to be proven to refute that is that a seat belt saved someone in any accident. Such as the Tunisian people being saved from the accident of Ben Ali's wife's corruption by the seat belt of wikileaks' freedom of information or any other similar dissemination of information that has helped to root out corruption or bring accountability.

[Walsingham]

I don't think that's Numbers' point, Zor.

 

Knowing something and that knowledge changing anything is not a direct link. It needs to have two things happen first. Possibly three. I'm thinking on my feet here.

 

1. The receiver has to interpret the information into a form of useful awareness. This requires some sort of skill, and usually at least a little training.

- The public simply don't possess these skills en masse.

2. The receiver has to be motivated to act on the resulting awareness.

- Again, the public are often unmotivated to act outside of disaster situations. And disaster situations are the times they are most likely to be suffering impairment the foundations of step 1.

3. The receiver has to act to exert change on the environment producing the information they don't like. This means the skilled understanding of the topic to guide an action plan, and usually some organised effort, which is a function of skill and preparation.

- This, again, is a big problem for Joe Public.

 

As the issues surrounding us get more complex, and the rules we operate by expand with them, and our social organisations become so insubstantial that they are satisfactorily expressed by facebook... I really can't see free information helping anything.

[Orogun01]

That's not a fault with representative democracy, or any other configuration you can think of - it's a "fault" with human nature. But defining such a basic and prevalent trait as a fault -and therefore suggesting that public servants be free from it- is a specious exercise of applying Judeo-Christian moral tenets instead of reason. Of course politicians are self-interested. If only because working for the community results in a better world for themselves. That does not mean they are incapable of being good managers.

My problem with rational self interest in politicians is that they pursue their career before the needs of the people. While the two may be interrelated, it doesn't translate as such in execution. Fairly to say that whomever funds the race has bought the interest of the president or an assurance. Also the main fault with representative democracy is the differences in social strata. I doubt Obama is really one from the hood, who could understand and change their problems.

The fairness question is one of balance. When whoever's at the helm becomes more trouble than he's worth, it's time for him to go. That's the chief advantage of democracy over autocratic regimes, on paper. A good king is the best thing, a bad king is the worst. But you can't vote kings out of office. In a sense democracy is the result of the realization that humans beings are unfit to rule over human beings, and therefore assurances are needed that nobody will hold too much power for too long.

When whoever is at the helm becomes more trouble for whom? The safeguards that prevent a president from becoming a tyrant can't be enacted by the public, in that manner you have a king who isn't as powerful as a king should be because he answers to his "court". Which in turn should answer to us, but they don't. If democracy happens is the result of humans being unfit to rule, then democracy by it's own cause its flawed. They do rule us, after all.

[213374U]

That's a fundamentally poor argument as it is analogous to saying "because a seat belt didn't save someone in this accident seat belts are useless". All that has to be proven to refute that is that a seat belt saved someone in any accident. Such as the Tunisian people being saved from the accident of Ben Ali's wife's corruption by the seat belt of wikileaks' freedom of information or any other similar dissemination of information that has helped to root out corruption or bring accountability.

And that's a fundamentally poor analogy because seatbelts can't kill (well, in the proper hands...), but freely disseminated state secrets can. Therefore, the risk needs to be balanced vs the "right".

 

Besides, read the post I was quoting. I'm not saying information in the hands of the general public can't help, ever. Rather, I was simply questioning the implied "information ergo protection from tyrants" relationship that Calax was suggesting.

 

And I wouldn't be so quick to use Ben Ali's fall as an example of the triumph of freedom of information, just yet. It remains to be seen if the change is going to be for the best, assuming there is a real change. And at any rate, an authoritarian regime that doesn't have the backing of the military establishment is a card castle. Anything could have sparked a revolt, be it its corruption being exposed or some street vegetable seller self-immolating in desperation.

 

 

My problem with rational self interest in politicians is that they pursue their career before the needs of the people.

Can you actually prove this? Further, can you prove they do so to a point it's detrimental to their function as public managers? Because if you can, chances are you can get a judge to kick them out of office, be it due to a conflict of interest, unjust enrichment, embezzlement, influence trafficking or any number of things that actually mean the politician in question is using his power for personal gain.

 

 

Fairly to say that whomever funds the race has bought the interest of the president or an assurance.

And what happens if two or more different groups with conflicting agendas make substantial donations? Do they cancel each other out? Do they block the President from acting? Do they turn the President into a schizophrenic puppet?

 

I think the importance of special interest groups is overrepresented. Mostly because what the President can and cannot do is constrained not only by the Constitution but also by Congress. And that is a melting pot of conflicting interests itself.

 

 

Also the main fault with representative democracy is the differences in social strata. I doubt Obama is really one from the hood, who could understand and change their problems.

Funny you say that, because the US is remarkable by the level of closeness and accountability between candidate and constituency. In other "democracies", voters don't have a say about candidates, only about parties. Think about that.

 

But also, I'm going to turn your argument around. If Mr. X was a President "from the hood", he would understandably want to help his homies, and this may come through adopting policies and making decisions that place undue weight on those issues, which may or may not work against the general interest. How is that any more fair than helping the fat bankers with the top hats? Or do you think all Presidents derive some sort of sick pleasure from seeing the poor suffer?

 

 

When whoever is at the helm becomes more trouble for whom? The safeguards that prevent a president from becoming a tyrant can't be enacted by the public, in that manner you have a king who isn't as powerful as a king should be because he answers to his "court". Which in turn should answer to us, but they don't. If democracy happens is the result of humans being unfit to rule, then democracy by it's own cause its flawed. They do rule us, after all.

Wrong. The President doesn't rule. Senators and Reps don't rule. Civil servants don't rule. A body of written principles rules. It's not a coincidence that one of the pillars of Western democracies is called "the rule of law". Making and changing laws is neither simple nor instantaneous, and there are safeguards in place to prevent excesses, as well as a whole body of people entrusted to protect the people from the abuses of possibly unjust laws.

 

Enlightened democracy is ostensibly a response to the excesses and shortcomings of (quasi) absolute rulers. You'd think they'd try and come up with something that didn't have the same flaws as the system they had just torn down, right? Of course, excesses and even a steer towards authoritarianism aren't impossible, but then, show me a flawless system and I'll show you a fantasy.

[Orogun01]

Can you actually prove this? Further, can you prove they do so to a point it's detrimental to their function as public managers? Because if you can, chances are you can get a judge to kick them out of office, be it due to a conflict of interest, unjust enrichment, embezzlement, influence trafficking or any number of things that actually mean the politician in question is using his power for personal gain.

Not personal gain, their political career. I can point a few fingers to companies that have screwed this country and remain immune, who have backed political candidates to pursue their interests. Since the presidents need money to run for the election its in their interest to accept, thus a lot of promises are made to the companies. Companies who also have a lot of clout on Washington.

 

 

And what happens if two or more different groups with conflicting agendas make substantial donations? Do they cancel each other out? Do they block the President from acting? Do they turn the President into a schizophrenic puppet?

 

I think the importance of special interest groups is overrepresented. Mostly because what the President can and cannot do is constrained not only by the Constitution but also by Congress. And that is a melting pot of conflicting interests itself.

Major contributions are usually made by companies from the same sector, it's not their donations but their continued donations. Basically, they fund the presidential run in exchange of their interests on Washington.

 

 

Funny you say that, because the US is remarkable by the level of closeness and accountability between candidate and constituency. In other "democracies", voters don't have a say about candidates, only about parties. Think about that.

 

But also, I'm going to turn your argument around. If Mr. X was a President "from the hood", he would understandably want to help his homies, and this may come through adopting policies and making decisions that place undue weight on those issues, which may or may not work against the general interest. How is that any more fair than helping the fat bankers with the top hats? Or do you think all Presidents derive some sort of sick pleasure from seeing the poor suffer?

Yeah, funny thing about that; I need to be registered with a party in order to vote for their candidate for president. Meaning that I have to pick my poison and stick to it or refrain from voting.

I don't think that the president should help only his homies over the bankers with the hats. I think he should help the majority who voted for him, which is most definitively not the bankers who funded him.

 

 

Wrong. The President doesn't rule. Senators and Reps don't rule. Civil servants don't rule. A body of written principles rules. It's not a coincidence that one of the pillars of Western democracies is called "the rule of law". Making and changing laws is neither simple nor instantaneous, and there are safeguards in place to prevent excesses, as well as a whole body of people entrusted to protect the people from the abuses of possibly unjust laws.

 

Enlightened democracy is ostensibly a response to the excesses and shortcomings of (quasi) absolute rulers. You'd think they'd try and come up with something that didn't have the same flaws as the system they had just torn down, right? Of course, excesses and even a steer towards authoritarianism aren't impossible, but then, show me a flawless system and I'll show you a fantasy.

So the means by which they rule us are the ruler? The President writes the legislation, the Senators approve it and they don't rule us how?

Which brings us back to the beginning, our ruling body not only is very far from the influence of the public but unable to sort itself out. Is a problem when the safeguards work against us because of the people we elected being inept or self serving.

[Zoraptor]

Wals- I agree with you on the fact that a large proportion of any given population simply won't find information, won't care if they do and wouldn't know what to do with it. But in the end you should not design such things on the premise of the lowest common denominator as you would be depriving those that do have the ability as well.

 

That's a fundamentally poor argument as it is analogous to saying "because a seat belt didn't save someone in this accident seat belts are useless". All that has to be proven to refute that is that a seat belt saved someone in any accident. Such as the Tunisian people being saved from the accident of Ben Ali's wife's corruption by the seat belt of wikileaks' freedom of information or any other similar dissemination of information that has helped to root out corruption or bring accountability.

And that's a fundamentally poor analogy because seatbelts can't kill (well, in the proper hands...), but freely disseminated state secrets can. Therefore, the risk needs to be balanced vs the "right".

Seatbelts certainly can kill- a jammed/ locked seatbelt in a sinking car, for example. In any case, I think we can both accept that analogies aren't perfect or they wouldn't be analogies.

 

Besides, read the post I was quoting. I'm not saying information in the hands of the general public can't help, ever. Rather, I was simply questioning the implied "information ergo protection from tyrants" relationship that Calax was suggesting.

Which is a relationship that fundamentally cannot be disproven by anecdote because, as you have noted, government and people ain't perfect. It's also a relationship that is fundamentally difficult to prove positively in any absolute sense either- the best evidence is that, by and large, the populations of countries with 'good' freedom of information laws tend to also be countries which aren't 'tyrannical' either. Ultimately most revolutions start because the tinder of accumulated resentments, ideas and information hits the spark of some immediate, proximal cause.

 

And I wouldn't be so quick to use Ben Ali's fall as an example of the triumph of freedom of information, just yet. It remains to be seen if the change is going to be for the best, assuming there is a real change. And at any rate, an authoritarian regime that doesn't have the backing of the military establishment is a card castle. Anything could have sparked a revolt, be it its corruption being exposed or some street vegetable seller self-immolating in desperation.

I don't think whether it actually succeeds in improvement is a good metric for judging whether it is worthwhile trying. Sure, it could be similar to the Prague Spring where its short term net effect is getting a bunch of people killed and more repression, it could be like the Russian Revolution just with Tunisian Tariq instead of Georgian Joe, or it could be like the end of Ceacescu's Romania where you end up with something that ain't prefect but is a definite improvement or something approaching actually 'good'. When it comes down to it I can see some reasons for being positive in the example of Indonesia which is a huge, ethnically diverse (and fairly religiously diverse too) nation with a traditionally powerful military which transitioned from dictatorship to a pretty good approximation of 'liberal western democracy'. If they can manage it there's no reason why Tunisia or Egypt cannot, but they certainly won't if they don't even bother trying.

[Walsingham]

Wals- I agree with you on the fact that a large proportion of any given population simply won't find information, won't care if they do and wouldn't know what to do with it. But in the end you should not design such things on the premise of the lowest common denominator as you would be depriving those that do have the ability as well.

 

No indeed. But it seems to me, after this discussion that the wikileaks model seems to be attempting to empower the can't think/won't think crowd in a way which can't really work, and in the process endangering them, and everyone else.

 

To use another imperfect analogy, it's like letting allowing the family dog to drive the car for periods of family trips, because it's only fair.

 

 

~~

 

Interesting perspective on Indonesia. Not sure I'd call them a liberal democracy though. Holding themselves together seems to be predicated on using force.

 

Not that the United Kingdom got united by hugs and cake, mind you.

[213374U]

So the means by which they rule us are the ruler? The President writes the legislation, the Senators approve it and they don't rule us how?

Which brings us back to the beginning, our ruling body not only is very far from the influence of the public but unable to sort itself out. Is a problem when the safeguards work against us because of the people we elected being inept or self serving.

No. Again, nobody "rules", except for perhaps judges, in some cases, and more often than not at the behest of the people. The Prez can't just write any legislation (in fact, he can only sign things into law, the legislative power is Congress), he is constrained by the Constitution AND the judiciary which is, again on paper, supposed to be independent.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you are complaining about. Is it about democracy as a concept? Maybe how the system works in practice? What? Because if it's the former, I'm always happy to discuss possible alternatives. And if it's the latter... shouldn't you be doing something about it like, I don't know, running for office yourself?

 

As for the other points you made, I think your mind is made up on how corrupt politicians are and how little power they have in comparison to corporations. Not much to discuss there. I could ask for PROOF! but that never ends well. So meh.

 

 

Seatbelts certainly can kill- a jammed/ locked seatbelt in a sinking car, for example. In any case, I think we can both accept that analogies aren't perfect or they wouldn't be analogies.

No. The analogy you made isn't just imperfect, it's fallacious. The raison d' Edited January 30, 2011 by 213374U

[Orogun01]

So the means by which they rule us are the ruler? The President writes the legislation, the Senators approve it and they don't rule us how?

Which brings us back to the beginning, our ruling body not only is very far from the influence of the public but unable to sort itself out. Is a problem when the safeguards work against us because of the people we elected being inept or self serving.

No. Again, nobody "rules", except for perhaps judges, in some cases, and more often than not at the behest of the people. The Prez can't just write any legislation (in fact, he can only sign things into law, the legislative power is Congress), he is constrained by the Constitution AND the judiciary which is, again on paper, supposed to be independent.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you are complaining about. Is it about democracy as a concept? Maybe how the system works in practice? What? Because if it's the former, I'm always happy to discuss possible alternatives. And if it's the latter... shouldn't you be doing something about it like, I don't know, running for office yourself?

 

As for the other points you made, I think your mind is made up on how corrupt politicians are and how little power they have in comparison to corporations. Not much to discuss there. I could ask for PROOF! but that never ends well. So meh.

Power doesn't rest at any particular person's head but there is a ruling body, which in fact rules. The president can write up a bill and bring up to a congress member with whom he is friendly and introduce it. This is in fact a lot of what goes on in Washington, back room deals.

 

I'm complaining not for a leak that will harm our government and their ability to operate, not all information should be free. But the fact is that a lot of information is and we don't have the means to operate on it. Let's rewind the clock back a bit, there were a lot of 9/11 conspiracy theory nuts who thought that it was inside job to give an excuse to go in for the oil. Let's say for argument sake that they could had been right; what would the average person could do before they reach the limits of their resources? We have given the power of oversight to organizations we can't trust, whilst the founding fathers believed in the idea of an open government to the people. With them having concerns and a voiced opinion on the white house.

[213374U]

Power doesn't rest at any particular person's head but there is a ruling body, which in fact rules. The president can write up a bill and bring up to a congress member with whom he is friendly and introduce it. This is in fact a lot of what goes on in Washington, back room deals.

Yeah... no. Introducing a bill doesn't equal passing a law. And again, laws can be reviewed by the courts, which are independent. So there is no single "ruling" body. That's what the "rule of law" + "separation of powers" results in.

 

Power has to flow from somewhere, doesn't it? Do you have a better plan?

 

 

But the fact is that a lot of information is and we don't have the means to operate on it. Let's rewind the clock back a bit, there were a lot of 9/11 conspiracy theory nuts who thought that it was inside job to give an excuse to go in for the oil. Let's say for argument sake that they could had been right; what would the average person could do before they reach the limits of their resources? We have given the power of oversight to organizations we can't trust, whilst the founding fathers believed in the idea of an open government to the people. With them having concerns and a voiced opinion on the white house.

This is false. You can operate on it, and it is in fact your duty to do so as a citizen. Just claiming that "judges are all inepts/corrupt" when, after appealing, they keep not find merit in your 9/11 conspiracy theories just doesn't cut it and doesn't say much about you or your theories. Go fundraising. With the amount of anti-American sentiment in general and anti-Bush in particular, you should be able to find someone that wants the "truth" to see the light. If nobody cares or takes you seriously, chances are you have nothing.

 

Chances are, and this is important. You may well be the Galileo of our times, but that's beside the point. A democracy is as functional and virtuous as the electorate it draws its sovereignty from. If people are fine with their rights being trampled on and being fed some bull**** as justification, the problem isn't with the system... it's with the people.

 

edit: "you" in this case, doesn't refer to you personally.

Edited January 30, 2011 by 213374U

[Orogun01]

Yeah... no. Introducing a bill doesn't equal passing a law. And again, laws can be reviewed by the courts, which are independent. So there is no single "ruling" body. That's what the "rule of law" + "separation of powers" results in.

 

Power has to flow from somewhere, doesn't it? Do you have a better plan?

I have no problem with power coming from somewhere, but checks an balances works against itself. It was implemented on the premise that the people occupying the seats would be reasonable and qualified for governing, not always the case since they seem more interested in following with their party's agendas.

 

 

This is false. You can operate on it, and it is in fact your duty to do so as a citizen. Just claiming that "judges are all inepts/corrupt" when, after appealing, they keep not find merit in your 9/11 conspiracy theories just doesn't cut it and doesn't say much about you or your theories. Go fundraising. With the amount of anti-American sentiment in general and anti-Bush in particular, you should be able to find someone that wants the "truth" to see the light. If nobody cares or takes you seriously, chances are you have nothing.

 

Chances are, and this is important. You may well be the Galileo of our times, but that's beside the point. A democracy is as functional and virtuous as the electorate it draws its sovereignty from. If people are fine with their rights being trampled on and being fed some bull**** as justification, the problem isn't with the system... it's with the people.

 

edit: "you" in this case, doesn't refer to you personally.

You have gone over some of the extraordinary measures an individual would have to go to allay his concerns. It is the rare man who would go to such extremes, and even more rare that companies and the government would cooperate with them despite having reasonable concerns. The problem lays with the system when the few concerned aren't able to exert their rights and the organizations we have designed to maintain oversight fail at it. E.G: BP fiasco.

We don't hear about these messes until they become tragedy, either because someone stands to win or because incompetence and at the end of the day we suffer the consequences with no chance to right them.

[Zoraptor]

Which is a relationship that fundamentally cannot be disproven by anecdote because, as you have noted, government and people ain't perfect. It's also a relationship that is fundamentally difficult to prove positively in any absolute sense either- the best evidence is that, by and large, the populations of countries with 'good' freedom of information laws tend to also be countries which aren't 'tyrannical' either. Ultimately most revolutions start because the tinder of accumulated resentments, ideas and information hits the spark of some immediate, proximal cause.

No, that's not evidence, it's merely correlation, and not a particularly strong one either, as most Western democracies can still pull all sorts of crazy stunts and file them as "classified".

Again, the main point is that they can pull- and get away with- less crazy stunts than a more repressive regime can, not that it's a panacea. The US has made plenty of attempts to block 'unpalateable' information by various means yet things like Abu Ghraib and The Pentagon Papers got out and once out were widely disseminated. While everyone in a country like Egypt 'knows' that torture takes place there you won't find it being discussed formally in detail (or at all, really) and pictures published in the papers. I'd say that the relationship goes beyond mere correlation to being intertwined almost inseparably. Though I would accept that they have the same or similar root causes the maintenance of both 'free' democracy' and 'free' speech rest inextricably on each other.

 

And on the idea that an accumulation of common knowledge that makes the regime look bad sparking revolutions... sounds nice, but I'm not buying it. Poor living conditions and oppression is what drives people to burn police cars, assault ministries and stand in front of tanks, not news of corruption. When your belly is full and you have a roof to sleep under, knowing that El Presidente is appointing his friends as officials and awarding multi-million contracts to his son's company isn't enough for you to risk getting a bullet. Case in point, the endemic corruption in some European countries.

Not the case in either Tunisia or especially Egypt as the majority of the early protesters were middle class- hence having good internet and informational access, and much of the organisation taking place via facebook and twitter- and relatively well off with the poorer classes only joining in once it had well and truly kicked off. That's a historically consistent pattern too, going back to the American or the French revolution it wasn't the slaves or peasants who started the revolt, it was wealthy property holders and the middle class.

 

Europeans and westerners in general are pretty coddled, smug and self satisfied. But even if you live somewhere like Greece where there is a lot of corruption (and a lot of resentment, too) you're still very much likely to be better off than a given person in Tunisia or Egypt.

 

Thanks for the interesting discussion, by the way.

You too.

[Nepenthe]

And again, laws can be reviewed by the courts, which are independent.

In theory.

[Walsingham]

I agree that this has - against all the odds - mutated into quite an interesting discussion. No time this morning to chip in, tho. Am thinking along the lines of your 9/11 point.

 

EDIT: Quick thought. Is it possible that some chemical reaction analogy might be in order? I'm not a chemist, unfortunately.

Edited January 31, 2011 by Walsingham

[213374U]

Not the case in either Tunisia or especially Egypt as the majority of the early protesters were middle class- hence having good internet and informational access, and much of the organisation taking place via facebook and twitter- and relatively well off with the poorer classes only joining in once it had well and truly kicked off. That's a historically consistent pattern too, going back to the American or the French revolution it wasn't the slaves or peasants who started the revolt, it was wealthy property holders and the middle class.

And somehow, reasons for the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are consistently reported to be the high unemployment rates and skyrocketing food prices. It's no coincidence that the increase of the prices and shortage of bread is one of the oft-cited reasons -along with disproportionate taxes on the bourgeois class and the king's unwillingness to listen- for the breakout in Paris.

 

So I'm sticking with my idea that people don't stand in front of tanks -or bayonet charges- unless they don't have much to lose.

 

 

Europeans and westerners in general are pretty coddled, smug and self satisfied. But even if you live somewhere like Greece where there is a lot of corruption (and a lot of resentment, too) you're still very much likely to be better off than a given person in Tunisia or Egypt.

Yeah, we'll see for how long that holds true, with millions of people having exhausted unemployment benefits and little hope of ever getting back in the labour market, with a very real risk of public bankruptcy looming in the horizon.

[Walsingham]

So I'm sticking with my idea that people don't stand in front of tanks -or bayonet charges- unless they don't have much to lose.

 

Some people do it on principle. But yes, the majority derive courage from very simple things. Despair is an absolute classic.

 

I'll say it again, for the record. We have been living in a golden age, and I very much fear that this century will have more unrest and slaughter than the last. The great tragedy being (in my mind) that we will have provoked it not by action, but by inaction.

[Orogun01]

No revolution was ever started on a full stomach.

 

Like my philosophy professor used to say "All wars are fought for economic reasons"

[Zoraptor]

Not the case in either Tunisia or especially Egypt as the majority of the early protesters were middle class- hence having good internet and informational access, and much of the organisation taking place via facebook and twitter- and relatively well off with the poorer classes only joining in once it had well and truly kicked off. That's a historically consistent pattern too, going back to the American or the French revolution it wasn't the slaves or peasants who started the revolt, it was wealthy property holders and the middle class.

And somehow, reasons for the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are consistently reported to be the high unemployment rates and skyrocketing food prices. It's no coincidence that the increase of the prices and shortage of bread is one of the oft-cited reasons -along with disproportionate taxes on the bourgeois class and the king's unwillingness to listen- for the breakout in Paris.

 

So I'm sticking with my idea that people don't stand in front of tanks -or bayonet charges- unless they don't have much to lose.

 

And yet it really kicked off in perhaps the arab country with a well developed and well educated middle class. While there are rumblings in the far poorer Jordan (GDP $5300, poverty rate 14.2%, unemployment 13% (30% unofficial)) and especially poorer Yemen (GDP $2100, poverty rate 45%, unemployment 35%) disturbances there are nowhere near the scale or seriousness of Tunisia (PCGDP $9500, poverty rate 3.8%, unemployment 13%) or Egypt (PCGDP $6100, poverty rate 20%, unemployment 9.7%). All figures from the CIA factbook. The pattern of revolution appears to be going from richest to poorest, rather than the reverse.

[Walsingham]

Well, again, perhaps in order to have a revolution you need a degree of organisation. Plus a degree of revolutionary vision. Which if you spend all day tending a herd of whelks you may lack.

 

Plus keep in mind that just because a few hundred thousand march about it doesn't mean there's a revolution. We had 500k+ at the anti Iraq march. Although I'll grant you the worst they could expect is having to wee in public.

[Zoraptor]

Well yeah, but those 500k+ were as I (rather bluntly) described them "coddled, smug and self satisfied", something the average arab is not. If even the Irish, Greeks (it seems) and Icelanders are willing to put up with the stunts their governments, bankers and associated others have pulled there really isn't much hope for meaningful change in Europe as the population is just too apathetic to do anything much beyond pay lip service and can be safely marginalised and ignored by those in power.

Edited February 4, 2011 by Zoraptor

[213374U]

Err... you've been doing something about this argument, but I'm not quite sure what. So I just had to go back and read what I originally said:

 

Poor living conditions and oppression is what drives people to burn police cars, assault ministries and stand in front of tanks, not news of corruption.

 

You are pointing out that -despite bad conditions in Egypt and Tunisia- it wasn't the poorest arab countries that have revolted, and that despite obvious corruption, people in Europe are "coddled, smug and self-satisfied" (agree 100% btw). Hmm... isn't that basically a declaration of agreement with what I said?

[Zoraptor]

Nah, I was responding to the part I quoted "reasons for the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are consistently reported to be the high unemployment rates and skyrocketing food prices" and "I'm sticking with my idea that people don't stand in front of tanks -or bayonet charges- unless they don't have much to lose" especially.

 

If either were true you'd expect revolutions to have kicked off somewhere hopelessly despondent (or if you prefer, the place with the poorest living conditions) like Yemen, not in relatively affluent Tunis; and moved to poor Jordan rather than not badly off Egypt.

 

The oppression part I'd agree with, with the proviso that IMO the sort of overt and systematic corruption practised routinely by the Arab Kleptocracy certainly qualifies as a form of oppression. The poor living conditions though... not supported by the evidence.