We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, January 31, 2011

Egypt: Cue the Dirty Tricks, False Flags To Discredit Pro-Democracy Movement

by Finian Cunningham from Global Research. 
The looting of Cairo’s world-famous Egyptian Museum over the weekend seems to have engendered the desired news headlines.

‘Looters smash ancient treasures’, ‘Looters decapitate mummies’, ‘Looters rip off heads of artifacts’ etc., read a rash of headlines, following the apparent breaking into the country’s national museum, which is said to house the world’s biggest of Pharaonic antiquities.

However, it has since emerged, although with much less headline coverage, that some of the would-be looters apprehended by protesters outside the museum were identified as working for the state’s interior ministry.
There is more and more evidence being reported that counter-revolutionary forces are deliberately encouraging chaos in order to justify the insertion of overwhelming force by the Empire. Hence, Western media is playing up the themes of looting, property destruction, and chaos. According to a report I heard over NPR radio this morning, the authorities released criminals onto the streets and removed all police forces.  Al Jazeera reports that people are organizing their own police forces in defense of their neighborhoods:

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