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Young Freud posted:Holy poo poo. That's a blast from the past. I did that about a year ago. I forgot what the thread was, something about "real" children's books. Congratulations on an utterly brilliant Photoshop. And I posted it here for serious reasons: we support monarchs and dictators as long as they're on our side--even better if they've studied over here or embrace the West, like with the Shah. And we assume that it's going to be as happy and cheerful as the Babar books. Then things inevitably go to hell, the gory truth comes out, and we sit back during the revolution hoping for a positive outcome, despite all prior experience. Been thinking a lot about post-colonial Africa from 1960-1980 this week...
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 02:40 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 16:31 |
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Nenonen posted:This is the best: Although the 1989 revolution was more of a political coup d'etat than anything. Just look who took power afterwards, Ion Iliescu and his merry band of communists.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 03:03 |
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QuentinCompson posted:Yes, and while we're at it, why don't you start talking about how they're savages who can't govern themselves? He's pretty much right though, I lived in Qatar for two years, and you learn pretty quick that people over there really hate to lose face.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 03:13 |
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Jut posted:Although the 1989 revolution was more of a political coup d'etat than anything. Just look who took power afterwards, Ion Iliescu and his merry band of communists. You could say the same thing about Boris Yeltsin and his merry band of communists, but that would be misleading. The communist leaders were overthrown by popular uprisings, not by backstage maneuverings (the military arrest of Gorbachev was a true coup). That many of the new leaders had been members of the old ruling party should not be surprising in what used to be a one party state.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 03:30 |
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AJE reporting through an interview with somebody in Tripoli that the armed forces "massacred" many people in Green Square. Weapons used were anti-air craft guns, grenades, automatic weapons.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 03:40 |
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Jut posted:He's pretty much right though, I lived in Qatar for two years, and you learn pretty quick that people over there really hate to lose face. I'm so glad that you've lived in Qatar for two years and you feel that this grants you sufficient credibility to state that you support a statement coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between Iranians and Arabs and asserts that they're backwards. I've lived in New York City, so I can say bigoted things about a lot of groups! Boy oh boy, which one should I start with.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 03:58 |
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Limbo posted:He just needed something to tie it all together...perhaps some kind of chalkboard. Dude, you owe me a new keyboard. But seriously, I could imagine Glenn Beck as a totalitarian leader, and it horrifies me a lot.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 03:58 |
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Nenonen posted:You could say the same thing about Boris Yeltsin and his merry band of communists, but that would be misleading. The communist leaders were overthrown by popular uprisings, not by backstage maneuverings (the military arrest of Gorbachev was a true coup). That many of the new leaders had been members of the old ruling party should not be surprising in what used to be a one party state. Ok, how about we consider the fact that the 'spontaneously formed' interim government (FSN) was actually formed 9 months prior to the revolution, and called for NC's removal as early as March 1989. The FSN was never supposed to run in the election, but when that changed in Jan 1990 and the people of Bucharest took to the streets once more, demanding that senior former communists not be allowed to run, Iliescu bussed in miners to smash the poo poo out of them (factlitated by the Securitate [secret police]). This continued on and off for nearly 2 years. The FSN also seized exclusive control of state media, allowing their campaign to dominate, and shutting out access for the other political parties. A free and fair democracy it isn't
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:05 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JosiAgoiWow Weapon used against protesters in Benghazi.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:07 |
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Is the video of the Libyan ambassador to China resigning available anywhere? It's not anywhere on Al Jazeera that I can find, and YouTube gives me nothing.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:11 |
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QuentinCompson posted:I'm so glad that you've lived in Qatar for two years and you feel that this grants you sufficient credibility to state that you support a statement coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between Iranians and Arabs and asserts that they're backwards. Eeer I never said they were backwards, and neither did he. You have sand in your vagina over something you are either imagining, or cannot understand. I lived and worked alongside Arabs for two years, some of my family are Arabic...I think I know their culture better than you. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol8no3/html/v08i3a05p_0001.htm Jut fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:13 |
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QuentinCompson posted:I'm so glad that you've lived in Qatar for two years and you feel that this grants you sufficient credibility to state that you support a statement coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between Iranians and Arabs and asserts that they're backwards. Frankly it isn't bigoted. It's the truth. And it is true with both Persian and Arab culture.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:18 |
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Don't feel like wading into this, but the reality is complicated. People in the US care a lot about saving face as well; there certainly are differences between the American and Arab culture, but it's a mistake to generalize millions of people and it's easy to take the idea of "arabs care about honor" too far and become orientalist if you don't acknowledge that culture is flexible and not everyone embodies their culture.Xandu posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JosiAgoiWow This appears to be an FN303 less-lethal projectile launcher. France sold 1500 to Libya in 2008.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:23 |
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Xandu posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JosiAgoiWow You got it - FN303 Shoots paintballs full of OC powder, or other irritants. edit: Is there reliable info anywhere on the amount of armor the Libyan army currently fields? The Chadians took quite a big bite out of it in the Toyota Wars, but I imagine they've since replenished those numbers. edit 2: of course I was looking at the wrong article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Army That's quite a bit of armor. BIG HORNY COW fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:25 |
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Xandu posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JosiAgoiWow That's an FN-303 Less-Lethal Launcher, made by the Belgian arms company, Fabrique Nationale. They're essentially high-powered paintball guns, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be capable of killing someone. The Boston PD had all of theirs destroyed back in 2007 because of a lawsuit stemming from an officer missing a target and hitting an innocent bystander in the eye, killing her, during the near-riot following the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004. e:fb
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:28 |
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Jut posted:
I'll take your word for that, but... how is any of that even in the slightest related to anything?
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:31 |
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Young Freud posted:That's an FN-303 Less-Lethal Launcher, made by the Belgian arms company, Fabrique Nationale. I'm almost ashamed to be a little relieved to find out that the Libyan crowd control are actually using non-lethal weapons in at least some cases:/ Space Monster fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:32 |
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Xandu posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JosiAgoiWow gently caress paintball guns, I wanna see the protester tanks! Nenonen posted:I'll take your word for that, but... how is any of that even in the slightest related to anything? You were the one who brought up Romania... Jut fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:35 |
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Xandu posted:Don't feel like wading into this, but the reality is complicated. People in the US care a lot about saving face as well; there certainly are differences between the American and Arab culture, but it's a mistake to generalize millions of people and it's easy to take the idea of "arabs care about honor" too far and become orientalist if you don't acknowledge that culture is flexible and not everyone embodies their culture. Thank you, that's much better than I was putting it.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:40 |
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twitter is reporting more fighting in Green Square...AJE is showing some dude cooking :s
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:43 |
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Jut posted:twitter is reporting more fighting in Green Square...AJE is showing some dude cooking :s http://audioboo.fm/boos/283786-english-lpc-eyewitness-aircraft-machine-gun-used-on-demonstrators-in-greensquare-libya-tripoli-feb17 "after that mr. saif al islami talking on the news..only like 15 to 20 minutes later then we saw the cars of the 4x4s coming with a lot of soldiers who I could not distinguish if the soldiers were African or Libyans but they started shooting immediately. I saw 2 people were shot one of them in the head like 2 meters away from me and then we had to leave and we left the square. I saw even from the machine guns that they were using one machine gun that was mounted over a truck that is used to fight aircrafts. That was used against the demonstators. After that we just pulled out. After that, it's like an hour later, I can still hear the gunshots in the square to this moment."
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 04:52 |
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well, this owns http://allafrica.com/stories/201102210060.html quote:
from EC in LF
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:18 |
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Petey posted:well, this owns but....but SOCIALISM
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:26 |
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Dieting Hippo posted:but....but SOCIALISM I will laugh so loving hard if Egypt becomes a more respectable and stable economy in five years, especially providing regular humanitarian needs like heathcare. I would love to see opponents to UHC dispute that
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:29 |
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RoofieMyselfForFun posted:I will laugh so loving hard if Egypt becomes a more respectable and stable economy in five years, especially providing regular humanitarian needs like heathcare. I would love to see opponents to UHC dispute that You can easily dispute that. Their socialized death panel care money comes from terrorist organizations because, let's face it, they're brown people in the middle east. What do you mean they have no ties to terrorist organizations, they speak in the funny little squiggles like all the terrorists do!
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:32 |
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Xandu posted:Don't feel like wading into this, but the reality is complicated. People in the US care a lot about saving face as well; there certainly are differences between the American and Arab culture, but it's a mistake to generalize millions of people and it's easy to take the idea of "arabs care about honor" too far and become orientalist if you don't acknowledge that culture is flexible and not everyone embodies their culture. I know you didn't personally feel like getting into this, but you touched on a subject very close to me. And an important one for Americans, who profoundly misunderstand the culture of the ME and who have crafted a disastrous and counter productive foreign policy out of that ignorance. Honestly, I'm curious: What is your personal exposure to Arab/Persian culture? Because even (and often especially) among the educated and liberal, family honor is immensely prised. If anyone is reading this as "any middle easterner would kill someone over family honor" then they're an idiot reading words that aren't there, and given how a few people responded, it seems like that's the case. I've spent 5 years dealing with both Arabs and Persians. While it has been an overall positive experience, it has also been infuriating. Americans profoundly misunderstand Middle Eastern culture (which is itself inaccurate given the diversity of groups represented in the ME, but whatever for the minute). I've yet to meet an American without considerable first hand exposure to ME culture who understood just how overwhelmingly sexist and honor driven ME culture is. Of course this culture isn't 100% universal, but it is dominant, widespread, and deeply rooted. Denying it does no one any good. There are far more things about the ME that I like than dislike, but over there, when it is bad, it is really loving bad. Also the honor issue is as much of a good thing as it is bad: families are very close and very loyal. Which belies the real point: the only way to criticize a Middle Easterner is to sandwich it between two compliments.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:36 |
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Dieting Hippo posted:You can easily dispute that. Their socialized death panel care money comes from terrorist organizations because, let's face it, they're brown people in the middle east. What do you mean they have no ties to terrorist organizations, they speak in the funny little squiggles like all the terrorists do! As expected, it wouldn't even phase me but I'll still be laughing I currently live in the armpit of the US (New Jersey) and have to deal with people slobbing Christie's knob every second (unless you're a public worker). It's gotten to the point that I know that with a year and a half left before i get my degree I'm seriously considering moving to the greater Toronto area. I live in a blue state and I can't even imagine it getting "redder"
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:39 |
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Petey posted:well, this owns Egypt was the IMF's golden boy child, too. Hilarious.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:48 |
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The-Mole posted:
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:51 |
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The-Mole posted:Which belies the real point: the only way to criticize a Middle Easterner is to sandwich it between two compliments. I just got back from living in Beirut (whose culture is relatively distinct from the rest of the Arab world I feel) and have spent some time in Morocco. I do understand what you're saying, but the original comment was Rotacixe posted:There is a cultural thing which makes accepting responsibility virtually impossible. Which is nonsensical and completely unfair, I'd hope you agree. There's nothing intrinsic to Arab culture that makes them unable to accept responsibility and when applied to Arab leaders not accepting responsibility for massacres, they have completely rational reasons for not wanting to do so that have nothing to do with culture. It's like the whole idea that Arabs only know how to deal with force or a "strong horse". It's these sort of dry stereotypes that paint cultures as monolithic and "other" that I was responded to and that's how I interpret Rotacixe's comment. And a lot of expats are just as guilty of viewing locals incorrectly (there's a very weird trend of viewing them as inferior), so I generally take these claims about Arab culture with a grain of salt unless I have reason to believe otherwise. But your point is fair. You mention sexism and it's a huge problem. Lots of my female friends, especially in Egypt, are constantly harassed and even when women are treated respectfully, they're still treated differently. But of course, there are lots of local Arab groups working to combat that and change perceptions and not every Arab man is sexist. Honor matters too and I don't have a lot to add to what you said, but it's dangerous to extrapolate that and view people's decisions (especially when it comes to politics or foreign policy) as extensions of that. Take Afghanistan for example, lots of American officers and "experts" point to Pashtunwali to explain how Afghan "tribal" people act and should be "dealt with." edit: forgot a line: The reality is that Afghans, like Arabs and Americans and everybody else, are people that act out of self-interest and emotion and culture can be put aside if it goes against people's self interest. Meanwhile, in Algeria, the secret service has told Bouteflika that he must urgently reform if he wants to survive. I think they're scared of Libya. http://www.tsa-algerie.com/politique/les-services-secrets-conseillent-a-bouteflika-d-engager-en-urgence-des-reformes_14392.html posted:Algerian secret services have advised President Bouteflika to initiate urgent reforms to contain the social anger, as the contents of a report recently presented to the Head of State and revealed this Sunday, February 20 by the website of the chain Qatari Al Jazeera. This report was prepared at the request of Bouteflika himself to understand the reasons for the riots that marked the country in early January 2011 and the protests that shook several sectors (health, justice, local, etc.).. Xandu fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 05:58 |
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RoofieMyselfForFun posted:I will laugh so loving hard if Egypt becomes a more respectable and stable economy in five years, especially providing regular humanitarian needs like heathcare. I would love to see opponents to UHC dispute that Too bad Egypt just lost all of its US aid
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:12 |
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Slantedfloors posted:Egypt was the IMF's golden boy child, too. Really? I'm not up to date with [what was] Egypt's role in the global monetary system, could someone explain?
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:27 |
Spiderfist Island posted:Really? I'm not up to date with [what was] Egypt's role in the global monetary system, could someone explain?
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:28 |
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A lot of people are going to die, but this is history in the making. A whole system of corrupt dictators is imploding on itself and it's a beautiful thing. I think people will remember this along the lines of the collapse of USSR and the independence the Eastern Blocks nations.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:30 |
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Spiderfist Island posted:Really? I'm not up to date with [what was] Egypt's role in the global monetary system, could someone explain? Mubarak was basically following the IMF's blueprints for Egypt's economy - privatization of public resources/business, cutting food/fuel subsidies, removal of tariffs, etc, and was basically getting fellated by the IMF and World Bank for all he had done to improve Egypt's economy and held up as an example for the Middle East and developing world in general, despite none of that money actually going to the population. In large part, his "reforms" were what led to the conditions that made the revolution possible.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:38 |
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Xandu posted:I just got back from living in Beirut (whose culture is relatively distinct from the rest of the Arab world I feel) and have spent some time in Morocco. I do understand what you're saying, but the original comment was Hopefully without turning this into a dead-horse beating competition... We are very much in agreement. It's only on the subject of women and family (honor and otherwise) that responsibility becomes a very complicated matter. I have a huge love/hate thing going with the ME. I've never found a region before with so much to love and so much to despise. And in the last two months, so much new hope. thiswayliesmadness posted:or we can stop making GBS threads up this thread with your sweeping generalized opinion of millions of people and concentrate on what's actually going on in the middle east. There is so much more going on than just people getting shot in the streets. This will surely go down in history as one of the most profound periods of social change in the ME. Just because something is not all-encompassing does not make it profoundly relevant. Moving ahead as many of the popular movements want to is going to require (and force) cultural change. So far, every major movement has been against the traditional paradigm of ME power. Which is a direct product of the family-first and family-above-all mentality. That's what is so amazing and heartening about these protests: they're a shift to a national/collective-good-first way of thinking. It's been amazing to watch and we will be seeing the fruits of these months for decades to come. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:39 |
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Basically, the IMF accelerated what might have been a minor movement into a true revolution by virtue of how brutal its economic policy was. That said, Mubarak went voluntarily with the scheme.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:42 |
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The-Mole posted:I know you didn't personally feel like getting into this, but you touched on a subject very close to me. And an important one for Americans, who profoundly misunderstand the culture of the ME and who have crafted a disastrous and counter productive foreign policy out of that ignorance. As a guy born and raised in the Middle East, I have to say you're way off-base. First off all, which Middle Eastern country are you talking about? Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf states (which have their own huge differences, there's an figurative ocean between life in Oman and the UAE), etc? Second, you just can't classify people by country. Growing up, hanging out with friends that were Jordanian, Palestinian, Egyptian, we'd geek out over Star Wars and make fun of old fogies and how out of touch they were. And then there would be fucks, even in my age, getting off on power trips and pushing down those that weren't like themselves. It depends on the individual. Just because you've have some experience dealing with people for a handful of years doesn't make you expert on hundreds of millions of people. It wasn't until I started working in Africa that I ran into in your face racism. And it tended to be expats living in-country for years on end ranting about the people they work with. Not I'm saying that you're in that category. EDIT: About Egypt, more power to them. Though I am wondering where they're going to get the money they need to keep it up. Their medical infrastructure is kind of a joke (at least as far as I know), and subsidies had been cut before because the government claimed they didn't have the money to support it. EDIT 2: from country to category Shageletic fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Feb 21, 2011 |
# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:46 |
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Frackmire posted:A lot of people are going to die, but this is history in the making. A whole system of corrupt dictators is imploding on itself and it's a beautiful thing. I think people will remember this along the lines of the collapse of USSR and the independence the Eastern Blocks nations. I agree. The news abouts egypts new economy is really cool too. It will be cool to see a society in this age sort of start again from the ground up. Hopefully this is the beginning of huge change allover the middle east. Interesting time to be alive.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:49 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 16:31 |
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Shageletic posted:EDIT: About Egypt, more power to them. Though I am wondering where they're going to get the money they need to keep it up. Their medical infrastructure is kind of a joke (at least as far as I know), and subsidies had been cut before because the government claimed they didn't have the money to support it.
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# ? Feb 21, 2011 06:53 |