Ponder It. There Is A Lesson To Be Learned

From yesterday's NYT. Given what I posted earlier about the Guardian, and given the general state of the media these days, including especially the New York Times, I look at stories like this with a skeptical and critical eye. One has to. One never knows whether what is chosen for publication is true, "truthy," or false, and one doesn't necessarily know what the underlying motivation for these stories is. That said, this one is... interesting. Don't think such things couldn't happen, and haven't already happened, here...

Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi

By BEN HUBBARD and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: July 10, 2013

CAIRO — The streets seethe with protests and government ministers are on the run or in jail, but since the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi, life has somehow gotten better for many people across Egypt: Gas lines have disappeared, power cuts have stopped and the police have returned to the street.

Related

• Egypt’s Government Broadens Its Accusations Against Islamists (July 11, 2013)

• Egypt Is Arena for Influence of Arab Rivals (July 11, 2013)

• The Lede: Egyptian Journalist Was Killed by Army Sniper He Filmed, Family Says (July 10, 2013)

• The Lede: New Video Appears to Show How Predawn Raid Unfolded in Cairo (July 9, 2013)

As crime and traffic worsened under President Mohamed Morsi, the police refused to respond, hurting the quality of life and the economy. Since his ouster last week, officers have returned to patrols.

The apparently miraculous end to the crippling energy shortages, and the re-emergence of the police, seems to show that the legions of personnel left in place after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2011 played a significant role — intentionally or not — in undermining the overall quality of life under the Islamist administration of Mr. Morsi. 

And as the interim government struggles to unite a divided nation, the Muslim Brotherhood and Mr. Morsi’s supporters say the sudden turnaround proves that their opponents conspired to make Mr. Morsi fail. Not only did police officers seem to disappear, but the state agencies responsible for providing electricity and ensuring gas supplies failed so fundamentally that gas lines and rolling blackouts fed widespread anger and frustration. 

“This was preparing for the coup,” said Naser el-Farash, who served as the spokesman for the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade under Mr. Morsi. “Different circles in the state, from the storage facilities to the cars that transport petrol products to the gas stations, all participated in creating the crisis.”

Read the rest at the link.

The corporatist fascists are determined to lord over all, everywhere around the world, and they will let nothing and no one stand in their way. They will cheerfully undermine, subvert, and co-opt the legitimate complaints of peoples everywhere in order to institute even harsher and more exploitative rule, they will seize control of revolutions, they will sadistically murder and torture, they will destroy whole nations when it pleases them.

Without the countering force of something like the Soviet Union, why shouldn't they do whatever they want? It's not like there is anything standing in their way. One might think that "Red" China would be a bulwark against the predations of the globalist capitalist fascists, but no. China's leadership seems to be all in with the program, perhaps with some ulterior motive, but whatever it is, it doesn't include rescuing the masses from the socio and psychopaths running roughshod over the hopes and aspirations of billions of people day in and day out.

I've thought a bit more about the problem of Corporate Defenders, as I ran into another one at dKos in bobswern's post on the march -- and essential triumph -- of "Inverted Totalitarianism" in the USofA. It's a topic I've dealt with myself from time to time, though not as directly as bobswern does. At any rate, among the comments were some by one called "dumbo" who manned up to defend the digital data corps -- the "partners" in the PRISM data hoovering program -- as poor set upon innocents who will lose all kinds of business overseas because no one will trust them now, and they, poor things, are the victims of government coercion and blackmail, and oh isn't it awful; tears, rended garments, covering with ashes.

No. Apparently it doesn't occur to "dumbo" that these corps are paid handsomely for their services (whether actually coerced or not remains to be seen, but I for one doubt the stories of coercion given the lies and the marketing ploys they all pull on users every day. They may be crying "coercion" but it's not believable.) 

Just to make matters worse for Corporate Defenders, the Guardian's latest "blockbuster revelation" is that Microsoft, everybody's favorite whipping boy anyway, has been all in on the surveillance racket from the get-go. Yes? Well, how does anybody think these companies all over Silicon Valley and the world came into being in the first place, for cripes' sake? Personal computing and the internet and all these digital/electronic devices we're so addicted to and every single thing surrounding them came out of the Defense Department -- "evil government" -- either directly or indirectly, and the digital data companies, big and small, are all tied together in symbiosis with government. 

The integration of a wide range of corporate partners (not just in the digital data field) with government agencies is so commonplace these days as to be taken completely for granted. The agency I worked for carried out projects on behalf of some of these partners and vice versa. The integration of personnel wasn't quite as complete, but it wasn't unusual for there to be corporate sponsored workers on site.

So they can stop with the whining and crying and breast beating about how they've been kidnapped and blackmailed and raped by All-Powerful Zapper Wielding Bureaucrats. It's absurd.

The companies are paid very well by their government partners. Very well indeed.

Your tax money at work!