Tahrir Square breaks into song; plus the video that started the Egyptian Revolution

Aljazeera.net Feb 4, 2011
11:36pm Amid cries for Mubarak’s immediate departure, demonstators – led by a guitarist off camera – break into song during the “Friday of Departure”. Al Jazeera cannot verify the authenticity of any Youtube videos.

Translation: Let’s make Mubarak hear our voices. We all, one hand, requested one thing, leave leave leave … Down Down Hosni Mubarak, Down Down Hosni Mubarak … The people want to dismantle the regime …. He is to go, we are not going … He is to go, we won’t leave … We all, one hand, ask one thing, leave leave.

The US as Failed State

The Super Rich are Laughing

By Paul Craig Roberts

The US has every characteristic of a failed state.

The US government’s current operating budget is dependent on foreign financing and money creation.

Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through diplomacy, the US relies on terrorism and military aggression.

War and Peace Prizes

By Howard Zinn

I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Power with, Power over

Honor student Derrion Albert, 1993-2009

By Robert C. Koehler

Tribune Media Services

I don’t know if words can transform the world — I know they can’t bring back a murdered child — but I have a few of them to scatter on the grave of Derrion Albert, the Chicago boy whose brutal slaying [caught on video] two weeks ago stunned the city and the nation:

Power with, not power over.

Winners Lose

By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services

The situation in Afghanistan is serious. We’re getting “out-governed” by an enemy so ruthless it’s bringing services to a desperate people ignored by the legitimate government we installed.

But our eight-year quagmire . . . excuse me, war . . . can still be won, says Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in that country, who recently completed a review of the situation: “Success,” he commented, “is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.”

John Pilger: Empire, Obama and America’s Last Taboo

Speech given July 5, 2009
At Socialism 2009, San Francisco
Haymarket Books, International Socialist Review, Socialist Worker
“Building a New Left for a New Era”
Sponsored by Center for Economic Research and Social Change.

Transcribed by Rady Ananda (with subtitles, links and graphics added)