07.14.14
Friedman: Smartphones and social media made Iraq beak up
From the guy who said “suck on this:”
Why is this happening now? Well, just as I’ve argued that “average is over??? for workers, now “average is over for states,??? too. Without the Cold War system to prop them up, it is not so easy anymore for weak states to provide the minimums of security, jobs, health and welfare. And thanks to rapid advances in the market (globalization), Mother Nature (climate change plus ecological destruction) and Moore’s Law (computing power), some states are just blowing up under the pressure …
You can’t understand the spread of ISIS or the Arab Spring without the relentless advance in computing and telecom — Moore’s Law — creating so many cheap command-and-control Internet tools that superempower small groups to recruit adherents, challenge existing states and erase borders. In a flat world, people can see faster than ever how far behind they are and organize faster than ever to protest. When technology penetrates more quickly than wealth and opportunity, watch out.
The combined pressures of the market, Mother Nature and Moore’s Law are creating the geopolitical equivalent of climate change, argues Michael Mandelbaum, author of “The Road to Global Prosperity” …
We all remember how Facebook and one Google employee freed Egypt, right?
Then the entire Middle East followed.
Social media, smartphones and the web are integral to the Culture of Lickspittle. They allow for the creation of global fantasies of astonishing permanence.
So what happened to Wael Gonim?
The real world has not worked out so well:
One of the figureheads of Egypt’s 2011 uprising says he is staying away from the country “as Egypt no longer welcomes those who are like me”.
Wael Ghonim’s statement comes amid claims by fellow activists that Egypt’s government has returned to the authoritarianism of the pre-2011 era …
His activism led to an 11-day spell in police custody during the uprising, and despite his protestations, Ghonim subsequently became a poster boy for the revolution, both in and outside Egypt. Among many other plaudits he was one of Time magazine’s 100 people of the year.
Three years on, Ghonim once again appears to be an enemy of the establishment, targeted alongside other activists in recent days by a pro-regime television channel, al-Kahera Wal Nas. In a bid to discredit him and the 2011 uprising, the channel aired some of Ghonim’s private telephone conversations earlier this month. A presenter claimed the conversations demonstrated that Ghonim had used the revolution for his own gain.
In exile.
“[Some] states are just blowing up under the pressure [of Moore’s law, social media, and climate change,]” says Friedman.
That would be those in the neo-Confederacy, right?