Time to seriously start working on an alternative form of governance.
The Senate, Supreme Court, representative government taken over utterly by commercial interests is not,seriously, but irreparably broken.
We need a new Constitutional Convention, one driven by the roots up, and one that sidelines, much as Egyptians after losing their elections to a rigged sweep by Mubarik in November, the existing, pathetic, handwringing apologists for The Way Things Must Be. Including the structure of governance.
We have been 237 ? years since our last revolution. Once in a while, across the generations, the reforms, the piddling tweaks become exposed as shams. The most venal, predatory, ruthless actors simply put a death grip in place and the vast majority of the nation is squeezed and squeezed until there is no more. We are at that point now and will be indefinitely until we reach our moment as did Egypt. Can it happen here?
Egypt demonstrated that no matter how controlling and clever the dictator is, at some point the disconnect between what the people need, want and what they get from the all powerful ruler gets so sharp and brittle it may become impossible to stop. If those people dare to struggle and dare to win.
Mubarik ruled with an iron fist for 30 years- 85 million people by 2011. He even coopted the Muslim Brotherhood, cutting deals with the older, most conservative reactionary elders to join in some ventures with him, run for parliament. He even had some internecine fighting he did where the older brotherhood attacked the youth and women's democratic movements, as insufficiently "pure". Yes he split and coopted the Muslim brotherhood , too, as part of his divide and rule.
In November 2010 a rigged election swept out most of the few opposition that were left in a sham sweep for the NDP party that was his pet project and personal political machine.
The discontent and anger at conditions all over the country rose to spark a series of demonstrations and even his personal rentacops, the feared state security police that were up to 400,000 strong were insufficient to quell the usual suspects the token opponents that were ineffective year after year.
This time the organizing did not start with the token loyal opposition's leaders, so jailing some of them made no difference. He even arrested a Google executive that ran a branch of Egyptian outreach for the site looking to find out where the "outside agitators" where.
They were everywhere Mubarak, just everywhere! All over Egypt. In 2 days, the crowds swelled to such a point the usual thugs sent in to bust heads arrest and terrorize found themselves pulled out of their sedans and wagons and those vehicles set on fire. Hard to do that job on foot, being jeered by hundreds and thousands of people.
They ran away and hid. The next day the Internet was shut down, and the crowd responded by burning NDP HQ in the cities and elsewhere. Telephone service was cut, but unfortunately for Mubarik, the telephone was what he needed to summon counterdemonstrations and the burnt out shells and melted phones meant his organizing got very difficult.
If he turned communications back on, the opposition would use it possibly more effectively. The short range radio tactical means meant a few snipers and a few hundred security agents could be rounded up ans unleashed, but the Army with its tanks had the superior firepower and was not going to keep the massacres going once started. Letting out prisoners of jail to create chaos and drive people back to their homes in fear didn't work. attacking the Museum and other national cultural icons with secret police "provocateurs" to incite a backlash against anarchy to create a counter populism was defeated when the social media exposed the ID cards and faces of known police underlings. Checkmate.
Then it became a waiting game with the Army watching to see if Mubarik could find a way out. With his thugs in disarray, the opposition getting stronger every day, the end was a decision between leaving headfirst, as in tossed or walking out while he still could. He didn't have his own people obeying to orders to shoot or even the threat of shooting because the consequences were quite unknown. After the first hundred or thousand shot, there may have been a fury aroused that would sweep away the fools who went to war with the millions.
There was a cost to all this: at this time at least 300 deaths in this past 18 days. Even in this "peaceful" relatively non violent revolution.
And there were millions in the streets of every major and not so major city in Egypt. This was through out the country. The heart of it was Cairo, Tahrir Square but the whole world and all of Egypt was watching and walking and participating. The Egyptians did the lifting and they heaved 30 years of dead weight off their backs.
Now comes the hard part of keeping the military leaders' feet inches from the fire. will they succeed in rewriting a Constitution, recreating parties and developing a strategy to redress the autocraqcy and tyranny of the past 30 years? we will find out. We should apply those lessons to our own tyranny and autocrats in charge here as well.