MUST-VIEW Rachel Maddow: The Whole World Is Watching (Gov't Violent Tactics 'Obvious')

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 08:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeD9B3b4xzs   Posted on YouTube: February 04, 2011 By YouTube Member: StartLoving4 Views on YouTube: 44   Posted on DU: February 04, 2011 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 1225

 
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - 3 February 2011: Rachel tweets: "I am usually more humbled by than proud of our show, but I think this - on Egypt - is worth seeing."

Rachel lists the assaults and intimidation of journalists yesterday in Egypt and shows how those incidents and the attempts to create violence are "the Egyptian government strategy for staying in power."

MADDOW: "Why did CBS news reporter Lara Logan get detained today? Why was she and her T.V. crew held by police today?

Why did CNN's Anderson Cooper get physically attacked today? This is the footage of him getting roughed up yesterday. Today it happened again, as the vehicle he was traveling in came under assault.

Why did an ABC News cameraman and producer get threatened with beheading today? Why were Fox News correspondent Greg Palcot and his cameraman Olaf Wiig severely beaten and hospitalized today?

Why was ABC News correspondent Christiane Ammanpour harassed and jostled on the streets?

Why was her camera crew's car attacked? Why was CBS's Katie Couric surrounded and overwhelmed in the streets?

Why was the BBC's Ian Pannell accosted by a group of men while he was reporting?

Why was his fellow BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes stopped and taken into custody by police for several hours before he was released?

Why were three al Jazeera journalists taken into custody before they were released?

Why did Swedish journalist Bert Sundstrom of SVT public television disappear and then turn up in a hospital seriously injured with stab wounds? Why are all of these journalists getting attacked?

Why are all of these reporters being threatened and being hurt?

What's happening in egypt right now is not about journalism.

It is not about journalists. It is about the egyptian people trying to topple their own government. So why are all of these reporters covering that getting attacked? It is not fair to call what's happening on the streets of Egypt right now chaos. It is not fair to call it crisis. It is not fair to say this is spiraling out of control. What is happening on the ground in egypt is planned. It is a strategy. The egyptian government is trying to stay in power. It is trying to beat a popular uprising against it and to hold on to power as long as it can.

And in order to do that, the government has made a strategic decision to use violence to get its way. First and most directly, it's using violence against the opposition protesters in the streets.

Fair warning, this video we're about to show you is short. It may be difficult to watch. If you want to turn away for a second, now is the time to do so."

SHOWS VIDEO OF POLICE VAN DRIVING AT FULL SPEED OVER PROTESTERS

"That video, which has turned up on the internet in recent days appears to show an egyptian police van ramming through a crowd of anti-government protesters at top speed. while difficult to watch, that is the easiest use of violence to understand. it is simply making it physically dangerous or even deadly to protest against the government. that's first. But second, it appears to have been the government strategy to make sure that what had been a non-violent protest movement turns violent. why would the government want that? why would they want a non-violent movement to turn violent?

Because who would begrudge a government using force, even extreme force, to put down violent bloody mobs in the streets? A government using force to put down a bunch of people doing this, on the other hand, that is seen as, frankly, less cool by the international community and generally by your own people. So the reason you saw everything go haywire in Egypt over the last 36 hours or so is because the government pulled out all of the stops to turn this into this. that is one side strategy in this.

That is the government strategy for staying in power. What's the other side strategy against that? How can the anti-government people, the opposition forces? How can they resist and survive that strategy and still try to win? Here's how our own Richard Engel explained that last night, while overlooking a full-on street battle in Cairo:"

VIDEO OF RICHARD ENGEL: "They want everyone to be painted with a negative brush, that everyone involved here are people who want chaos and dissension and that the president would then need to step in as a good leader..."

- snip -

"The violence in Egypt right now is not a by-product of the fact that there are anti-government demonstrations going on. The violence is not inevitable. It is a tactic that is being used by one side. It's a tactic being used by the EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT.

And that is obvious to anybody who's there. It is obvious to anybody who is reporting what's happening on the ground there.

Which brings us back to this question: Why are we seeing journalists getting attacked - attacked in the streets, hunted down, rounded up, having their equipment smashed, and confiscated, getting kicked out of where they are staying because the fact that they are there poses a risk to anyone else who is staying there - why are they being attacked?

Because they need to be stopped.

They need to be stopped from stating the obvious. They need to be stopped from showing what's happening and what they've been reported since it started, which is that the violence was started by the government against its own people, in a last-ditch effort to stay in power. If you are the Egyptian government, that story has to be stopped. And as a result, journalism has to be stopped, and so journalists have to be stopped. And sometimes that looks like THIS:



You do not attack reporters and press offices because you are looking for good public relations, because you want to present your spin to the world about how things are going. You do it to STOP journalism, damn the consequences. Because the real story that journalists are able to tell is so dangerous to your strategy to stay in power.

The Egyptian government is trying to win. The violence is tactical. The danger to journalists is tactical. Ominously today, now that they have taken these steps toward stopping journalism, we saw them step up what they want to replace it with - their own version of the story.

Today, what looked like forced confessions started to run on pro-government T.V. in Egypt. The Committee To Protect Journalists documented at least seven incidences on state-owned television or on private stations owned by businessmen loyal to President Mubarak in which individuals described 'elaborate foreign plots' to destabilize Egypt. In several instances they were described as 'Israeli spies,' naturally. In one instance, a woman whose face was obscured, confessed, to having been trained by Americans and Israelis. She went on to say that t took place in Qatar, where, wouldn't you know it, the news network al Jazeera is based.

Stopping the real journalism to make room for your own version of the facts... It is desperate. But this kind of thing has worked before. one of our NBC News correspondents who is right in the middle of all of this joins us live from Egypt next."

MORE

[democracy1st]

1. KNR!

[Tripod]

2. Thank you for the post Hissyspit.

That is a powerful video. Really makes me sick to see more of what is going on there. :(

[southmost]

3. same tactic was used in Mexico during the 2006 strikes

and guess what?, it's a proven successful tactic,

this provocateur tactic works right here in the U.S. quite well

[Ghost Dog]

4. Making a point: Spanish Public Radio is broadcasting live from Cairo this morning

(RNE - Radio Nacional de España - in Spanish): http://www.rtve.es/radio/20110203/viernes-ira-libertad-directo-rne/400844.shtml

And live video/sound feed from Tahrir here: http://www.rtve.es/noticias/directo2/

[formercia]

5. They learned it from US

It took longer, but a lot more reporters have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan under suspicious circumstances.

This is not meant to support the filthy Mubarak regime, it is meant to illustrate what happens when one sets a bad example.

[Esra Star]

6. kick nt

[ljm2002]

7. "Elaborate foreign plots"...

...hmmm, that sounds vaguely familiar... Oh, yeah, now I remember: "Outside agitators". That was the term used by local sheriffs and cops and racists in all walks of life, referring to anyone who demonstrated in favor of civil rights back in the 50's.