Robert Reich explains how big money is taking over the privileges of democratic rights, to the exclusion of ordinary people, and to the detriment of citizens who seek to exercise their basic civil liberties. The violence of police against unarmed civilians is absolutely inexcusable, and it is motivated in part by a systemic disregard for the value of the human individual, of basic rights, of citizenship and of the obligation public servants have to work for, not against, the people they are elected to serve. Says Reich: “WE NEED TO OCCUPY OUR DEMOCRACY.”

Today, the 20th of September, 2011, the discriminatory US military policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, which required thousands of gay personnel to serve their country while keeping their private life secret. Honorable people were discharged only because someone else found out they were not heterosexual. In some cases, the ideal military officer for a highly skilled, difficult-to-fill position were discharged despite being the most qualified person for operationally vital positions.

“The strength of America is her ability to undo her faults,” said Alexis de Tocqueville. For nearly two decades, the United States military has lived with a law that hampered its readiness, undermined the shared trust of its service members, and threatened to ruin the professional lives of some of its most committed and selfless patriots. From today, those committed professionals and selfless citizen volunteers, will be able to serve honorably, and openly, improving the readiness and excellence of our military.

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ends a tragic example of prejudice ordained by federal law, and helps to restore the dignity and integrity of a nation of law, founded to uphold the equal, natural, universal rights, of all people.

The four coordinated hijackings, resulting in three deliberate attacks and one downed passenger jet, took 2,977 innocent lives and sowed fear and dismay across the world. They were acts of unconscionable evil intended to not only harm innocents and terrify the wider population, but to destabilize American democracy itself, and derail a people’s journey through history, possibly to erode its most virtuous contributions.

It was a clear, sunny morning and the first plane crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center had sparked a sustained global news flash, bringing hundreds of millions of eyes to the television footage. There was confusion and disbelief, and just as it was becoming clear there must have been a devastating loss of life, a massive fireball engulfed the top half of the South Tower, clearly signaling a deliberate terrorist attack was underway.

Less than 2 minutes later, the White House chief of staff told the president, then in a public event with schoolchildren, that “America is under attack.” A third plane flew into the Pentagon, headquarters of the US Dept. of Defense, while the fourth crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers reportedly made a fateful and heroic decision to rush the cockpit and take back the plane from the hijackers.

In the days after the attacks, it was often said such heinous acts would not be allowed to change our open, democratic culture or to reduce our commitment to moral leadership in the world. Pres. Bush made a visible, conscious effort to ask that no one treat Muslims or people of Arabic origin or descent, as anything other than members of an open, democratic society, as neighbors and possibly as victims, of the attacks.

But in the months and years that followed, the pressures and temptations inherent in legislating and prosecuting the war on terror drew the US federal government into planning and implementing policies that marked an appreciable and concerning detour away from many of our most cherished shared principles.

We have suffered, in the aftermath of the attacks, fully a decade of war. From the standpoint of an idealist democracy, or of just war theory, from the standpoint of a civilization committed to peaceful coexistence and negotiated outcomes, war is failure. It is the failure of peace, of the institutions of peaceful negotiation; it is the threat of a descent into chaos. War tests the moral fiber of a society more than any other experience.

In one of the most emotional and solemn of the speeches given to commemorate the legacy of those lost, Vice President Joseph Biden noted that “Never before in our history, has America asked so much over such a sustained period of an all volunteer force. I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration that the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced.”

He spoke of 4,478 “fallen angels” who died in Iraq, another 1,648 who gave their lives in Afghanistan, over ten years, many of them in recent weeks, and the more than 40,000 wounded in both wars. Biden has visited the wounded soldiers many times, and said “I am awed not only by their capability, but by their sacrifices, today and every day.”

To this day, military strategists disagree about whether going to war as a response was a major strategic blunder. It was important, and positive, to oust the Taliban from power, to end the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein, but the unity and the worldwide human fabric of sympathy that grew immediately after the 9/11 attacks bled away as a politics of division and confrontation took hold.

Some professional politicians deliberately adopted the attacks as a “wedge issue”, and sought to paint rivals to their political philosophy or to their job security as enemies of the state. A naturally occurring sense of democratic, civic unity was replaced by a push for ideological uniformity. Many Americans began to feel, for the first time in their lives, as if dissent, or even critical thinking, was not welcome in the public discourse.

The very idea of engaged citizenship was challenged by a prevailing attitude of hardline politics, and for many, fear and suspicion. In retrospect, it may have been possible to depose the Taliban and to counter Al Qaeda, without ever going to war in Iraq, without adopting interrogation techniques borrowed from Cambodian death camps, and without giving in to the suspicion that due process was somehow a risky departure from the best service of justice in a free society.

In retrospect, there may have been better ways to channel the collective emotional upheaval that followed the attacks. Historians were already talking of how quickly the political capital of the moment was “squandered”, as less than two years after the attacks, an aggressive, unilateralist drive had totally overtaken American foreign policy. There was, for several years, a great risk that American democracy would be forever changed, and many of its most vital ideals eroded.

But today, in northern Virginia, Vice President Biden reminded us of something else: the attackers misunderstood the nature of the event they had planned and its likely impact on the nation they were targeting. While the risk was there that our culture could be comprehensively destabilized by the grief and anger that follow such an event, Biden suggested we were ultimately protected against that deviation by something Al Qaeda may never have understood:

With the fully restored Pentagon behind him, Biden intoned: “The true source of American power does not lie within that building, because as Americans, we draw our strength from the rich tapestry of our people.” He added that “The true legacy of 9/11 is that our spirit is mightier, the bonds that unite us are thicker, and the resolve is firmer than the millions of tons of limestone and concrete that make up that great edifice behind me.”

Biden explained the miscalculation of a small group of extremists who “never imagined” that the killing of 3,000 people would inspire 3,000,000 to volunteer for military service, to strengthen and defend a population of over 300,000,000. He spoke of the “sleeping giant” that was awakened by the shock and horror of the attacks. He was speaking not of a will to violence or retaliation, but of a spirit of aid to one’s fellow citizens.

In the hours after the attacks on New York City, a fleet of ferries, fishing boats, tug boats, small craft, commercial vessels and patrol boats, spontaneously gathered around lower Manhattan. The United States Coast Guard then sent out a message to “all available boats” to “report to Governor’s Island”. Hundreds of boats converged on the city to assist in the evacuation, arriving at what witnesses describe as astonishing speed.

After the North Tower collapsed into its footprint, engulfing lower Manhattan in a cloud of toxic dust, heat, smoke and debris, tens of thousands of evacuees—some injured, some in shock, many hysterical with panic, some just acting in service of those around them—were flooding the waterfront. Some were jumping into the water, despite the heavy boat traffic, desperate to get off the island and if possible swim to safety.

In what is now referred to as the great Manhattan “boatlift”, nearly 500,000 civilian refugees were evacuated in just nine hours. It was the largest evacuation by sea in history. By comparison, the legendary military evacuation of Dunkirk, during some of the darkest days of World War II, evacuated 350,000 French and British soldiers from France to Britain.

The great Manhattan boatlift was possible because conscientious citizen volunteers from across the region shot into action, heading into the unknowable dangers of an unprecedented disaster zone, risking their lives and livelihoods to help total strangers in desperate need. This was emblematic of a society infused with a strong sense of public trust and civic responsibility, where citizenship and shared destiny are implicit in our sense of who we are.

Ten years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, we have seen a spiritual recovery, in which people recognize that the values of such a society cannot be cast aside for any temporary sense of security. Our politics have seen a reversal, in which an unprecedented number of people voted, in 2008, for a politics of unity and civic engagement. And the hotly contested political campaigns have continued, with fevered disagreement over policy and ideology, but we can, perhaps say, that the freedom to disagree so vehemently is a celebration of the virtues of a free and open society.

Vice President Biden said to the families of victims today, “My prayer for you is that ten years later when you think of them, ten years later when you think of them, that it brings a smile to your lips instead of a pain in your heart.” There are many ways in which the legacy of the 9/11 attacks has long since been reclaimed from both the terrorists and the hardliners, and has come to inspire a commitment to service and shared responsibility.

Speaking of the bond between her family and the family of her brother’s great friend, coworker and fellow victim of the 9/11 attacks, Debra Epps today said, at the opening of the World Trade Center’s new 9/11 Memorial park, that the tragedy had brought the lesson that “People really do catch you, when you fall. It’s been a blessing.”

There are societies where unity in service of the civic space and one’s fellow citizens is a rare, if not unthinkable eventuality, and there are societies that are strong because free people naturally and voluntarily engage with each other with a sense of holding the civic space in trust, with a sense of commitment to the virtues and the vulnerabilities of their common humanity.

Ten years after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has been through many choices, many complexes of complicating choices, in response to the attacks. Many of those choices were controversial, and many have been reversed. Many curbs on civil liberties are still in place, and top officials disagree vehemently about whether there needs to be a trade-off between commitment to Constitutional protections of civil liberties and security.

Now, we enter a new period, in which withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan is already underway, a sometimes clumsy and always complicated process of nation-building is giving way to remote security actions, forceful “smart diplomacy” and a cooperative effort to prevent civil war in both countries. Osama bin Laden, and a number of “second-in-command” and “third-in-command” Al Qaeda operatives have been killed.

Some say the struggle against militant groups with “global reach” may be entering a more conscious deliberative phase, where the liberty-security tradeoff is not seen as being so economical. There is a hunger for reviving a less militaristic civic space, in which the cooperative voluntary citizenship of free people is the strength and the hope of a great democracy, in which the value of the service of millions of volunteers can be truly honored as an expression of their selflessness.

9/11 should, after this 10th anniversary, and in the aftermath of the deviation from and restoration of core values that we have undergone, become a national day of solemn recognition, collaborative restoration, and an affirmation of our civic space, in which citizenship is a sacred trust and human interest in the principal goal of our activity. It should be a day of national reflection and of the reaffirmation of the value of an open, democratic and voluntary civic space.

- – -

Cross-posted from Independents of Principle

creative prosperity is sustainable prosperity

To build a future of vibrant open democracy and robust and sustainable economic prosperity, it is necessary to privilege creative activities and constructive solutions to the challenges we face. Addressing major challenges in constructive, innovative ways, is the single most significant driver, historically, of sustained economic booms. In short, we need to move deliberately and swiftly toward a creative prosperity agenda.

The first consideration, then, is to examine how the creative prosperity agenda would differ from what we are doing now. At present, we are wrestling with the complex fabric of consequence related to long-running economic distortions, most of which we have not yet corrected. Healthcare reform and financial regulatory reform were comprehensive in scope, but moderate in impact, cautious and rooted in the prevailing model; energy reform needs to move forward rapidly and do more to prioritize innovation.

We are facing a major, civilization-wide transition from one way of conceptualizing political and economic power to another. We stand at the dawn of what should be the global solidification of open democracy as the standard for elevating and defending human dignity and freedom of thought. But we need to build creative prosperity into that future, and this will require a fundamental shift in the dominant view which holds that power is more effective when concentrated in fewer hands.

That view comes from ancient times—from prehistoric times, in fact—when the governing principle of human life was the need to survive in competition with forces far more powerful than any one individual, family or band. Power, then, was a combination of accumulated resources and raw force. In that light, power is a destructive force, requiring intense concentration of resources and the ability to draw a line between the inside and the outside of the power circle.

the feudal (concentration) model

Economically, the fact of human society was that there was not enough technology, enough resources, enough liberty, to deliver real comfort to most or all people. In fact, there was only the material wealth to deliver substantial comfort to about 1 in every 100 people. The model of concentration allowed those in that 1 percent to cling to comfort and fight off would-be attackers.

The only way into the circle in which power, means and comfort were concentrated was to pay the toll for access. That might be done by force of arms, or by handing over significant sums of wealth. Paying the toll perpetuated the model, and won significant privileges for those who helped to make sure that system remained viable.

This developed eventually into authoritarian empires and the medieval elevation of aristocracy. The logic of the model of concentration held: those inside the circle must remain there, and the society must be organized to keep them there. They were, it was presumed, worth more than other people, and so they were able to treat their privilege as if it were part of a life of service—maintaining law and order—to those with less.

the democracy (decentralization) model

Modern democracy posits an entirely different model: the model of decentralization. Modern democracy, according to the ideals of the American revolution and the French revolution, requires a comprehensive departure from the status quo of feudal dominance. It requires the engineering of a model for economic and political activity whereby power cannot be concentrated, and where excessive concentration of power brings disadvantage.

A creative prosperity agenda for public policy and economic renewal would put aside the bias of the old model, once and for all, asking enterprises large and small to join together in a fabric of imaginative competition, prioritizing localization, innovation and service value to the marketplace. It would help to recapture the energy of modern democracy, wherein monopolies and juggernauts sputter and trudge, slowed by their weight, and individuals and small businesses are better able to take the field, to effect positive change, to feed a generalized economic expansion.

The key to that model is the vibrancy of an expanding and upwardly mobile middle class. Achieving that means doing what the United States did so effectively in the 1950s and 1960s, decentralizing the levers for creating wealth, allowing more free people to participate not only as citizens but as leaders and entrepreneurs.

losing our former focus on creative (decentralized) prosperity

A period of intensive deregulation in key industries has led the United States’ economy into a period of prolonged slow growth, because it has led to the hyper-concentration of wealth and of access to the levers of wealth-creation generally. Average household income has dropped by about $2,500 since 2000, even as the gap between average pay and the earnings of the wealthiest has expanded to historic highs.

There is a problematic knock-on effect of this, which is that innovation is no longer a priority, as major conglomerates seek first of all to secure their position. Upstarts like Apple are not emerging at the rate they were during previous periods of economic expansion, and the most powerful, most concentrated interests—Apple now among them—are controlling the field of play.

recapturing momentum: how to build a creative prosperity agenda

There are a couple of key changes that need to take place to move toward a creative prosperity agenda:

1. Move from a bias favoring large conglomerates to one against them;
2. Move away from subsidies for high-polluting, low-yield fossil fuels;
3. Move toward clean energy technologies that favor rapid innovation, brainy startups, more robust job creation, and local economies;
4. Revive national commitment, public and private, to infrastructure redevelopment;
5. Provide direct tax credits for real job creation (payable on a per-job basis);
6. Establish sustainability incentives for municipalities (ref: Sustainable Jersey), states and businesses;
7. Establish an aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard;
8. Prioritize higher education spending, including post-graduate studies incentives for businesses looking to sponsor their employees;
9. Introduce critical thinking, macroeconomic studies, engineering basics and public policy debate, to public high schools—judge these as more valuable than test scores;
10. Make sure tax reforms are not regressive; make sure they prioritize family and community-level “thriving”, i.e. asset-building, quality of life and spending power;
11. Tax derivative financial instruments at a higher rate than direct capital investments in enterprise, innovation and hiring;
12. Apply national policy to correct market distortions relating to fossil fuel costs.

The outcome of this process of reform would be:

• accelerated, more widespread innovation;
• entree for creative small business models;
• unprecedented opportunities for sustained hiring;
• more vibrant, resilient local economies;
• a consumer-centered smart electricity grid;
• cleaner air and water;
• a sustainable economy where growth is not tied to the promotion of vast negative externalities;
• more robust civic engagement from citizens, communities and creative thinkers…

The United States is perfectly capable of achieving this kind of virtuous cycle between democratization, decentralization, creative thinking, entrepreneurship and the expansion of the middle class. But substantive policy changes need to be made—to remove the incentive for corrosive activities that favor the unhealthy concentration of wealth and productive capacity and motivate the revival of generative activities that favor the healthy decentralization of assets and productive capacity.

A vibrant middle class—where the best ideas can come to the fore and be implemented and the dignity and worth of citizens and communities takes priority over the naked pursuit of profit—is better suited to fostering creative, sustainable prosperity. The first step is to recognize where we favor profit over people, and then work to change the prevailing model and free human creative talent to achieve that goal.

Cafe Sentido has gone through various incarnations—first ContourNews, then Sentido.tv, including two supplements: CafeSentido.com, an art and exhibits forum, and The Global Intercept, a headline-linking and rapid-review forum—before taking on its current format as the broadsheet online magazine CafeSentido.com, which combines all of the prior incarnations in one forum. On Tuesday, July 19, we reached our 400,000th reader.

Cafe Sentido is still a small, independent publication, with a vision to grow, over time, and establish a new kind of online news source, integrating culture, commentary, science, economics, political analysis and straight news reporting. We look forward to continued growth and thank our readers for their participation, their interest and their attention, respect for which we hold as a sacred commitment. We believe a free and vigorous press is the frame on which a democracy is built.

News Corp., the New York-based multinational media conglomerate whose majority shareholder is the controversial billionaire Rupert Murdoch, is now facing an FBI investigation for illegal activity in news gathering. Long maligned by press advocacy groups as a leading source of biased and abusive media activity, and even of attacks on genuine news sources, News Corp. is now being accused of having authorized bribery and/or hacking activity to gain illegal access to the private files of victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Murdoch hacking scandal has been rapidly spreading across the Atlantic, since it was revealed last week in Britain that the News of the World tabloid had not only hacked into the private voicemail of a 13-year-old murder victim, but had deleted messages, interfering with criminal evidence and a police investigation. Some raised concerns that the illegal hacking was not only obstruction of justice, but that it may have made it more difficult to identify and mount an effective legal case against the murderer.

Since then, the scandal has widened, as news has come to light of investigations into illegal hacking at numerous News Corp. publications, going back to 2002. Prime Minister Cameron’s hand-picked (and now former) media director Andy Coulson, who had Murdoch’s UK operations, has been taken into custody. Several other employees of the media company have been arrested, and now Mr. Murdoch and his son will be required to give sworn testimony to the British Parliament, this coming week.

Rebekah Brooks, whom Murdoch had said he would protect, come what may, has now resigned, under significant pressure from inside the Murdoch family, from among her former staff and from Britain’s political elite. According to the Washington Post:

National Public Radio is a resource that belongs to the American people. It is not government controlled, has no editorial bias in terms of ideology or party, and is the nation’s most extensive network of committed professional journalists delivering reliable information to American citizens, via the radio. Federal funding is a commitment to enabling the American people to benefit from the founding principle that a free and independent press makes us freer and more resilient to the challenges a democracy faces.

Far from wasteful spending, federal NPR funding is necessary to guarantee that the American people have an affordable way to counter for-profit corporate media, much of which filters information through editorial offices with political or corporate biases. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States specifies that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. The legislation proposed by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives abridges the freedom of the American people to have their voice heard, and directly limits the freedom of journalists to deliver reliable information to the American people.

NPR is offensive to extremist conservatives and radical partisans with a corporate or right-wing ideological bias, because it tells the truth. When politicians lie, they are found out. When corporations cheat the government or the people, they are investigated. When mainstream for-profit media get even simple stories factually wrong, NPR gives the people depth of coverage and fact-based reporting.

In a political climate where the Republican party, in apparent absence of any constructive idea for how to govern —no useful ideas for climate destabilization, no useful ideas for energy innovation, no useful ideas for job creation, no useful ideas for ending the foreclosure binge, no useful ideas for safeguarding or expanding the middle class—, seeks to establish and to capitalize from flagrantly biased media —like Fox News—, which help the party organize and advertise and which report flat-out falsehoods to further the party interest… an attack on NPR is clearly an attack on the people’s right to know the truth.

Because ordinary people can access public radio, build community centered programming, and use federal funds to make sure the information in their community is not biased, NPR looks to wealthy corporate interests —and to those unfortunate partisans who rely on wealthy corporate interests to help them persuade the people their service might be worth something— like a threat to their campaign of biased, interested information.

The people of the United States actually do need NPR, because there is no other national network of truly independent journalists committed to doing straightforward professional reporting of fact and context. NPR receives donations from listeners, but, like PBS, requires federal funding to allow radio stations in less affluent, less media-rich corners of the country to fund the production of professional quality content and/or licensing of NPR national content.

A radio network does not maintain itself, and a public radio network not funded by corporate commercial advertising does not aim to turn a profit, clearly. The mission of NPR is to make sure the fabric of American news media includes at least one standard of top-quality professional news reporting and radio broadcasting. We have a right to keep that best manifestation of a free and independent press, and no politician serious about the quality of our media or our democracy, could argue otherwise.

As a measure of how serious the individuals pushing this legislation are about —well, about pretty much anything—, when the United States is involved in two wars in Asia, with pressure to intervene militarily in Libya, with communities across the country experiencing a rash of foreclosures and the gutting of funds for their educational systems, food and fuel prices soaring, unstable countries being further destabilized, and an allied monarchy in Bahrain using extreme violence against pro-democracy demontrators… with the 3rd largest economy on Earth having suffered simultaneously the 5th worst earthquake in history, a catastrophic tsunami that has taken thousands of lives and destroyed and entire region and what is already the 2nd worst nuclear disaster in world history, they called an “emergency meeting” to force through legislation barring federal funding to NPR.

The callous and shamefully partisan nature of this proposal is glaringly obvious and should be deeply offensive to any American who cares about democracy as such. If we want to have a real and functioning democracy, we need to have media that tell us the truth, without seeking profit or party gain. NPR is that medium, and what NPR does, its journalists do to make sure we have the truth at our disposal and so can be fully free citizens of a truly open society.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow reports on the Michigan governor’s legislation giving himself emergency powers, including the power to dissolve local governments, take over cities, unincorporate entire municipalities —the equivalent of erasing them from the political map— and remove elected officials, replacing them with his own unilaterally appointed substitutes.

• Originally published at the DailyKos

IndependentsOfPrinciple.com :: The United States of America is a nation of immigrants. It is a nation that has wrestled with vicious undercurrents of racism and xenophobia, and has emerged ever more democratic, generally trending toward a more perfect union representing the foundational ideals that were, in the 18th century, so far out of reach, but so necessary as core aspirations. And over time, it is a nation that has become richer, stronger and more democratic, by getting closer to those foundational ideals.

In advocating for the most effective way to form a new democratic nation in Argentina, Juan Bautista Alberdi wrote that Argentina should follow the example of the United States and encourage major waves of immigration, because the resulting society, with a large population, with diverse backgrounds and a commitment to building something new, will make for a more sustainable and democratic republic.

Yet, in the 21st century United States, we are seeing a new fashion of xenophobia, in which the idea that being a “real American” means being opposed to people with different backgrounds or who have found their way here from elsewhere. It is a patently nonsensical assertion that the United States cannot or should not tolerate immigration, diversity or difference.

It is precisely because the United States has not opposed, in the broad trend of its evolving democracy, the integration of ever more new people from ever more diverse backgrounds, that it has evolved to be the most dynamic, vibrant and innovative society in history. There is resilience in diversity, and the openness of American democracy is precisely what makes it a secure and successful, uniquely American democracy.

So much of this is common sense, it’s often shocking when we have to stop and take notice of it, but there are moments in the flow of political events when extremists, partisans and people not resilient enough in their own character, take up the cause of stamping out difference, to comfort themselves, to persuade others or to further a self-interested agenda. At those times, those of us who believe in open democracy have a moral responsibility to respond, and to say: stamping out difference is exactly what democracy cannot do.

We cannot be free, if we persecute; we cannot pursue personal fulfillment and the enrichment of our own character or of the lives of those close to us, if we bar others from doing so; true democratic freedom precludes robbing others of theirs. This was well understood by the founders of the American system of democratic government: they knew that if elites, feudal hierarchies, those who buy and sell people, or even the mass majority, were to rule with impunity, democracy would crumble under the weight of the injustice.

We often hear about the need to protect the rights of hardliners and fundamentalists who want to express their hatred for one or another group, because freedom of speech is enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution. And indeed, it is so. But does it make any sense that we who do not live in fear of diversity, human liberty and equality, should pretend for the comfort of less open neighbors that somehow it is only they, those whose views unnerve sensible democrats, who enjoy those fundamental freedoms?

No matter how brash or how aggressive one’s clamoring about loving the flag and loving the nation, none of the freedoms of this country are exclusively the province or the privilege of any one group. Being patriotic cannot, in the United States of America, be compatible with exclusion, prejudice, disdain or the promotion of fear and bias. Only false patriots, false prophets, use malicious rhetoric to silence or intimidate those they don’t or won’t understand.

I have never been registered as a member of any party. I have never felt that any one facet of my existence so defines me that I should be bound to the resulting imagery or definitions in all areas of my life. And I count that a great privilege, when compared to so many people who have lived on this Earth before us.

I recognize that my freedom to be free of any one defining tribal grouping, to be free of any one limiting and defining association, is the result of my enjoying the benefits of a free society, a democratic system in which people are not judged by religion, race, ethnicity, origin, ideology or culture alone. At least, not by the high standards of our laws and of what is best in us.

So I cannot limit others to such confining and demeaning definitions. I have to give up the false “freedom” of reflexively judging or excluding others as less than fully deserving of basic moral consideration, and I have to do the work of learning something about the reality of a person, of a person’s world and character, before judging how to react to that person.

Visual cues, point of origin, language, profession, party or church affiliation, and race, are all poor guides for judging the deep character of a person. If we are to be the best of what we aspire to be, the best society we can be, a true democracy where the soaring language of our cherished documents and oratory have meaning, then we must remember that citizenship is partly this: it is in part the vow that we will not abandon what is human in our fellow human beings.

Fear of difference is opposition to democracy. It is a temptation, and a dark and perilous one. But we are fortunate to have the freedom that not only recognize that it is so, but to say openly that it is so. We are free to say that we established this social contract, this democratic republic, precisely so that no one would have to live in fear of being told that they were to be robbed of dignity or freedom, that only when genuine and demonstrable justice would demand such constraints as punishment, and due process were deployed, could we ever stray from that pledge.

If after thousands of years of authoritarian rule, the people of Egypt can conquer fear… if in our own best moments, in the face of grave crisis, we held together in the knowledge that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”… if we believe that all people are created equal, endowed with universal, inalienable rights, and that there is something sacred about that… then we should celebrate our diversity, our openness, and the resilience, the power, and the freedom that being that way brings to our great experiment in human freedom.

After the governor of Wisconsin first ordered the state capitol closed to the public, then ejected protesters, then refused to ease restrictions on access, a judge has ordered the closure reversed, requiring that the state government allow full public access to the building during business hours. The governor’s officials responded that by allowing public officials, staff and scheduled visitors to enter, they were already in compliance.

It now appears Gov. Walker may be planning to ignore the court order, and possibly to order police to assist him in that refusal. According to the Wisconsin State Journal:

In a hearing that stretched nearly five hours, former state Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager called on Albert to honor the earlier restraining order and grant full public access to the Capitol, calling about 10 witnesses who testified to the orderly nature of protests so far and the commitment to respecting police and keeping the Capitol clean.

Department of Administration lawyer Steven Means countered that the order held no legal weight because it was vaguely written without a specific cause of action cited. And he defended the administration’s policy, saying case law allowed state officials to make reasonable limitations on the time, manner and place in which citizens can access the Capitol.

There was testimony at the hearing that Gov. Walker in fact smuggled supporters into the capitol building through a tunnel, even as he denied opponents the right of access to the public building:

Near the end of the hearing, however, Peggy Lautenschlager, attorney for the Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, AFL-CIO, alleged that, while police were restricting access to the Capitol, the administration of Gov. Scott Walker allowed supporters of the governor to enter the Capitol through a tunnel between the Risser Justice Center nearby and the Capitol.

“We have had a number of people who have heard conversations about this,” Lautenschlager said after the hearing. “But we don’t have access to those buildings or those sorts of things.”

The hearing of several hours continued an earlier temporary order that the state capitol be open during business hours. The ruling appears to show clearly that there is a legal obligation for the governor to allow the people of the state of Wisconsin full and open access to their capitol, at any time the building is in use.

The governor’s attempt to ban all opponents from the state capitol has raised the profile of the democracy issue. Today, outside the state capitol, as police sought to bar access to the capitol, during business hours, in direct defiance of the court order mandating public access, protesters chanted “We want our democracy back!”

Tensions were high, and protest organizers and Democratic lawmakers sought to calm tensions and assure protesters the legal process was in motion and the rights of the people would win out. One Democratic state Rep. Brett told protesters “We’re in this for the long haul,” urging them to remain patient and peaceful, and to persist in that fashion while Democratic lawmakers fight to ensure their rights are protected.

Gov. Walker used the closed capitol to deliver his next budget, which includes over $4 billion in cuts (for the sake of comparison, this is the amount the federal House of Representatives is trying at present to cut from national spending) to vital social services. Walker’s budget has been described as a moral outrage and an assault on the people of Wisconsin.

It is now the widely held view of the people of Wisconsin that Gov. Walker is attempting to manipulate events in order to force his agenda through the state legislature, and court testimony that he violated his own ban on public access to the capitol by sneaking pr0-Walker demonstrators into the building seems to support that.

It is not clear, at this hour, whether the governor of Wisconsin is in fact directly violating a court order, but it does now appear to be the case that he is interpreting state law to mean he has the authority to unilaterally bar public access to the state legislature, effectively rolling back a fundamental right Wisconsinites have long taken for granted, as part of their state’s commitment to open democracy.

What is democracy? That is the first question that is always asked by pro-regime elements, whether in 18th-century Britain or France or 21st-century Egypt or Bahrain, because their aim is to muddy the waters and oppose the spread of democratic freedom. Free and open access to factual information is the cornerstone right of all citizens of a free society. Journalists are the “Fourth Estate” —in the words attributed to Edmund Burke, by Thomas Carlyle—, the watchdogs of the people’s access to truth.

The three estates were the “Lords Spiritual” (bishops of the Church of England), the “Lords Temporal” (the House of Lords) and the Commons. The members of the “Fourth Estate” sat in the reporter’s gallery of the parliament and were, by their influence as writers, researchers, editors and publishers, the most significant of the four groups in terms of their ability to move public opinion and channel the influence of popular sentiment into the decision-making of the government.

In other words, the press are the necessary foundation of political influence for the people. It is through the press and what it does for the dissemination of evidence and of fact-based independent analysis that the citizens of a free republic are able to monitor, judge and influence the actions of their government. It is through the press that the governed are able to ensure they are governed only in line with their informed consent.

Since the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, the war on journalists has escalated across the world. The chaos in Iraq and the attitudes of hardline regimes like that led by Vladimir Putin during his years as president of the Russian Federation, have led to the expanding of violent persecution of journalists across the world.

In the last 10 years, the spread of the Internet, and its open transfer of information across the world, has put authoritarian regimes on the defensive, and they have responded by lashing out at print reporters, bloggers and human rights activists. In high profile cases across the Caucasus, Russian operatives and pro-Russian regimes have assassinated journalists with impunity.

Most of those cases remain unsolved. Investigations have been curtailed, and human rights advocates involved in the investigations have been targeted. In Iraq, in Colombia, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, journalists have been targeted for abduction, arrest, abuse, and even death. In Iran, China, Egypt, Libya, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere, journalists are routinely detained, accused of spying, and used as props to make it seem the regime in question is combatting foreign infiltrators.

In all of these cases, it is understood that the methodology is intended to intimidate witnesses of all kinds, whether ordinary civilians, potential defectors or journalists and human rights advocates.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has been diligently tracking aggression against the press in nations with rising pro-democracy movements and mass demonstrations calling for change. They reported on Friday:

The regime of Hosni Mubarak, in its violent quest to cling to power, engaged in what many observers described as an “unprecedented” and coordinated attack on journalists across the nation, beating and detaining foreign journalists, falsely accusing them of being “infiltrators” or Israeli and/or Iranian “spies”.

The violent and “sustained” sexual assault on Lara Logan, a CBS reporter working in Cairo, on the day Mubarak resigned from power, has been blamed by some on the paramilitary “thugs” the regime hired to attack journalists. Sexual assault was reportedly a routine tactic used by Mubarak’s paramilitary mercenaries to attack women who were seen as critics or opponents of the regime.

While Mubarak was still in power, NPR reported that “reports of sexual abuse, harassment, and assault against women by government security forces are rampant”. The connection between abject corruption, attacks on the press, impunity and the brutalization of the civilian population, is clear.

We need to celebrate the committed and courageous work of the world’s truth-tellers, journalists who take the serious personal risk of entering into the dark, threatening corners of the world, or dare to lift the cloak that covers up political corruption, who risk their lives just for the opportunity to report facts to whomever might read or hear their words, as heroic defenders of democratic freedoms.

Their work, performed with no weapons, no legal power, no prosecutorial authority, often at great personal risk, is the necessary underpinning for any informed and widespread resistance to arbitrary power and abuse of whole populations. When the free and independent, and now international, press is heard explaining and denouncing illegitimate power grabs and pervasive abuses, it motivates the human conscience generally to reject those responsible and move forward independent of their corrupting methods and aims.

That is an heroic achievement, and a gift to the rest of us, given by human beings willing to stand between the truth and a lie, defining the difference with their own human dignity.

Esperanza means hope, in Spanish. One year ago today, we posted Esperanza Spalding’s enrapturing performance of “Tell Him” at the 2009 White House poetry jam, and today we bring her back to the front page, to honor her for winning “best new artist” at the Grammys. But with all that’s taking place in the world, why write about Esperanza Spalding? Because her win is a sign there is hope we can be more thoughtful about how we make music and why.

One after another commercial vehicle have come on the scene in recent years, professing to study the nation’s talent and giving us all a great show in the process, but more than anything, giving record companies a way to evaluate “where the market is going” and have some chance at backing a sure thing. Extremely talented artists have emerged that brilliantly navigate the waters of stardom and ride the waves of their popularity to ever more… popularity.

It’s both a sign of how shallow some aspects of our popular culture are that Twitter has been ablaze with jokes, insults, surprise and dismay, about someone who was “unknown” winning Best New Artist. The award is not Most Famous Pop-star, but BEST NEW ARTIST. Esperanza Spalding is one of the most promising young innovators in music today, and a real creative artist. This is why it’s worth taking note that the music industry is taking note.

Lady Gaga is an astonishing talent. She can do classical piano, soul, dance music, and somehow always have the right energy and a depth of personal feeling for the music she plays. And she’s very good with the fame game, too. But Esperanza Spalding is not as unknown as people pretend; she played at the White House in 2009 and at the Nobel Prize ceremony as well, along with stars like Wyclef Jean, and is widely respected among people who know soulful jazzy music, both for her raw ability and for her unique style.

She was invited to teach at Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music —where she had studied— at the early age of 20. According to a lengthy and impressive New Yorker profile from last year, “By fifteen, she was the concertmaster of the Chamber Music Society of Oregon.” Now, she’s the first jazz musician ever to win the Grammy for Best New Artist.

We need more of this in today’s rapid-fire innuendo-laden society: a reminder of the human scale. Not everything can be fireworks and mirror balls; sometimes it’s important to just honor the music, and it might be, at certain special times, that the best artist isn’t someone aiming to sell out magazines and stadium concerts, but someone who loves making the music people can feel and staying close to where and how it is made.

We should try to think a little more generously about the creative arts. For every Rihanna or Eminem, there are tens of thousands of artists who never earn enough to make a living doing what they love. Esperanza Spalding’s sudden collision with fame illustrates the problem: when someone of such immense talent is seen as a shocking outsider winning something that’s meant for someone already famous —which by definition it’s not— we get a glimpse of how our listening choices are often made for us, and even people of great ability can linger long on the margins without ever being recognized for their accomplishments.

Not every great actor has won an Oscar. In fact, most of them have not. In fact, statistically, it’s probable most have never even been heard of by most filmgoers. Most talented writers have never been on the New York Times bestseller list; in fact, many would argue the two seem at times mutually exclusive, and there is an unfortunate kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in having once been listed. The next time around, the books sell, whether they’re worthy or not.

We often complain that what bothers us about “the world” is government or “big business” or an old boys network that excludes newcomers and innovators, but sometimes, it’s our very own tendency to just reach for the closest thing on the shelf and ignore the quiet genius of people no one else has told us exist. A little curiosity, a little passion, and Esperanza Spalding would not have seemed to shocking a choice.

Let’s hope people will give her a real listen, for their own personal enrichment and enjoyment, before signing away their right to decide whether what pleases their ears has to be already known, top of the charts, or sanctioned by some official pop-music protocol watchdog.

IndependentsOfPrinciple.com :: What took place in Egypt between Jan. 25 and Feb. 11, 2011, was a revolution, but it was non-violent and it joined together disparate ideological factions, rich and poor, old and young, Christian and Muslim. It gave the lie to the notion that moderation in politics cannot be a revolutionary force for transformative change.

In the United States, we have put far too much stock in the idea that identity politics boils down, in this aftermath of centuries of discrimination, to liberal versus conservative, with two diametrically opposed views on every policy. Conservative activists are “radicals” somehow intent on ruining the middle class, while progressive activists are “revolutionaries” somehow intent on waging a Marxist class war.

Neither of these accusations rings true within either of the groups accused in this way, and we are, as a people, suffering for the lack of a constructive, collaborative, pragmatic center. We cannot say all the spin and distortions are morally equivalent; the last two years especially have seen a kind of vitriol and isolationism among self-described conservatives that is not seen in progressive politics.

But Pres. Obama has seen a retrenchment on his political left that has made it harder to carry out meaningful reform. That matters to all of us, whether or not we are ideologically in tune with Pres. Obama’s specific policy model. We need constructive change in our public policy, and we’re not getting enough of it, because there is not enough constructive conversation in our public space.

Independent voters want something other than the ideological equivalent of trench warfare. They want to see imaginative, heroic civics of the kind we’ve seen blooming across the landscape of Egyptian politics in 2011. Egypt has taught an instructive lesson we would all do well to see: on certain issues, ideology must take a backseat to getting the right foothold, as a civilization, for humanity as such.

Liberals and conservatives can agree that what took place in Egypt over the last three weeks was a necessary and positive change in the human condition. They can agree that the US is better off when our close friends, among nations, abide by the principles of open democracy than when they are shameless authoritarians intent on forcing the human population into submission, extinguishing dissent, imposing hardship, living on borrowed time.

Liberals and conservatives can agree that humanity and liberty are both well served when children have enough to eat, have access to information, to education, to opportunity, when people are encouraged, regardless of origin, ethnicity or income, to realize what is best in their character.

If we fail to provide a means by which the vulnerable among us can thrive and prosper, if we fail to ensure that our industry does not degrade our future and our children’s future, if we fail to keep watch on political interests that are trying to buy their way into our process of government, then we forfeit much of what it means to live in a free society.

We lose our voice, we lose our access, we lose our capacity to make change happen when and where it is needed.

Corrupting influences are always drawn to the political fray, because big things get decided in the midst of all that back-and-forth, and when they get too deep into the policy-making process, when profit instead of principle, becomes the motivating factor in deciding how public policy is shaped, the democratic process, which is supposed to privilege dynamic change over retrenchment of interests, becomes sclerotic.

To undo that sclerosis of public conscience, we need to engage in revolutionary moderation—the art of finding common ground, putting the human terms that connect our competing political views ahead of those that tempt politicians to sabotage good policy in service of partisan or monied interests.

The revolutionary moderate is an inspired, rare and prophetic figure, the kind of widely relevant public intellect that comes to prominence at times of major historic transformation. If at the center of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, we could see thousands of such committed moderates, coming together in common cause to serve the wider interests of human dignity and freedom, without even seeking personal recognition, then surely the world’s oldest constitutional democracy can find that spirit latent within its political culture.

The 21st century is a complicated time of global interaction. Planetary shifts are taking place, and economies and political systems are becoming entangled in ways that will define human dignity and human freedom for centuries to come. We are faced with rising levels of scarcity of basic resources —food, water, fuel— and we are faced with the challenge of honoring basic principles of fairness, even as the world moves to a new paradigm of borderless competition.

We need to craft policies that work for everyone, that help to liberate human beings living in our society and in others, so they can take advantage of the fruits of 21st century communications and of democratic processes. This does not work if policies are built around 19th and 20th century ideologies.

We cannot recognize and reward human dignity if we refuse to recognize our common humanity, and we cannot build a stronger society by eroding the foundations of what allows us to build one according to our best instincts and our best ideas.

For conservatives bewildered by the speed with which young people enter into dialogue about policies that seem hyper-modern, liberally oriented and post-capitalist —free music, free content, patent-free open-source mash-ups, the recombinative DNA of the Internet age—, it may be necessary to look at 1) whether depth of knowledge is something more prudent minds can provide, and 2) the brilliant dynamism of such a model for meeting the demands of a genuine marketplace of ideas.

For progressive activists worried that too much deference to the private sector will necessarily erase centuries’ worth of civil rights gains, it may be instructive to look at how that entrepreneurial Internet-savvy generation prizes personal freedom, privacy and a right against intrusion by powerful interests, above affiliation with party or platform.

The 21st century is throwing worldwide practical crises at us, at unprecedented speed and with unprecedented complexity, but it also offers the opportunity to find that framework of inquiry within ourselves, wherein we are willing to ask first whether we are solving a problem, and only later whether we are striking a blow for one side or another.

If this is to be a new pragmatist age, in which imagination and citizenship go hand in hand, and the prophetic voices that will build our future are the revolutionary moderates most able to straddle the vast political divide and apply not only their own but our collective talents to the puzzle of survival, and survival with some freedom and comfort at that, then we have to learn that extremism is not a sign of strength and intransigence is not a sign of principle.

When independent means not willing to be bought or co-opted by special interests, partisan interests or blind dogma, then governing with the support of independents means doing what one believes is right in a way that allows for those who disagree about specifics to participate heroically in the work of building a better future.

In more than 100 years of Nobel Peace Prizes, only a dozen women have ever won. Civil-rights and peace activist Jody Williams, received the award in 1997 as the chief strategist of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which established the ?rst global treaty banning antipersonnel mines.

Williams believes that peace is de?ned by human (not national) security and that it must be achieved through sustainable development, environmental justice, and meeting people’s basic needs. To this end, she co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative, endorsed by six of seven living female Peace laureates. She chairs the effort to support activists, researchers, and others working toward peace, justice, and equality for women and thus humanity. Williams also continues to ?ght for the total global eradication of landmines.

Hosni Mubarak resigned today as president of Egypt, ending 3 decades of authoritarian rule. His vice president, Omar Suleiman, said power has been entrusted to the leadership of the Egyptian military. There is music, singing and dancing, in Cairo, as demonstrators hurl fireworks into the air and chant about the fall of Mubarak and the emergence of political freedom.

There are concerns unrest could ensue, if the military continues to insist the demonstrators disperse. There are suggestions the military should begin immediately to meet with leaders of the pro-democracy movement, to negotiate which political factions and which leaders will play what role in the transition.

It has been suggested for some time the military could serve a constructive role in working to guide political factions to refrain from seizing the transition to jockey for political control, and instead work together to fashion a system in which all of their views can be heard and they can alternately participate in the process of electoral government. The military has pledged to cooperate with civilian leadership, but now takes the helm of state power and control of the economy.

Across the nation, there are complaints that Mubarak has been stealing from his people for decades, calls of “what happened to the money?” and demands that Mubarak be held accountable and be forced to return what was taken. Some demonstrators are still calling for Mubarak to be prosecuted for corruption and for the use of lethal force against his own people, but today, the focus is on celebration of what many say is the birth of a new nation.

Describing an immensely jubilant and intense scene at Tahrir Square, NBC News’ Richard Engel said “This has become a giant birthday party for the country”. Engel translated as the crowd chanted and cheered and sought to deliver messages to the world. One demonstrator yelled “We love America!” and another, celebrating with him called out “Egyptians, hold your heads high, you are Egyptians!”

There are millions of people pouring into the streets, even well after midnight, all across the nation. Journalists describe scenes of women and children dancing on tanks and singing. World media are playing video after video of incredible jubilation in the streets of Egypt. The roar of cheering crowds is deafening in those images when the word of Mubarak’s resignation suddenly hit.

It was 21 years ago this very day that Nelson Mandela was freed from the jail where he was held prisoner by the apartheid regime for 27 years. On that day, it is often said, the Rainbow Nation was born, and the transition to a pluralistic, open democracy, was set in motion. On that day, Mandela said “Our march to freedom is irreversible.”

Today, Pres. Barack Obama, of the United States, echoed that sentiment, saying for the second consecutive day that Egypt’s leaders must implement substantive democratic reforms and that the process of transition to electoral democracy must be “irreversible”. The 11th of February is a day that will live as one that made history and transformed the political culture of the Arab world irreversibly.

The demonstrations in central Cairo are spreading now beyond Tahrir Square, and include the massing of pro-democracy crowds outside of Egyptian state television, the parliament and the presidential palace. There is widespread discussion today across the nation about whether Mubarak’s refusal to leave office might warrant intervention by the military to collaborate with the people’s demands. Reports emerging today suggest torture is widespread and ongoing, as the regime continues its crackdown on dissent.

Kareem Amer, one of Egypt’s most prominent bloggers, and the first to be formally prosecuted, told the Daily Beast about his ordeal during one week in custody. He and Samir Eshra, a filmmaker and friend, were abducted from the edge of the Tahrir Square protests, when security forces attempted to seize video tape. They were sent to a prison that was overrun with filth and seemed to be bursting at the seams with the sounds of constant brutal physical torture.

Effectively disappeared, somewhere in the Egyptian desert, Amer told reporters:

This prison was like a trash-can. The cell was tiny and the bathroom was disgusting. They did not allow us to shower even once since we were arrested. People were treated harshly and severely tortured on a daily basis. They were tortured in front of our eyes–water-boarded, beaten with sticks, and electrocuted.

Amer spent four years in prison for criticizing Hosni Mubarak and for “insulting Islam”, essentially a way of saying he was imprisoned for “insulting” a dictator who rules over a predominantly muslim country. He described the situation he was thrust into as far worse. The reporter, Ahed Al Hendi, who had spent time in a Syrian jail, for his online writing, said he is no longer sure that Syrian prisons are worse.

Amer described how it was shocking that all of a sudden, yesterday, after one week, “thousands” were freed from the military jail:

They abandoned us in the middle of the night on a desert highway that connected Suez City with Cairo. We were stopped by a military tank that almost opened fire on us. But when they found out we had been in a military prison, they let us go. A truck was stopped and it took us to Cairo.

The move may have been part of the military’s promise to honor the just demands of the people. Yesterday, a spokesman for the supreme council said all the protesters demands would be met by day’s end. The supreme council of the military has said it is now “in perpetual session”, discussing the appropriate steps to take in the time of transition.

There is mounting skepticism about what role the military might play in bringing and end to the crisis. Long-time Egypt observers say Mubarak’s behavior suggests he is spoiling for a fight, that he wants to provoke anger on a scale that will lead to violence, so he can attack the protest movement militarily, spill as much blood as possible, and end the whole affair. Mohamed El Baradei has called on the military to intervene to “save Egypt”.

There are key opposition figures who have called for a collaborative effort with the army to end the regime and support a coalition government of civilian opposition figures. Experts have speculated throughout the crisis that the military’s interest lies not with any political leadership, but with maintaining its own sweeping control over the Egyptian economy.

UPDATE, 11:12 am EST (6:12 pm Cairo): Shortly after 6 pm Cairo time, it was announced by Vice President Omar Suleiman that “President Hosni Mubarak has decided to waive the office of the republic“. Suleiman said the government was now in the hands of the military leadership. No further announcement has been made regarding the status of negotiations to establish a coalition government for the transition to democracy.

The new expression of political authority in Egypt is beginning to unfold, even as Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman refuse to cede power to the people. Whether credible or not, the regime’s mounting “concessions” are beginning to demonstrate the real political authority of the Egyptian people, whose right to decide what is legitimate for their government is beginning to be recognized at home and abroad. The “perpetual session” of the military’s leadership council, and their “Communique 1″ and “Communique 2″ suggest the military would like to guide events with language of their choosing.

It could be said that this clumsy and contentious jostling for influence is a new discussion paradigm, in which major interests, including the people broadly, offer their view for the consideration of competing interests. Though the regime remains in place, and many suspect a crackdown is in  the planning, this discussion paradigm is a major innovation in the history of Egyptian politics, and could presage the kind of coalition that will govern during a comprehensive transition to democracy.

At present, it is clear, the pro-democracy demonstrators are eager to move the nation toward a stabilization of this paradigm for transitional government, but with the current leaders of the regime excluded from the discussion, and removed from power. It has been their initiative, that of the demonstrators, and their persistent and determined adherence to principles of nonviolent civil disobedience, which has led to this new paradigm for negotiation of legitimate authority emerging, but there is clearly a role for political representatives and for military leadership in guiding the period of transition.

The fundamental question must be: how long will it be before both Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman grasp the major transition in the political culture of Egypt which is taking place, and in so doing recognize the need to relent in their use of unwarranted power, and step down. This discussion paradigm mirrors the atmosphere of the American revolution, in which years of political protest were meant as pressure to persuade the crown to relinquish its stranglehold on power, but ultimately the revolutionary movement had to take legislative action to coordinate a response to the tide of violence.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, in one of the less celebrated opening phrases of the Declaration of Independence, that “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that [the pro-democracy movement] should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”. In 1776, that separation was from the rule of King George III of Great Britain; in 2011, it would be a separation from the rule of Hosni Mubarak and his regime.

Jefferson was signaling that indeed the need for discussion on the matters at hand was crucial to establishing the legitimacy of the cause. In Egypt, the demonstrators have consistently recognized and upheld this principle; Hosni Mubarak and his regime have been flippant, dismissive and arrogant in their response to the suggestion that the people broadly have anything whatsoever to say about what constitutes legitimate authority.

By now, the instances in which Mubarak and Suleiman have embarrassed themselves and their nation by appearing to equate authority to themselves, as if by definition, are well known and much ridiculed. The gap between their view of legitimate authority and that held by the people of their nation —and by the ethical sense of things common to most decent people everywhere— is so vast, and so clearly so, that analysts on Arabic language news networks have begun discussing whether they are psychological in tune with reality at all.

This dynamic clearly stems from the fact that for 30 years, they have been celebrating themselves and their endless and unashamed wielding of authoritarian power, while the people of Egypt have been reviling it, resenting it, and building up, intellectually and culturally, to a moment when it would be possible to confront the regime peacefully, massively, without fear and on moral grounds. For the people of Egypt, the logic of this uprising is obvious; for the regime, it is incomprehensible.

Disappointing as the latter half of this dynamic may be, it is not shocking to anyone. So it is remarkable to see how consistently, with how much principle and devotion, the people massing in the streets, even after coming under attack, being shot in cold blood, having firebombs thrown by regime agents into the crowds, even after the campaign of abductions, disappearances and torture, has come to light, how fervently they have sought to foster this new paradigm of political discussion, negotiation and legitimacy.

That the protest movement has remained nonviolent, even as it has expanded far beyond what anyone thought would be its out limit in numbers, in persistence, and in effect, is evidence that the undercurrent of this revolution is rooted in a real commitment to civility, to democratic order, and to the principle of a legitimate, negotiated political environment in which passion and propaganda matter far less than what is right.

The military has struggled, throughout this two and a half week ordeal, with how to be both responsible to the state and also to the people, how to support the new discussion paradigm without abandoning the regime in a way that might appear illegal, illegitimate or destabilizing. Now, the military council’s campaign of “communiques” appears designed to both stabilize the attitude of the military in the face of massive civil discontent.

Today, just after 6:00 pm Cairo time, it was announced by Vice Pres. Suleiman that Hosni Mubarak would fully relinquish power to the military council. Suleiman said “President Hosni Mubarak has decided to waive the office of the republic.” It is a sign that the discussion paradigm is working for the protest movement, though it may now be entering its most crucial phase, that of persuading the military leadership to abandon Suleiman’s view that Egypt is not ready for democracy and begin yielding power to a civilian coalition.

It has recently become fashionable to say the US is not expressing a consistent policy on Egypt, that the policy has been changing every day or is noncommittal. This is patently untrue and distorts the very consistent message of support for the pro-democracy movement coming from the White House. Pres. Obama and his administration have consistently supported the just cause of the demonstrators, while urging the Egyptian government to take substantive reforms without delay.

Stability has become a dirty word, because it has been used by the Mubarak regime for the last 30 years and throughout this crisis to justify brutal repression of dissent. Bu the demonstrators themselves have sought to show they are in fact the conscience of the nation, and it is the regime that sows chaos and violence. Hosni Mubarak has sustained an incredibly narrow regime, enriching himself and those close to him, by dividing all possible futures into stability defined by his rule and chaos induced automatically by anything else.

The press have been missing the nuance and complexity that allow for pro-democracy demonstrators to co-opt Mubarak on stability, just as they are missing the nuance and complexity that allow Pres. Barack Obama to take the most responsible position possible —that of supporting the demonstrators without posing as their leader— while gradually shepherding the US-Egyptian diplomatic relationship through the practical and psychological paces of the coming transition.

A recent Onion satire of cable news journalism ended with an announcement that after a commercial break they would follow a police chase from a helicopter “and free associate about what’s going on”. The satire works because it comments not only on cable news methodology, but also on a basic intellectual vice of the human mind: the desire to define circumstances even when the moment does not allow for it.

The world press have been courageous and responsible in telling the story from Cairo, despite great and perhaps mounting personal risk, but those writing at a distance have to be careful not to attempt to achieve the same heightened sense of danger by misreading the political landscape or sensationalizing isolated words or phrases.

The perception that Barack Obama or his administration have been “dithering” is a distortion that stems from media wanting to read the whole story into one or two enigmatic phrases. Such commentary ignores the crux of the problem, that events like this are not decided in one moment or by the words of one individual; they are fluid. The whole of the distortion is of course often propped up by the cynical assumption that the only US government interest in Egypt is Israel and that the interest of that ally can only be served by the US backing hardliners or manipulating political dynamics.

That analysis is reflexive and mirrors the worst distortions of the Mubarak regime, which has spread such rumors in the past to stoke nationalist unity and to neutralize domestic critics, and the political manipulations of those who have relied on such distortions to drive a wedge between Mubarak and his allies abroad. In the current crisis, it appears pro-Mubarak paramilitaries stole several US embassy vehicles, using one to plow through a crowd of civilians the other day, in an attempt to create a distraction and drive a wedge between the demonstrators and the west.

But all of this ignores a fundamental truth about the diplomatic vision of Barack Obama and his administration, which has worked to cultivate a respect for the value of a vibrant and open civil society. On 20 January 2009, in his inaugural address, before a crowd of more than 2 million people gathered to usher in a period of democratic reform, Pres. Obama told the authoritarian regimes of the world that if they would unclench their fists at home, they would find a hand extended abroad.

Many viewed it as a signal specifically to Iran, but the “3D diplomacy” of Sec. Clinton’s State Dept. has shown the Obama administration is working across the world to foster democratic processes, transparency and the rule of law, whether seeking justice for victims of rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, supporting the right of the people of South Sudan to escape their attackers, or moving swiftly to answer the call to assist neighbors in quake-ravaged Haiti.

In the case of Egypt, the Obama administration urged the regime from the outset to refrain from violence and worked to expand the space for hearing protesters’ grievances. They prudently took up the just cause, while careful not to look like they were engineering the events taking place. That last point is a vital component of recognizing the genuine right to self-determination of the people of Egypt. Pres. Obama has never wavered on this point.

He has, however, been criticized for acting like a civics professor trying to educate Egypt’s leaders on the process of elective government —a criticism that originated in the halls of Mubarak’s own government, of course—, then criticized for not doing so forcefully enough. The wavering of latest-trend analysis from ideologically varied press with varying degrees of depth of analysis, has led some to see wavering where it has not been shown, and that is a poor foundation on which to base any serious political analysis.

Behind the scenes, we know the Obama administration has been pressuring Mubarak to resign and to turn over power to an interim government, which Obama has said both publicly and privately must be made up of a broad coalition of opposition parties. Impatience with Mubarak has been transferred, however, by some in the media to Obama, as if it were within the reach of the president of the United States simply to dictate a date and hour of departure for the Egyptian leader.

That has, of course, infamously, been tried in other times in other places, and it often works out poorly, because there is no real control there, no direct connection between the will of one nation’s leader and the fate of that of another. There are complexities, and most of all, there are people involved.

To honor the cause of the pro-democracy movement in Tahrir Square, that “embryo” of a free Cairo, as one witness called it, is to honor the right and the capacity of the people who have bravely organized and perpetuated this movement, to guide the process and to get it right.

There is no more firm champion of their cause among world leaders, but as a political leader with a responsibility to foster peace and security as well as the rights of ordinary people, Pres. Obama has a responsibility to behave responsibly and not to frame his role as one of foreign sponsor of a colonial government. His role is to lead by example, to foster civility by calling for and by exhibiting it, to consistently urge that legitimate grievances be heard, and he has done that and the focus, inside Egypt as well as outside, is now on how to best achieve that fundamental political transition.

It is disingenuous at best and propagandist at worst to suggest that what Pres. Obama has been doing over the last two weeks is “dithering” or wandering aimlessly in an unclear policy environment. What needs to be reported, what is most significant about the Obama response to the uprising of the Egyptian people, is how psychologically prepared he and his diplomatic leadership were to deal with the sudden upheaval and how appropriate and on-target has been the response: calling for change, calling for non-violence, demanding prisoners be freed, demanding reform.

Power, if such a thing really exists for any one individual to wield, is not best used when thrown into a fit of bluster or aggression; it is best used when it defers to those best suited to do the best work and to achieve the best result, to the betterment of humankind and to the reduction of harm generally. That approach is difficult to get right and fraught with many pitfalls —like the false accusation that one is not decisive enough—, but it is the right approach.

Pres. Obama has shown both the depth of his character and the heart of his culture, by honoring in the purest and most consistent terms the rights of the Egyptian people and the obligations of those who seek to provide them with a government. He has artfully channeled the vast complexity of world opinion into a sound strategy for peaceful transition, in which the nonviolent pro-democracy movement is allowed to oversee a process of democratization.

Whether people around the president have expressed specific desires to see Mubarak depart sooner or later is immaterial to the thrust of the US message: this is an Egyptian revolution, and Pres. Obama has consistently expressed support for the cause, support for the civility and organization of it, for the ideals and the right to have just grievances addressed by a transition to a new form of government.

We all have an obligation not to privilege the distortions that emerge from a totalitarian state’s manipulations over the facts in evidence. We have an obligation to report the policies as they stand, not as our worst selves would have them appear to be, for the sake of applying pressure or inflaming emotions.

With that said, the Obama administration has a basic responsibility, to the American people, to the ideals of open democracy, and to the people of the region and the world, to keep moving the discourse of officially recognized political transition toward the position of true justice: no Mubarak insiders, no one involved in torture or abuse, allowed to serve in any interim or future government.

There should be prosecutions of those responsible for crimes against the democratic rights of the people of Egypt, but that must be a process decided by the will of the Egyptian people, as measured through a legitimate democratic process. It was 2004, before Spain officially banned fascist demonstrations, 29 years after the death of the dictator Franco and 26 years after the establishment of the current constitution.

In Chile, the last two presidents before Piñera were individuals who had been detained and tortured by the Pinochet regime, but neither one sought revenge for Pinochet’s crimes; instead they threw their weight, and the conscience of their country, fully behind building a legitimate system of due process and letting that system evaluate the options for prosecution based on standing law, prior law and the evidence available.

Both nations are thriving, and both are strong and committed democracies. It will be for the Egyptian people to decide what course they take and how they go about formalizing the end of the dark period of the Mubarak government. So far, the Obama administration has consistently sought to move the discourse of transition toward the end of Mubarak’s rule and the beginning of a real democracy in Egypt; that trend should continue, and should move toward barring all Mubarak insiders involved in abuses from any future office.

Video from the Guardian newspaper shows massive crowds, described by some as the single largest public pro-democracy protest in the history of the Arab world, at Tahrir Square in central Cairo. Demonstrators urge embattled Pres. Hosni Mubarak to “please, leave now”; one says “Everything is destroyed. What more do you want? Just leave,” while another says “Please, Mr. Mubarak, if you love this country, leave this country.

The demonstrations are being called the “Day of Departure”, and there have been reports across the world media throughout the day that top Egyptian government officials may be in talks with military leaders and foreign governments to discuss a swift exit for Hosni Mubarak. The exact shape of the interim government has not been agreed to or made public, but opposition leaders are reportedly being urged to negotiate with the government to speed Mubarak’s departure.

That hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out has surprised many, as there was such a serious escalation of violence over the last two days and what appeared to be preparations by the regime for a violent crackdown to crush the protests. Across the region, some observers have described a mood of “euphoria”, with one Yemeni parliament minister saying “this is the great Arab revolution” and that corrupt regimes will be swept from the scene.

Over the last two days, Hosni Mubarak has made Cairo the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. After Mubarak’s new prime minister issued an “apology” for the lethal violence waged by pro-Mubarak gangs on Wednesday and into Thursday’s pre-dawn hours, the government appeared to be engaged in an even more intense campaign of violent assaults on unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators and journalists.

Throughout the day Thursday, forces loyal to Pres. Hosni Mubarak —acting in lock-step with statements by both Mubarak and his new vice president that reporters and democracy activists are “foreign agents” and enemies of Egypt— escalated attacks against journalists and protesters, beating, stabbing, kidnapping and persecuting them in an apparent attempt to “eliminate witnesses” to whatever is about to follow.

Mubarak and his government have seized public media and are using television and radio to issue fabrications and propaganda alleging “foreign agents” are instigating the protests and trying to destabilize Egypt and subject Egyptians to violence, scarcity and chaos. There are reports the government is using Internet media to spread lies and calling on Egyptians to target foreign journalists and dissidents and to treat Friday’s protests as a dangerous even staged by foreign spies.

Mubarak’s campaign against the media appears designed to “clear the battlefield” of any obstruction to an extreme and bloody totalitarian massacre of his opponents. Seasoned war correspondents, including journalists who have studied or reported on violent extremist groups across the region, say they have never seen such a pervasive and coordinated campaign to assault journalists.

Journalists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United States, Bahrain, Qatar, Russia, France, and elsewhere have been targeted for attack and/or kidnapped and held unlawfully or interrogated by paid gangs or by agents of the Mubarak regime. Major global news networks have been so consistently and gravely threatened with brute force they even took down live feeds showing Tahrir Square at a distance Thursday.

Cairo has degenerated from a city gripped by peaceful protests to a place where an exhausted and morally bankrupt totalitarian regime is now waging a lascivious assault on humanity itself. Mubarak’s character as leader appears to be the driving force in what is a mounting tragedy, and it is the character of a man who reacts to an historic opportunity for his nation to be transformed for the better by first ceding partially, appointing a reputed torture chief to be his vice president, then sending snipers and thugs to spill the blood of his people.

Since the beginning of the peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations, Mubarak’s paramilitary forces may have killed more than 300 of their fellow Egyptians. Death counts for last week’s nationwide rash of violence range from 100 to 300, while the death count for Wednesday and Thursday is currently estimated between 8 and 13. There are fears that many people have yet to be heard from and may be suffering from untreated wounds, or worse.

Now Hosni Mubarak is using state radio and TV to incite violence against “foreigners” and dissidents, using the strategy Slobodan Milosevic used to foment genocide in Yugoslavia and the leaders of the Rwandan genocide employed to seduce their followers into murdering family, friends and neighbors. Mubarak has flagrantly sought to turn all of Egypt into a country overrun by a violent, visceral fear of foreigners, of the press or of human rights activists.

In the last two days, Mubarak’s regime has organized and carried out a comprehensive undercover war against the press, with agents provocateurs —many reported to have been carrying government ID— not only surrounding and intimidating, but attacking with deadly weapons, members of the press from across the world.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has published this summary of assaults:

• The Washington Post told CPJ that the paper’s Cairo bureau chief, Leila Fadel, and Linda Davidson, a photographer, were among a number of journalists detained this morning. Their unidentified driver and translator were also picked up, and the driver was beaten. Fadel and Davidson were freed late today, but the status of the driver and translator was unclear.

• Corban Costa of Brazilian Radio Nacional and cameraman Gilvan Rocha of TV Brasil were detained, blindfolded, and had their passports and equipment seized, according to Brazilian news accounts. The two were reportedly held overnight without water in a windowless room in a Cairo police station. An officer forced the reporters to sign a statement in Arabic saying they would immediately leave Egypt for Brazil, reports said. “We had to trust what he said, and sign the document, “ Corban said. They said they will be sent back to Brazil on Friday.

• Polish state television TVP said that five journalists working in two crews–Krzysztof Ko?osionek and  Piotr Bugalski; and Micha? Jankowski, Piotr Górecki, and Pawe? Rolak–were detained in Cairo and that one of their cameras was smashed. Krzysztof Ko?osionek and Piotr Bugalski were released, according to Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

• The New York Times reported today that two of its reporters were released after they were detained overnight in Cairo.

• Canadian Globe and Mail journalist Sonia Verma tweeted today that she was being taken “into some kind of custody.” She later reported that she was held by the military for three hours.

• CNN-IBN reported that video journalist Rajesh Bharadwajm was “taken away” from Tahrir Square by military forces. Bharadwajm’s status was not immediately clear.

• Maurice Sarfatti, who writes under the name Serge Dumont, was arrested twice within the past day, according to a statement from the daily Le Soir. The Belgian journalist, who was freed late today, works for a number of European publications.

• A German freelance journalist was briefly detained between Alexandria and Cairo, Frank-Dieter Freiling, a senior vice president of ZDF-German Television, told CPJ in an e-mail.

• Three Romanian TV crews were detained Wednesday and Thursday in Cairo, according to Antena 3 producer Vlad Petreanu, who e-mailed CPJ with details. On Wednesday, Adelin Petrisor, a reporter for the state-owned broadcaster TVR, and an unnamed cameraman were detained by Cairo police, searched, and later released. On Thursday, police detained Realitatea TV reporter Cristian Zarescu and his unidentified cameraman. Authorities confiscated their tapes before releasing them. Also on Thursday, Antena 3 reporter Carmen Avram and cameraman Cristian Tamas, were stopped by police. The men sent a text message late today saying they were being held for questioning.

• Mubarak supporters stormed Cairo’s Hilton Hotel searching for journalists, Al-Jazeera reported today. Journalists inside the hotel posted a Tumblr entry that said: “About 20 foreign journalists are currently holed up.” No injuries were immediately reported, but the journalists’ status was unclear.

• Rachel Beth Anderson, a freelance videographer in Cairo, tweeted that “cameras & phones disappearing from journo hotel rooms in the Semiramis hotel! We’re locked inside by staff who says its orders from outside.”

• Fox News reported that correspondent Greg Palkot and producer Olaf Wiig were hospitalized after being beaten by protesters in Cairo.

• The Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that its correspondent in Egypt, Bert Sundström, is recovering from stab wounds to the stomach in a Cairo hospital. STV said it lost touch with Sundström as he was reporting in Tahrir Square and when they finally reached him on his cell phone, a man answered and told the station that he had been “taken by the military.” STV’s Ingrid Thörnqvist told the online Aftonbladet: “He is seriously injured, but the condition is stable.”

• The Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini said its correspondent in Cairo, Petros Papaconstantino, was “briefly hospitalized with a stab wound to the leg” after an attack by Mubarak supporters in Tahrir Square, according to The Associated Press. The reporter wrote on Kathimerini‘s site: “I was spotted by Mubarak supporters. They … beat me with batons on the head and stabbed me lightly in the leg. Some soldiers intervened, but Mubarak’s supporters took everything I had on me in front of the soldiers.” AP also reported that an unidentified Greek newspaper photographer was punched in the face.

• The Associated Press reported that CBS reporter Mark Strassman and a camera operator were attacked while trying to photograph people throwing rocks. Strassman told AP that demonstrators punched and sprayed with Mace his camera operator, whom he did not identify. “As soon as one started, it was like blood in the water,” he said.

• Dima Salem, a reporter for Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, was attacked by pro-Mubarak supporters who took her cameraman’s equipment and tried to beat her, the station said. Witnesses helped them escape, Al-Arabiya reported on the air.

• Two Al-Jazeera English journalists were attacked by Mubarak supporters, the Qatar-based satellite station reported on the air. Three other network reporters were detained in Cairo, the station reported. No names were given.

• Alfred Yaghobzadeh, a French photographer working for SIPA Press agency, was beaten while covering street protests, according to AP, which moved a photo of the journalist being aided by witnesses.

• The AP reported that men wielding sticks disrupted operations and seized satellite equipment at one its locations.

• A BBC producer tweeted that Margaret Evans, a CBC reporter, was forced to hand over recording equipment to military forces in Tahrir Square.

• Margaret Warner, a senior correspondent for the U.S.-based “PBS Newshour,” had her camera confiscated. Warner tweeted today: “PBS NewsHour arrives Cairo. Camera gear inspected & confiscated. 2 hours & we’re still haggling.”

• At least four Spanish journalists were attacked in Cairo, according to news reports. Joan Roura, a correspondent for TV3, a Catalan public television station, was attacked by men who tried to steal his mobile phone while he was conducting a live broadcast for the 24 hours news channel. Assaults were also reported against Sal Emergui, a correspondent for Catalan radio RAC1; Gemma Saura, a correspondent for the newspaper La Vanguardia; and Mikel Ayestaran, a correspondent for the newspaper Vocento/ABC.

• Several Turkish journalists were attacked by Mubarak supporters, according to news reports. Cumali Önal of Cihan News Agency and Do?an Ertu?rul of the Turkish Star Dailywere attacked and beaten by pro-Mubarak supporters on Wednesday. Both were in stable condition today.

• Men with knives seized Erol Candabako?lu, a Turkish Fox TV reporter, along with his unidentified cameraman and driver on Wednesday while they were filming in the Boulaq neighborhood of Cairo, according to news reports. The Turkish news agency Anatolia reported that Egyptian police later freed them.

• Metin Turan, a reporter for the Turkish state-run TRT channel, was assaulted today and beaten by Mubarak supporters, who seized his camera, money, and cell phone,according to the Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman. The reporter escaped and sought refuge at the Turkish Embassy; embassy officials told the paper they would take Turan to the hospital because he suffered from wounds and bruises. Isa Simsek, a photographer for Today’s Zaman, was also assaulted today by a Mubarak supporter, according to news reports.

• Popular Egyptian blogger Mahmoud (aka “Sandmonkey”) tweeted: ”I was ambushed & beaten by the police, my phone confiscated, my car ripped apar& supplies taken.” He said he was briefly detained.

• Wally Nell, a photographer for the California-based Zuma Press agency, was wounded under the 6th October Bridge at the Corniche on the Nile in downtown Cairo, according to accounts posted by family and friends. Those accounts described Zell as having suffered multiple pellet wounds after being fired upon by police.

• At least four contributors to Demotix, a U.K.-based citizen journalism website and photo agency, were also attacked, Turi Munthe, Demotix CEO, told CPJ in an e-mail. The four included Nour El Refai and Mohamed Elmaymony.

• The British-based communications company Vodafone accused the Egyptian government of hijacking its text messaging services and sending out text messages supportive of Mubarak, according to news reports.

• Multiple journalists for state-owned or government-aligned media have resigned or have refused to work after the government put pressure on them to sanitize the news or to not report on violence against demonstrators, several CPJ sources said. Shahira Amin, an anchor on the state-owned Nile TV channel, said on the air: “I refuse to be a hypocrite. I feel liberated.”

A senior Egyptian judge has called for the indictment of of Hosni Mubarak for crimes against humanity, saying what occurred at Tahrir Square on Wednesday and Thursday was clearly “a massacre” and must be described as such. The International Criminal Court could begin proceedings against the dictator immediately, given the wide array of evidence mounting against him.

The US Department of State has obtained information that the Egyptian Interior Ministry was responsible for ordering the mass detention of journalists. That information may ultimately tip the balance of power in Egypt, as those under Mubarak and in charge of the military see the long-time ruler’s position is untenable.

There are reports that foreigners, including unarmed students seeking to escape the violence and make their way to the airport, may also have been targeted for attack. Foreign governments now have to consider not only whether Egyptians are in jeopardy, but whether their own people are coming under violent assault by agents of the regime.

The governments of the United States and the European Union are reportedly meeting to discuss policies for diplomatic intervention to help speed the process of democratic transition, and there are calls for the Arab League to intervene, to show a united front and in the interests of the Egyptian people and the region, demand the removal of Pres. Hosni Mubarak from power.

There are reports today that Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, has gone to Tahrir Square to join the hundreds of thousands massing there for the “day of departure” rally, in which pro-democracy demonstrators, reportedly including a Catholic cardinal and a top Muslim cleric, who were seen holding hands and calling for national unity.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was attacked by gangs of pro-Mubarak forces for the second consecutive day, on Thursday, was forced to broadcast from “an undisclosed location”, describing himself as “scared” about what might be about to happen and saying ordinary Egyptians were becoming afraid of what the government might do. He described the day as “the second day of all-out attacks” against pro-democracy and human rights activists and foreign and domestic journalists.

Field reports found doctors were treating many of the demonstrators for gunshot wounds, the shots having been fired by snipers and pro-Mubarak gangs.

Footage was shown in which a police van clearly speeds its way through a crowd of pedestrians, mowing down several and not stopping.

The degeneration of civil society in Egypt is absolutely owing to the failings and moral perversions of an illegitimate regime and of its leader Hosni Mubarak, a man the whole world now sees has been thoroughly corrupted by 30 years of unaccountable rule and arbitrary exercise of power.

A prominent Egyptian scholar, Fouad Ajami, told CNN on Thursday that “last night we entered the dark period” in which “we saw really naked the cruelty of the regime”. He said Mubarak’s cruelty and violence turned the peaceful protests into “a fight for the country”. Where Egyptians were using peaceful means to call for a change in the country’s form of government, the government is using machetes, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire, to kill Egyptians in the streets.

The International Criminal Court should begin collecting evidence from every possible witness as to the nature of Mubarak’s exercise of power, not only during the last ten days, but throughout his period of uninterrupted “emergency” rule. The United Nations should immediately begin drafting a new treaty declaring any prolonged period of “emergency rule” a crime against humanity and resolving to investigate abuses committed under all such regimes.

It is fundamentally unfair to the victims of such brutality that the world wait until millions of souls are steeled with the uncommon courage required to go into the streets and face down a potential onslaught from hired mercenaries and secret police. To overthrow a dictator, and avoid the defeat of a Tianenmen Square, Egypt’s people are trying to get not one, but literally millions of brave citizens to stare down the symbol of state-sponsored violence.

In 1989, in Beijing, it was one man against a column of tanks. In 2011, in Cairo, it is hundreds of thousands of brave souls against gangs of paramilitaries hired to intimidate, to injure and to kill, in order to defend a dictator. Indeed, while the 2nd of February was the day Mubarak sent his forces into Tahrir Square to spill Egyptian blood, the 4th should be the day the people’s interim government is installed, and Hosni Mubarak exiled forever to face criminal charges.

The “Day of Departure” rally has swelled the ranks of pro-democracy demonstrators occupying Tahrir Square. Reuters reports the prime minister has instructed the army to “assist” journalists and protect them from the armed pro-Mubarak gangs roaming the city. The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont gave an interview describing a harrowing experience of being detained multiple times by armed men, some wielding machetes, being forced “to kneel in front of a wall”, being detained for 2 hours by the army, which he described as “polite and disciplined”.

The Guardian is reporting:

The putative opposition figurehead Mohamad ElBaradei and another prominent opposition figure, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, have both been seen either in or on their way to Tahrir Square, according to a number of accounts.

Inside Tahrir Square, a “relaxed atmosphere” prevails among the hundreds of thousands gathered, and there appears to be an atmosphere of safety and security, though armed “vigilantes” appear to be blocking access to the square. Foreign media continue to describe difficulty accessing the site of the demonstrations, and live feeds from the square have been harder to set up than on Tuesday, when over a million people filled the square demanding Mubarak’s departure.

The protests scheduled for today were aimed at gathering millions of Egyptians in the streets for a march from Tahrir Square to one or more of the presidential palaces, where they would demand the immediate resignation of Pres. Hosni Mubarak and all of his ministers. It is not clear at this writing (7:52 am EST / 2:52 pm Cairo time) whether that final, key phase of the march will take place, but there does appear to be a much greater show of united national opposition to the Mubarak regime, from all levels of society.

A commenter on the Guardian website, who has been speaking with her husband who is presently at Tahrir Square, reports:

Eyewitness reports in Tahrir Square confirm the presence of Amr Moussa in the square with the pro-democracy demonstrators. He is the current secretary general of the Arab League and former minister of foreign affairs, is a liberal politician.

The Catholic Cardinal in Egypt was witnessed hand in hand with a Muslim cleric, both in their religious dress with the pro-democracy demonstrators. He was speaking about national unity, stating that the myth of sectarian strife is only made by the failing government security apparatus and urge people to unite as Egyptians. The Muslim cleric also stated the same.

Yesterday, Pres. Hosni Mubarak said in an interview that “If I resign today, there will be chaos”, but that claim appears to be belied by the massive opposition to his rule and by the peaceful nature of the protest. The only chaos that has occurred over the last 11 days appears to have been deliberately instigated by forces loyal to Hosni Mubarak, whether they were secret police or hired “thugs”.

The brutal crackdown that occurred in central Cairo over the last two days has reportedly led top United States government officials to speak directly to the top officials under Mubarak and in the Egyptian military, to chart a course for his departure from power, with an interim government to include opposition parties and possibly the military.

UPDATE, 10:44 am EST (5:44 pm Cairo): Video from the Guardian newspaper shows massive crowds, described by some as the single largest public pro-democracy protest in the history of the Arab world, at Tahrir Square in central Cairo. Demonstrators urge embattled Pres. Hosni Mubarak to “please, leave now”; one says “Everything is destroyed. What more do you want? Just leave,” while another says “Please, Mr. Mubarak, if you love this country, leave this country.

The demonstrations are being called the “Day of Departure”, and there have been reports across the world media throughout the day that top Egyptian government officials may be in talks with military leaders and foreign governments to discuss a swift exit for Hosni Mubarak. The exact shape of the interim government has not been agreed to or made public, but opposition leaders are reportedly being urged to negotiate with the government to speed Mubarak’s departure.

That hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out has surprised many, as there was such a serious escalation of violence over the last two days and what appeared to be preparations by the regime for a violent crackdown to crush the protests. Across the region, some observers have described a mood of “euphoria”, with one Yemeni parliament minister saying “this is the great Arab revolution” and that corrupt regimes will be swept from the scene.

UPDATE, 12:34 pm EST (7:34 pm Cairo): The Guardian is reporting:

The Egyptian army is manning checkpoints at all entrances to the square, searching people for weapons before allowing them in. No pro-Mubarak protesters are being allowed into the square, following days of clashes between the two groups. The atmosphere — in the square at least — has been relaxed and peaceful, although skirmishes and gunfire were reported later in central Cairo (5.18pm).

The Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei has reportedly said he will not run for the Egyptian presidency in future elections (5.10pm). However, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, who was in Tahrir Square today has reportedly suggested he is considering running for president (3.37pm).

Youth activists in Egypt have drawn a list of four very specific demands that they want to be met, including the dismantling of the ruling NDP government, a new constitution and the creation of a committee to have responsiblity for appointing a transitional government (5.05pm).

That the military is protecting every entrance to Tahrir Square, and allowing pro-democracy demonstrators into the square, while barring all weapons and all pro-Mubarak supporters, is a positive development, allowing for a far more peaceful and safer atmosphere than in recent days. There are sporadic reports of “skirmishes” and gunfire in the streets surrounding the area, but a swelling crowd and atmosphere of jubilation and defiance inside the square.

The New York Times reported earlier today that the Egyptian military may be in agreement with a plan to remove Mubarak from power and transition to an interim government representing a broad coalition of opposition parties. Calls for the dismantling of the governing NDP government are in part an effort to prevent the rigged parliament (83% went to Mubarak’s party, despite vehement opposition from the population) from undermining the peaceful transition to truly electoral government.

Ahmed Shafiq, the new prime minister installed over the weekend by embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, has made public apology for the violence that occurred yesterday in Cairo’s Midan Tahrir, or Liberation Square. Shafiq addressed the nation, saying “As officials and a state which must protect its sons, I thought it was necessary for me to apologize and to say that this matter will not be repeated”. He called the bloodshed “a disaster”.

The apology comes after images were broadcast around the world of heavily armed thugs assaulting reporters and peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, many of them found to be carrying official identification as state security forces or police. Anti-Mubarak protesters had said these so-called baltagayyah were paid gangs sent by Mubarak and Suleiman —the new vice president and Mubarak’s director of intelligence (and political detention and torture) for 15 years— to crush the popular uprising against the regime.

Shafiq acknowledged that the attacks appeared to be part of a coordinated campaign of violence, but that “no one had prior knowledge”. He described his being “surprised” to see camels in Tahrir Square, which many have interpreted as a subtle acknowledgement that he had thought the crackdown would look different than it did. Others have suggested Mubarak ordered Shafiq to make the apology, because he may have some “deniability”, may not have been involved in the planning.

There was swift, furious and angry reaction to Shafiq’s words on Twitter, where anti-Mubarak voices seemed convinced this was another way for the government to conceal its ongoing campaign to detain and intimidate the opposition and its supporters. Several feeds accused the government of continuing arrests and tactics of “humiliation” and suggested the investigations Shafiq spoke of would be what so many feared when Mubarak spoke of investigations: a widespread cover-up targeting dissenters and concealing Mubarak’s role in the chaos.

Many have also expressed concern that Wednesday demonstrated that the new Mubarak-Suleiman regime was formed specifically in order to take a more hardline, authoritarian posture to the protests. Shafiq expressed a willingness to go to Tahrir Square personally to meet with the pro-democracy demonstrators. Shafiq also said that he and Vice President Suleiman met today with leaders of several opposition parties and that talks to implement a transition to democratic rule would include demonstrators from Tahrir Square who have been calling for Mubarak to step down.

But key opposition figures rejected the claim, saying they would now negotiate with Mubarak, Suleiman or Shafiq. They say the three are part of a brutal authoritarian response to peaceful demonstrations, which has —as Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported Tuesday— left at least 300 killed and over 3,000 injured, with masses of opposition supporters detained. Yesterday, at least four were killed and over 1,500 injured when pro-Mubarak forces —apparently organized by the regime— assaulted the demonstrators.

UPDATE, 10:33 am EST: Reports from Cairo say at least 8 human rights workers and pro-democracy workers from the Hisham Mobarak Law Center and the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights. Nicholas Kristof has put out a message on Twitter saying that journalists have been arrested by Mubarak police forces. The crackdown appears to continue, even as PM Shafiq says he wants to visit with and negotiate with demonstrators. One of those detained may be the father of one of a demonstrator who gave an emotional interview to Al Jazeera last night.

There are reports the police are accusing the protesters of being foreign agents, and it appears the Mubarak regime continues to be using the strategy that the nature of the crackdown and the meaning of the pro-democracy movement can be covered up.

There are more reports today of live ammunition being fired in Tahrir Square. Demonstrators have been injured and it appears the violent crackdown continues, even as the prime minister calls for negotiation and hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians mass in support of the pro-democracy movement.

UPDATE, 2:48 pm EST: Billionaire Richard Branson is has said Mubarak must resign, and he may lead a campaign to divest from Egypt if Mubarak or his regime remain in power. He called on business and political leaders from around the world to join together and issue a “clear statement of intent” calling on Mubarak to leave office immediately and allow a peaceful transition to electoral democracy.

UPDATE, 2:54 pm EST: The Guardian is reporting, via live updates on the crisis in Egypt:

While Christine Amanpour was allowed to interview Mubarak, her ABC colleagues have been running from pro-Mubarak mobs: “A group of angry Egyptian men carjacked an ABC News crew and threatened to behead them today in the latest and most menacing attack on foreign reporters trying to cover the anti-government uprising.”

Earlier today, NPR reported that doctors volunteering at the makeshift outdoor field hospital that had been set up in one corner of Tahrir Square said they treated huge numbers of wounds from knives, blunt objects, fire bombs and bullets, adding that snipers had been “backing up” the pro-Mubarak mobs from rooftops around Tahrir Square. It is another sign that professional security forces had been sent in to wage a paramilitary assault on peaceful demonstrators and journalists.

UPDATE, 3:00 pm EST: It is 10:00 pm in Cairo. The clashes that rocked the city throughout Wednesday and into the pre-dawn hours of Thursday were more sporadic and less intense Thursday, and Tahrir Square again filled with pro-democracy protesters, defying the regime’s use of force. But reports from Cairo, filtering through Twitter and international media, suggest the crackdown is in fact widening, as human rights workers and journalists are now being detained and brutalized.

Voices among the demonstrators say the security forces detaining human rights lawyers suggested they were to be slandered as foreign agents, as part of a Mubarak-led cover-up of the regime’s violent crackdown. Mubarak himself told ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour that he is “disturbed” by the violence that occured on Wednesday and into Thursday, but that his government was not responsible. Protesters, and some journalists, have warned these remarks presage a strict authoritarian crackdown intended to reclaim Mubarak’s hold on power.

Vice President Omar Suleiman announced today that Mubarak’s son, Gamal, would not seek election to replace his father in the presidential elections scheduled for the fall of this year. It also appears Gamal Mubarak has resigned from the ruling National Democratic Party, though the specific motivation for doing so was not made public.

The government also reportedly froze the assets and prohibited the travel of key figures that were dismissed from the government last week by Mubarak. That move is being interpreted as one of two things: either an attempt to conceal evidence of the regime’s wrongdoing by barring witnesses access to foreign media, or to paint Mubarak as a man of law and order willing to cooperate in investigations of corruption within his administration.

UPDATE, 6:40 pm EST: Today a small candlelight vigil was held by human rights supporters in Old Damascus, to mourn the pro-democracy demonstrators who have died in Egypt. Syrian authorities failed to intervene when a group of 20 men “dressed in civilian clothes” but apparently coordinated, assaulted and, from eyewitness accounts, brutally beat the 15 unarmed civilians gathered in front of a police station.

While Mubarak’s new prime minister has apologized for the violence in Tahrir Square and said he will investigate the causes, and Mubarak’s vice president and chief intelligence officer said fall elections have been moved up to August, Pres. Mubarak himself defiantly said his government is not responsible for the violence and blamed one of the opposition parties.

Meanwhile the crackdown has reportedly been ongoing and in some ways intensifying. Journalists are now so flagrantly and directly under assault from security forces in central Cairo that multiple networks have shut down their live feeds. There are reports of at least 13 people killed, as pro-Mubarak forces appear to continue attacking demonstrators. Cairo has become the world’s most dangerous city for journalists, almost overnight, and Mubarak’s regime is being condemned for the violence.

UPDATE, 8:12 pm EST: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer explained on air that the mounting rash of violence and political detentions targeting journalists “has made it impossible for us to show live pictures”. Al Jazeera’s Cairo bureau put out a tweet saying the same, that maintaining the live feed from Tahrir Square was putting their lives in danger. They pledged to bring back the live feed as soon as security conditions improved.

The atmosphere of violence and the persecution of journalists should be something the Egyptian military could control. It appears to independent observers that the military has taken the view that the “pro-Mubarak” forces are probably a mix of citizens and paramilitaries and that restraint is preferable.

Today the military mobilized to keep the pro-Mubarak gangs out of Tahrir Square, at least for part of the day, and pr0-democracy demonstrators in the square began fortifying and securing barricades to make sure armed cadres could not entre the square. Makeshift field hospitals were set up at one corner of the square to back up the main field hospital set up inside a nearby mosque, and activists were reportedly detaining armed attackers they were able to subdue in a holding area.

The suspicion now seems to have been demonstrated to be fact: news media across the world have shown images from Cairo of police ID cards recovered from rioting pro-Mubarak forces allegedly paid to assault journalists and pro-democracy demonstrators. The Mubarak regime has seized control of state media, is lying the Egyptian people, and is paying “goon squads” to brutally assault journalists and unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators.

Journalists from CBS News, CNN, Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, multiple British networks and other journalists around the world, were physically assaulted, kidnapped, severely beaten, interrogated and frogmarched away from Tahrir Square, in separate but apparently coordinated incidents throughout the day. It is now being widely reported that the machete-wielding horsemen flashing through Tahrir Square, pursuing journalists and charging protesters were agents of Hosni Mubarak and an attempt to turn the demonstrations bloody, in order to justify a violent crackdown.

The Committee to Protect Journalists today said the Mubarak regime is “employing a strategy of eliminating witnesses to their actions”. CBS News anchor Katie Couric relayed the news from a colleague who interviewed a prominent Mubarak ally, who admitted, in Couric’s words, that “Business associates close to the regime did in fact pay some of these pro-Mubarak protesters to hit the streets”.

At 9:17 pm EST (4:17 am Cairo time), after several hours of pro-Mubarak gangs hurling flaming gasoline bombs into crowds of unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators, NBC’s Richard Engel is reporting that the violent Mubarak supporters who were throwing Molotov cocktails appear to have been pushed back away from the elevated bridge where they were waging an ongoing assault against the unarmed protesters.

As they retreat, Engel is reporting, the constant bursts of sound are automatic weapons fire emerging from the area where the pro-Mubarak gangs are retreating. As the gunfire intensifies, at least one army tank turned on its engines and began moving toward the area where the pro-Mubarak forces were apparently firing their weapons. The tank began emitting large amounts of white smoke, apparently an effort to create a smoke-screen to effectively separate the two groups.

Engel said he cannot say that only the pro-Mubarak forces were firing, but according to video and press reports emerging from central Cairo from throughout the day, they are the only faction that was seen carrying or using firearms throughout the day. Engel confirmed that the gunfire was coming specifically from areas “controlled” by the pro-Mubarak forces.

Engel said “we definitely have been targeted”, adding that “there was a clear order from whoever sent this organized mob, this gang of thugs”. He said “every foreign journalist in this country was swarmed, almost simultaneously; it happened around 2 o’clock”. He confirmed that there were journalists attacked, stabbed, kidnapped, that some are still missing over 14 hours later.

It appears, after the clashes of Wednesday and the street fights of Thursday’s pre-dawn hours, that Hosni Mubarak has decided to wage war against his own people, to spill the blood of his fellow Egyptians in a quest to preserve his own thirty-year rule, despite history’s having turned against him. His quest to remain in power appears to have revealed before the eyes of all the world the very abuses that sparked and justify this popular uprising.

Brian Williams followed Engel’s report with the news that the sound of live fire appeared to be partly from army warning shots intended to disperse the violent mobs. He added that ”They’re making shields out of sheet metal” and described a “workshop” area where pro-Mubarak forces were allegedly assembling Molotov cocktails.

A tank was seen speeding through the edge of the square emitting another smoke screen, apparently with the effect of keeping the two sides apart and dispersing the crowds that were engaged in what appeared to be an escalating incident of urban combat. At the time of this writing, anti-government protesters are reportedly telling Al-Jazeera they are guarding all of the entrances to Tahrir Square, anticipating that the pro-Mubarak forces that have only just now retreated may be returning with reinforcements for a new day of violent attacks.

There is heavy gunfire coming from the square, which NBC reports appears to be “tracer rounds” or warning shots from at least one armored personnel carrier. CNN reports there are both “heavy gunfire” and “tracer fire”. Al Arabiya is reporting that at least one person was killed by the gunfire around the square.

Anderson Cooper, who was himself attacked today by a pro-Mubarak mob, said “People have died who did not need to die; people will die tonight who did not need to die.” CNN, MSNBC and other sources are reporting that protesters have been trying to transport the wounded out of the square, to get them to safety and treatment.

From about 4:40 local time, MSNBC had been covering an attack on a small truck that appeared to be bringing “supplies” to pro-Mubarak demonstrators to allow them to dig in and refresh their attacks on demonstrators. Shortly after 5:00 am, CNN was reporting the driver had been taken to a “kind of holding area”, where anti-government protesters were reportedly trying to contain captured government agents to prevent further violence.

It also appears the pro-democracy demonstrators are now surrounded on all sides, and may be unable to get new supplies or “reinforcements” to shore up their position. CNN’s Ben Wedeman said “there’s no other explanation” for the intensity and the consistency of the violent assault on the demonstrators than the deliberate participation of the government.

UPDATE, 10:36 pm EST: CNN reports the US Secretary of Defense has communicated directly with his counterpart in the Egyptian defense ministry and Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and top US military officer, has spoken with his counterpart in the Egyptian military. There is concern the military’s failure to intervene to stop the violence against unarmed civilians today may suggest top military officials continue to support Pres. Mubarak, while the Egyptian people expect the military to protect them against the brutality of Mubarak’s militia.

UPDATE, 10:45 pm EST: CNN is showing footage from Wednesday’s assaults on journalists and protesters in Cairo. People bleeding and severely wounded, many of them journalists were shown being carried from the site of the clashes. One man bleeding profusely from his head screamed that this was the work of Mubarak and said Egypt would fight for its freedom. Another view showed a reporter for the Barcelona-based La Vanguardia newspaper having a huge gash on his head stitched.

A school teacher told CNN’s AC360 that he found himself inside the triage area and the mosque where the wounded have been getting treatment. He and other volunteers joined with medical staff to provide basic first aid and medical attention to people, most of whom had injuries to their heads or to their arms.

The US State Dept. is now issuing instructions to all Americans wanting to leave Egypt, to make their way to the airport as soon as possible after the morning end of curfew, to take advantage of chartered US government flights out of the country. There is information at the State Dept. website for people concerned about personal safety.

UPDATE, 11:22 pm EST: Occupied Cairo blog reports from Egypt that paid thuggery is routine Mubarak strategy for crushing dissent; today’s events were likely in the planning since demonstrations began:

The Mubarak regime has maintained a concerted policy of introducing plainclothes thugs into protest situations, sometimes armed with weapons, but always with the impunity to violently quash even the slightest dissent (and the presence of these baltagayyah is inevitably in addition to the obscene amount of uniformed security officers the government will usually deploy to any demonstration, no matter how small).  It’s not always certain whether these thugs are full time employees of the regime or simply bored individuals with a penchant for violence and a hankering for a few extra bucks and a chicken sandwich in exchange for a day’s work of beating the hell out of some demonstrators. What is certain is that rarely does any political protest or demonstration go down in Cairo without a healthy dose of baltagayyah violence.

The Baltagayyah are reported to be “the paid paramilitaries of the Egyptian state”, Mubarak’s preferred agents provocateurs. It appears Mubarak does not comprehend the meaning of the moment, and believes he can assault the protesters, and survive. This is unlike 1989 China or 2009 Iran, where the state had near total control of all media and all the levers of power: the world is watching, and Mubarak is laying out the case for his own swift exit from Egyptian politics.

UPDATE, 11:38 pm EST: There is increasing speculation that the pro-Mubarak invasion of Tahrir Square —including armed men arriving on boats, camels, horses, and by bus, carrying huge shiny portraits of Hosni Mubarak, chanting “he will not go”, attacking journalists and foreigners in a concerted way— were in fact planned extensively since the bloody assault of last Friday failed to disperse the demonstrators.

Less than 12 hours after Pres. Hosni Mubarak gave a defiant address on national television, and announced he would not seek another term as president but would remain in office until elections later this year, a group of “pro-Mubarak demonstrators” have reportedly clashed with pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square. Some are now calling the protest movement a “war of stamina“.

After announcing that his police forces would be back on the streets to “clean up” after the demonstrators and that he would spearhead official investigations into how the protests were organized and who was behind the violent clashes —a serious threat to democracy, given that just yesterday, evidence emerged that secret police loyal to Mubarak were responsible, at least in part, for instigating the looting and violence over the weekend—, Mubarak appears to believe the protests will now end.

The military has been instructed to disperse the protesters, and the defense ministry —which has cooperated peacefully with demonstrators, maintaining order despite the massive numbers in the streets on Tuesday— is urging protesters to go home. Mubarak, military officials say, has agreed to leave office at the end of the current term, and the country should return to “normal”.

According to the Financial Times:

The army has previously issued statements saying it would not use violence against protesters and saying it understood the “legitimate demands” of the Egyptian people. However the military’s call was not heeded as thousands of people continued to stream into Tahrir Square, the focus of the two weeks of demonstrations that have brought the country to a standstill.

Soldiers on duty in the area made no effort to stop them and many of the protesters said they were unaware of the military announcement.

A spokesman for the defense ministry said today: “Your message is received … (your) demands became known,” adding that ”we are here and awake to protect the country for you … not by power but by the love to Egypt”. With more protesters again streaming into Tahrir Square, it seemed unclear whether the message was taken as a definitive declaration of the army’s position.

Opposition leaders and protest organizers had given the military until Thursday to “choose sides”, and the conciliatory language of the message appears to suggest the military is not planning to fight for Mubarak against the people. But as the first group of “pro-Mubarak demonstrators” appeared in Tahrir Square to assault the pro-democracy crowd, there are concerns Mubarak may be planning to instigate more violence and/or a new round of crackdowns on dissent.

What degree of coordination there may have been with Mubarak’s inner circle or loyal police forces is not clear, but Mubarak’s message seemed intended to stoke the anger of more conservative Egyptians who wish to return to the view that Mubarak was a national hero and that his period of rule has not been one long time lost. Observers on the ground seemed to believe it was unlikely a group of up to 2,000 people would so angrily oppose the huge numbers of anti-Mubarak demonstrators without some promise of protection from the government.

The BBC is reporting:

Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei dismissed Mr Mubarak’s move as “a trick” to stay in power, and Tahrir Square protesters have vowed to continue their demonstrations until Mr Mubarak quits.

Abdelhalim Kandil, leader of Egypt’s Kifaya (Enough) opposition movement, said Mr Mubarak’s offer not to serve a sixth term was not enough.

Another massive protest of more than one million is planned for Friday, after prayers, and demonstrators say they will continue to defy curfew orders and ask the military to stand with them against Mubarak. If he does not step down, the demonstrators are planning a massive march on the presidential palace itself, to directly demand his departure.

UPDATE, 8:54 am EST: CNN is now reporting its news anchor Anderson Cooper and his crew were assaulted by a group of “pro-Mubarak demonstrators” in Tahrir Square. The report came in on CNN’s live updates feed at 3:42 pm Cairo time—12 minutes ago.

Just minutes earlier, this report was posted: “A crew of men were seen on video using tools to break up pavement near Tahrir Square, while others carried loads of rocks, presumably to be thrown at the opposing demonstrators. It wasn’t known which side they supported.”

According to CNN’s Steve Brusk, “Anderson said he was punched 10 times in the head as pro-Mubarak mob surrounded him and his crew trying to cover demonstration”.

UPDATE, 9:07 am EST: Observers are now reporting that Mubarak appears to be “in denial” and that there is no significant meaning to the demonstrations allegedly supporting his rule. Reports from Alexandria and Cairo suggest that among civilians in the pro-Mubarak crowds, the view is not that Mubarak should stay, but that his slow departure is a satisfactory result.

There are reports, however, that the clashes in Cairo are being motivated by Mubarak’s own government sending secret police and paid citizens out into the street. At least one reporter for Al-Arabiya was reportedly stabbed by a “pro-Mubarak mob”. There are reports that “pro-Mubarak demonstrators” rode into the square on camel and horseback, intent on attacking protesters, and that some were secret police or paid “thugs” sent in by Mubarak or those close to him.

UPDATE, 9:17 am EST: Al Jazeera is reporting that “pro-Mubarak supporters” on horseback and camel are rushing at reporters all around Tahrir Square. The report says “they are a very angry crowd looking for anyone working for Al Jazeera and for Americans. They are trying to get on the other side of the army tanks to get to the anti-Mubarak supporters. More and more pro-Mubarak supporters are coming in”.

The volume and coordination among the rush of “pro-Mubarak demonstrators” and the apparent targeting of specific groups has raised suspicions the men on horseback are Mubarak security forces out to instigate bloodshed, inure or scare civilians and crush the protest movement.

At least three opposition groups issued a joint statement, saying the horsemen had been identified as plainclothes security forces sent in to disrupt the peaceful demonstrations. The statement read, in part “Members of security forces dressed in plain clothes and a number of thugs have stormed Tahrir Square”. There are concerns a “bloodbath” is being planned by pro-Mubarak forces.

Opposition demonstrators have reportedly shown media police ID badges taken from attackers at Tahrir Square. There are unconfirmed reports of civilians killed by pro-Mubarak forces. Al Jazeera is tracking the story and promises more soon.

UPDATE, 10:22 am EST: New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof has tweeted “Pro-Mubarak thugs everywhere have same talking points, same signs, same hostility to journalists. An organized crackdown.”

MSNBC reporter Richard Engel, reporting from Tahrir Square, says pro-democracy demonstrators told him they would be willing to die in Tahrir Square, to forward the cause of democracy in Egypt. Opposition spokesperson Mohamed El Baradei has told the press the crackdown is a clear sign there can be no negotiation with the Mubarak regime, that the transition can only begin once he leaves the country.

UPDATE, 10:33 am EST: Twitter feeds cite “NY Times reporter” observing buses packed with “thugs” armed with guns and “sharp razors” unloading at Tahrir Square. Another cites Al Jazeera reporting that some of the “pro-Mubarak supporters” who provoked the violence today were wearing army uniforms, an apparent attempt by the regime to drive a wedge between the the military and the pro-democracy movement.

UPDATE, 10:37 am EST: Al Jazeera reports sounds of gunfire heard echoing across Tahrir Square, as “pro-Mubarak activists seize control of three military armored vehicles, escalating what appears to be a Mubarak-led crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. The assault on military personal may provoke a military response against the pro-Mubarak faction.

UPDATE, 10:51 am EST: CNN reports the Egyptian military has brought in armored vehicles to try to set up barricades to separate pro-Mubarak forces from pro-democracy demonstrators. There are reports of tear-gas spreading in the square, but CNN’s Anderson Cooper says pro-government forces have begun throwing Molotov cocktails, and that in an apparent sign of coordination, at least one large “fireball”, likely a Molotov cocktail, was hurled from a rooftop down into the crowd.

Reuters is showing live footage of Tahrir Square, where pro-democracy demonstrators have formed a human chain around their camp in the center of the square, promising not to cede their ground. Cooper reported that the military did not intervene with force against any faction. But approaching 6 pm Cairo time, there is live footage of water cannon being fired over the crowds, possibly an attempt to put out a small fire.

It is unclear how the fire or fires were started, but CNN footage showed fire spreading in the basement of one building, with small fires emerging as Molotov cocktails are hurled. For most of the last week, pro-democracy demonstrators organized a consistent security check to ensure that no weapons were brought into the square, and it now appears the pro-Mubarak forces have brought weapons, ranging from firearms to Molotov cocktails, batons and knives into the square.

UPDATE, 10:58 am EST: As a volley of Molotov cocktails were hurled into the crowds, and fires catching across the square, there are calls for the military to back up their comrades stationed in the center of the clashes. State television is reportedly referring to the pro-Mubarak mobs as “pro-stability demonstrators”, another sign the violence is a coordinated effort organized by the state.

The state television network was accused by its own journalists of reporting distorted information and downplaying the government’s use of violence last week. One reporter resigned in protest over the weekend, and today, it appears the state television network is being used as a propaganda tool to aid in the government’s increasingly violent crackdown.

Journalists monitoring live video feeds from the square say the water being sprayed into the crowds, to put out fires resulting from the Molotov cocktails, is being sprayed “by people at the edge of the square”, locals or demonstrators hoping to put out the fires. NY Times journalist Nicholas Kristof said among the weapons he saw pro-Mubarak forces carrying into the square, there were machetes.

The Molotov cocktails are clearly seen on live video from Tahrir Square being thrown or fired from among the pro-Mubarak forces into the crowds of pro-democracy/anti-Mubarak demonstrators. Over the weekend, calls for Mubarak to be tried for treason and for murder, for his role in the killings last Friday, began to mount; pro-democracy voices are now saying the Mubarak regime is clearly an enemy of the Egyptian people. It is unclear whether there have been —on this day of clashes— any substantive “negotiations” between the People’s Parliament or the citizens’ pro-democracy movement and the Mubarak government.

For several hours, according to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, there have been “pitched battles” in front of the Egyptian Museum, clashes reportedly instigated by heavily armed, angry and violent pro-Mubarak gangs. More Molotov cocktails have been “launched” from the top of one building, both against the army’s vehicles and directly into the crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators.

UPDATE, 5:32 pm EST: Reports from Cairo say state-run Nile TV broadcast a “warning” ordering all Egyptians to leave the scenes of demonstrations and obey the government-imposed curfew, but that pro-democracy demonstrators appeared to be “gaining ground” in struggles with violent pro-Mubarak forces and that thousands remained in Tahrir Square and the area around the Egyptian Museum, after dark.

Pro-democracy demonstrators had said they feared security forces close to Mubarak might be planning “a bloodbath” after nightfall, but that they were prepared to remain in Tahrir Square, regardless of the personal risk. At least 3 people were killed and more than 600 injured in violent clashes instigated by armed supporters of Pres. Hosni Mubarak, Wednesday.

The violence was roundly condemned by leaders and observers from around the world. PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US State Dept., said the violent assaults on demonstrators were ”a direct threat to the aspirations of the Egyptian people” and added that ”The use of violence to intimidate the Egyptian people must stop.” The US is calling “strongly” for “restraint”.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the time for a democratic transition “is now” and that the process of democratic transition needed to be substantive and meaningful, that “meaningful transition must include opposition voices and parties being involved in this process as we move toward free and fair elections.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron called the attacks “despicable” and said that “if it turns out that the (Mubarak) regime in any way has been sponsoring or tolerating this violence, that would be completely and utterly unacceptable.” Consensus seems to be spreading now that Mubarak must depart the political stage in Egypt immediately, if there is to be peace and justice for the Egyptian people.

It also appears Mubarak has lost hist most interested partner in the realpolitik of the region, the Israeli prime minister. PM Netanyahu told the Knesset that “I am convinced that that the forces that want to bring change and democratization in Egypt will also enhance peace between Israel and the Arab world,” adding “we are not there yet. The struggle has not been decided.” Netanyahu went on to say that “We need to do everything to make sure that peace endures.”

It would appear from the tenor of world leaders’ reactions today that Mubarak’s position is now utterly untenable and the violent crackdown has crossed a line from which there is no going back. With Israel’s hardline, security-minded prime minister openly supporting the pro-democracy forces and saying an open and democratic Egypt will be better for regional security and cooperation, it would appear the last political justification for Mubarak’s regime has been abandoned.

Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s foreign minister, called the attackers “gangs of thugs” and suggested they were acting under orders from the regime of Hosni Mubarak, saying “The scenes of violence on the streets of Cairo throws into question whether the Egyptian political leadership has understood the importance of a speedy democratic reconstruction.”

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the world’s leading diplomat, said the violence was “unacceptable” and said it was clearly time for an “orderly and a peaceful transition” to take place in Egypt. He warned that further violence could destabilize Egypt and the region, and called for an end to attacks on demonstrators.

UPDATE, 6:14 pm EST: CNN’s Fred Pleitgen reports from Tahrir Square, after a day of violent clashes, that there is automatic weapons fire in the background, and what appear to be battles between opposing sides, hurling Molotov cocktails at each other. Though pro-democracy demonstrators remain in the square, Pleitgen reports many have dispersed.

The people throwing firebombs off rooftops appear to be trying to target those remaining. The military remains in the square, though they have not intervened, and Pleitgen says the automatic weapons fire may be the military firing warning shots intended to alert the bomb-throwers to avoid targeting the military or to cease their attacks.

More from Cafe Sentido:

• ‘March of Millions’ Fills Cairo’s Tahrir Square
• New ‘People’s Parliament’ Planning Egypt Transition
• Assad Plans Reforms in Syria
• Students Stage Pro-democracy Demonstrations in Sudan
• Egypt Updates: ‘Basic Collapse of Law & Order’, Anger at Mubarak
• Egypt Update: Military Appears to Protect Demonstrators (video)
• Egypt Updates: Worldwide Protests Join Demonstrators’ Call for Mubarak to Go
• Egypt Updates: Uprising Intensifies, Mubarak to Dismiss Government
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread to Jordan
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread Across Arabic-speaking World
• Tens of Thousands Protest Authoritarian Rule in Egypt
• Tunisian Regime Toppled by Street Protests
• Internet Access Must Be a Human Right
• ‘A New Beginning’: Obama’s Cairo Speech (video + transcript)

Marking one full week of mass demonstrations, on the 8th day of the pro-democracy popular uprising, the Egyptian people staged the largest demonstration to date. Estimates for the size of the crowd at Midan Tahrir —or Liberation Square— range from 500,000 to 2 million. Some say more may have come to central Cairo but were unable to enter the square. The military pledged not to attack or interfere with demonstrators and the rally was peaceful. Security, both military and civilian, checked people entering the square to ensure there would not be violence.

Tens of thousands also gathered in other cities across the country. The military cooperated with organizers to allow for a massive and peaceful demonstration, and tens of thousands were reported to be filling Tahrir Square after nightfall, once more defying the Mubarak government’s curfew. Opposition leaders have asked the military to choose sides by Thursday, and expect that no later than Friday, they will be able to stage massive rallies celebrating the end of Mubarak’s rule.

By mid afternoon, at least one journalist had posted the following to Twitter: “US Ambassador met El Baradei today. Rumour Mubarak gone to Bahrain. Still not confirmed. #jan25 #c4news #feb01″. If the US ambassador to Egypt has met with Mohamed El Baradei, the most visible and widely known leader of the opposition, and Mubarak has left the country, the transition could already be underway. At 12:59 pm EST, MSNBC confirmed the US ambassador had spoken to El Baradei.

A US State Department spokesperson has published the following comment on Twitter: “The U.S. Embassy in #Cairo has been especially busy in the past several days with an active outreach to political and civil society reps”. The comment suggests the US administration is working to help Egyptian opposition leaders negotiate a peaceful and orderly transition to electoral government.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the Democratic party’s 2004 candidate to replace George W. Bush, and a senior member of the Senate, wrote the following in the New York Times, today:

EVEN if the protests shaking Egypt subside in the coming days, the chaos of the last week has forever changed the relationship between the Egyptian people and their government. The anger and aspirations propelling a diverse range of citizens into the streets will not disappear without sweeping changes in the social compact between the people and the government — and these events also call for changes in the relationship between the United States and a stalwart Arab ally.

President Hosni Mubarak must accept that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure. One of the toughest jobs that a leader under siege can perform is to engineer a peaceful transition. But Egyptians have made clear they will settle for nothing less than greater democracy and more economic opportunities.

With political leaders in the US, the current government’s most significant backer, shifting toward not only “substantive reform” but to the outright replacement of Hosni Mubarak as the nation’s leader, it is widely expected military leadership will be inching toward supporting the People’s Parliament —a coalition of all major opposition parties, pledging an interim national government and open elections this year— and the protest movement.

In Alexandria, reports there are reports young people have come together to protect the Library of Alexandria from potential looters. Monday saw citizens from every corner of society once more joining the protests, with reporters talking of disciplined organization at the rallies in central Cairo, people serving on “shifts” throughout the day, to keep Tahrir Square full of protesters.

Today, the massive nationwide show of non-violent popular force may have done a great deal not only to show the decisiveness of the pro-democracy movement, but also to restore order to the streets. After bloody clashes instigated by police, under orders from the government, on Friday, the weekend saw the collapse of street-level security, and the opposition accused Mubarak of instigating chaos, even freeing violent prisoners, in an effort to discredit the protesters and win support for a major crackdown.

It now seems clear that Tuesday, 1 February 2011, is the most massive day of pro-democracy street demonstrations in the history of the Arabic-speaking world, and potentially a real turning point in the history of Egypt and the region. (The Guardian newspaper has confirmed that more than one million people gathered at Tahrir Square, while Al-Jazeera reports there were two million present.) At the time of this writing, the US government has reportedly canceled a number of briefings and photo opportunities and is thought to be negotiating a forthcoming announcement about a planned transition.

Reports that Pres. Mubarak has in fact left the country are as yet unconfirmed. He has not made a public appearance since his announcement Friday that he would fire and replace his entire cabinet. As opposition parties and the People’s Parliament —their unified voice— have said his vice president, Omar Suleiman, is not an adequate replacement, some alternative successor and/or interim government arrangement will likely need to be arranged before any official announcement of his departure.

UPDATE, 2:46 pm EST: American television news sources are announcing embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak will address his nation this evening, offering “a good solution” for the dissatisfaction with his rule. According to numerous reports, it is expected he will announce he will not stand for reelection, but no report has yet suggested he has pledged to leave office.

Opposition parties, including a coalition of secular parties as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, announced today that they have chosen Mohamed El Baradei to be the official lead negotiator in transition talks between the opposition and the Mubarak regime.

UPDATE, 4:11 pm EST: Pres. Hosni Mubarak used an address to the nation to denounce “political parties who used the opportunity to put oil on the fire”, apparently accusing opposition figures of plotting to disrupt infrastructure and personal liberty, “the constitutional rights” of the Egyptian people.

Mubarak said “The last events in Egypt have imposed on every one of us… the responsibility to choose between stability and chaos… has imposed a new Egyptian reality that we and our armed forces have to deal with, with wisdom and care for the Egyptian people…” He added  ”Dear citizens, I have formed a new cabinet, to meet the demands and I have ordered the vice president to meet with all political parties to discuss what’s the best way to return to stability and order…”

Accusing opposition figures of intransigence, Mubarak said he was speaking directly to the people, to young people and farm workers, to the poor and the enterprising. He said (roughly interpreted on international broadcast):

To assure easy transition in a peaceful atmosphere to protect the Egyptians and to allow whomever the people will elect in the next presidential election, and I would say very clearly, and regardless of the current situation, I did not intend to run for another term. I have spent all my life to serve the Egyptian people, but I want to finish my work, to care for the country, guaranteed that everything goes smoothly. I want to say to everyone clearly that I will work on the remaining months of my term… to guarantee that there is a smooth transition of power…

He called for a change to the constitution to allow for a presidential election and asked the parliament to begin examining such reforms now. He pledged to provide more opportunities for employment and said he authorizes the police department “to continue serving the people with all respect for the people and their rights and their dignity…”

He also pledged to seek out “all corruptors”, whom he alleges are responsible for planning the violence and looting that took the place of order after his police killed dozens of protesters last week.

Mubarak added that “The Hosni Mubarak that is talking you right now is honored for the years he has served the Egyptian people”, pledging to remain on Egyptian soil till the end of his days, an apparent signal that he does not plan to leave the country.

Opposition groups will likely be unsatisfied with Mubarak’s pledge not to resign and not to leave the country. Even as hundreds of thousands gather in central Cairo to demand his resignation, pledging not to disperse until he is gone. His speech is being described as “proud” and “defiant”, and likely to disappoint the popular uprising, which has said that its central priority is that Mr. Mubarak resign and go into exile.

UPDATE, 4:15 pm EST: Reports from the White House say Pres. Obama and Sec. of State Clinton were meeting in the Situation Room, with top military, security and diplomatic officials, as of 3:00 pm EST. It is believed they were there viewing the speech live and will be planning the next round of political and diplomatic negotiation.

Reporting from Cairo suggests that on the streets of the capital, word among demonstrators was that it was no longer for Hosni Mubarak to decide whether his term is over. The statement is being interpreted as not only inadequate, but as a defiant denunciation of the protests, in service of which he may be intending to marshal police and/or military loyalists to wage another crackdown.

UPDATE, 4:22 pm EST: Longtime US diplomat with friendly relationship with Egyptian president reportedly sent to Cairo to speak directly to Hosni Mubarak, to deliver the message that not running for reelection is not enough; it is time for Mubarak to step down and allow a peaceful and orderly transition.

According to Voice of America:

An unprecedented Internet cutoff remained in place Tuesday, as Google announced it has created a way for Twitter users to post to the micro-blogging site by dialing a phone number and leaving a voicemail.

Egypt’s newly appointed vice president said Mr. Mubarak has asked him to begin immediate discussions with all “political forces” on constitutional and legislative reforms. Omar Suleiman, a longtime confidant of Mr. Mubarak, did not say what the changes will entail or which groups the government will contact.

UPDATE, 4:30 pm EST: Fawaz Gerges, from the London School of Economics, is characterizing Mubarak’s speech as defiant and dangerous, possibly destabilizing the military and the security of the Egyptian people. The military today abided by their pledge not to attack or work against the demonstrators, yet Mubarak seems to be using his legacy as a national military hero to drive a wedge between moderates and hardliners in the military.

Mubarak did not mention the emergency law under which he has ruled for three decades or whether its restrictions on basic freedoms might be relaxed. While he spoke of the people’s “rights”, he suggested that he will use security forces to restore “stability”. Observers are saying while Mubarak claims to represent stability, he seems intent on prolonging the instability and possibly thrusting his nation into a real security crisis.

UPDATE, 5:02 pm EST: Reports from Alexandria suggest as many as 100 people have been killed there alone, during the last week. The reports are raising questions about whether some of the government’s crackdown has actually been suppressed or has gone unnoticed until now. As the number of people joining together in protest, in the open air of public squares, has swelled, more information has become available, and there are concerns about what is not known about the early phase of the government crackdown.

Turkey’s prime minister has publicly declared support for Egypt’s masses of pro-democracy demonstrators. In the Turkish parliament, he directly called for Mubarak to step down and turn the country over to opposition parties representing the will of the people. With key allies rejecting Mubarak’s leadership, Hisham Melhem suggests Mubarak’s declaration of the will to stay will be the beginning of a process of easing Mubarak out of power.

There are concerns Mubarak’s defiant words, already denounced by protesters who have pledged to camp in Tahrir Square until he resigns, may stoke the fires of public anger and could lead to another round of violent clashes. Opposition leaders say they will insist on peaceful protest and top-level negotiation with the government, to implement a responsible transition, but that they will not relent in their call for action to address the “legitimate grievances” so many world leaders have recognized.

UPDATE, 6:42 pm EST: Several hospitals have told Human Rights Watch that looters, including some of the wounded, included undercover police agents loyal to Pres. Hosni Mubarak. The revelation appears to confirm allegations that Mubarak’s regime had deliberately plotted a sudden outburst of violence and bloodshed to undermine the popular uprising against the unpopular president.

The Washington Post’s Leila Fadel is reporting from Cairo:

Human Rights Watch confirmed several cases of undercover police loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to stoke fear of instability as demonstrations grew stronger Tuesday against the autocratic leader.

Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said hospitals confirmed that they received several wounded looters shot by the army carrying police identification cards. They also found several cases of looters and vandals in Cairo and Alexandria with police identification cards. He added that it was “unexplainable” that thousands of prisoners escaped from prisons over the weekend.

UPDATE, 6:55 pm EST: Pres. Obama addressed the nation and the world on live television, explaining that first of all the United States supports non-violence. He commended the Egyptian military for showing restraint and coexisting peacefully with demonstrators. He added that second, the United States believes in universal rights.

Third, Obama noted, the US believes it is time for change. The American president revealed he spoke to Pres. Hosni Mubarak after his televised address. He said Egypt has known moments of great change throughout thousands of years of history, adding that “the voices of the Egyptian people tell us that this is one of those times”.

Acknowledging it is not the place of any other nation to move events inside Egypt, he said he told Pres. Mubarak himself that the coming transition “must be meaningful” and that “it must begin now”. It was his boldest statement of support for the popular movement calling for democratic change, but was still measured and diplomatic, perhaps an effort to make sure the revolution belongs to the Egyptian people.

He praised “the passion and the dignity” demonstrated by the Egyptian people, saying it has been an inspiration to people in the United States, and also to anyone around the world “who believes in the inevitability of human freedom”. He said he recognizes this historic moment and that he will work with the Egyptian people and their leaders to provide any assistance necessary for ensuring a peaceful and democratic transition, adding that he is ”committed to a partnership between the United States and Egypt”.

He described the current atmosphere as one of legitimate grievances in which a nation is searching for answers. “I am confident that the people of Egypt will find those answers”, said Obama. He expressed admiration for peaceful activists promoting democracy, for ”mothers and fathers embracing soldiers” and for the human chains of citizens who linked arms to protect the nation’s great antiquities, what he called ”a new generation protecting the treasures of antiquity”.

More from Cafe Sentido:

• New ‘People’s Parliament’ Planning Egypt Transition
• Assad Plans Reforms in Syria
• Students Stage Pro-democracy Demonstrations in Sudan
• Egypt Updates: ‘Basic Collapse of Law & Order’, Anger at Mubarak
• Egypt Update: Military Appears to Protect Demonstrators (video)
• Egypt Updates: Worldwide Protests Join Demonstrators’ Call for Mubarak to Go
• Egypt Updates: Uprising Intensifies, Mubarak to Dismiss Government
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread to Jordan
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread Across Arabic-speaking World
• Tens of Thousands Protest Authoritarian Rule in Egypt
• Tunisian Regime Toppled by Street Protests
• Internet Access Must Be a Human Right
• ‘A New Beginning’: Obama’s Cairo Speech (video + transcript)

Ruling ignores precedent, is logically incoherent, ideologically driven and damaging to the Constitutional rights of ordinary Americans

Judge Roger Vinson, a federal judge in Florida, has ruled the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 “unconstitutional”, accepting without trial the argument put forward by 26 states’ attorneys general that the “individual mandate” requiring that Americans purchase insurance or face penalties was not only unconstitutional but was “unseverable” from the rest of the law. Judge Vinson’s ruling is fraught with fictions and distortions and appears to be designed to help insurers avoid facing any new regulation.

The ruling flagrantly resists conferring with prevailing law or precedent, and implicitly ignores the fact that the individual mandate is not the heart of the law, but rather an added measure designed to help make the new marketplace more sustainable for private insurers. The real heart of the law are specifics like:

• a ban on using “pre-existing conditions” to deny or drop coverage or to refuse needed treatment;
• a requirement that health insurers devote 80% of premium revenues to healthcare payments;
• a ban on rating the stock value of health insurers according to their willingness to reduce benefits;
• lower prescription drug costs for Medicare patients;
• major new tax credits to small businesses to help them cover their employees;
• low-cost health insurance policy exchanges where those too “affluent” for Medicaid can shop for competitively priced private health plans;
• tax incentives for community health clinics and continuing preventive care;
• preventive care coverage for Medicare patients…

But Vinson’s ruling ignores both the intent and the wording of the law. Vinson, who found that the individual mandate —originally a Republican proposal for how to avoid expanding government health insurance policies— falls beyond the reach of the Constitutional powers of Congress. In order to effectuate his ruling, he then “voided” the entire healthcare law, saying it “cannot be reconciled with a limited government of enumerated powers”.

Federalist Activism

The phrase “limited government of enumerated powers” is not Constitutional law or judicial precedent, but an ideologically driven phrase penned by Vinson himself, in order to make new law and pursue “strict constructionist” activism from the bench. Vinson seems to argue, as did the defenders of slavery and later of segregation, that the particular institution in question —health insurance management— is not a form of “interstate commerce”, but that those who would profit from or perpetuate the status quo have a right against any federal regulation or interference with their modus operandi.

The ruling also raises questions about political corruption and collusion among the 26 states’ attorneys general who brought this suit, and whether there was illegal “venue shopping” involved in bringing the case in Florida, in order to secure a favorable ruling from Judge Vinson. The ruling is being called “judicial activism on steroids” and part of an “extremist” agenda to guarantee that private health insurers maintain near total control over the live-and-death treatment decisions of sick Americans.

The ruling will be appealed and will likely end up being decided in the United States Supreme Court. On other issues, where similar examples of extreme bias or activism were used to challenge major new federal initiatives, like Social Security, civil rights laws or Medicare, the Supreme Court has ultimately corrected the lower-court rulings, but with two federal judges now having ruled in favor of the law and two against, there is concern that the more conservative justices now on the Court may side with the activist conservative view.

Several prominent legal thinkers have issued statements supporting the ruling, many of them making vague references to the intentions of the founders or to “powers reserved to the states”. The Constitution does not reserve to the states the power to determine whether people buy insurance, yet states force people to buy insurance if they want to drive an automobile. In that case, less affluent state residents are forced to help more affluent residents, who could afford to go without insurance, fund their insurance against theft or inadvertent harm to others.

Flawed Statements of Support

Stephen B. Presser, a professor of legal history at Northwestern University, wrote an opinion piece for CNN, laced with ideological prejudice and fundamental distortions of what the law and the ruling mean for the legal framework of the United States. For instance, Presser writes:

Vinson’s opinion is a simple and clear reminder that ours is still a federal government of limited and enumerated powers. Not only has Vinson vindicated those state officials who participated in the litigation, he has also vindicated those of us who believe in the rule of law and believe that the Constitution is not an infinitely plastic document.

Vinson’s opinion is not simple or clear; it is a 78-page muddle of rambling and circular logic, assigning to himself powers other judges would not so hastily assume. It is a rationalization of an ideological view that is not supported by history or by the founding documents. The ruling begins like a college paper on civics, with quotes from The Federalist Papers, a worthy and meaningful document, but not a law and not judicial precedent.

Presser explains that:

If the federal government could force Americans to buy health care insurance, as many Americans understood, ours would have been a federal government with unlimited powers to force us to buy any commodity or engage in almost any activity.

This is an incredible claim: any specific product the federal government asks individuals to give money for is unconstitutional? The framers might agree on at least one point. The framers were opposed to a “standing army”, believing it was the hallmark of tyranny and undemocratic government. Our government now spends more than $600 billion a year on the military, including specific hardware that is written into legislation. If anyone seeks to avoid funding the purchase of that hardware by refusing to pay taxes, that individual is subject not only to fines, but to property seizure and to jailtime.

But there is ideology in the view supporting the plaintiffs, whether it is Presser’s view or Vinson’s or the Republican party’s view or the insurance industry’s. And that ideology is not opposed to bringing financial interests of the powerful into this argument. For the powerful, this is a matter of liberty; for everyone else, it is a matter of Constitutional order. And we cannot “defend” the Constitution without forcing our citizens to pay for billion-dollar weapons systems, so that will not be made relevant.

In fact, the entire “limited government” argument is made meaningless by the fact that when the very powerful federal government uses taxpayer dollars to buy stealth bombers, using legislation to mandate that this take place and enriching private interests in the process, the power of the federal government is materially and factually expanded, while by requiring that private insurers cover more people, it is not.

Relevant History: Theory, or Injustice?

Vinson quotes Federalist 45, which reads, in part: “[t]he powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” He gets the matter right, in part, and wrong in spirit. The Constitution does not actually give “numerous and indefinite” powers to the states, but rather to the people, who retain every right and every power not enumerated in the Constitution.

The states do enjoy some authority beyond the specific powers enumerated as belonging to the federal government, but this fact arises from a loophole: no law in any state can run afoul of the reasoning of the Constitution itself. So, for instance, were slavery banned by the Constitution, no state would have been empowered to undertake it. For nearly a century, slave-owning states fought to persuade the courts that the federal government had no authority to regulate or restrict the practice of slavery, because they wanted the right to assign at the local level to their states that power.

It was an absurd argument, and it is still, to this day, tragic that it went so long unchallenged by truly decent men. It is tragic that for more than 70 years after the establishment of our Constitution, that feeble, and flagrantly false argument. Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution grants to Congress the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.

It is a widely held view that the personal bias of judges, and the ever-present threat of secession and/or civil war, is what allowed the argument to last so long, that “slavery” was “an issue of states’ rights”. It was not. Slavery was always a trade that existed between the United States and foreign nations and between and among “the several States” themselves. It was for Congress to decide how it was implemented or if it was impermissible.

That said, it is also a widely held view that it was the southern states’ foolish act of launching a civil war that allowed Abraham Lincoln the power to decree the end of slavery, as a means of weakening an enemy, due to his powers as commander-in-chief in a time of war. In the interim, Congress was subject to a system that was deliberately rigged to favor southern slave-owners, so that the far more populous districts of northern representatives would not ban a practice the southern representatives wanted to uphold.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is not “big government” and it is not an affront to Madisonian ideals of limited government. The Affordable Care Act does not intervene in the marketplace in ways that are not already done by the government; it merely seeks to make the marketplace a more level playing field, a fairer and more just place.

That insurance companies seek to divide the national marketplace up into 50 isolated markets in order to avoid regulation, or that states conspire with them, in order to more closely regulate —and derive revenues from— their local insurance markets, does not mean that the wider insurance market is not a form of commerce “among the several States” or that the federal government has no authority over whether that industry behaves in a way that is fair and constructive or rapacious and abusive.

While the states involved in the lawsuit closely regulate insurance within their borders, and very deliberately restrict what entities from other states are allowed to do inside their borders, while they mandate that certain types of insurance must be purchased, under penalty of law, they argue that this very practice violates fundamental constitutional rights. Vinson ignores the contradiction, and for clearly ideological reasons, sides with the states, whose view he appears to share for partisan as well as ideological reasons, but which he cannot support through the deeply flawed legal reasoning of his ruling.

Meaningfully, Vinson does cite the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” But Vinson’s ideology interferes with the legal reasoning he assigns to the meaning of that Constitutional amendment.

For Vinson, the states retain all powers not granted to the federal government. But this is not the meaning of the 10th Amendment. While included in the Bill of Rights ostensibly to ensure the sovereignty of individual states —which at the time viewed their local governments, their respective cultures and their sovereign legal authority much the way European countries now do, when squabbling over whether Brussels should be allowed to control issues of law, government process, taxation, budgeting or domestic and inter-state commerce—, and to allow slave states to control their “peculiar institution”, the language cunningly maintained the logic of the Constitutional order:

The people are the source of political power, and the spirit of the federal Constitution is the “supreme Law of the Land”. What powers it does not specify devolve to the states, should their people see fit to allow the states those powers. However, no state can engage in any exercise of authority once it has been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts.

That subtle “or to the people”, almost an afterthought, is what gives legal meaning to the 10th Amendment, and poses such a serious challenge to the reasoning of Vinson’s ruling. He would have the nation’s future, the very personal and intimate futures of tens of millions of American citizens, determined by the unsubstantiated claim that while the federal government does not have the power to set rules of basic fairness in the insurance marketplace, the states do have the power to force individuals to buy a product at an unaffordably high rate or face long-term physical harm as a consquence of not having purchased that product.

In other words, Judge Vinson would ignore the Constitution’s mandate of equal treatment and simply “void” the entirety of a law whose sole aim —if ideologues like Vinson believe there is a governmental interest in “expanding” the powers of the federal government in the law— is to require that people seeking to profit from the illness or potential illness of others do so in a way where vulnerable individuals, our wider economy, and our government budget, are not gravely harmed by their actions.

A Matter of Law, not of Justice?

Perhaps one of the most serious and worrying deficiencies in Judge Vinson’s reasoning lies in what Judge Vinson himself must believe is actually a sign of his rigor: he alleges that:

this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the Constitutional role of the federal government.

The judge commits one of the great intellectual sins of American history, that of reflexively siding with politically interested plaintiffs who argue that he should not consider the moral or practical implications for real people, actual personal freedom or quality of life for individuals, or matters of fundamental fairness, even where complementary and supporting laws come into play, but only a very narrowly construed intellectual proposition regarding what certain like-minded ideologues believe certain men, who lived 200 years ago, would have thought with respect to a certain abstract question about legal process.

This argument was routinely used during the dark times when our nation’s courts and government were used to justify first slavery and later segregation. It was not, the argument went, a matter of morality, but of strict and narrow definitions of legal authority. What separates a case where the right of the federal government to imprison individuals without evidence or trial from a case like this is that in the former, the issue is very much one of morality and justice.

There is an underpinning of profound and committed moral urging supporting the structure of our founding laws, and to pretend that in order to service a partisan political agenda and the financial interests of an abusive industry, the courts can pretend that no moral —or even factual everyday physical, social and economic— consequences are relevant to a given ruling is an affront to our entire system of laws.

Abusive practices, whether sustained by individuals or by the government, are anathema to the logic of our system, so it was necessary that over time, the inhuman abuse of slavery had to be ended, and women had to win the right to vote, and segregation had to be ended. Vinson and the plaintiffs have this point right: the American system of democracy was set up to limit the right of the powerful to abuse their station to the detriment of the vulnerable, but they have the roles reversed in this instance.

While pretending to defend the interests of ordinary Americans, they support returning to a system that severely threatens their liberty and wellbeing. While pretending to have a foundation of Constitutional law for their argument, they seek to establish that the states may engage in unconstitutional abuses but the federal government may not. While pretending to have some legitimate reason for being in the courtroom at all, they then seek to argue that there is no question of morality or justice at issue.

Vinson’s carefully worded refusal to consider the impact on actual human beings is also disturbing for another reason, however: he is adopting the logic of the plaintiffs, almost as if he were arguing the case himself. It is a rhetorical choice suggestive of deep and prior bias and which, when lined up with the unfounded aggression of his verdict —to “void” an entire law about which he effectively ruled on only one provision— should steal our breath and require severe introspection. Can we allow our children and our children’s children to be subjected to the most abusive practices of a national industry, because unprincipled ideologues want to score political points or have an intellectual debate in place of a moral one?

Vinson First Negates Plaintiffs’ Arguments

Vinson stipulates that “In Count I, all of the plaintiffs challenge the “individual mandate” set forth in Section 1501 of the Act, which, beginning in 2014 will require that everyone (with certain limited exceptions) purchase federally-approved health insurance, or pay a monetary penalty.” He acknowledges that he himself disagrees, as does every other federal judge to rule so far on the matter, with the plaintiffs claim that the “penalty” is not technically a “tax”.

That disagreement is, in fact, grounds enough for dismissing the complaint outright, because the federal government is not overstepping its powers of taxation by requiring that instead of handing money to the government, the money be used constructively to pay for insurance, which diffuses the costs of healthcare and makes it easier for everyone, collectively, to shoulder that burden without risk of bankruptcy or impending economic chaos.

But again, Vinson’s wording is dramatic and disturbing: his suggestion —in total alignment with the plaintiffs— that it is unconstitutional for the government to “require that everyone (with certain limited exceptions) purchase federally-approved health insurance, or pay a monetary penalty”. The words “federally-approved” suggest that there is some form of public-private corruption inherent in that provision of the law, but those words are there for a very different reason, in fact.

They are born of the insurance industry’s desire to avoid regulation that would benefit or protect vulnerable patients. The words “federally-approved” actually refer, under the law in question, to requirements that private insurers meet certain standards of fairness and of coverage for treatment. It is a veiled assault on the power of the federal government to protect the people it represents.

The Medicaid Provision

Vinson notes that, while there are four accepted general restrictions on what spending is Constitutional, there is also one objection banning “coercive” provisions. To his credit, he finds that:

as I stated in my earlier order after describing Dole’s four general restrictions: “The plaintiffs do not appear to dispute that the Act meets these restrictions. Rather, their claim is based principally on [the coercion theory].” Apparently expanding that argument, the state plaintiffs now argue (very briefly, in less than one full page) that the Act’s Medicaid provisions violate the four general restrictions. See Pl. Mem. at 44-45. This belated argument is unpersuasive. The Act plainly meets the first three of Dole’s spending restrictions, and it meets the fourth as long as there is no other required activity that would be independently unconstitutional. Thus, the only real issue with respect to Count IV, as framed in the pleadings, is whether the Medicaid provisions are impermissibly coercive and effectively commandeer the states.

The coercion complain, however, is hardly a Constitutional argument. The states, Vinson notes, argue that they cannot afford to cover even their share —with federal matching funds— of expanding Medicaid. Vinson notes that the plaintiffs “present a bleak fiscal picture”. Indeed, chronic mismanagement of state funds, often including the use of unaffordable tax cuts as fodder for political campaigns, is being used to justify denial of aid to the most vulnerable.

Again, to his credit, Judge Vinson finds that “there is simply no support for the state plaintiffs’ coercion argument in existing case law.” The states argue that while the law specifies that participation in Medicaid is voluntary, they “cannot exit” the program. This amounts to a political complaint on the part of individuals and interests who oppose the very idea of Medicaid, and who are frustrated, practically and politically, by the fact that the program appears necessary to deal with the health insurance crisis in their states.

Vinson not only cites three separate legal and judicial phrasings of the voluntary nature of Medicaid —”Medicaid is a cooperative federal-state program [and] participation in the program is voluntary”, “No state is obligated to participate in the Medicaid program”, and states “always retains [the] option’ to withdraw)]”—, he also notes that several of the plaintiff states are actually considering withdrawal even as they argue it is not possible before the court.

Distortions from the States

Vinson cites action taken by the states to challenge the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, he quotes an Idaho state legislative resolution, which “declared that … every person within the state of Idaho is and shall be free to choose or decline to choose any mode of securing health care services“. The meaning is clearly intended to be that Idaho does not recognize the authority of the federal government to enact the individual mandate as part of the Affordable Care Act, but the specific wording suggests the state of Idaho will guarantee that every resident enjoy equal access to every level of health service.

The state of Idaho has never taken any such action to guarantee that every resident enjoy the liberty to choose, simply as a matter of personal freedom and individual will, whichever available insurance policy or level of health coverage or treatment the market may see fit to make available for purchase. Vinson errs by ignoring the intellectual immaturity of this phrasing, and by holding it up as a solid legislative challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

Utah, he cites as having resolved to object to the federal government “requiring a person to enroll in a third party payment system [and] imposing fines on a person who chooses to pay directly for health care rather than use a third party payer.” This is a flagrant distortion of the economic reality: people do not choose to have zero access to affordable healthcare; they are denied access by overpriced insurance monopolies abusively extracting huge profits they fund by denying adequate coverage and care.

Interstate Commerce

Historically, Judge Vinson argues that insurance policies were not even considered a form of commerce, a notion that is obviously entirely outdated. He cites the New Deal period and the Supreme Court’s finding that even activities that are “intrastate” in nature can be regulated by the federal government under the interstate commerce clause, because they “could be said to have a ‘substantial effect’ on interstate commerce.”

Health insurance policies, for instance, have a direct impact on the pricing of goods and services related to the provision of treatment and care. When the companies in one state are identical to the companies in another, operating on a “branch office” or in-state incorporation and subsidiary model, there is a direct impact on interstate commerce through the many wider relations of the wider enterprise, if not through the economic reach of all of its attendant clients and service providers.

The ability of one enterprise to market-shop —denying service to state whose regulations are too consumer-friendly— by engaging in such activity does not, in fact, render the enterprise other than interstate in nature. Judge Vinson quotes precedent finding that “if [such activities] have such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions, Congress cannot be denied the power to exercise that control.”

The judge discusses Wickard v. Filburn, which found that the federal government had the power to take action to regulate even local activities that could have the effect of forcing wheat prices to dangerously low levels —bankrupting farmers and driving a glut of competition that would lead to another Dust Bowl. Vinson quotes the ruling:

[E]ven if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as “direct” or “indirect.”

Clearly, the question of whether the activity at issue is relevant to federal powers under the interstate commerce clause is clear: Congress has the power to regulate such activities. The only remaining question, then, is whether a refusal to purchase insurance is a form of economic “activity”.

Or, so goes Vinson’s reasoning. But this is owing to the fact that he fundamentally agrees with the plaintiffs’ agenda and is applying an interpretive matrix of evolved federalist biases to questions of fact, while ignoring many of the facts at issue. The most important of those facts is whether the “inactivity” the plaintiffs would have us believe is inherent in the “refusal” to buy insurance is really a willing and decisive “refusal”, or whether it is the result of a prohibitive market environment that coerces non-participation.

Arbitrary Judicial Overreach

Judge Vinson used dubious constitutional reasoning to find against the individual mandate, but he engaged in arbitrary judicial overreach of astonishing proportions, by finding that the provision is “not severable” from the rest of the law, most of which has no direct practical, legislative or regulatory relationship to the individual mandate. By making that finding, Vinson was able to rule that the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

This was the aim, clearly, as evidenced by Vinson’s over-reliance on non-legislative and non-judicial language and his editorializing tone, throughout the ruling. Vinson deliberately distorts the language of the defense. The government had argued that the individual mandate was a “necessary and essential” provision of the law, but never argued that it was absolutely necessary and essential for the other provisions of the law to function as intended.

For instance, the ban on using “pre-existing conditions” is simply a regulatory measure: there is no need for special provisions to expand the market in order impose that regulation, which is perfectly well within the Constitutional authority of the Congress. The terms “necessary” and “essential” relate to the law’s relevance to effecting positive change to benefit individual citizens and to achieve better outcomes economically and medically, and to help the private insurance market to overcome some of its deepest and most detrimental pathologies.

That a regulation is “necessary and essential” to achieving specific responsibilities of the government —such as the need to regulate and/or subsidize farming interests in order to keep prices from falling too low and bad land-use practices from creating a Dust Bowl, as happened in the 1930s or the need to write specific products into budget legislation in order to adequately “provide for the common defense”— means that it can and should have the effect of expanding specific Constitutional authorities.

This is a matter of judicial precedent, and Judge Vinson’s misuse of the terminology to strike down every single provision of the Affordable Care Act, no matter how irrelevant to the question of the Constitutionality of the individual mandate, is grossly irresponsible and abusive. It is further evidence of a partisan and/or ideological bias that has infused the ruling with incoherent logic and bad legal reasoning.

Severely Problematic Implications

The most problematic implications of Judge Vinson’s ruling reach far beyond the fate of the major healthcare insurance reform law he seeks to eliminate. The reasoning he has used, if upheld by the United States Supreme Court, puts our system of government at risk in a number of ways, and should either lead to the outlawing of several key practices of the federal government or the institutionalization of an arbitrary and activist judiciary, empowered to depart from both law and precedent and act without substantive support to serve narrow interests, no matter the impact on the wider Constitutional order or the people it serves.

Among the most severely problematic implications:

• The federal government cannot use any form of taxation to require citizens to fund the purchase of any product;
• The federal government must cease to provide any form of medical insurance coverage;
• The federal government must cease to require the collection of revenues specifically destined to pay for Social Security;
• State governments may be empowered to enact any rule, regulation or law, they desire, as powers reserved to them are “numerous and indefinite”;
• The interests of the people cannot outweigh the interests of narrow profit-making enterprises, regardless of questions of justice or fairness;
• The US military may need to be deprived of a majority of its funding, due to the logic of prohibiting forced purchase of specific products;
• The federal government will be stripped of its power to protect the people from abusive private interests…

These are extreme outcomes not likely to materialize, but they are all suggested by the very reckless and unfounded reasoning used by Judge Vinson to substantiate his ruling. His reminiscence about the notion that the commerce clause “does not give Congress carte blanche” is romantic, and relevant, but does not automatically amount to a justification for his sweeping overreach or his use of ideological thought experiments in an effort to undermine the interest of ordinary citizens’ right to be sheltered from injustice and abuse.

A Principled Citizens’ Response

The flagrant and abusive nature of the wording of Judge Vinson’s ruling, the haphazard patchwork of non-legal reference chosen to support an ideologically biased judgment, should raise the concern of all decent and thoughtful citizens of this open democratic republic. The judge’s summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is so deeply and pervasively full of philosophical ramblings showing deep sympathy for their political agenda that the nature of the 26-state lawsuit itself should be called into question.

There should be an independent federal-level investigation of all contacts between the various offices of each of the state governments and the court over which Judge Vinson presides, as well as into whether Judge Vinson has had personal ex-parte contact with any of the political figures or conservative activist groups involved in the lawsuit or whose states or colleagues are involved. This should be a basic freedom-of-information fact-finding mission, unless and until evidence of wrongdoing emerges.

Citizens interested in effecting positive change in their local insurance markets should immediately begin seeking alternatives to the private, for-profit insurance sector. Forming non-profit public-private partnerships, community-based insurance pools or cooperatives, and low-cost non-profit interstate policies that line up with the regulatory provisions of the Affordable Care Act could be a grassroots, entrepreneurial response capable of neutralizing the impact of Judge Vinson’s ruling, whether or not it is upheld.

In the meantime, citizens of every state should begin campaigning within their state to require that no insurer be allowed to sell health insurance that violates any of the regulatory improvements included in the Affordable Care Act, i.e.:

• a total ban on recisions or denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions;
• a ban on assessing the value of insurance stock in negative proportion to their spending on care;
• a ban on spending less than 80% of premiums on delivery of care;
• a ban on instituting lifetime caps on insurance coverage for healthcare;
• major tax incentives for small businesses to help them afford coverage for employees;
• allowance for young people up to 26 years of age to remain on parents’ healthcare insurance policies;
• incentives for doctors that privilege healing over billing-by-procedure;
• lower costs for Medicare patients buying prescription drugs;
• no-cost full coverage for certain preventive care;
• 100% Medicaid coverage for any family or individual living at 133% of poverty or below;
• statewide or regional exchanges for low-cost health insurance…

And, citizens of all ages, of all socio-economic backgrounds and political persuasions, should push for state-level legislation instituting criminal prosecution for insurance company bureaucrats who interfere with administration of care in such a way that leads to injury, damaging and irreversible long-term health impact, or death, for any patient.

There is a reason Judge Vinson had handed down this ruling, and it is not the matter of whether the individual mandate is or is not Constitutional in nature; it is because our health insurance market is severely deficient in its ability provide what it promises: affordable coverage for all necessary medical expenses for all people. A market that cannot reach all of its constituents is a failing market, and we need to starting thinking more creatively every day of our lives about how to make our society more just, more functional, and more resilient.

Judge Vinson has nothing to say about this, because it is not his concern; his concern was to make the Federalist case for his ideological fellow travelers. It is the concern of real people to actually have some chance at obtaining and benefiting from affordable healthcare insurance. We should get working on solving that problem together, with or without the help of the Affordable Care Act specifically.

A new body, called the People’s Parliament, is planning a process of peaceful and orderly transition to an electoral democracy in Egypt. The People’s Parliament has 100 delegates, representing every major opposition party, including the Muslim Brotherhood (which holds 16 seats), and is reported to also have caucuses representing youth, academia, labor unions and professionals. The People’s Parliament has grown out of the National Assembly for Change, a coalition of opposition groups that has been organizing since 2009, to bring about this transition.

The People’s Parliament was officially formed in December, after the 2010 elections for the Egyptian People’s Assembly (the official parliament), which opposition parties and international observers say were comprehensively rigged. (The ruling party of Pres. Hosni Mubarak, widely unpopular with the people, took 420 of 508 seats—83% of the total.) The founding members of the alternative parliament pledged to uphold the Egyptian constitution and to reflect and to honor the will of the Egyptian people.

Today, a spokesman for the People’s Parliament said on BBC radio the body was negotiating a unified opposition strategy for negotiating with the Mubarak government “the terms and conditions” for his exit from power and from the country. His hand-picked vice president, Omar Suleiman, also his chief intelligence officer, would not be a satisfactory interim successor, said the spokesman.

On Sunday, it was revealed Pres. Mubarak had instructed his new prime minister to begin negotiations with the opposition on a series of political reforms aimed at opening up the Egyptian political system to a more democratic process. It was not clear if Mubarak intended those negotiations to involve the People’s Parliament or if he was planning his own departure, but by midnight Sunday, local time, observers inside and outside of Egypt were saying there was no longer any way for Mubarak to remain in power.

The United States government has reportedly been making contact with key heads of state to coordinate an international response to the crisis and to support a peaceful and orderly transition to elective, civilian rule later this year. It is not yet clear whether representatives of the military or the People’s Parliament have been in talks with the United States, but the legislators are reportedly seeking to coordinate their negotiations with the protest movement, to ensure calm and cohesion as the framework for a “national unity government” is negotiated.

More from Cafe Sentido:

• Assad Plans Reforms in Syria
• Students Stage Pro-democracy Demonstrations in Sudan
• Egypt Updates: ‘Basic Collapse of Law & Order’, Anger at Mubarak
• Egypt Update: Military Appears to Protect Demonstrators (video)
• Egypt Updates: Worldwide Protests Join Demonstrators’ Call for Mubarak to Go
• Egypt Updates: Uprising Intensifies, Mubarak to Dismiss Government
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread to Jordan
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread Across Arabic-speaking World
• Tens of Thousands Protest Authoritarian Rule in Egypt
• Tunisian Regime Toppled by Street Protests
• Internet Access Must Be a Human Right
• ‘A New Beginning’: Obama’s Cairo Speech (video + transcript)

Thousands of Egyptian protesters are holding Tahrir Square, which has repeatedly been closed by security forces. Reports from Cairo suggest embattled Pres. Hosni Mubarak is moving to reassert control over major sections of the capital, but has yet to order an offensive against protesters in the main square. Mubarak told the nation he has asked his new prime minister to engage in dialogue with the opposition to promote democratic reform in Egypt.

Ranyah Sabry reports from Tahrir Square, for BBC radio. Mubarak’s order for a process to institute political and economic reform appears aimed at quelling the uprising and allowing his regime to remain in power. He has ordered the military to secure the major cities, and the military is now reported to be installing more heavily armed checkpoints around Cairo.

Police have returned to the streets, and protesters are said to be wary of their presence, as it is the police that are widely feared and reviled by a population that alleges rampant police brutality, arbitrary detention and abuse. Al Masry Al Youm reports in its English edition that protesters have given the army until Thursday to choose sides. In a statement outlining plans for a march on the presidential palace, for Friday, they declared:

We the people and the youth of Egypt demand that our brothers in the national armed forces clearly define their stance by either lining up with the real legitimacy provided by millions of Egyptians on strike on the streets, or standing in the camp of the regime that has killed our people, terrorized them and stole from them.

Throughout the protests, demonstrators have reportedly treated the army as an ally, and have openly embraced members of the military, either a sign of popular trust and respect or a sophisticated and organized courtship of the nation’s ultimate power brokers. In an online poll, the same publication has found that 94% of respondents (as of this writing) believe the Mubarak regime’s response to the protests has not been “satisfactory”.

Overnight, the US government of Pres. Barack Obama has reportedly been engaging heads of state around the world, to discuss support for a peaceful transfer of power, and has begun to talk openly of the need for an organized process to peacefully transfer power to a government that represents the needs and aspirations of the Egyptian people.

According to CNN, “Activists in Cairo and Alexandria said they were organizing ‘million-man’ marches in the cities for Tuesday — a week after anti-government protests began,” and helicopters were hovering over central Cairo, monitoring events on the ground. The US is planning special charter flights to evacuate Americans living in Egypt who want to leave.

The 7th day of protests in Egypt appears to be marking a new phase in the uprising. As demonstrators have been able to show that 1) the movement is spreading to more segments of the population and 2) it is not retreating, this week a series of massive new demonstrations are planned with the specific agenda of winning the army’s support and ousting Pres. Hosni Mubarak, by week’s end.

UPDATE, 8:37 am EST: The Khaleej Times has published a comment from a Cairo University student sympathetic to the protest movement, who mourns the chaos and disorder that has befallen her country. She explains that the movement had specifically “four demands including the stepping down of Hosni Mubarak, the resignation of the cabinet led by Prime Minister Ahmed Mahmoud Mohamed Nazef, dissolving the People’s Assembly and rescheduling elections, and establishing a new government supported by the people”.

She echoes the concern of so many Egyptians both inside the country and living abroad, that the safety of friends and loved ones may be in jeopardy since the violent unrest sparked by police killing of demonstrators on Friday, and the collapse of law and order across the country. She goes on to make an impassioned plea for civic cooperation and a devotion to avoid falling into the “frenzy” and “madness” of the “mob mentality”:

My beautiful country is at a standstill. I believe in other cities the story is the same. It is again like a tinderbox, with very dry powder, anything can ignite anger at this moment because people are feeling insecure, no one seems to be in charge. If the unruly elements take over the whole point of the demonstration will be lost. We are not on the roads to destroy property or burn buses or rob homes, that is not the Egyptian method, we want justice and a new system of government where people are accountable. Do not give us chaos when we want commitment, do not give us criminals when we want confidence. We have shown patience, great patience, men, women, the young, and we want to be heard from the heart.

Over the weekend, there were reports the Mubarak regime might be instigating violence, looting and chaos, in order to spark calls for the imposing of strict new controls on freedom of movement and freedom of expression. This student’s call for order is not a call to halt the protests, but a call to return to the 4-point agenda the movement so carefully set forth, and to collaborate as citizens in the shaping of a new future for Egypt and her people.

UPDATE, 8:45 am EST: Reports from central Cairo say the military is now controlling Midan Tahrir (Tahrir Square, or Liberation Square), building “blast walls” and barricades and setting up check points bristling with weapons and armored vehicles. Protesters are being checked and/or searched, but are being allowed to enter the square.

The mood in Tahrir Square in the morning was described as tense, as enthusiasm for the uprising appears to spread, but with fears the police and/or military may be planning a major crackdown. Internet access is still restricted across the country, and movement organizers are calling for a “million man march” in central Cairo on Tuesday, to be the 8th day of the protests.

UPDATE, 9:21 am EST: The BBC’s Lyce Doucet described on World Service radio the scene in Tahrir Square being more organized by the day. She said the scene was “extraordinary” Monday, as huge crowds were “streaming” over the bridge to cross the Nile and enter the square. She described men and women, holding small children by the hand, joining in a show of citizenship and wanting to take part in history.

Doucet also described an encounter with a group of people leaving Tahrir Square, who said they were “on the morning shift”, and that the protest is now being organized to allow the maximum number of people to cycle through and allow supporters to rest and to return. Pamphlets are reportedly being handed out urging the military to take sides and to stand with the people against Mubarak.

More from Cafe Sentido:

• Students Stage Pro-democracy Demonstrations in Sudan
• Egypt Updates: ‘Basic Collapse of Law & Order’, Anger at Mubarak
• Egypt Update: Military Appears to Protect Demonstrators (video)
• Egypt Updates: Worldwide Protests Join Demonstrators’ Call for Mubarak to Go
• Egypt Updates: Uprising Intensifies, Mubarak to Dismiss Government
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread to Jordan
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread Across Arabic-speaking World
• Tens of Thousands Protest Authoritarian Rule in Egypt
• Tunisian Regime Toppled by Street Protests
• Internet Access Must Be a Human Right
• ‘A New Beginning’: Obama’s Cairo Speech (video + transcript)

A pro-democracy student movement has staged pro-democracy demonstrations in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and at two universities. According to VoA: “Hundreds of students took part in the protests, shouting slogans that criticized high prices, the government, and President Omar al-Bashir.” Security forces clashed with demonstrators, and reports suggest stones were thrown and police attacked demonstrators with batons.

It is not yet clear if the movement has widespread popular support or if it will push for the ouster of long-time authoritarian president Omar al-Bashir, who is presently under indictment for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

According to CNN, students were chanting “No to high prices, no to corruption” and “Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan together as one.” A Facebook group was reportedly being supported by thousands of Sudanese citizens, hoping to stage mass demonstrations on Sunday, in Khartoum and other cities across the country.

According to the AFP:

With more than 10,000 followers so far, the Sudanese site calls for peaceful demonstrations in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities at 11:00 am (0800 GMT) to demand an end to “injustice and humiliation.”

“We will come out to protest the high cost of living, corruption, nepotism, unemployment and all the practices of the regime, including striking women… that are contrary to the most basic laws of Islam and humanity, and violate the rights of minorities,” the Facebook site says.

A search for the site leads to another page with the graphic described in reports about the first site, and far fewer followers. The main event page, in Arabic, shows 16,548 listed as “I’m attending” by Sunday afternoon. It is unclear is so many did attend or if there may have been government measures taken to dissuade supporters. In Egypt, a manual distributed by organizers of the mass demonstrations urged followers not to use Facebook or Twitter, but to spread the word more privately, to avoid individuals or subgroups being targeted by the regime.

The AFP also reported on suggestions that key opposition party leaders might be involved:

A source at the Popular Congress Party of Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi refused to comment on the planned protest. Other opposition parties could not be reached to say whether they would participate.

Just last week, Turabi was arrested shortly after saying that a Tunisia-style revolt, which ousted veteran strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month, was likely in north Sudan.

With the referendum vote for the secession of South Sudan just passed, the African Union is calling on party leaders in Sudan to come together to discuss how best to move forward peacefully in the new political environment, how to prevent an outbreak of unrest and how to address the concerns of ordinary Sudanese, and as economic pressures mount.

The January 30 movement was treated as a “youth strike” and advertised itself as part of a “peace process” aiming to use telecommunications and social networking to motivate critics of the Bashir government to come out in a show of popular demand for political change. Social media watchdogs and rights activists are monitoring the reaction of the Sudanese government, as Tunisia’s regime reportedly hacked individual accounts and Egypt shut down all Internet access nationwide, to block the protest movement.

• Egypt Updates: ‘Basic Collapse of Law & Order’, Anger at Mubarak
• Egypt Update: Military Appears to Protect Demonstrators (video)
• Egypt Updates: Worldwide Protests Join Demonstrators’ Call for Mubarak to Go
• Egypt Updates: Uprising Intensifies, Mubarak to Dismiss Government
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread to Jordan
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread Across Arabic-speaking World
• Tunisian Regime Toppled by Street Protests
• Tens of Thousands Protest Authoritarian Rule in Egypt
• Internet Access Must Be a Human Right