Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I have been pointing out, vis a vis the "horrors" inflicted on Libya by the Green Goofball that many States will engage in similar or worse violence when the rulers of said State are threatened. Saint Abraham of Illinois killed what, 600,000 people to make North America safe for multinational capitalism?

(Note...I am NOT defending the Confederacy...or Kadaffi. Just saying that if a mob of students and "citizens" were invading a typical U.S. military base (we could only hope) that live bullets would certainly be used here, too.)

How are you not defending the Confederacy there, BM? Curious choice of comparison. For that matter, how are you not defending Qaddafi? By saying he's acting normally? That there have been worse crimes in history?

I can't speak for Brian, but it's a useful thought experiment to compare Qaddafi with Mubarak. (Let's leave Netanyahu, accent on the Yahoo, out of it for the moment.)

The human-rights Mafia is all on fire to haul Qaddafi in front of some contrived tribunal in some chilly country with bad food. Whereas the only people interested in bringing Mubarak up on charges -- or recovering his ill-gotten billions -- are the people of Egypt.

When I hear the phrase "international community", I go for my revolver -- or would, if I had one. Since in fact I don't have one, I just brace myself for an invasion.

I don't see how noting Lincoln's kill totals equals "defending the Confederacy."

That's like holding Twain accountable for slavery and the war for control of the cotton because he had bad things to say about the Union.

MJS, it's certainly important to compare the cases, as always. But Brian was not doing that. You were.

Brian was blaming the North for all the deaths in the Civil War, at the same time as he missed the point that, in that particular and rare case, turning to war was the right answer. Reference John Brown and Nat Turner.

Meanwhile, Crow can't think his way through it, so echoes the KKK point.

P.S. to Grand Wizard Brian: Let's hear your analysis of how eradicating racial chattel slavery "made North America safe for multinational capitalism."

You're saying the continent would have escaped that, if Lincoln had left the Confederacy in place?

Let's hear that one...

Wow. What a menagerie we have here on the left.

http://bcove.me/wj9063xs

'many opportunities to deepen and broaden our cooperation', she says.

Can the Democrats find a Paul Bremer?

Assiduously missing Brian's point. Lincoln didn't fight to end chattel slavery. Christ, you'd think the hagiography taught in middle school would lose some adherents by the time they got to adulthood. Lincoln fought to "preserve the Union," and that didn't mean ponies, roses, free black men and an embrace of Marxism.

If Lincoln could have preserved the Union by making it easier to own slaves, by fuck he would have.

"Reference John Brown and Nat Turner."

Oof. Brown and Turner were trying to do the opposite of what Lincoln did. You're equating slave rebellions on the one hand - popular uprisings whose goal was a complete overturning of the established order and a dismantling of the slave economy - with a war fought on behalf of that system, in order to maintain it and its highly profitable structures of oppression, long past the end of slavery itself. The Civil War wasn't fought to free the slaves; it was fought between northern and southern plutocrats over the resources of the south. The fate of actual slaves was perfectly incidental to the Union's cause - and would remain so for long, long after the war itself had ended.

Three instances of 'Humanitarian Intervention'— the only ones — from the first half of last century:

---

When Japan invaded Manchuria in September 1931, it initially characterized the intervention as necessary to protect Japanese nationals and businesses from acts of violence by Chinese military forces. As time passed and Japanese troops remained in Manchuria, the rationale shifted to an emphasis on a duty to protect the inhabitants of the region generally, Japan argued that:

It was Japan's clear duty to render her steps of self-defense as little disturbing as possible to the peaceable inhabitants of the region. It would have been a breach of that duty to have left the population a prey to anarchy — deprived of the apparatus of civilized life. Therefore, the Japanese military have, at considerable sacrifice, expended much time and energy in securing the safety of persons and property in the districts where the native authorities had become ineffective. This is a responsibility which was thrust upon them by events, and one which they had as little desire to evade.

---

In October 1935 Italian forces invaded Ethiopia from their neighboring colony, Somaliland. The League of Nations condemned the invasion and imposed sanctions on the basis that Italy had violated its obligations under Article 12 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Italy argued to the League that:

The Italian government had abolished slavery in the occupied territories, giving to 16,000 slaves that liberty from which they would have awaited in vain from the Government of Addis Ababa, despite the clauses of the Covenant and the undertakings assumed at the moment of its admission as a member of the League of Nations. The liberated populations see in Italy, not the aggressor state, but the power which has the right and the capacity of extending that high protection which the very Covenant of the League of Nations, in its Article 22, recognizes as the civilizing mission incumbent upon the more advanced nations.

---

Adolph Hitler's decree of March 16 on the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia asserted that the Czechoslovak state and its rulers had not succeeded in organizing the different national groups present in Bohemia and Moravia, which in turn had led to "continuous disturbances in these regions," which were of "decisive importance" to Germany's own peace and security "and to the general welfare and the general peace." The preamble to the declaration ended with the following:

Filled with earnest desire to serve the true interests of the peoples dwelling in this area, to safeguard the national individuality of the German and Czech peoples, and to further the peace and social welfare of all, I therefore order the following, in the name of the German Reich, as the basis for the future common inhabitants of these regions.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/03/2011316273322512.html#

hugo ???

Once again Dawson shows that bullheaded opinionated posts aren't the same as well-reasoned posts.

Not bad for a character from LOST though. That guy seemed uninterested in sociopolitical stuff, he only cared about his son and his dog.

Lincoln didn't fight to end chattel slavery. Christ, you'd think the hagiography taught in middle school would lose some adherents by the time they got to adulthood.

Christ, you'd think the white supremacist revisionism they teach in high school these days would lose some adherents by the time they got to adulthood.

Yes, the Civil War was fought over more issues than just slavery, and yes, Lincoln emphasized the emancipation of the slaves more than some of the less noble motives for the war. That being said, the propaganda on BOTH SIDES was pretty emphatic that the conflict hinged on whether the Southern "way of life" (citing slave-holding as the cornerstone of this "way of life") would be allowed to stay in place.

The Union won, but within twenty years the Southern feudal system had been reconstituted by Congress and the former Confederate states. You can hardly blame Lincoln for that.

White supremacist?

Do you guys just pull that puerile shit (and Dawson's harebrained "KKK" reference) because you think unfounded, silly, unreasonable and wholly retarded accusations of racism are intimidating, or something?

Too much the funny.

As is confusing the moraline with the motive.

Yes, South Carolina seceded because of slavery. Yes, the Confederacy was put together to preserve slavery.

But the Union didn't fight the Confederacy to abolish slavery. The Union fought...

...to preserve the Union. And if it took the retention of slavery to do just that, it would have been done. It was done, until three years into the war. And then the "liberation" of slaves only got imprimatur for States where it did not matter and could not be enforced. Sort of like Hillary Clinton whispering to Barack Obama that the Gazans should be free while she dials up another check to the lords of the colonial garrison state which ensures their captivity.

And long after the war, enforced clientage still continued, with little to no Northern intervention. And in fact, with considerable and moneyed Northern collusion. It was just called sharecropping and eventually Jim Crow.

It might just be possible to be critical of Lincoln and his war AND an opponent of chattel slavery at the same time. And how is it "white supremecist revisionism" to acknowledge the fact that Lincoln himself said that if he could save the union without freeing a single slave, he'd do it?

If you're not for killing Libyans, you're objectively pro-Gaddafi. If you're not for killing Afghans, you're objectively pro-Taliban. If you're not for killing Pakistanis, you're objectively pro-The-Terrorists. If you're not for killing Iraqis, you're objectively pro-Saddam. If you're not for nuking Hiroshima, you're objectively pro-Hitler. If you don't believe Abraham Lincoln was a secular saint, you're objectively pro-slavery. I like this game!

Christopher,

Excellent tie in back to the original, above. Well done.

Thanks Jack and Joe and Christopher M. Yes...I will confess I am a pro-slavery Confederate apologist. :) I also read the Green Book every night before bedtime. After a session of dancing dancing dancing per the directions of my glorious octogenarian master!

While I am skeptical-sympathetic about anarchism and stateless societies, my only point remains that states often use violence to preserve themselves. Talking as if Kaddafi's actions (reprehensible as they are) are somehow unique, beyond the pale, beyond comprehension is fatuous. Especially given the vast blood spilled in this very special City on the Hill to preserve this particular State.

And yes, the Civil War did facilitate/encourage/exacerbate the tendencies towards nationalism, centralized economic power, etc. etc. etc. Are you denying that?

If an army of college students and workign class people and unemployed itinerant workers were taking over military bases and territory, you can bet "our" soldiers would be using live bullets.

another "humane" intervention to add to sk's list -- the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine after WW II, to compensate the victims of and assure any re-occurence of the holocaust which we had assiduously failed to acknowledge in the preceding decade.

Orwellian language has been rife in the past six weeks, as the West tries to maintain control of the outcomes and keep a decent face on its intervention.

PS. Despite the fact that OP has taken a sabbatical, tempers here appear to be just as volatile as ever (even MJ mentions the use of a revolver!). Doesn't this prove that OP's devious, pretentious, infuriating prose style is actually a moderating, influence on the site? Come back, OP!

"If an army of college students and workign class people and unemployed itinerant workers were taking over military bases and territory, you can bet "our" soldiers would be using live bullets."

And that would be a horror and the people who perpetrated it should be reviled and hopefully punished. And if they weren't it would be the same type of tragedy and lack of justice as Gaddafi getting away with his murders.

Not that i think the US should be trying to exact that justice in Libya. I'm just pointing out that because the US would do something criminal doesn't excuse Gaddafi doing something criminal. They are equally reprehensible.

Nate: that doesn't mean that outside states have a right or the "duty" to intervene, which is Michael's point. BTW, lenin (R Seymour) makes the same point on his blog today, at somewhat more length.

The South started the Civil War. Whatever the rhetoric and hopes of Lincoln were, the events he managed were destined to be about slavery, given the nature of the war, which, again, was launched and necessitated by the South, for one reason and one reason only.

Lincoln was not a saint, and nobody serious has ever suggested or implied as much. But neither does he deserve the kind of mindless scorn doled out by BM. Especially not when the supposed point is the insipid observation that states use violence when in crisis. The Confederacy was also a state, wasn't it, BM? And, if you haven't noticed, individuals also often turn to violence when in crisis.

Meanwhile, Qaddafi is a pig, and the left has no business defending him, directly or indirectly.

This thread had me at the sentence that began with Saint Abraham. Though it's impossible to prove a counterfactual, the world would've been a better and safer place had the South seceded. There would have been many reasons and causes for the end of slavery anyway, and you wouldn't have had this consolidated, pernicious behemoth otherwise known at these United States of America.

The North and South are two different countries now anyway.

Looks to me like Professor Crow should be teaching remedial US history. I am surprised at what the ingenuousness of his critics here.

As for Libya. We need say no more than....
"the right of the Libyan people, those who are for, against, or indifferent to the soon-to-be former Libyan regime, to sort out their own affairs, free from NATO or any other foreign troops ."

Doesn't this prove that OP's devious, pretentious, infuriating prose style is actually a moderating, influence on the site?

No.

Michael Dawson:

My point may be "insipid", but you are spilling a lot of ink (and sweat from the fervid tone) over it, no? It was just a throwaway remark.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, instituted the draft (allowing the wealthy to buy their way out, of course) engaged in repression against his more restless populations. If one believes preservation of the Union is an over-arching worthy goal, then maybe it's worth it.

You, Mr. Dawson, probably also believed creating the monstrously bloated (and profitable...cannot forget profitable!) American military machine and spending ourselves into oblivion was worth it to "defeat" the Soviet Union. Are you really, at heart, a Reaganite? I thougt so (LOL).

Kaddafi and his supporters seem to belive that preservation of his keptocracy is worth whatever it takes. Leaders of States ALWAYS believe that. And, in th case of the US Civil War, 600,000 corpses later, with a unified, aggreissve mercantilist imperial state unleashed upon the world-and effective black enslavement to boot!

Chomskyzinn: some time I would love to see your point expanded. It is defintely revisionist history, and even suggesting this is like poking an anthill. If the United States were multiple smaller states, would we have a trillion dollar military and a CIA overthrowing governments willy nilly? Maybe not. LOL

OK, you're admitting it was a throwaway remark, but here you are amplifying and polishing it nonetheless.

By the way, who exactly were those "restless populations" Abe policed? You anarchist kiddies trip at your own first hurdles.

Meanwhile, we can all manufacture zit-faced fantasies about the South being allowed to secede because extremely hard-won twenty-first century values somehow get implanted back into history, and the result being a less awful USA. But that was simply not on the agenda at the time, and could not have been. So, the question for us is which side was right at the time.

I'm comfortable letting you anarchists keep stating your case against Saint Abe. Shows how serious you are about what you profess to care about.

Meanwhile, the Middle East situation continues to have zero to do with Abraham Lincoln and the supposedly undiffering nature of all states (where Chavista Venezuela = Nazi Germany). It has to do with democracy and class struggle and human survival and global power.

another "humane" intervention to add to sk's list — the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine after WW II, to compensate the victims of and assure any re-occurrence of the holocaust...

It's just that creation of Israel had nothing to do with the Holocaust — something that fails to register in the consciousness of the few who come across this fact. The victorious powers of WWI, Britain, France, US, and Italy had already signed off on creation of a Jewish state at Versailles and the Soviets later came around as well, so 'there was little or no connexion between' what befell Jews of Europe in 1939 and the Zionist project of 'spiriting away the penniless population' of Palestine to clear the ground for the creation of an exclusively Jewish state, something that had been underway for almost half a century by then. As former British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour noted in a cabinet memorandum in 1919:

The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American Commission has been going through the forms of asking what they are. The four Great Powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder importance than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion, that is right.

"Meanwhile, the Middle East situation continues to have zero to do with Abraham Lincoln and the supposedly undiffering nature of all states (where Chavista Venezuela = Nazi Germany). It has to do with democracy and class struggle and human survival and global power."

Nobody here would claim that the Confederacy would be a wonderful place. It would fall victim to its own economic and social shortcomings (like the Soviet Union)

Nobody here is claiming that all States are identical. When its comes to entrenched elites attempting to preserve their power...if they have the strength they will fight back. That's what Kadaffi did. The press is full of pronouncements on how EVIIIIILLLLL he is...I was just merely noting he was behaving like most Maximum Leaders will when trying to preserve his position.

But anyway....your last sentence is all well and good and is, indeed, the crux of the matter. So I retire from this field. Not in defeat, mind you.

Or perhaps they simply have their eyes on the oil: big, big country, very thinly populated, and oodles and oodles of lovely oil.

You may drop the conditional "perhaps" there. Which also explains the motive behind what sk posted regarding Israel. The value of oil to American industrial interests was clear before the 1800s gave way to the 1900s, steam and coal would only go so far. Oil as fractured and fractioned goes much further than either.

Nobody here would claim that the Confederacy would be a wonderful place.

I'm surprised the specimen quoted above hasn't already started spamming this site with links to trash neo-nazi websites, as he did in a discussion on Libya on Louis Proyect's blog -- until LP put a stop to it. Less surprising is the number of ideological soul-mates he seems to have acquired here.

Speaking of the humanitarians, Qaddafi has on more than one occasion launched an intervention of his own. When Tanzanian forces counter-attacked in response to Idi Amin's invasion, plundering and attempted annexation of the Kagera region of Tanzania,

Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi sent 2,500 troops to aid Amin, equipped with T-54 and T-55 tanks, BTR APCs, BM-21 Katyusha MRLs, artillery, MiG-21s, and a Tu-22 bomber.[5] However the Libyans soon found themselves on the front line, while Ugandan Army units were using supply trucks to carry their newly plundered wealth in the opposite direction.[6]

The Libyan troops were a mix of regular Libyan Army units, People's Militia, and sub-Saharan Africans of the Islamic Legion, a further force created by Libya for this type of expeditionary mission.[5] The Tanzanians, joined by UNLA dissidents, moved north for Kampala but halted at the vast deep-water swamp north of Lukaya. The Tanzanians decided to send the 201st Brigade directly across the causeway across the swamp while the better-quality 208th Brigade skirted the western edge of the swamp as an alternative in case the causeway was blocked or destroyed. A planned attack by a brigade-sized Libyan force with fifteen T-55s, a dozen APCs, and BM-21 MRLs, intended to reach Masaka, instead collided with the Tanzanian force at Lukuya on 10 March and sent the 201st Brigade reeling backwards in disarray. However, a Tanzanian counter-attack on the night of 11–12 March from two directions, involving a reorganised 201st Brigade attacking from the south and the 208th Brigade from the north-west, was successful, with many Libyan units, including the militia, breaking and retreating at a run. Libyan casualties were reported at 200 plus another 200 allied Ugandans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda%E2%80%93Tanzania_War

I'm reliably told that, for this intervention on behalf of his fellow revolutionary and anti-imperialist firebrand Idi Amin, many Ugandans remember Muammar Qaddafi with fondness, gratitude and admiration to this day.

Well, at least BM admits he's not quite sure what he's trying to say. I do credit him for that. He even seems afraid to defend his pimple-faced anarchism, and that's another point in his favor. Keep thinking, Bri!

It's so cute the way a character from LOST condescends to others, especially while being insubstantial in his own comments. Go git 'em, Baby Marxist!

Does anyone know if the oil is still flowing from Libya? Does the freezing of $30 billion in Libyan assets by Herself mean that Libya is offline?

It's really fun to see who's ripping on Marxism in these days, even as events prove the power of what these agents deny.

Meanwhile, at a lower level, it's also fun to see what Oxflop does. He's a Ron Paulist.

What he thinks he's achieving by trolling like he does is anybody's guess.

Sweet... a "Ron Paulist"? Hah. Yeah, you've been paying real close attention, haven't you?

Good job projecting your own flaws onto your enemies though, good as Rove-Goebbels-Netanyahu. That trick ought to really win over the IQ75&under crowd!

I'd invite you to write 3 or 4 sentences proving that Marxism is what's winning the day, rather than the more accurate truth of Capitalism losing the day (which is a totally different proposition), but I am sure you can't muster the intellectual horsepower.

Giddy up, hobby horse!

mr dawson
stop commenting on
these sore assed commenters comments

maybe they'll go away

lajunay: I have never been on Louis Proyect's site. I am not a neo Nazi. I don't like Kaddafi.

I have read revisionist history (and not from CSA apologists' sources but from anarchists) that merely question the conventional wisdom...and costs...of the Civil War. Especially given the reimposition of Jim Crow for 100 years...and the reality that the toxic kind of Christianity and militarism particularly exemplified (not exclusively, mind you, but certainly stronger) by the American South now dominates the entire continent. It is NOT being a racist to wonder if unifying the entire continent under effectively "Southern" values, while expediting a centralizing government and the growth of continental and now international corporations is an unalloyed good thing???? Not that some of this wouldn't have happened anyway due to historical forces...but 600,000 people were a lot of people to gain us...what...exactly?

charles: M. Dawson is not a Randite. He's just a Cruise Missile Reaganite. I'm sure he was just appalled at the oppression of the Grenadian people by the evil Cuban hordes and still remembers with a fond smile how The Gipper saved them all!

anon: I've been commenting here for a long time. Sometimes to the derision of some here. Sometimes in agreement with our hosts. As an anon, what gives you the right to impose a direction on any thread?

(Unless you are op....and if you are op, do you really find Dawson's combination of hyperbole and ad hominems convincing here?)

What Brian M said, March 2 @ 11:03am.

Perhaps I am missing something, but how is it that Brian needs to clarify that he's not a neo-Nazi. Which aspect of his argument suggests Nazi-ism, neo or otherwise?

Brian -- "anon" is The Pope of Hope, op, Ocean Pacific himself. "anon" is how he comments when "on sabbatical" from The Papacy.

Thanks for the view on that guy from LOST. I bet Harold Perrineau really didn't like playing such a confused simpleton, though the guy did redeem himself at the very end, sacrificing himself for the son and the dog. Afraid our Mr Dawson can only sacrifice intelligence on the altar of snark.

That style is inimitable, Charles...even when in hiding.

I am not a neo Nazi.

Though you sure do a fine imitation of one.

to gain us...what...exactly?

What do you mean "us," honky? Fuck you.

flak,

March 2, 2011

"The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that between 850,000 kb/d and 1 million b/d out of 1.6 million b/d of Libyan oil production is currently shut-in as political unrest in the country has prompted oil companies to evacuate employees and shut-in production.

[still]

Reports from some European refiners indicate there is ample crude until at least the end of this month, and that they are now scheduling for April supplies. Currently, crude oil markets in Europe are not perceived as constrained, with crude demand relatively low due to a period of large-scale maintenance of refineries in Europe."

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=104663

other hand:

Saudis, OPEC ready to fill any supply gap caused by Libyan unrest

By Margaret McQuaile in London

March 1, 2011 - OPEC is ready to boost oil production if the political unrest in Libya leads to a supply shortage, the oil producer group's Iranian presidency said February 28.
...

But sources suggest that kingpin producer Saudi Arabia has already turned up the pumps to ensure that the loss of as much as 1.2 million b/d of Libyan oil does not leave consumers short."

http://www.platts.com/NewsFeature/2011/opec/index
............

Best BBQ in world [other than, perhaps, China] comes from the southern U.S.

Development of contradictory modes of production reach a point beyond which they can't 'peacefully'/symbiotically coexist...civil war results.

Thanks for the view on that guy from LOST.

Pity that it it stopped in 1865 really. Another ten or fifteen years of the barbarians slaughtering each other, and the world might have had no need to put up with shits like this.

i liked this line :

" I have read revisionist history (and not from CSA apologists' sources but from anarchists)"

most if not all of you reading this know the line of wl garrison circa 1850 ..right ??

the north should secede from the union

and yet when war came
wl supported lanky link's crusade
to save the union

slavery couldn't survive a union victory

and if you had a choice between jim crow and slavery which would you choose

lets not over use the notion of lesser evil
but lets not ban it either

Clio advances thru konga lines

http://bhamwiki.com/w/Ollie's_Barbecue

A contender for top commercial outlet, perhaps the only BBQ stand ever to "take it to the SCOTUS."

The "outside" sliced pork sandwich with dill pickle was a chewy delight.
After 1999 not so good.

By the way, who exactly were those "restless populations" Abe policed? You anarchist kiddies trip at your own first hurdles.

Urban, working-class immigrants in the North who didn't see the value of fighting in a rich man's war when the rich themselves could hire a proxy or buy their way out of service, for one.

That would have been an obvious answer if you knew even a smattering of the history you're pontificating on.

Lajunay Otum:

I will bow before your superior sense of victimization and so perceptive and intellectually distinguished language.

Nonetheless: the victims living in the various countries of this world in which a unified, continent-bestriding, meganational-corporation-spawning, Washington neoliberal consensus-enforcing military empire have "spread American liberty" might disagree with you. That's among other things the "us" of which I speak.

But I'm certain that your oppression and victimhood is far, far more serious than, say, a Nicarguan peasant slaughtered with American ammunition and training by CIA-funded Contras. Hail Saint Abraham.

op: You do make a good point. However, it is not neo Nazism to bemoan the colossus that was created by the north's victory.