Stop Me Before I Vote Again

boink originally pointed us to a nice piece on Counterpunch by Diana Johnstone:

http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone03072011.html

Well worth reading. Excerpt:

Less than a dozen years after NATO bombed Yugoslavia into pieces, detaching the province of Kosovo from Serbia, there are signs that the military alliance is gearing up for another victorious little “humanitarian war”, this time against Libya....

Twelve years ago, most of the European left supported “the Kosovo war” that set NATO on the endless path it now pursues in Afghanistan. Having learned nothing, many seem ready for a repeat performance....

The narrow vision of the left is illustrated by the statement in a Trotskyist paper that: “Of all the crimes of Qaddafi, the one that is without doubt the most grave and least known is his complicity with the EU migration policy…” For the far left, Qaddafi’s biggest sin is cooperating with the West, just as the West is to be condemned for cooperating with Qaddafi. This is a left that ends up, out of sheer confusion, as cheerleader for war.

"If it takes CIA agencies and not a thousand villages to smash Mr Q's little pig sty, so be it."

No. If Mr Q's little pig sty is to be smashed, it must be by those thousand little villages --- or by whomever in Libya, if they want Q smashed at all --- not by "us." Stay the %&$% out of it.

Relatedly, I could hear a host today on Nominally Public Radio itching, frothing for an intervention....

I'm not quite as blithe as Owen seems to be about the potential for US and Euro interventions to take over the Libyan revolution. But I can't bring myself to regard the Qaddafi regime the same way I think of the Islamic Republic in Iran, which seems to me a more positive thing than not. The differences are twofold; one, it appears to me that the Libyan opposition has a different, more popular, more comprehensive social complexion than the Iranian "Greenies" had; and two, Qaddafi himself seems like such a thoroughly played and degenerated lapdog. Any anti-imperial cred he might have ever had is long gone, so I can't root for him. But I sure hope the Libyan insurgents find some suitably conclusive way to deal with any US- or Euro-sponsored creeps within their ranks.

Oh, I can't root for him at all, for the reasons you cite, MJS. But I also cannot root for any outcome that sees him ousted by "our hand."

Yes, Mahmoud actually has popular support in his country, from the unglam "lessers" out in the sticks. In fact, last I checked, he won an election, or at least eked out a "coaches challenge" victory with more legitimacy than some closer to home.

cz

"If Mr Q's little pig sty is to be smashed, it must be by those thousand little villages"

i couldn't agree more that its up
to the libyans to liberate themselves
anything else is imperial fraud
but
the question posed is about this very liberation movement's leadership... now

not some future intervention by whatever
great power imperial forces

hands off libya now
is the only call of course
as with hands off greater serbia then

but that has to do with overt action
of empire
or at least an exposed astro turf insurgency
ala the anti sandinistas

not like here
where intervention thru wire pulling the insurgent core
is still utterly covert if it exists at all

and this is not a matter of contamination
as is often used to question mark the egyptian face book -twitter rising

boink
stages a mr q agin a exposed
cia hatched and directed insurgency
--by asumption --

and no i don't care to choose between em

anymore then between ringo and
the persian yuppies

what will be will be

our line oughta be hands off
in any case

let em settle it without material intervention
by any great powers directly
or thru neighbors for that matter

imagine this armed struggle protracts

and with time

tunisia harbors the insurgency leadership
of say the western wing
of the L insurgency
--recall t's role in the algerian gig --
or going 180 on this
the powers that then be in T
make a covert deal with mr Q
to off insurgents based on their side
of the border

now we have a real question
though either one seems awefully unlikely
despite
tunisia's feeble armed forces
lack of oil
limited value to the "west "
and the uncertain direction
of its own popular upheavel
and on the otherside
mr Q's love of such broadening the canvas
covert actions

permutations mount ...

Agree.

But re: "let em settle it without material intervention
by any great powers directly
or thru neighbors for that matter"

I don't care if the neighbors get involved. Just not the great powers. With the neighbors, still should be safe to say, "It's none of our business." Though, yes, the neighbors could be inflitrated. But then so could the Lib rebels....

But still: neighbors fine by me; great powers --- no.

cz

"rooting "??? how many divisions do we rooters have ??

our task oppose uncle's temptation to intervene
the irony here
its only humanists that want to

the corporate types really have no dog in the hunt
that oil has to be sold to some one
even if a hugo type regime emerges from the insurgency that's less a disaster
more a sport ...like bear baiting

mjs
"appears to me that the Libyan opposition has a different, more popular, more comprehensive social complexion than the Iranian "Greenies" had"

i agree it does indeed
and that matters greatly internally

but i think we all agree
in neither case should
the agents of an imperial state
get a "go " signal
from the planets humanist midgets

OP, rooting's the only power I have. It's the only way I can will a Knicks basket, or to get someone to throw up their arms and play D.

"its only humanists that want to"
Beautiful. And the humanist Nominally Public Radio airwaves have been itchy for intervention (some hosts, guests anyway).

Perhaps the either/or applied to history is a bit too much of the square pegging of the non-existent hole?

Surely nobody here is saying or thinking that s/he wants a humanitarian intervention a la Kosovo, or covert manipulation by the spooks? But do we all go farther and say we don't want such intervention even if the alternative were Qaddafi staying in power -- which is the crucial caveat, even though it's a mere thought experiment; one nevers knows what the alternatives are or rather were, only what happened after the fact.

Still, it's a useful exercise for clarifying one's outlook, isn't it?

It clarifies mine. I don't have a good word to say for Qaddafi, but given the thought-experiment binary choice between Qaddafi and some US-Euro sponsored "color revolution", I guess I'd choose Qaddafi. Fortunately, the insurgency in Libya doesn't look much like a "color revolution" to me, so I'm not currently on the hook.

if q wins and hunts down and slaughters
every last brave insurgents....

after torturing them

still

"HANDS OFF UNCLE " !!

however i suspect we are facing
the clear possibility of a democratic upheavel that spirals down into a color job
and displays the covert hand
of various western outfits

again i say

so what

its not our fight

What is everything we are being told about Libya and Qaddafi is a lie? What is Qaddafi is another media-manufactured "tyrant" like Chavez or Ahmedinejad? Just because some folks have taken to the streets to fight the regime like, say, the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, doesn't make them the good guys.

Here's a more nuanced view of Qaddafi and his regime then we're seeing in the media:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/03/libya-getting-it-right-a-revolutionary-pan-african-perspective/

As for the opposition, what is being described in the West as its alleged leadership consists of some dude who claims Qaddafi personally ordered the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and his regime deliberately infected 400 Libyan kids with AIDS (how do you infect someone with AIDS, anyway?) And they call Qaddafi nuts.

Of course, this Karzai-like clown is calling for Western intervention, and even sports the little organ-grinder monkey Fez which seems the height of fashion for some US puppets. I'll bet his little cup is filled to the brim with US coin, too.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2011/03/exactly-what-i-feared.html

I'm not apologizing for Qaddafi here, but simply pointing out that this situation seriously stinks on too many levels to be taken at face value. When I see breathlessly absurd articles like this in the Guardian, my bullshit detector goes right off:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/08/gaddafi-forces-devastating-attack-on-zawiyah

What is everything we are being told about Libya and Qaddafi is a lie? What is Qaddafi is another media-manufactured "tyrant" like Chavez or Ahmedinejad? Just because some folks have taken to the streets to fight the regime like, say, the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, doesn't make them the good guys.

Here's a more nuanced view of Qaddafi and his regime then we're seeing in the media:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/03/libya-getting-it-right-a-revolutionary-pan-african-perspective/

As for the opposition, what is being described in the West as its alleged leadership consists of some dude who claims Qaddafi personally ordered the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and his regime deliberately infected 400 Libyan kids with AIDS (how do you infect someone with AIDS, anyway?) And they call Qaddafi nuts.

Of course, this Karzai-like clown is calling for Western intervention, and even sports the little organ-grinder monkey Fez which seems the height of fashion for some US puppets. I'll bet his little cup is filled to the brim with US coin, too.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2011/03/exactly-what-i-feared.html

I'm not apologizing for Qaddafi here, but simply pointing out that this situation seriously stinks on too many levels to be taken at face value. When I see breathlessly absurd articles like this in the Guardian, my bullshit detector goes right off:

Ran afoul of the 3-link rule. here's the link to the Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/08/gaddafi-forces-devastating-attack-on-zawiyah

jc
i agree clio don't play either or

OK, I can't contain myself any more: There's no way the CIA is running the Libyan uprising. Q has been way too reliable lately, and this whole democratic explosion is a nightmare to the US overclass. The CIA is certainly trying to manipulate events in the usual direction, but it's simply a bad question we're wasting electrons on here.

These are massively oppressed and also religiously-steeped civil societies. So, it's not a surprise that there's trouble understanding which side is quite which in a place like Libya. But the core fact is that a lifelong autocrat is strafing his own population. I know which side I'm for.

Dawson's pretty much on my own wavelength on this one (10:02 pm above). I agree the CIA isn't "running" the insurgency.

But no doubt they would like to. The question is, to what extent might they succeed?

Sean's got a point too:

As for the opposition, what is being described in the West as its alleged leadership consists of some dude who claims Qaddafi personally ordered the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and his regime deliberately infected 400 Libyan kids with AIDS....

Of course, this Karzai-like clown is calling for Western intervention

The spooks have got their people in place, no doubt about it, and how it will all pan out is anybody's guess. But my own feeling -- for what it's worth, and that's not much -- is that the spooks aren't running the show, at least not yet, and I hope not ever.

BAR is herolding Gadaffi as the "liberator of Africa". To me, at best he seems like a Mugabe figure--opponent (until recently, at least) to the old colonial order but not exactly on the verge of rendering paradise on earth for "his" people either...and widely despised by many folk how aren't under some CIA or SAS spell.

It might be hard for non-Libyans to believe, but I wonder whether the Libyan populace are so disgusted with Western Interests that they'd support Qaddafi just for standing up to Uncle Sam, even if he isn't very benevolent toward his own people.

Might be awfully hard to find a "leader" who isn't already, or quickly after installation, owned by Uncle Sam.

I am certainly aware of decades of American infotainment media and Govt propaganda painting Qaddafi as Satan's own emissary, and that alone makes me think he's a much more benevolent leader for his people than whatever possible alternative thugs Uncle Sam might prefer.

I tend to play the Rule of Opposites when American government or infotainment media people talk about a foreign country and/or its leader(s). It's a device that works well domestically for interpreting federal legislative and regulatory material -- i.e., Healthy Forests Initiative, No Child Left Behind, Patriot Act, etc.

Admittedly, it's hard to dislike a guy that the New York Times has spent decades demonizing. The pro-Qaddafi view is very much the contrarian one, so of course it tempts me strongly.

But disregard the media-elected "leaders" and "spokesmen", many of whom are no doubt spooks or, at best, useful idiots. Doesn't the situation on the ground look sorta like the real thing?

For a long time I felt much inclined to make a case for Qaddafi. He was always an eccentric, but so am I; and we all should be much less frightened of "terrorism" than we are of law and order.

But ole Q. has recently made his peace with the imperial, neo-liberal global regime. You have to wonder whether the scenes we're seeing in Libya, now, don't arise from a breach of the promises in the Green Book, rather than from their fulfillment.

Permit me to make a quasi-anarchist (read: democratic) point: I don't trust anybody who wields power at this level who doesn't expose him/her self to regular and real elections. That lesson, I would have thought, was one of the main messages of the wipe-out of socialism 1.0. And it's far from clear that Q was ever a socialist.

MJS,

My cousin thinks the internal propaganda, in Saudi Arabia, has never been more obvious, more intense and more plaintive.

She's probably reporting her husband's view, more than her non-political own, but the Saud's would very, very much like their own people to believe that the Libyan people are on the side of Iblis.

It's not so much pro-Qaddaffi as anti-revolution, which perhaps speaks to some level of US-Saudi concern with the Libyan civil war which doesn't jiva all that well with the story that the US is running a ground level attack on Tripoli.

It's not often I get to agree with Dawson, but the Counterpunch-Chussodovsky line is really kind of silly.

Yep. It's a wave the hegemons are trying to ride, and may perhaps succeed in riding. But I don't think they made the wave rise.

But the core fact is that a lifelong autocrat is strafing his own population.

Is he?

Airstrikes in Libya did not take place - Russian military
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncgsS0FDWg&feature=player_embedded

A 500 lb bomb makes a huge hole in the ground and causes massive damage if it hits civilian structures. See Gaza for examples. Where is the evidence? Where is the Gaza-like moonscape caused by this massive destruction?

In the Guardian article I cited, they claimed an attack on hospitals, mosques and schools in a rebel-held city involving 50 tanks and assorted troops in vehicles. An attack across the desert into a city by a large column of tanks would have been a massive, terrifying and unforgettable event to anyone who witnessed it. The noise would have been deafening, and clouds of smoke and dust hundreds of feet high would have trailed the vehicles. It would have been easily captured on satellite. So where is the evidence? Where is a single video or photo or sound recording of this massive event? Where is the evidence of destroyed hospitals and mosques?

The article claims, right in the sub-heading, that women and children were killed. Okay, where is the evidence for that? It also claims that the rebels destroyed many tanks in the Square of Martyrs (how convenient). Where are the photos of these destroyed tanks and where did the rebels get weapons capable of destroying tanks?

Indeed, considering that this insurrection is less than two weeks old, the fact some of these rebels are already heavily armed strikes me as very suspect.

The CIA/Mossad/Mi6 do not have a monopoly on evil, and they need not be running the show here. This could be an in-house uprising by reactionary elements within Libya who have been arming and training for this event for a long time, and saw the occurrence of revolts across N Africa as an opportune chance to strike.

Fact is, we do not know enough about what's going on there to make a judgment. With respect to MJS, I don't think this is a contrarian viewpoint, but a cautious one.

Bahrain bears close watching as toppling of the monarchy there will cause seismic waves throughout the region, particularly in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is separated from it by a causeway. Already an event on the globalized 'celebration capitalism' circuit (obverse of Naomi Klein's 'disaster capitalism') has been 'impacted', as they say in upper stories of billion dollar skyscrapers where the sponsors are not amused.

I like and applaud the cautious viewpoint. Any time the jingo press starts beating the war-drums, you'll get these extravagant atrocity stories. But even if the atrocity stories are nine-tenths lies, the question still remains, what is this conflict about? What has caused it? Who are the parties? What are they fighting for -- or against?

We're all so desperately uninformed -- does anybody who reads this blog even know Arabic? I don't, alas.

Yet the events in the region seem to call, somehow, for more than an attitude of quiet agnosticism. One feels the need to devour what little information one has and make something of it. We're all just guessing here.

I just realized that I didn't establish an initial position vis-a-vis Qaddafi in my original question and neither I nor anyone else seems to have noticed that. I don't really know anything much about Q. and what I "know" dates back to the Thatcher years, when I stopped regularly reading newspapers and watching TV news broadcasts. Without looking it up, I seem to recall that Q. was blamed back then for an explosion in London that killed a police woman and a beautiful horse. Maybe others. Maybe Major was PM then.

Ordinary news-alert people regarded Q. as weird and paranoid and un-handsome and other. I noticed that Q. was quite annoying to the USA and gave him some credit for that. The later Lockerbie deal appeared so unmotivated, gratuitous, that I could not believe it was Q., especially in view of the blatant quid pro quo of it (Iran).

So my question (and thanks to all those who have responded) must have assumed the standard normal view of Q. Doesn't this show the extent to which the long demonization of Q. has set the tone for all discussion? Hmm...

I wonder if there is a kind of shelf life on demonization and if Q.'s was approaching its 'sell by' date at about the time that the Tunisian fellow self-immolated, presenting the imperial security services with a ripe opportunity to make lemonade from those Tunisian/Egyptian lemons?

There is a useful reserve of the world's favorite flavor of petroleum and a sparse population in Libya. There is excess HDI in Libya by African standards which could offer a new regime and their western friends rich pickings. The CIA would be remiss to let this chance pass by. Recall what the economic background was to the Arbenz and Mossadegh projects 60 years ago. Bananas. Oil. A chance to nose out the Brits and French in Iran. You just got to wonder.

"I don't trust anybody who wields power at this level who doesn't expose him/her self to regular and real elections."

if it were only ...that easy md..

one example comes to mind to cloud over
the bright line here

nicaragua
perfect case where contained pluralism morphed into "restoration"
because of a pair of open elections

thesis
expose yourself to "open" elections and the liberal party system will "vote itself
a restoration

look at this list

castro allende ortega
and think hard and deep

question for us non anarchos :

when "must "
a consolidated revolutionary state
"expose itself"
to a fair and open election ??

----

this issue of pluralistic process bias
is the obverse of the anarcho blither
and its part of a worthy wide spread
"impatience " with the whole
liberal/libertarian/ anarcho axis

they share a common paradigm

the anarchos are the closest to okay of course
at least they want a revolution not a reform movement
and yet
they disengage before the revolution manifests itself in institutions
they fail to confront what say
MD has here confronted
asked himself and answered with ...alas

criteria for the new post topple state
that in my estimation if followed by the rev
thru say a "leading rev built organization/movement
is a formula for....
pro multi national corporate restoration

back to the anarchos

they are all for the explosions
no matter what motivations the bomd throwers have
--and i agree here and thus don't pussy foot about supporting any spontaneous wide spread upheavel that is indeed facing down
the existing state's guns --
but hey you anarchos u are never able to finish anything eh ??
you never join a revolution and remain "inside it "
unless you in effect abandon your childish ways as a red st paul might say
upshot
stay an anarcho
and any sustained form of " revolutionary "
social rebuilding that has existed anywhere ever is restoration

to me that suggests you are not willing
to play in the real games of society morphing
of class struggle
once
the stage of real self reproducing instituted change kicks in
its kronstadt/barcelona time for you guys

---notice your golden moments are fading
over the horizon
when will there be enough of you
anywhere relevent
to have more such moments
in the future
where you take the inevitable
"last stand " against the statists
betrayal of the revolution ??

only the nihilistic moments where
painting everything "in place"
as white evil
as white as moby dick
and commence to throw
mental harpoons into it
get your members vibrating

your like heavy metal fans
--no not punk like you think it is --

your groove's
juvenile and limited baby limited

btw juvenile isn't bad

look at noam
ever the child protigy
ever the ultimo contrarian with fearlessness

a smart little soul standing up against
the towering elders
answering back
talking truth to power
even if the limited truth of
"your just abusing your authority pop
the force of size and position
the call of "because i said so "

and ya submission to authorized power plays
don't hack it as total ego liberation

"we all should be much less frightened of "terrorism" than we are of law and order"

great point

though i might word it a little different:
maybe like this
we all should throw our entire weight into the struggle against existing law and order
not existing terrorism

terrorism is a gesture a flash
a out of joint moment
a good healthy mugging of the complacent
that might remove the acceptance
of the ever the sameness of our daily life
quite romantic really

but
law and order
that sir
am the man from hell
training one of his too many ever lasting spot lights right on you

"I don't think they made the wave rise"
nothing can make "the wave rise"
even if the wave is reactionary counter revolutionary etc etc

not even the pope and the emperor combined
working in concert
can take credit for the vendee rising

two examples

the over throw of the present regime in iran
and the over throw of the present regime in china
presume color revs in each case

to me i'd face that with delight like i faced the fall of the soviet camp

clio doing her heavy lifting indeed

nothing sucked the air out of progressives forces like the fall of the berlin wall

and yet ....

i think sean has a good point
i don't think right now q is killing civilians in obvious ways
like firing into a demo
he might of given the insurgents at first a taste of lead
but he's clearly backed off
in public

his air strikes are so far largely gestures

of no tactical impact

its really too obvious to bare repeating
we are getting fed thru the wests filters
with some additional zip
throw in by ...
oil sheik sponsored outfits

but hey this isn't a martian invasion
we can mycroft this stuff pretty damn well

btw
firing on "his own people"
strikes me as a sucker take
a set up for humanist manipulation
if not in yourself md
in others that lack your steely resolve to oppose the white whate

my my
i've flooded another thread

i need to be cut off from the jingo net

"an in-house uprising by reactionary elements within Libya who have been arming and training for this event for a long time, and saw the occurrence of revolts across N Africa as an opportune chance to strike"

if the q regime as generated such a brave reaction

so be it

still its an internal matter
as a non rooter let the two contend
at worse a failed anti imperial regime falls
its like cutting the weak critters out of the herd

err the herd one must admit has seen lots of culling recently

almost to the point of extinction

but the phoenix that is revolution is reborn out of the eternal class struggle eh ??
so never fear
if we never see much
the big fire works are coming

and hey
who knows where this magred gig is headed
and what it might shake out along the way

------

the prole view :
we are part of a one worldwide have not class
is true
but fails to suggest the full meaning of
" part "

the various parts move variously
at once and over time

"question for us non anarchos :

when "must "
a consolidated revolutionary state
"expose itself"
to a fair and open election ??"

Not sure why you seem to be assuming that an anarchist has a ball in any sort of electioneering game.

"assumed the standard normal view of Q"

no

jc
you missed that one
sorry i write so poorly
there is indeed a shared core paradigm
between lin=berals libertarians and anarchists
evolved inchoate somewhere between the late 17th and late 18th century
from hence they split along certain fault lines in the shared ground under each
"current"'s superstructure
-- trot jargon alert ---

its the amorphic bits that harden
certain minds into pluralists
that creates the criteria for post topple
institutional reconstruction implied by md

you narcho-anarchos don't go there

with your totally liberated ego
as a sine qua non
categorical imperative
you types absolutely oppose
"the state "
period full stop
straight up oppose it

so obviously you ooppose elections that legitimize that evil entity

the anarchos are the closest to okay of course
at least they want a revolution not a reform movement
and yet
they disengage before the revolution manifests itself in institutions
they fail to confront what say
MD has here confronted
asked himself and answered with ...alas

criteria for the new post topple state
that in my estimation if followed by the rev
thru say a "leading rev built organization/movement
is a formula for....
pro multi national corporate restoration

op,

You should, I think, admit these generic broadsides are pretty useless if you're not talking about any particular person to whom you ascribe "anarcho" tendency or rhetoric.

Your general argument-by-implication seems to be that unless a Mighty State is created post-revolution, the other Mighty States on Earth will gobble up the nascent anarchic entity.

Is this based on economic ideas?

Militaristic ones?

The whimsy of Clio?

Your own gut feeling?

A dim view of your fellow humans?

Something else?

PS:

Yes, I skipped the part where you referenced The Noam. I think he is/was a Costume Anarchist, a stage prop installed by that Massachusetts Institute of War Technology. Whatever "anarchic" impulse he has, it's well tempered by his position, his salary, the social status those things give him, and ...well... the end result is what we've seen: won't criticize the Official Story on 9/11/2001, leapt into support for Obamacare just like Wee Denny... etc. If that's anarchism, I'm Popeye. Which I can't be, my forearms are too skinny and Olive Oyl looks fugly to me.

oxy

"Your general argument...
unless a Mighty State is created post-revolution, the other Mighty States on Earth will gobble up the nascent anarchic entity"

yup

though the qualifier "mighty "
has a certain wiggle room in it eh ??

"Is this based on economic ideas?

Militaristic ones?

The whimsy of Clio?

Your own gut feeling?

A dim view of your fellow humans?

Something else?"

excellent question
though its not one we can answer
as presented
like we answer the question
what causes fluid water to turn into ice

but i can give a raw and simple answer
anyway that fails to be specific in its causality claim

look at
the historical record
these past 200 or so years
it seems to read
like this:

after every old regime has toppled
a new state
has been the out come ...every time

which makes for a quick induction no ??

such as:
there's a social necessity at work here

a law of social development

perhaps restricted to this stage
of human social/economic evolution of course

but then if its only a stage law
one has to present the conditions
of a different stage eh?

and then suggest
why we might be at that new stages portal

ie
after some old regime topples over
here in out
a new stage might emerge
..even if only as opportunity
a new stage
where this historical "law" no longer holds

if so
the burden is on you anarchists
i think
to demonstrate how this is the case

how we can know
this new stateless stage
is pending right now
inside the old stage

waiting in there ready to be born
thru the portal of revolution
and build itself sustainably
much else might suffice
such as this
a complex of notions that has been there for a long time
just not yet fully or widely enough propogated to motivate a majority in any moment of opporunity so far

then if that's so the next question becomes
why has it not bloomed ??

again it is anarchism that must make the argument

we statists stand on the revealed facts
stuborn and stupid as we might be
so you must convince us the record is incomplete
--reminds me of the new business cycle boys task in the 80's
i envy you not --

the questions mount faster then the answers usually:

where did these notions come from and
are they simply not completed
so they can't be effective yet

like some charm's power
that requires the charms full set of n pieces
to be effective
and so far our minds have only uncovered n-m
of these pieces ??
if we consider
the birth of modern anarchism
---as a self organizing emergent ideological complex --
post 1789
in other words
the last decade of the 18th century
when it began to speciate itself
out of the clash between the french revolution and prior enlightenment notional patterns
like
the natural society or the natural economy
themselves two new meme complexes
that like much enlightenment thought
remains steadfastly
un evolutionary in nature

should we start collecting the names and writings of this broad current --trot jargon alert--
since then and show the internal contradictions
among the tribals ???

surely anarchist at least share the belief
the state is sublate-able ...now

ahh yet yet yet
all this is side bar stuff eh ? oxy

we might exchange e mails over this
for ever and i'd enjoy it
it sharpens my own understanding

here's my e mail

kapshow@hotmail.com

lets leave father's much abused
orginally single message single mission site
to carry on
with the urgent knocking at the front or back door
dockets of the day

in this case
the endless honeymoon
between pwog dems and their universal progressive humanist urge to intervene

I'm not sure why this comment thread has devolved into another abstract discussion of anarchism versus Marxism-Leninism. It's a topic on which there doesn't seem to be a lot new to be said. Meanwhile we have some very interesting and important actual events to talk about.

noam's meliorist minimum program
makes for great debate

but i think his libertarian socialism
qualifies as both genuine and
within the broader compass of what
we statests call "anarchist"
given its dogmatic rebuke of
"political authority" as manifested
in a coercive hierarchy
proclaiming its legitimacy
as a forciful agency demanding compliance
with its dictates (positive laws)

It's a topic on which there doesn't seem to be a lot new to be said.

ahh
but the dueling liturgies
must.... i say must
be performed
daily
everywhere
and on a mass scale

i for one never tire of
re convincing myself
reconfirming in trials by fire
that
doctor marx was correct
and
chairman mao was
one 'bitchin' ' right on red

i now have the proof
mjs
never actually reads my comments if they contain more then twitter length verbiage

reading this

ahh yet yet yet
all this is side bar stuff eh ? oxy

we might exchange e mails over this
for ever and i'd enjoy it
it sharpens my own understanding

here's my e mail

kapshow@hotmail.com

lets leave father's much abused
orginally single message single mission site
to carry on
with the urgent knocking at the front or back door
dockets of the day

in this case
the endless honeymoon
between pwog dems and their universal progressive humanist urge to intervene "

might have softened this

"I'm not sure why this comment thread has devolved into another abstract discussion of anarchism versus Marxism-Leninism. It's a topic on which there doesn't seem to be a lot new to be said. Meanwhile we have some very interesting and important actual events to talk about. "

seems the repeat sinner
repenth too much and reformith too little
but
i'm trying
really i am i am i am

http://middleburgh.com/FRoggymask.jpg

Sorry, Owen. Our comments crossed in the mail; I didn't see yours until after I wrote mine. I sorta regret mine anyway; I don't want to turn into Louis Proyect.

op --

I have no answers; I was genuinely asking out of curiosity and a stance of relative naivete. Unlike you, I do not study Clio, as I prefer to live in the present and feel that humans can change their own course no matter what their past has foretold as a "fixed future." I have watched the kids I work with change from a supposed "determined" life path of self-destruction and other-destruction into a more benevolent and cooperative stance. I believe the same is possible for many people if caught young enough and helped compassionately enough.

For older humans, the "fixed future" tends to be more determinative. I seriously doubt I could persuade Dick Cheney to be more humanist, no matter how many evil childhood events I helped him re-live and put into new perspective. Which suggests, of course, that Dick Cheney is the way he is because of how he was raised/how he "grew up."

I think, perhaps, my view of my fellow human is present-day pessimist, future optimist. Some gut level instinct tells me that people would behave better if their circumstances weren't so oppressive.

At the same time I recognize the importance and validity of what Fromm discussed in Fear of Freedom -- that many people need someone to tell them what to do, because they lack self-confidence in the face of autonomy. This suggests you are correct in saying a state must replace a state.

A friend of mine once reduced humanity's problems like this: "Everyone wants everyone else to be JUST LIKE THEM." I assume others want full autonomy because I want it. I am probably well mistaken on that point.

father
you could no more become another lu lu proyect
then i could become ...........another
general army of one crow

and the point was absolutely in order

oxy
great comment

lets go over fromm's thesis in an e mail exchange eh ??

op -- done... check your email!

OP-san, I myself do indeed hold to the view that insistence on democratic process is necessary, and count the Sandinistas' adherence to it is as being greatly in their favor, as well as their historic legacy. Certainly, Chavez gets the point. I also agree am persuaded by the Gandhian point that the means and ends are not wholly separable, hence principled losing is sometimes for the best. As you yourself always say, Clio has legs, even if we need things to move faster.

As to Erich Fromm, he is one of my faves. Nonetheless, I think his writings on fear of freedom were too narrowly a reaction to the trauma of fascism. Fear of the new and the complex is a deeply wired animal trait. It is adaptive, as well as dangerous. Fromm, in his rush to explain fascism, downplayed that. He also lacked the brain scans and neurology we now have.

As to the necessity of states, I've never heard any anarchist offer a hint of an explanation of how we are to imagine a planet of 7 billion morally equivalent humans (all of whom face the threat of global-level military, ecological, and nutritional catastrophe) is going to be able to be stateless in the foreseeable future. That's because there is no way it could happen, other than as an immense Mad Max disaster.

the fromm thesis does indeed accuse a genetic endowment itself obvious a historical atrefact
with purely one sided socio/political outcomes

ie
proto fascist pre disposition

seems overly ambitious a determination

and i agree the gene complex that is postulated to be involved
has two sides as you suggest here
" Fear of the new and the complex is a deeply wired animal trait. It is adaptive, as well as dangerous"
or it by about 30 k years ago it would have been extinguished
ie long before state society emerged
let alone

fascism loomed big big big
in the 40's ..obviously
not only that
but with its symetrical anti twin soviet communism
fascism merged into
that profoundly inner conflicted
series of mental constructs

the totalitarian mind /party/state

which now again peeled free of its anti twin
strikes us as
merely one more
transitory and pathological forms
of the bourgeois state
not the brown half
of twin terminal flanking menaces
haunting the arendtian mind set

yup just
one among several pathological forms
the B state has taken in its journey
thru the present stage of class struggle ...
its very own stage of course where its the star class
again one among several
in the history
of class cloven society

md
i tried to get us all into this topic of the pluralist bias in an earlier post
just too many anti statists here i guess among active commenters
to care since the only good state is a dead state so far as they are concerned

btw
i share your perception
that somehow ortega's arc
signaled something important that if not brand new filled in a gap to the reformist side of castro and the revolutionary side of allende
in the collective praxis of latin marxism

however it does not quiet my soul
one bit

these color revs and various other
job class adverse
morphs of state form and substance
all clapped at loudly by pluralist pwogs
suggests if the party behind a rev state
faces "history"
the answer to one question remains open

at what point ought a rev state face
the fair and open election ???

you seem to imply ..from day one

ugh we part ways their mate

again i invite you md to e mail me if you
wish to continue this dialogue on
the open society etc
i'm sworn to no more hijinxing or hi jacking
of SMBIVA
comment caravans

my camel corps will clop off
to the mirage oasis in pontiac
called by my many frenemies

bunker 13

MJ: For current information and comment on the ME, try Informed Comment (juancole.com), and the Arabist.

When I first saw 54 comments on this post, I thought I'd find a great flaming match. Instead I find a warm bath of collegiality and tolerance.

Still, I'm suggesting a new name for the site: Stop Me Before I Comment Again.

OP: Your use of Clio puzzles me. Clio only looks backward, right? Sure, Clio provides models for current events, but you can't know which one is right until afterwards. So Clio is really the muse of indecision, perpetually above events, looking down.

Anyway, isn't your real muse Mnemosene?

CLIO is the past and to the extent the past signals and pre figures the future
ClIO is....the future edited into
a coming attraction teaser

cue lamont cranston
who knows what lurks ahead
...only the muses know

Stop Me Before I Comment Again

that dear correspondent has
all too much of ME in mind

i'm quite flattered of course

for a raging ego maniac
in minor manic mode

no publicity is bad publicity eh ???

viva charlie sheen !!!!!!!