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Illustration: There is nothing like a landscape of what is really before you to make you appreciate what a real, sincere, living, and valuable gift life of this planet is. What wonders we have created!
Sorry, but we are NOT going to the Royal wedding. We sent a letter to the Royal family by way of the BBC to the effect that if Fergie was not invited, we were not going -- count us out. So there. So shut up about it. I have heard enough about them.
You probably won't read this in any other forum, so here it is. Gaddafi drives leaders in the west nuts, and that is why you will not get a straight answer on the situation in Libya right now.
Gaddafi's number 2 son appeared on state television, carried by Al Jazeera English, and spoke for about 45 minutes on the situation. He was matter-of-fact, somewhat apologetic, and explained, mainly to his own people, the situation. It has been a long time since a politician seemed honest, lacking in bullshit, and accurate. This is probably another reason why Gaddafi himself so irritates politicians in the rest of the world, especially the Capitalist world.
To follow this, you need to know about the Green Book, more or less an extended pamphlet or essay, on the rights of Man as he sees it. From reading it, you know full well that he is NOT a Muslim fanatic, NOT a dictator, and NOT a stooge of the west. In fact, the Green Book, if it was symbolically smashed, was smashed by Al Quaeda types or religious zealots, not the oppressed masses. The book reads as if it were written by the Fabian Society, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, H. G. Wells, or, yes, Bernard Shaw (if you don't believe he would write something like that, I refer you to The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Capitalism. In short, it espouses a mild and rational form of socialism.
Gaddafi long ago abdicated much of his major decision making involvement to people's councils, and they actually do make decisions, especially involving education and other social welfare issues. They may be somewhat strange in their expectations and administrative capabilities, but they do have the final word.
Libya has the largest per capital income in all of Africa. It is hardly Egypt, although I heard some blathering idiot saying that two thirds of the population lived on less than two dollars a day. In Egypt we were told it was half. Also, there are 80 million people in Egypt and only 5 million in Libya. So why the unrest? Where the parallels?
Libya was a territory occupied by Italy as a colonial power and Italy simply took the several tribes and put them all under the name of one state. That's it. There are three main areas and I do not know specifically what they were called. This publication might help:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6511/is_4_44/ai_n28948866/
I can't vouch for it, but it sounds reasonable and is consistent with what I know.
At any rate, Gaddafi overthrew and expelled the Italians with the army, but only kept the rank of Colonel. He could have given himself any rank he wanted, but it is in keeping with his philosophy that rank is meaningless and should not come between a state and its people. He gave it the name of the Libyan People's Socialist Jamaharia, or something like that. Anyway, it means the people's democracy.
Right now, some clown in the west part of the country has declared himself Calif of an Arab State and people in the mongrel east think of themselves as autonomous.
As I mentioned, his number two son, Saif El Islam Gaddafi, spoke and pointed all of this out, fairly clearly. He also called for a council to meet and construct a new constitution of a new state of Libya that everyone could agree on rather than allowing the country to disintegrate into all different segments. If it did, who would control the oil? It is located right in the middle of all this. Furthermore, he said, you know very well that the colonial powers [now consolidated into the EU and the US] will come and take things over.
Now this is an offer that Mubarak never made. Tunisia never even considered it. We are not going to let anything happen to Bahrain because our fifth fleet is there. Screw the people. In Algeria, the army took over when they didn't like who was elected. Sort of what happened in Palestine when we demanded elections and "our" side lost. Israel is threatening violence in the Suez canal because Iran has two destroyers passing through. Only Libya so far has even paid lip service to what the people want. In fact, the people should run their own countries, says Saif Gaddafi, so why not get them together and decide?
They will also point the finger because of a rise in oil prices. Do you really think our government gives and damn when every time oil prices rise, profits, both absolute and margins rise for big oil? If you do, you are a moron -- worse, you are also a clod, a lower-clod.
The highlight of one newscast here was that BP had withdrawn its workers from Libya. Well now, why not ask the people of Louisiana and Mississippi whether they wish BP had withdrawn their operation from the gulf of Mexico?
Which segment gets the oil revenue if this rioting manages to overthrow what is left of the regime. Well, the west probably will simply come in and take it.
Usually, I will go to Twitter and type, say in this case #Libya, and there would be a great deal of specific information. In fact, that article liked about came from there. But otherwise, all I see are wild complaints, as of yesterday a thousand were killed (even we only estimated it at 300), Gaddafi has been there too long, and so on. With #Egypt at least people talked about unemployment and the price of food.
And while we are thinking about it, haven't we had the same two political parties, essentially two wings of the corporate party, in this country too long? Certainly longer than Gaddafi has been around.
I think someone is trying to slip this one in amongst all the legitimate rebellions.
As a very irritating umpire during my time as a paid baseball player once said, "I just call them as I see them." I have a reply for him, but it is not appropriate here. It probably occurred to some of you.
