« Bottom of the barrel... | Main | There IS a there there, after all »

The best of all possible worlds

By Michael J. Smith on Tuesday November 1, 2011 05:47 PM

The Times of course is happy about events in Libya:

Western Companies See Prospects for Business in Libya

WASHINGTON — The guns in Libya have barely quieted, and NATO’s military assistance to the rebellion that toppled Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi will not end officially until Monday. But a new invasion force is already plotting its own landing on the shores of Tripoli.

Western security, construction and infrastructure companies that see profit-making opportunities receding in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned their sights on Libya, now free of four decades of dictatorship.

But so too are many of my Lefty acquaintances. This item made its way around the lists recently:
Dual US-Libyan Citizen Appointed New Libyan Prime Minister

Abdurraheem el-Keib, a dual US-Libyan citizen, has been elected prime minister of Libya by members of the National Transitional Council who voted in a televised event on Monday, sticking ballots into a transparent box.

... Keib attended University of Tripoli in 1973, earned his M.S. at the University of Southern California in 1976, and his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University in 1984. He has taught as a professor for many years at the University of Alabama, the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Most recently, he served as Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department at The Petroleum Institute in UAE before joining Libya’s interim council last spring. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the US Department of Energy (US DoE), Southern Company Services (SC), and Alabama Power Company (APCO).

Not to worry, say the Marxist-interventionists. Leaves from a mailing list:
  • Does it really make any difference? Gaddafi was bending backwards to please EU and keep oil flowing.
  • I remember when they installed Hamid Karzai as leader in Afghanistan. He'd been a consultant for Unocal, the U.S. oil company, which Antiwar.com said proved he was a U.S. lackey. But that didn't turn out so well for the puppetmasters in Washington. The latest news from Karzai is that he now says if the U.S. and Pakistan go to war, he'll fight with Pakistan.
  • The Iraqi government has proved a poor puppet too, hasn't it?
The logic here, insofar as I can follow it, seems to be that since imperial interventions often prove disappointing to the tower trolls who gin them up, they should be applauded. Or at least, they're nothing to worry about.

I feel sure there's something wrong with this line of reasoning, but my head is hurting really bad and I need to lie down.

Comments (11)

op:

texas with camels

yah hoooooo

RégisDebray:

Nothing particularly new here. Marxheads--including Marx himself--have always had a soft spot for foreign interventions, or barely supported domestic coups--if the backward natives were dense enough to not give up their benighted ways and embrace wonders of the industrial way of life on their own:

--

We must not forget that this undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative life, that this passive sort of existence evoked on the other part, in contradistinction, wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan. We must not forget that these little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow.

England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm

---

Michael Parenti, another acolyte of Mr. Marx, has no objection to Chinese rule over the somnolent Tibetans--though "excesses" might have occurred as a matter of course--so long as it fits into the grand scheme of History, wittingly or not.

---

Russell Means was on to these prejudices of Marx early on:

http://www.countercurrents.org/means181010.htm

boink:

Marx had probably been reading Boswell's biography of Dr. Johnson and absorbed some of the "Rambler's" ideas... to wit:
---
The modes of living in different countries and the various views with which men travel in quest of new scenes having been talked of, a learned gentleman who holds a considerable office in the law expatiated on the happiness of a savage life; and mentioned an instance of an officer who had actually lived for some time in the wilds of America, of whom, when in that state, he quoted this reflection with an air of admiration, as if it had been deeply philosophical: "Here am I, free and unrestrained, amidst the rude magnificence of Nature, with this Indian woman by my side, and this gun, with which I can procure food when I want it: what more can be desired for human happiness?" It did not require much sagacity to foresee that such a sentiment would not be permitted to pass without due animadversion. JohnSon. "Do not allow yourself, sir, to be imposed upon by such gross absurdity. It is sad stuff; it is brutish. If a bull could speak, he might as well exclaim,—Here am I with this cow and this grass; what being can enjoy greater felicity?"
---

MJS:

If the only tools we have in our kit are the myth of the Noble Savage on one hand, and the narrative of Progress on the other, that's a truly sad state of affairs.

"The logic here, insofar as I can follow it, seems to be that since imperial interventions often prove disappointing to the tower trolls who gin them up, they should be applauded. Or at least, they're nothing to worry about. "

What's the problem? The logic is impeccable. And logic never fails...

@ OP

Parenti’s criticism regarding the issue of Tibet has far more to do with western deification of the pre-revolutionary Lamas than anything else.

op:

Tibetanians face extinction
submerged diluted disolved as a eope
under the han horde's migration west

an outcome many little nations of people have faced face and will face as we humans grind about the p[lanet in relatively cohesive outfits

what is absorbed of course leaves
its "marks" on the absorbing entity

we yankee settlers
oughta recognize this process
uncas is a name misappropriated
by cooper to personify
this "tragic" process


--
yes some have called this progress

the victorian sivilizer had a crtain unholy
impatience with Clio
to "get on with it "
get on with the inevitable "progression" of human society all over the planet

evangelism corporate style ??

yes
that might not be of much deep matter

but try to stop it at your risk !!!!

Brian M:

Coldtype: That was a very interesting essay. Thanks for the link!

Yes, that was a link worth visiting, Coldtype.

op:

" the monastery’s confiscation
of young boys..."


much good sport has been lost....alas ???

Brian M:

Thankfully, op, our glorious freedom-fighting allies in "traditional" Afghanistan are still...indulging...in the sport.

Post a comment

Note also that comments with three or more links may be held for "moderation" -- a strange term to apply to the ghost in this blog's machine. Seems to be a hard-coded limitation of the blog software, unfortunately.

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on Tuesday November 1, 2011 05:47 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Bottom of the barrel....

The next post in this blog is There IS a there there, after all.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Creative Commons License

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Powered by
Movable Type 3.31