Part I- Libya Qaddafi and the politics of oil
PART II- Anti-government pro-reform demonstrations spreading outside Madison Wisconsin, USA
...Democracy, Welfare
Many of these dictators or authoritarian Regimes have been for decades propped up by the United States and other Western Nations for their own national interests (for easy and cheap access to natural resources including labor)while ignoring what the citizens of these nations wanted.The Libyan revolt follows the ousting of longtime rulers by protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt in the past two months. Anti-government demonstrations have also erupted in Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Iran and Iraq.
Governments throughout the region, including the royal family in Saudi Arabia, holder of the world’s biggest oil reserves, have announced increased spending on social programs, such as food and energy subsidies and job creation plans, to assuage the unrest. The protesters are demanding moves toward democracy as well as higher living standards.
Meanwhile in the United States there is a growing concern over government policies which are not even handed or fair which rewards the elites and punishes average American citizens. The attacks on unions and the demonization of all unions dates back at least to the Reagan era when he went after the Air-Traffic Controllers union at a time when Margaret Thatcher went after the coal miners union in Britain. It was as if the economic trials and tribulations of their citizenry would magically disappear if these unions were busted. The Unions then and now are merely scape-goats for what is actually happening.
Things are bad so those in power point to various scapegoats so they blame the Unions , the people on welfare, the unemployed , the homeless, immigrants, liberals, Muslims etc.
But for the most part these are just a means by the political and economic elite to distract the people from the on-going unfair and unjust social and economic conditions.
...O.Max Gardner III, a patrician lawyer in Shelby, North Carolina, has started a movement for resisting home mortgage foreclosures.
In what Reuters describes as “legal jiu jitsu,” Gardner teaches techniques for using a bank’s lumbering hugeness to enable people to stay in their homes long after banks want them gone. He’s not alone. A foreclosure resistance movement has gained national traction in the past year. The Times has reported on local sheriffs’ refusals to evict, and in an especially pointed act of guerilla theater, Patrick Rodgers of Philadelphia recently turned the tables on Wells Fargo by starting a foreclosure against the bank’s local mortgage office. According to ABC News, the bank had not paid Rodgers a court-ordered judgment it sustained in the process of failing to respond to his demand under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) for information about his mortgage. Rodgers thought his foreclosure gesture would at least get the bank’s attention.
Foreclosing the Foreclosers, Early-American Style by: William Hogeland | new deal 2.0 | Op-Ed Truthout Feb. 28, 2011
Part I- Libya Qaddafi and the politics of oil
Aljazeera
Libyan Protesters Down Qaddafi Loyalists’ Plane, Al-Jazeera Says By Massoud A. Derhally at Aljazeera - Mar 2, 2011
Protesters downed a plane belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi while it was attacking the town of Ajdabiya, Al-Jazeera television reported.
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"Qaddafi Counterattacks in Rebel-Held East After UN Rebuke" By Ola Galal, Mariam Fam and Alaa Shahine - Mar 2, 2011
The two sides fought over Brega on the Gulf of Sidra today, and rebels regained control of an oil facility in the town, driving away government forces, according to a local oil official.
Libyan forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi counterattacked against rebels on the east coast where much of the country’s crude is refined or shipped abroad, and the leader said his control of oil reserves is secure.
Planes bombarded the area around Ajdabiya, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Brega, where rebels took control of a military camp, a witness said.
Qaddafi, speaking on state television, said his government retains control of oil fields though output has fallen to “the lowest level” after workers fled. He said Chinese and Indian oil companies can fill the gap if Western producers leave. In a speech lasting almost three hours, Qaddafi warned of piracy in the Mediterranean and sabotage of gas pipelines if Libya is destabilized, and attacked foreign journalists, defecting diplomats, Western countries that froze Libyan financial assets, the U.K., the U.S., al-Qaeda and the United Nations, which yesterday condemned his efforts to crush the two-week uprising.
Western powers are debating how to stop the violence as two U.S. Navy ships head toward Libya. Rebel leaders are discussing whether to request international air strikes to help defeat Qaddafi, the New York Times reported. Oil rose from yesterday’s 2 1/2-year high and Gulf shares extended declines.
...Opposition leaders in Benghazi are discussing a possible call for UN-backed air attacks on Qaddafi’s military installations, the Times said citing four people with knowledge of the debate.
‘Thousands Would Die’
Qaddafi said “thousands would die” in a NATO or U.S. attack on Libya. He said loyalists have surrounded opposition forces, though they aren’t firing on them, and said rebel leaders may be allowed to escape to Egypt or Tunisia while their young supporters who were “misled” will be pardoned.
Nouri el-Mismari, Qaddafi’s former protocol chief who left the country in November, argued against foreign military intervention, and predicted a drawn-out conflict.
“Bombings would kill lots of innocent people, and foreign troops wouldn’t be accepted,” he said at a press conference in Paris today. Qaddafi will fight to the end because his supporters “still think they will win” and also “have committed lots of crimes that won’t be forgiven,” he said.
The city council running Benghazi has called for mass protests later today to “show that the people have regained their rightful position,” said Fathi Baja, a council member, in a phone interview. A military council of ranking officers who sided with the protesters has been formed in the city to protect Benghazi and other eastern cities from a Qaddafi counterattack, he said by phone today.
...Democracy, Welfare
The Libyan revolt follows the ousting of longtime rulers by protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt in the past two months. Anti-government demonstrations have also erupted in Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Iran and Iraq.
Governments throughout the region, including the royal family in Saudi Arabia, holder of the world’s biggest oil reserves, have announced increased spending on social programs, such as food and energy subsidies and job creation plans, to assuage the unrest. The protesters are demanding moves toward democracy as well as higher living standards.
The Independent/UK
" Body Bags Reveal Fate of Soldiers Who Refused to Fire on Their Own People :A brutal picture of the start of Libya's uprising is beginning to emerge."> by Kim Sengupta and Catrina Stewart, Benghazi The independent/UK via ommon Dreams March 1, 2011
The bodies were in dark green shrouds lying on the concrete floor of the morgue, 10 prisoners shot and then set on fire as the security forces of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi unleashed a last round of vengeful violence before being forced to flee.
The dead men are said to have been soldiers who had refused to open fire on those marching against the regime. They had been disarmed and beaten up by their comrades before being incarcerated in an underground cell in al-Katiba, the main military encampment in Benghazi.
The account of the last days of the inmates came from a Libyan army officer who subsequently surrendered to the rebels and changed sides. He was able to provide names of some of those killed, all local men, but bereaved relations had not been able to identify the charred remains.
Mohammed el-Targi, in charge of processing fatalities at al-Jala hospital, said: "Normally there are some parts of bodies in cases of burnings which shows who the person was, but there was very little left in these cases. We had wives, parents, children of these poor men come here and they were all crying. One mother said that although she could not identify her own boy, all of those killed are her sons now."
Yesterday, after days of cold rain and stormy winds, Libya's second city woke up to bright sunshine and warmth. Shops and businesses opened after the impromptu holiday which accompanied the revolution as people began to go about their daily lives once more.
Despite this return to a sort of normality, dark secrets of the brutalities at the time of the uprising have started to emerge. The burnt bodies at the morgue were a pitiful sight. "They were shaheeds [martyrs]. They sacrificed themselves rather than harm their own people," said Fateh Elami, the duty manager at the hospital. "We should put up a memorial to them."
But the violence has not been one-way. There were also the bodies of three "mercenaries" from sub-Saharan Africa used by the regime against the demonstrators. Their bodies, with deep wounds to the head and torso, lay beside that of a Libyan soldier. These, too, said Mr Elami, will remain unclaimed.
PART II- Anti-government pro-reform demonstrations spreading outside Madison Wisconsin
For the sake of Libya's future the USA should not be given carte blanche by the international community as it did when the US invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. There must be a coalition of nations from the UN and Nato and with contributions from non-Western Nations .
Such a mission to aid the people of Libya should be also be a mission to improve conditions on the ground for the average citizens of Libya and not just some deal the Americans for instance might make with elites in Libya who will do little to encourage substantive political, social and economic reforms.
The reforms the people in these various countries want are substantive changes such as :
They want more input by various political parties, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association ,freedom of the press and other media including the internet and social media such as Face Book, Twitter etc.
They want an increase in programs to help the poor and working poor increase in programs such as upgrading infrastructure for all parts of each respective country and not just improvements based upon ethnic , religious or tribal affiliations
infrastructure improvements would include improving roads and highways
funding for more schools and hospitals
Many of the social welfare, economic reforms they want are ironically the very programs under attack in the United States and other western countries in which the elites themselves want to pay less taxes while over-taxing average citizens to pay for the financial fiasco created by the greedy short-sighted arrogant elites.
In yesterday's post I highlighted the commentary by Cenk Uygur of the The Young Turks which raised questions about the human costs of Budget cutting measures affecting essential and emergency services .
In the case of the house fire firefighters due to the cost cutting measures known as a rolling blackouts it maybe that if the fire department nearest the burning house had been allowed to respond the kids deaths might have been averted.
These are the unintended consequences of such draconian cost cutting measures. If the house had belonge to one the Koch brithers or Bill Gates or Donald Trump would they have responder any quicker given these cost cutting measures.
In the USA it is a matter of concern that the elites are still setting the political and social and economic agenda. In the USA if the average citizen fails to make mortgage payments or payments on credit cards or loans the banks and government show little mercy. Meanwhile when the big corporations fail in making payments or can't meet the payments for employee salaries they lay off more workers, pay out even larger bonuses to CEOs while demanding finacial help from the US government . They are as they say too big to fail.
This is part of the hypocrisy on the part of Big Business, the elites, the Whitehouse and legislators both Republican and Democrats and the Tea party Republicans who believe Big Business does not have the same basic responsibilities as the average citizen.
This is true even though Corporations in the USA have the same rights and privileges as the ordinary citizens as was made official by the US Supreme Court.
The need for a popular uprising against the money interests and elites in the USA.
There have been massive demonstrations in the last couple of weeks in Wisconsin by public employees and other unions and workers who do not think the cure for the financial crisis as such should be shouldered only by the average worker but should also be aimed at the wealthy elite-big business, banks and other financial institutions.
The political and economic elites claim disengenouously that they are in support of the popular uprisings in the Middle East and Africa since at the same time in the USA and in other Western Countries there are efforts being taken to mitigate the effects of the current financial fiasco but the major proposals are not to ensure reform of the Big corporations or the Banks and other finacial institutions but rather the budget cuts are being made on the backs of the average citizen whether public employees or private employees.
America needs its own form of uprising to improve social and political and finacial justice. Currently the whole system in the USA is geared twards helping and protecting the wealthy and political elites.
The problem with the Tea Party movement is that they have things half right and so have become a tool for the very elites who make up less than 10% of the population control over 80% of the economic wealth of America.
More Than 20,000 Rally in Ohio for Public Employees by James Parks, at AFL-CIONowBlogNews Mar 1, 2011
More than 20,000 people turned out for a rally outside the state Capitol in Columbus, Ohio, today as the state legislature began hearings on Gov. John Kasich’s onerous anti-worker bill known as Senate Bill 5 or S.B. 5. The bill would, among other things, take away the freedom of public employees to bargain collectively for good middle-class jobs.
Will Klatt, a student at Ohio Sate University who wants to become a teacher, said he spoke at the rally because:
all across the county workers and students are being attacked. We need a united front to win the struggle ahead. The tuition hikes many states are implementing is going to make attending college unattainable for many working class students. We need to become partners with our union brothers and sisters if we are to win the struggle ahead.
Signs of solidarity fill the Capitol grounds, such as “Firefighters Fighting for Teachers.” Another sign reminds legislators that public servants are willing to make concessions to balance the budget but not to give up their rights. The sign read: “I’ll Give You the Shirt Off My Back. Don’t Take My Little Girls, Too.”
Watch the live stream of the rally now at #StandUpOH or http://bit.ly/en7YWZ #StateSOS #1u.
Follow the action in Ohio on Twitter at the hashtags #standupoh and #stateSOS.
Comparing the popular upsings in the Middle East and North Africa to the America's war of Independence . William Hogeland points out that there are precedents in US history in which the average citizens had to take action to fight against unfair social and economic policies.
These various uprisings led to more reform .
The thing is that politicians in general or the elites were each time were not willing to bring about such economic or social reforms so whatever reforms the public eventually got was not given to them willingly had to be fought for and not just at the ballot box but through the use of demonstrations and other tactics to get what they wanted and believed they deserved.
The current political and economic elites even today have no real interests in handing over any of their power or wealth to the people anymore than they did 200 or 100 years ago.
Another point of interests is that of lawyers and judges and others refusing to obey without question either the government or the banks and other financial institutions. When lawyers and police refuse to take orders this is a positive sign if it can be maintained and become a national strategy to taking on the political and corporate elites.
If the protests keep growing and spreading will the elites insist that Obama take similar actions as Mubarak did in Egypt or Qaddafi in Libya . Will he send in the troops or will the corporations as such form more citizen's committees to quash the uprisings using massive advertising campaigns or hiring thugs to take vigilante actions against protesters or use agent provocateurs.
Will troops as they have at other times in US history arrest, beat or kill demonstrators claiming they are as Qaddafi would say part of some sort of international cabal to undermine America.
Foreclosing the Foreclosers, Early-American Style by: William Hogeland | new deal 2.0 | Op-Ed Truthout Feb. 28, 2011
Memo to Tea Party: The major social battle raging during the time of the American Revolution was over the proper uses of money and credit. Not getting government out of the economy.
“I got debts that no honest man can pay … ”
~ Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”
O. Max Gardner III, a patrician lawyer in Shelby, North Carolina, has started a movement for resisting home mortgage foreclosures.
In what Reuters describes as “legal jiu jitsu,” Gardner teaches techniques for using a bank’s lumbering hugeness to enable people to stay in their homes long after banks want them gone. He’s not alone. A foreclosure resistance movement has gained national traction in the past year. The Times has reported on local sheriffs’ refusals to evict, and in an especially pointed act of guerilla theater, Patrick Rodgers of Philadelphia recently turned the tables on Wells Fargo by starting a foreclosure against the bank’s local mortgage office. According to ABC News, the bank had not paid Rodgers a court-ordered judgment it sustained in the process of failing to respond to his demand under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) for information about his mortgage. Rodgers thought his foreclosure gesture would at least get the bank’s attention.
It can be hard to envision an early America seething with conflict between ordinary, hardworking Americans, stifled in their efforts to get ahead, and the rich, predatory Americans who stifled them. Prevailing historical fantasies of pre-Revolutionary America conjure a modestly thriving yeomanry, along with craftsmen, small businesspeople, and merchants participating together in a representative civics. In this fantasy, income and wealth disparities look minor and manageable; slavery and women’s subjugation are terrible deviations from an ethos of liberty shared more or less democratically by free Americans of all types. The main problem for everyone is the restrictive influence of the British elements in government. The rosy narrative has it that a revolution dedicated to freedom of trade and thought and the proposition that all men are created equal will launch this society on a grand progress, embattled but irresistible, toward a democracy that includes everybody.
...Workings of the debtor-creditor relationship will sound unpleasantly familiar. Merchants had the money supply conveniently sewn up. Small farmers and artisans had to post the land and shops they hoped to develop as collateral for the credit they needed. Merchants might set interest rates as high as twelve percent — per month. Default, often predictable at the loan’s outset, subjected borrowers to foreclosures, which in bad times were epidemic. Families became indigent while their land, tools, and homes were snapped up at bargain prices, often by the merchants themselves, who speculated in land as well, and were building immense parcels. The rich got richer.
...The possibly startling fact is that the major social battle raging before, during, and after the American Revolution was over the proper uses of money and credit in American life. For ordinary people of the period, these were hardly abstractions. The only real money in 18th-century America was metal — silver and gold coin from England, Spain, and Mexico — and for long, terrible periods, money was rarely seen by ordinary people. Small farmers and artisans, wanting to survive and improve their lot, had to borrow. Merchants, gaining access to metal through imperial trading networks, used their money to make money, becoming lenders. Well before the Revolution, Americans defined themselves in practical terms either as “debtors” — poor and working people in small-scale enterprise — or “creditors” — well-heeled merchants growing their money by lending it.
...And remember: unless people had property in excess of certain amounts, they couldn’t vote. Whig elites — the ones who became patriot leaders, lionized today — axiomatically equated the right of representation with property. It took even more property to run for office. Legislatures erected counties to ensure that representation favored the rich and the cities. They placed cash fees on every imaginable transaction, paralyzing working people’s efforts to pursue legal recourse and enriching lawmakers’ friends and families appointed as collectors and administrators. Roads and other infrastructure built at public expense (and by coerced labor taxes) served the merchant interest, not the people’s. Hardly an embryonic American democracy, representative colonial governments were monopolized by forces that small-scale debtors and tenant farmers could only view as a creditor conspiracy to exploit their labor, prevent their participation, and take what stuff they had.
So they organized in vociferous protest. “Mob” is a loaded term; “crowd” is perhaps more fair, and early American crowd action should be understood as a tactic, in the absence of access to the franchise, for pressuring and even changing government. One of the most famous outbreaks occurred in the 1760’s in North Carolina, when ordinary people briefly had a few champions in the legislature. They forcibly closed courts, tore down corrupt officials’ homes, and finally went to war against the provincial government. Royal Governor William Tryon put that rebellion down — but the King’s appointee was more sympathetic to the people’s plight than upscale American legislators and merchants were.
Crowds could be flamboyantly scary and even violent, but they did not run amok, merely venting. In carefully organized disruptions, people moved en masse into courthouses where debt cases were heard, shutting down a judicial process they considered unjust. They felled huge trees across roads to prevent sheriffs from repossessing homes. They enforced no-buy covenants when foreclosed property went up for auction. They staged daring rescues of prisoners held on debt charges. Serving on juries in debt cases, they refused to convict. Well before the famous Stamp Act riots and other acts of resistance to new British trade laws, American life involved orchestrated crowd actions to prevent financial injustice and push government to act on behalf of ordinary people. After the Revolution, the event known as Shays’ Rebellion became only the most famous of the debtor uprisings that continued the people’s struggle in a new political context.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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