Anybody here have any way to confirm this stuff?
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001172.html
Hello Qaddafi!
By Michael Gilson De Lemos
For many years I've been an interested observer of Libya's leader,
Omar Qaddafi. On one level he's some crazy desert thug who keeps
people perplexed with contrarian rhetoric that makes Stalin look like
a stutterer.
But, Qaddafi is ruthlessly presented in the American press and
political establishment as someone to be ignored, a political buffoon,
a Charlie Chaplin as the Great Dictator in sinister African robes,
constantly intriguing against all freedom and supporting spectacular,
if ultimately futile terrorist ventures. Unlike dictators that the US
government lavishly supports with vast foreign aid schemes, naturally.
Meanwhile, we free Americans were until recently denied the
opportunity to see for ourselves thanks to US Government travel embargos.
Reason enough to be skeptics. Perhaps the man is bad and his country
has gone nuts--but comparatively that bad, that nuts? Or has something
else been going on as well?
Or is some of the problem that he utters some good sense from time to
time, from a political position that the political machine is useless?
Qaddafi came to power in a US supported coup. He then annoyed the US
by declaring the ownership of foreign business combines as
questionable seizures of Libya's oil wealth and their contracts with
the previous monarch invalid. He then really began to worry people in
Washington when he declared his revolution aimed at a social anarchist
utopia. Socialist they could stand. But∑anarchist?
Now, every time you hear for a few months about what a bad, bad, bad
regime they have there, he or his anarchist government utter some
confounding statement or foreign travelers issue some favorable and
startlingùor simply unremarkable-- report, such as the old "Lonely
Planet" guides.
Organizations like the American-Libyan Freedom Alliance want you to
know that life isn't perfect in Libya, but it doesn't seem to be to
the right of Nazi Germany; or considering the regimes Washington was
supporting when it started denouncing Libya, a clear target for
special criticism.
Nor does Qaddafi seem entirely mad or stupid in a dictator sort of
way. As noted in the movie "Broadcast News", interviewers find him
'presidential' and sometimes profound.
He even wrote a fascinating set of surrealist stories and essays for
his supporters, "Escape To Hell" satirizing power and authority. The
quirky stories would do credit to a science fiction writer in the US.
None other than JFK advisor Pierre Salinger wrote a favorable
introduction to the English edition.
It's true that the sharia system of common law in Libya has resulted
in cases that have brought outcries from Amnesty International. Yet
under his influence, it's improved over 2 generations--compared to 800
years of Anglo-American common law, which now seems to be going
backward, as in the shocking treatment of divorced fathers, our
draconian prison terms, government officials implying a little
judicious torture is All-American, and the US Supreme Court declaring
that property can be expropriated to raise taxes. Meanwhile Qaddafi
states that he thinks communism stinks.
ANARCHIST MANQUE
There is more.
Qaddafi and his followers created a set-up presented as wild-eyed
national Arabic socialismùcalled Jamahiriya-- but suspiciously similar
to New England town meetings to run the country on a local level. It
is creaky and sometimes brings out the worst in people's conformism,
and there are reports of spying and secret police up there with Cuba,
but according to many people who have left Libya, it overall works and
educates people on making decisions and finding out facts for themselves.
Some say that considering people were cutting each other's throats
before Qaddafi, it was just the thing.
Then Qaddafi announced he was resigning all but honorary positions. He
warned people that democratic government to oppress each other was an
illusion. He didn't even promote himself to general. He went to live
in a tent. There his family was bombed by US planes for a terrorist
attack that has since been admitted to likely have had nothing to do
with him.
Meanwhile wave two of his anarchist revolution is responding to the
empowered population's cry for free enterprise. This anarchist urge
with a low-key libertarian whiff keeps popping up. Qaddafi's suggested
the ideal form of society is a mix of free-enterprise, tolerance, and
no government.
To this end he's declared the government abolished 3 times, urging the
people to complain to themselves and solve problems on their own.
Alas, it keeps creeping back, but in the process he's abolished more
of the government, than, say, any US President in the last 150 years.
Even REASON magazine has begun to wonder, noting satirically in a 2003
article that at least he cut more intrusive programs than, say,
futurist and small-government proponent manque Newt Gingrich, despite
enjoying a strongly positioned Republican Congress. After all, as
Nancy Reagan is given to saying about other addictions, they could
have just said "No."
Just when you think it's safe to make fun of him, in fact, there he
goes again. He's proposed, instead of expanding the UN, arbitrators
composed of international elder statesmen to mediate international
disputes. Something like that certainly worked for the Roman Empire,
whose former consuls, called consulars, traveled the empire and beyond
as arbitrators for many years. A grandfatherly chat with Gorbachev and
other free-lance arbitrators roving about instead of expanding UN
armies? It sounds somewhat reasonable in an anarchist sort of way.
He's urged his people to give up nuclear weapons, which is more than
we can say for other bigger countries.
Is Qaddafi a secret hero, a liberty lover born in a backward land and
struggling to break free? Well, at worst he won't be the first ruler
to learn from his mistakes.
AFRICA WITHOUT AID?
And now, we're witnessing an orgy of feel-good promises on more
programs from the governments of industrialized countries that will
more or less end up in the pockets of the real causes of Africa's
woes. These are not famine, not locust plagues, not debt, not some
mysterious need for infrastructure of superhighways to sleepy tribal
villages, but the dictators. Real Dictators, who don't even pretend to
hold town-meetings, all using the latest socialist thinking of 1930,
and the local intellectuals who excuse them...and suddenly, why
Qaddafi says it's stupid.
What Africa needs, says Qaddafi, is to get rid of trade barriers and
open its government borders, become a United States of Africa
confederation, and get rid of tariffs, get rid of import taxes,
paralyzing to business controls, and all that planning garbage. All
these aid programs, he implies, are Trojan horses for more government
and international, not local, control. True, he did say that any unity
model was worth looking at, but his preference seemed clear.
Naturally, international opinion is appalled, and the African
dictators were very dismayed, though polite.
What is worse, in a continent riven by invasions and obscure-sounding
tribal wars that become mass genocides, he suggested that as trade
expands, peace will "break out."
Lest anyone think he's fooling, after a process of local debate, The
English-Language Bahrain Tribune announces Libya is abolishing its
import dutiesùall of themùexcept on cigarettes (which, given the
policy of its neighbor Spain, is comprehensible). Considering that in
the US often over half of what we pay for products such as sugar is
due to the influence of import duties, this is something.
Plus, while they're at it, they're going to try to abolish the
government-- againùthis time by privatizing remaining government
agencies, including handover to popular co-ops, not just somebody's
friend.
Qaddafi claiming free trade means establishing harmony∑ and making
government wars, taxes, and borders irrelevant? A United States of
Abolished States? The nerve.
Or perhaps the politics of the surreal, from a surrealist writer, in a
surreal age.
One thing is for certain, if the UN trade czars and leaders of world
governments didn't think he was crazy, they're surely thinking about
it now.
Michael Gilson-De Lemos is a founder of the Libertarian International
Organization and co-hosts FreedomWorks!, a weekly radio show on 3
stations in the Tampa, Florida area webcast worldwide.
