When War Pigs Fly.

The revolution in Libya has "stalled" as the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries are battling it out. The point of no return has been passed in Libya, it's live free or die, Gaddafi is clinging onto Tripoli and some areas which are dominated by his tribe, but the revolution snatched over 90% of Libya from his manicured fingers in recent weeks. The vehemence of the Colonel's death squads procured from Chad, Niger and Serbia have failed to restore Gaddafi's power. The "passionate" support for Gaddafi in Tripoli is really the result of a recent bribe and a concentration of wealth in the capital. Though the Libyan elite has been split down the middle by Gaddafi's actions, which has been reflected by the defection of numerous officials and soldiers, out of megalomania the Colonel thinks he can hold on. But Uncle Sam has other ideas, the Obama administration have taken the first steps to funnel cash and weapons to the revolutionaries in liberated Benghazi.

The middle-men are the House of Saud of course, who hate Gaddafi for ideological as well as personal reasons. The secular model offered by Arab nationalism has been the traditional threat to the Saudi Royals, who rely on a fundamentalist establishment to prop up their corrupt monarchy. This is without the constant insults Gaddafi has hurled at King Abdullah and the attempt to assassinate the King last year. The surface reasons for an intervention in Libya are that Gaddafi has resorted to brute force in the face of a democratic uprising. But at another level the West is worried about the flow of oil and the impact of the upheval on oil prices. The concern that we might see another oil shock amongst the British elite was reflected in Cameron's hubristic talk of a no-fly zone and funds for rebels. For which the Obama administration slapped David Cameron on the hand, opting for a more subtle approach. Notice that the British government only condemned Gaddafi after the US and began talking of intervention soon after the American neocons turned up in revolutionary garb to call for a US-led strike on Libya.

The mistake made by the pro-American administration in Whitehall was that they attempted to dutifully follow pre-empted decisions made in Washington. The Prime Minister then had to back away from calls that Washington believes in, but will not pursue so openly which is why the US has deployed four warships for "humanitarian" purposes and "military objectives". At the same time, £1 billion of the Gaddafi fortune has been frozen in Britain. An occupation at LSE is calling for the return of every penny of Gaddafi's investment in that institution and has succeeded in prompting a resignation... Sadly, the British government continues to follow dutifully on behind Washington, in foreign as well as domestic affairs. From the Iraq war to paying for nuclear weapons, which are a part of the American nuclear command system, let alone shipping off numerous wanted"terrorists" around the world sometimes for a trial over a burst condom and sometimes simply a spot of waterboarding.

The coalition government formed in "Free Libya" has made agreements to respect old arrangements with oil giants. The uprising and counter-revolutionary violence has caused oil prices to rise. Britain has a great deal of assets and invested interests in Libya, as we have in Egypt. If the military had struck against the demonstrations in Tahrir Square there would have been a similar schism as seen in Libya and Egypt would have been torn apart, the British and the Americans may have even invaded in such a scenario. It would seem that the Colonel has outlived his usefulness to Western powers as a "reformed" dictator, who might one day transform Libya into the Norway of North Africa as Anthony Giddens hoped. At this point it is practical for the Americans to supplant the old Arab nationalist order with a new regime that would have the enthusiasm of the people behind it - for now at least. The little embarrassment over selling arms to Libya felt by the British and the Americans seems to have evaporated. The traditional means of redemption are being sought, ultra-violence.

There are good reasons to oppose neoconservatives on the issue of military intervention, as there is a long and ignoble list of atrocities. The Reagan administration turned a blind eye to CIA-sponsored trafficking in drugs and guns in order to arm the Contras, a group of right-wing terrorists in Nicaragua, though this actually armed the Iranians and created a crack epidemic in California the spectre of "Communism" had to be defeated apparently. The Contras ended up killing thousands. Similarly in Afghanistan the US poured money into arming the Mujahideen, who would later carry out mass-rapes and slaughter 50,000 people in the 1990s. The preference of the Democratic Party for sanctions kept the Iraqi people under the heel of Saddam throughout the 1990s, while a no-fly zone was set up Saddam was still given the opening to crush an uprising through air-strikes. So we are right to be worried about where the sanctions against Libya and a no-fly zone may lead.

The wave of sanctions imposed under Clinton led to the deaths of over half a million people through starvation. The less "subtle" method of the Bush administration, favoured by neoconservatives,  ended up killing 1 million more people and left 4 million displaced. This leaves out the countless millions who have been dispossessed by the economic "shock therapy" Iraq was put through, which privatised and deregulated all public services over night. Efforts were then made to ensure that multinational corporations would not have to worry about paying any taxes in Iraq. All rammed through by a coterie of unelected bureaucrats and officials, mostly American, who also redrew the Iraqi Constitution. The occupation of Iraq stood in firm opposition to democratic elections for 2 years before finally giving in. Notably the artful oik (our current Chancellor) and Michael Gove both fawned over Blair, Gove declared "I love Tony Blair" in The Times just prior to the war.


Intervention in such cases as Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Nicaragua (among a lot of other places) was immoral. But the Libyan revolutionaries are not the Mujahideen nor are they the Contras. It would seem that to support the revolution would be to oppose Gaddafi's counter-revolution. There are parallels between Libya and Iraq. The old nationalist order versus an uprising, sanctions are pursued. In the case of Iraq it was a disaster and we have yet to see what will come of the sanctions against Libya. Importantly, there is a distinction between the kind of intervention led by hawks, in Washington and Whitehall, and the kind of intervention which might actually help the revolution. A no-fly zone could keep Gaddafi's forces on the land, apart from helicopters, and give the rebels a good chance of victory. Without a no-fly zone Gaddafi still has the capability to launch air-strikes against the rebels.

Although there may be a case to be made for a specific kind of intervention, an ideal no-fly zone, as there was in the Balkans in the 90s or in Iraq when Saddam gassed the Kurds. It must be conceded that the rebels do not want foreign interference and that there is a convergence of self-interest behind the calls for intervention. To support the attempt by the SAS to meet with rebels or the deployment of warships by the US on these grounds would be idiotic. We should have no illusions about the intentions behind American and British policy-makers looking to topple Gaddafi. The fall of Gaddafi is only preferable to them because he has outlived his usefulness and a freed up political system will be less of an embarrassment. But it could only be a softer, and more insidiously pro-American, version of Gaddafi and harder to drive out. But that does not justify Gaddafi's rule, the Colonel has to go, it should be for the Libyan people that he go and not Western economic interests.

"America is not Broke." - Michael Moore

The appearance of Michael Moore at the Wisconsin protests is certainly energising for the workers as Scott Walker has declared a class war on them in the name of "fairness", so that public-sector workers are paying as much as everyone else. And we know that everyone is paying a "fair share" except those damn unions in the public-sector! We can tell when look at the Wisconsin ultra-rich, the net worth of John Menard only increased from $5 billion to $5.2 billion in 2010. Not to mention the "suffering" of Herbert Kohler who just made $2 billion in 2010, as opposed to $3 billion in 2009, and has had to freeze the wages of his employees for the next 5 years. Then there is Diane Hendricks, the net worth of whom grew from $2 billion to £2.1 billion in 2010. Note that all of these people have fallen on the Forbes 400 list, while there is a "gaping budget hole" of $137 million and the concessions of public-sector unions would only amount to $30 million.

The right-wing media have jumped to attack the protests as selfish and elitist, for trying to hold onto basic workers' rights and freedoms which have been stripped away from the private-sector. No one is calling for the billionaires of Wisconsin to pay such a "fair share" and if anyone does they will be slapped down with some good old-fashioned American red-baiting. Even though Wisconsin's "gaping budget hole" could easily be filled easily through higher taxes on the local super-rich. No estate tax has been collected for deaths since January 2008 in Wisconsin, which picked up $158 million before January 2008. This was after the rate had been chiselled down from 55% to 45% and exemption raised to $3.5 million. A federal estate tax of 55% and exemption lowered to $675,000 could help tackle the deficit whilst preventing anyway for the billionaires to hold state-governments to ransom and threaten to leave if they demand a "fair share" of them.

The free-market is for poor people, not the filthy rich, there is always plenty of subsidy and tax-relief for the American bourgeoisie but it is just unreasonable that the working-class should be paid a decent wage and have the rights taken for granted in many European countries. The renewed Bush tax-cuts will cost the Treasury $4 trillion, which only 1% of the American people will benefit from it, as federal workers have been hit with a tax hike. This has been a consistent pattern over the last 30 years in the US, the rich are protected and subsidised by the state at the expense of the American tax-payer and the majority of American people. Even though at a closer look there is no budget crisis in Wisconsin and the thuggish Governor is looking for an excuse to trample workers' rights. But it's never too much to ask the average worker to cough up the rest in the name of "fairness".

Here are some relevant links to articles on the Wisconsin protests and the turbulence the American working-class face in the midst of such austerity:

The Middle West Explodes

Wisconsin Billionaires Make a Sacrifice? 

Walker ginned up Budget Shortfall to undercut Worker Rights

This is no conspiracy, Glenn Beck

Noam Chomsky on Wisconsin, Obama and Reagan

The Class Struggle in America

Gramsci and Americanism

Decaf Fascism, "Reasonable" Race Hate and the Common Project.

A recent poll conducted by Searchlight has found that 48% of the British people would vote for a far-Right political party if the violent xenophobia, football-related thuggery and proto-Nazi regalia was ditched. The growing support, which is probably exaggerated, is the result of the financial crisis and the subsequent recession. Apparently a party which is opposed to mass-immigration and Islamism would be preferable, but only so long as it wouldn't take a violent form. So a decaffeinated fascism, Hitler without the Holocaust and fascism without Fascism would be preferable to deal with the decaffeinated Other. At the same time, David Cameron has conjured up a "muscular" liberalism as the alternative to liberal multiculturalism which will "capitulate" to Islamism as well as the forced repatriation favoured by fascists. The call for a liberalism with "muscles" is essentially a call for a bit of "caffeine" in liberalism, a little bit of racism or cultural chauvinism just to make it all right.

Just like Robert Brasillach celebrated the achievements of Jews like Charlie Chaplin, whilst insisting on a "moderate" anti-Semitism to constrain "extreme" anti-Semitism, or when Jack Straw attacked Nick Griffin as a racist and then evoked Griffin's white meat line on Pakistani men. Naturally the extreme Right have been aware of this for a long time, which is the reason that Nick Griffin tried to "modernise" the BNP and transform it into a politically acceptable party of "moderate" racists. As the fascists are trying to fit the decaffeinated profile, that the public supposedly desire, the Establishment simultaneously attempt to transform themselves along the same lines as a way of preventing the emergence of Fascism. The Right is opposed to the multicultural "experiment" along nationalist lines and the political class has responded with populist rhetoric, as seen in Cameron's controversial speech, in order to reaffirm the economic order whilst obfuscating the explosion of inequality.

The displacement of class struggle opens up a space into which the far-Right can enter as the defenders of austerity and authority. It is not only that multiculturalism should be opposed by the Left for it is promoted only to be attacked, in defence of the system and in advocacy of an even worse system. Let us remain optimistic of the will and pessimistic of the intellect in regards to the hysterical opposition to the "state-sponsored" doctrine of multiculturalism. As there are significant flaws, limitations and problems with the idea of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is not sufficient, putting aside cultural relativism, it's disturbing manifestation in South Africa is too often overlooked. Officially apartheid was initiated to separate the multitude of tribes and ethnic groups into bantustans in order to prevent such groups from "drowning" in white culture. The racist hegemonic nature of multiculturalism was not obfuscated in South Africa and the ANC were labelled "terrorists" by the regime.

So where do we turn for an alternative? The answer: the East. The pro-democracy movement in Egypt is a secular and grass-roots based resistance to the Mubarak regime culminated in a sublime moment in Tahrir Square. It was overlooked by most of the mainstream media. In the Square, as part of the demonstrations, Muslims and Coptic Christians came together in prayer and chanted "We are one!" In a common struggle against dictatorship the oppressed came together, the old religious and ethnic "divisions" are knocked down in the name of the cause. This is not the only sublime moment to point at in admiration. On the West Bank in the village of Bilin a group of Jewish lesbians came each week in 2009 to protest against the village's partition and demolition by the Israeli government. The lesbians, who sported tattoos and piercings, found themselves joining the ranks of conservative Palestinian women many of whom wore the veil. In spite of the differences between them, the women developed a new respect for one another.

The proposed common struggle feels slightly dangerous, even if you are not a fan of Israel and my example has not offended you. It still seems to be on a slippery slope to falsifying an external threat in the name of some domestic agenda, a game played by the neoconservatives and by all kinds of right-wing governments over the decades. At home the neocons seek a small-state and favour supply-side economics, whilst a cultural conservatism can be implemented to constrain the individualistic currents of the markets and maintain a cohesive society. In the name of cohesion the neocons assert the noble lie that the nation has a special place in history (perhaps even chosen by God) to fight and defeat evil for the good of the world. The point was to unite the people through a shared purpose, a common struggle of sorts, in order to reverse the social disintegration caused by liberal politics and promote democracy abroad. To accomplish this these self-proclaimed "democratic revolutionaries" would mobilise the masses through fear.


On a Žižekian theological note: the "detoxification" of the Other suggests a clear passage from direct barbarism to barbarism with a human face. It reveals the regression from the Christian love for thy neighbour back to the pagan privileging of the clan versus the barbarian Other. Ironically the decaffeinated fascism yearned for, according to the poll, retains this aspect. Even though it would be cloaked as a defence of Christian values, as fascist movements have been in the past, it is itself the greatest threat to the Christian legacy of Western civilisation. The neocon and liberal chickenhawks so eager to fight Islamist Terror that they end up destroying freedom and democracy in the process. The terrorists wreck this world for their love of another world, to counter this the neocons are ready to wreck their democratic world out of hate for the Muslim Other. In a loving pursuit of human dignity they are even prepared to legalise torture, infringing upon dignity to defend it. Out of patriotism the neocons trample Western values and out of piety they regress to Europe's past paganism.


The words of Christ from Luke point in the direction of a universality which ignores every social hierarchy: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes even his own life – he cannot be my disciple." (14:26) Each individual has an immediate access to the Holy Spirit, it is strictly universal, anyone can participate in this dimension directly regardless of a privileged place within the global order, which is so craved by the nationalists and neocons alike. The family stands in for ethnic, hierarchic and cultural roots that determine our place in the global order. The "hatred" enjoined by Christ is therefore not the polar opposite of Christian love, but its direct expression: it is the love itself that enjoins us to break from our organic community into which we were born and enter into a project for the common good with one another. Only through such a common project can the cultural, ethnic and religious boundaries be put aside to make room for solidarity.

In a interview Žižek said "You may remember that in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the ANC always appealed to universal Enlightenment values, and it was Buthelezi, the regime's black supporter in the pay of the CIA, who appealed to special African values." The dismissal of universalism as Eurocentric should be countered with such an example. We can also point to the movements for independence from European imperialism in the past century. The demands and slogans of many of these movements appeal to a universalist premise. 70% of the borders in the world were drawn up by the French and the British, the nation-state is a European invention exported around the world through empire. Therefore, we might interpret calls for a Kurdish state as "Eurocentric" in that the liberation of an oppressed people is still presupposed by a product of Europe. We can say the same of the legitimate demand for an independent Palestinian state, or a bi-national solution, and the dismissal cannot challenge such cases.


In a nutshell the liberal caffeine offered by the Right is a reaction against the Other, which really conceals a defence of capitalism, whereas decaffeinated fascism still conceals the same hatred that sent millions to the gas-chambers. Another alternative to multiculturalism is possible. The WW2 poster Together featured in this article is exemplary, as it was a war against Fascism fought by people of many nationalities, ethnic background and social class. Though it was not a totally "just war", it was the closest we've ever came, as our side committed atrocities and there were invested imperial interests in the war as well the genuinely noble. But it is not a "just war" we're looking for at all. It is that international, not just national, solidarity might be best established through a common project for the Common Good. At a deeper level, a secular and militant egalitarianism in opposition to racist degenerates and capitalist pigs everywhere. In the Together poster for such a project the black man should be situated at the front of the march.