#41
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wait.... you guys were just being ironic??

*slowly backs away out of the room*
#42
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i just read gaddafi's un speech. some major truth bombs. tragic in light of what happened only 2 years later
#43
el area metro
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link?
#44
Post rating: +
http://metaexistence.org/gaddafispeech.htm

i love this speech. he's just an angry dude pissed about all the hypocrisies and lies of the un. oh and he rips up the un charter in the middle of the speech lol
#45
[account deactivated]
#46
[account deactivated]
#47
tardy on these heaters
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yeah his speech rules. also yeah lol if you think youre Opinions Matter
#48
penitent
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gaddafi's un speeches owned, the fucking owned. never shall we see his like again
#49
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deadken posted:
gaddafi's un speeches owned, the fucking owned. never shall we see his like again

not at the un at least

#50
tardy on these heaters
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online version of the book
#51
tardy on these heaters
Post rating: ~

After the successful establishment of the age of the republics and the beginning of the era of the masses, it is unthinkable that democracy should mean the electing of only a few representatives to act on behalf of great masses. This is an obsolete structure. Authority must be in the hands of all of the people.



A party that is formed in the name of a class inevitably becomes a substitute for that class and continues in the process of spontaneous transformation until it becomes hostile to the class that it replaces.



Any class which inherits a society also inherits its characteristics. If the working class, for example, subdues all other classes of a particular society, it then becomes its only heir and forms its material and social base. The heir acquires the traits of those from whom it inherits, though this may not be evident all at once. With the passage of time, characteristics of the other eliminated classes will emerge within the ranks of the working class itself. The members of the new society will assume the attitudes and perspectives appropriate to their newly evolved characteristics. Thus, the working class will develop a separate society possessing all of the contradictions of the old society. In the first stage, the material standard and importance of the members become unequal. Thereafter, groups emerge which automatically become classes that are the same as the classes that were eliminated. Thus, the struggle for domination of the society begins again. Each group of people, each faction, and each new class will all vie to become the instrument of government.






Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791

The natural law of any society is grounded in either tradition (custom) or religion. Any other attempt to draft law outside these two sources is invalid and illogical. Constitutions cannot be considered the law of society. A constitution is fundamentally a (man-made) positive law, and lacks the natural source from which it must derive its justification.



The problem of freedom in the modern age is that constitutions have become the law of societies. These constitutions are based solely on the premises of the instruments of dictatorial rule prevailing in the world today, ranging from the individual to the party. Proof of this are the differences existing in various constitutions, although human freedom is one and the same. The reason for the differences is the variation in the assumptions and values implicit in diverse instruments of government. This is how freedom becomes vulnerable under contemporary forms of government.



The catalogues of man-made laws emanating from man-made constitutions are fraught with physical penalties directed against human beings, while tradition contains few such measures. Tradition lays down moral, non-physical penalties that conform to the intrinsic nature of humanity. Religion contains tradition and absorbs it; and tradition is a manifestation of the natural life of people. Its teachings comprise basic social guidelines and answers to the fundamental questions of existence.



Most physical penalties are deferred to a future judgment. This is the most appropriate law affording due respect to the human being. Religion does not provide for prompt penalties, save in certain compelling instances necessary to the well-being of society.



Religion contains tradition, and tradition is an expression of the natural life of the people. Therefore, religion is an affirmation of natural laws which are discerned therein. Laws which are not premised on religion and tradition are merely an invention by man to be used against his fellow man. Consequently, such laws are invalid because they do not emanate from the natural source of tradition and religion.



The democratic press is that which is issued by a People's Committee, comprising all the groups of society. Only in this case, and not otherwise, will the press or any other information medium be democratic, expressing the viewpoints of the whole society, and representing all its groups.

#52
el area metro
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OK so how does next sunday sound for the first section? 1 week from 2day.
#53
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sounds good brotha man
#54
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Okay, sunday it is
#55
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BUMP y'all better have this done on sunday!!!!
#56
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if i don't do it today i probly wont do it at all HAHAHAH
#57
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that avatar's sure made you into a real BRATwurst................................
#58
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i can feel my personality becoming... That. Yes, indeed.
#59
el area metro
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uh ya i already read it and i'm working on the post for the first section that i'm going to make on sunday rite now!
#60
tardy on these heaters
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it takes abotu 20 mins to read tops
#61
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gonna read it right now rather than do work
#62
el area metro
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I've read it but a bunch of shit came up today so I won't be able to post about it until tonite.
#63
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gonna post mah thoughts after dinner here
#64
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alright, so I took a bunch of notes, but I'm tired haha so here's the essense of Quaddafi's big theory:

Quaddaficlaims that representative democracy is a sham, but can be salvaged by reducing it to one half of a bicameral government. One half would be hierarchtically representative, where local councils elect leaders into an upper level council and so on and so forth, while the other half is essentially be anarcho-syndacalist. Every man and woman thus has two seperate votes representing different aspects of their lives.

Seems like an interesting idea, but I'm not sure that its a solution consistent with his document's own internal logic. See, Quaddafi spends quite a bit of time ranting against political parties (which it seems he's thinking about on a fairly fine-grained level) and the societal overhead and stress they cause. He sees parties as derivatives of class divisions, and class divisions as inevitably forming in any society that is not a true democracy. Ok, interesting theory, but my question is then, how does his proposed solution prevent the formation of political parties across different types of councils? E.g. all the steelworkers across different regions agreeing in their steelworkers' council that they'll vote a certain way in their regional councils? Seems to be like the same damn thing as a political party to me.
#65
el area metro
Post rating: ~
OK so I just rode home 15 miles and it's like 7 am but I typed up an explanation that was p much a more verbose version G.joeys very excellent post (e.n: thx). I will post it tomorrow. I also sort of mused on the whole 'how do you determine who is in a council' thing - which I guess is basically an - in my opinion - bottom tier critique of anarchosyndicalism and stuff. But, I think, verily, it would be pretty easy to argue that just saying councils of _____ is based on 'culturally determined' definitions of peoples role in the word as opposed to something like the proletarian / bourgeoise distinction of Marxism where distinctions can be established in more concrete theoretical bounds.

Suffice to say, so far the green book has been, like, more revolutionary and perfect/infallible than the koran or marx' das kapital, and I will argue with any contrarian troll / dedicated liberal / vague lacanian-referencing troon anime poster about that shit just as hard as i would argue that kim jung il was the greatest most socialest leader ever!!! :stalin::stalin:

On a serious note, I was thinking earlier trying to come up with tangental topics I'd like to discuss besides just the content of this brief but p terrible book, and one that came to mind was the green book not only as an attempt at pseudo-communist slogan-based literature (as it is commonly described in the West) but also as a response to western capitalist democratic propaganda - I'm sure the declaration of independence / USAian national lore was specifically addressed / in Gaddafis mind as he wrote the green book just as much as his other inspirations...

edit:
I also want to post the graph of how democracy works under Gaddafi because I really dont understand what it's supposed to signify!

Edited by DRUXXX ()

#66
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just a thought, but i think that, let's say, the steelworkers all agree to vote a certain way - that's fine, perhaps it's the beginnings of a political party: but it is not yet a political party in the sense of something you can identify with, it hasn't yet taken on a space of its own. so let's say, your identity is a steel worker -> now you're sympathetic to other steel workers, and in determining how steel workers will vote we have something like a party or union. but now let's say a party forms, the steelworkers, and they call themselves the stalinators. now people might join the stalinators; the stalinators might say to themselves, "let's see who else we can find that's sympathetic; let's put out some propaganda, and cool stalinator art, and then people might vote for stalinators, and we'll get p diddy, and will.i.am to say, 'yes, stalinators.'"

would that not be the primary difference? now let's say we ban political parties as a rule - yes, that doesn't prevent people from possibly commiserating, but something of the organization and politicking is reduced
#67
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anyway i'll try to catch up on this today
#68
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Impper posted:
just a thought, but i think that, let's say, the steelworkers all agree to vote a certain way - that's fine, perhaps it's the beginnings of a political party: but it is not yet a political party in the sense of something you can identify with, it hasn't yet taken on a space of its own. so let's say, your identity is a steel worker -> now you're sympathetic to other steel workers, and in determining how steel workers will vote we have something like a party or union. but now let's say a party forms, the steelworkers, and they call themselves the stalinators. now people might join the stalinators; the stalinators might say to themselves, "let's see who else we can find that's sympathetic; let's put out some propaganda, and cool stalinator art, and then people might vote for stalinators, and we'll get p diddy, and will.i.am to say, 'yes, stalinators.'"

would that not be the primary difference? now let's say we ban political parties as a rule - yes, that doesn't prevent people from possibly commiserating, but something of the organization and politicking is reduced



yes perhaps, but see his section on free speech, where he says where corporate speech (i.e. in this case being the speech of a body politic) should not be limited if in the case it is speaking of issues relevant to its members. still seems like degeneration back into party politics to me!

but, i'll let you catch up...

#69
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The Steelworker Hegemonic Bloc (SHB) demands from that the regional council set beer prices to Really Cheap before Sunday fFootball games, and Proposes to pay for this by taxing the sale of drapes and doilies and other Foo-Foo Frilly Shit that nobody ever gave a Horse's Gatdamn Ass about anyways.
#70
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The first section of the book isn't really able to stand on its own, so I had a tough time appreciating the content. It contains too many fundamental assumptions that I disagree with, and it accompanies those assumptions with stupid comments like, ”only an idiot would disagree...” I really don't think this book can be read without some foundational texts to accompany it, because so far it's been little more than a simplistic, but not unwarranted, attack on representative democracy and parties, and then a brief outline about some sort of council which apparently only idiots can disagree with.

I need to reread the bit where the council institutions are discussed because I was pretty tired of the text by the time I reached it, but so far I'd be lying if I said I was impressed.

Edited by Lykourgos ()

#71
[account deactivated]
#72
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tpaine posted:

germanjoey posted:
gonna post mah thoughts after dinner here

need some fuel for your posting eh?



yes specifically 4 taco bell double deckers + 2 sides of nacho cheese

#73
Post rating: ~

Lykourgos posted:
The first section of the book isn't really able to stand on its own, so I had a really tough time appreciating the content. It contains too many fundamental assumptions that I disagree with, and it accompanies those assumptions with stupid comments like, ”only an idiot would disagree...” I really don't think this book can be read without some foundational texts to accompany it, because so far it's been little more than a simplistic, but not unwarranted, attack on representative democracy and parties, and then a brief outline about some sort of council which apparently only idiots can disagree with.

I need to reread the bit where the council institutions are discussed because I was pretty tired of the text by the time I reached it, but so far I'd be lying if I said I was impressed.



yeah, agreed. maybe part 2 will be better.

#74
[account deactivated]
#75
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Ok I didn't have access to a computer, and I typed up a thing on my phone but it crashed. Will try to post it again when I leave for mexico tomorrow. I'll go over my other texts and see if I can supplement his theory with them, or at least put it in a historcial context. If I don't have suficient internet access in mexico, then it'll have to wait a week from now..
#76
[account deactivated]
#77
el area metro
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OK I read the whole book and it was disappointing - not, obviously, because I thought it would be like really good but because I thought it might be funny. Either way, I'm just gonna do a little write up on the other two sections and post it before or after Christmas. Next time Let's Read: something of value - I thought something funny might come out of this but not really lol its pretty bland crazy revolutionary dictator shit which, as I've said all along, was to be expected


It is an undisputed fact that both man and woman are human beings Woman eats and drinks as man eats and drinks; woman loves and hates as man loves and hates; woman thinks, learns and comprehends as man thinks, learns and comprehends. Woman, like man, needs shelter, clothing, and transportation; woman feels hunger and thirst as man feels hunger and thirst; woman lives and dies as man lives and dies. - GADDAFI
#78
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lol please tell me that quote is in the book somewhere
#79
el area metro
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yup
#80
tardy on these heaters
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The thing about the Green Book is that I don't think it has any value abstracted outside of the specific circumstances of the Libyan Revolution. It's not like these English political philosophical tracts that were written with this ideal universalism in mind. While there is definitely a universalist current in the Green Book, it seems like it's far more an instance of justifying particular Libyan policies with appeals to universal correctness than a serious attempt to establish a universal political philosophy. Highly contingent and responsive to actual conditions of the historical period imo, which is fine.