Baker County Blog: Benjamin Barber on the importance of 300 years of tribal conflict in Libya

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It was impossible to save the Great Republic

"But it was impossible to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of other people's liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the hands of the prodigiously rich and their hangers-on; the suffrage was become a mere machine, which they used as they chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket."

Mark Twain

"Making people love their servitude"

Aldous Huxley Quote From "Information Clearing House:"

"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961

Sustainability and Population Growth

"A sincere concern for the future is certainly the factor that motivates many who make frequent use of the word, "sustainable." But there are cases where one suspects that the word is used carelessly, perhaps as though the belief exists that the frequent use of the adjective "sustainable" is all that is needed to create a sustainable society."

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"

Professor Al Bartlett, emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder

The Primary Political Question: "Who benefits? Who pays?"

To cut through the cant of "responsibility," we must ask the double question "Who benefits? Who pays?" This is the first question to ask when a politico-economic system of distribution is proposed. It focuses our attention on operations and their consequences rather than on words. The answer to this double question largely defines the properties of a system. We take it as axiomatic that every social action entails both gain (profit) and cost (loss). We can indicate the way profit and loss are distributed by three alternative verbs: privatize, commonize and socialize. -Garrett Hardin 1985

Galbraith on Respectability

“Political conservatism benefits from the deep desire of politicians, Democrats in particular, for respectability -their need to show that they are individuals of sound, confidence inspiring judgment. And what is the test of respectability? It is broadly whether speech and action are consistent with the comfort and well-being of the people of property and position. A radical is anyone who causes discomfort or otherwise offends such interests. Thus in our politics, we test even liberals by their conservatism.”
- John Kenneth Galbraith

a lie so subtle

Repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed,

American “Democracy” and Responsibility

"we also have to be precise about the roadblocks that keep people from acting responsibly: A nominally democratic political system dominated by elites who serve primarily the wealthy in a predatory corporate capitalist system; which utilizes sophisticated propaganda techniques that have been effective in undermining real democracy; aided by mass-media industries dedicated to selling diversions to consumers more than to helping inform citizens in ways that encourage meaningful political action."

- Robert Jensen, Professor of journalism, University of Texas at Austin. From Op-Ed, July 8, 2008

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Benjamin Barber on the importance of 300 years of tribal conflict in Libya

Benjamin R. Barber - Director, CivWorld and Distinguished Senior Fellow, as well as a resident expert at DEMOS, was interviewed today on KPFA's Letters and Politics program. He spoke about the tribal and an internal political background of the Libyan civil war and the importance of 300 years of tribal conflict, including that between Tripoli in the west and Benghazi in the east. He is the author of a February 23 article on HuffPost titled "Why Libya Will Not Be Democratic."

KPFA.FM--Letters and Politics March 24, 2011

Download the interview with Benjanin Barber:

Listen Now:

Letters and Politics - March 24, 2011 at 10:00am

Click to listen (or download)

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The Fascist Defines Fascism

Voltaire on Freedom

Darwin on Effect of Early Brainwashing

It was impossible to save the Great Republic

E.O. Wilson on population growth and sustainability

Jefferson on Corporations

How despicable and ignoble war is

Do not despair due to hostility or exclusion

Anger Looks to the Good of Justice

Some Interesting Links

Ben Franklin on Free Speech

"Making people love their servitude"

The weak do what they must. . .

Sustainability and Population Growth

The Primary Political Question: "Who benefits? Who pays?"

Thomas Paine on the Defense of Custom

Taking A Position Because It Is Right

Galbraith on Respectability

They love the liars and hate the truth, Mencken

a lie so subtle

Repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed,

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American “Democracy” and Responsibility

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The Politics of Anti-Semitism

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"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom"

Is It For Freedom?

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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Benjamin Barber on the importance of 300 years of tribal conflict in Libya

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