In memory of Col. Gaddafi
This is Fred Zinnemann Week reporting on recent events in Libya. The fun kicks in around 02.10.
Prizes offered for the best lyrics written to “Pore Gaddafi’s Dead.”
This is Fred Zinnemann Week reporting on recent events in Libya. The fun kicks in around 02.10.
Prizes offered for the best lyrics written to “Pore Gaddafi’s Dead.”
October 21, 2011 at 12:28 am
Muammahoma…Muammar sounds like some beastly man servant that might be under Bela Lugosi’s control in a Monogram picture.
October 21, 2011 at 12:50 am
It isn’t very nice to celebrate the death of a human being… but sometimes it seems unavoidable. What I want now is for the political leaders in the west who used him to get suspects tortured in the bogus “war on terror” to be held to account.
October 21, 2011 at 3:31 am
Libya was the poorest country (check the official records) when Col. Gaddafi came to power, then it became the richest African nation. even ahead of Brazil and Russia. he built an independent Libya, no debt, free education and healthcare. By law all loans were 0%.
He was not even the President having retired as Leader in 1996. When calling him dictator it is like calling Queen of England as dictator, as she does not have executive power, the parliament has.
He build the greatest man made river in the world, to bring water to desert.
I feel sorry how media lie to people. Let’s see the free and democratic Libya, now ruled by rebels and armed gangs.
October 21, 2011 at 4:21 am
Around 6:12 he looks a lot like Curly Howard.
October 21, 2011 at 8:34 am
Those two comments compliment one another wonderfully, I feel. You get the full breadth of Shadowplay discourse.
Now, Libya has oil, and so I guess I have to give Gaddafi credit for exploiting that – there are African dictators who could actually screw something like that up. Having decided to exploit the oil, Gaddafi got a rich country without having to be any kind of economic genius.
I think everybody’s curious about what will happen next, and if you know the history of revolutions, deep concern should certainly be part of the mix of emotions.
As to Gaddafi’s dictatorship — who, then, was wielding political power in Libya if not him?
October 21, 2011 at 9:39 am
@dcairns ….wielding political power in Libya if not him?
Please if you don’t believe me do the research Google/YouTube and judge for yourself.
” Gaddafi was a philosopher and a visionary leader, he wrote the GREEN BOOK, published 1975 setting out the political philosophy of Libya.
He wrote the Third Universal Theory of politics which outlines the flaws in representative democracy.
Green Book philosophy is: everyone to represent themselves (Direct Democracy). He set up People’s Congresses, National, Regional and Local, so that individuals could voice their concerns and proposals for policy.
Government system was known as Jamahiriya and was the General People’s Congress (GPC), consisting of 2,700 representatives of Basic People’s Congresses, Prime Minister and the President.”
October 21, 2011 at 12:30 pm
So how can you have a people’s revolution in a country where everybody is already represented? And I still want to know who was actually in charge if not Gaddafi? And why was he then targeted? His pronouncements during the revolution seemed to indicate that he saw himself as leader. And anybody who gives himself the title “King of Africa” probably regards himself as some sort of commander…
October 21, 2011 at 1:42 pm
OK, he was father of the revolution. His congress was running the country. He was making high level decision for the country. For example I believe what put the final nail in his coffin was his decision to trade Oil not in US Dollar but in African Gold Dinar.
This could cause the collapse of financial system, because USD is only backed by demand not gold, and the main demand comes from Oil. So any country trade Oil must trade in USD, otherwise they will be dealt with. The last example was Sadam in Iraq which made this mistake and his country was librated, still civil war after 10 years.
October 21, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Au contraire I have often celebrated the deaths of sundry human beings
Roy Cohn for instance. Also Jerry Falwell.
I greatly look forward to the painful passings of George W. Bush and John McCain.
October 21, 2011 at 6:19 pm
The annoying thing is that when fate finally deals with the rascals, it’s like George Amberson Minafer’s comeuppance: too late, and nobody to really appreciate it. Reagan’s senility, and Thatcher’s, bring me no particular satisfaction, especially since the same horrible fate is dished out to so many innocents.
Indeed, Reagan’s was alarming since it was obviously coming on while he was still in office, and everybody was afraid to even talk about it. The “leader of the free world” is losing his marbles!
October 22, 2011 at 12:43 am
Those were the days! Now the GOP guarantees that its candidates are all unmarbled from the get-go. Real Americans don’t need marbles. We have common sense.
No Gaddafi lyrics, but in the category of confluences between different forms of spectacle: I saw the Kevin Spacey production of Richard III last night, and wow, the timing couldn’t have been more apt. Of course the production’s ending, with Richard strung up by his heels, was intended to evoke Mussolini, but I’m sure that everyone in the audience who’d seen the footage was thinking Gaddafi on the truck hood. Added some urgency to the show. I could have done without the earthquake that struck about 45 minutes in, though.
October 22, 2011 at 1:17 am
Yes, I would think an earthquake would be distracting. And 45 minutes in is JUST the wrong place. “What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.” – Sam Goldwyn.
So, let’s be clear about Gaddafi – “dictator” is not an insult, it’s a factually descriptive term for an unelected leader who cannot be challenged, wielding “high level” executive power. I’m all for getting rid of the Queen of England too, but her constitutional authority is legally limited.
October 22, 2011 at 3:34 am
Gadaffi himself said he was just a beloved figurehead like the Queen of England! Liz should have bitchslapped him for that. No one better fits the word “dictator” than Gadaffi. There was really no government, no real state — the “Jamahariya” business was Green Book fantasy — just him and his sons and their personal militias. True personal rule.
The bit above about Gadaffi’s wonderful infrastructure and education system may have had some aspirational validity in the 70s, but it’s been horseshit for decades. Libya is an oil-rich country with a highly urbanized population of a mere 6 million who should be well-off, but who have lived in third-world conditions while the national wealth has been tied up in something called the “Sovereign Fund,” managed by and for Gadaffi’s family and friends. The Libyan elite never used Libya’s atrocious hospitals, or trusted themselves to the doctors they had to import from such advanced states as North Korea. Just last week the streets of Tripoli were flooded because of routine rain storms — no, not because of NATO bomb damage. It happens all the time there because Gadaffi didn’t do things like build sewers, except maybe in Sirte.
Back about a year ago, when Gadaffi was suddenly aces with Western governments and therefore not aces with the international left, left-wing journalists were pursuing these kinds of stories.
To sum up, good riddance.
October 22, 2011 at 3:50 am
But I do need to ask, which is the better epitaph?
“Sic semper tyrannis.” – Marcus Junius Brutus
“Captain Crazy corks it.” – Jon Oliver and Andy Zaltzman (“The Bugle.”)
October 22, 2011 at 11:49 am
Those drainage pipes in Sirte sure came in useful though!