Politics: Libyan Rebels Announce Creation of a Republic

An anonymous reader writes "A report in p2pnet.net says a 'declaration for a temporary council in the Republic of Libya' has been published. The story quotes Alive in Libya, which says Mustafa Abdul Jaleel is the president, and Abdul Hafid Abdul Qader Ghoga is the deputy president and official spokesman. No other details are given."

They have support

[hajus]

This group actually has backing from the local city councils that have been working to keep the local infrastructure running.

Freedom Fatigue

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The amount of disparaging and dismissive comments made here, along with the generally tepid response in the West to the Libyan revolution(as well as the Arab revolutions in general) makes me feel that the West in general has no interest in democracy or freedom. Even amidst the general populace.

Obviously the west has little to gain politically or economically from any wave of democracy in the middle east. But even ideologically, people in the west seemed to be totally uninterested in recent events in the region.

Have we entered the age of "Meh, Freedom"? Maybe democracy, having hitched its fortunes to marketism and failed to deliver on its promises, has simply lost its lustre for westerners? Maybe the rise of China is turning people towards alternative forms of government? Maybe the west--and America in particular-- is tired of international conflicts and is entering a period of isolationism?

I don't know what it is, but comparing interest in the Arab revolutions to the interest in the Orange and Velvet revolutions only a few years ago, I'm struck by the increase in apathy, and in some cases dismissal by people living older democracies.

Republic, eh?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well, I must have missed where they held elections. Anyway, since the link is a typical Slashdot non-story, let's talk about Harvard university professors supporting Khadaffy instead [boston.com]. Nicholas Negroponte from OLPC accepted his money and is proud of his participation. The really outrageous detail is that these professors were complicit in the award of a fraudulent PhD. For that they should have their tenure revoked and their academic positions removed. Of course, this won't happen. If a buffoon like me showed up to protest Haah-vahd, I'd be laughed out of the discussion due to my lack of a doctorate, and even if I did have one, my Ph.D would be mocked as the award of an inferior school. Khadaffy's son Saif is hardly the first to have his Ph.D thesis written for him. Unfortunately this is a perfect example of the principles (or lack thereof) of the cultured, intellectual elite who are convinced that they should be in charge of America. That they are reprehensible scalawags who are for sale to a tyrant will never be accepted. It would be like a socialist accepting that her ideology resulted in the deaths of millions of 20th century humans. The consequences are just too much to bear thinking about.