Savages and Scientists

The August edition of New Scientist carries an interesting piece on Daniel Rolander, a protégé of the immortal 18th Century natural scientist, Karl Linnaeus. Rolander was sent out to a Dutch colony in South America with the task of collecting and recording all aspects of its botanical and zoological riches. Finding his Dutch hosts to be turpitudinous savages, he nevertheless noted their habits with the same precision as was devoted to the Natural World of Suriname, and it appears this lack of sentiment contributed to his frosty reception on his return to Europe. In fact, he was left penniless in Germany; his collection and notes dispersed, and his scientific reputation destroyed by the influential Linnaeus.

The same Linnaeus, father of scientific racism, who commented, according to Wikipedia, that
“Africans were black, relaxed and negligent. Asians were sallow, avaricious and easily distracted. Europeans were white, gentle and inventive.”

retaking the imperial city

I've been reading a book on Babeuf, the infamous and virtually unknown

French revolutionary, executed by the Republic after Thermidor.

(THE SPECTRE OF BABEUF by Ian H. Birchall )

This is a good book, straight forward and thought provoking. Babeuf's

autobiography consists of one line - "I was born in the mud" - and Birchall

reconstructs from Babeuf's own political and personal writings the matrix

that surrounds that line.

People like Babeuf who are involved in such struggles don't have the

disadvantage of the historians, who identify - with the absolute clarity

afforded this profession - every absurdity and impossibility of purpose on

the part of the actor. For Babeuf and his movement, and therefore in reality,

the future was open to be fought for.

I think that Babeuf saw that the revolution had been made by a hundred

thousand acts of desperation, not by the demolition of a prison or the

execution of a Monarch, and for this reason he addressed his efforts

towards that quarter.

Finally, I was struck by the glimpse of a co-incidence of two systems

within one state during the period from the convocation of the Estates

General and Thermidor.Since something cannot be two things at the one

time, the idea must, if more than fantasy, represent the development (over

that period) of an outcome of the struggle between two conflicting but

interdependent social forces.

If this sounds wacky, consider the present struggle within the Bush

Administration. Certainly, this is proceeding without bloodshed in

Washington, but in bureaucratic terms it is just as violent as the recapture

of the Imperial Palace in Hue, 1968. Two systems, two aspects of the

American ruling class, co-exist in mutually dependant conflict.

In Bush/Cheney, America has an Imperial Administration. This has

happened before, but this time the incumbents constitute, not merely a

secret state within a state, as some commentators hold, but an

alternative political system with it's own sources of finance, military power

(secret ops as well as allied forces), bureaucratic personnel (outsourced

commercial providers), legal process and intelligence services.

If you want to see the true ruthlessness of the American ruling class, look to

how this elected Imperial Administration is being shut down. Starting well

before the Midterm elections last year, it should be noted, with the

appointment of Joshua Bolton as White house Chief of Staff in early 2006.

And followed with the dismissal of Rumsfeld, appointment of new White

House counsel Fred F. Fielding, press secretary Tony Snow, intelligence

chief John M. McConnell and Treasury Secretary Henry M.Paulson Jr .I

shouldn't be flippant about this, but the Vice President is only a heartbeat

away from retirement.

Come out Bush. We have you surrounded....

"In a meeting in March (2006), Olmert asked the army commanders whether operational plans existed for such a possibility (the kidnapping of IDF soldiers), and they said yes. He asked to see the plans, and they asked why"

Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent, 09/03/2007



Olmert took office in early 2006, and had no relevant military experience. Evidently he was not in a position to critically assess the planning which was reluctantly put before him.


At this time, the US Administration was pushing for a confrontation with Syria, as a supplement to it's occupation of Iraq. In '05 Rumsfeld had instructed his officials to draw up plans for this military confrontation.

It is impossible that the US planning was not shared with the IDF high command. There is a strong possibility that Olmert was not privy to the full extent of these plans, either within his own military or the US's.


The essential consequence of the Rumsfeld plan would have been a disaster of Biblical proportions - the engagement of Israeli military forces into what would have effectively become the Iraq theatre.

Whatever the specifics of this military approach to the Syrian question, something happened shortly before, or even as late as the triggering Hizbulla kidnap operation, which stopped this adventure dead in its tracks.


Rumsfeld's drums of war fall silent. It's as if Syria ceased to exist. Well-connected WaPo journalists are suddenly reporting that, if anything, the Lebanon war is about testing tactics for a conflict with Iran, whereas only weeks before they were thundering for the assassination of Assad.


The cause of the about face, which left the IDF arse up in a campaign with the main effort occuring just about after the ceasefire, was probably a few quiet words from a high ranking Saudi official to the US Ambassador, to the effect that Syria was off limits. - that is, unless the West could get by on Iraqi and Venezuelan oil.