Libya = Gaddafi FAIL - fights for freedom - now we see the violence inherent in the System - Libyan resistance can has RPG

The locals are ready to kick some ass in Libya!

Straight up amazing.

Things are moving fast these days! Wisconsin solidarity :-D

This suddenly dawned on me just a few mins ago! Behold Gaddafi FAIL:

I had to repost these videos of real significant, serious rebellion & a certain unmistakable catharsis from the release from tyranny, as found via youtube users with quite amazing videos recently added - RealJehad and LeakSpinner, although CoffeeAddict99 got the credit on CNN.

This is the real deal -- true unmediated moments. As someone who tries to deal with video, you see eventually beyond language there are certain universal expressions - if you are lucky you can cram them into a video file somehow.

Libyan resistance cruising around with what appears to be an anti-aircraft gun or something - 20 seconds of amazingness:

Clearly everyone is ready to roll.

More or less, as a political science major you learn plenty about the continuities, the small adjustments in systems over time. Yet there's the world of snap events, of entire "pole shifts" among populations. All these people say they suddenly have no fear. It's like some threshold of awareness got crossed -- as has happened through the Millennia round those parts -- and now it's time to Make Things Happen.

So far, the evidently overdue unrest in the Mideast has had an overwhelmingly reasonable slant to everything. It seems like the huge mass of decent, old-school, young & unemployed, and overall reasonable Arab people suddenly decided to make a move before the West or their absurd old leaders could mess with them, just basically in a snap.

What I guess a Marxian would call "Objective conditions", have played a major part - the coordinated "quantitative easing" or monetization of debt has exploded food prices in places where people get by (or don't) on a couple dollars a day. Unemployment among people under 30 around the Mediterranean has become a permanent major factor - nothing really works. Services get slashed and things fall apart.

From Wisconsin to Cairo (and the latest news is people in Cairo are buying pizzas for Madison) people of everyday sorts are making a move -- and damn, you just know it when you see it.

It's all a great example of the sense of Agency which real humans still have on this messed-up planet. Now we see the violence inherent in the system, but then we see the human spirit kickin' the system's ass. No doubt about it.

A few more videos from the developing regional Situation:

Meanwhile in Morroco - Oujda protest: via TheTruthArmy

Radio reports from Tripoli, plenty of machine gun fire in the background = "THIS IS BULLSHIT, I'M TALKING ABOUT HEAVY ARTILLERY.. now it's constant" - in English, talk of government media schemes and general state mass murder direct from the scene:

Wounded as hell at protests - Demos earlier with shots fired - terrifying.:

Beyond the details and the geopolitik, this is about the unmediated crisis of our time. It's clearly by and for the regular people of the Mideast, North Africa, even rumblings as far as China - and of course it's not separate from Greece, France or the UK - the same basic problems are manifesting in this general direction, even if they hit the formal political systems in very different ways.
This whole shift isn't simply a Color Revolution©, it's something real and genuine. You've always got the factor of "Jesse Jackson in Madison" type management going on - someone at the WaPo said real American politics is a split between the wooly & wild people and the technocratic consultants / social control method people. The technocrats have been throwing staged Color Revolutions in recent years (Ukraine = orange, Georgia = "rose" etc).
People can still push back on their conditions and achieve real results -- that's the big, inspiring lesson. Between the primitive, crumbling police state, and the more sophisticated ideological police, maybe it's still our revolution, and damn it, it's time to dance.

UPDATE: I forgot to add this amazing video of a "techie" in Benghazi, readily prepared to die for freedom and so forth, fearing mortar attack or assault. The protesters were able to get a solid handle on Benghazi shortly thereafter so there's a good chance this guy made it.