Sean Penn appears on TV to hail Libyan revolution while Gadaffi loyalists retake Bani Walid

You have to admit that was an ironic coincidence of timing.

There's Sean Penn opining on the deeper significance of the Libyan revolution on Piers Morgan's CNN show and even as his lips are moving a number of news sites are claiming the town of Bani Walid has fallen to Gadaffi loyalists.

Four months after the victory.

I was a little disappointed in Sean's take on Libya. He seems to think it was an exceptionally positive use of America's bully stick. If there was some evidence that the people of Libya are now better off, I might be inclined to let that go unchallenged. But, are they better off?

But I like Sean Penn, so I'm inclined to make allowances for his ignorance of events in Libya. Of course, he is a well-connected dude and maybe he knows stuff that I'm not privy to. So we'll have to wait and see, but everything I've heard and read says the people of Libya spent the last year getting a royal screw-over.

They will emerge from this with a greatly reduced standard of living. They will be in debt to America, other NATO countries, and the World Bank/IMF diad of doom in perpetuity. They will be paying for the new jets and weapon systems that their NATO pals will push on them. Western construction conglomerates will feast on the rebuilding contracts to rebuild what the Western military complex just smashed up.

But they will be "free".

So I think Sean's got that one wrong, but we'll see. The other day I said he had Haiti wrong too.

I still believe he does, but at the same time I have to salute his resolve to make a difference. He's investing a lot of himself in his Haiti mission. That takes a lot more than sitting in my comfy chair carping about it.

At the same time, while his projects are a short term relief to some people who really need it, what are they in the long term? Penn spoke a bit about a manufacturing industry that could be operated out of Haiti with a smaller carbon footprint than running it in China. Why? Because it's only and hour and a half from the US. That says something about his vision for Haiti's future.

Haiti: the low-wage assembly site of choice. We will undercut child labor rates in China and Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Similarly, viable housing solutions can't happen in Haiti until the ruling elite agree to land redistribution. By propping up the status quo you help the ruling elite avoid that necessary step for Haiti's future.

Without that fundamental step, everything else is just bandaids.