Every Revolution Needs Its Martyrs...

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In the years since the end of World War II, dictators in general have perfected the art of iron-fisted one party rule.  In years previous, rulers had feared being overturned by revolution, often even more than they feared being conquered by some invading enemy.  But in the twentieth century, authoritarian governments developed a methodology for clinging to power.  It was predicated on fear, imprisoning, torturing and executing dissidents right alongside the utterly innocent.  People had to know that their government would not just arrest them, not just kill them, but completely destroy them and their families for reasons both real and imaginary.  Since then, a dictator no longer feared his people, only his armed forces, and it became a standard procedure to lavish wealth, comforts and power on the military leadership.

While dictators ruled in self-satisfied paranoia for decades, however, a few things were changing.  With cell phones, the Internet and satellite television, it was no longer possible to prevent the population from communicating with the outside world, and eventually, with the rise of social media platforms, with each other.  A nation, no matter how authoritarian, could not cut itself off from the world - if it had natural resources to trade or cheap manufacturing labor to offer, it needed access to banking and and the international business community, and that left the door, however narrowly, ajar.

But people have a tremendous propensity to talk, and a fairly strong bias to the status quo.  So every revolution requires some kind of triggering event, something powerful enough to overcome the inertia and fear and bring people en masse into the streets.  Let's go back to the end of 2010, where there was a powerful restlessness among the people of Tunisia, the loss of any hope for the future translating into a genuine fear for the well-being of the next generation, of the children and grandchildren being born today.  On December 17th, all that hopelessness and fear of a dark future overcame Mohamed Bouazizi, and in an act of anger and desperation he set himself aflame, and a revolution was born.

Since that day there has been revolution in the Middle East, uprisings with unpredictable outcomes amidst the smoke and fire, the blood of those killed in the streets and the cries of the tortured, all suffering a brutal dictator's attempts to hold on to illegitimate power.  All hearkening back to the desperate act of a single individual who had nothing left to lose, a defining moment in the lives and futures of millions.

So, why bring this up now?  Because of this.  Even more than the US, Europe is unstable and unsustainable.  Even more than in the mid-east, there is an ugly mood of ethnic and sectarian hatred in Europe, a cruel anger at and distrust of others, whether they are across southern borders or right at home in the inner city.  Europe has become economically dysfunctional, politically unstable and prone to extremist solutions.  And Europe is not without some history in these areas.  And if martyrdom-by-suicide is all it takes to bring desperate, fearful people out into the streets, then Europe may have much greater problems than we know.
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Tonight There's Gonna Be a Jailbreak

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Chen Guangcheng - Chinese
Anti-Abortion Activist

Dissident Chinese activist  Chen Guangcheng snuck out of his house and village, where he was being held under heavy surveillance in a form of extra-legal house arrest, escaping to the US Embassy in Beijing, where it is rumored he has been offered diplomatic protection.  This is an extraordinary example of political courage from an administration not generally noted for its willingness to take political risks.  The potential for this event to blow up in America's face is quite possibly greater than the likelihood that it will end well.  In the still-roiling aftermath of the Bo Xilai scandal, and with SecState Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner due in Beijing next week for economic talks, the Chinese could very well decide to dig in their heels and turn the struggle over Chen's freedom into something larger.

First, prepare for a lot of right-wing chest beating and China bashing over this.  Mitt Romney, in particular, seems to view international competition through a sort of Cold War lens, full of alarmist pronouncements about the "Communists" and even the occasional reference to The Soviet threat.  But when you hear the American Political Right holding forth on the lengths we should be willing to go to protect freedom and democracy loving Chinese like Chen, think about this.  Suppose Bradley Manning had sought refuge in the Chinese Embassy in New York, and the Chinese Government had chosen to openly support him, demanding he be allowed to leave the country under their protection.  What would true-blue Americans have to say about that, do you suppose?


But beyond that, think about how this all might play out.  The Americans are bluffing.  They HAVE to be - they have NO cards to play.  They cannot move Chen off Embassy grounds without an agreement from the Chinese that they will allow it.  They might choose that course, just to avoid the problems and the international hue and cry.  But in light of current events, it's not at all clear that's what they will do.  They could just refuse - demand the US turn over the Chinese "criminal" and station police at all the embassy gates.  In that case, the situation is untenable - Chen has merely traded one house arrest for another, and to the US diplomatic mission, he is an albatross tied around their necks, becoming an item for negotiation in EVERY discussion - economic, diplomatic, regional, in Beijing, Washington and at the UN.


So here's to the Obama government for being willing to take a pretty large risk.  It's good for them to learn that with power comes a certain political exposure, and there are times when doing the right thing is simply not the same as doing the expedient or safe thing.   A lesson, unfortunately, that will be reinforced if the L'Affaire de Chen goes all pear-shaped on them...
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(Not) Stating the Obvious

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Everyone is frustrated.  Most can be quite accurately described as disgusted.  And while at its root it's due to modern society's blatant greed, corruption and dishonesty, shielded by increasingly heavy - handed authoritarian tactics, I think there is one single thing that is mostly responsible for the hopeless antipathy and head-shaking revulsion so common in our daily discourse.  And that is quite simply the immense disconnect between what we can see with our own eyes and what we are told we are seeing.  We're not blind, and in many cases we're not stupid - although Americans greatly facilitate the process by their frequent denial of inconvenient facts and unwillingness to become informed - if we can see it, and yet the media won't even mention it, even the participants deny it, then we are left with an overwhelmingly cynical view, a regularly-reinforced belief that literally everyone is lying to us.

They start out in school, telling kids with regular, day to day experience that marijuana is a dangerous substance.  And they look around and wonder why these adults, these educators and authority figures, would tell them such blatant lies.  We could easily see that since the election of Barack Obama, the Republican Party has worked desperately to prevent any hint of an economic recovery.  This was apparent in every action, every word, and every smirk.  It is hard to imagine a more pernicious betrayal than for virtually one half of our elected officials to work to immiserate their own people to gain scant political advantage, but despite their unabashed treachery, no one spoke up to challenge them.

Over the weekend, representatives of the Iranian government met with European and American negotiators to discuss their nuclear program.  With international trade, particularly in crude oil in freefall and inflation skyrocketing towards 30%, there is reason to believe that the sanctions have actually "worked" and the Iranians are prepared to accede to some of the primary demands of the international community.  There is every reason to believe that a reasonable agreement could be forged that would afford the Iranians at least most of their rights under international treaties like the NPT, and allow the confrontation to ease and the region to move toward a sustainable peace rather than an imminent war.  But that rosy scenario depends on one key premise: That the powers negotiating with the Iranians actually WANT peace.  And once again, all we have to do is look with our own eyes to see the US, goaded by the Netanyahu government and dragging the UK, France and Germany along behind, working to sabotage any possibility of an agreement, already beginning to lay out the next round of unilateral sanctions.

They keep telling us to fear the consequences of our deficit, but not only will they not tell us why it is such a huge concern with 10 year real interest rates still negative, but they refuse to take ANY reasonable steps to increase revenues.  We can easily see they are lying to us, manipulating us, but nobody will stand up and say so.  They tell us that someday Social Security might be unable to pay the full benefit promised, and their "solution" to this problem is to cut benefits today.

So much of the insanity and catastrophic failure of the American system of governance could be brought to an end, quickly and effectively, by merely having the people stand up and speak with one voice.  We do not have to agree on policy - that's the question politics exists to answer - but we should be able to agree on what constitutes reality.  We should be able to believe what our own eyes tell us...
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