Category: CULTURE

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He is not here.

          The miracle that is Easter morning will be celebrated by over 2 billion people today in reflection and adoration of the triumph of life over mortality. The power of the messenger resonates with such clarity over the millenia that historical significance of the event still drives enormous academic study, and the religious significance unbounded in its power still to convert. The conceptualization of a miracle that frees man of his sinful character and provides a means for eternal salvation in a world that constantly torments is still the single most powerful philosophical force in humanity’s understanding of being, and continues to grow amongst all religions.
     He is not Here. With those simple words the New Testament describes the “impossible”. A Nazarene named Jesus, borne some where around 4 BC, and unknowable to history until three years prior to the above event, had developed a new strain of religious philosophy that was powerfully drawing people of all persuasions to a new perception of life and religion that was beginning to threaten established traditions and hierarchies. At a time at the height of the Roman Empire, the recent establishment of a “devine” emperor did not leave room for a philosophic religion that had no place for his divinity. Additionally this new religious strain taught concepts of individuality that flew in the face of the local Judaic tradition – this religious teacher claimed inward purity was more important than outward acts of precise following of the letter of biblical law.  He spoke in parables and claimed miracles, and had a place for those who had been scorned or punished by establishment law or creed. He saw a loving and forgiving God, and saw the individual as the sole claimant to that love, “You are the Light of the world.”  Thousands believed and thousands began to follow. The implied threat was visible to established order, and the action to end the threat ruthless. The man Jesus suffered the painful death of crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, and the threat to their order they thought they had just ended was ignited a thousand fold with the miracle of the empty tomb, as prophesied, three mornings later.

     He is not here.  The empty tomb was the consequence of a Risen Jesus.  No single reported event in world history has shown the prosthelitizing power of this one. The witnessed miracle led to his apostles risking all to spread what they had experienced to Jew and Gentile alike, and through Peter and Paul, into the very heart of known world, Rome itself.  In the course of just three hundred years, the Roman Empire that attempted to snuff out the fragile message of individuality at its origin, ended up fully converted to the powers of the event by the act of its own emperor Constantine.

     What exactly happened so many years ago is an article of faith. Like all unexplainable events, the faithful have been buffeted over the centuries with distortions and trials by those who would seek to control the masses through the control of the message and memory.  The clarity of the message over time grows sharper and more distinct with each year more removed from the miracle of Golgotha.  If one focuses on a life of personal charity, love, and forgiveness, no greater path to eventual happiness exists, and no happiness exists that is more palpable and enduring.  Happy Easter.

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The “This Is Not A War” War

     We live in an age of hypocrisy so it is not shocking to have found ourselves in one of the most hypocritical of contests of will.  The United States and assorted allies have spent the past week participating in what has been termed by a winking dupe of the executive branch a “kinetic military action” against Libya.  Assorted videos of the conflict exhibiting active rocket launchers, flaming planes, concussive bombs,  exploding buildings, and dead combatants and innocents alike would certainly tend to skew one’s opinion regarding what they see – it surely looks like a war.  Then again, modern governments take great pleasure in going up to the line of war and just hedging their effort, in order to maintain plausible deniability.  That way, none of the expected thinking processes that used to define the difficult process of going to war get in the way.  Philosophers as far back as Cicero and St. Augustine contemplated the conditions for “Just War” – the concept that war could be justified in the face of just cause – the damage caused by the aggressor to the nation must be lasting, grave and certain; the complete exhaustion of other means of solving the conflict; the prospect of victory should be identifiable; and the use of arms should not create evils more profound then the ones they were attempting to vanquish.  In modern terms, the indication that a nation’s treasure in riches or people should not be wasted in an action where the perceived national security interests are not directly attacked or threatened.  The restrained quiet by the public and media flies in the face of the most recent reactions to a similar war or “kinetic military action” propagated recently in Iraq.  The story went, a President with little indication of a perceived national threat, hastily drove towards war against a country that had not attacked his country, led by a dictator of an oil rich nation who had once been his ally, and did so with minimal national or international consensus, and no identifiable end game or exit strategy.  Hmmm…..substitute “Libya” for “Iraq” and you have  an almost identical presumptive argument, but none of the vitriol that surrounded President Bush regarding the Iraq conflict.  One mustn’t forget that , of course, that was the dumb president, and this one is the smart one.

     The  tragedy of most modern conflicts is that the consequences of actions are so poorly conceived and vetted before plunging in.  A million questions abound. Who are the people trying to throw Qaddhafi out? Are their goals for the Libyan people better than his? What are we willing to do to impose our will? What if it doesn’t work?  What if it does work?  Who will support the massive humanitarian crisis that could develop if stalemate enters?  What wars have been won by committee decision? Who will declare victory and who will declare defeat?  What would victory look like?  These and other questions would seem to be ones you would want to have thought through before you would typically put a nation’s young men and women in harms way. 

     The availability of high tech weaponry has made these well thought out justifications too easily brushed aside.  Cruise missiles flung from afar can seem to lessen the sense of risk to the launching country because after all, no country men risk harm firing from hundreds of miles away. Sterile wars seem to have amazingly unpredictable outcomes and more often then not painful realities and goal stalemates.  The multi-decade presence of troops in Korea, Kosovo, and Afghanistan are just a few reminders of what prolonged stalemate looks like. As the war Napoleon once said of war strategy, ” If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna!”  The lack of direct goals, aims, eye on victory makes this the most hypocritical of conflicts, where men and women will die, because no one could think of anything else to do.

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Where Have The Experts Gone?

     As the world seems to be battered by one “surprise” after another and current leaders seem clueless to fashion a logical and committed strategy to begin to tackle any of these problems, the question arises, where have the experts gone?  The can do spirit of the twentieth century to conquer some of the most overwhelming challenges ever devised to man’s  humanity and security has disappeared in a blizzard of shoddy historical interpretation, pseudo-science, and junk economics.  The harsh juxtaposition of examples abound.  The rigorous objective mental genius without the availability of computer exhibited by the brilliance of scientists such as Ernest Rutherford, Neils Bohr, Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg who in the space of fifty years went from discovery of the atom to unlocking its power reigns supreme over the religious machinations of  the current dominance of climate scientists who in order to prove their philosophy of man as the source of the planet’s ills, hide and bend data to fit their vision.  The western tradition of economic thought elegantly put forth by Adam Smith over 250 years ago that built the greatest expansion of individual economic freedom and security in the history of the world is under assault by so called progressives who ignore measured outcomes in performance, rigorous rules of economic standards in banking, budgeting and commerce to blithely spend away a nation’s future.  And acutely,  the fundamental ignorance of history in interpretation of current events that make the present day leaders seem disorganized, contradictory, and reactionary with every event that transpires that does not fit their poorly conceived vision of how the world should be.   Where are the experts a nation used to tap that provided  a bottomless well of  thought that guided the ship of state through perilous waters?

      My own theory is that death of objective thought is self inflicted by our society’s pathetic neglect of our educational process.  We have allowed a primary and secondary school system to completely run off the rails on its primary objective of  providing an education to the nation’s youth,  and the tools needed to comprehend, assess, and conquer the obstacles to individual achievement.  The modern conversation centers on whether the dominant and monopolistic teacher’s union and its strangulating bureaucracy is appropriately re-imbursed and protected, rather than focusing upon the absolute collapse of  student reading, mathematical, and interpretative skills that have soared in the last thirty years.  Our advanced education process has become an over bearing financial behemoth rapidly tumbling out of financial reach of most families and individuals, that through political correctness has filled its campuses with rigid thought, the demise of platonic reasoning and socratic debate, and clogged the educational  pallet with self absorbed study of victimhood and forehead thumping at the expense of a two thousand five hundred year tradition of analytic thought, objective debate, and scientific hypothesis and proof process.  Out of such a primordial ooze, few are the experts that can be expected to evolve.

    What does objective thought process sound like?  Lets appreciate a brief video of one of our “old dinosaur” experts, 88 year old Henry Kissinger, who in five minutes extemporaneously manages to touch base on all necessary considerations that should attend the use of force in Libya:

     Agree or disagree with Kissinger’s argument, no one would disagree that a rational argument has taken place, with historical underpinnings and rational review of outcomes. I defy anyone to point out a rational discussion with logical underpinnings put forth today on any of the major challenges of the day regarding energy policy, economic concepts, or political science, by those currently in power. Is there no one left who is willing to read a book with positions opposed to their own and rationally debate an argument to rebut and persuade?

     I am afraid that would require someone who actually is willing to open a book, and if you ask most of today’s youth, books are yesterday’s news. Its enough to make western civilization’s grand old philosopher to role over in his grave.

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Aftermath

     After almost a month of turmoil and chaos in the Capitol Building of the state of Wisconsin, the State Senate of Wisconsin on the night of March 9th brought to a crashing halt the sense of drift and paralysis that the state’s legislative process had become. Unable to secure a quorum for a controversial budget repair bill as the minority party simply left the state rather than be present for their certain legislative defeat, the majority senate leadership determined to remove the quorum required elements of the bill and passed the rest, effectively overhauling the relationship between the government and its employees. Brought to an abrupt end was one of the most blatant attempts by politicians in state history to disenfranchise the voters who had elected the majority to perform precisely as they did. The vote was taken under the threat of violence, death threats, recall threats, and verbal intimidation by a vocal incensed crowd at the Capitol rotunda who overwhelming felt that the democratic process was defined not by the means of representative democracy, but instead by their individual sense of righteousness.  The absent democrat politicians, caught by their distant refuge in another state, found themselves helpless to effect debate and could only watch from afar as their cherished relationship with public unions went directly up against the voters’ mandate, and was found wanting.


     The result was a firm repudiation of the incestuous relationship that has developed over the last four decades between government and its public servants, who discovered that the the financial assets of a state could be hijacked by forcing the state to financially back the back the unions that turned around and invested in politicians who would toe the line and assure continued government growth and union largess. The changes are so profound in their effect on the balance equation of power for each side that the fevered process and the aftermath of the vote will change forever traditional concepts of the American experience of democracy, individual rights, and individual responsibility.

1) The Damage to the Concept of Representative Democracy:          The Wisconsin battle forever changes the perception of America’s respect for the concept of representative democracy and reason for fair and conclusive elections.  Starting with the debacle of the Presidential election of 2000, a progressive lack of respect for the elective process has developed.  Neither the winners nor the losers of theat election have ever respected the outcome. The winners remain convinced of the visible voter fraud that pushed close states into the loser column, the lack of understanding and respect for the concept of electoral college election as outlined in the nation’s constitution, and the attempt to hijack the outcome by cherry picking specific votes over others that secured their vision of the election.  The losers remain convinced that the popular mandate as determined by number of votes was definitive and warped by the electoral college process, and that the rights of individual voters, no matter how vague the capacity to discern their intent, were ultimately disenfranchised.  The concept of a winning or losing an election and accepting the outcome became blurred by interpretation of the vote, so that modern elections for president or for local dogcatcher are poisoned with the same re-interpretation of voter intent, and elections often go for months without a declared winner.  

     Additionally, the loss in the election is seen as only a matter of interpretation, and not outcome, and the loser is under no obligation to accept the consequences.    The dramatic repudiation of the direction of government declared by the Wisconsin voter last November with the election of overwhelming republican representatives in federal, state, and local positions was interpreted as an outburst of anger, not a mandate for change, and therefore one that could be ignored as the current anger against any change was felt to be equally as intense and therefore, as legitimate.

      The result is the dangerously weakened compact of a representative democracy between the voter and the elected official.  The idea that change can occur if the voter determines to vote for change, has been recklessly thrown away by the current Wisconsin chaos.  The very strength of a democracy lies in the recognition by those whose ideas are on the losing side of the electoral process are accepting of that process, so that someday if their view prevails, the process will be accepting of their requested change. The current view, that some ideas are so critical that no representative should be able to debate them and hold them to scrutiny and change is anti-democratic and anathema to the balance that has permitted give and take in public discourse since the Civil War.  Although the Wisconsin ordeal culminated in the eventual affirmation of representative democracy, the effort to immediately recall those Senators who represented their constituents in the manner mandated by their election distorts the reasons for having elections in intervals that allow the voter’s intent to evolve and be judged in outcome.   As President Obama himself said in the healthcare debate when a minority politician expressed the opinion that their point of view was not adequately represented in the bill, “Get over it; we won.” As cold as that statement was, it was inherently American. If the voter finds the direction taken by their elected representative is against the majority will, they can always vote them out at the next election.  Or at least, that is what the whole system of representative democracy is predicated upon.

2) The Sense of Entitlement:       The previous four decades have seen the progressive entwining of public employees and the government that feeds them to the detriment of the society’s ability to improve itself.  The securing of more and more generous rewards in the face of progressively poorer outcomes have left the future of the society to progress in doubt, and the funds to repair damage and invest in good ideas steadily swallowed up by entitlements.  The Wisconsin debacle initiated with previous administrations continual shoving of key problems and investments down the road, in order to fund current guarantees to public employees that exceeded all reason or comparison with those of the private sector.  The virulent response in particular of the teacher’s union exposed for all time their fundamental reason for existence was for the protection of perks, not the assurance of their product and professionalism.  The cry “for the Children” is forever placed in the dustbin of all other progressive movements.  When the choice came down to the acceptance of a modest responsibility in the rising costs of generous healthcare plans and pensions, the union declared its willingness to allow its own members to lose their jobs, rather than all sharing in modest sacrifice.  The Union determined to take advantage of the stalemate in the legislative process to ram through local contracts protecting their entitlements, knowing full well the result would be the loss of jobs and more dramatically the elimination of educational opportunities and programs of the very students they were purportedly the stewards of.  The protection of these perks in the face of crashing standards in education, devastating incapacities in the ability of students to read and perform math, the continuing tenure of teachers who conclusively show no ability  to teach, the maintenance of immunity to the needs of society have been particularly exposed.  It remains to be seen if the separation of the union from its subservient teacher monopoly will finally bear fruit in the objective appreciation of how far our educational process has fallen, and its standards contaminated.

3) The First Of Many Battles for the Future of a Distinct American Society:     The Wisconsin experience proved that the entrenched interests created by government expansion into all of our lives has a parallel effect on Americans as it has had  on Europeans, and that our unique set of individual rights and system of checks and balances do not protect the individual Americans against the tyranny of the entitlement class with any more assurance.  Last year, when European governments attempted to reign in suffocating entitlements threatening the very existence of countries, the reaction of those entitled was virulent, rigid, and prolonged, and resulted in the governments backing down.  This experience and the subsequent reaction in Wisconsin proves that it is not the “socialist” bent or lack thereof of a country’s makeup but simply a relative matter of numbers.  When a sufficient number of the population rely more on the government to assure their futures then their own capacities, talents, and entrepreneurial spirit, the society will be helpless to affect change.  This country’s progressive need to seek a governmental answer to every challenge or vagary in life is the single most determining factor in obstructing America’s future health and success.  It is no small consideration that this process has eventually pulled down every previous historical dominant country and America will prove no different.  The battle for the concept of individual rights and opportunity versus societal security is on, and Wisconsin was its first epic battle.

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Sic Semper Tyrannus?

     In December, 1989, with almost inconceivable suddenness, the dictator who had ruled Romania with an iron fist for 34 years, Nicolae Ceausescu, in the space of one week fell from emperor king to the wrong end of a firing squad. His was the last thugocracy government to collapse in the spectacular year of Revolution that was 1989. Despite the domino like collapse of other authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe that year, Ceausescu confidently left the country for a trip to Iran, not recognizing the match for revolution that was struck in the city of Timisoara on December 18th over the simple act of attempted eviction of a Hungarian priest by the government for “inciting” ethnic divisions. Quickly joined by Romanian students, a brutal effort to violently  crush the demonstrations had exactly the opposite effect and within only two days had spiraled out of the government’s control. Ceausescu returned to find on December 21st a country he couldn’t possibly recognize, in full revolt and to his shock completely unafraid of him. His meager efforts to rally government support collapsed in hours and he was forced to flee, only to be turned over by police to a thrown together military tribunal that declared him an enemy of the people and executed him on December 25th, 1989.  One week,  from complete control, to complete collapse.

     So it appears the latin phrase, Sic Semper Tyrannus, “thus always to Tyrants” has come to roost again in the year of Revolution  2011 in Libya.  Following a similar pattern to Romania, the spark of revolution appears to have been the relatively innocuous event of the government preventing people from inhabiting a long promised but unfinished housing development, but the flame was clearly fired from the spectacular revolutionary forces that are shaking northern Africa and the Middle East, with despots in Tunisia in January and Egypt in February rapidly driven from power, and the governments of Bahrain and Iran shaken by unrest.  Libya’s Ceausescu is Mu’ammar Quadaffi, a four decade dictator who has maintained rigid control over the oil rich country and has been a long standing supporter of radical Islamic groups and terrorists in other lands. In similar fashion to Ceausescu, Quadaffi seems to have completely misread recent events and his own vulnerable position, and by violently striking out against demonstrators, managed in a single week to explode his country and implode his dictatorial control.  Reports suggest that he has had to flee Libya to avoid his own capture and that his sons are struggling to hold a losing position in the capital of Tripoli. If true, the historical evidence that dictatorial control, no matter how imperial, is a mile wide and an inch deep, and only needs the right push to force collapse, must have the governments of Syria, North Korea, and Iran nervously scanning their horizons for similar signs of trouble.

     The year 2011 is proving to be a year of revolution on the epic level of  1989, but its outcome is considerably more murky in the advance of freedom.  The dark forces of a different kind of totalitarianism, those of islamofasciist extremism, lay in waiting like foxes at the hen house, to these newly freed countries with little complementary institutional structure for individual rights.  The Eastern European countries of 1989 succeeded at getting the tender sprouts of freedom to flower, but initially, it was quite unclear what would come out of the foment at that time.  The difference was the example of a United States and Europe that was comfortable in the promotion of democracy for the sake of the formation of republican government and positively intervened to  help determine the outcome.  A much more unsure United States and Europe exists today, and it is unclear if an determined leadership is available that is able to recognize the opportunity for the promotion of individual human rights for the Arab world, and assure that the fragile flame for this beleaguered part of the world is not rapidly extinguished.

     President Obama could take heed from a President that now appears visionary in his understanding of the forces of freedom at work in the Mid-East and beyond:

 

George W. Bush  United Nations Speech September 21, 2004

“For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability.  Oppression became common, but stability never arrived.  We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful ,democratic nations.”

” The advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world”

“The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire can not be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the world, freedom will find a way.”

“We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terror in their midst. We know that free people embrace progress and life, instead of becoming recruits for murderous ideologies”

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Freedom and the Internet

     Who is Wael Ghonim? Whether the name is familiar or not, Wael Ghonim is the new Egyptian face of the freedom uprising in Egypt and the human symbol of the power of the Internet. Ghonim, a marketing manager for the Internet giant Google, managed to become the focus for the dispersal of information and tactics for Egypt’s restive population. It was conceptually his arrest that led to the final crushing pressure for President Mubarak, leader of Egypt for over thirty years, to succumb and abdicate his presidency on Thursday. The real power of freedom however was not an individual but rather the instantaneous availability of the latest unfiltered information made available by the Internet, that surprised and overwhelmed the Egyptian autocracy, and resisted its determined efforts to shut it down. The power of the Internet continues to grow to the point where “secrets” held by government are increasingly vulnerable, and the very existence of dictator’s capacity to control information, and therefore their populations, increasingly suspect. The iron fisted rulers of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and China have certainly taken notice and are alarmed for their own governments’ vulnerability.

     The ability to disperse information out of the control of governments to influence events is not a new phenomena. The presence of so many talented printers in America at the time of the American Revolution made possible rapid distribution of revolutionary concepts for digestion by the populous and their progressive weaving into the fabric of the body politic. The availability of telegraph made intercontinental development possible in the United States by achieving the simultaneous awareness of people thousands of miles apart, linking their common reaction to events in a coordinated fashion. There has not been, however, until now, truly simultaneous global linking that is offered by the Internet, and it is now the stalwart protector of free expression, for both good and ill, to all nations on earth, regardless of their ruler’s opinion as to what is “best” for their people. Whether the information is searched, linked, video shared, tweeted, or facebooked, the overwhelming access offered to real time events has changed us forever.

     As a free society, we are in no position to drop our guard against those in authority who are threatened and seek to “control” this phenomena. The Internet since infancy has been maintained by the United States to the advantage of its development and to the horror of those world wide and even within the U.S. border who believe better “control” is in order. They seek to “tax” the Internet and thereby achieve control of the commerce, “police” the Internet and determine what is or is not politically correct, and “regulate” the Internet to assure governmental control over who would have access and to what extent.

     Whatever your political or philosophical persuasion, however you feel about the potentially “dark” use of the Internet to invade privacy, lovers of freedom must be unequivocal in the Internet’s defence from the “good intentions” of legislators. The beauty of the powerful, and stunningly non-violent upheavals in Eastern Europe, Lebanon, Tunisia, and now Egypt, over the past decades are the direct gift of the free flow of ideas and the exposure for all to see of the empty and reactionary delusions of authoritarian governments. The greater control over the access of information and the greater the likelihood of the Tienanmen Square and Tehran massacres that are buried in shadow.

     Freedom calls for illumination and we all gain from the brightness of its light. As Dylan Thomas so aptly put, Rage, rage against the dying of the Light. God bless the Internet and its power to project the human Voice.

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So You Think There’s A Chance?

     Time and time again throughout history, the key element of what drags down great societal processes into oblivion is the crisis of spirit. The Roman Empire, so dominant in technology, commerce, unifying legal rights regardless of nationality for nearly a thousand years, crumbled under the stress of the lack of the individual’s sense of investment in keeping the whole sclerotic edifice going. The British Commonwealth of nations, bringing the tradition of rights of the common man, education, justice under the law to a billion people and driven by the force of a “can do” spirit, took a considerably shorter period to give up the mantle of leader and developer. World War II drained the British of their last sense of exceptionalism and within a decade the flower of the best elements of British experience and structure had wilted in most of the developing world. The United States, since 1776, the citadel of individual freedom and exceptionalism, has been the world’s primary force in accomplishment in technology, literacy, elimination of poverty, and creative thought based on the simple premise that the individual, unbounded by statist restrictions, holds the capacity for unlimited creation, progress, and betterment of society. This spirit, this “can do” nature, is now under attack and serious strain in this country, the most developed society founded on human potential in the history of man.

     The deterioration of the “can do” spirit now in place holds many similarities to previous historical processes. The loss of the spirit is usually self inflicted. The individual, comforted by the society’s wealth, assumes that the “can do” spirit by others amply supplies sufficient force to remove the individual responsibility for his own outcomes, that others “can do” it for him. The external forces eternally threatened by examples of what is possible in environments of unfettered human creation, look to any weakness of the spirit and the subsequent will of the free, in order to destroy, and prevent the viral nature of freedom among their own. The price of sustaining energy across generations is often enormous, with the need to maintain the principles of achievement in future generations who did not experience the sacrifices necessary to achieve progress, yet must accept their responsibility in maintaining them. The final blow is a loss of confidence that leads to the loss of exceptionalism- “we are no different, no better than others”. This final crisis is not one of racial superiority, but rather, individual superiority, the sense that while all others around me may fail, my own success is predicated only on my own will and effort.

     The threats are manifold to humankind if this particular American brand of exceptionalism dissolves. The loss of the impulse of free markets. The rise of regional hegemony and conflict. The return to statist principles of stability, at the price of individual freedom. The neglect of the world’s neglected populations when the rest of the world internalizes. America for all the good and ill it creates, has been responsible for one primary force the world would miss, the energy to fail, fail, and try again, until the failure is righted, and is crowned by success.

It may be a naive spirit, but naivete masks an overwhelming force for good, that even against the worst odds and the most dire conditions, if we try hard enough, we can soar.

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Egypt On The Brink

    The Middle East has been the incubator of most of the world’s upheaval and torment over the last 35 years. The juxtaposition of a rapidly growing population facing the inequities of minimal opportunity  and available education, while a small minority has reaped the benefits of mineral wealth and political power, has created a particularly unstable state of society.  Additionally the febrile mix of radical Islamist expansionist dreams and sense of retribution has made the region a pressure pot for potentially explosive violence.  There have been many vents created by the region’s dictatorial governments to direct the pressure away from their vulnerable positions as elite minority rulers, the primary farce the existence of Israel as an intolerable affront to the notion of pan-Arabism and pan -Islamism.  Israel, the singular representative democracy in the region, where as citizens both Arab and Jew have voting rights, personal rights, and representation, is a scathing reminder of the absence of such Arab citizen rights in the home countries of Arabs.  The removal of the odious dictator Hussein from Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent development of a nascent democracy, has made it clear to all in the region that a better life is possible without the overbearing “guidance” of dictators.  The seeds of the flame of individual freedom  after Iraq first spread to Lebanon and the Cedar Revolution of 2005, extinguished only by the money of the theocratic dictators of Iran and the ruthlessness of their foil proxies Hezbollah , then to Iran itself with the 2010 Green Revolution, left to languish by President Obama’s incapacity and curious comfort with the theocracy, and finally to Tunisia last month and what is now called the Jasmine Revolution , with the overthrow of the iron fisted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who ruled for 23 years with no hint of reform.  

     The autocrats still standing, particularly the strongman Gaddafi of Libya, the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, Khamenei of the non-arab Iran, Assad of Syria, and prominently Mubarak of Egypt have recognized the pattern beginning with the upsetting of the apple cart in Iraq perpetrated by the United States and have been determined to isolate and destroy any local tendencies in their restive populations to follow suit.  Now it appears the tidal wave has engulfed Mubarak, the 82 year old president for life who has ruled Egypt since President Sadat’s assassination in 1981.  Fouad Ajami, the brilliant and insightful professor of mid east studies at Johns Hopkins helps to frame the underpinnings of Egypt’s current tumult.  Mubarak has been propped up for over thirty years by the U.S.’s annual tithe of billions in aid, based on his maintenance of Sadat’s sacrificial stance of recognizing Israel, but the pressure keg of slights perceived by his own people denied the simplest opportunity makes this annual bet in his continuing control of events precarious.
The military in Egypt has so far remained committed to Mubarak, one of their own. The police however have been wavering, as many of the members are closer to the painful poverty that pervades Egypt’s large cities. The dangerous rival for the people’s loyalties, the Muslim Brotherhood, and radical Islamic organization at the root of Sadat’s assassination and brutally suppressed by Egypt’s security services are lying in wait for the crumbling edifice of unity of the current government to finally collapse and bring them to power, with unstable reactions likely to be felt in Gaza, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Israel.
    

The United States for decades perceived a unified Arab voice in governance and antipathy toward Israel, when the reality was that each of the Arab countries masked a progressively restive population that continued to grow bolder in their own sense of particular need. The effect of any other option of government to Mubarak is unclear, but inevitable. The progressive influence of Iran and its particularly rabid and religiously framed fantasies about Israel make a very dangerous region progressively more so to the fragile peace that exists. The story of Egypt may go the way of the other mid East revolutions, briefly bright, calamitous, but eventually extinguished, or it could stimulate a full blown cataclysm. Either way, it is likely to be a critical story effecting those of us who treasure the concept of civilized freedom and wish it to prosper, for sometime to come.

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The Nasty Politics of Tragedy

In Tucson, Arizona yesterday, a wanton violent outburst from a depraved individual shattered the calm of a beautiful desert morning. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was taking part in a “meet your congresswoman” event at a local supermarket when a gunman suddenly opened fire, wounding as many as twenty people, killing six including a federal judge, and critically wounding Ms. Giffords.The motive is unclear, as would be expected with entirely senseless violence.  Over time I am sure we will find the typically convoluted thinking process of a sociopath, who finding he does not fit in anywhere in society, strikes out randomly at those who do.  The deterioration from disturbed, harbored thoughts to violent actions is unfortunately all too common and  nothing new.  From Lee Harvey Oswald to Timothy McVey to this current assailant, Jared Loughner, the perceived wrongs endured, regardless of how ludicrous, explode into a horrific moment of rage, and the loss of life of innocents.  Try as all might to attach an underlying pattern of influences to the madness, there is never any legitimate philosophic structure that ties the slights to the event, as they are fundamentally random outbursts and the human target incidental.   

     Ohhh, but how they try.  Within days of the 1995 Oklahoma City tragedy, President Clinton tied the extremist perpetrator committing the murder of the 168 innocents in the Murrah Federal Building bombing directly to the influence of “right wing” radio :    

“We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable.”
     
      The political advantage was obvious. The random crime is heinous and irrational.  Your political enemies are heinous and irrational. Tie your political enemies to the random crime, and those looking for any connection will have their paranoias confirmed.  President Clinton’s action was premeditated, unfair, baseless, corrupt – and effective.   The success President Clinton achieved in recklessly melding the real victim status with those killed or injured in the bombing with his own “victimhood” was classic Clinton, and proved a powerful weapon against those who would disagree with him.  Disagree with President Clinton , and you were supporting the thinking process of those who would bomb buildings. Absurd on its face but by making the connection the President became just another victim of the bombing.
  
     The hyenas are out again with the tragedy in Tucson.  Knowing nothing of the circumstances of Loughner’s random active, political elements were quick to try to attach blame to the Tea Party, Sara Palin, or any other political opponent to whom the thinnest thread could be connected to Congresswoman Giffords and the massacre.  It is a foul reflex that has developed in political discourse, and thankfully some more credible reporters such as Howard Kurtz see through it for its callousness.  
 
      I am reminded that President Bush despite multiple vicious attacks by political opponents never permitted the connection to be made of the attackers’ verbiage and an accusation of lack of patriotism.  Despite the direct connection of the 9/11 participants to Islamic extremism, he never permitted the connection of extremists to the practice of the religion itself.  I used to think he was allowing himself to be a punching bag.  Sometimes it is just difficult at first to see how individuals with class react to classless attacks.  I am beginning to miss President Bush more and more every day.
 
      Ms. Giffords and all the victims are in our prayers.  Maybe the chattering self absorbed idiots looking for some advantage from the madness can take a moment to think about a family’s pain, and not their worthless agendas.

   

  

  

   
 
 

 

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The Miracle of A Free Society

     Every once in a while a human interest story so powerful, so random, so inspiring comes across our society’s consciousness and we must take a moment to revel in the sheer magnificence of it all.   Hot Air made me aware of a terrific story of a man full of hope after a life of hopelessness, who through a single random exposure on a video in an event only possible in a free society with free flow of information, has achieved a life resurrection.  A homeless man named Ted Williams, one of the many who haunt traffic intersections begging for money for food or their own darker natures, decided to be entrepreneurial and sell his only asset, a voice of perfect timbre and projection.  A passerby decided to film the moment and released it on You Tube.  Within hours, the video had touched thousands, and within days, literally millions.   Mr. Williams had led a life of human despair torn by drugs and alcohol, loneliness and homelessness, driven by his own self destructive demons.  As he tells the story, he two and half years ago had a religious epiphany, and stopped his destruction, sobered up and decided to try to pull himself up with his only residual possession, his trained voice, developed years before prior to his crash from stability.

      How many times we pass such individuals and wonder of their story and determine there is nothing we can do to help.  It turns out the best help is simply to take the time to recognized the humanness of each individual and the singular miracle that each life potentially holds.  Watch both videos, courtesy of Hot Air; watch them in their entirety and prepare to be humbled, and elevated.  The magnificience of a free people is that without the help of a “program” or a “grant” or a “pathway” a simple request for a second chance has brought an avalanche of chances and potentially a story for the ages.