Tag Archives: Politics

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Ukraine – This is not the end of the beginning

I will admit I am rather surprised to see this level of violence.  You would think Uncle Vladimir would have asked Cousin Viktor to hold off for at least for another week until people can no longer spell Sochi.  I think a couple of things are at work here:

–  The vast majority of the protestors appear to have accepted the government’s amnesty and abandoned their posts over this last weekend

–  This left a very small (perhaps about 20 thousand) but hardcore group who desire neither amnesty or the status quo

–  Cousin Viktor decided to use this window of opportunity to dispense with this hardcore group before the more moderate opposition realized he was playing them for fools and got back on the streets

–  Cousin Viktor may have been told to wait for a week by Uncle Vladimir; but likely told him to go back to watching figure skating; Viktor knows a week may have closed out his window; thus the assault on Maidan

The security forces’ attack did not go according to plan.  Syria has shown what you need to truly crush this kind of revolt:  An army or police force that is willing to employ automatic weapons against unarmed civilians like it’s the Fourth Reich come to life.

At this point, the Ukrainian forces aren’t willing to do that.  So what they confronted was a highly organized, motivated, and disciplined protest force.  The hardcore opposition was apparently planning for this kind of battle for weeks.  As the security forces aren’t willing to use their overwhelming lethal force, you get stalemate and chaos.

Some countries are perhaps not meant to be.  I heard an interesting stat on the radio yesterday.  About 40% of Ukraine’s population supports the protests, while 40% support the government, leaving 20% who are too dazed or stupid to respond to reality.  However, a very large majority from both sides do not support Cousin Viktor.  This is not a recipe for a sustained nation.  You can easily see how the Russian eastern half could make a push to remain in charge or transfer to Russia while the western half goes elsewhere.  Anybody think this will all occur cleanly?

This is only going to get worse.  A line is now crossed.  When this much blood is shed, emotions & then positions harden.  Cousin Viktor is now about to learn a very important lesson of our cowardly post-modern world.  When you spill your citizen’s blood, it’s not as bad as you think.  I suspect he’ll actually be rather surprised at how little the UN, EU, and/or USA will do to him and his ruling elite.  A lot of talk will occur, but Viktor’s going to discover that he can still act while everybody else talks.  Then the only limiting factor on whether he can remain in power is how willing he is to kill and whether his men are willing to obey the orders to slay their neighbors.  Either way it’s going to be awful.

maidan19feb

“I am the hand of God, the fate of all lies in the decision I make.”

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Is this what they fought for?

Many of you went to bed last night dreaming of dresses you saw on The Grammy’s or of the bizarre sight of NFL players chasing down members of their own team.

Either way, while a good portion of the world slept, the Egyptian army fired live rounds at young democracy protestors.  Note that this wasn’t a group of Muslim Brotherhood members; but university students of the same category as those who disposed of Hosni Mubarak three years ago.  Today we also learned that General Sisi (I stopped using the term Field Marshall to describe active ranks in 1946) has the approval of the army to run for president.  So what does that mean in today’s Arab world?  General Sisi is the next president of Egypt.

So if you were a student dodging small arms fire yesterday how would you feel as you went to sleep?  Well, I gather about the same as a pro-democracy campaigner in Damascus, a trade union affiliate in South Africa, or a human rights crusader in Burma.

As I look at history I am drawn to two inescapable conclusions regarding these matters:

1)  Most revolutions, rebellions, & uprisings are ultimately hijacked by assholes who care only for their own self-interest and/or enrichment.

2)  If democracy is the pinnacle of human government, it is also the hardest to achieve.

Want to do away with a dictator?  Want freedom, justice, and the good way of life?  Well, don’t we all.  If you live in a country that does not possess these things you can either escape or prepare for the long haul.

Magna Carta is eight centuries old and the British republic is still under development.  At the other end, there are probably turtles older than the American constitution.  Some countries with absolutely no precedent of it, like Japan, figured it out relatively quickly.  Look at any of these countries’ history and I offer that the road was hard, awful, and it took a really long time.  Everybody wants to be free; but be prepared to earn it, it takes forever.

And so I offer just a few points for those in Ukraine who are just getting things kicked off.  Call them little reminders you should bear in mind as you dodge tear gas, rubber bullets, Satan, mad cow disease, live rounds, and generally hope what you’re doing matters:

1)  Look to your left, and then to your right.  Odds are one of them is a criminal who does not care about your cause and is just there for kicks.  The other one is a coward who is wrapped up in the moment and will be gone by next week.

2)  Your opposition leaders are just as bad as the people you’re kicking out.  If you think once they’re in power that you can change the rules of the game, you’ll quickly find out the game is the same, just with different players.

3)  The international community does not care about you or your cause and will not lift a finger to aid you.  You’re going to have to do it on your own.

4)  Your country does not possess the institutions necessary to support liberty.  You’re going to have to build them over decades while at every turn people will battle you to maintain the status quo.

5)  If you mean it, then this is your life’s work.  Not a few months on the streets.  You’re going to have to fight, every day, for the rest of your life.  Always watchful, vigilant, and brawling for a better tomorrow.  Even if you succeed, it’ll be a grinding, tough life.  All you can do is hope by your sacrifice that later generations will live the freedom you have bought them.  And maybe if you’re lucky and good at it, you’ll get a little taste of it before you check out.

Do you find these conditions unappealing?  Then stay home.

thejob

Hardest job on the planet after Bear Baiter.

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Syria – This circus tent needs to collapse

This blog will address Syria in greater detail later.  Suffice to say, this is a complicated issue that Jesus would have trouble solving.  And he’s freaking Jesus!  I know what also won’t solve it though, the international diplomacy racket.

Let’s say you’re a Syrian army solider, a rebel, and/or a civilian in the back streets of an Aleppo suburb.  The army just conducted another mortar strike on the apartment block next to the market.  The rebels are trying to get the next shipment of rockets up before the army rolls in the heavy armor.  But it really doesn’t matter if they get the gear up in time, because the entire neighborhood is trashed so they’ll fight meter-for-meter anyways.  If the civilians are still there it’s because they have nowhere else to go.  Everybody’s exhausted, oh, and they’re all probably starving too.  Happy new year, Earth.

Now if this was your reality, would you think what happens in Geneva is important?  For these people, Geneva might as well be the third planet from Arcturus and the Arcturans are arguing over who stole the krypton from the office mess kitty.  Friends, you’ve got to understand, Yan-rek likes the powdered krypton right where he left it.  How else is he to find it in the morning before he’s had his first cup?

Since nobody has an answer for Syria, you might say this conference is at least worth a shot because it can’t possibly do more harm than good.  Well, if you think this, you’re an idiot.  When the attention of all these politicians is on a conference that can’t possibly accomplish a damn thing, I guarantee you there’s something else that isn’t getting done.  Like how five million refugees are going to get fed for the next few years?  Oh, by the way, the UN doesn’t have enough cash for them all.  The Geneva hotel budget alone could probably feed the country for a week though, but who cares.

Friends, this is another topic we’ll hit later.  What I consider the blatant incompetent narcissism of the international diplomatic community.  They all actually think this is important, that they can accomplish something.  If you want to know what it looked like when diplomats were so useless that World War One got started, I think it was something like this.  I’m sure a lot of them are genuinely good people who are trying to do the right thing, but sorry, they’ve already failed before it started.

“Wednesday’s initial meeting, involving speeches from 40 or so foreign ministers – has now ended. The direct talks are scheduled to begin in Geneva on Friday.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25836827

Yes, friends, forty.  Forty foreign ministers.

But it’s okay because the real talks are still two days away.  Cue cash-register sounds for Geneva hotelier.

Oh, and it would appear once again Ban Ki-moon has shown he is not in touch with reality:

“At a fractious evening news conference, during which there were repeated calls for calm, Mr Ban spoke of the suffering in Syria, saying: ‘Enough is enough. The time has come to negotiate.’

Uh, Ban, he’s killed like over a hundred-thousand people.  I don’t think he’s interested in talking.  Maybe you could ask his foreign minister that over the ten-thousand dollar a plate dinner tonight?

Again, there’s no easy answer here.  But let’s at least be honest to those people in Aleppo.  If Ban isn’t saying this:

“Enough is enough. The time has come to negotiate.  Stop the killing by close of business, Friday.  If you don’t, we’ll destroy you and your regime.”

Then nothing is going to change.

morons

“We’re all fucking useless!”

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Peace be with you; but we still desire to kill you all

So I figured a good plan for the first real post is to pick an idea that is simple, uncontroversial, and generally uplifting.  Accordingly, it seems smart to talk international politics!

When you woke up this morning, you may have heard that Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe had kidnapped the Chinese & South Korean ambassadors and executed them in Shinjuku Square, right next to the Yoshinoya.  Then you likely did a double take inside your brain and realized they were just talking about a temple.  In a world that has a lot going on, this is front page news across the world.  So this is important right?  Well worth the attention and concern of the human race?  Well, no, not really.  Let’s discover why friends!

A little background for those who follow the length and color of Miley’s hair.  The Second World War was an apocalyptic struggle pitting the descendants of Norse Vikings against the International League of Women Voters for dominance of the trade routes to the Crab Nebula.  It was also a war of ideas, big ones.  One of the more under-appreciated standards to emerge was the concept that it’s generally not okay to invade, conquer, and commit genocide against your neighbors.  By any reasonable understanding of history, this is what Japan did to China & Korea (among others).  Yasukuni Shrine is where all of Japan’s war dead are honored, including such upstanding world citizens as several Class A war criminals.   Times change but now sixty years later Prime Minster Abe decides to pay a visit to Yasukuni, and you’d think the bodies were still warm.  Well for some people I guess they are.  It can be hard to forget and forgive, particularly if in your family’s history somebody checked out early courtesy of the Imperial Japanese Army.

For most I hope, the bodies are cold and the war is long over.  Let’s say you’re an eighteen year old Chinese man, in perhaps Shanghai, who is about to embark on your great life journey.  We’ll call him Mister Shanghai.  In the year 2090 he’d look back on his life’s work as his robot heart failed and see how his country essentially bought the human race.  Mister Shanghai would imagine all the ups and downs, the struggles, and the happiness and I’m pretty sure at no point would he even care to remember who Abe was.  So as Mister Shanghai strolls down Nanjing Road the media, his government, and a whole bunch of folks he’s never met would like him to care deeply that Abe-san has paid homage to a bunch of dead guys.

Here is a classic example of a theme this blog will visit again and again.  Abe’s government, the media, the Chinese government, anybody with something to gain, desperately wants Mister Shanghai to be angry.  Very angry.  There are any number of reasons why.  Let’s just generally mark it that everybody mentioned has something to gain from a continuing cycle of hate, mistrust, and rage.  Everybody but the regular people of Japan, China, and Korea.

It’s probably not helpful to the future of the planet that Abe decided to mark his nationalism card, but it doesn’t actually change anything.  It’s image, spin, and noise.  International diplomacy folks will instruct you on how much this matters, the earthshaking change it will induce.  But the dirty little secret is this:  Ignored, it’s meaningless.

If you’re Mister Shanghai, I offer this as your canned response to those who are telling you how to think:  “Friends!  Yes, I’ve heard what Abe did.   Thanks for trying to help me friends, I’m good on my own.  That’s not very nice of him, but I honestly don’t give a shit.  That was sixty years ago, and I’m just going to be the better man and ignore it.   I’ve got a life, with real problems, so I’ll work those right now thanks.  And if I meet a Japanese man on the street, I’ll shake his hand and ask him how his day has been.”

Is such a sentiment too unrealistic and forgiving for the average man on the street?  It all depends on what world you desire in 2090.  Let’s hope Mister Shanghai rows along.

privatecitizen