China is a great example of a government adapting to its people's demands. It is a dramatically different place than in 1989. We can think whatever we want about their situation now, but it is the Chinese people who judge whether their government is worthy of the people's trust.
The Soviet system failed because the model they implemented could not meet their people's basic needs. You can talk all you want about external factors, but the basic truth is that our system is under pressure from corruption, greed, an unnecessary war in Afghanistan, other military deployments, oil price manipulation, and all the rest - and it hasn't failed yet, because our model has for the most part still been able to meet people's needs. It's quite an achievement, really. America is different than the USSR or China, though. We have higher expectations of personal liberty. Just look at the quote from Kissinger about people welcoming UN troops if things get bad enough. The people in charge understand that they need the consent of the governed in order to carry out whatever plans they have. If the objective is taking over the US with UN troops, then the goal is to create as much domestic chaos as possible in order to get people to acquiesce to the presence of UN troops to "protect them". If the objective is to introduce a police state under the cover of national security, then the goal is to scare people badly enough that they welcome the police state to protect them from the "bad guys". Hence the War on Terror. Of course, Islamic jihadism isn't scaring people badly enough. Americans still want freedom, so the "new fear" is right wing terror, with patriotic veterans serving as the bogeymen to gin up support for anti-gun laws, warrantless wiretapping, and other features of the police state. All the arguing about the Left did this, the Right did that is just a distraction to hide what is being done, systematically, to reduce personal liberty and freedom. If you get punched in the face with a left hook, then punched in the face with a right hook, you don't say, "I hate and fear that left arm! I hate and fear that right arm!" You say, "I just got punched in the face!" We all need to recognize that we're being punched in the face and stop arguing about which arm is doing the punching. For Dune fans, remember the Bene Gesserit litany against fear: *I must not fear. * Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.*<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Gesserit#cite_note-Dune-1> * We must not fear. On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 11:46 PM, Maureen <[email protected]> wrote: > > Chaos, corruption, greed, an unnecessary war in Afghanistan, and oil price > manipulation by the Saudis brought down the Soviet government. There was > no open rebellion to be put down by the government. Unlike the Chinese a > la Tiananmen Square. > > How much consent you gonna give when facing down a tank? > > On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Robert Munn <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Total firepower superiority in the hands of the federal government didn't > > save the USSR. It's all about the consent of the governed, folks ... > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:354130 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
