« The President’s Cigarette Habit | Main | The Libyan Conundrum »
February 18, 2011
How do we correct mistakes we can't admit?
Today there much greater awareness of the connection between economic and emotional depression than existed in the Thirties, but it’s also true that there are well over twice as many people on Earth and waves of angry demonstrations in Middle Eastern Capitals and synchronous eruptions in Midwestern American states seem to have caught most political pundits by surprise. It’s at such times that an accurate analysis would seem to be most important; however fear-driven haste and impatience become difficult to avoid and crucial mistakes become more likely.Such times also drive home another point: governments now exist at the pleasure of the populations they rule; once they have completely lost credibility as rulers, they are rarely saved by force alone. As Hosni Mubarak discovered last week and the shocking fate of the Ceacescus demonstrates so vividly: once an autocrat's credibility diminishes beyond a certain point, nothing can save them.
Death isn't always obligatory; all three Axis leaders surrendered power in 1945, but with significant differences. Mussolini and his mistress were murdered and hung by their heels in a Milan gas station by Italian communists. Three days later, Hitler married his mistress just before their mutual suicide in a Berlin bunker (but with Adolph's authority intact). Hirohito, survived for decades by giving a speech that allowed his people to surrender. That freed them from had been considered obligatory suicide and thus preserved what eventually became became a peaceful, prosperous post-war rehabilitation.
Although the aftermath of the Second Word War was severely troubled by the Cold War, the winners successfully avoided a global nuclear conflict; perhaps because they were deterred just enough by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A great bonus is that the crowded European peninsula now seems committed to seeking prosperity through cooperation rather than armed conflict.
However serious new religious and economic fault lines have become uncovered elsewhere in the world. They are especially dangerous because, as 9/11 demonstrated, they cross national borders, and are fueled by religious fervor and suicidal resentment. Thus with a modicum of technical aptitude the artifacts of modern science can converted into devastating weapons. Another crucial characteristic, one that may hopefully impede all but the most fanatic, an implied need for indiscriminate mass murder. That limitation, together with some luck, may be why 9/11 hasn't been replicated; however several near misses remind us that grave danger still exists.
In the same vein, it should also be remembered that recovery from the present economic crisis is not guaranteed and we still face unsettling climatic, tectonic, and epidemiological problems our political leadership seem incapable of understanding, let alone solving.
In that context, I see our feckless drug war as metaphor, symptom, and contributing cause of our unprecedented existential malaise. While still tentative and by no means conclusive, the prognosis for complete recovery must remain guarded.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at February 18, 2011 05:10 AM