On democratic stirrings in China and Iran; the cruelty of the Cuban regime; the swastika in India and elsewhere; battling the hell of drug-and-alcohol addiction; and more
In the mid-1990s, there was a book by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (husband and wife): China Wakes. Very good book. I’ve thought of that phrase in recent days: “China wakes.”
Some very brave people in Tiananmen Square chanted, “We want universal values.” “We want freedom, equality, democracy, rule of law.” “We don’t want dictatorship.” “We don’t want personality cult.” They did the same in Shanghai.
As usual, the ruling Communists have charged that “foreign forces” are at work in the protests. In Beijing, students have responded as follows: “The ‘foreign forces’ you are talking about: Are they Marx and Engels?”
Many years ago, I spoke with a Falun Gong practitioner, who worked to defend his fellow practitioners against persecution. He said something like this: “The Communist Party says that we are ‘alien.’ In truth, our movement has deep roots in Chinese history and culture. You know what’s alien? Communism. They got this ideology from you, in the West! For example, a one-child policy is un-Chinese. The family has always been the center of our lives.”
And so on. In any event, may China wake to something better than one-party dictatorship.
• I wonder whether you caught this story: “Taiwan president resigns as party leader after election loss.” Anyone looking for Chinese democracy can find it in Taiwan. And if people in Taiwan can have it — why not on the mainland? (This is what affrights the Communists.)
• An Associated Press report begins,
Iran arrested a prominent former member of its national soccer team on Thursday over his criticism of the government as authorities grapple with nationwide protests that have cast a shadow over its competition at the World Cup.
That man — the arrestee — is Voria Ghafouri. Spare a thought. Incredibly brave dude.
• The Ukrainians are putting up a ferocious resistance against the Russians — fighting to the death against subjugation. Doing all they can to hold on to their freedom, their country, their identity. Chinese are stirring. Iranians are stirring. The idea of liberty is alive. Authoritarianism is not the only and inevitable path. Let the strongmen tremble.
• Longtime readers of this column are familiar with Cuba Archive, which does excellent work on that choked and battered country. A recent headline reads, “Not even Trujillo, Somoza, or Pinochet killed civilians trying to leave!” Listen to this:
On October 28, 2022, a boat of Cuba’s Border Guard intentionally rammed and sank a boat leaving from Bahía Honda bay, Artemisa province, with 23 people. Among the seven people killed was a 2-year-old girl traveling with her mother.
The article is here.
Cuba Archive has done a broader report, headed, “Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances of civilians attempting to flee Cuba.” The report begins,
Cuba’s totalitarian regime is the only government in Latin America’s history that systematically prevents its citizens from leaving the country and that kills them for trying.
Shouldn’t that be the very first right, or among them? The right to leave a place, if you don’t like it? Must an innocent person remain imprisoned his entire life?
• Deepa Bharath, of the Associated Press, has written a fascinating article: “Asian faiths try to save swastika symbol corrupted by Hitler.” When I first saw swastikas in India — actually, I think I saw pictures, before I went there — I was . . . surprised. But then I learned.
Ms. Bharath’s article begins,
Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down.
“My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a physician, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights.
Very, very contentious.
• Jae C. Hong and Brian Melley, also of the AP, have drawn a portrait of America: “Fentanyl’s scourge plainly visible on streets of Los Angeles.” They begin,
In a filthy alley behind a Los Angeles doughnut shop, Ryan Smith convulsed in the grips of a fentanyl high — lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering on a warm summer day.
• Stay with that theme: I was interested to read an obit of Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal. A psychiatrist, he founded Phoenix House, for the treatment of drug addicts.
He started Phoenix House in 1967 in a former flophouse on the Upper West Side of Manhattan after six addicts who had been in the detoxification unit at Beth Israel Medical Center asked for his help.
The program grew from there into a nationwide network that by the 1990s had residential treatment centers in 10 states . . .
There is hardly a slavery, hardly a hell, worse than addiction. This Mitchell Rosenthal spent his life trying to help the helpless, give hope to the hopeless. What a noble life. God bless him.
• A report from Arizona begins,
Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused Monday to certify the 2022 election despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count . . .
The refusal to certify by Cochise County in southeastern Arizona comes amid pressure from prominent Republicans to reject results showing Democrats winning top races.
I thought of a piece by Cameron Hilditch, then with National Review, now with The Dispatch. Democracy, he said, requires “loser’s consent.” Without it, you have no democracy.
• Senator Mitt Romney was talking about Donald Trump. “I voted to remove him from office twice,” he said. “I don’t think he should be president of the United States. I don’t think he should be the nominee of our party in 2024. And I certainly don’t want him hanging over our party like a gargoyle.”
Romney has been known for many things in his long and busy life, but he has not been known as a phrase-maker. Till now? “Hanging over our party like a gargoyle.” That could have legs.
• Trump people are enthusiastic about Trump, tout court. But anti-anti-Trumpers? When they defend him, they often begin by saying, “Supreme Court.” In that light, I thought a recent statement by the ex-president was interesting:
The Supreme Court has lost its honor, prestige, and standing, & has become nothing more than a political body, with our Country paying the price. They refused to even look at the Election Hoax of 2020. Shame on them!
• Mike Lindell, a.k.a. “The MyPillow Guy,” is challenging Ronna McDaniel — formerly Ronna Romney McDaniel — for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. If Lindell wins, I propose that he hold a series of press forums titled “Pillow Talk.”
• In a recent column, George F. Will hit on an important theme: Where the problem of want — material well-being, a full belly — has been largely solved, other problems rush to take its place. Says Will, “The fundamental economic problem of attaining subsistence having been banished by plenty, many hyper-politicized Americans have filled the void in their lives with the grim fun of venting their animosities.”
Isn’t that true. (And isn’t “grim fun” a superb oxymoron?)
• The Ohio State football program has a problem: They have gone 11–1, but they did not beat Michigan, as they did not last year. Therefore, OSU’s head coach, Ryan Day, is on the “hot seat.” Buckeye Nation is ticked.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the college-sports equivalent of “First World problems.” Almost every other program would kill to go 11–1 . . .
• Mike Gerson, the political writer, has passed away at 58. For his obit in the New York Times, go here. He had a beautiful pen, which expressed many beautiful thoughts. He was the epitome of the “faith-based conservative,” or the “compassionate conservative.”
He served as chief speechwriter to George W. Bush. Also as a close adviser. Thereafter, he was a columnist for the Washington Post.
Born in New Jersey, Gerson did most of his growing up in St. Louis. He went to Wheaton College, the “evangelical Harvard.” He majored in philosophy and Biblical studies. After college, he worked for Charles Colson, the ex–Nixon man who founded a prison ministry. Then Gerson worked for Dan Coats, the Indiana senator.
It was the issue of abortion that made Gerson a Republican. He was strongly against. Underlying his politics at large was a burning sense of justice — especially for the poor and vulnerable.
He made a mark.
• What else do I have for you? Oh, many things — but maybe I should wrap up. Maybe I could share a picture with you, which I took the other evening, or late afternoon. It’s of the Intrepid, on the Hudson River, in Manhattan, New York. I always think that the red-white-and-blue part looks like one of those popsicles — those patriotic popsicles. You remember?
Thanks for joining me, my friends, and have a good one.
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