CRYSTAL BALL 2006
The title is a tease – because contrary to what some think, I really don’t have a crystal ball. That’s because there’s no such thing as the future. How could there be – it hasn’t happened yet! What there are in reality is a large number of possible futures – some of which are more possible than others. The trick is to not confuse what you want to happen with what’s likely to happen to best handicap the possibilities. That’s not easy. I have to admit that 2005 has left a bad taste in my mouth. The dominant story of the year has to be the treasonously vicious and pathologically dishonest war of the liberal “mainstream” media and the Democrat Party waged relentlessly against the Presidency of George W. Bush. Yet I see 2006 as a far better year than 2005. Here’s why…
THE BEIJING EPIPHANY
When I began giving lectures on “The Coming Collapse of the Soviet Empire” in the early 1980s, I would put up a large world map on the wall and point to the enormous monochrome blob of the Soviet Union dwarfing and hulking over Europe and Asia. “I want you all to imagine what the world would be like if the Soviet Union ceased to exist, that it went the way of other empires of the past and vanished into history,” was my request of the audience. What I would always get was MEGO: my eyes glaze over, in response. The Soviet Union seemed such a permanent fixture of the world in the audience’s mind that they couldn’t imagine it going away. I remember when the CEO of a large corporation based in Los Angeles started to get it. He stared at the map in wide-eyed wonder and exclaimed, “Everything would be different!” He suddenly was looking at the world differently, and this new perception was exploding with new possibilities. He had had an epiphany. Not The Epiphany, the “revelatory manifestation of a divine being” as experienced by the Magi upon visiting the infant Jesus in the manger, traditionally celebrated January 6th. An epiphany is an insight into the nature of something that transforms the way you look at it. And that is what I want you to have regarding China.
Chapter Eighteen: THE TALE OF TACLAELEL
The Jade Steps Chapter Eighteen: The Tale of Taclaelel They arose the next morning at dawn. Cortez ordered a small altar be put up in the plaza, where the padres performed a Mass for the Spaniards. He returned to his quarters to find King Xicotencatl and a very dignified elderly man, at least as old as the king. “Malinche,” the king said through Malinali, “this is Chief Maxixcatzin (max-eeks-cot-zin, Ring of Cotton), lord of our region of Ocotelolco, and the military leader of all Tlaxcala who has protected us from the Mesheeka for many years.” Malinali’s eyes widened at the introduction, and took it upon herself to expand Cortez’s brief greeting of welcome.
THE NEXT WAR IN EUROPE
Andrei Illarionov resigned just in time. As an admirer of the capitalist philosophy of Ayn Rand and the laissez faire economics of Ludwig Von Mises, his resignation this week as Vladimir Putin’s chief economic advisor is a disaster for Russia. But his announcing that “Russia is no longer a democracy,” serves to keep intact the record of there never being a war between two democracies should war break out between Russia and Ukraine. For the day of Illarionov’s resignation (Tuesday, December 27), the Russian Defense Minister threatened to invade Ukraine.
HOW DANGEROUS IS WIKIPEDIA?
I have an admission to make: I have used Wikipedia for serious research. And in all the years I've been doing it, I've never really felt as if I've been led astray. But – a large but – I only use it for research in science or computing. Using the popular online encyclopedia for social, economic or political research calls for caution.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BELONGS IN JAIL
Finally, some good may come from the Valerie Plame kerfuffle -- if President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez have the stones to do what's right. A grave crime was exposed Dec. 16th when New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau published a story revealing President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to listen in on conversations between al Qaeda suspects abroad and people in the United States without first obtaining a warrant. "We're seeing clearly now that (President) Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator," wrote Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. But the scandal was not the program Risen and Lichtblau wrote about. The scandal is that they wrote about it.
WAR AND THE OLYMPICS
Last week was Europe. This week it’s Asia. I’ve been giving speeches and meeting with folks in Hong Kong, Singapore, and now here in Taiwan about how to democratize China. The text of one of these speeches, delivered at Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan, is a companion article following this, entitled, Freedom and Peace in China. The meetings with democracy activists discussed the extraordinary urgency in transforming dictatorship in China to democracy within the next 15 to 18 months. For that may be all the time Taiwan has before China attacks, and the US is drawn into a full scale war that could go all-out nuclear. The Beijing Olympics are to be held in the summer of 2008. That’s 32 months from now. For all the saber-rattling China has indulged in over Taiwan, most Taiwanese figure they’ve got until after 2008 before the Chicoms will consider a military assault upon them. It really startles them to hear they may have only months and not years to go.
FREEDOM AND PEACE IN CHINA
[This is the text of a speech I delivered at Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan, December 22, 2005.] I flew here today from Singapore. As we were flying over the South China Sea, I looked down and saw these beautiful islands – jewels of green and turquoise and white in an ocean of blue. They looked like paradise – but these, I recognized, were the Spratly Islands, claimed by China, even though they are much closer to the Philippines. In fact, if you had an official PRC government map of China, you would see that China claims the entire South China Sea as its territory, from the coasts of the Philippines and Vietnam all the way to Indonesia. 80% by value of the world’s shipping goes through the South China Sea. The countries of Asia cannot afford to let China seize this vital waterway and build military bases in the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China has no legitimate claim on the South China Sea whatever – yet China is risking war with its neighbors because of this totally absurd claim. Then the plane this morning reached the southern coast of Taiwan, and we flew along the entire length of the island to reach Taipei. As I looked down at the farmlands, the factories, the homes, villages, towns, and cities of Taiwan passing beneath me, I could not help thinking: the Communist rulers of China want to destroy all this, ruin these people’s lives, enslave them to their rule – and for what? Because all these people want is to be left alone. There is no possible way the 22 million people of Taiwan are a threat to the 1.3 billion people of China, any more there is no possible way China legally owns the entire South China Sea – yet China is willing to risk war merely because the people of Taiwan do not want their lives controlled and enslaved by the rulers of Beijing. This threat of war, the gigantic threat of China to Taiwan and all of China’s neighbors, has got to come to an end. And tonight we are going to talk about how to do it.
A CHRISTMAS LETTER ADDRESSED TO ANTI-CHRISTIANS
This was written a year ago for Christmas 2004. We will run it every Christmas season. Merry Christmas. If that offends you, why should I care? It’s your problem, not mine. Let me explain your problem a little more fully. America is a Christian country. It’s your job to deal with that, because you’re not going to change this fact. America has always been a Christian country, and - open wide now, because you’re going to have to swallow this - it will continue to be. It will continue to be because most Americans aren’t Euroweenies. They haven’t lost the moral courage to be proud of their country and their civilization. Notice the “most” - which you are not a part of. You are anti-Christian because you are anti-American. You are anti-American because you are anti-Western Civilization. You are anti-Western Civilization because you are afraid of and intimidated by the envy of the world’s impotent. Fear of being envied defines your soul.
WHICH SIDE IS CONGRESS – AND JOHN MCCAIN – ON?
There hasn't been a successful terrorist attack in the United States since Sep. 11th, 2001. Congress may be about to change that. Several critical provisions of the Patriot Act will expire at the end of the year, because a Democratic filibuster in the U.S. Senate blocked their renewal. Without these provisions, the FBI will lose most of its ability to track terrorists, the head of the FBI's national security division told the Washington Times. The most important of these provisions is for roving wiretaps, said Gary Bald. "We've had that capability for years on the drug side of the ship and frankly what it does is it cuts out the requirement for us to go back to a judge every time a drug dealer throws his cell phone into the river and gets another one." Before denying those who are trying to protect us from terrorists the tools law enforcement has had for years to wield against less dangerous criminals, Congress – thanks to Senator John McCain – moved to make it unlikely we will ever again get useful information from interrogation of terror suspects.