http://donklephant.com/2006/01/16/uprisings-everywhere/ Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:03:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://donklephant.com/2006/01/16/uprisings-everywhere/comment-page-1/#comment-5222 Antiquated Tory Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:13:24 +0000 http://donklephant.com/2006/01/16/uprisings-everywhere/#comment-5222 Good Lord, Cicero, where to begin? 1. A sharp economic downturn and massive unrest may not lead to the Chinese people 'reclaiming their freedom and dignity.' Historically in China it has lead to the collapse of central authority and its replacement with smaller states fighting over the remnants, which in turn leads to lots of dead peasants. A Chinese friend of mine with an interest in history believes this is a cycle driven by 2000 years of overpopulation; once the population has dropped to a maintainable level, a sufficiently competent smaller unit can rise to claim the mandate of heaven. 2. The President of Iran is a populist. This means his appeal is to the masses. He might not be popular with the educated urban middle class (one joke popular among this class: Q: Why does the President part his hair in the middle? A: To keep the male and female fleas separate.) but don't think that this means he isn't popular with the country as a whole. He did win an election, even if the most popular option was "This election is meaningless and I'm staying home." Furthermore, building an A-bomb has been popular across a large cross-section of Iranians for some time now. A 'democratic,' 'reform' government is quite likely to go nuclear, although of course it would be less of a threat once so armed. Good Lord, Cicero, where to begin?
1. A sharp economic downturn and massive unrest may not lead to the Chinese people ‘reclaiming their freedom and dignity.’ Historically in China it has lead to the collapse of central authority and its replacement with smaller states fighting over the remnants, which in turn leads to lots of dead peasants. A Chinese friend of mine with an interest in history believes this is a cycle driven by 2000 years of overpopulation; once the population has dropped to a maintainable level, a sufficiently competent smaller unit can rise to claim the mandate of heaven.
2. The President of Iran is a populist. This means his appeal is to the masses. He might not be popular with the educated urban middle class (one joke popular among this class: Q: Why does the President part his hair in the middle? A: To keep the male and female fleas separate.) but don’t think that this means he isn’t popular with the country as a whole. He did win an election, even if the most popular option was “This election is meaningless and I’m staying home.” Furthermore, building an A-bomb has been popular across a large cross-section of Iranians for some time now. A ‘democratic,’ ‘reform’ government is quite likely to go nuclear, although of course it would be less of a threat once so armed.

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