{"id":739,"date":"2022-12-28T16:11:40","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T21:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thoughtsofstone.com\/?p=739"},"modified":"2022-12-29T17:14:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T22:14:18","slug":"if-we-dont-well-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoughtsofstone.com\/if-we-dont-well-die\/","title":{"rendered":"“IF WE DON’T, WE’LL DIE”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the USA in a Flight 93 situation?<\/em><\/p>\n

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United Airlines flight 93 was the one that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania on 9\/11\/01, instead of being flown into the US Capitol. The reason it crashed into a field in Pennsylvania was that a group of passengers, ordinary peace-loving Americans, put aside their fears of immediate harm from the edged weapons held by the hijackers and united with one goal: to storm the cockpit, kill the hijackers, and regain control of the plane. Although they didn\u2019t succeed in regaining control of the plane, they did at least induce the hijackers to crash it prematurely.<\/p>\n

These passengers had the advantage of knowing, from communications with people on the ground, what was up that morning\u2014and thus, what their hijackers probably intended to do with the plane. So really they knew they had nothing to lose. Among the many sounds the cockpit voice-recorder picked up in the final minutes of the flight, was that of a food cart being rammed against the cockpit door, and a cry from one of the passengers, \u201cIn the cockpit! If we don\u2019t, we\u2019ll die!\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia<\/a>, \u201cVice President Dick Cheney, in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center deep under the White House, authorized Flight 93 to be shot down, but upon learning of the crash, is reported to have said, \u2018I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He was right. But the heroism of the flight 93 passengers was a different kind of heroism than the lone-actor heroism we\u2019re more used to reading about. It was a heroism involving a coming-together, a coalescence, of people who could accomplish a heroic task only when in a \u201cunited state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rarity of that kind of coalescence nowadays points to a basic conundrum of human affairs, especially governance. In other words, even when a large mass of people has ample justification for rebelling against the relatively small group of individuals who control their lives, and ample means to do so\u2014if united<\/em>\u2014they almost never unite effectively.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Consider the recent unprecedented popular protests across China, which ultimately involved more than a dozen cities. The background was a general unhappiness concerning national and local \u201cCOVID zero\u201d policies, plus an even more general dissatisfaction with one-party rule. The triggers for protests were World Cup broadcasts from Qatar showing fans not wearing masks, and a deadly fire in a residential building in Urumqi that took firefighters hours to extinguish due to extreme local anti-COVID measures\u2014Urumqi had been locked down for months. As for the leadership of the protest movement . . . the movement seems to have been relatively leaderless<\/em> and spontaneous, driven chiefly by the circulation of Internet messages and images. That leaderlessness is unsurprising in China, where any dissident leader visible and vocal enough to shape and direct protests is likely to be swiftly bundled away by police. It also may have been the decisive factor, for these relatively leaderless protests were limited to public gatherings, and did not have clear goals other than the mass voicing of complaints. Ultimately, the Chinese government was able to climb down from their COVID policies without their tight control of the country being threatened significantly.<\/p>\n

A popular uprising against the government of Sri Lanka earlier this year was arguably more successful. The government, headed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and including some of his family members, was widely viewed as incompetent and corrupt, as Sri Lankans faced out-of-control inflation, power shortages, and other problems. When these stresses worsened and protests began, the government responded with repressive measures such as arrests and social media blackouts, exacerbating the situation. The protest movement eventually developed a leadership structure, including some firebrand student leaders. In July, a very large crowd of protesters stormed the Presidential palace in Colombo and Rajapaksa was forced to flee the country. However, the new government soon cracked down on the protest movement leaders, who apparently didn\u2019t have much support among the country\u2019s elites.<\/p>\n

There are also ongoing protest movements in Iran and Russia. The one in Iran is very prominent and broad-based, and has forced the Tehran regime to backpedal somewhat, but so far has failed to result in an overthrow of the theocratic regime\u2014which recently has started publicly executing protesters. The protest movement in Russia, against the Putin government and its Ukraine invasion, is hardly visible and seems to have achieved little if anything\u2014clearly many dissidents have opted to leave the country rather than stay and protest, while some higher-profile dissidents have been disposed of<\/a> via the now-classic Russian method of defenestration.<\/p>\n

Just looking at these examples, one can postulate that a popular political uprising, to have a decent chance of success, requires:<\/p>\n