Let’s be clear: the enemy of democracy and liberalism continues to strike, this time in Pakistan.
They belong to many parties and many groups, but they continue to hit at the core of what makes liberty so appealing to so many people around the world: individual’s standing up for individual rights. Totalitarians and theocrats will continue to attack those who don’t toe the line, and don’t submit to control. Benazir Bhutto may be corrupt, and she may very well not be liberal whatsoever, but the simple fact that she was attacked for speaking as a women says just about everything you need to know about those who were responsible for these attacks.
London, New York, Karachi…it is an attack on the same basic principle liberal’s the world over believe in, and is something worth fighting. I only hope my fellow liberals who have argued that the world we presently live within is GW’s fault, awaken to the reality we all face.
This is simply another example of why we must confront the force before us, and not cower before it. Liberty is worth standing up for.
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7 comments:
Well said - it is a sad reality that in this day and age a person cannot hold a public meeting without risking attack.
It would be wonderful to fight for these rights without having to go to war - but is there any other solution? What rational explanation could these terrorists bring? Is it cause she's a woman, or against the regime?
Such an attack was not just aimed at Bhutto - but on democracy as a whole - its aim was to discourage any opposition and anyone from speaking out for what they believe in.
No one would say the attack on Bhutto was G.W.'s fault, but the motivations behind it are very similar to those that Bush himself exudes. Censorship, polarization, and parochial view of the world are all part of the President's modus operandi; you can say that they're not, but you'd be met with strong, convincing opposition. All you'd need to do was turn on your TV and tune into one of his speeches to prove yourself wrong.
The veil of ignorance stretches from San Francisco and New York to Berlin, Tehran and Tokyo. We are all guilty, but some of us want to change and some of us want to "stay the course."
Hector:
The tactics of Bush-Co are nothing like the ones used by those who blew up a slew of innocent people at a parade for an opposition candidate that happens to be a woman and a supporter of human rights. It is that type of relativism (ie “Bush has done bad things as well”) that goes to show most folks need to rethink the point of liberalism in this world, and whether it is worth fighting for.
…and just look at some of the comments made here. To some people, Bush is the cause of all ill in this world. That is the sad truth many on the left have fallen into.
Speaking of "liberty" I find the new book The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein to be a very thorough-going deconstruction of the Chicago Boys world-wide "freedom" crusade.
All the reviews I've read of "The Shock Doctrine," claim Klein plays fast and loose with the facts and lacks the tools of basic economic analysis. Here is one example:
http://www.nysun.com/article/63867
The energy of the book is real and there is no doubt it will mobilize most of its readers to higher levels of outrage and action. It's probably the most effective brand of emotional nonfiction to be published this year. But when it comes to the underlying message, and the standards of evidence used to support it, "The Shock Doctrine" is a true economics disaster.
I just bought Shock Doctrine, and I am so far not impressed. From what I have read thus far, I can see that she is going for the “neo-liberalism is the cause of all strife and chaos in the world” and is willing to use far flung generalizations and outright distortions to do it.
She also seems to peg our future on the Swedish model of socialism, but low and behold, even that nation has been adopting Freidman’s reforms to improve their nation’s economic standing.
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