The Fall of Wuhan
February 24, 2020·14 comments
A corrupt political response is always the same. It never changes in form. It never changes in function.
A corrupt political response occurs when a political leader sacrifices national interest for regime or bureaucratic interest ... when a constructed narrative of "Yay, Calm and Competent Control!" is maintained for the political benefit of the Leader at the expense of the Led.
Oh, the Leader and his flunkies will convince themselves that the narrative "is in the public interest" ... that the narrative will "buy them time" ... that the narrative is necessary because "the other side" would do the same or worse if given half a chance. It's all the excuses that all the Renfields to all the professional politicians tell themselves as they slowly sell their souls. It's what every President and every Director-General and every Senator and every CEO eventually comes to believe, that their personal interests are identical to "their" people's interests.
Corrupt political responses occur all the time. Literally every day, all over the world. It's not a left/right thing. It's not a Democrat/Republican thing. It's not a Chinese thing or an American thing or a Russian thing. It's a power thing. It's a high-functioning sociopath thing.
Not only are corrupt political responses as common as rain, they're almost never big deals. It's not treason. It's not Benedict Arnold selling a map of West Point. It's petty stuff. It's patronage appointments. It's log-rolling. It's pork barrel politics. Who's gonna notice? Who's hurt?
Precisely because these corrupt political responses are so commonplace and so quotidian, they are almost never revealed publicly. I mean, sometimes you have a "whistleblower" listening in on your petty corrupt bargaining with the Ukrainian President or some such, and it blows up into a bit of a tempest, but that's the exception rather than the rule. And even so, these normal-time reveals are almost always tempests in teacups ... full of sound and fury, but no more than that.
But every once in a very great while, an honest-to-god crisis reveals the consequences of your petty everyday corruption, consequences that are paid in the LIVES of those who trusted you to be better.
Every once in a very great while, an honest-to-god crisis reveals the political self-interest and mendacity behind your carefully constructed narrative of "Yay, Calm and Competent Control!".
Like the fall of New Orleans revealed George W. Bush.
Like the fall of Wuhan revealed Xi Jinping.
What we must prevent today is the NEXT city to fall.
We must prevent the fall of Daegu. We must prevent the fall of Qom. We must prevent the fall of Milan. Looking ahead, we must prevent the fall of Yokohama. We must prevent the fall of San Francisco.
Because containment has failed.
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