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At the height of the crackdown against the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Albert Camus warned French leftists not to allow political "expediency any precedence over regard for truth." The western left that ignored or, worse, justified the suffocation of Budapest, Camus thundered, "was in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable of merely stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with the truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws." Today – with a century of catastrophic lapses in judgment in hindsight – too many western progressives are still trapped by the same "systematic relativism" that threatens the "death of intelligence."

When young, circus elephants are attached by heavy chains to large stakes driven deep into the ground. They pull and yank, but the chain is too strong, the stake too rooted. One day they give up, having learned that they cannot pull free, and from that day forward they can be "chained" with a slender rope. When this enormous animal feels any resistance, though it has the strength to pull the whole circus tent over, it stops trying. Because it believes it cannot.

"You will never amount to anything. You cannot sing. You are not smart enough. You are a loser. You should have more realistic goals. You are the reason our marriage broke up. Without you kids I would have had a chance. You are worthless." This opera is being sung in homes all over America right now, the stakes driven into the ground, the heavy chains attached, the children reaching the point they believe they cannot pull free. And at that point, they cannot.

Unless and until something changes their view, unless they grasp the striking fact that they are tied with a thread, that the chain is an illusion, that they were fooled, and ultimately, that whoever so fooled them was wrong about them and that they were wrong about themselves -- unless all this happens, these children are not likely to show society their positive attributes as adults.

You can arrest Andy Coulson, you can sack two hundred journalists, and take the News of the World off the face of the earth, but the problem will not go away. News is in crisis, but believing that it is a crisis stemming from the lies, deceitfulness, and illegality of hacking is misplaced. Understanding the roots of the crisis requires a critical interrogation of the terms on which newspapers in operate.

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Tempting as it is to simply turn away, it is important for democrats to understand the pro-tyrant left. It is vastly influential on campuses and its ideas are trickling down into the wider culture. In the short twentieth century, the rise of Stalinism, a reactionary but non-capitalist social system, disorientated the left -- bar some fragments -- more or less completely.

There was a slow scouring out of the habits of mind, the sensibilities and the values of an older left-wing culture that had been rooted in the Enlightenment, the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century, and the ethical socialism of the mass European labor movements. In its place was put power-worship, authoritarianism, and a cult of the transformative power of revolutionary violence.

Crucially, in the 1960s and 1970s, while the New Left innovated in the realm of culture and personal relations, when it came to geopolitics it mostly fell into line as cheerleader or apologist for one authoritarian “progressive” after another. As this New Left aged and drifted to the faculties and publishing houses it declared itself to be anti-anti-communist. In practice, it blamed America first.

After the collapse of its global alternative to liberal capitalism, the pro-tyrant left simply refused to rethink. Rather than give up either its Manichean view of a world composed of two camps of progress and reaction, it recreated both by substituting an implacable negativism, centred on a conception of America as the “Great Satan,” in the place of what had been a coherent (if wrong-headed and tyrannical) program for social reconstruction.

After 1989, and especially after 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the old idea that Stalinism (its crimes notwithstanding) was objectively progressive against the West, morphed into the idea that all opposition to "US imperialism" or "Empire" was a "resistance" or "multitude" that must be (its crimes notwithstanding) supported, or at least not opposed energetically.

This pro-tyrant left thinks it holds the key to the entire world in the palm of its hand. If America is opposed to a tyrant, then -- there is some dubious logic here, but this really is the crucial move -- the tyrant must be opposing America. And -- this is the last stretch, stay with me -- therefore the tyrant is an "anti-imperialist" and, objectively, "progressive."

These ideas have been adopted in softer forms throughout the culture. We see it in the refusal of emotional commitment to the West in its battles against dictators and terrorists, the refusal to credit the West with anything but malign intent, the tendency to blame ourselves when we are attacked, and the pathological refusal to see plain the nature of forces such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

The specter of fascist resurgence may not be far beneath the peaceful veneer of any nation. Even the most ostensibly free and open societies are not immune to fascism's lure -- including places like Palo Alto. What came to be known as the "Third Wave" began at Cubberly High School in Palo Alto as a game without any direct reference to Nazi Germany, says Ron Jones, who had just begun his first teaching job in the 1966-1967 academic year.

When a social studies student asked about the German public's responsibility for the rise of the Third Reich, Jones decided to try and simulate what happened in Germany by having his students "follow instructions" for a day. But one day turned into five, and what happened by the end of the school week spawned several documentaries, studies and related social experiments illuminating a dark side of human nature -- and a major weakness in public education.

The Serbian capital is home to the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an organization run by young Serbs who had cut their teeth in the late 1990s student uprising against Slobodan Milosevic. After ousting him, they embarked on the ambitious project of figuring out how to translate their success to other countries.

To the world's autocrats, they are sworn enemies, but to a young generation of democracy activists from Harare to Rangoon to Minsk to Tehran, the young Serbs are heroes. They have worked with democracy advocates from more than 50 countries. They have advised groups of young people on how to take on some of the worst governments in the world.

In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and activist, went to Belgrade, where he took a week-long course in the strategies of nonviolent revolution. He learned how to organize people -- not on a computer, but in the streets. And most importantly, he learned how to train others. He went back to Egypt and began to teach.

We have seen how the Chinese society has collapsed and how the younger generation is suffering. China's autocratic regime has become an organization that merely shares the booty, and is becoming more and more fascistic day by day. The political system is rotten and corruption has run amok. The independence of the courts is being reversed. Government officials and their children have monopolized all resources.

Chinese society has become extremely polarized; there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor. Prices are rising, especially real estate prices, causing seething popular discontent. China's human rights situation is dismal, arbitrary detentions and kidnappings are widespread. News are heavily censored. The Constitution performs practically no function; people's property is recklessly plundered and demolished.

We feel that the root of all these problems lies with China's autocratic regime. What makes us even more troubled is that the rulers are closing off communication channels. We only possess a virtual space where we can feel that we exist. Last week, we initiated China's "Jasmine Revolution," hoping to gain momentum from the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. We urge China to reform or change.

http://www.google.com/buzz/116452835947032961239/gr5jen69Gjz/We-are-the-initiators-of-the-jasmine

The rule of law is a universal value, as are human rights. In Russia, I have met with "sovereign democracy" as some sort of opponent to human rights. In Asia, I have met with "Asian values." I do not think human dignity is minimised because of the colour of your skin. I think that human dignity is minimised because elites have an economic interest in screwing people. That is one of the reasons why I am not just a human rights lawyer; I believe that much of the political repression we see is economic in nature. The older I get, the more I respect Karl Marx.

With a deep investment in the status quo, Israel is watching what a senior official calls "an earthquake in the Middle East" with growing concern. A minister in the Israeli government said the Jewish state had faith in the Egyptian security apparatus to suppress the street demonstrations that threatened Mubarak's dictatorial rule. "I am not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process," the minister said.