Good News Every Morning

Every morning we wake up to hear and/or read about the next bad thing that happened in the world: people killed in protests that turned violent, more bodies found after devastating earthquake and little to no survivors, children swept away unexpectedly by flooding, dictator vows credibly to kill his people, another country unable to support its debt levels and needs immediate assistance, pirates hijack ship and kill hostages.  And the list goes on.  But good and newsworthy things happen every day too, we just don’t usually find out about them.  MSNBC provides the good news.  On its website, entitled Wonderful World, MSNBC reports on the positive news of the day: people winning lotteries, saving lives, finding their long lost possessions and loved ones, making extraordinary contributions to charities.  This list also goes on.  You can subscribe to the RSS feed and cheer yourself up, every morning.   

Happy Presidents' Day

The United States has the best presidents ever.  Barack Obama, the current U.S. president, is the most powerful man in the world today.  He is an accomplished attorney, politician and humanitarian, and there is no doubt he will continue to participate in politics and help solve global issues well after his presidency.  George W. Bush, who surprisingly served two terms as U.S. President, was a bit of a miss on the global and domestic political front, as he has decided to quit politics altogether.  And the real success story of our presidents today has to be Bill Clinton, who is widely believed to be the "President of the World."  Watch the Chris Matthews President of the World special with Bill Clinton tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT.  

No Cookie Cutter Protests

The Egyptian revolution that led to the resignation of Hosni Mumbarak was successful by many measures:  It took only 18 days of relatively peaceful protests and demonstrations to convince Mumbarak, who had been in power for about thirty years, to step down.  The Egyptian military was instrumental in maintaining order and largely ensuring orderly proceedings during the demonstrations; and still the death toll ended up at around 365, with 5500 more treated for injuries.  Mumbarak has said, and it isn't hard to believe, that he initially thought he had the majority support of the people, and that the beginnings of the protest were led by some minority dissenters.  Once the contrary became apparent--that the majority in fact was out on the streets protesting--Mumbarak quickly requested that his newly appointed vice president announce his resignation, and left the country.    

The success did not go unnoticed, and countries in the Middle East and Africa--including Libya, Kuwait, Yemen, Morocco, Bahrain, Iraq, Southern Sudan, and several others--have taken to the streets to overthrow their governments.  Even China led protests and demonstrations for reform.  While some countries may be successful in overthrowing their governing regime and obtaining reform, the costs will be much higher than they were in Egypt.  

Egypt had a unique combination of factors that led to its successful revolution: a non-corrupt military, a leader who through he was doing what was best for the people, and a united people with the same end goal in mind.  Because no two countries are the same--and most don't have the factors present in Egypt--cookie cutter protests can't be expected to have the same results worldwide.  Repressive leaders are even more determined to fight back after seeing what happened in Egypt.  Protesters may rebel because they are unhappy, but it's unclear that all of them want the same outcome for their nations.  Most importantly, there isn't anyone readily available to take charge and maintain peace in a non-dictator way once a government has been overthrown in most places.  The protests happening now are likely to have devastating death tolls and disruption, with unpredictable consequences for the state of each country involved.  But there is a point when people are left with no other choice, and that time may be now.