Hello Reader,
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Welcome to the one-year anniversary edition of Dispatches from the Rebellion! Fifty episodes chronicling the eternal struggle between liberty and control.
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As Trump rolls out the red carpet for a tyrant, real freedom fighters battle tyranny across the globe. Today: China's nationwide uprising, Mexico's war on cartel bosses, and a 12-year-old boy’s transformation from refugee to democracy’s greatest champion.

The Global Fight Against Tyranny

1. Violent Chinese Teens Fuel Uprising
2. Mexico's "Iron Lady" Crushes Cartels
3. Finland's Trump Whisperer Ridicules Putin
4. Ivorian Opposition Floods the Streets: "Enough!"
5. Israel's Fanatic Strangles the West Bank

Country names are followed by their 2025 freedom scores according to Freedom House. Not a ranking.

New: Featured, Longer, Story
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​In July, three teenage girls led a 14-year-old victim to an empty building in Jiangyou, where they kicked, slapped and verbally tormented her, filming every moment. When video of the incident began circulating on August 2nd, the brutal assault went viral on Chinese social media—shooting near the top of Weibo's trending chart—before the censors swept in.
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When police finally responded over a day later, calling the injuries "mild" and giving the attackers mere “corrective education”, fury erupted into the streets.
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Dozens of protesters surrounded government buildings. "Do you really think that's a minor injury?" one shouted at police, shoving his phone screen toward them. "You also have kids?" another demanded. Outrage over the incident intensified after learning the victim's mother was deaf. The crowd swelled to hundreds before baton-wielding police charged, hauling away protesters.
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The Jiangyou outrage represents just one eruption in a nationwide rebellion. Freedom House's China Dissent Monitor—defunded by the State Department but restored by private donors—has documented over 10,000 acts of resistance over the past three years. Labor protests jumped 66 percent in 2025's first half. Housing demonstrations doubled. Consumer and small business protests exploded 200 percent year-over-year.
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Like the White Paper Protests that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets across multiple cities to protest COVID lockdowns in 2022, these protests are decentralized but coordinated through shared tactics and symbols. In July, homebuyers in Handan surrounded government offices demanding justice for delayed projects. Rural residents protest local governments across the country over land disputes.
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The uprising reveals the inevitable consequence of Xi Jinping's authoritarian stranglehold: a population now pushed beyond its breaking point.

For a decade, Abigael González Valencia ran one of the world's most lucrative drug empires from the shadows. Known as "El Cuini" (The Guinea Pig), the financial mastermind transformed his brother-in-law's violent gang into a $50 billion narcotics powerhouse, flooding American streets with tons of cocaine and methamphetamine while laundering profits through a web of international businesses.
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His cargo trailers crossed borders daily—legitimate freight concealing deadly drugs that would claim thousands of American lives. On Tuesday, his reign ended when Mexican forces dragged him onto a plane bound for Washington, one of 26 cartel bosses transferred in this year’s second major handover.
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The first transfer in February included Rafael Caro Quintero, who tortured DEA agent Kiki Camarena for thirty hours before crushing his skull in 1985. Mexico expedited these transfers by declaring the prisoners "a risk to national security," cutting through years-long extradition proceedings—and cartel legal challenges.
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The “Iron Lady” delivering these monsters to face American justice is Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Since Trump condescendingly declared she was "so afraid of the cartels she can't walk," Sheinbaum has shown anything but weakness. She's dismantled over 1,000 synthetic drug labs, arrested thousands of cartel members, and captured high-profile targets like El Chapo’s sons.
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While questions remain about her commitment to democratic institutions, Americans owe Sheinbaum a debt of gratitude—for delivering justice where Mexico's justice system had failed.

Since Finland joined NATO in 2022, Vladimir Putin has amassed a menacing military machine along its 830-mile Russian border. Satellite imagery reveals airfields sprouting from frozen earth, vehicle storage facilities multiplying like cancer cells, and the arrival of tens of thousands Russian troops.
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But Alexander Stubb isn't flinching.
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The Finnish president has answered Russia’s aggression with 64 shiny new American F-35s, a commitment to meet NATO’s 5% military spending targets, and bold defiance. "Putin is a strategic fool and a military failure," he recently declared while watching Russian buildups through intelligence feeds.
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Finland will be no pushover – it already boasted Europe's largest artillery force and underground shelters for 4.4 million citizens.
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Stubb was educated in South Carolina, where he devoured the Federalist Papers. Now, he has emerged as the Trump Whisperer. Five months ago, Stubb flew to Mar-a-Lago carrying rusted clubs, impressing Trump with his game while delivering a razor-sharp warning: "You cannot trust Putin."
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Hours after their golf victory, Trump declared himself "pissed off" at Putin's war mongering. Coincidence? Stubb has become Zelensky's invaluable conduit to Trump, their back-channel bridge when official diplomacy fails.
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In the past two months, Finland has also arrested a Russian captain whose shadow fleet vessel severed Baltic Sea cables and withdrawn from the landmine treaty to bolster its Russian border.
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The Russian Goliath wanted to intimidate Finland. Instead, Finland’s David gathers his stones.

Guillaume Soro's plane was minutes from Abidjan when the trap became clear. Below, 800 riot police awaited as armed men stormed his party headquarters, firing tear gas and forcing supporters to flee. Prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest. The former PM—once President Alassane Ouattara's closest ally—made a last-second decision to divert. He remains in exile.
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Six years on, tens of thousands flooded Abidjan’s streets this week after Ouattara announced his bid for a fourth term. Both major opponents—former President Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam—are excluded from October's election—the latter on dubious citizenship grounds. Protesters waved banners of defiance: "We are millions saying YES to Gbagbo and Thiam!”, “Enough is enough!”
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The rebellion unfolds against Côte d'Ivoire’s remarkable transformation. Under Ouattara, it has diversified beyond cocoa, attracted private investment, and expanded access to electricity. Democratic stability has enabled 7% annual growth and low unemployment, making it francophone Africa’s largest economy—while its neighbors suffer coups and inflation.
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But the miracle may be slowing as growth slumps this year. Since forcing Soro into exile in 2019, Ouattara has systematically weakened the democracy that enabled prosperity—imprisoning critics, manipulating courts, and abolishing term limits.
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Across the region, nations are expelling French troops and asserting sovereignty, but most have descended into military rule. Côte d'Ivoire expelled French soldiers in January.
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Protesters now bravely fight to ensure their sovereignty leads to democracy, not dictatorship—providing hope to a troubled region.

Shortly after dawn, Mutawakil al-Mohamad woke to the sound of rifle butts pounding his door in occupied East Jerusalem. Soldiers—backed by military convoys and heavy bulldozers—demanded his family leave immediately. “My young children are scared,”, he pleaded with soldiers. They granted his family 10 minutes to evacuate—then destroyed their home.
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Their crime? Living on land now designated a "military zone."
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This horrific scene repeats daily across the West Bank as Bezalel Smotrich—Israel’s detestable finance minister—accelerates his Jewish supremacist vision. Since Israel's "Iron Wall" operation began this year, around 30,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced. 783 structures have been destroyed—more than any year since 1967's occupation began.
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This week, Smotrich revived the E1 settlement plan, promising to "bury the idea of a Palestinian state" by permanently dividing the West Bank into northern and southern sections with 3,000 houses for Jews only.
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Palestinians are now trapped in walled enclaves, cut off from one another by segregated highways with concrete barriers that allow Israeli settler access while bypassing Palestinian areas entirely.
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​Five Western nations sanctioned Smotrich in June for inciting "extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights". But the sanctions only emboldened him. Since then, he has also cut Palestinian lenders from Israel's financial system.
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As Gaza burns, Netanyahu's religious zealots quietly strangle the West Bank.

One Year of Fighting for Freedom

One year ago tomorrow, I sent Episode 1 of this newsletter, awkwardly titled “The Resistance: Dispatches from the Global Fight for Democracy”— to 14 friends. Containing a mere 850 uninspired words, it covered freedom struggles from Bangladesh to Sudan.
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Eight months later, only 34 people opened Episode 30, while my YouTube channel languished with fewer than 450 subscribers after a year and a half of strenuous effort.
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Was it time to return to the corporate world?
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No way. After four months wrestling with Meta's tortuous ads platform, I launched 10 Revolts That Will Shake the World in 2025, a free report that finally broke through.
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By June, we had hit 1,000 subscribers. Two months later, we're fast approaching 7,000. Clearly, the battle against tyranny still resonates.
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With dictators tightening their grip worldwide and global freedom continuing its 19-year slide, freedom’s champions need more support than ever—because humanity flourishes only when free.
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Thank you for joining The Rebellion the beginning. Together, we can reach 100,000 subscribers in 2026—and amplify the voices of courageous men and women risking everything for humanity's future.
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Beyond 2026, the sky’s the limit.

Starting Now: Bigger Stories, Greater Impact

Starting today, Dispatches from the Rebellion becomes three dedicated weekly editions—so you get deeper, more comprehensive reporting on the global struggle for liberty.
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• Tuesday mornings: An expanded Global Fight for Freedom edition—frontline coverage of movements for democracy around the world. Plus, a new “Freedom Fighter of the Week” feature. This global edition will always be free.
• Thursday mornings: An enhanced Our American Democracy edition—in-depth looks at the forces shaping liberty here at home.
• Saturday mornings: Continuing essays that connect recent events in political and economic freedom to history’s great turning points—and what they mean for us today.
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Down the road (months from now), the Thursday and Saturday editions will move to a subscription model—but as an early supporter, you’ll get preferential pricing.
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Freedom Fighter of the Week

It was around midnight in 1960 when a 12-year-old boy stepped into the hold of a smuggler's fishing boat with dozens of fellow refugees. He was fleeing Communist China to escape Mao's "Great Leap Forward"—and the horrific hunger it caused. Between 30 and 50 million people would die in what remains the worst famine in human history.

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The boy arrived in Hong Kong the next day—with nothing to his name. Yet he would grow up to become the Chinese Communist Party's worst nightmare.

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Jimmy Lai rose from child laborer in a garment factory to factory manager, then used his 1975 year-end bonus to buy a bankrupt garment factory. In 1981, he pioneered the "fast fashion" retailer Giordano, which grew into an Asia-wide chain. By 2008, he was worth $1.2 billion.

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But it would not be Lai’s greatest accomplishment. After witnessing the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he evolved—from businessman to democracy warrior. With $100 million of his own money, he founded Apple Daily in 1995—a fierce tabloid that mixed celebrity gossip with blistering attacks on Communist Party leaders.

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For two decades, Lai's newspaper became Hong Kong's megaphone of resistance. During the 79-day Umbrella Movement in 2014, Apple Daily covered every moment of defiance. When 200 police officers raided his offices, Lai didn't flinch. When machetes appeared in his driveway and his home was firebombed, he kept publishing.

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Then came 2019's massive protests. When a million Hong Kongers marched against Beijing's extradition bill, Lai ordered Apple Daily executives to devise ways to deliver people to the streets, where he joined them daily—through blazing heat and pouring rain. He only left to fly to DC to lobby for support.
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Beijing's fury was swift. Within months, the National Security Law crushed Hong Kong's freedoms, and the Chinese Communist Party made Lai Enemy Number One. He was arrested in August 2020 on charges of collusion with foreign forces. Since then, Lai has spent nearly 1,700 days in solitary confinement. The 77-year-old has visibly withered, requiring heart medication and monitoring.
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This week, prosecutors began closing arguments in Lai’s landmark trial—the final stage of a case that could sentence democracy's most defiant voice to life in prison.
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Trump now vows to "do everything I can to save Jimmy Lai"—finally, appropriate words from the leader of the free world regarding one of democracy's greatest champions.
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While his trial is unlikely to deliver justice, Lai’s courageous stand for Hong Kong’s freedoms will long endure.

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