Ghan-buir-Ghan squatted down and touched the earth with his
     horny brow in token of farewell.  Then he got up as if to
     depart.  But suddenly he stood looking up like some startled
     woodland animal snuffling a strange air.  A light came in
     his eyes.  'Wind is changing!' he cried and with that, in a
     twinklin as it seeemed, he and his fellows had vanished into
     the glooms, never to be seen by any Rider of Rohan again.

    'Do you remember the Wild Man's words, Lord?' said another.
    'I live upon the open Wold in days of peace; Widfara is my
     name, and to me also the air brings messages.  Already the
     wind is turning.  There comes a breath out of the South;
     there is a sea-tang in it, faint though it be.  The morning
     will bring new things.  Above the reek it will be dawn when
     you pass the wall.'

     Then suddenly Merry felt it at last, beyond doubt; a change.
     Wind was in his face!  Light was glimmering.  Far, far away,
     in the South the clouds be dimly seen as remote grey shapes,
     rolling up, drifting:  morning lay beyond them.

     ---J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings trilogy,
        The Return of the King volume,
        The Ride of the Rohirrim chapter, Book V.

     There's a change in the wind. It started as the whiffest of a breeze, now it is noticably blowing.

     Russia is lightening up, the States steadfastly oppossed. If Russia says white, the States say black; disarm, security; glosnoz, caution. It is in Isreal too. Arab says freedom, Isrealian says iron fist. The Berlin Wall is now just an historic wall. The people, East and West Berliner, danced and sang and drank upon that wall. Who would have thought it possible that the big red bear would let her people go? This past summer, there was hope in China for progress toward the way things are suppose to be. There were signs of reasons to believe that the Bamboo curtain would open more. After all, aren't the Chinese noted for their philsophical visions toward the next generation's well being? But that attempt failed; for whatever history judges the reason.

     But this change in the wind, there's a blind aspect to it. One physical wall is crumbling, one political curtain remains closed, and where no one expects any walls there are invisible barriers being built. The police of the world's exlemplar free society are suspicious of that society's people. They stop travelers on the road to search their vehicles, they follow loners walking the streets anticipating an infraction of the law, they demand idenity papers on any encounter.