“Watch your step. I’ve got my eye on you.”
”Yes, I noticed that General.”
”It’s only for your own welfare.”
”Yes, I’m sure that’s true General.”
“By the way, I’ve got the army and a bunch of soldiers.”
”Yes, I noticed that General.”
“We’re doing this to restore democracy.”
“Of course you are, General.”
“We’re going to restore democracy as soon as possible.”
“I’m sure you are General.”
And so Aung San and her entire government were deposed. She is under house arrest and the election has been voided while General Min Aung Hlaing and his military buddies figure out how to rig a new one that is more to their liking. So it goes.
This is Liz Cheney, stalwart conservative politician and daughter of Dick Cheney (ex-vice president under Bush) who just got kicked out of her leadership role in the House of Representatives because she wouldn’t go along with Trump’s lies. She might lose her seat in the next election, as well, in the solid conservative state of Wyoming.
In her final address before the vote to convict her, I mean demote her, she quoted from the Book of John: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. Her Republican colleagues jeered. “She who thinks she leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk,” responded Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, as she made the motion to strip Ms. Cheney of her leadership post.
I watched Donald Trump, after the presidential election in November of 2020, come out and speak in front of his supporters. What usually is a concession speech and a lot of platitudes for the loyal soldiers in his campaign, turned into a lie-fest. He looked at his supporters and they looked at him and he said ‘We won this election.’ Cheers. ‘Actually we won this election by a landslide’. More cheers.
Trump wants to rule, not be limited by such trivialities as a constitution, a congress and a judiciary. If his conspiracy works, he might just get his chance in 2024. If that happens I really don’t see much difference between our country and Myanmar. They used the military to take over, Trump is using the media. Do you really need the military to take over a country if you can use the media to bend people’s minds? Actually it’s much cleaner, cheaper and easier to rationalize that way. Something like 70% of all Republicans still think he won the election. What can account for such a denial of facts?
I really don’t know and that’s what worries me. If people can be persuaded to believe a lie, then what can’t you persuade them to believe? Black is white and white is black, war is peace and peace is war. Orwell’s ‘1984’ was prescient, just a little off on the date.
‘We’ll have elections soon’, say the generals in Myanmar. Meanwhile they’re killing their own citizens who are protesting peacefully for a return to democracy. ‘I won the election’, says Donald Trump ‘and the Capitol riot had nothing to do with my speech’.
Good piece, brother Rohn. I offer the following neither as a rejoinder nor an argument of any kind. Let's say it's the way I feel. "American democracy" is the mask worn by a brutal and despicable empire whose wars--cold wars, hot wars, proxy wars, counterinsurgency wars, war games, unconscionable and endless preparations for war, war industries, war lobbies, economic wars, psychological wars, and more wars--make it a fit subject of its own internal, hostile takeover. It's how I feel. Those who want evidence should have little difficulty finding it.