Yesterday the world witnessed the death rattles of a fading empire when Trump supporters attempted a coup d'etat by invading the Amerikan congress. I hope this was the final Trumpian trump card (sorry) and that things will settle down in the short term there.
However the paradox of the U.S. remains. It is impossible for the primary 'leading light' of world democracy to also be the world's numero uno empire. Over the winter holidays a friend and I watched the excellent 10 part doc series on the Vietnam War produced by Ron Howard. We watched 10 numbing hours of Amerikan napalming, atrocities, and politikal lying from every level of Amerikan government and military from the top to the bottom. 2020's Black Lives Matter protests remain fresh in our minds as well.
Every empire in history has followed this downward trajectory in its dying days: the over extension of troops on foreign soil and the parallel suppression of opposition on home turf.
We are watching the final throes of the Amerikan empire. I hope this vicious empire can fade as quickly from the world scene as the U.S.S.R. did three decades ago. Of course the new empire on the horizon is China, which is decidedly undemocratic. The balancing act facing the Amerikan nation is to fade as graciously as possible from world dominance while restoring itself as a true beacon of democracy. This is probably an impossibility, but it is the only way forward for the Amerikan nation to survive.
~ ~ ~
In my callow youth I was a Canadian raised in the cauldron which is the U.S.A. I came of age at the height of the Vietnam War. Perhaps I had a unique perspective as a foreign national, so even at ages 19 and 20 I organized relentlessly against the war and the draft. In reactionary Miami my high resistance profile attracted surveillance, and in June 1969, still age 20, the draft board sent me three induction notices in a week. As an Amerikan might say, time to get the heck out of Dodge.
For me the Vietnam War pretty well ended that summer. I ended up living in an abandoned hotel on an island in the Thames on the outskirts of London, England. I wrote about this time in my hippie memoir, Eel Pie Island Dharma (self-published in 1990, professionally republished in 2012 by Hidden Brook Press).
~ ~ ~
Hi Chris, nice blog post. and Happy New Year. I saw on FB that someone wrote "due to covid, the Americans couldn't invade and topple another country so they tried to unseat their own. " or something like that -- this was a joke yesterday. All those thousands of right wing men (and women) and somehow they didn't bring their guns? What, they carry guns to the grocery store in most states. What was that about?
-----
Judy Haiven, PhD
Writer/ Activist
retired Professor,
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, NS
Mi’kma’ki
No comments:
Post a Comment