THE USA: WHAT NOW?

January 2025

History repeats, not just for us as individuals but for all peoples. We share a nature, which has been very long - innumerable generations - in the making. It led us to where we are, and it is what is holding us back from progressing to a truly better world.

Over my now approaching thirty-one years of Burma pro-democracy activism, it has always been clear that the people were going to have to confront the Bamar military dictators. One hoped popular revolution would be enough, but as the Saffron Uprising showed, and of course the long history of crimes against humanity the dictatorship perpetrated against the ethnic nationalities, it was obvious that it wouldn't be. There would have to be force. The people had to fight in self-defense. They had to drive the criminals out.

Dictators never leave - willingly. They always find a way to hang on and to perpetuate themselves. That's why whenever I heard someone argue that you could engage with the military savages, or negotiate with them, I knew that they were fools, or, that they had a deeper motive - they were benefitting in some way from the oppression.

But the general public, most of it at least, finally woke up - for a variety of reasons, and there is now a nationwide armed revolution. After four years the people have made huge gains. The war will be won.

A similar cycle is just starting in the United States. A convicted criminal is about to become President. And the other trials of the man, which included for the treasonous crime of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power, were blocked by his allies.

He will be, or he will do his very best to be, the country's first dictator. He has said as much. But already many people, including top leaders in the Democratic opposition and what's left of the "objective" press, are acting as if this is just going to be an interlude. He's old. He has a slim majority in Congress. How much damage can he really cause?

He can cause a phenomenal amount of damage. Using armed soldiers (and police) to kill Americans, or starting a major war, including through sheer incompetence, are distinct possibilities. But even if he isn't that bad, such anticipatory apologists are already missing the point. The billionaires that pull the Republican strings view this as checkmate - the end of the game. They will never give up power. Once Trump is gone he will just be replaced. Free elections will never again be allowed.

This may sound alarmist but it is what has happened in one country after another. America is not exceptional. (It is in some ways, both good and bad, but not in this one.) We could easily end up an overt political dictatorship, not the underlying corporate oligarchy that has run things for decades. (No people who actually governed themselves would accumulate $36 trillion dollars in debt.)

So what about today's appeasers. Are they fools, or are they bought? As with Burma, the U.S. has many of both.

It's terrible but it is always left up to the young, who have not yet been corrupted. But they are going to have to learn how opposition to dictatorship really works. If they fall for the unrealistic hopes of the wishful thinkers, America's fate is sealed. The only option is a cold, brutal struggle to regain power. It can be in the streets, or, if that fails, in the trenches. But it needs to begin immediately.

The leaders of the Democratic Party were partially if not wholly responsible for this debacle. Trump should have been easy to beat. They had all the time and resources they needed to do it. But they failed. They completely misunderstood the threat. They have to go.

NGOs that have sizable followings, no matter which specific cause is their mandate, should already be preparing to rally their followers to protest. There is no reason why coordinated demonstrations of all such groups could not reach millions if not tens of millions, when the orange felon pursues his purge and revenge tour.