Trump is not only recalling our military willy nilly, he is kneecapping our few diplomats left as he strews mayhem in Africa.
Tensions are on a sudden rise in Ethiopia, Egypt and Somalia, and best I can tell it all leads back to reflexive tweet-like actions by Trump since his defeat.
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Travelers are miffed by the new CDC guidelines reducing recommended quarantine for Covid-19 to 7 days, since so many countries continue to require a 14-day quarantine for Americans following their arrival.
Note carefully how other countries in the world interpret this shameful move by the CDC. No other major public health authority in the world has shortened the recommended quarantine period.
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At last. Well, almost “at last.” This week is America’s most universally celebrated holiday, “Thanksgiving.” It normally begins after work last Friday and continues through Sunday evening. The absence from work isn’t universal, but there’s no other holiday week as little worked as this.
And boy, does it ever come at the right time this year!
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My inbox busts with congratulatory messages. In my typical petulant way I reply to some, “So why didn’t you show your antipathy to Trump earlier?”
The world’s relief at Trump’s defeat is overwhelming. It pisses me off that so many kept this feeling so off-record until now, even though I understand: Foreigners know so much better than Americans that the president of the United States has too much power. Secondly, America never stays on the right track for long: Take it while you can.
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A primer for my African friends:
The 2020 election, its comparison with 2016, and what it tells you about Americans.
Trumpists are seriously trying to disrupt the results, but my life in Africa is too raw for me to be able to fairly assess this, so for the purpose of this blog I’m presuming they won’t prevail… It could be months before the results are widely accepted by the American politic, but I’m basing this blog on the assumption that the Democrats achieve full governance on January 20.
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People who live far, far away from Cleveland or Omaha or Miami or Atlanta are bug-eyed, today. They should have read my blog last week: America is divided like no other place on earth, even worse than those that slaughter each other.
We’re fortunate that Western society is wise enough to keep from killing Itself. In fact, that may be the most important thing in America today. But The Divide here is gaping. I predicted it ten years ago in my novel, Chasm Gorge.
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An excerpt from one of South Africa’s major newspapers’ today on our election:
“When a failed real estate developer and pitchman-for-hire became America’s president four years ago, it was partly due to the peculiarities of the nation’s electoral system. Nevertheless… Americans should have known better.
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I stood in front of the Congolese Army tank, its giant shooting nozzle arched far above my head into a meaningless wilderness. It probably couldn’t shoot, anyway: It was there simply to stop us from crossing the border.
The Rwanda genocide was forming, but I had eight clients leaving Kigali, Rwanda, that night. The thousand-year divide between the Hutus and Tutsis had finally touched me. It’s nothing compared to the divide in America today.
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Ussil Udnut is not the opposition candidate trying today to unseat one of Africa’s most autocratic Heads of State. His real name dare not be spelled correctly, because the government he hopes to run blocks all social media that carries his actual name.
Worse, some message writers are then harassed by police even as WHO estimates 40% of the population is sick with Covid. This is Tanzania Today.
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At 1015a, Friday, November 29, 1985, a 34-year old buddy to the former playboy president of the Seychelles left his home in Edgeware and was riveted with bullets. He was the fifth “refugee” and buddy to former Seychelles president James Mancham to be killed or disappeared in the preceding few years in London.
Sir James, who was also living in exile in London at the time, called the victim “a political martyr.”
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Stipulated that much of politics is symbolic. Why else would a high court judge come to work in a burkha and often cover his head with a white mop tying it all up with a Christmas bow? But in this revolution dedicated to stamping out untruth, symbols slip.
Whether Kenya, South Africa or the U.S., if the tables were turned, I’d push through Amy to the court. It’s the law.
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Over the weekend a number of international airlines dropped their business class fares through the floor. In some cases, as with KLM, the price was cut nearly in half.
Economy prices took a steep fall in May and then inched back upwards until last weekend as well. What are the airlines telling us?
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Apartheid was coming apart. Reagan had just been overridden by Congress and lethal sanctions were about to fall on South Africa.
My partner and I packed our bags and raced to Joburg certain that young fellows from America would now be needed to market the “New South Africa” to the angry and suspicious Americans who had toppled them.
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The most important electoral group in our current election is … travelers. I’m not crazy. I’m just old. (Beating around the bush is terrifying.) America has only two years after the election to craft its survival, and travelers could tip the scales.
I’m not talking about ditching Trump. A wave of anti-Republican voting to the very basement of down-ballot voting is necessary for America to survive. The wicked wizards who stole the Republican ideology have to be annihilated.
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“The clearest loser from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was America.” – London Times. “American Democracy on a Shaky ground.” – Kenyan TV. “This dark, horrifying, unwatchable fever dream will surely be the first line of America’s obituary.” – London’s Guardian
Or as China’s news agency put it, “Americans watched a drama of hurting each other.”
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