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February 3, 2021

A Tale of Two Coups

By Michele Goddard

This article compares and contrasts the similarities and differences between the Myanmar coup d'etat and the one attempted in the U.S. on January 6. The origins of the coups, the driving forces behind them, the parallels as well as the reasons one failed and the other succeeded.

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Put a bit of yin and yang in you're life #hippy #yinandyang #Peace  #love  by #hollynorval
Put a bit of yin and yang in you're life #hippy #yinandyang #Peace #love by #hollynorval
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Two countries, worlds apart, like twin stars across a vast distance of space yet still manage a reflection of one another in the political mirror.

The United States and Myanmar both held elections in November 2020. In both countries the losers of those elections began propaganda campaigns alleging wide spread election fraud. Even the complaint of the losers mirrored one another. Claims of "dead people voting" and people who were too young or otherwise illegal were permitted to vote. There were also claims of one citizen voting multiple times. Election officials in both countries audited the results and determined the allegations of fraud were baseless. In both countries, the losing side failed to produce specific examples of alleged fraud. Both propaganda campaigns were then followed by violent coup attempts in January. The U.S. survived its attempted coup, Myanmar did not.

Perhaps a better analogy of the two countries would be the symbol of the yin and yang. That ancient symbol of a circle comprised of two tear drop shaped bodies, one black, one white appearing to chase one another in a circle. For although the events of the two countries were the same, the outcomes were different, and we owe it to the future or our country to understand why we survived and they did not.

The US and Myanmar are like two sides of the same coin. Myanmar is emerging from a dictatorship and the United States is sliding towards one.

Myanmar has been subjected to colonialism and military rule for much of the last century and disputed elections and threat of military rule still loom heavy in the air. The military control of Myanmar only recently succumbed to elections in 2011. This is the first distinction between our nations.

The 8/8/88 revolution in Myanmar led to promises to have elections. But after the first one was held, and the opposition party, the National League for Democracy, won in a landslide, the military refused to accept the results and jailed the leader of the opposing party.

The United States, having been a Democratic Republic since its inception, has elected its leaders at given intervals and up until this last election, regardless of the heated rhetoric during the election, saw a peaceful transition of power.

There is an inertia involved in our histories. Our inclination to the idea expressed so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence that:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Likewise in Myanmar, the long established government was one by military rule and that inertia was not fully overcome with the first elections. Some parts of the government are under military not civilian control while in the United States, the idea is embedded and long established that the military should not have direct control over aspects of civil governance.

So inertia was perhaps on our side for now. Our founding fathers were wise to be concerned about standing armies and the threat they pose to democracy and therefore from the outset established limitations on the independence of the military.

If it were not for this, Trump's populism and demagoguery may have led us to the same fate as Myanmar. Trump's chants of "lock her up" were perhaps a mere political tool without real intent but they were also the strongest clue of his totalitarian ambitions. It is common in coups to see one's opponents jailed. Trump's own campaign manager Paul Manafort, worked on the campaign of another politician, Viktor Yanokovich also known as "Putin's man in Ukraine."

Yanokovich's crowds also wanted to "lock up" - referring to his poltical rival, Yulia Tymoshenko. And in that time and place, again a more precarious political situation, Tymoshenko was arrested following Yanokovich's victory.

In many political environments, as seen in Myanmar, the arrest of a democratically elected leader in a coup is like a trophy. Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest before emerging to win an election in 2015. The first openly contested election in 25 years. She reminded me of Nelson Mandela, a jailed political prisoner striving to bring democratic and just rule to the people being dominated by an unjust system. Fighting against the weight of the inertia of a perpetually unjust system.

Soo Kyi won in a landslide but was not legally allowed to be president because her children are foreign nationals so instead she became a "counselor" to the President Win Mint. She was viewed by many however as the de facto leader of.the country.

When elections were held in November 2020, her party won in a landslide. However, just like Trump's party, the opposition there, the military party, declared the elections "invalid" And with the military retaining so much power in civilian government, their coup was much easier than the one Trump attempted at our Capitol on Jan 6.

Without the support of the official military, Trump had to rally his "base" into action, a group that disgraced former General Mike Flynn calls his "army of digital soldiers" - a misfit group of disgruntled QANON believers and self styled "patriot" militiamen to attempt a coup.

Although January 6 marked a deadly and shocking event in our nation's history, comparing it to the one in Myanmar makes one realize the importance of safeguards. Safeguards that are not dependent upon "respecting norms" or "abiding traditions" but ones which are codified and hardened by law.

So much of the destruction Trump wrought during his Presidency was in the violation of norms and traditions so long standing that they seemed like laws but in fact were not. He pushed each boundary even farther until finally he did violate law. But by that time, his party was too intimidated to hold him accountable. And once there was no consequence for violating the actual law, we learned, as a nation, how far a totalitarian could get when constraints aren't adequate.

We dodged a bullet - one that will surely be fired again in the near future. And whether we can withstand it depends on what we do now.

One final note I must mention as a parallel in these two coups. The role of social media in giving rise to these events can not be overlooked or overestimated. We know as documented fact that Facebook, along with Cambridge Analyrica was responsible for social manipulation in both the 2016 presidential elections and the Brexit campaign in Europe. We have also seen social media rumors lead to vigilante lynching in India, where false rumors of child abduction spread spread like wildfire on What'sApp. By 2018 there were What'sApp inspired mob murders taking place there all based on unverified "evidence".

In France, the victims of online mobs were the Roma. Again the false rumors surrounded child abduction and white vans being used to kidnap them. Thankfully none of the Roma were killed, unlike the unfortunate victims of mob violence in Mexico where two men were burned to death after rumors of child abduction spread on WhatsApp. By 2018 the role of social media reached new levels of destruction as ethnic cleansing of the muslim Rohingya in Myanmar was facilitated by Facebook.

Here in the U.S. in the lead up to the 2020 election was rife with false reports of "thrown away Trump ballots" and other election conspiracies, working hand in hand with Trump's rhetoric about a "rigged" election. The right wing manufactured fake news at breakneck speed and it was shared in frenzy by users on Facebook.

In addition QANON had emerged from the lesser used 8 chan and 8 kun into more mainstream social media and by 2020 had burrowed in deep on Facebook and YouTube. QANON, a pro-Trump right wing conspiracy also revolving around child abduction and trafficking as well as blood drinking, pedophile Democrats was spreading faster than COVID.

Dissecting the similarities and differences between these two coups may well determine the future of U.S. democracy. Social media is now known to be capable of societal destabilization as it creates a paranoid mob mentality based on no hard evidence. Social media influencers, often anonymous and driving their own agendas, social media algorithms meant to maximize traffic on sites and the frailty of the human psyche are a volatile combination. I support free speech but we have to recognize the capacity of social media to be weaponized and that it has the capacity to be a weapon of mass destruction when used without any constraints and absolutely no accountability when it is misused.

These are difficult questions that lie ahead of us but we have to answer them. It has been said that when Ben Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention in 1787 he was asked what form of government he and the others had designed for the country. He replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."

Our representative democracy is not guaranteed. We have had inertia on our side but we have taken much for granted. Things can degrade into chaos and then into military dictatorship if we don't reinforce the controls that prevent us from sliding backwards.

We have elected members of congress openly advocating for the overthrow of the government as they hide behind free speech and there is no discernable action from the larger representative government. If we don't act now, we won't survive these assaults much longer.



Authors Bio:

I was born in 1970 in Wheeling, WV and have lived here all my life. I come from mostly Irish Catholic coal miners and railroad workers. My original academic interest was in teaching foreign languages studying both French and Spanish in High School. After high school I married and had two children.

My first jobs were waitressing and hotel housekeeper and Medicaid Billing Clerk. I received my Associates in 2003 studying social services and child development. I took several years off from college to focus on working and trying to raise a family. I returned to school in 2006 and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice from West Liberty State College (Now West Liberty University) in 2008. I worked in the security field for 13 years.

My interests include politics, law, history, travel and language. I have been called a conspiracy theorist at times, but often remind my critics that often the only difference between a conspiracy theory and history is 40 years.

I believe it is the responsibility of every citizen to hold its government accountable and to push for the government to serve the people not the other way around.



In November 2019 I started a podcast called Project 99 where I talk about politics, psychology, language, history and other topics from the viewpoint of the 99 percent. It is available on anchor, spotty and many other platforms. You can also follow the podcast on twitter at project99cast.

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