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In this mailing:
* Guy Millière: US: "Not Now One of the World's Better-Functioning Democracies"
* Amir Taheri: A New Year: Better or Less Bad?


** US: "Not Now One of the World's Better-Functioning Democracies" ([link removed])
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by Guy Millière • January 3, 2021 at 5:00 am
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* "As President, I have no higher duty than to defend the laws and the Constitution of the United States. That is why I am determined to protect our election system, which is now under coordinated assault and siege". — President Donald J. Trump, December 2, 2020.
* "The top line here is very simple: [Many people] used a coordinated strategy across six battleground states -- you've got Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- a coordinated strategy to stuff the ballot box with mail-in and absentee ballots, and do it in a way where they bend and often break the law..." — Peter Navarro, regarding his report, "An Indecent Exposure," Newsmax, December 21, 2020.
* There are accusations that many politicians in America are not even slightly interested in fair elections or equal justice under law -- only about attaining power and keeping it in perpetuity.
* "Make no mistake: voter fraud is real. [Many people], the media and the so-called public interest groups on the political Left will tell you otherwise, but they are either lying or totally ignorant. Voter fraud is a threat to the integrity of our elections, the heart of our democracy—and [many people] want to make the problem worse with their new voting laws." — Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, Newsweek, June 7, 2020.
* The evidence gathered is available to be seen. That judges dismissed lawsuits without seeing it does not make it disappear.
* Many commentators apparently accept the idea that Biden will soon be president and resign themselves to it. Others apparently have decided that accepting so much lawlessness is unacceptable. It could, they assess, undermine American democracy, fatally erode American institutions, and plummet the country into an authoritarian future, foreign or domestic, and economic ruin.
* "Weak-kneed [politicians]," columnist Charlie Eastman wrote, "who choose to wave the white flag instead of fighting to the last man to challenge the fraud that occurred in the 2020 election are committing political suicide".

(Image source: iStock)

November 3, 2020. New York. Midnight. A reporter on television said that election vote counting had been stopped in several states. At this point, President Donald J. Trump seemed in a position to win and easily to have a second term. Commenting a bit later, he said, "We did win," but added a warning: "We don't want them to find any ballot at four o clock in the morning". By morning, everything had changed. Thousands more ballots had appeared. States where Trump had a clear lead displayed different results. Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have won.

Three days later, on November 7, Biden delivered a victory speech. Trump repeated, "I won this election". He added, "by a lot".

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** A New Year: Better or Less Bad? ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • January 3, 2021 at 4:00 am
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* To start with, it made most of us understand that as members of the human species, we are all in the same leaking boat. The pandemic was like a general amnesty or a conflagration that transcends boundaries and includes everyone, high or low, rich or poor, young or old.
* One other important feature of the crisis may have been the reassertion of capitalism as the surest means of coping with a disaster hitting us out of the blue. The huge mass of available capital with historically low interest rates.... and virtually inexhaustible productive capacities across the globe, provided many nations with a shield against potentially fatal economic and social shocks.
* The year just ending taught us not take things for granted and to value even the most pedestrian joys that existence allows us, such a walk in a park....

(Image source: iStock)

As 2021 begins, one is reminded of the verse by Persian poet Masud Saad Salman, hoping that the new year would not resemble the old one.

Masud, of course, was expressing that hope from the Nay Fortress where, having fallen from the grace in the court of a local despot, he had been imprisoned for a year, and was to remain there for the rest of his life. He lamented the fact that Saturday was like Friday and April like March and his share of sunshine reduced to a sickly ray from a hole in the roof of his cell. In other words, he wasn't doing any better than many us did in the year just ended.

But, let us be provocative, didn't 2020 have any redeeming feature?

I think it did.

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