You’ve got to wonder how long a regime that must suppress information and rig elections can stay in power. Those are signs of weakness, not strength. From Stephen Karganovic at strategic-culture.org:
The first and most overpowering impression upon seeing a great state suddenly plunged into agony and disarray is sheer disbelief at “how the mighty have fallen”.
Elitist mind-moulder Edward Bernays’ generous concession to the common man, “People are entitled to the choices we give them,” was played out dramatically during America’s recent electoral season. The multitude gobbled up the meagre choices, and did so voraciously. The distinction between theatre and reality was plainly lost on most of them. They became impassioned actors in a self-destructive play minutely choreographed by forces unseen, for ends suspected by some but completely understood by none.
Students of the controlled demolitions of the USSR and Yugoslavia may also see the ultimate game plan “through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12), much like everyone else, but they will at least enjoy a significant heads-up. The rumblings of impending disintegration that even in the initial stages were audible to keen minds back then, are again unmistakably perceptible today.
The first and most overpowering impression upon seeing a great state suddenly plunged into agony and disarray is sheer disbelief at “how the mighty have fallen” (see 2 Samuel 1:19 or 1:27, as the reader may prefer, for both are spot on). The magnitude of the disaster overwhelms both literally and metaphorically. In the latter sense it is particularly striking. A formerly dynamic and agile commonwealth, as in a fiendish practical joke, now in its doddering phase is being put in the charge of an embarrassing senile dotard whose decrepit condition exactly matches the demise of the once imposing entity that he is being installed to nominally govern.
