Today, Washington resembles an armed fortress.
‘America is therefore the land of the future, where, in ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history, shall reveal itself”. This was written by the great German philosopher Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831).
Bertrand Russell, in his “History of Western Philosophy” writes, “Hegel’s philosophy is very difficult—he is, I should say, the hardest to understand of all the great philosophers”.
Before I get to the main theme of this article a short note on the life of this “hardest” of philosophers will not be out of place. I shall quote from, “The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Biography”: Hegel’s, “Philosophy represents a complex system of thought with far-reaching influences and diverse applications. Marx based his theory of dialectical materialism on this aspect of Hegel’s work.”
If Hegel was alive today, he could have second thoughts on his fulsome praise of America. In the past four years, America has changed and changed for the worse. A single person, who has been President these four years, has done more harm to his country than all the American Presidents of the 20th century.
He has divided America into two, one the America of Donald Trump and the other the America of Abraham Lincoln. Institutions have been all but destroyed, his second rate cronies have been given plum jobs. He is never to be blamed when things go wrong. A truth is a lie, a lie truth.
He has, according to him, had nothing to do with the attack on the Capitol. But it was a well organised insurrection. Out of the thousands who pillaged the Capitol, only two hundred have been arrested.
20 January has always been a day of celebratory rejoicing. Today, Washington resembles an armed fortress. Twenty thousand troops are already on 24-hour duty. Most are spending the nights sleeping in the corridors of the Capitol. A 12 feet high wall of unbreakable wire has been built round the Capitol, with armed personnel guarding the wire wall. A similar exercise is being undertaken in the Capitols of 49 other states.
How could the world’s greatest, most powerful, richest, technologically most advanced, with the most sophisticated industrial enterprises, with the largest number of Nobel Laureates and with some of the very best educational institutes in the world come to such a pass? In Trump Raj, we witness a dilution of truth, ethics, values and quality.
What is incomprehensible is that the Republican Party is fully behind Mr Trump. Will it remain so after 20 January, when he will not be in power? One must not forget that only ten Republicans voted in favour of the Impeachment Resolution in the House of Representatives.
What will America do after Trump? The first task of the new President will be to clear the mess Mr Trump will leave behind. At the moment, he has brazenly not given up. His army of lawyers are planning to invoke the first amendment to protect Mr Trump for inciting an insurrection. Whether they will succeed or not only the next few weeks will make clear.
Now we come to President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The lives of both are not safe. One had to look at the hoodlums who invaded the Capitol on 6 January. Each one is capable of taking a shot at either of the most important persons in the world.
Another complex question to be solved is that of Presidential Pardon. Mr Trump is very keen to pardon himself and his entire family, not the most attractive lot. I doubt if he will succeed in pardoning himself. He will get away with pardoning his family and his highly undesirable buddies.
It was an unusual sight to see huge truck standing in the compound of the White House. The outgoing President’s baggage had to be taken out of the White House before 20 January. Mr Trump is a wealthy man and has many mansions in New York, Florida and Scotland. But there is an unexpected snag. Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Deutsche Bank have made his accounts inoperative. Without Twitter Mr Trump has lost his worldwide reach and influence.
Finally, not once has he conceded that he lost the November Presidential Election. It was stolen, he continues to claim. How does one steal an election?
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On Friday, I lost one of my most intimate friends. Kamal Morarka suddenly passed away on Friday of a heart attack. He was 74.
He leaves a huge void in my life. My heartfelt condolences to his wife Bharatiji and his two daughters.