"No No You Guys, THIS US-Backed Coup Is Perfectly Legitimate!" by Caitlin Johnstone
(2019-11-14 at 00:09:15 )

"No No You Guys, THIS US-Backed Coup Is Perfectly Legitimate!" by Caitlin Johnstone

I just keep tripping on how dumb this latest United States-backed military coup is.

It is in Bolivia in case you have lost track, which would be perfectly understandable since United States-backed coups have become kind of like United States mass shootings-there is so many of them they are starting to blend into each other.

I mean, for starters the justifications for this one are so cartoonishly reachy and desperate it boggles the mind a bit.

The main argument you will see in favor of the coup is that Evo Morales was elected after Bolivias high court ruled that he could run for a fourth term, but the (democratically elected) court ruled against a 2016 referendum on presidential term limits.

That is it. That weird, pedantic appeal to a particular interpretation of bureaucratic technicalities is the whole entire argument in support of a literal military coup backed by the United States.

And make no mistake, that is exactly what this was: the military ousting a government is precisely the thing that a coup is.

The coups Christian fascist leader Luis Fernando Camacho openly tweeted that the military was actively pursuing Morales arrest prior to the ousted leaders escape to Mexico, a tweet he later deleted presumably because the admission makes it much harder to call this military coup anything other than the thing that it is. The Grayzone has published an article documenting this coups many ties to Washington. Put it all together, and you have got a United States-backed military coup.

As happens every single time the United States tries to overthrow a government these days, social media is currently swarming with small, brand-new and suspicious-looking accounts, many of which are publishing the same words verbatim, all defending and supporting the coup.

Some of them try to argue that Mr. Morales rigged last months election, but that is totally bogus and evidence-free.

Others try to claim that "the people" of Bolivia opposed Mr. Morales, strongly implying that he was universally loathed, but that claim is invalidated by the election results and the massive demonstrations against the coup.

So the only actual argument really boils down to "Well he ran for another term, and yeah he won, and yeah the democratically elected high court ruled he could run again, but a loud and violent minority of Bolivians do not want him to be president. What choice do you have in such circumstances other than to support a literal military coup?"

Which is just so crazy.

That is how low the bar has sunk for supporting the toppling of a government today.

They do not have to claim he is starving his own people.

They do not have to claim that he is using chemical weapons.

They do not have to claim that he is governing without the consent of the voting populace.

Just "Yeah well some of us do not like him and there is some paperwork we disagree on."

I mean really, how much lower can the bar get for when a United States-backed military coup is justified?

"Oh, that government needed to be toppled because the leader got a parking ticket once"?

"Well the president wore white after Labor Day, and that is a fashion atrocity"?

So the Morales-supporting line of succession has been ousted and many of his supporters in the government arrested by masked men, and now the United States-approved interim president is an appalling racist and absolute dimwit who calls to mind a very low-budget Bolivian version of Sarah Palin.

It is absolutely amazing how many people all across the political spectrum have been sucked in by this ridiculousness.

How lost do you have to be to believe that this United States-backed military coup is different from all the others?

How many times is Charlie Brown going to run up and try to kick Lucys football?

That bitch is never gonna let you kick that goddamn football, Charlie Brown.

And this United States-backed military coup is not going to be any more moral, legal or beneficial than all the others.

Thanks for reading!!
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