It is not easy to play poker with Washington these days. It holds a trump card never seen in the deck before. It is now an ace, a king, a jack, and a joker with very dark intent.
For example, just when we were being schooled to believe that Russia and China could be gunning for Greenland, it turns out that is the trump card gunning for Europe and NATO.
The terrible child, having snatched the bauble of world opinion – which he otherwise despises – from Maria Machado, with a forthrightly stated “I am the one who deserves the peace prize’, is again to the fore.
“I want Greenland, give me Greenland,” says he. “And if you don’t I will thee tariff more and yet more; you are allies only if I be your lead bad boy. If not, Europe and NATO can go as many leagues below the Mediterranean as they might, so long as I have my Greenland.”
Gosh, if only the good old Dr. Sigmund Freud were still with us, what illuminations he might have shared with us little people.
What of the lilliputians who live on that land?
The joker in the poker would say, “In poker, the winner takes all, be they chips or homo sapiens.”
So come forth, speak to them the truth that only muscle matters; the rest is moral blackmail visited by the weak on the puissant.
Thus spake Zarathustra, have you forgotten?
No sir, we haven’t.
And we remember what inferno them teachings of Nietzsche brought the world to not too long ago, dear Trump; which is why we need regime change, foremost in that land which once shook off the monarchs who tyrannised those whom you now lead as did the despots of old.
So, dear Europe, do you begin to see the new poker game and the new trump card that begins to do that to you what neither Russia nor China have yet done? Ten percent tariffs more already, with promise of 25% come first of June, should you fail to come to supplicant senses?
Dear NATO, you may well be fighting the next war not against Russia or China but your chief guarantor, the US.
Do laugh; But also begin to take a leaf from Canada’s book.
Neither Europe nor Canada seem any more to belong to the “western hemisphere” which Trump has vowed to protect with blood and guts; so why not turn East?
You have a combined GDP equivalent to the US. So think how you might put the joker back in the pack by simply teaming up with Russia and China who, after all, have never coveted any of your belongings, not even Greenland; and who, in fact, saved you from your own predators eight decades ago.
So rise and shine. Bring down the poker. Save Greenland. Show the way down to the Greenback, where it may begin to be reborn with a human face. Build a new world with sturdy, self-confident, peace-loving BRICS.
Prepare a new American ground to plant a Bernie Sanders here, a Zohran Mamdani there.
Forestall the bad boy of the day from extracting Mette Frederiksen, who governs Greenland, as he did the incautious Nicolas Maduro.
And, dear Americans, look to Minneapolis. Allow yourselves to take in the full meaning of the contention there, before the moment comes when, like a century and a half before, a call goes up for secession from the Union.
Save the federation, save democracy and save the ideals which led mankind out form the dark ages. Recall Benjamin Franklin’s prophetic caution: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Keep your republic and help all others keep what they have chosen for themselves.
Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.
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