6/1/2023

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Congrats on being named by David Leonhardt, “the most successful bipartisan negotiator to occupy the White House in decades” by “hitting the sweet spot between left & right,” as David Smith put it. Interestingly, no one at the WP assessed your work on negotiating the deal with KMM, instead they featured a piece on the 14th Amendment. Go figure.

            Please put your negotiation talents to work in Burma. Help the generals to see that they are destroying their country & help the NUG to see that they’ve got to provide the generals with an off ramp. Just as you let KMM save face, you need to figure out a way to let the generals save face.  

            Employing some new language might be helpful. I’m not sure what it might be, but as Chi Luu (CL) wrote in 2019, “in our post-truth world, language has become more overtly dangerous.” The Burmese youth have figured this out & are doing their best to call out the problematic behavior of the junta. CL notes “virtual public shaming is a kind of “epideictic performance” an Aristotlean rhetorical act of blame or praise.” The Burmese teens are brilliant at this.

            As I have told you many times, the junta is trying to silence the people, but as Jesus said “the very stones will cry out,” so the challenge is to generate a fresh narrative that does not vilify Min Aung Hlaing, but also doesn’t let him off the hook. Please put your talented staff on this project.

            Finally, I hope you will recall WINTA as you talk to the cadets graduating from the AF Academy today, especially those who are being commissioned into the Space Force. Let’s not introduce violence into the heavens.

            BYBS,