You Should Have Kept the Internet Off, Myanmar

Sigh.

Do world leaders just not read the Daily Stormer, or what?

I have said it a trillion times: allowing Facebook and Twitter in your country is allowing the US State Department to have full control over your population. They have been using these services to upend societies all over the world for nearly a decade.

It started with the “Arab Spring” and it just hasn’t stopped.

Myanmar did turn off the internet briefly, then turned it back on.

Now, they’re getting what they’re getting.

Reuters:

Security forces in Myanmar opened fire to disperse protesters at a power plant on Sunday and armoured vehicles rolled into major cities as the new army rulers faced a ninth day of anti-coup demonstrations that saw hundreds of thousands on the streets.

Soldiers were deployed to power plants in the northern state of Kachin, leading to a confrontation with demonstrators, some of who said they believed the army intended to cut off the electricity.

The security forces fired to disperse protesters outside one plant in Kachin’s state capital Myitkyina, footage broadcast live on Facebook showed, although it was not clear if they were using rubber bullets or live fire.

As evening fell, armoured vehicles appeared in the commercial capital of Yangon, Myitkyina and Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, live footage broadcast online by local media showed, the first large-scale rollout of such vehicles across the country since the Feb. 1 coup.

The government and army could not be reached for comment.

The U.S embassy in Myanmar urged American citizens to “shelter in place”, citing reports of the military movements in Yangon. It also warned there was a possibility of a telecoms interruptions overnight between 1:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.

As well as the mass protests across Myanmar, the country’s military rulers were faced with a strike by government workers, part of a civil disobedience movement to protest against the coup that deposed the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Trains in parts of the country stopped running after staff refused to go to work, local media reported, while the military deployed soldiers to power plants where they were confronted by angry crowds.

Yeah, it’s pretty much over. They bungled the pooch.

By the end of this, they’re going to be in a situation way worse than they were before they took power.

It’s really sad.

I still don’t really know why they took power in the first place, because Suu Kyi seemed willing to work with them, but if they were going to do it, they should have done it right.

Burma isn’t super important in the scheme of things, I guess. But I hate seeing any country fall to analism, because pretty soon, the balance is going to be so skewed that it is just going to be an ultra anal earth.

Listen, Russia: block Facebook and Twitter, and every other Western social media site. Do it right now. Right. Now.