Same As It Ever Was.

1946 Burma. British and Indian troops were massed on the Thai border ready to move in and occupy Thailand and extract the majority of the rice crop for war reparations.

Thailand had been ceded to the Brits after Thailand surrendered because they lost WW II.

The Thai parliament was busy in session trying to recall the declaration of war against the UK and US. They were trying to convince the world they didn’t really mean to declare war on the Allies. My pen lai, Ka tote Kup.

Roughly the same thing was going on in Vietnam with French and Nationalist Chinese troops. The French and Chinese took the Vietnamese rice and about a million Vietnamese people starved. The Brits were going to do the same thing to the Thais. That is what Winston Churchill wanted to do. Churchill was still angry with the Thais.

The Americans were going to go along with their British and French allies. Everybody was still a bit upset with the Japanese and their allies. Ho Chi Minh was killing Catholic landowners and giving their land to the peasants which upset the Catholics to no end. The Vietnamese Catholics owned most of the land in Vietnam.

Sometimes people step up to bat. Sometimes people find courage and heart and conscience.

Are there still people around like MLK or were there always people around like MLK.

Allies are like wives. Wives don’t always do the right thing but they are still a wife. The French weren’t doing the right thing in Vietnam nor were the Brits doing the right thing in Thailand. America was going along with them because they were our allies.

The deal was on Truman’s desk. It was the 11th hour. Thailand was about to be colonized for the first time.

Heroes come in all sizes, sexes, shapes and colors. Thailand’s hero was a middle aged American State Department worker named Betty Mackenzie. Betty didn’t make any speeches. She wrote letters. She reminded everyone she could think of that would matter about the things Churchill and Roosevelt had said about freedom and democracy after the war was over.

Betty won. Betty prevailed. Unlike MLK and Vietnam Betty won the day. The Brits did move into Thailand but only for a year and the rice war reparations were reduced drastically and millions of Thais didn’t starve.

Betty took on Winston Churchill and won. Quite a feat for an American housewife.

There are heroes among us. They try every day to right wrongs. They fight for peace, justice and love. Sometimes no one notices. Sometimes their fights don’t make the newspapers. But they are among us.

Better to light one candle and so on.