WE ARE BLINDED TO THE REAL ISSUES BY PARTISANSHIP~!
A true political spectrum is not left/right but TOTALITARIAN on one end and ANARCHY on the other end. Communists and Nazis are both socialist and totalitarian yet they are seen as opposites on a left/right scale. A true Republic is in the middle. We get so bullshitted by the press over left/right issues that people are blinded to the REAL issues. THIS IS JUST A HISTORY BIG-FAT EXAMPLE:
Back in the days of Vietnam, if you opposed the war, you were a "dirty pinko hippie". If you were for it, you were considered by the left as a "fascist right wing war-monger". The REAL issue was that due to utter and complete failure of foreign policy, we failed to develop a potential ALLY in Asia!!!! There should have never been a war!
Colonel Aaron Bank, founder of the Green Berets had personal dealings with Ho Chi Minh. With the capitulation of Germany in May, 1945, Bank was reassigned to the Pacific theater, where he was inserted into Indo China and linked up with Ho Chih Minh, then leading the resistance to the Japanese. Bank spent considerable time traveling through Vietnam with Ho and was impressed with Ho's manifest popularity among the Vietnamese population. Bank advised the OSS of Ho's great popularity, recommended that Ho be allowed to form a coalition government, and predicted that Ho would win a popular election overwhelmingly if one was conducted.
It is not known whether Bank's recommendations reached President Harry S. Truman, but American policy was contrary: Ho was a long-time Communist, having joined the party in the 1920s in Paris, and therefore was considered unacceptable as leader of a coalition government. Some French "Vichy" military forces remained in Indo China, and the United States now consented to the use of these residual forces to block Ho and reinstate IndoChina as a French colony. Nice of us to use former Axis troops to squash freedom. To add insult to injury, the French sent the Foreign Legion to Indochina, which after WW2, was comprised almost entirely of ex-SS troops with nowhere else to go! President Truman and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower provided financial support to the French, thus leading to the Indochina War and ultimately the Vietnam War.
As a young man, citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Ho Chi Minh petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for help to remove the French from Vietnam and replace it with a new, nationalist government. His request was ignored. Ho spent many years living alternately in the U.S. and The U.K. and France and was impressed with Western freedom.
In 1941, Hồ returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh independence movement. He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy French and Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II, supported closely but clandestinely by the United States Office of Strategic Services.
After the August Revolution (1945) organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and issued a Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that borrowed much from the French and American declarations. Though he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned American President Harry Truman for support for Vietnamese independence, citing the Atlantic Charter, but Truman never responded.
In September 1945, a force of 200,000 Chinese Nationalists arrived in Hanoi. Hồ Chí Minh made arrangement with their general, Lu Han, to DISSOLVE the Communist Party and to hold an election which would yield a coalition government. When Chiang Kai-Shek later traded Chinese influence in Vietnam for French concessions in Shanghai, Hồ Chí Minh had no choice but to sign an agreement with France on 6 March 1946, in which Vietnam would be recognized as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. The agreement soon broke down. The purpose of the agreement was to drive out the Chinese army from North Vietnam. Fighting broke out with the French soon after the Chinese left.
Having been left high and dry by the Democracies of the world, Ho fell in with the Soviets and Chinese, and we all know what happend from there... With a little diplomacy and support, Ho could have been convinced to sever his Communist ties and we would have had a thriving democracy and U.S. ally in the region. Instead, after WE TRAINED the Vietnamese in guerilla warfare tactics to fight the Japanese, we later send green 18 year old kids over there to combat a couple of generations of hardened jungle veterans.
FOR GOD'S SAKE DIG DEEPER INTO THE ISSUES AND DON'T RELY ON WHAT PUNDITS LEAD YOU TO BELIEVE! WE ARE BEING BLINDED TO THE REAL ISSUES EVERY DAY BY PARTISAN FIGHTS OVER BULLSHIT!
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Comments
I can't find my penguin. Oh wait, I don't have a penguin!
Interesting history lesson on Viet Nam, but since politicians of both parties supported the war I can't see how this remotely relates to your point of partisanship. And as someone who thinks both the Viet Nam war and the Iraq war was a mistake, I have never called anyone who disagrees with those assertions a fascist rightwing war mongerer. Also "a true republic," is not necessarily in the middle. The very nature of democracy or, if you prefer, A republic, is that the people or their representatives can choose the form of government, and there is nothing stopping them from choosing a socialist government if that's what they want. And I think it is as nieve to think the right answer is always in the middle as it is to think it's always to the left or the right. When the issue was freeing the slaves was the right answer somewhere in the middle, some states could have slaves some couldn't, or was it the extreme position of slavery is wrong and should be illegal. What about a womans right to vote, do you take the extreme view that all adult citizens should be allowed the right to vote, or should we find a middle ground with those who say women are inferior? These may seem like no-brainers now, but during their time they were considered exteme positions and the people we remember as heroes from this time were almost never considered "moderates."
Penguin taste of sardine oil and chicken.
What I was getting at was this mentality that all the ideas of the other side are wrong, just 'cuz it's not from "OUR" side (whatever one's side may be). All this is in reference to the modern issues of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in some extent to the vicious name calling that goes on mostly by the right.
Due to institutional short sightedness, we failed to develop an ally in Vietnam and paid dearly for it.
We supported and built up Iraq's military when Saddam fought Iran, but then had to fight them in the first Gulf War.
We paid the president of Afghanistan's brothers to provide convoy security and then they bribed the Taliban to not attack the convoys, then the Taliban used the money for even more nefarious attacks.
It's more of a rant against intitutional stupidity, not a suggestion that one should never take a firm position on an issue, (such as slavery, etc.)
Good ideas are good and bad ideas are bad, it doesn't matter who says them. Like for example, Ho Chi Minh was a "communist" by label so they totally threw him under the bus instead of opening a dialogue. Health care needs to be reformed, but just because the Democrats support it, every idea they have is the end of the world, according to the right. Both sides let rhetoric that appeals to their base rule their choices, no matter what's best for everyone.
I like penguins very much.
Don't be disheartened. I appreciated what you had to say very much and admired the thought and the cogency that went into it.