Merry Christmas 2010

Walter, yes, we overlook the whole Christmas story, which includes the “Massacre of the Innocents” by King Herod. Joseph fled with Mary and Jesus to Egypt until the pogrom ended and it was safe to return to Nazareth by another way, as the Bible states. The Christmas story in total deals with the very real collision between good and evil, and it is not about Christmas trees and traffic jams at malls. We concur.

The Vietnam War has much of its roots in the anti-Communism of the post-WWII situation. The US found itself needing to fill a balance of power vacuum in Europe, but this ran counter to its isolationist tradition. So the powers had to invent an hysteria that would justify the ongoing expenditures on the military industrial complex and mobilize American public opinion to support this very real violation of the country’s tradition of minding its own business, until the war profiteers dragged it into World War I.

The result was no politician here wanted to be accused of being “soft” on Communism. As a result, the domestic propaganda machine took on a political reality of its own, and, in turn, this led to the disaster in Vietnam. The CIA had done a study in 1955 that the US could not win a land war in Indo China. General Douglas MacArthur before he died restated this fact. Moreover, Vietnam is a natural ally of the US against China because of China’s imperial occupation of Vietnam. It is no accident that Vietnam looked to Russia for munitions, supplied during its war against the US, not China! Yet, the political rhetoric here caused the shameless scum in office to sacrifice young men, with whom I grew up, and damage public confidence in American institutions that has laid the ground work for institutional failure big time.

Lyndon Johnson put his political career ahead of the interests of America. Bush put his oil money interests ahead of the interests of the American people. Nobody speaks for America any longer. If this country wants to survive, it must find persons who put country first. As Benjamin Disraeli put it when asked once what his policy was, “England,” he answered. “All of it, not some of it.” Since the passing of Eisenhower and MacArthur, we have suffered clowns, gangsters, and hustlers. Yes, as you point out, decline has a logic, momentum.

I value your friendship, wisdom. Have a safe trip to Vancouver and may 2011 bring good things for us, here and there.

Merry Christmas 2010

Paul Rux