Hitting a Nerve on Vietnam:

An Economic War on America

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

From the quality and content of emails regarding our recent editorial on Vietnam (read, What Did We Learn?, below) we have apparently rattled the cage of those who do not want Americans to think about from where much of what they buy is manufactured: The Walmart, Cabelas, JC Penny, and countless other Online and Brick and Mortar retailers who scour the sweatshop manufacturers of the world seeking new and cheaper products to dump into America’s marketplace.

We lost the war in Vietnam just as we continue to lose it today, 40 years after...

58,000 Americans dead; hundreds of thousands injured and disabled; A country left smoldering in the ashes of civil discord. 2 million Vietnamese men, women, and children dead: a country in chaos abandoned by those whose geopolitical agenda perpetuated and escalated the conflict, then swiftly left the scene of the crime.

The vast majority of Americans today are far too ill-educated,  ignorant, and in many cases plainly too stupid and immersed in their now insipid and pointless lives, debating issues of marginal consequence to understand that our best guide for tomorrow is our past. But, The Independent Daily doesn’t exist as an opinion journal for the average American - they are beyond hope.

The editorial below doesn’t bemoan the increasing reliance on goods made in Vietnam: that’s nothing more than a natural progression of Globalized manufacturing. It’s intent is to cause all of us to consider the true motivation of our government on those frequent occasions when we are being urged to support military intervention in Syria, Iran, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, Venezuela, Bolivia, and wherever we may next find ourselves on the precipice of war as a result of some fabricated issue concerning National Security.

Most assuredly it will be for the interests of those who will profit on the loss of American lives, just as it was in Iraq: 5,000 American dead; hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children dead; to what purpose? Ask Exxon-Mobil and Shell.

(To the 41% of Americans who still think that Saddam Hussein was instrumental in the 9/11 attacks, we have to ask, How goddamned stupid are you, anyway?)

Our conclusion? America doesn’t need Democracy: It needs a parent - someone to hold the hands of the marginally sentient masses whose thought processes revolve around Social Media, television, and the acquisition of cheap, short-lived goods made in the countries who have emerged victorious in the economic War on America. We need a dictator, and we’re well on the way to getting what we deserve.

What did we learn?

Vietnam’s General Giap:

Sic Transit Gloria

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

At 102 years of age, General Giap has passed on to the Great Re-Education Camp in the Sky.

A quick summary: Vo Nguyen Giap was the son of a rice grower, joining a clandestine nationalist movement at the age of 14. He founded the Viet Minh, whose aim was to end French colonial rule in Vietnam. Giap led the decisive battle against the severely defeated French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. He was North Vietnam's Defense Minister during the Tet Offensive against US forces in 1968, although he was not directly involved in the operation.

More to the point, he presided over the eventual defeat of American forces resulting in the deaths of about 58,000 of our men and women: Our brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters.

At present our Trade Deficit with Vietnam averages about $16 billion per year.

It is projected to increase year-on-year owing to America’s thirst for foreign made products. From the US Office of Trade:

“Knit Apparel ($4.1 billion), Woven Apparel ($2.9 billion), Footwear ($2.4 billion), Furniture and Bedding ($2.3 billion), and Electrical Machinery ($1.4 billion).

“U.S. imports of agricultural products from Vietnam totaled $2.5 billion in 2012. Leading categories include: coffee (mainly unroasted) ($621 million), shrimp and prawns ($448 million), fish ($434 million) and tree nuts ($400 million).”

Many of us who lived through the debacle that was Vietnam are still alive today, both those who were in the US Military and those who were not. Having now out-lived the cretins and ninnies in Washington who sustained that war against all logic and in the face of rational thought, there is no one to whom we may look for an apology.

I knew this would happen - so did many of you: The eventual re-alignment of relations leading to open trade with a country we had once fought in desperate battle. Any idiot who in 1958 held a small Japanese radio in his hands knew this day would come for Vietnam, too.

Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon: All wrong; all dead.

When will America’s leadership come to realize that no good comes of war? The answer, plainly, is that we - the electorate - do not control America. On the contrary, America controls us. That is the nature of the Democrat-Republican machine. Register and vote Independent.