One foolish morning, American President Harry S. Truman decided to publicize a list of countries that the United States was going to defend militarily in case of communist attack.  He left out Korea.  Why, I don't know.  Immediately, Chairman Mao of China decided to invade Korea.  Why not?  America wouldn't intervene.  Within a few weeks the Red Chinese army was on the move to attack and invade Korea.

Truman sent American troops to defend Korea from Chinese attack.  One of the top World War Two generals, Douglas MacArthur, urged Truman to use atom bombs against the Chinese to win the war.  Truman, who had been the only man ever to authorize the use of atom bombs against human beings, declined to do so this time.

The Korean War dragged on year after year.  It was a stalemate.  One side gained an advantage, then the other side gained an advantage.  Years after a truce should have been signed, a truce was finally signed, splitting Korea into two halves.  The north would be communist, the south capitalist.  This truce has lasted.

The popular tv series MASH places its cast in Korea.  You remember MASH don't you?  Alan Alda.  Hot Lips Hoolihan.  I'm sure you remember more characters than I do.  The overall atmosphere of the show is one in which the war seems pointless and needlessly prolonged, which in fact describes it pretty well.

While the Korean War was going on, during Truman's tenure in the White House, Vietnam also became a hot spot.  It was called French Indochina in those days, and it was one of the few colonies still to exist after the 1940s.  Most colonies were granted independence, including the entire Middle East and India.  But France, which never had too many colonies, wanted to hold on to French Indochina.

Western educated Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh had once asked for American help to establish freedom for his country.  That was when he was very young, while Woodrow Wilson was president of the USA.  Ho expected Wilson's support for an independent Vietnam because Wilson was preaching self determination for all.  Wilson told him to fuck off because he wasn't white.

Ho led a revolution against France.  The French were unable to contain him.  They begged for American help.  Truman listened to him.  While refusing to send troops into French Indochina, Truman did side with the French.  Why, I don't know.  It seems that American presidents are very hot about independence, but only their own.  It is an excellent example of American hypocrisy.  Truman blew his chance to cement a positive relationship with Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam.  It would be a bloody mistake, just as his blundering made a bloody mistake of Korea.  Truman wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.  He didn't always choose badly, but there were some extremely important decisions to be made during his presidency, and he sometimes made poor decisions.

Leadership is so important to a country.  It's a tragedy that the United States of America has had piss poor leadership ever since Teddy Roosevelt left the White House.  When we haven't had a mediocrity in charge, we've had a moron in charge, as we do at present.

Rather than embrace Ho Chi Minh and his successful revolution against the brioches of France, America sided with the colonizers, forcing Ho Chi Minh to join a camp he initially didn't want to be stuck with, the Russians.  Ho was a western thinker, not a Russophile.  But he did have the sense to know that rampant unchecked capitalism sucks.  So did Teddy Roosevelt, for that matter, which is why Teddy was The Trustbuster.

Years passed, and the French utterly got their crepes cooked in Vietnam.  America sent "advisors" to try to keep one foot planted firmly across the neck of the Vietnamese people. Why?  Because of Indonesia, as the Congressional Record shows.

Indonesia is perhaps the biggest prize in the world.  It's huge and stuffed with valuable resources to be exploited and swiped from the Indonesian people.  America, greedy as it is, didn't want the Indonesians to get any ideas about freedom.  There's money to be made, Charlie.  America's religion is money, its god the Almighty Dollar.  The rest is baloney.  The ideals are bullshit.  Grow up kiddies and stop singing your silly jingo songs.

Our politicians started babbling about games of dominoes, about fearing that the whole world was going communist.  But of course they neglected to mention that we ourselves were forcing countries into Russia's camp by our own greed and hypocrisy.  We forced both Cuba and Vietnam to go communist, though in both cases, we were their first choice. Castro and Ho both wanted to do business with us first and were flat out rejected.

So America was shoving the dominoes over to the communist side while crying about dominoes going to the communist side.

John Kennedy was murdered in late 1963.  He was followed by the single worst president in our country's miserable history, Lyndon Johnson.  Johnson was a tough guy.  He was a lot like the John Wayne persona.  He was tough, confrontational, warlike, bullying, macho, thick headed.  He was a legitimately tough son of a bitch, much tougher than Reagan.

The first thing Johnson took on was white racists in America.  I don't know of any president besides Lincoln who was a better friend to black America.  Johnson didn't fear white racists.  He would be happy to kick their asses.  He was tougher than they were.

Then Johnson decided to go whole hog against Vietnam.  He escalated the war wildly.  It quickly got to the point that every American boy was potential fodder for the war effort.  Country Joe and the Fish sang "Be the first one on your block to have your boy sent home in a box."  It became too late for that, but you could still be one of the first 20 on your block to have your boy sent home in a box.

The nation was split in half.  Half the people supported the president because he was the president.  That was enough reason for them.  The other half had working brains, and realized that our participation in the Vietnam War was demonic.  We had no moral right to dictate to the Vietnamese people what form of government they should have.  Is that difficult for you to understand?  Is that a tough moral dilemma for you?  It should be a slam dunk.  But a full half of the American people of the time were so fucking stupid that they thought we were the good guys in Vietnam.

The problem is that Americans get their government confused with their God.  They think the two are one and the same.  It is no accident.  American politicians are adept at pretending to be godly.  See the pricks on their way to church.  Listen to the pricks talk about moral values.  Jesus had it right when he said you can only serve one master, either God or Rome, not both.  Americans get a bit lost in the sauce and think that America is God.  That's a bit like confusing the Wicked Witch of the West with Eleanor Roosevelt.

Me and the rest of the hippies opposed the demonic Vietnam War.  We eventually won, getting Congress to cut the funding.  Had we not done that, we'd still be fighting in Vietnam.

At some point, before Johnson got involved, Indonesia became "pacified", in other words terrorized by a military junta led by a demonic prick named Suharto.  That ended the threat of revolution in Indonesia.  When that happened, a number of our Congressmen went on record suggesting that we let Vietnam be free, because there was no longer any good reason to keep our foot on its throat.  But by that time, maybe some rich bastards were making too much money in Vietnam to let it go.  That's what our country is for, you know, to make some rich evil bastards richer at our expense.

Johnson knew he fucked up.  He refused to run for reelection in 1968.  The country was so fed up with his Democratic leadership that they elected Republican Tricky Dick Nixon.  He cagily said he had a plan to end the war.  His plan was to bomb the shit out of Cambodia.  What a prick he was.  But then Congress pulled the plug on war funding and finally our troops were allowed to come home and stop serving Satan.

It puzzles me that so many Americans are loyal to the president despite the fact that we have had nothing but horrible presidents for over 100 years.  It is just one more proof that the American people, much like all the other people, don't have the brains they were born with.

The Vietnam War was the single biggest moral disgrace our country has ever committed.  Our treatment of other countries in general, our repeated invasions of Central American countries whenever they get a president who actually supports his own people instead of being a lackey to America's mega-rich and mega-greedy zillionaires who are selling fruit or whatever, proves time and time again that America is a filthy piece of shit country that richly deserves the hatred it receives worldwide.  Not that the rest of the world is a good judge.  Pretty much every country is crap.  Sad to say, America is one of the better ones.  Sad to say, America is about 100 times better than a lot of the others out there.  Isn't that pathetic?  The only way we can support the concept of patriotism and national pride is by saying there are actually places out there that are 100 times worse than this disgraceful piece of crap.  Move to friggin Iran, why doncha?  Move to Sudan.  Move to Somalia.  Move to China.  Move to India.  Move to Iraq.  Move to fucking Bangladesh.  Move to Myanmar.  Move to the friggin Congo.

Are things getting better or worse?  Well, I think better.  Nothing could be worse than the 20th Century.  That hit a new low.  I actually think things are getting better, but won't get much better, because the mega-rich are fucking the rest of us pretty damn good these days.  Hey, the price of gas is like $2.50, probably should be about a buck.