The russians were as imperialistic as anybody, from the tsars right on through to the commissars, no doubt about it, and when russians show up here defending that arrogance we shall take them to task for it .... hard to say to what extent this hegemonic tendency in them was augmented and stimulated by the US poking away at their perimeters, threatening them all those years, but i judge them to have had ambitions of empire, and they may still do
But you cannot use this to justify a war against the vietnamese ... back while that war was being prosecuted it was known to be illogical, now in the light of subsequent events it is powerfully clear that the vietnamese held their own freedom and independence above all, that what old Ho said to Truman was in fact the case .... witness how they blew off the russians as soon as the colonisation threat from the US was beaten .... then, how they defended themselves against the red chinese ..... fascist, communist, whatever, it made no difference to them, just leave us alone to determine our own future, is what they were saying an hundred years ago, what they were saying in 1967, what they are saying now
Interesting you bring up the Monroe doctrine just as i'd been typing on the domineering arrogance inherent in appropriation of the term 'american' .... upthread we've been talking about Víctor Jara, he was a friend of your fellow countryman Phil Ochs .... not, however, of your Nixons and Calleys and Reagans ... you see, latinos know full well at whom that 'big stick' gets swung
Btw, my considered guess for Thomas' "mother country" is - Oregon -g- |
