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Web Letter

Greg Grandin begins with a false premise, albeit one shared by the Obama administration. There was no coup in Honduras. The former president violated the constitution of his country and was lawfully removed from office.

The first words of Chávez are a lie. It goes downhill from there.

Grandin probably wouldn't have been granted the interview by the South American despot if he hadn't pledged to take his side, but do you really believe anyone else will do anything but laugh at the drivel emanating from both sides?

Web Letter

While I lacked President Chávez's religious background, I did find his comments on Bush at the UN amusing. Titles do not make the man, but the man can disgrace the title.

Since the West is committing economic suicide with "free trade," it will soon present less of a problem for the rest of the world. You will note that the dip in trade between the West Powers and China, as well as India has not stopped their economic growth. It merely forced them to concentrate on internal development, which is where they should have begun. Both these countries have a large population. which with internal development would exceed any trade with the West. Egypt is experiencing 5 percent growth despite the lose of tourism through terrorism, and the reduction in revenue from the Suez Canal because of the global "recession." They too have turned toward internal development, which is stimulating their economy.

While these positive results were an accidental result of Western stupidity, the same results can be reached by using tariffs. Any country that is seriously interested in industrial development needs a wall of tariffs behind which it can develop its own industrial base and the jobs that go with it. The jobs will produce the disposable income to support the national economy. A "free trade" relationship with any developed country is economic suicide, because they will dump their goods on your market, preventing or destroying your industrial development.

It was behind trade barriers that the US became a major industrial nation! "free trade" is a foreign ideology, and it is definitely not the "American system" that originated in Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures, popularized by Henry Clay's Whig Party and President William McKinley.