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Post by AztecWilliam on May 4, 2011 22:16:24 GMT -8
My dad worked for Douglas Aircraft for 39 years. I am, therefore, pretty familiar with all Douglas models. This evening I decided to look up the Wikipedia article on the Douglas Skyraider, a large, single engine naval attack bomber that first flew in 1945 but was still in use in the 1970s. That article includes a section on the use of the Skyraider in the Vietnam war. That led me to the article on Vietnam, after which I Googled "Vietnam human rights" and found this article from Human Rights Watch. It is for the year 2009. I wonder, has anybody these days heard any complaints from the U.S. critics of the Vietnam war about the human rights situation in Vietnam ? No, I didn't think so. Those people, including one Mass. Senator, were all over the U.S. and the govt. of South Vietnam. Seems they are not too interested in what goes on in Vietnam currently. Perhaps they are too busy warning us of how terrible the Tea Pary members are and what a threat to human rights they represent. www.hrw.org/en/node/87404AzWm |
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Post by AztecWilliam on May 4, 2011 22:40:49 GMT -8
Here is a contribution to the discussion section of the Wikipedia article on Vietnamese human rights. If there ever was evidence of someone who just does not get it, this is it.
the point of view of a Vietnamese
I am a Vietnamese but I will will try to be objective. Indeed, the way Vietnamese government handle opposition is a little bit harsh. But after all, democracy is about the majority having the power, and I can assure you at least 90% of Vietnamese support the government. You can say that there are 10% left but changing the government always result in violence, history has proven that. Also having only one party has some advantage, because that means the country is united unlike other countries with many party. Also this might surprise you but for me manifestation is a violation of the law. Liberty has it's limit: you can do anything as long as is don't have a consequence on other people. But manifestation means blocking road street... And of course it will have an impact on other people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.250.99.172 (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
See how simple things are from this person's viewpoint? 90% of the people support the government, so the remaining 10% should just shut the f- - - up! And what about political parties? Well, heck, having just one is so much neater. Multiple parties cause such trouble, after all. And the govt. in Vietnam is, well, maybe a bit harsh on the opposition. Do tell!
Honest to god, the most wild-eyed anti-communist could not have done a better job of indicting the mindset that must characterize a lot of people in totalitarian counties. This person's views are virtually a caricature, a very warped view of democracy. I'm surprised that the old line about having to break eggs if you want to make an omelet isn't in there. Oh, wait, it actually is!
AzWm
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Post by aztec79 on May 5, 2011 5:30:07 GMT -8
Well you started out by mentioning the A-1. One heck of a great plane. Big, fat wings enabled it to turn extremely well. Made the first gun-kill of a MIG-17 in Vietnam. Flown not just by the Navy, but also but the Air Forces of the U.S. and South Vietnam.....
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Post by AztecWilliam on May 5, 2011 10:48:38 GMT -8
Well you started out by mentioning the A-1. One heck of a great plane. Big, fat wings enabled it to turn extremely well. Made the first gun-kill of a MIG-17 in Vietnam. Flown not just by the Navy, but also but the Air Forces of the U.S. and South Vietnam..... Yeah, I read that. How the heck was it able to shoot down a Mig-17? Very impressive; a bit like my out-rebounding Malcolm Thomas. AzWm |
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Post by aztec79 on May 5, 2011 12:59:05 GMT -8
Well you started out by mentioning the A-1. One heck of a great plane. Big, fat wings enabled it to turn extremely well. Made the first gun-kill of a MIG-17 in Vietnam. Flown not just by the Navy, but also but the Air Forces of the U.S. and South Vietnam..... Yeah, I read that. How the heck was it able to shoot down a Mig-17? Very impressive; a bit like my out-rebounding Malcolm Thomas. AzWm I know, hard to believe, yet true. what happenned was a group of carrier based A-1's went into the North to support a SAR for a downed pilot, they ended up getting jumped by some MIG-17's. While the A-1 could not of course outrun a MIG17, it could out-turn it and managed to stay out of the line of fire while being chased. So, this one MIG finally gives up, and disappearrs. One of the A-1's hooks up with his buddy and the pair start to get the heck out of there, wondering where that Mig went. Next thing they know - they look way ahead and that MIG is coming directly AT them - stupid thing to do - the A-1's both opened up with their 20mm and the MIG goes down.... |
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 9, 2011 18:22:49 GMT -8
My dad worked for Douglas Aircraft for 39 years. I am, therefore, pretty familiar with all Douglas models. This evening I decided to look up the Wikipedia article on the Douglas Skyraider, a large, single engine naval attack bomber that first flew in 1945 but was still in use in the 1970s. That article includes a section on the use of the Skyraider in the Vietnam war. That led me to the article on Vietnam, after which I Googled "Vietnam human rights" and found this article from Human Rights Watch. It is for the year 2009. I wonder, has anybody these days heard any complaints from the U.S. critics of the Vietnam war about the human rights situation in Vietnam ? No, I didn't think so. Those people, including one Mass. Senator, were all over the U.S. and the govt. of South Vietnam. Seems they are not too interested in what goes on in Vietnam currently. AzWm What goes on in Vietnam is what has gone on for a thousand years. Those of us who actually understood Vietnamese culture recognized that. The boneheads on the right wanted to believe it was all about fighting Communism, the domino theory and the concept of encirclement. The boneheads on the left were total idiots who didn't have a clue when it came to Vietnamese political culture; they just thought it was cool to oppose the war while having no understanding of why it should be opposed. Studying the political culture told me that what was happening in Vietnam was a civil war between an elite in the south, who had been educated in France or at an in-country French Catholic school and an elite in the north that had been traditionally educated in Vietnam. If you understand that cultural separation, you understand the basis for civil wars in post-colonial nations in the '50s and '60s. Diem sold himself in this country as someone interested in democracy while that was the last thing he believed in - the political culture he was raised in had no clue about democracy. And that's the fallacy of American foreign policy since the start of the Cold War - we could somehow, through force of will or just outright military force cause countries with a millennium of established political culture to change over night and adopt a political system that is totally alien and incomprehensible to their political mind set. The question you should be asking isn't one of human rights violations. The question you should be asking is why we allow our corporations to open factories in countries that violate human rights. Unfortunately, that creates a moral dilemma for you because you want to believe in the Randian notion of rational egoism while being raised in the American culture of Christian altruism. Sorry Will, but you are just as incapable of rejecting the American political culture as I am. The difference is that I recognize political cultures while you still assume that bitching up on side and down the other about human rights violations in Vietnam, China or Malaysia will actually make a difference. As long as people like you continue to support American corporations exploiting Asian workers because you believe those companies should have free will to do what they want, you have no moral standing to bitch about human rights. =Bob |
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Post by aztecwin on May 11, 2011 11:53:18 GMT -8
'Those of us who actually understood Vietnamese culture"? Sure thing, Bob!  |
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 11, 2011 17:06:45 GMT -8
'Those of us who actually understood Vietnamese culture"? Sure thing, Bob! What? You figure being a supply clerk at some Vietnamese base gave you a great understanding of their culture? Again I'll repeat - Vietnamese culture is what it is - Confucian to a certain degree, particularly its political culture and always authoritarian. Since you apparently see yourself as an expert on Vietnam based upon the time you spent there, why don't you address my central point - if Vietnam is so horrible, why do we allow American corporations to move their factories there? =Bob |
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Post by aztecwin on May 12, 2011 12:45:24 GMT -8
'Those of us who actually understood Vietnamese culture"? Sure thing, Bob! What? You figure being a supply clerk at some Vietnamese base gave you a great understanding of their culture? Again I'll repeat - Vietnamese culture is what it is - Confucian to a certain degree, particularly its political culture and always authoritarian. Since you apparently see yourself as an expert on Vietnam based upon the time you spent there, why don't you address my central point - if Vietnam is so horrible, why do we allow American corporations to move their factories there? =Bob I suggest that reading a book or two in a fog of smoke and taking a class from some dip stick professor is hardly the making of an expert or even giving one a rudimentary understanding of Vietnamese cultural. I don't claim to be an expert, only that you could not possibly be one. |
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Post by AztecWilliam on May 13, 2011 21:22:18 GMT -8
Bob, it was not just a civil war. If that were true, then we might have expected a northern takeover to produce a political system not too different from what would have been produced by a southern takeover. Instead, what has happened is that the whole of Vietnam is controlled by people who rejected their own traditions and adopted a totalitarian system whose origins can be traced to two German pseudo-intellectuals.
As has been seen so many times, the average citizen has always enjoyed more freedom under an authoritarian right wing regime than under a Communist (or radical Islamist) one. Compare Iran under the Shah with Iran today. Or Spain under Franco with Cuba under Castro.
In any event, and for whatever reason or reasons, Vietnam is a country that denies most of the basic human rights that we take for granted. And yet those among us who believed we were wrong to intervene in that country seem ignorant of, or, worse yet, indifferent to the political reality of today's Vietnam.
Bob, you have a bad habit of underestimating the knowledge and understanding of people who hold views different from your own.
AzWm
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Post by 78aztec82 on May 22, 2011 8:55:06 GMT -8
'Those of us who actually understood Vietnamese culture"? Sure thing, Bob! What? You figure being a supply clerk at some Vietnamese base gave you a great understanding of their culture? Again I'll repeat - Vietnamese culture is what it is - Confucian to a certain degree, particularly its political culture and always authoritarian. Since you apparently see yourself as an expert on Vietnam based upon the time you spent there, why don't you address my central point - if Vietnam is so horrible, why do we allow American corporations to move their factories there? =Bob I can assure you that you don't know Vietnam culture. I spent a lot of time throughout the country in this decade. I've been working with said culture up to a couple years ago and have come back with a very different opinion than what you may think. There is the official Vietnam, run by the communist party and all the trappings back to the Cold War. They spy on themselves and they spy on foreigners. It is comically obvious. Tha have fabulous parades to themselves and Uncle Ho. They profess to be hard line yet most of the country goes on it's merry own way, mostly a cash society and desirous of hard currency from outside. All very ignorant of what is irrelevantly going on in Hanoi. They could care less and other than health care and schooling, oh, and Highway 1, little else matters. There is a different vibe between the south, dominated by Saigon/HCM City and Hue to the north, and the northern part of the country dominated by Hanoi. The Central area is rife with agrarian activity and foreign assistance (housing, bomb removal, NGOs) and a little government construction. It is very interesting. I will say that Buddhism, not Confucianism is pervasive. I don't mean religious but a mindset. Those two types are very different in how people view their everyday existance. Capitalism in a very basic way is the real, barely underground economy. Western companies actually prop the weak Vietnamese government to a degree but the people working there are making more than they ever had since '72. |
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Post by The Great Aztec Joe on May 23, 2011 8:29:34 GMT -8
In a way, Vietnam reminds me of Castro's Cuba.
Lots of talk about Communist party achievements and benefits. In reality, poverty almost everywhere but not totally oppressive.
Most of the people live off of the land. The vast majority of the population is still slightly to moderately religious but not openly so. It is more of a cultural thing that is hard to shake.
Conditions are improving but not as fast as the educated people would like to see. The most rapid improvement comes from outside money infusing the economy.
The vast majority of the people expect the government to mellow with time.
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Post by AztecWilliam on May 23, 2011 21:31:08 GMT -8
No doubt Vietnam is a very complex place with many different cultural issues to be considered. What I was getting at is that, despite the pseudo-capitalism that is found there, basic human rights are not guaranteed as they are here. There is still repression of anyone who dares to think that the government should be reformed.
AzWm
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Post by The Great Aztec Joe on May 24, 2011 12:42:50 GMT -8
No doubt Vietnam is a very complex place with many different cultural issues to be considered. What I was getting at is that, despite the pseudo-capitalism that is found there, basic human rights are not guaranteed as they are here. There is still repression of anyone who dares to think that the government should be reformed. AzWm In the Middle Ages the established church repressed anyone who dared to think that the church should be reformed. What is that saying, "What goes around comes around." I think that is it. History knows that as FACT. |
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Post by AztecWilliam on May 28, 2011 10:20:13 GMT -8
No doubt Vietnam is a very complex place with many different cultural issues to be considered. What I was getting at is that, despite the pseudo-capitalism that is found there, basic human rights are not guaranteed as they are here. There is still repression of anyone who dares to think that the government should be reformed. AzWm In the Middle Ages the established church repressed anyone who dared to think that the church should be reformed. What is that saying, "What goes around comes around." I think that is it. History knows that as FACT. In any case, Joe, Vietnam is a far less free country than it would have been had we not "lost" the war. That fact does not seem to bother many of the most emphatically anti-war protestors of the '60s and '70s. AzWm |
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2011 10:53:56 GMT -8
As has been seen so many times, the average citizen has always enjoyed more freedom under an authoritarian right wing regime than under a Communist (or radical Islamist) one. Compare Iran under the Shah with Iran today. Or Spain under Franco with Cuba under Castro. In any event, and for whatever reason or reasons, Vietnam is a country that denies most of the basic human rights that we take for granted. And yet those among us who believed we were wrong to intervene in that country seem ignorant of, or, worse yet, indifferent to the political reality of today's Vietnam. All I know is this. The Vietnamese-born woman who cut my hair for many years came to the U.S. as a child when the U.S. backed regime fell. Her family left dozens of relatives behind and so Ann still goes back to visit every other year like clockwork. And although she would agree with you that human rights are stifled far more than in the U.S., she doesn't believe that Vietnam is at all worse off overall than it was before. Worse in some ways, better in others. It seems to me the difference between folks like you and I is that I don't absolutely think a communist government is worse than what was basically a dictatorship. (Were there elections? Yeah, just like there have been elections in Iran, with the challenger having just about as much chance of winning.) Just gotta ask, William. Do you really think things are so bad in Vietnam today that this is even something worth debating? With due repect, your politics are incomprehensible. |
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Post by 78aztec82 on May 29, 2011 11:01:12 GMT -8
In any case, Joe, Vietnam is a far less free country than it would have been had we not "lost" the war. That fact does not seem to bother many of the most emphatically anti-war protestors of the '60s and '70s. AzWm I'll be frank, while being outspoken against that government will get you in serious trouble, basic freedoms in Vietnam are pretty much there. There is a huge underground economy and people pretty much go as they please, assuming they don't speak out against a government that has little bearing on their lives other than basic services. I am not advocating the society but as a recent observer, it isn't very repressive as say, the Soviet Union was back in the Cold War era. |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 11:00:25 GMT -8
I'll be frank, while being outspoken against that government will get you in serious trouble, basic freedoms in Vietnam are pretty much there. There is a huge underground economy and people pretty much go as they please, assuming they don't speak out against a government that has little bearing on their lives other than basic services. I am not advocating the society but as a recent observer, it isn't very repressive as say, the Soviet Union was back in the Cold War era. Exactly. Was Mao arm in arm with the Red Chinese? Sure. However, he needed their help to win the revolution. That doesn't mean at all that his regime was equally oppressive of its people. |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 14:22:34 GMT -8
As has been seen so many times, the average citizen has always enjoyed more freedom under an authoritarian right wing regime than under a Communist (or radical Islamist) one. Compare Iran under the Shah with Iran today. Or Spain under Franco with Cuba under Castro. In any event, and for whatever reason or reasons, Vietnam is a country that denies most of the basic human rights that we take for granted. And yet those among us who believed we were wrong to intervene in that country seem ignorant of, or, worse yet, indifferent to the political reality of today's Vietnam. All I know is this. The Vietnamese-born woman who cut my hair for many years came to the U.S. as a child when the U.S. backed regime fell. Her family left dozens of relatives behind and so Ann still goes back to visit every other year like clockwork. And although she would agree with you that human rights are stifled far more than in the U.S., she doesn't believe that Vietnam is at all worse off overall than it was before. Worse in some ways, better in others. It seems to me the difference between folks like you and I is that I don't absolutely think a communist government is worse than what was basically a dictatorship. (Were there elections? Yeah, just like there have been elections in Iran, with the challenger having just about as much chance of winning.) Just gotta ask, William. Do you really think things are so bad in Vietnam today that this is even something worth debating? With due repect, your politics are incomprehensible. Of course it's better. There's no war now. |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 14:30:54 GMT -8
In any case, Joe, Vietnam is a far less free country than it would have been had we not "lost" the war. That fact does not seem to bother many of the most emphatically anti-war protestors of the '60s and '70s. AzWm I'll be frank, while being outspoken against that government will get you in serious trouble, basic freedoms in Vietnam are pretty much there. There is a huge underground economy and people pretty much go as they please, assuming they don't speak out against a government that has little bearing on their lives other than basic services. I am not advocating the society but as a recent observer, it isn't very repressive as say, the Soviet Union was back in the Cold War era. Market economies happen in the absence of an imposed system. It's the way people have interacted with each other since the dawn of time. What you see when you go the Vietnam now is essentially a weak state with little control, or interest in control of anything outside of the major population centers. You see the same thing in many of the poor places you and I have traveled to. To Williams point, Vietnam is still pretty far down on Maslow's triangle. Food and safety are far more important than freedom of press. |
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