Nuclear Beef

Not surprisingly, those who had the financial resources to leave the country and establish themselves in America, often with the assistance of backers or "connections", most often had the most to lose from a nationalized political-economic system. This is not dissimilar to the large amount of Cuban nationals living in Florida.

Understandably, they believe their voices represent all other Vietnamese. However, there are alternate viewpoints. This article speaks with a wide range of Vietnamese people about their feelings comparing their own situation during the American war years to the current war in Iraq. Most express disapproval of imperialism (American and French) and its affects on their lives:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0421-10.htm

Counter to Mr. Dung's opinions, another article points out that - while first generation immigrants from S Vietnam tended to vote Republican for it's anti-communist policies, new generations are attracted to Democrats *because* of their committment to social programs that will become increasingly important in their lives - healthcare and retirement.

http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/6.04/000302-mccain.html

Finally, it is worth pointing out that refugees of South Vietnam, like the shaw of Iran and his supporters, are certainly one side of the story. But not all sides.

WTF does this have to do with music? Why are you on the mp3blog list if you're spouting politics???

Who gives a shit about this?

Dear Carie,

I was very clear about the fact that this entry was not music. If you look at the "Audio Video Beef" section, you will notice that there is Audio and Video of various types. Some is music-related, some is not. Last I checked, the standard on mp3blogs.org was :

1. It's a blog with a significant proportion of the posts containing links to legal audio files from a variety of artists.

As there is a manual submission process to be added to the aggregator, I can only assume that the editors considered "Audio Video Beef" to be appropriate. I made a RSS feed specifically for this category, and that's the RSS that I publish through mp3blogs.org. In other words, I specifically restricted the political stuff in order to avoid misusing mp3blogs.org. This post happens to be political, but it's audio too. I heard it on the radio, and it's my prerogative to link to it link any other audio.

There are quite a few people on mp3blogs who regularly post aggregated posts which contain no audio or video. Do you whine in their comments section, too?

In closing, I will quote The Specials :

Take it or leave it, we'll carry on regardless /
If you don't like it, you don't have to dance

It's up to you.

=darwin
PS - Obviously at least a few people care about this topic, as evidenced by the thoughtful comment anon left, above.
PPS - Haters gotta hate.. players gotta play.
PPPS - Welcome to The Beef.

Anon,

> Not surprisingly, those who had the financial resources to leave the country and establish themselves in America, often with the assistance of backers or "connections", most often had the most to lose from a nationalized political-economic system.

In other words:

"Of course the bourgoeisie fled, like the running dog Capitalists they are!"

I'm certainly not an expert on the history of the Vietnamese Refugees commonly known as the "Boat People." What I do know, however, is that many many of them died in transit. I also know that a lot of them were kept in refugee camps for extended periods of time. I guess their "connections" didn't serve them very well...

> This is not dissimilar to the large amount of >Cuban nationals living in Florida.

Yes, and the economy and society of both Vietnam and Cuba have suffered as a result of this widespread middle class flight.

> This article speaks with a wide range of
> Vietnamese people

Commondreams.org is not a cite that goes very far with me. Imagine if I cited worldnetdaily or Fox News, I imagine you would have a similar reaction.

I'm not too impressed by this particular article because of its blatant ahistorical slant. French and American misdeeds are a focus, whereas VC and NVA misdeeds during and after the fall of the south are nowhere to be seen. Sometimes an article reveals much via what it leaves out.

> [ Article which says young Vietnamese are voting Democrat ]

Dung touches on this idea a bit in the rest of the interview. He says that there are differences in the younger generation, but that the first two generations of Vietnamese-Americans (those who fled and their children) generally vote this way.

Their childrens children do not have the same foundation, so I'm not surprised that they are trending differently.

> Finally, it is worth pointing out that refugees > of South Vietnam, like the shaw of Iran and his > supporters, are certainly one side of the story.

It sounds like you think that those living in the cesspool called Communist Vietnam are all happy about it.

I read you loud and clear. You are either unaware of the abuses of the Communist Government of Vietnam or consider their victims guilty, and therefore deserving. Par for the course for neo-leftists : the US is the only villian, especially if the other side is Communist.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Welcome to The Beef.

=darwin

Interesting post. More interesting question: what program did you use to encode a RAM file into MP3? Real is constantly crashing my machine and I'd like to move some of the programs I listen to into iTunes.

In Windows, it's very easy. All I did was open up a sound recorder and set "recording" to "wave out" in the control panel. Then hit "record" in the sound recorder program and voila.

Easier than you'd think.

Welcome to The Beef!

=darwin

I work with more than a few Vietnamese. None of them were particularly wealthy (or in some cases, their parents weren't) in Vietnam, yet they wanted out when the North moved in, and they got out.

I remember in highschool there was a Vietnamese exchange student in my French class. She was quite the Communist believer. I asked her one day, how she liked America. She said, "it sucks. Except for Manhattan, where I can go shopping." As I recall, I blinked at that. Then I welcomed her to return to her Socialist paradise as soon as possible.

Last I heard however, she was living in Manhattan, having found a way to remain in the US for these past 14 years. I wonder why.

Thank you for visiting The Mudville Gazette and leaving the link to this post. I'm going to link to it from my blog. There aren't many people who come there as there are who see the things I cross-post at Mudville, but I'll at least send a few more people to read what you wrote.

Nice post, Bill Faith forwarded me the link. We're linking now, hope we can send you some traffic.

Bill, Pat:

Thank you both for your kind words and links. I'll admit, when I first heard the report on the radio I was a bit shocked.

All my life the media had fed me a certain picture of US action in Iraq, and the feeling that the people of South Vietnam were universally opposed to the American involvement. When I heard this story, it finally clicked that many of those fled after the fall of Saigon resented the anti-war movement for prompting America to abandon them.

IE, they wanted us there because they didn't want to be "united" with the Communist North. Even though we were supporting an unpopular government in the South!

I realized then that for all the talk in this campaign about Vietnam, I hadn't seen anyone ask the refugees of Vietnam how they felt about Kerry. I recorded, transcribed and put it up. Glad you liked it.

Welcome to The Beef!

=darwin
PS - Bill, Mudville Gazette totally rocks. Excellent community of posters. :)