Letters to the Editor
Ché Pasa
Published Letters: 865 Editor's Choice: 2
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Indeed
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So much of the intensity and anger driving the criticisms of the Bush presidency -- certainly my own, and much of what I read... -- is grounded in a fervent belief in American political values, its political principles and its constitutional framework. The anger comes not from a belief that the U.S. is an evil and corrupt entity, but from the opposite view. It comes from witnessing the all-out assault on these vaunted political principles and values and the complete corruption, close to the destruction, of our country's national character that has made the U.S. such an important and admired presence in the world for so long. -- Glenn Greenwald
Every now and then, the coversation around here turns to Mario Savio and what he said and did and the Free Speech Movement that he led (or often spoke for) at Berkeley at the outset of the student rebellions of the 1960's. And it has been pointed out, perhaps not often enough, that Mario was as thorogoing a patriot and had as passionate a love for American ideals as it was possible to have. It was that patriotism, love, and sense of real betrayal of basic American values by the Powers That Be at the time that triggered the rebellion at Berkeley. Mario eloquently crystalized the issues and advocated a University and an America that adhered to its ideals instead of suppressing them, that acted in the world according to the values set forth in its founding documents and stirring statements of its leaders for generations instead of dismissing them and behaving like a hulking behemoth stomping and destroying all in its path.
And it is this spirit that crops up again and again and again throughout American history, when things go awry, when ideals are sacrificed, when moral purpose is lost. We're in that kind of time now. Always before, we as a people have managed to press forward, to correct (some) errors in judgement and action, and to restore (some) confidence in American "goodness."
Voices -- like Mario's, like Glenn's -- cry out: it is America's ideals that must be preserved, must be restored. Those ideals, and our dedication to them, is what so many in the world have long admired, strived to emulate or to secure for themselves. And it is when we abandon them -- as has been the case with the Bush Regime -- that America falters, not when we adhere to them.
American Patriotism is not blind loyalty to a twisted cult of Bush. That is the opposite of Patriotism.
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Vietnam: The Model?
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Every now and then our Laureate, AJ aka bebop-o, posts about his experiences in Vietnam both during the horrors of the conflict and upon redemptive return.
He reminds us in no uncertain terms that redemption is not only possible, it is essential, and it is never guaranteed.
Americans "forgot" about Vietnam once the troops pulled out and the Embassy evacuation was complete and the helicopters were thrown over the sides of the carriers to drown unmourned in the South China Sea. And the Vietnamese under Uncle Ho's successors went about their business recuperating from the devastation, reuniting their own country and rescuing what survivors there were from Nixon's Death From Above campaign and the bloody reign of Pol Pot and his purists in neighboring Cambodia.
Revisionists tell us how horrifying the Communist victory was, how everyone was put on bonfires and the smoke from their pyres still wafts from the shores of Da Nang and Nah Trang and Beautiful Saigon, the Paris of the Orient. If only we'd had the stomach to stay in the fight, Vietnam would be Happy and Free. Instead, there is nothing but Communist Ruin and Despair as far as the eye can see; the horror.
All because we did not have the stomach for the fight.
When actually, by getting out and leaving those people alone -- and yes, by welcoming fleeing anti-communist refugees to our own shores -- they somehow managed to reassemble the parts of their nation, their culture, their souls that we had so carelessly torn asunder, and in a very modest way, recreate themselves.
Americans who visit Vietnam are still astonished at the widespread lack of bitterness over what was done to the people. They're surprised to see that battered land largely put back together, industrious, relatively prosperous, and shockingly at peace with the whole world.
No, it's not a "free" society in our narrow conception of the term, and as one of the few remaining Communist dictatorships in the world, its government is an anachronism. Destined to fade away, but possibly not to be overthrown.
And even the Most Hated Man in the World, George W. Bush, can be welcomed in Vietnam, and pose with a bust of Ho Chi Minh, and seem to have no self-awareness at all, and no consciousness of the symbolism of his presence.
Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia, and soon, perhaps, Iran, are the latest venues for America's adolescent need to project power, and except for Somalia (where we really know nothing about what's going on) things aren't going any better for us than they did in Southeast Asia, and our government and its armed forces are just as ignorant of the peoples they are determined to force to submit as they were of the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Lao, Hmong, Mien and so many others back in the day.
Nothing is learned?
We learned, to our surprise, perhaps to our shame, that these "backwards, uncivilized Natives" are quite capable of handling their own affairs, so long as we left them alone. And that apparently is a lesson we will have to learn over and over and over again.
But it does provide some hope of redemption once the Imperial Forces withdraw from their latest failed conquests.