Yes, saw that Israeli family being rejected by the Vietnamese cafe owner on Twitter. (I do wonder what happened to precipitate the owner's reaction before the video started.) "Anti-semitism!" he and his cohorts will cry. Forever the oppressor as well as the victim. Few other groups (none?) have managed to exist for so long with this contradiction so deeply and widely ingrained in unthinking minds.
Reading Linh, I learn much about Vietnam and its history. Especially it's poetic and literary history. Who knew? Certainly not me. There's a plethora of culture and history out there, in every country and in every way, small and large.
Vietnam no less than others. It is vast, in fact. Continue, Linh. Fascinating.
For some reason I am reminded of President "Jimmy" Carter's "Malaise" speech to the American people in 1979. Carter never actually used the word "malaise" but the tone of his speech was gloomy, one might even say down cast. The president wore a frumpy sweater and it was strongly implied if not fully expressed, that American viewers needed to turn the heat down in their homes and get used to a bit of discomfort. (I don't believe the term "austerity" was in use at that time.)
Americans resented the buck-toothed, oddly accented Georgia peanut farmer telling them how to live their usually profligate lives and quickly threw the little grinning man out of the office of President and put in his place the slickly bombastic former General Electric pitchman Ronald Reagan in Carter's stead. What followed was about 40 years of economic "neoliberalism" (not to be confused with the political liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal) that, according to scholarly estimates, shifted about 50 trillion dollars of American wealth from the middle and lower classes to the top 10% of the population (see e.g. the writings of renowned economists Emmanual Saez and Thomas Picketty).
Unbeknownst to many Americans President Biden has in many ways tried to put himself forth as the new FDR. (Yes it was hard for me to believe, too.) However the small progress he has made on behalf of the working-class in America only emphasizes how ALL of the presidents since Reagan have essentially sold-out the American working class benefiting the rich, the capitalists and the financiers instead.
I don't know what in Mr. Dinh's current essay reminds me of this except the phrase, "My last night in Vung Tau..." I've reached that stage in life where the word "last" always makes me uneasy. And I wonder if my coffin will be a relatively luxurious pine box or, as Mr. Dinh refers to, mere cardboard (in a pauper's grave)?
I doubt if "Joe Biden" has put himself forth as anything--it's his minders behind the curtain that are doing all the thinking for him. It's clear that this administration is completely run (if you can call it "running") by unelected functionaries. I wonder if perhaps the idea of making him president was to move us toward that PMC-run society where our "betters" are SELECTED, not ELECTED, undermining the very idea of "democracy" for good.
In the past, the "high priests" are appointed by the president. One has to wonder, this time around, who did the selecting, since it obviously was not Biden. Some other person or persons also unelected.
You are correct; I should have phrased it as "the Biden administration." I was particularly impressed by the appointment of Dr. Lana Kahn to head the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). She is trying to bring back enforcement of Antitrust law. Lack of enforcement of Antitrust law over previous administrations is one of the big reasons inflation has gotten out of control in recent years. It will take several amenable administrations to turn America around after 40 years of harmful neoliberalism. Biden can at best only begin the process.
We've also seen in recent years how conservative/ reactionary presidents such as George W. Bush have damaged American society with their Supreme Court nominees. The recent ruling overturning the Chevron precedent for Administrative law is a prime example. Administrative agencies have traditionally, since FDR, reigned in corporate power over society. Now corporations will have much more power to skirt laws such as mandatory overtime and OSHA work place safety regulations e.g rules against child labor. Yes I know the argument that federal administrators are "unelected bureaucrats" but most of them are intelligent, hard working individuals who help keep America a relatively safe and civilized society. The current Roberts Court is simply turning over America to corporate rule at the expensive and to the detriment of the people.
Jimma wasn't really buck-toothed, not when he was pres' anyway. In old age his jaw has softened and he acquired an overbite. But now even some orthodontists are against corrective braces. I think the image of Carter as a yokel was encouraged by the rootless cosmopolitans who never warmed to the upstart peanut farmer. Yokels are usually depicted as gap-toothed w/ maybe a straw sticking out of the hole. It was the evil WW2 Japs that were caricatured as buck-toothed. When pre-adolescent, I had a comical hybrid look: buck- toothed w/ flyway ears and freckles. Yikes! Howdy Doody and Alfred E Newman were my peers.
Fifties and early Sixties was a time of naivete and lost innocence for America. Howdy may have been a chuckle head but he had a romantic side, at least that's how I nostalgically see him. He was pining for the comely Indian princess.
I didn't mean to seemingly belittle Mr. Carter. It was just a rhetorical statement. Wasn't he trained as a nuclear physicist? Obviously he was very bright.
As far as deities go, I would have to think that Mr. Sky is the wisest and most mercurial. Cheerful and radiant one day, aloof on another with bouts of downright nastiness at times. A society that venerates the sky may be more down to earth than ones that take it for granted.
I don't know what those Jewish tourists are put out about--it's the same treatment that ordinary Russians are getting all over western Europe for the "crime" of simply being Russian. At least the Jewish tourists didn't have their property confiscated.
Reading stories like that brings me back to my own speculations about the kind of welcome Americans might expect overseas. I suspect that any American who aspires to tour the world and hopes for a warm welcome overseas better get started quickly on that bucket list. The way the US is going, it may not be long before we start experiencing something similar, although the American mythology may hang on awhile longer. After all, judging from what is going on at our southern border, there are plenty of people still interested in coming here, presumably from places or situations bad enough that any change is considered a gamble worth taking. I guess they didn't get the email.
It is my understanding -- as limited as it is -- that many if not all refugees fleeing to the United States are in some ways victims of U.S. meddling in their native countries. Central American countries such as Gautemala being a prime example.
In the 1950s Gautemala had a democratically elected young president who essentially gave the poor campasinos of the country plots of land so the farmers could provide for themselves and their families; The American corporation United Fruit (now Chiquita Banana) expropriated the land for commercial Banana plantations. The campasinos fled north to the U.S.
A similar expropriation of native lands from Mexicans happened under Clinton with the passage of NAFTA. Again to benefit American corporations.
When I lived in Sacramento, California I had met a young Palestinian woman who called it "going into the belly of the beast." The idea back then was that only in the U.S were the lower classes of the world safe from U.S. depredations. Thus displaced people flee to the country that displaced them. (And recall it is not the American people who wreak havoc around the world; it is American capitalist corporations in their quest for profits that do so. Most foreigners believe Americans are good hearted if somewhat naive people; it is American corporations that they hate.) In the years since I spoke with that woman we have seen what Chris Hedges foresaw. The same American imperialism imposed upon others would eventually be brought back home to America's own poor.
America is still seen as the land of opportunity and it is still true that you can move to it and improve your financial well being. It was a smart move of the Jews to flood the country with people who have low expectations for the state of the society and honesty in the government.
Of course it isn't the land of opportunity for most people who have lived here for generations. I have read that children of middle class and affluent Chinese are starting to move back to China while the ones coming to the US are financially struggling
Yes, saw that Israeli family being rejected by the Vietnamese cafe owner on Twitter. (I do wonder what happened to precipitate the owner's reaction before the video started.) "Anti-semitism!" he and his cohorts will cry. Forever the oppressor as well as the victim. Few other groups (none?) have managed to exist for so long with this contradiction so deeply and widely ingrained in unthinking minds.
Reading Linh, I learn much about Vietnam and its history. Especially it's poetic and literary history. Who knew? Certainly not me. There's a plethora of culture and history out there, in every country and in every way, small and large.
Vietnam no less than others. It is vast, in fact. Continue, Linh. Fascinating.
Agreed.
For some reason I am reminded of President "Jimmy" Carter's "Malaise" speech to the American people in 1979. Carter never actually used the word "malaise" but the tone of his speech was gloomy, one might even say down cast. The president wore a frumpy sweater and it was strongly implied if not fully expressed, that American viewers needed to turn the heat down in their homes and get used to a bit of discomfort. (I don't believe the term "austerity" was in use at that time.)
Americans resented the buck-toothed, oddly accented Georgia peanut farmer telling them how to live their usually profligate lives and quickly threw the little grinning man out of the office of President and put in his place the slickly bombastic former General Electric pitchman Ronald Reagan in Carter's stead. What followed was about 40 years of economic "neoliberalism" (not to be confused with the political liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal) that, according to scholarly estimates, shifted about 50 trillion dollars of American wealth from the middle and lower classes to the top 10% of the population (see e.g. the writings of renowned economists Emmanual Saez and Thomas Picketty).
Unbeknownst to many Americans President Biden has in many ways tried to put himself forth as the new FDR. (Yes it was hard for me to believe, too.) However the small progress he has made on behalf of the working-class in America only emphasizes how ALL of the presidents since Reagan have essentially sold-out the American working class benefiting the rich, the capitalists and the financiers instead.
I don't know what in Mr. Dinh's current essay reminds me of this except the phrase, "My last night in Vung Tau..." I've reached that stage in life where the word "last" always makes me uneasy. And I wonder if my coffin will be a relatively luxurious pine box or, as Mr. Dinh refers to, mere cardboard (in a pauper's grave)?
I doubt if "Joe Biden" has put himself forth as anything--it's his minders behind the curtain that are doing all the thinking for him. It's clear that this administration is completely run (if you can call it "running") by unelected functionaries. I wonder if perhaps the idea of making him president was to move us toward that PMC-run society where our "betters" are SELECTED, not ELECTED, undermining the very idea of "democracy" for good.
In the past, the "high priests" are appointed by the president. One has to wonder, this time around, who did the selecting, since it obviously was not Biden. Some other person or persons also unelected.
You are correct; I should have phrased it as "the Biden administration." I was particularly impressed by the appointment of Dr. Lana Kahn to head the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). She is trying to bring back enforcement of Antitrust law. Lack of enforcement of Antitrust law over previous administrations is one of the big reasons inflation has gotten out of control in recent years. It will take several amenable administrations to turn America around after 40 years of harmful neoliberalism. Biden can at best only begin the process.
We've also seen in recent years how conservative/ reactionary presidents such as George W. Bush have damaged American society with their Supreme Court nominees. The recent ruling overturning the Chevron precedent for Administrative law is a prime example. Administrative agencies have traditionally, since FDR, reigned in corporate power over society. Now corporations will have much more power to skirt laws such as mandatory overtime and OSHA work place safety regulations e.g rules against child labor. Yes I know the argument that federal administrators are "unelected bureaucrats" but most of them are intelligent, hard working individuals who help keep America a relatively safe and civilized society. The current Roberts Court is simply turning over America to corporate rule at the expensive and to the detriment of the people.
Jimma wasn't really buck-toothed, not when he was pres' anyway. In old age his jaw has softened and he acquired an overbite. But now even some orthodontists are against corrective braces. I think the image of Carter as a yokel was encouraged by the rootless cosmopolitans who never warmed to the upstart peanut farmer. Yokels are usually depicted as gap-toothed w/ maybe a straw sticking out of the hole. It was the evil WW2 Japs that were caricatured as buck-toothed. When pre-adolescent, I had a comical hybrid look: buck- toothed w/ flyway ears and freckles. Yikes! Howdy Doody and Alfred E Newman were my peers.
Fifties and early Sixties was a time of naivete and lost innocence for America. Howdy may have been a chuckle head but he had a romantic side, at least that's how I nostalgically see him. He was pining for the comely Indian princess.
https://clickamericana.com/wp-content/uploads/Howdy-Doody-metal-lunchbox-from-1954.jpg
I didn't mean to seemingly belittle Mr. Carter. It was just a rhetorical statement. Wasn't he trained as a nuclear physicist? Obviously he was very bright.
I don't think Carter was a nuclear physicist. He graduated from the Naval Academy w/ a BS. Later he worked on nuclear subs under Admiral Rickover.
As far as deities go, I would have to think that Mr. Sky is the wisest and most mercurial. Cheerful and radiant one day, aloof on another with bouts of downright nastiness at times. A society that venerates the sky may be more down to earth than ones that take it for granted.
I don't know what those Jewish tourists are put out about--it's the same treatment that ordinary Russians are getting all over western Europe for the "crime" of simply being Russian. At least the Jewish tourists didn't have their property confiscated.
Reading stories like that brings me back to my own speculations about the kind of welcome Americans might expect overseas. I suspect that any American who aspires to tour the world and hopes for a warm welcome overseas better get started quickly on that bucket list. The way the US is going, it may not be long before we start experiencing something similar, although the American mythology may hang on awhile longer. After all, judging from what is going on at our southern border, there are plenty of people still interested in coming here, presumably from places or situations bad enough that any change is considered a gamble worth taking. I guess they didn't get the email.
It is my understanding -- as limited as it is -- that many if not all refugees fleeing to the United States are in some ways victims of U.S. meddling in their native countries. Central American countries such as Gautemala being a prime example.
In the 1950s Gautemala had a democratically elected young president who essentially gave the poor campasinos of the country plots of land so the farmers could provide for themselves and their families; The American corporation United Fruit (now Chiquita Banana) expropriated the land for commercial Banana plantations. The campasinos fled north to the U.S.
A similar expropriation of native lands from Mexicans happened under Clinton with the passage of NAFTA. Again to benefit American corporations.
I agree, which makes it doubly perplexing that they would choose to come here to the home of their "oppressor" and think it might be a better place.
When I lived in Sacramento, California I had met a young Palestinian woman who called it "going into the belly of the beast." The idea back then was that only in the U.S were the lower classes of the world safe from U.S. depredations. Thus displaced people flee to the country that displaced them. (And recall it is not the American people who wreak havoc around the world; it is American capitalist corporations in their quest for profits that do so. Most foreigners believe Americans are good hearted if somewhat naive people; it is American corporations that they hate.) In the years since I spoke with that woman we have seen what Chris Hedges foresaw. The same American imperialism imposed upon others would eventually be brought back home to America's own poor.
America is still seen as the land of opportunity and it is still true that you can move to it and improve your financial well being. It was a smart move of the Jews to flood the country with people who have low expectations for the state of the society and honesty in the government.
Of course it isn't the land of opportunity for most people who have lived here for generations. I have read that children of middle class and affluent Chinese are starting to move back to China while the ones coming to the US are financially struggling
The travelers on the boat look so happy! Linh, is that you in the picture with the young child?
Hi Peggy,
Yes, that's me with the girl. I hoisted her up a few times which made her laugh, but I couldn't keep doing it.
Linh
You look healthy!
tony montana writes netanyahu "...sent to jail." no, no no! was saddam sent to jail?
Glad you made it out there. Let me know if it's worth visiting when we get back to VN.