Remember the opening reception and artist’s lecture for Brian Doan‘s photographs at Cypress College?
The Bolsavik got there just as the lecture was ongoing, but the OC Register’s Richard Chang (pictured) had arrived a couple of hours before, and tells this funny story about what he saw when he first got there.
What he saw was several hundred people assembled outside the galleries.
Protestors? Oh goodie!
Turns out, nope. It’s just a previously scheduled fire drill.
Read Chang’s very detailed story of Doan’s opening reception on the Reg‘s Arts Blog here.
Jenny Nguyen,
Despite of the facts that your excerpts were heavily sanitized to give your political point of view maximum benefits, I am surprised that you RECOGNIZED Ho Chi Minh was the de facto leader of the anti-French and anti-Japanese government of Vietnam at that period of time; and secondly his reign was brutal and dictatorial. I see you are definitely a pro HCM.
Your portrayal of SVN leaders as victims of superpower’s policies is quite detrimental to your own cause.
Finally, your heavily cleaned-up version of history is just like communist propaganda. Your must have learned well the communist way of distorting history. You are a good commie.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it has to be a duck.
You talk like a commie, you act like a commie, you must be a new commie against the old commie.
If 65% of Vietnamese population was born after 1975, then all of them have no concept of the SVN flag.
Why is it so hard for old generation to understand such a simple fact ?
Talking about SVN generals,
Do you know what these generals were doing in MARCH 1975 at Bo Tong Tham Muu ?
Leaving their posts to go back to Saigon to send their family to US 7th Fleet.
Thousands of civilians and SVN solders died because of the premature collapse of the top SVN military organization “Bo Tong Tham Muu”.
One last comment :
The fall of Saigon was not a military victory of the NVN, but rather the collapse of the top SVN military command structure.
If you’re trying to pour more oil into the fire, you’re doing a great job of it Country First. You’re enjoy seeing the young American Vietnamese hating the old American Vietnamese people, so what are you really? Must I say, a true commie !
While many of us screaming for Freedom of Expression, many failed to recognize the law doesn’t allow us to be free of criticism !
VN,
I am sorry, I got carried away ! ! !
M&M
Point taken, I appologize for the vulgar language of those comments, not for “them speaking up their mind”. If M. Burr also using the same language, then ofcousre I wont comment. Honestly, I dont understand why some Vietnamese (including my parents) hate the commies so much, I left the country in mid of April, 75, I visited VN on business trip in 2006 and traveling across the country by car, I so much in love with the people and everything in between. They (the commie) may be misunderstood when the war just over, but they are changing, some told me, if the VN government was that bad, they could execute all of SVN HO, but thet didn’t, they even let those HO went to US, eventhought they knew these HO will bad mouth about them. Before 1975, SVN economique almost totally depending on US support, so once the South had been liberated, evidently they must face hardship like the North. Should the South be gratefull for the unification and independence, should the Vietnamese be proud of Dien Bien Phu? I am not support the communist, but I dont see anything wrong with Vietnam today, I travel freely across VN, and no police following or give me any problem, people are living normal….I saw poor people, but then I also saw them in Thailand, Mexico and even in US, but I dont see them being mistreat… the only thing I regrett was that I did not visit VN earlier, I was reluctant due to many made up stories about VN in those anti-commie magazines in Little Saigon. May be the Viet protestors also being blinded like me, the trip to VN today will open up their eyes and mind. VN so lovely, the country and the people.
Hi Susieq, you know sometimes action can be harsher than word itself. I can’t speak on behalf of those people that have commented regarding michael burr, I can only tell you that I understand why they did it . It’s funny that you brought up something which I have said to my friend several years ago ” …come to think of it, the Vietnamese communist are still a lot more human than the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia cause they could executed all of SVN but they didn’t ” but little that I know, the communists are a lot more intelligence than the Khmer Rouge… they don’t want to beat you physically, they want to do mentally. And imaging if they actually killed all those SVN, you think that the American will be able to leave it alone ? No, because there will be too much blood on their hands and the world will criticize them for leaving us behind then another war will happen. I hate politic so therefore I don’t know much about it but I’m sure the VC have to have some kind of benefits from the American in order for them to allow our HO go to US. Whatever it was, I’m very glad that it happened. And the reason you don’t see anything wrong with Vietnam today is because they want it that way cause if you actually see the reality of it many tourists from all over the world wouldn’t want to go there and if they don’t then how the heck are the communists going to get their hands on the foreign currencies since their currencies are not worth anything. With all the technology that we have now, whatever we don’t know we could find out & learn. If you don’t know why your parents hate the commies so much then you need to ask , have them explain to you but make up your own mind about communism after you obtain all the facts. I’m glad you shared your point of view & I can only wish our older generation could be able to communicate with the younger and share with them the knowledge that they know but also be able to allow them to have a mind of their own. I’m not telling you that you have to hate communism, I just want you to understand why I don’t like them & and to respect my opinion about them.
During the spring and summer of 1967, I became active in anti-war movement in California. With Robert McAfee Brown and Rabbi Heschel, I contributed to a book: VIETNAM : A CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE, that sold more than 100,000 copies. Later, I joined the board of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam.
But these days, when I hear congressmen warn about “the lessons from Vietnam:, my conscience twinges. I have come to think that the anti-war movement was wrong – at least that I was wrong – about Vietnam. We misinterpreted the facts. We are now implicated in the immense miseries of the people of Vietnam, South and Nort.
What is the lesson of Vietnam? The lesson is that Marxist forces concentrate their most important effort on propaganda and disinformation within the U.S.A and Europe. The frontline was never on the battlefield; it was on the U.S. homefront.
In recent years, the aging leaders of North Vietnam have begun to loast publicly about how successfully they deceived us – not only Jane Fonda and others who honored Hanoi, but also all of us who tried hard to believe that Ho Chi Minh was really ” the George Washington of Vietnam”…
…What hurts my conscience, though, is not the dire strategic threat to other innocent peoples, but rather the painful sufferings of the Vietnamese, North and South. Marxism is a harsh master. The Gulag has been extended beyond the U.S.S.R. to oppress an additional 58 million human beings.
Reeducating camps keep scores of thousands in facilities often worse than the “tiger cages” Local spying and terror, indoctrination and suppression, have reached classic Marxist levels.
That is why, abandoning all they have attained for generations, more than 2 million Vietnamese have bought and bribed their way to risk death upon the treacherous seas.
…On every one of the boat people, I see my fingerprints.
Excerpts from “TYRANNY IN VIETNAM” by Michael Novak
…Four years ago, the US ended its 20-year presence in Vietnam. An anniversary that should be cause for celebration is, instead, a time of grieving.
With tragic irony, the cruelty, violence, and oppression practiced by foreign powers in your country for more than a century continue today under the present regime.
Thousands of innocent Vietnamese, many whose only “crimes” are those of conscience, are being arrested, detained and tortured in prisons and re-education camps. Instead of bringing hope and reconciliation to war-torn Vietnam, your government has created a painful nightmare that overshadows significant progress in many areas of Vietnamese society…
…We have heard the horror stories from the people of Vietnam – from workers and peasants, Catholic nuns and Buddhists priests, from the boat people, the artists and professionals and those who fought alongside the National Liberation Front.
The jails are overflowing with thousands upon thousands of detainees.
People disappear and never return.
Peope are shipped to re-education centers, fed a starvation diet of stale rice, forced to squat bound wrist to ankle, suffocated in conex boxex.
People are used as human mine detectors, clearing live mine fields with their hands and feet…
For many, life is hell and death is prayed for…
Excerpts from “OPEN LETTER TO THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VN” by Joan Baez, President, Humanitas, International Human Rights Committee.
Thank you for sharing Jenny !
Jenny,
Your depiction of the 70s and early 80s communist regime is more accurate. That was how I witnessed, and decided to devote my next few years to the leading resistant group ( most popular group ) . Until I realized they were a bunch of thieves. I felt betrayed once again by our own political leaders, and resigned from all political movements.
I think all of us, including myself, make statements which, by their nature and their brevity, are oversimplifications. Even a 100,000 page history book compiled from all sides of the Vietnam conflicts of the last 200 years could not tell the whole story. Millions of individual events occurred, many of them violent, injurious to people and property, or deadly. Many actions would be considered unjust, evil or immoral particularly from the viewpoint of the victims. Indisputably, there were victims on all sides. No one group had exclusive use of torture, false propaganda, imprisonment, killing or the theft of personal property, not to mention rape and all other types of human rights violations. Where is there a neutral party that could somehow tabulate all these millions of occurances and, in the process, ascribe more fault of any one group compared to all the others? There is no such thing in the world. All of the past actions, good, bad or terrible, have led to the point where Vietnam is right now. If we love Vietnam and its people, I think the emphasis should be on what can be done to improve conditions for the Vietnamese, NOW. It should not matter who gets the credit for furture improvements, or the blame for past failures. Just do it.
Thaty s it….David here for President…
I am curious to know if the lives of the VN people be improved with the current political and governmental structure. My guess is impossilbe because there are more greedy people than good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11dpaaZuJO0&feature=related
Dear Viet brothers:
I am sending you this link to watch to feel the pain and cry with our powerless and helpless peasants.
From Viet sister
Jenny
Communist Manifesto :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9myHhpS9s
does anybody know how I could get a copy of that movie ” Chung Toi Muon Song ” translating ” We Want to Live ” ? Now that would be a good movie to show the true face of communism .
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Chung+toi+muon+song&ei=UTF-8&fr=hp-pvdt
Rants against Communist :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju3h7yk4Hcg
LA Mexican Communist :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkssr2QuBN8
watch this movie “VIETNAM, VIETNAM” BY JOHN FORD
http://broadcasting.take2tango.com/default.aspx?load=player&id=17&watch=3f9d783316
Thank you chi Jenny !
Civilian victims of war :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3evAtxHTNE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2dEqrN4i0
As time passes by, anything changes. History has shown that sometimes the bad became the good and vice versa, and history repeated itself!
The following piece of Vietnamese history may be of interest to some people in this blog.
In 1225, Trần Thủ Độ overthrew the Ly Dynasty (by forcing Ly Chieu Hoang to abdicate in favor of her husband Tran Canh.) He then ordered the massacre of the Ly family members (burying the royal Ly families alive while they were worshiping their ancestors) and forced all of its descendants to change their surname to Nguyen, and sent them to the northern mountainous areas. The Tran dynasty ruled for a total of 175 years, ending in 1400 when king Thiếu Đế, then 5 years old, was forced to abdicate the throne in favor of his maternal grandfather Hồ Quý Ly. (History repeated itself!)
To many people and particularly people of the Ly’s descends (many of them carrying the last name Nguyen now) the Tran royal families were the most devilish people. During the Tran dynasty, the Mongols invaded Vietnam three times in 1258, 1285, and 1288. It was a good time for the Ly’s descendants to revenge the Tran. But unofficial history showed that a leader of the Ly’s descendants chose to cooperate with the Tran in order to fight against the Mongols. (The play of Ong Loc Ho)
I would like to thank all the people who have contributed the history of ancient VN on this blog. I have learned so much from the Community.