re: #6 wheat-dogghazi

I remember being in Vietnam in 2002 to adopt our son. I was rather amazed at the time at how relatively free their nation really was. I was even more amazed at how little corruption there was. No bribes were necessary! (unlike what I heard from friends who adopted girls from China) and the fees we did pay? They actually went to the orphanage so they could care for the children.

A family we met had an ancestor shrine to their VC commander grandmother. The father was an old VC officer who had a day job in the communist government and was a landlord after hours. The daughter was in a college for hotel management. :)

They have cracked down on fundamentalist religions and on the internet since then and yet when they have their elections I see more than one candidate for more offices than I do here in Wisconsin and I see real differences in the positions of the candidates even though they are nominally all “communists”.

As an old DSA democratic socialist, it gets very depressing at times.