re: #20 William Barnett-Lewis

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.

Vietnam is one of those examples where we did more harm than good getting involved in their internal affairs. Amazingly, there seems to be little animosity toward Americans there.