Passy ”Actually Marx was elected. The International Working Man's Association.”

That has the political significance of becoming Vice President of the Bexleigh Heath Model Railway Club, hardly comparable to public election for national government office. Although, I am sure Marx would relish the authority bestowed by a copy of the timetable, a whistle and other regalia afforded to the position of fat controller.

“For him revolution was the emancipation of the working class, the act of the working class, the majority in society.”

The processes of “democratic libertarian evolution” and capitalist consumer economics have achieved far more for the working class than any “working class revolution” inspired by Marx or his acolytes and of course, has rendered far few dead than the 30 to 100+ million who expired at the hands of Lenin, Stalin and the other practitioners of “real world Marxism”.

“They chose a different road, the road of capitulating to capitalism and continuing wage slavery.”

You know the difference between a “capitalist wage slave” and a “Marxist ideological slave”?

It is like being a dog.

The capitalist dog might not afford to eat very well.

The Marxist ideological dog does not eat at all because the shelves are always bare,

but that is not the worst of it.

The Marxist ideological dog is not allowed to bark.

And what sort of a dogs life is it if a dog is denied the right to bark ?

The sort of a dog life for which, in desperation, the dog risks death to escape over the Berlin wall.

Be as fake-moralistic and faux-passionate as you like, Passy. Use all the weasel words you want. I have heard them all and then some.

If you need me to prompt you on the script just holler, I can fill the gaps you miss.

Please come back soon.

CJ Morgan “Hitler . . socialist”

That is recorded history

“Greenie too.”

Looking at the state of the Aral Sea, under USSR environmental stewardship, he was.

Socialism is continually usurped by thugs, despots and murderers.

Socialism, the fatally flawed philosophy of chardonnay swilling academics.

Rhian wrote: "... the Vietnamese government ... is a vile and repressive regime ..."

Whatever can be critically said of the current Vietnamese Government's human rights record, it would have to be far better than that of the previous unelected(1) US backed dictatorship which, with the help of the US and, to our own eternal shame, Australia, murdered possibly millions (2) of its own defenceless citizens, not to mention the combatants who had to defend their country against the awesome destructive firepower of the US military machine.

"... that has impoverished its own citizenry"

Could you please substantiate that statement, Rhian? Can you tell us what are the policies enacted by the Vietnamese government that could possibly have impoverished Vietnam to the same degree that the bombardment of the Indochinese Peninsula with more bombs than were dropped in the Second World War (not to mention napalm, phosphorus and Agent Orange) could have?

Footnotes
_________

1. Had elections been held in 1956 as agreed to at the 1954 Peace accords, the Communists would have easily won in both the North and the South, even according to Richard Casey Australia's foreign minister at the time.
2. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Casualties) cites sources which reveal "that 5.1 million people died during Hanoi's conflict with the United States" which is even more horrific than the 2 million figure given by John Passant.

Rhian said "By taking the position that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” extreme anti-americanism and anti-imperialism can lead to supporting and celebrating the “successes” of some pretty vile regimes."

Jeane Kirkpatrick, US Ambassador to the UN during the first Reagan Administration did openly call for US support of "the enemy of my enemy". That is, non-communist dictatorships such as in Latin America, the Middle-East and elsewhere. Her essay "Dictatorships and Double Standards" spells this out. And obviously Reagan agreed with her and that strategy became an explicit part of US foreign policy. That lead to the US supporting some pretty vile dictatorships such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq (because fundamentalist Iran was the main enemy). Human rights for the US ruling class was and still is a sideshow and takes a back seat to strategic issues. And yes, the Russian ruling class under the Soviets and now under Putin have worked on the same basis.

For the record, I regard my politics as left-libertarian not socialist (particularly if socialist is supposed to mean support for Stalinist dictatorships). As I'm openly gay and support free trade unions, I'm not likely to get a cabinet position in Castro's government. And if anyone wants to still call me a socialist I won't argue. I'll just assume you're an ignorant pig.

DavidJS
I agree that “enemy of my enemy is my friend” is equally reprehensible whether advocated by the USA or John Passant. The USA’s propping up vile dictatorships in the Middle East, South America and Asia is a source of much geopolitical instability today. But this is a discussion on John Passant’s views on Vietnam. “The USA is just as bad” is a familiar red herring in such discussions.

Daggett,
You ask what is the evidence that Vietnam’s government was responsible for its people’s poverty:
1) it fared worse than most other East Asian economies in the post-revolutionary period, with the exceptions being other totalitarian dictatorships (Cambodia, North Korea, Myanmar);
2) when its government started to adopt the “Doi Moi" policy reforms that liberalised its economy, economic growth rates picked up substantially –

see http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000012009_20040609161332&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679

Rhian,

The measures of prosperity including the GDP employed by the World Bank to measure the performance are hogwash. I have discussed how these measures actually conceal declines in the average quality of life, let alone the decline in living standards of the poorest, because they count all economic activity as a plus, be it paper shuffling on stock markets, paramedics attending to road accidents, the installation of security devices on houses etc (see my article "Living standards and our material prosperity" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6326 and some of my responses on this question to the Peter Saunders of the CIS, who posted at the start of this discussion at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4418#42094 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3737#12173). The GDP also fails to measure economic activity largely displaced by globalisation which doesn't include the transfer of money.

The World Bank, whose authority you rely upon, together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are organisations which have been captured by extreme neo-liberal followers of Milton Friedman. They have again and again abused their control of these institutions to force countries, particularly poor third world countries to reduce government spending, reduce taxes on the rich, publicly-owned privatise assets and reduced protections for workers in order to transfer wealth to the rich.

For the truth about the World Bank, read Naomi Klein's excellent best-selling "The Shock Doctrine" (2007) RRP AU$32.95 (http://www.naomiklein.org/ShockDoctrine).

So I would reject any notion that the World Bank is a credible authority on Vietnam.

Daggett
If you check out the link you’ll find the articles discuss a range of welfare measures, including not just GDP but also private consumption trends, real wages, literacy, life expectancy, school enrolments, and child malnutrition.

If you choose to accept the authority of Naomi Klein (what has she said about Vietnam’s economic record, anyway?) over that of the World Bank that’s your business. But how about addressing the issues raised, rather than dismissing out of hand any argument or evidence published by an agency you disapprove of?