Netiquette, netiquette where art thou....
Unfortunately most of the time this ‘dinner party’ seems to be a black tie affair and woe betide the individual who wanders in wearing their ‘street clothes’ They are immediately relegated to a spot in the corner were they wait like house dogs at the foot of the Lairds table. Meanwhile the elite tear into the meaty dishes as they gorge themselves topped with lashings of facts and peppered with copious amounts of disdain and followed hungrily with a liberal smearing of contempt and intolerance. Meanwhile the dogs wait for scraps to be flung their way and a ‘swift kicking’ should they venture to close to the feast.
Somewhere I made a comment that included saying that NATO was involved in Vietman.
Sorry about that - I was rightly corrected.
I should have said coalition.
It included Australia, NZ, Canada, Philippines and other Asian/pacific nations.
I do think those nations participated significantly given their population and resources.
Australia sent 61,000 troops - a lot given their population was less than 20 million back in 1960s
North Vietnam’s allies were indisputably Russia and China.
It was a complex, confusing time, only 15 yrs after the end of WW2. Not long taken in perspective of history over all.
Oh yep! hit, hit, hit.
When I was an adolescent that is just what I would have given you - well nudges and fierce grimaces anyway.
So, now we are pals, will you knock it off with the more timid readers. Especially you are annoying the other “girls”.
You enjoy being aggravating, you know you do, I know you do, and I would not invite you to all my dinner parties, but I would have sometimes as you do liven up the debates.
But, now is the time, right before dessert, for you to drag out your charm and lay it on so thick that by farewell the guests will have forgotten the contentious beginning.
Have a nice day, and behave. I have work to do.
You have, at one extreme the 'agent provocateurs', strong minded, wilfull personalities that don't give a damn if they upset anybody at the other extreme, nice people with excellent points of view but at the same time sensitive to conflict.
This is all part of lifes rich tapestry, but seems harder to manage on a web forum than in discussions 'around a dinner table' for example where body language plays a huge part in keeping things on an even keel.
Joan Time was when to call someone working class was almost an insult. Blue collar came in but seems to have gone in an era when everyone wears grey. When I was young lots of people aspired to move up the ladder. Now Etonians often hide their education and the fancy accents are long gone. Now people are desperate to declare their working class credentials. We were told not to call people black, but coloured. Now it's black again but only black people may call black people black. No one else may call them that. My dear old grandmother used to say someone "had a touch of the tar brush". I can't imagine how she would have taken my Philippina wife; it was almost completely unknown in those days apart from disreputable old planters and traders. As for burgeoning I don't think that many middle class (whatever that means) are doing that at the moment. Your comments about Vietnam reflect my experience in the Philippines as a matter of fact. Schools are very well run, the children are industrious, well disciplined and smartly turned out. There is great courtesy about generally, and I, as an old codger, am invariably offered a seat in a jeepney. The British government is so short of nurses at present that they are recruiting in the Philippines. Teachers may be next. That these people cannot be recruited in the UK is a huge indictment of the British educational system, along with the decline in traditional and family values. I fine that the young French are also more polite than their British equivalents.
is the middle class only ever burgeoning.
On CNN this morning I heard two references to working class. Must be back in fashion. People are probably fed up at having to burgeon non- stop.
It’s probably tiring.
My observations in Vietnam south are that there is much commercial bustle, decent schools, exciting transport, and lot of civil courtesy. I wish them well, whatever label the people have bestowed upon themselves
A hit ,a hit a very palpable hit.
Yes I should have said Hanoi (bit early in the morning). What I was trying to convey was that being a one party "socialist" state and having a burgeoning middle class is not incompatible particularly in Asia.
Thank you David.
Your history lesson is valuable. I’ve just finished reading a book about the resistance on the central plateau.
Point of correction however,
- I wrote that the WWII survivor’s story was in a French language journal. I did not say she was French.
- Naive refers to young and inexperienced according to Oxford English dictionary. I am neither but thanks for the compliment.
And lastly, in order to have creditibility one must use language accurately - no use referring to me as if I am all Americans. No use assuming me to be naive.
It’s not netiquette. It is alienating to me and reminds me of “lads” at play.
The middle class thing is quite true. My one time research assistant there was already freelance and doing quite well 20 years ago, now she has a successful consultancy. Her brother lives in London but his company base is still in Hué. By the way, Hanoi where I was based in the capital. They are following more or less the same trajectory as China, but far, far nicer.
Right though, No NATO allies in that war and France warned the USA after their humiliation at Dien Bien Phu and certainly warned NATO to keep out of it. Only the USA did not listen. Australia were sold a line that with SE Asia becoming communist and a strong left wing movement in Indonesia at the time, the Philippines would be taken over as well then the whole Pacific region under 'threat', ultimately them too. They were far more actively looking after their own interests than really involved in VN.
There and that middle class would be in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam one assumes. A one party socialist country . Capital, Ho Chi Minh City. NATO allies I think not. Australia was cajoled into sending a few troops but Australia is not a member of NATO and no NATO forces were involved.
I agree, although the power of denial is massive, so most will choose the BBC version and wont watch it, well posted.!
Can't see any little cherubs being tear gassed in this video but I can hear an english voice telling the migrants that the police were going home until they were subject to an attack. My sympathies are with them rather than the migrants.
When will some wake up to this??
It is a shame on the nation Simon but the French state and its police force have a long tradition of oppression and murder. Witness all the Algerians who ended up in the Seine in 1961. Who responsible. Why none other than M Papon chief of police in Paris and formerly Secretary General to the Préfecture in Gironde. Between 1942 and 1944 it was Papon who organised the rafle and deportation of Bordeaux Jews to Auschwitz and other death camps. Unfortunately France is a lovely country with high ideals but turn a stone over and you will find much unpleasantness. "Raisons d'état " you understand.
David, David you are doing it again.
I am not in danger of electing the biggest draft dodger. Maybe the American people will, but they won’t get any help from me.
I was not in Vietnam and I did not set the country back 20 years - Americans were there along with their NATO allies. It was a complicated menacing time. America suffers yet today from the domino effect.
I was very actively involved in all the protests, but I believed then, that like Brits fighting Hitler the South,vietnamese wanted the capitalist model and not the,harsh totalitarianism that was being thrust upon them by Ho che min.
Twenty years later they had a flourishing economy. When I was there more recently I found a hefty middle class.
No David, surely the biggest draft dodger was Bush junior. Didn’t he spend his time playing at being a fighter pilot safe and sound in the USA?
Joan if you believe that you are more naive than I thought. There were virtually no resistance movements in France until the Germans invaded Russia. The French communist party was under instruction from Moscow not to resist for fear of threatening the Ribbentrop Molotov agreement in which Germany professed falsely that Germany had no intention to invade the Soviet Union. Stalin aquiesced to this agreement knowing it would give some opportunity for the USSR to build up its military. Any real resistance did not start up until 1943 when the Germans introduced Service de Travail Obligatoire STO in which young workers were shipped off to the Reich to work. Many French men then said Hell No we won't go and fled into the bush or le maquis. Some hid and some pursued a fairly desultory resistance or even simple banditry until 1944 when they were drafted faute de mieux into the FFR the Free French Army. Come the liberation the cry was "we resisted". The truth is somewhat different. That's not to decry some very brave people who did resist just to say that most didn't.
You're so right Diana, glad there are still some free thinking people still around.
Yeah you're just in danger of electing the biggest draft dodger in the US to be Commander in Chief. The US had no business in Vietnam you set the country back twenty years. The Viet Minh had already shown the door to the French but the US just had to stick its oar in.