bitmap@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (06/19/84)
<...> Ken Perlow replies to Steve Woods: >Steve Woods mentioned that the government of South Vietnam seemed >to be popular, and that my allusions to starvation were ridiculous. >My picture of the corrupt and totalitarian regime in South Vietnam, >along with really abject squalor, came from friends who were over >there. But then, the only thing they were fighting for was to save >their asses. I guess there's a difference of perspective. Apparently, then, your picture is second hand, from persons who were mostly concerned with saving their skins, while Mr. Woods spent several (many?) years over there. >Ah, the "domino theory". For you young 'uns, that's the notion that >if we don't fight 'em there (wherever "there" is), next thing you >know, they'll be at the Golden Gate, and good ol' Pleasantville, USA >will get overrun, and renamed "Stalinville", and the cute kid with >the lemonade stand will be able to sell only one kind--PINK! >Well, I don't buy it (the theory or the lemonade). As I recall, the domino theory claimed that, if we let South Vietnam fall to the communists, they would then try to take over Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. It's understandable that both the theory and lemonade would be sour in your mouth. >I do know about >Hitler, though. When I told my draft board I thought I would have >fought in WW II, they denied me a CO. But that's another story. >Anyway, I disagree with Steve on the correct answers to the lessons >of history, but the man has certainly paid his tuition. Thanks to you and those like you, so have the Vietnamese and the Cambodians. Sam Hall decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!bitmap