Here's an idea for the Cary City Council....

[johnb]

http://www.fva.org/vnflag/index.htm

Cities across America with significant numbers of Vietnamese-Americans are seeing those citizens request the muninicpality fly the Vietnamese Heritage Flag. Oddly enough, it is gold with three red stripes. Identical to the flag of the Republic of Vietnam.

The purpose to to serve as a reminder that the price of freedom is often costly and the battle is not always won. The Communist government in Hanoi has sunk what was once one of the emerging capitalist dragons of south Asia into a level of poverty that makes Haiti look enviable. The political and religious repression in Communist Vietnam put it on par with Iran and North Korea.

The Nationalist flag of Vietnam would make a great statement on Cary's remembrance of the South Vietnamese who died in the struggle against Communism and a slap in the face a the Vietnamese Communists who still murder and repress their victims. The Vietnamese embassy tries to bully cities that do this to stop as well.

Maybe we can get some freedom loving Cary City Council critter to view some of the proclamations other cities have used, see link above, and I'm sure the city of Cary has a flag pole somewhere. I'd bet a Vietnamese flag could be found with no great difficulty too.

Besides, the cost would be nothing.

[Mark]

The Communist government in Hanoi has sunk what was once one of the emerging capitalist dragons of south Asia into a level of poverty that makes Haiti look enviable.

This is patently false. Vietnam is light years better than Haiti in nearly every conceivable category of progress and quality of life. Whether or not that is more a testament to the liberalization of Vietnam or the West's pressure on, and stifiling of, Haiti I will leave for others to decide.

[johnb]

Really? Where are the political death camps in Haiti Mark? Where are the tribal peoples, Christians, Buddhists, et al being exterminated for being perceived as being enemies of the state?

Haiti is just a poor, thugocracy, Vietnam is a brutal police state.

[Cathy]

Maybe Mark would be so much happier if he moved to Cuba.

I know that I would sleep better at night if he moved there.

Cathy

[Mark]

Really? Where are the political death camps in Haiti Mark? Where are the tribal peoples, Christians, Buddhists, et al being exterminated for being perceived as being enemies of the state?

Haiti is just a poor, thugocracy, Vietnam is a brutal police state.

Sorry, I missed this one before.

First, you specifically said level of poverty. Poverty is measured most typically by things like GDP per capita, PPP, income gaps, access to healthcare, mortality and morbidity rates, access to educational resources. Haiti is far, far, worse off than is Vietnam in that respect. Far worse, one can't even speak about them in the same language.

But, since you brought up political oppression let me offer that political violence in Vietnam is only slightly worse than that in Haiti, though they are both unacceptably bad. In Haiti, we don't call them, or make distinctions about, "tribal people, Christians..." they all get persecuted simply for being poor and black. There have been many disappearances and killings for political dissidents in Haiti, a situation that is even worse among the most underserved and economically vulnerable. There are death camps in Haiti, John, there are state sponsored gangs that afflict violence on opposition groups. There are prisons off the island too, notably Guantanamo, where the U.S. in the early 1990's illegally housed Haitians in subhuman conditions, all while selectively enforcing what was, at best, a misguided embargo and sending funding to groups opposing the democratically elected government.

Again, I'm not saying that Vietnam doesn't continue to have serious political problems. Haiti is similar, and Haitian poverty is perhaps the most overwhelming in the world. Haiti also suffers simply from being close to the U.S. This should be a familiar refrain by now. When the U.S. has a hand in injustice it implicates us all - that is the underpinning of the desire to hold the U.S. to the highest global standards, and why we should all be critical when we see suchs acts comitted.