Anniversary

[Brad DeLong]

>Peter K. wrote:
>
>>During the Vietnam war, you'll remember, the popular anti-war
>>movement actually accomplished things. I don't seem to recall that
>>people would say stuff like "I wish the US would stop acting like a
>>bully, but I would cheer if they killed Ho Chi Minh."
>
>No doubt there was a lot of uncritical cheering of the Vietcong in 
>the 1960s, but still there was something to admire in what they 
>stood for - and when Eugene Genovese famously said he'd welcome a VC 
>victory, he was right...
>
>Doug

May I ask why he was right?

Looking at the VC and its masters, they seemed to have only one of 
the four things one might wish from a government: They had a 
(relatively) uncorrupt administration. They lacked political 
democracy, they lacked "soft" rule, they lacked economic policies to 
bring prosperity and development. Plus they seem to have had a truly 
vicious strain of anti-Chinese descent ethnic hatred.

I believe that the end of the war--any end to that war--was worth 
welcoming. But a VC victory more worth welcoming than the maintenance 
of South Vietnamese independence? I can't see why anybody would think 
that...

Brad DeLong