[Yardstick]

I hadn’t heard that one. Was he suggesting that democracy is overrated and that a non-democratic Vietnam wouldn’t be such a bad thing?

[aruanan]

Was he suggesting that democracy is overrated and that a non-democratic Vietnam wouldn’t be such a bad thing?

I think he was the last gasp, the Johnny come lately, of the fellow travelers of the earlier part of the 20th century who, after visiting places like the USSR, came back gushing about how they've "been over to the future and it works!" Marx was right when he said, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." Lincoln Steffens in the Soviet Union was tragedy. The Congressional Black Caucus in Cuba was farce.