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Re-elected Vietnam communist boss defends one-party rule
Associated Press ^ | Jan. 27, 2016 11:16 PM EST | Vijay Joshi

Posted on 01/27/2016 9:44:47 PM PST by Olog-hai

Vietnam's re-elected leader, a 71-year-old Communist Party ideologue, made it clear Wednesday that one-party rule was here to stay, insisting that the collective leadership he heads is a far better alternative to what he called authoritarianism disguised as democracy.

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (pronounced Noo-yen Foo Chong) was re-elected Wednesday as head of the party and the leader of a 19-member Politburo that will govern Vietnam for the next five years. The decisions were made at the end of a week-long congress of the 4.5-million-member party, which rules the lives of 93 million Vietnamese.

"Vietnam's Communist Party is one-party rule but we also have principles of democracy and accountability of the leaders. Otherwise the faults would be blamed on the entire group and merits would be credited to the individual," he said. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: communism; nguyenphutrong; onepartyrule; vietnam

1 posted on 01/27/2016 9:44:47 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

This must be very inspirational for Hillary and Bernie.


2 posted on 01/27/2016 9:50:00 PM PST by txnativegop (Tired of liberals, even a few in my own family.)
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To: Olog-hai
Elsewhere in the world, there are examples where they say they follow democracy but decisions are made by one person,

Considering what's going on in countries like Germany where Muslim hordes are being imposed on their population by Frau Merkel, without being asked, he has a point there.

3 posted on 01/27/2016 9:54:04 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: Olog-hai

That is nothing new. We have it here and have had it for some time. We have two wings of the same Party. We have the Republican Wing. We also have the Democrat Wing.


4 posted on 01/27/2016 9:54:57 PM PST by sport
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To: dfwgator

If his point is to replace it with his brand of “democratic centralism” (as Lenin termed it), then he really does not have a point.

Communism’s basis is hatred. It is an aberration. Sad to say, Germany’s “democracy” is more like it than it is like the US form of republican government.


5 posted on 01/27/2016 9:59:11 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

We’ve got a lot of B-52s just sitting around.


6 posted on 01/27/2016 9:59:38 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: Olog-hai

The war’s been over for 40 years, and at this point, I really don’t care what kind of government Vietnam has, it’s there business, and they’re no threat to anyone.

In fact, Vietnam deserves some credit for taking out Pol Pot.


7 posted on 01/27/2016 10:01:06 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

Their existence is a testament to US weakness. And their being communists means they are working with the enemies of the USA.


8 posted on 01/27/2016 10:03:26 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

What enemies? In fact they oppose China.


9 posted on 01/27/2016 10:04:07 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

No they don’t. That’s like overhyping the Sunni-Shi’ite divide among Muslims. Communism is all about internationalism and spreading the revolution. The Mafia politics among leaders is no display of disunity as far as the ideology goes.


10 posted on 01/27/2016 10:08:48 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

Even Putin himself said that Lenin destroyed the Soviet Union, Communism is over. The old farts in Vietnam just want to keep their jobs, they are Communist in Name Only. A lot of foreign corporations, like Nike have factories in Vietnam.


11 posted on 01/27/2016 10:10:42 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator
There was just a recent article where Putin called communist and socialist principles “very like the Bible”, in the same breath as his comments about Lenin supposedly putting a “time bomb” under the USSR—but only because of drawing administrative borders across ethnic lines. Communism is far, far from over.

Companies like Nike have had factories in communist countries for ages. Not because they are capitalistic, but because commies have wanted “free trade” with the USA for ages in order to tear it down. Goal #4 of the communists was very clear about that:
Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
If the communists wanted that, it was not for our benefit at all, but for theirs.
12 posted on 01/27/2016 10:17:25 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

Economic systems are much different in the South such as in Saigon (no one really calls it HCMC) where basic free enterprise is the rule rather than the exception.

Danang is the middle zone, which is a mix of communism and capitalism. There’s tension, mixed with freedom, somewhat.

When you’re in Hanoi, you can feel the state, where the freest traders are the souvenir sellers around Hoan Kiem Lake, and even they owe part of their take to the government.

Old Uncle Ho had expressed in his life that he wanted his ashes spread upon hillsides in the North, the Center and the South. But when he died they mounted his corpse like Lenin, in a Soviet style blockhouse in Hanoi - so oddly out of step with Vietnamese architecture - to be periodically shipped back to Russia for touchups.

He’d come a long way from the Vietnam of post-WWII when Vo Nguyen Giap saluted the American flag with the OSS delegation in Hanoi, when Archemides Patti was cabling to Truman that Ho Chi Minh wanted to work with the Americans. But Truman decided that the French could reenter Vietnam as a colony. And the rest is, as they say, history.


13 posted on 01/27/2016 11:23:27 PM PST by onedoug
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To: Olog-hai
I must admit I am thoroughly confused by the Communist in Vietnam. They embrace capitalism. They are no longer a problem to their neighboring countries. They don't have free elections, but neither do most of the countries in the developing world... I guess I think of them as CINOs.
14 posted on 01/27/2016 11:24:41 PM PST by pithyinme (Oh great 2 more years of crap to wade through....)
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To: onedoug

The thing is, we’ve seen this before with communist regimes. The first permutation was Lenin and his “New Economic Policy”. Never does it really result in the rulers relinquishing their grip on power; not even in Russia, as we can now see.


15 posted on 01/27/2016 11:53:31 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: pithyinme

Like I mentioned to another poster, it’s Lenin’s NEP all over again. Nothing new.


16 posted on 01/27/2016 11:55:13 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

Has Jimmy Carter blessed the results?


17 posted on 01/28/2016 1:42:37 AM PST by stocksthatgoup (how many laws has Cruz sponsored that have become law?)
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To: Olog-hai
No they don’t. That’s like overhyping the Sunni-Shi’ite divide among Muslims. Communism is all about internationalism and spreading the revolution. The Mafia politics among leaders is no display of disunity as far as the ideology goes.

"As for me, I prefer to smell French s--t for five years, rather than Chinese s--t for the rest of my life." - Ho Chi Minh

18 posted on 01/28/2016 9:53:15 AM PST by dfwgator
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