This museum should actually be called the "look at all the terrible shit America did to us during this war aren't they assholes" museum.
It has a fervent and obvious anti-american slant. I read though that it's actually been toned down a bit in the past several years. For example, the "Hall of American War Crimes" is now the "Historic Truths" wing. A scathing euphemism- touche! I love that.
Exhibits include accounts of the My Lai Massacre, as well as lesser known massacres, and more wrong stuff allegedly done by American soldiers. The most disheartening section though is the exhibit on the effects of Agent Orange on the environment and the people. Not only did it destroy and poison the land, it caused blindness, mental problems, and deformations in the children of the victims.
Standing there looking at the pictures of deformed vietnamese, i had a sudden and shocking realization. These people in these pictures are the same people i see all over Saigon, crawling through the streets on their hands, looking to me to put money in the cups they grip in their mouths. And then i felt sick.
I know i'm not responsible for this. I was born after the fall of Saigon. But by the same token i feel sort of accountable. It's a feeling i haven't quite put my finger on yet. Mark Twain once said, "Support your country all the time, and your government only when it deserves it." But some of the ideologies of country and government are inextricable. It leaves me really confused.
I really wish those people could stand on their own feet like I can though.
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2 comments:
That is all very sad.
And I hate to say it, but you have to be wary of the legitimacy of beggars and their deformities.
When I was in Bangladesh I saw some horrors in the children begging in the street. My mother who had lived there going on 8 years at the time, told us not to give to them. I was obviously like WTF ???
Apparently an organized criminal gang would raid villages to steal babies, raise the children while injecting poisons into their joints causing all manner of deformity, then pimp them out begging on the streets of the capital city.
oh my good lord, really?? that is FUCKED UP!
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