Re: 30 tha'ng 4 na(m ?

["Toan" <toan@usa.net>]

Hi anh Ai'vie^.t,

----------
> From: Aiviet Nguyen <aiviet@cat.syr.edu>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <vnsa-l@csd.uwm.edu>
> Subject: Re: 30 tha'ng 4 na(m ?
> Date: Thursday, 01 May, 1997 2:03 PM
> 
> Hi Anh Toan,
> 
>     Your ideas are too simplistic. The life would be too good, if
problems
> could be solved in the cleanest way. However, there are dirty works to be

> done where no intelligence involved.

OK, your point is well taken, and it's good to look at things critically. I
think we CAN do the dirty works. We are not bringing <<simplistic>> ideas
to <<solve>>problems of Viet Nam, the nation. We are hoping to start doing
SOME of the dirty works that are needed, looked for, asked for, but yet
available.

Today I worked with a group of people from all over this county where I
live, and we met at a place where Hewlett Packard donated ~ 15 Pentium Pro
200 PC's, Apple donated ~10 Power PC's, and a shopping mall donated the
space, the library and the volunteers <donated> people and time. The people
from all over this county and state have benefited greatly with this small
little room with learning software and ISDN Internet connection. 

There have been enormous amount of knowledge going in and out and
benefiting the education and growth of this community because the kind of
dirty work like this happen. 

Wiring the schools is part of the dirty works that have been going on
across this country, and many people I know have participated in at their
children's  schools.


>     The development of the Defense Industry is an universal way to solve
> the unemployment and to introduce the working discipline. No wonder that
> all economically successful countries start with the Defense Industry
> first ( including China).

So, everything has to be thought of in <defence industry style> of grand
scale?! Take a look again at the wealth of knowledge on the World Wide Web
today that is NOT related to the defence industry, that are from citizen
groups, from Non profit, non governmental organisations, from primary and
secondary schools, teachers, researchers that are not related to the
defence industry. 

>     Sometimes, if the big guy comes and picks up your girl friend there 
> is no way to escape from kicking him bravely. You can't negotiate if your

> enemy thinks that he can beat you too easily.
> 
>    Talking about Internet in this context is like the sacrification of 
> Nghia Hoa Ddoan and Burmese budhists against the western guns.
> 
> Cheers
> Aiviet

World War II was also won by the minds of a very few who worked together to
decipher the Japanese and German secret codes--the code breakers. It was
the power of being able to get DONE the dirty works day in and day out,
with enormous persistence and collaborated intelligence and knowledge. 
Yeah, that was defence related, but it was related as well to the smooth
workings of a COMMUNITY of knowledge.This is what I meant.

There are ways to arrive at one's end, and not always by brute fore. Why
does your big guy example come in here? We are not trying to fight, we are
building. I guess you might want to say that the <big guy > take away what
we build...Ummmm. Nobody can take away knowledge!

Talking about Buddhist against Western guns, I thought Gandhi and Martin
Luther King are still read and learnt ?

I thought To^n Tu+? taught that there are times you don't fight, but draw a
line in the sand?!!!

Even in fighting, there are ways that a guy three times your own size can
still be subdued by you. It is not hard, but it takes practise. You can
break his bones just as you break chicken bones. And, amazingly, it starts
with a knowledge that your attacker is as human and as vulnerable as you at
his joints, his body parts, his bones, his throat, his fingers, his groins,
his back, his spinal cord...just as anyone.

You too hurriedly state that <<ALL>>successful economies start with a
defence industry. Please look around some more! 
 
The Internet is not THE INTERNET we need to <talk> in certain way for we
might be losing our breath. We are using it as a means; there are other
means. You and I and many other among us use this means everyday. The
knowledge and capital we generate as part of our use is not calculated, but
it is wealth!

This wealth, adding into some kind of a structure, our youngsters in Viet
Nam CAN benefit from, and the wider, the easier we can help make it
available, the better it is to serve the growth of our people's knowledge
capital. WE NEED CAPITAL--Human capital. That's the dirty work we are more
than capable of doing.

Let us see some of it get done and ready to be used!

Good criticism, even though I don't agree with it.


Cheers,

Toa`n