tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post55435952391836195..comments2024-03-16T01:00:19.876-05:00Comments on The Mad Monarchist: Monarchist Profile: Jose Maria de SalasMadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-73458261824377477172010-04-22T21:08:25.021-05:002010-04-22T21:08:25.021-05:00Well, I myself certainly knew nothing about the Vi...Well, I myself certainly knew nothing about the Vietnamese monarchy except for a vague newspaper-induced consciousness of Emperor Bao Dai during my early childhood. He was invariably derided as a "playboy". Unlike John Fitzgerald Kennedy and William Jefferson Clinton, one presumes. <br /><br />As for Mexico, I very much doubt if I'd known of Iturbide's existence before encountering your site. (Incidentally I erred, with my previous post, in saying that the birthrate in that country was 19 per cent; it's actually 3.4 per cent or thereabouts. Still well above the Western average.)<br /><br />There's a recently released documentary about Daniel Ellsberg - of <i>Pentagon Papers</i> fame - which has useful insights into certain aspects of Vietnamese history, although not about Vietnamese monarchical history. What blows me away is that, by all accounts, the <i>Pentagon Papers</i> consisted largely of boringly written chronicles that could've been cut-and-pasted from a half-dozen competent monographs (available at any collegiate library) on 1940-1964 Indo-Chinese politics. These desperately needed to be kept <i>secret</i>? Hello?R. J. Stovenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-78344570254206434252010-04-22T13:42:26.942-05:002010-04-22T13:42:26.942-05:00Part of it is a willingness to look but informatio...Part of it is a willingness to look but information on the types I tend to write about is also not as readily available as some might think. In Mexico, I am often amazed by the lack of knowledge, the lack of almost any reference at all, about Emperor Agustin de Iturbide. Most might have heard of him, they may know the name, but that's about it because of the many, many generations of indoctrination that have gone on to convince the masses that the monarchists were unimportant at best and villainous at worst. There is also alot of history there that most in the US would rather forget.<br /><br />What frustrates me on the subject of Vietnam is the plethora of information about 'the war' but almost nothing about what happened before that. I can sympathize with those Vietnamese who often complain that Vietnam is "a country, not a war". What upsets me is that the one thing all modern sources, US, South and North Vietnamese agree on is their disdain for the old monarchy because all of the feuding successor regimes realize that unless they vilify, in that case the Nguyen dynasty, the people might begin to wonder if it might not have been better to stick with what they already had, perhaps a modified version of the traditional system, rather than spending decades killing each other over what western model they were going to replace it with.MadMonarchisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-64163033072020347352010-04-22T05:16:48.299-05:002010-04-22T05:16:48.299-05:00Sheesh, boss, I am learning more about Latin Ameri...Sheesh, boss, I am learning more about Latin American history (and Mexican history in particular) from reading this website than I ever did in my undergraduate days. Rather as <i>Tea at Trianon</i> is enlarging my understanding of non-royal history. And yet I suppose that the relevant material could have been found easily enough, well before the Internet, by any student who put his mind to the task (even if he lacked Hispanophone skills).<br /><br />My ignorance reminds me of James Reston's epigram "Americans will do anything for Latin America except read about it". (Although I am not, in fact, American.) <br /><br />How many State Department honchos, as of 2010, can speak Spanish? Can speak Brazil-type Portuguese, if it comes to that? Or do they operate under the delusion that the bald eagle's strength would be seriously compromised if they stopped yelling at the Mexican Trade Minister (or whoever) in English? (Yeah, that's a <i>really</i> good idea when he comes from a country that's right next door and has a 19 per cent birthrate ... )<br /><br />I have heard it maintained that in the entire Pentagon bureaucracy of 1964 there was not a single Vietnamese-speaker. While I do not know if this allegation is accurate, I am not the only foreigner to have encountered it.R. J. Stovenoreply@blogger.com