No Commies Allowed in 2 OC Cities

The OC cities of Westminster and Garden Grove, both bastions of anticommunist Vietmanese exiles, voted yesterday to essentially bar members of the Vietmanese Government or Communist Party to their cities.

I didn't realize it until I moved to LA, but these folks may be as crazy and as the Cubans in Miami. If proof is needed, remember the scenes in front of the Latin Music Awards in Miami, or Elian, or the 53-day seige of Little Saigon after a video store owner had the gall to put a Vietmanese flag and Ho Chi Min picture in his video store a few years back.

That is fitting as they match each other in the level of corruption and injustice they supported when they ran their respective foreign-controlled dictatorships. Just today a Vietmanese coworker told me about the monthly payments that the anti-communist groups (or gangs as they are referred to) exact on small business owners in "Little Saigon" - in the name of "safety." Of course the money really goes to fund these groups' radical political agendas and media presence. She told me of one guy who coudn't afford to pay one month and how that got him publically branded a Commuist sympathyzer - thereby losing most of his business and he had to shut his business. Ah freedom US syle...

But what is it with these defeated exiles that drives such nonsense? I posit that it is not just defeat, but the defeat of people who were used to winning big on everything before the revolution/war. I think it is also the tremendous sense of longing for thri past privledge and good life in their homeland. No doubt, coming to a new county is rough and there must be deep questioning whether they made the right choice. Of course, this can not be made public, or even acknowledged consciously. The only option is to hate and resent and blame those responsible for these feelings.