What I Talk About When I Talk About Love

What I Talk About When I Talk About Love

Last night I read Raymond Carver's famous story once more

And of course I thought of you, the one I used to adore.

I was choked up, but my hand didn't reach for the phone. 

The past was long gone. 

You certainly no longer remember me, but I can't forget you. 

That doesn't mean I still love you. 

No, I don't. 

But you were the one that first set this heart of mine on fire, 

That taught me what desire was like. 

That happened almost 50 years ago, but it seemed just like yesterday. 

We were both young and green and overflowing with dreams and life.

About you I was torn by conflicting desires,

Both wanting to be near you and running away from you. 

I finally took off running, away from you and from myself.

Then I met many, many others 

Who somehow couldn't fill up this emptiness of mine.

Several times, I thought I was in love, 

Thinking I could forget you for real. 

I was wrong. 

You were the recurring dream that kept coming back. 

You were the voice that kept echoing in my head,

The beauty and the charm that gave me a heart-attack.

You were the one I was talking to when I was all alone, especially at night. 

I kept calling for your name. 

Some guy had a summer of 1942. 

Mine was the summer of 1967. 

Since then love has become a game.

One, maybe two or even three women 

Confessed to me that they really loved me. 

I believed in one, maybe two, of them. 

When I told them about you, 

They all told me I was a stupid fool, 

A man who refused to grow up and face life. 

They all told me you didn't love me, never did, and never will. 

I agreed with them, but I told them they didn't know 

What they were talking about when they talked about love.

Love is what I'm doing when I struggle to learn a new language. 

The memories, the associations, the wishes and the drives 

To make myself look good and worthy in your eyes. 

I'm falling short, of course. 

I'm destroying myself.

But I'm still learning the language of love, and memories of you still make me smile. 

Postcriptum:

So, hours on end I write

For you, for me, for the love that went by the bend.

How long can I go on?

Three, five, ten years more?

I'll write of the love that was long gone

Leaving behind half a man?

I'm not sure anymore

It's all futile, I sadly realize, 

Thinking of you, sitting here on the shore 

While waves after waves keep rolling on 

And then pulling away,

Like my memories of you, 

Like we first met, 

Like on your oval face the beautiful smile, 

The sparkling, radiant eyes

Tonight is another Friday night

Friday nights always make me feel blue.

Too tired to go out, 

Sitting here all alone, thinking of you. 

Thousands and thousands of stars up in the sky.

Which one is yours, and which one is mine?

Are they close to each other?

Or are they like you and I?

Far, far apart.

Wissai

August 23, 2014

Accidental Man

Accidental Man

Abbreviated avant-propos:

English, instead of Vietnamese, is used because of the following considerations: 

1. My only child can have easy access. 

2. Ease of typing ("hỏi" and "ngã" orthography would slow me down tremendously) and speed. I'm lazy and pressed for time.

3. I'm fighting against the onset of Alzheimer's syndrome. The moment I no longer access secondary languages, I know then darkness closes in for good, and not only intermittently as it is doing now. Mistakes in grammar because of illness and ignorance will be unavoidable.

So please, dear reader (if there's any out there), don't fling epithets like "deracinated" and "showing off" at me.

The singular personal pronoun is to be used to avoid affectation and appearance of narcissism and far-out autobiographical elements. The following is an attempt of "fictionalized" writing 

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You are an accidental man. That does not mean you were an unwanted child, conceived in a haphazard fashion, without love nor forethought. On the contrary, your father assured you that your parents loved each other dearly and they both wanted another son. They had had four sons, three had died during infancy. Your surviving brother, twelve years your senior, was the heir. You would be the spare, ensuring the father's line would not die out. 

Yes, "accidental" was a shameless borrowing of the title of one of Anne Tyler's novels. However, since the appearance of the novel, the word has crept into the vernacular. Not until last night did the awesome irony of life imitating fiction weigh down on you. You were on an outing, visiting London's famed Soho District. A lady in your group, for whom you had respect, was inches from getting hit by a city bus. Praise to the alert bus driver! The traveling members of the group were stupefied by the "almost" accident. When you approached her and asked her what exactly happened, she replied that she had not seen the bus approaching. She was busy concentrating on getting across the street to get to the waiting taxi. For a person who almost got hit by the proverbial bus, she was remarkably  composed. She then added the following words that haunted you ever since, "I am a good person. I am always lucky. God always protects me."  She is a die-hard Catholic while you are a dyed-in-the wool atheist. Blind and unquestioned faith is foreign to your make-up. Prayer is a form of self-hypnosis and auto-suggestion. But from experiences, you know there are many good Catholics out there, as are many atheists. Beliefs in one way or another are just fortifications and reinforcements of one's set of values. One is not supposed to be "better" than others. But tragically, while outwardly we pay lip service to egalitarianism in religion and beliefs, deep down inside we are convinced that what we believe are absolutely true and indeed superior to what others believe. Man is a social animal very much into hierarchy. Let and let live is foreign to him. He is always busy imposing what he believes onto others. He believes in the value of numerical superiority. He thinks that the more people share his beliefs, the sounder are his beliefs. Also, religion and politics and socio-economic status are inseparable. There are practical survival reasons to spread his beliefs. He seeks protection in the crowd and the tribe, as he has been doing since the dawn of time. There are a few, lonely humans who know the values as well as the dangers of conformism. They are against the follies of conformism, but they are smart so they are quiet. You are not smart. You can't help yourself. You were born to talk, to yak away the time, to mark your passage through life. Writing is a form of prayer for you, a form of self-hypnosis, an attempt of self-enlightenment. And life, to you, is a series of serendipitous as well as gratuitous, accidental, and unpleasant events waiting to happen. In some ways, you are a fatalist. 

Anyway, you read recently, and accidentally no less, in AARP magazine (January 2014) that 

1. The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.

2. Difficulties are the opportunities for inner growth. 

3. You have to be willing to let go of the life you planned in order to make the life you're meant to live.

4. Our job on this planet is to elevate, not to knock down, each other. 

That's who you are. You are open to serendipities and accidents. When they occur, you are marveled at the mysteries and origins of them. Are they really chance events or part of the "butterfly effect" as advocated by chaos theory? Or are they part of the "Character is Fate"?

Not all what you think and believe are borrowed from others, however. Slowly a simple but majestic truth has been dawning on you. That is, other humans don't necessarily think and feel the same way as you do. We may look similar, but we are all different from one another because of genetic make-up and mutations, and of differences in upbringing and indoctrination, and in life experiences. So, please, empathize, don't generalize. Don't self-project either. 

All truths are individually experienced. 

Wissai

October 24, 2014

London, England. 

Magic quickly took to flight after it barely began.

Magic quickly took to flight after it barely began.

You had made me believe that I would be your man, 

That you would always be by my side.

Little did I know to you love was a game of seek and hide

Now whenever I think of you, tears roll down my cheeks

Since I know you were the type that made my knees go weak.

I wonder why things turned out that way

And why you didn't want to stay.

Now there's a throbbing pain in my heart

For all I know, we're forever apart.

Still, I won't forget the love you gave to me, 

The love I thought that would forever be.

Where are you now, my precious lady friend?

Where is the love I thought that would never end?

Wissai

October 19, 2014

canngon.blogspot.com

Chào Anh Yêu Buổi Sáng

Chào anh yêu buổi sáng 

Chào buổi sáng anh có nghe chim hót
Chim mùa Xuân ca hát khúc tao phùng
Chào buổi sáng, anh có nhìn hoa nở ?
Có đợi chờ, có trông ngóng thơ em?

Chào buổi sáng bên anh đã gần trưa
Vẫn bận rộn vẫn quay cuồng cuộc sống?
Chào buổi sáng nơi em đời cô đọng
Sống êm đềm, hoa vẫn nở, cô liêu

Chào buổi sáng một ngày tươi nắng ấm
Mây đủ mầu đủ sắc, gió reo vui
Chào buổi tối, chúc anh yêu ngon giấc
Chào tình nhân, người yêu dấu xa vời

Quách Như Nguyệt
May 30th, 2012

Bonjour, mon chéri!

Good morning, do you hear birds twittering,
Birds of Spring singing songs of reunion?
Good morning, do you look at flowers blooming?
Do you wait for, look forward to emails of mine?

Good morning, it must be near noon where you are. 
Still busy, still driven to distraction by a hectic life?
Good morning, it's lonely where I reside.
Life goes by gently, flowers still bloom in solitude.

Good morning, a bright day awash with sunshine,
Clouds with varied colors driven by joyous winds.
Good night honey, have a sound sleep tonight.
Goodbye, my darling, my love of far away.

Translated by Wissai/NKBa',_.___

Apple Two, Don't You Remember?

"Apple Two, don't you remember 

I said I loved you. 

And that meant forever. 

That's why I still feel blue

Even to this day.

What should I do

Since you're so far away?

I don't even know 

If you're now dead or still alive.

Three years of joy and a lifetime of sorrow."

"Song Sung Blue"

"Song Sung Blue"

No matter how hard I tried 

I couldn't get you out of my mind

Did that mean I still love you?

Please tell me what I should do

To this day I still don't  know 

What made you decide to go

I thought there was something between you and me

And our feelings for each other as deep as the sea.

But it turned out I was wrong

Ever since I have tried to be strong

So fare thee well

Good luck to thee, my mademoiselle 

A Journey

A Journey

Yesterday another layer of reality hit you right between the eyes. Through invitation, you arrived at the exclusive clave in the desert. A few years back before the housing bubble hit America by storm, a developer had a bright idea of creating a 200-acre man made lake and building mansions in the 3-5 million price range bordering the lake. Each mansion was custom designed and came with a swimming pool, some were hidden from view from the lake. White bass and catfish were brought in along with some waterfowl. They now colonize the lake quite happily. Small boats dock at the pier of each mansion. You and several other guests took a lazy cruise around the lake. All the boats have to be battery-powered. Gasoline-engined boats are not allowed in order to protect the fragile ecosystem of the lake. All the houses are gorgeous and owned mostly by Chinese investors and immigrants. You were temporarily struck by the lavish wealth.

The sun was going down as you were sipping wine and trading small talks with the hosts and guests on the terrace overlooking the lake. Your companion leaned over and asked you if you enjoyed the view and the company. You replied that never in your wildest dreams would you ever imagine that you could be in the midst of man-made splendor and wealth in the middle of a desert. Wealth made everything  possible, you added. Even love, maybe, you thought to yourself as you cast an eye over the hosts. They told you their wealth came from real estate and stock investments, but you wondered about that disclosure. But you were there to know how the rich lived, not to investigate how they made their money. You just considered yourself lucky to be invited to this kind of setting. You wondered how long your friendship with the hosts would last. They said they also had a house in the hills in Southern California and maybe in December when you fly out there for a book presentation and speech, you could stay in their house. You said, "yes, of course", but you won't push it. The rich have their own way of communication. You would have to play it cool with them under all circumstances. You were watching them and they were watching you for signs and hints that suggested that things could be out of joint. 

(To be continued)

New insights

A quick note on "new" realities

-Very few humans are willing to admit mistakes and shortcomings. Most are into denial and self-defensiveness. They are weak-minded and animalistic, but ironically they are the ones attributing to others all the negative traits they have within themselves. All what they think they know about others derive from self-projections. 

-Strong humans don't use strong language. Words have impact. So always be nice. 

-Bad humans are like stinking heap of rotting garbage. A wise man does not get near rotting garbage. Stay away from lepers and rabid animals. They are bad to your spirit. 

-Selfish and cheap humans know nothing about love. Don't believe what they parrot about love. They use others. They only know how to take care of themselves. They don't care about others. Not at all. 

-One cannot love others for whom one has no respect. 

-Yes, indifference, not hate, is the supreme manifestation of lack of love. 

-Hate derives from pain and is still redolent of suffering. The aim is to achieve indifference. That's when closure happens. One has attained liberation from bondage of feelings. The past is gone. The source of pain matters not a whit. It is as if he/she/it didn't exist. We don't know the source. He/she/it has become a stranger. 

-All pain and suffering are connected with Ego: me, me, me. You hurt my feelings so I find ways to hurt you back by doing or saying things that are nasty and not true. People can put up with truths, but not malicious slanders and falsehoods coming from those who are afflicted with all unsavory traits and characteristics. If an ugly and impecunious bitch who is stupid and a loser insulted a good-looking, well-to-do, intelligent, well-read, artistic, educated man as "dense" and a "loser", we would have what is commonly known as a cheap slander and a facile falsehood.  The bitch would make herself look like a pile of hot, steaming, stinking shit, and every human being would avoid the bitch. Only starving dogs and dung beetles would come near that kind of bitch/shit. To top off the irony, the bitch barks day in and day out that she is a student of Buddhism and meditation! Meditation, my ass! What's a fucking joke! 

-Respect, like charity, begins at home. We must respect ourselves first before we can respect others. Nasty bitches have no self-respect at all. Not really.

-In the end, everything boils down to love. One must have a nice, decent, soft, caring heart to know about love, serenity, companionship, and happiness.

- Nobody loves a bitch. 

Who Am I?

Who Am I? Why Is My Name Wissai? 

This morning I woke up with a start. A flood of thoughts was washing over me. So I reached for my iPad and let my fingers be the guide. I touched on many of the following thoughts before. I tend to dwell on the same things over and over again. I'm going to elaborate and amplify on them. A man's core beliefs cannot be too many. My fingers are flying all over the keyboard.

To function effectively in life, a man must fully know and accept who he is. Self-alienation is a terrible condition to be in. A real man must have a modicum of self-respect and pride. He must not live with lies and myths either foisted upon him by religious and political "leaders" or invented by himself. He must conduct and surround himself with facts, truths, beauty, justice, and logic. Failing to do any of the aforementioned "things" (a better word should be used, but it escaped me at the moment) in the preceding four sentences makes a human incomplete, half-baked, unfulfilled, persistently unhappy, perpetually dissatisfied. Ignorance is not Bliss. Neither is Failure. I firmly believe, have a unshakeable conviction that I am closer to Reality than most people, hence the arrogance and the stupid, perpetual grin on my face. I am not perfect and I will never be. I may lack humility, but delusion and dishonesty are not part of my make-up, as I see in most humans.

1. God

I am of barely above intelligence, but of exceptional metaphysical acumen. I don't believe in a Personal God "Who" created the "world", listens to human entreaties, rewards the believing do-gooders and punishes the unbelievers and believing transgressors. "God" didn't make Man in his own image. It was Man who invented God in his own image. Man is a being often resorting to self-projecting when facing the unknown and the mysterious. Man had to invent God to deal with his sense of aloneness and impotence regarding certain issues like death and meaning of existence.

2. God and Infantilism

It takes courage, intelligence, and a strong sense of self to not believe in God. Atheists have always been a minority throughout human history, even during the brief heyday of Communism. There's something of a child in most humans when it comes to metaphysics and love. 

3. Love

Man is a social animal. His need for love is as perennial as grass in the tropics, even during the dry season. I have been married several times. I also have had many lady friends of a staggering variety. And I can tell you one thing: I have been both blessed and cursed when it comes to love. Only three women have really loved me. One is dead. One is currently married and living somewhere in Chicago. One has driven me to the brink of despair and loneliness. Love is not overrated but it is rare. Selfish and cheap humans know nothing about love. They think they do, but they do not. It took me over thirty years to understand a simple truth: nobody loves the unlovable; nobody walks away from things and beings of value. So, if nobody loves you, the fault lies with you. Entirely. By the way, I am not lovable at first, but the more you know me, the more you can't help but love me. All ladies who were patient with me knew that. I have what you would call a hidden charm. I am a diamond in the rough. I possess a magnetic personality. I cannot be ignored. I stand out like a sore thumb or a conflagration in the dead of the night. 

4. Languages and poetry and German

I was born to talk, to make noise even though I was born a stutterer and mispronouncer of sounds. I acquired languages quite easily although I speak them with a heavy accent. Words, mispronounced or not, roll off my tongue quite effortlessly.

I am not a poet although I enjoy poetry and occasionally try my hand at writing verse. However, I fancy that I have yet met anybody who could translate Vietnamese poems, even the famous ones, into English as well as I do. During those moments, a certain feeling of intoxicating pride and joy takes over my being and I am in touch with the marvels of my brain, at least as long as linguistic abilities are concerned. 

I am learning German in earnest. It is a strange language, concrete in word formation and illogical in word order. The more I know it, the more fun and peace I have. Some people asked me what drove me to learn German. My answer was that I wanted to stretch to the limit my linguistic abilities. For me it is fun to see my brain struggle in the twilight of my life to understand a new system of sounds and meanings. 

5. Death and Meaning of Existence and the name of Wissai

Death is the end of the individual entity, but not of life in general. Death is part of life, but there is no reincarnation of the individual which dies. Existence has no meaning by itself. It just is. It is Man who insists on the meaning. So he creates meanings the best way he knows how. Most humans love a hedonistic existence and power over other humans. A few "enlightened" ones like me just concentrate on the pursuit of beauty, justice, and knowledge. Knowledge makes me free, free of the superstitions and the bullshit peddled by sham priests and monks who prey on stupid and weak-minded and ignorant folks. Salvation must come from within. You must work it out yourself. You do not acquire it from the outside. You may get an impetus from the outside, but you must work at it by yourself inside. I should know. I have been at it all my adult life. What else do you think I am writing these words for? To know about the meaning of existence you must first confront the issue of suicide. I did the confrontation twice, at the age of 15 and 23. When I did the confrontation the second time and decided to live, I knew then nothing could really destroy my inner core. What didn't destroy me made me stronger, as Nietzsche put it so succinctly and beautifully. He also said that one must have chaos within oneself in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I had plenty of chaos within me at the age of 23.  I still have some now. There have been no dancing stars birthed by me except for a few poems and essays and short stories of no exceptional merit, but I am ok with that. As I said at the outset, a man must be comfortable with who he is. He must know where he stands in relation to others. While I am not a billionaire or a world famous person, I am doing all right in terms of not being an intellectual or religious moron hence slave as the majority of humans are. From that standpoint I am not a loser at all as a stupid, little, ugly, short-statured, impecunious female kike said I was. 

Wissai is the combination of the first three letters of Saigon and Wisconsin. It is also akin to Wissen ("To know"in German). Knowledge turns me on. The more I acquire it, the more at peace I am with who I am. But may I remind you that at heart I am a dreamer and born-again Walter Mitty. This essay, like so many others I have penned, could be not autobiographical and in fact is a piece of fiction written in order to achieve self-salvation. In the end emancipation and liberation only come from within. And silence is the answer to cheap slander. Also, there is always a court of law to seek justice if too much personal injury is at stake. Anyway, the more we denounce others in vulgar language, the more we degrade ourselves. Only if we are real winners, do we earn the right to call less-accomplished fellow humans as losers. But if we are losers ourselves, what right do we have in calling others losers? Doesn't that make us look cheap, pathetic, and pitiful, and incur lasting enmities from those we denounced? But humans are strange animals, full of inferiority complex and self-projections. We often feel that we must bring others down so we could feel better about ourselves. However, by employing cheap sarcasms and false, ugly characterizations we keep ourselves in the mire, swamp, cesspool of ignorance and suffering. If we must speak at all, we must speak unalloyed facts and with logic. If a human is a loser, he/she has no right to call others losers even if that is factually correct because what he says turns logic on its head. By accusing others as being losers, he accuses himself. Maybe he is unconsciously doing so. Man is the only animal that engages in self-flagellation. He does so because he does not feel comfortable with who he is. I suppose I should end this long-winded "essay" by pointing out that I have come to a full circle. I am repeating what I wrote at the beginning, that is, we must know who we are and accept who we are. We must not run away from ourselves. Self-alienation is a terrible thing to have. Only by confronting who we are, do we have a chance to improve who we are if we think we need improvement. Some of us fancy that they are perfect and thus need no improvement. 

There's no God out there to help us. Only we and our fellow humans. Our fellow humans are either our friends or enemies. The choice is up to us (largely) and them (to a lesser extent). People usually treat us the way we treat them. God will not be involved. He is only a fiction concocted by us in moments of ignorance and weakness. And there is no Heaven or Hell either. Only this beautiful Earth and our finite existence. Blessed are those who have found love and friendship to make their existence less painful. 

Wissai

October 12, 2014

Some French Verbs

Quelques Verbes Français

ÊTRE is the verb to be,
punishable by death or life-long confinement.

AIMER is the verb of misunderstanding:
also of longing for penetration of one by another,
an impulse of varying duration, prone to declivity
and often landing in law court.

DONNER means to give, as in the phrase
Je te donne, meaning that I take everything from you that I can
disengage from your grasp, even if I must smash your knuckles with a hatchet.

SAVOIR is to be frightened, similar in spelling to Savior
but with an opposite meaning.
Savior wears white clothes, and is executed:
it took only five nails and two cross-beams and mettlesome vegetation.

DORMIR is the verb to sleep which escapes me tonight,
doubtless because of your absence,
Dear upright participle of the verb to be.

ÊTRE and MOURIR are the verbs which serve
to parenthesize
a little time of confusion.

FINIR? Something appropriate which is yet to be known.

Tennessee Williams

Tại Sao Ông Diệm Chết

Khi bình luận, nhất là về chính trị và tôn giáo, ít ai trầm tĩnh và khách quan lý luận dựa trên dữ kiện và luận lý. Trái lại, nhiều người cứ dùng tình cảm cá nhân đưa ra những nhận xét mơ hồ, tổng quát và đôi khi lại dùng những từ ngữ thấp hèn để hạ những ai bất đồng ý kiến với mình. Sau đây là vài nhận xét của tôi dựa trên dữ kiện và luận lý:

1. Ông Diệm thiên vị Ki Tô Giáo, một đạo của nhóm thiểu sổ, gây ra bất mãn với đa số dân miền Nam Việt Nam. 

2. Ông Diệm dùng chính sách gia đình trị một cách lộ liễu. 

3. Ông Diệm theo một chính sách ca tụng cá nhân quá đáng và lố bịch. Tại sao cần phải có bài hát "Truy Tôn Ngô Tổng thống" với những lời lẽ thậm xưng (hyperbole) nịnh bợ rẽ tiền.

4. Tại sao ông Diệm cứ luôn luôn kết thúc bài nói với dân chúng miền Nam với câu "Xin ơn trên phù hộ cho chúng ta"? Điều nầy cho thấy ông Diệm là người cầm quyền không tế nhị, không biết được cảm nghĩ của đa số người dân miền Nam về Ki Tô Giáo, một đạo Thực Dân Pháp sử dụng như là một chiêu bài xâm lăng nước Việt Nam yêu quý của chúng ta, một đạo có nhiều giáo điều ngược lại tín ngưỡng và niềm tin truyền thống dân tộc, một đạo đầy tự tôn tự đại cho mình là chánh đạo và coi nhũng đạo khác là tà đạo. 

5. Ông Diệm không biết chổ đứng và địa vị căn bản của mình. Ông không phải là anh hùng dân tộc dám hy sinh chống cự Thực Dân Pháp như Cụ Phan Bội Châu. Ông ta chỉ là một quan lại, nhờ Mỹ nâng lên mới có quyền thế. Khi Mỹ không tin dùng nữa và khuyến khích các tướng lãnh đảo chánh, nếu là người nhanh trí và biết thân phận mình thì ông Diệm đã không bị giết. Ngược lại, trong cuộc điện đàm ngắn với Đại Sứ Mỹ vào ngày 1 tháng 11, năm 1963, ông Diệm cứ năng năng xưng hô mình là quốc trưởng và từ chối từ chức và lời bảo đảm tánh mạng của Đại sứ Mỹ với điều kiện ông Diệm phải lưu vong một mình. Khi ông Diệm gọi trở lại thì Đại Sứ Mỹ trả lời rằng tình hình đã đổi thay và tánh mạng của ông không còn được bảo đảm nữa. Sự hành xử không thức thời của ông Diệm không khác chi hành động của Saddam Hussein và Gaddafi khi tình thế đổi thay, gây ra cái chết của bản thân và nhiều người thân, trong khi đó Ben Ali của Tunisia, biết thân phận mình khi dân chúng nổi lên chống lại chế độ, ông ta và gia đình bỏ Tunisia chạy ra khỏi nước. Cái chết của ông Diệm không gây ra sự xúc động mãnh liệt trong quần chúng như cái chết của Nelson Mandela và Nasser. Tôi nghĩ lịch sử sẽ không bao giờ coi ông Diệm là một lãnh tụ anh minh và "cha già" của dân tộc như Mandela của Cộng Hoà Nam Phi và Mustafa Kemal Atatürk của Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ. Ngược lại, ông Diệm sẽ bị coi là một người không thực tài mà còn bảo thú phong kiến, quan liêu, và  không tôn trọng tôn giáo nào ngoại trừ Ki Tô Giáo vì quá trình tôn giáo của gia đình ông và chính bản thân ông. 

6. Một  sự kiện khó chối cãi là  ông Diệm không thực tài, cầm quyền được là do Mỹ đưa lên. Cờ đến tay mà không biết phất; còn lại dung túng cho gia đình ông ta lộng quyền; thiên vị Ki Tô Giáo, một đạo của thiểu sổ, và đàn áp Phật Giáo, một đạo của đa số; lúc hiểm nguy không biết ứng biến, thì bị giết, không  có chi làm ngạc nhiên. Ai thương nhớ ông Diệm có quyền tưởng niệm ông ấy. Xin đừng gán tội cho những cư tăng Phật Giáo chống đối chế độ ông Diệm vì chủ trương và chính sách kỳ thị tôn giáo của chế độ đó, là những người gây ra cái chết ông Diệm. Ông Diệm chết là vì a) Mỹ không còn muốn dùng ông ta nữa, nhất là sau khi ông muốn "đi đêm" với chế độ miền Bắc, và b) cá tính của ông ta ("Character is Fate")