The Now Frightening United States of America

Richard Nixon made me mad.

Exposing Nixon’s Vietnam Lies

Nixon Prolonged Vietnam War for Political Gain

The Watergate Scandal

Ronald Reagan upset me, made me mad.

The Iran-Contra Affair: Ronald Reagan’s Arms Sales Scandal

The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan's wartime lies

George W. Bush was depressing--and made me mad.

If only we Had that $6.4 Trillion we wasted on Iraq

Bush squandered surplus 

Bush: God told me to invade Iraq

Yes, Bush lied about Iraq

No, really, George W. Bush lied about WMDs

Donald J Trump is, no exaggeration, frightening.

Trump Attacks our Democracy

New study says Trump has ‘dangerously undermined truth

Trump's Attacks on the Constitution

Trump undermines democracy with media attacks

Trump Attacks Post Office While Carriers & Clerks Die

The Trump Administration Is Reversing Nearly 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.

Trump's attacks on the First Amendment and the press

Donald Trump attacks the First Amendment . . . again

Appeals court rules Trump violated First Amendment

Trump Comes Unglued And Humiliates Himself At Press Conference

Trump Comes Unglued In Saturday Twitter Freakout

We're concerned, sure, but even those around him get and and are concerned.

Melania Trump ‘Concerned’ Donald Comes Across As ‘Unhinged

And then there was this beauty, not that long ago.

Trump says he's treated worse than Lincoln (who was assassinated)

I could go on.

Frightening.  This President is honestly frightening. And in more than one way.

God help us. Again, God help us.

The Large--and Glaring--Problem of the Vietnam Documentary

Like so many Americans this past week, I've watched a good deal of Ken Burns' and Lynn Novick's documentary on PBS covering the Vietnam War.

I'll say right off the bat, it's good and it's important. It's important we Americans know more about this horrible saga. It's important we know more fully what took place and they do cover a lot of that and well.

That said, it seems it also needs to be made clear that this program also lets America off any moral hook and that it leaves out a great deal more information, information we sorely need to know. No one puts this information out there better on the series than Christopher Koch in his writing online this week in Medium.

The Tragic Failure of Ken Burns Vietnam

A bit from the article:

Burns and Novick tell us that the war was begun “in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and …” whatever the current threat. That’s probably true of most wars. However, as we used to teach our children, you have to be accountable for your actions. If you kill someone speeding the wrong way down a one way street you’ll get charged with manslaughter even if you’re rushing someone to the hospital.

It’s the lack of accountability, the failure to prosecute those who lied to get us into the war, who encouraged battlefield tactics that resulted in the massacre of women and children, who authorized the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, who drenched Vietnam in chemical poisons that will cause birth defects and death for generation.

In order to maintain this central lie, Burns and Novick must establish a false balance between good and evil on both sides. Every time the United States is shown doing something bad, Burns and Novick show us how the Vietnamese also did bad things. In one absurd example, Coyote intones something like, “we called them ‘Dinks,’ ‘Gooks,’ ‘Mamasans;’ they called us ‘invaders’ and ‘imperialists.’” The GI terms are dehumanizing, but the Vietnamese terms are accurate. People who cross 3,000 miles of ocean to attack a country that has done them no harm, are accurately called ‘invaders.’ I suppose you could argue about the ‘imperialist’ charge.

Vietnamese soldiers killed some 58,000 Americans and wounded a couple of hundred thousand more. Buns and Novick put the number of Vietnamese we killed at 3 million, but most experts say it was more like 4 million and Vietnam says its 6 million, with more people continuing to die from unexploded ordinance and Agent Orange. We destroyed 60% of their villages, sprayed 21 million gallons of lethal poisons, imposed free fire zones (a euphemism for genocide) on 75% of South Vietnam. They attacked US military bases in their country and never killed an American on American soil. There are no equivalences here.

Finally, besides we Americans knowing our history and knowing what happened in Vietnam, the horrors and tragedies and even the lies, all the lies, that got us there and then kept us there, it's important to know it all and to put and keep it in perspective because of what it's since gotten us first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan, where we still are, to this day.

Without the peace movement, there is no moral center to this series. The lack of accountability is fatal. That an American general can watch from a helicopter the massacre at Mai Lai (as the films tells us) and suffer no consequences is sickening. If military courts had aggressively prosecuted violators of human rights, or even if we only had held detailed and accurate reconciliations where the truth came out, there would have been a chance that our reckless invasions of Iraq with its policy of torture and the invasion of Afghanistan would not have followed so easily. When people are held accountable for their actions, perpetrators of questionable violent acts think twice.

Last week on NPR an American general in Afghanistan announced that we are not trying to occupy territory in Afghanistan, we are simply trying to kill terrorists. Here, again, is the same rationale of the body count that led to disaster in Vietnam. We are reliving the Vietnam War because no one was ever really held responsible for its horrors.

We need to learn. We need to know. And then we need to apply the lessons of this nightmare, of this past, of our past, to the mistakes we're making now and that we continue to make.

I understand that they wanted to make this series both palatable and acceptable to most all, if not all Americans. They didn't want it to be "harsh." They didn't want it to be seen as "too hard" on our nation, too critical, too condemning, if not damning. It would have instantly been branded as "Leftist" and "against the troops" and so, then, against the nation. But by making it palatable, they whitewashed the history, our history. They whitewashed and prettified what happened and what we did over there.

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick let us off easy. In not telling all that happened, they let us off easy. Consequently, we learn nothing. Tragically, we repeat the same mistakes, killing in other, different parts of the world.

Additional links: 

Ken Burns's Vietnam Documentary Promotes 

Misleading History

The tragedy of the PBS-Ken Burns version 

of the Vietnam War

Ken Burns' Vietnam War: An Object Lesson in the Failures of the Objective Lens

International Day of Peace, 2017

Each year the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on 21 September. The General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.

The theme for 2017 is “Together for Peace: Respect, Safety and Dignity for All.”

The theme honours the spirit of TOGETHER, a global initiative that promotes respect, safety and dignity for everyone forced to flee their homes in search of a better life. TOGETHER unites the organizations of the United Nations System, the 193 Member States of the United Nations, the private sector, civil society, academic institutions and individual citizens in a global partnership in support of diversity, non-discrimination and acceptance of refugees and migrants. It was initiated during the United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants on 19 September 2016.

See more here:

International Day of Peace 21 September - the United Nations

America: The World's Warmonger

Proof positive. This, from the New York Times yesterday.

U.S. Sold $40 Billion in Weapons 

in 2015, Topping Global Market

On This Day, 1965

While we vote, maybe keep this in mind today, too.

Lawrence Joel (February 22, 1928 – February 4, 1984) was a United States Army Sergeant First Class who served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. While serving in Vietnam, as a medic with the rank of Specialist Five assigned to 1st Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Joel received the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor for his heroism in a battle with the Viet Cong that occurred on November 8, 1965. He was the first medic to earn the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam conflict and the first living black American to receive this medal since the Spanish–American War in 1898.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Virginia.





Links:  Lawrence Joel earns Medal of Honor - Nov 08, 1965

8th Of November, A Tribute to Lawrence Joel, Niles Harris, And All

Lawrence Joel - Wikipedia

Lawrence Joel Medal of Honor Ceremony - YouTube

Imagine

Imagine if any one of these things happened in our US history.

--If Jack Kennedy hadn't been assassinated

--If LBJ didn't lie us into Vietnam and that war

--If Bobby Kennedy hadn't been assassinated

--If Richard Nixon hadn't been elected to the presidency

--If George W. Bush weren't successful in stealing the 2000 election

--If George w. Bush didn't lie us into the Iraq War

The ramifications of each would be huge.

Now, imagine if all the above occurred.

What a world.


Links:

JFK . American Experience 

LBJ . American Experience

Nixon . American Experience

George H. W. Bush . American Experience

Entertainment Overnight -- Of A Sort

46 years ago today.



Links:  Kent State shootings

46 years later: Remembering the Kent State shootings

Kent State May 4 prepare-to-shoot controversy needs to be resolved by National Academy of Sciences

We Americans Don't Seem to Learn From History

This week, I watched the first screening of PBS' Murder of a President  on American Experience, telling the story of US President James Garfield, his life, his deeply tragic assassination and death 200 days later.

It was fascinating to the point of riveting. Such great and deep history. Sad it isn't taught in our schools. Seems he was a brilliant man who fought for the people and even for the slaves of the nation, a very welcome rarety.

Too bad we don't still, to this day, have such Republicans.

Anyway, it pointed out to me, once more, how we Americans don't learn from history and I'll tell you why.

We all know our President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed, also tragically and needlessly, in 1865, at the hands of a mad man.

At the time, Presidents didn't have security guards and protection. So the assassin came in, had access to the President and shot and killed him easily, if horribly enough.

You would think we would, as a nation, learn something from that, right? Like that we need to protect our presidents?

Nah.

We're Americans. Learn something?  Heck, no. Not from the past, not from recent history, nothing.

16 years later---sixteen whole, long years---then-President James Garfield, still unprotected, was headed to a train station, rather famously as it was in the newspaper, for pity's sake, so a crazy man came up and shot him, repeatedly. It didn't kill him instantly but soon enough, it was done.

No body guards. No protection. Nothing.

So a couple centuries later, do you think we'd learn anything from, say another countries military foray into another country?

Do you think we'd pay any attention to the world and international, military history of, say, France, that had attacked and fought the people of Vietnam?

Oh, hell, no.

Go ahead. Attack. Go in. Think you're going to win. Think you're going to win the people over. With bombs.

We all know how that went.

Couple decades later?

Not just one nation but two.

Iraq?  Afghanistan?

Oh, heck, yes, let's attack.

Forget that the British and Soviets both attacked and fought and were repelled and in effect beaten in these places and by these people.

Ignore it.  Go ahead and attack.

We're Americans.

We don't need to learn from history.

Entertainment Overnight -- A Very Unfortunate Anniversary

On this day, 35 years ago, we lost a bright, talented one.

Local Story for National POW/MIA Recognition Day

From the New York Times today:

Today, a personal reflection from Victoria, one of your Morning Briefers:

For many years, “Eugene M. Jewell” was just a name inscribed on a metal bracelet that I, like so many others, wore in the 1970s.

Nearly five million similar bracelets were sold by a student group, starting in 1970, to raise awareness about those missing in action or held prisoner in the Vietnam War. Each had a name, a rank and the date of disappearance.

In 1971, I paid $2.50 and agreed not to remove the band until my bracelet’s “name” came home. But the metal dug into my wrist, the war ended, and the bracelet went into a box.

Today, on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, thanks to an Internet that makes us all a little less anonymous, I know that Eugene Jewell was more than an engraving.

He was 24 and a first lieutenant in the Air Force when he took off in an F-4 Phantom fighter jet for a mission over North Vietnam. His aircraft was shot down and lost on Sept. 4, 1965.

The Defense Department says 1,627 Americans who fought in the Vietnam War remain unaccounted for, including Captain Jewell (he was promoted in absentia).

When Captain Jewell was declared missing, his wife was back home in Topeka, Kan., with their 1-year-old daughter, Deborah, and pregnant with their second child.

Last year, Deborah Jewell wrote on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website:

“It always is a surprise when I read about folks who have/are wearing a bracelet with my Dad’s name on it, and to hear about how their hearts ache for the loss and hurt our family feels.”

Victoria Shannon contributed reporting.

Links:  National POW/MIA Recognition Day in United States

Presidential Proclamation -- National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 2015 | whitehouse.gov

National POW/MIA Recognition Day - Wikipedia

NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY – Third Friday

Pow Mia Day History

Quote of the Day -- On War, and Preventing It

1919

Link:  Frederick Barton Maurice - Wikipedia

On This Memorial Day

A story with links to photos from NPR:

It's Not Rude: These Portraits Of Wounded Vets Are Meant To Be Stared At

It's as George McGovern said so rightly and well, all that long ago:

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” 

Memorial Day, 2015

America. And War

Peace lovers?   Peace-loving nation?   Peace-loving people?   Really?

Who are we?  Who do we want to be?

Quote of the day---indisputable

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own government, I can not be silent.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

American foreign policy, explained

And/but it's "their" fault.

With thanks to The Economist  for the cartoon.

A question for Americans

At what point do we learn?

At what point do we demand our government get us out of war and "perpetual war"?

Here's Memorial Day

If you missed last evening's program on KCPT's PBS "American Experience, "War Letters", you owe it to yourself to do so. It is one of the most moving, beautiful videos on any subject, let alone on soldiers, their sacrifices and war.

Watch War Letters on PBS. See more from American Experience.

More on the program here:  War Letters . American Experience . WGBH | PBS

Link to original video, shown here, above:

Video: War Letters | Watch American Experience Online | PBS Video

Is China fighting "the next war" while the US is fighting the "last war"?

For anyone who's read about or studied war, there is a famous line of thought that too many losing sides were always fighting the "last war", the previous war.

With the US still spending at least $711 million dollars per year on war and weapons of war, I think the likelihood is high that the US is still, in fact, fighting World War II or Vietnam or something, while China realizes that spending on their people and society and business and their economy is the "next war."

China is working hard and spending big on manufacturing, period, but on photovoltaic cells and solar technology, specifically, apparently and that may be, in fact, that "next war" at present.

It's fairly well accepted as truth that China is, right now, manufacturing lots of solars panels and dumping them on our American market.

The fact is, it's been widely accepted that whatever country owns solar energy in general, but photovoltaic cells, specifically, owns the next century.

Maybe we need to wise up.

And fast.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31825

Quote of the day