What Vietnam meant for the US. - Page 3

KOD · #21 (**permalink**) 04-14-2008, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fear-And-Loathing

But the media lied in order to achieve its objectives. Very indicative of the American Left and Right. Each day goes by and my opinion of all politicians gets worse and worse.

Sometimes lying is what's necessary to achieve the noble end. We communists have lied about who we are since the McCarthy era. Otherwise we would have never gotten so many young and poorly informed people to follow the Democrat Party agenda. Today, however, we no longer need to keep up the facade.

American pride and conservatism have been defeated and we're entering the dawn of real change. Liberty is a romantic ideal who's time has passed. We have too many important issues today to allow selfish whims to impede the progressive movement.

Politicians like Hillary and Obama must say whatever is necessary to achieve victory over Republicans in order to secure real change. The ends justify the means.

NoSocialism.com · #22 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KOD

Sometimes lying is what's necessary to achieve the noble end. We communists have lied about who we are since the McCarthy era. Otherwise we would have never gotten so many young and poorly informed people to follow the Democrat Party agenda. Today, however, we no longer need to keep up the facade.

American pride and conservatism have been defeated and we're entering the dawn of real change. Liberty is a romantic ideal who's time has passed. We have too many important issues today to allow selfish whims to impede the progressive movement.

Politicians like Hillary and Obama must say whatever is necessary to achieve victory over Republicans in order to secure real change. The ends justify the means.

Noble end? Oh you mean like all the people the Kmer Ruge killed AFTER we left. Oh yeah that was noble.

Also, hate to burst your bubble, but there is NO WAY that Obama can win, no matter what the media says about him:

http://www.nosocialism.com/2008/04/w...-wont-win.html

MrRelevant · #23 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 04:41 AM

Here the thing tho,now its just American laziness.

Sure, the media is more biased than EVER and their tactics just as deplorable now as Tet however now one can get news from the sources many times and bypassing the media (which tends to bend and shape things as they see fit) BUT people dont.

Or theyre so hung up on not being wrong theyll just use the media as their 'pillar' of strength in the debates.Im mean if CNNs reporting it it must be the truth.

Fear-And-Loathing · #24 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KOD

Sometimes lying is what's necessary to achieve the noble end. We communists have lied about who we are since the McCarthy era. Otherwise we would have never gotten so many young and poorly informed people to follow the Democrat Party agenda. Today, however, we no longer need to keep up the facade.

American pride and conservatism have been defeated and we're entering the dawn of real change. Liberty is a romantic ideal who's time has passed. We have too many important issues today to allow selfish whims to impede the progressive movement.

Politicians like Hillary and Obama must say whatever is necessary to achieve victory over Republicans in order to secure real change. The ends justify the means.

So you don't care if the ideals which formed our society and banished and taken away from us through lies and deceipt? For the Greater Good huh? Sounds very Orwellian to me, Ingsoc is not around the corner.

I don't think I'm alone in saying I would fight against a Communist takeover in America, especially if they lied and cheated more than normal politicians to get into power....

justabubba · #25 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 06:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fear-And-Loathing

I've been studying this quite alot recently and I have come to the conclusion that the Vietnam war signified the beginning of another 'power' bloc within the US that is, one that equals if not surpasses the power of government. I would argue that the new 'Pillar' which arose from Vietnam and continues to dominate American life is of course, the Media.

During the Vietnam war, because many news companies did not approve and wanted to gain ratings they LIED about what was actually happening. This painted a very gloomy picture of what was happening on the ground which turned public opinion against the war and forced our withdrawal. However, when looking at the evidence in key battles such as Khe Sanh, Hue and many others the Media deliberately lied about what was happening and missed out news which would've increased support for the war, such as the massacres at Hue and the resounding failure on the Viet Congs part during the Tet offensive.

This hangover from Vietnam, that is the Media's control over the American population is incredible. The power of the Media is so strong now that our leaders have to lie to us about the real reasons for going to war. This is the legacy of Vietnam.

sorry, but your conclusion is dated; check this out and consider that rather than having a free press it was recognized that control of the media was essential to plot a right wing course for our country:

Quote:

Because U.S. politicians and commanders had oversold progress in the war as a way to quiet domestic dissent, the savage Tet fighting shocked millions of Americans and widened Washington’s “credibility gap” on Vietnam.
Within weeks, President Lyndon Johnson would bow out of his race for re-election. Tet was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War.
But Tet had another long-term consequence. In the years that followed, U.S. conservatives would insist bitterly that critical news reporting about the war in general but particularly the Tet Offensive caused the American defeat, that the U.S. news media had betrayed the nation, that reporters had gone from being the Fourth Estate to acting like an enemy fifth column.
Official Army historians would conclude eventually that the war was lost by poor strategy and excessive casualties, not by disloyal reporters.
“It is undeniable,” wrote Army historian William M. Hammond in 1988, “that press reports were … more accurate than the public statements of the administration in portraying the situation in Vietnam.” [Hammond’s The Military and the Media, 1962-1968, published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History.]

But by then, the “press-lost-Vietnam” charge had become an article of faith to many conservatives. That certainty fueled the vitriol of rightist anti-press groups and led deep-pocket conservatives to pour billions of dollars into the construction of an ideologically right-wing media, now one of the most potent political forces in the nation.

[emphasis added here]
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/012908a.html
for confirmation of this assessment read an insider's account; "Decent Interval" by Frank Snepp, Jr., a CIA operative. Snepp, the son of a conservative federal judge, was denied royalties for the book by the supreme court because the CIA refused to allow him to publish it

Bill Moyers (after leaving public television's NOW)

Quote:

...
Who are they? I mean the people obsessed with control using the government to threaten and intimidate; I mean the people who are hollowing out middle class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class to make sure Ahmad Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq’s oil; I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into Karl Rove’s slush fund; who encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets; I mean the people who squelch free speech in an effort to obliterate dissent and consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy. That’s who I mean. And if that’s editorializing, so be it. A free press is one where it’s okay to state the conclusion you’re led to by the evidence. ...

Without a trace of irony, the powers that be have appropriated the Newspeak vernacular of George Orwell’s 1984. They give us a program vowing no child will be left behind, while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged children; they give us legislation cheerily calling for clear skies and healthy forests that give us neither, while turning over our public lands to the energy industry. In Orwell’s 1984 the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society’s dictionary, explains to the protagonist, Winston, “Don’t you see? Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050 at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we’re having right now. The whole climate of thought,” he said, “will be different. In fact, there will be no thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
Hear me: an unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.
...
And the problem was that we were telling stories that partisans in power didn’t want told, and we were getting it right, not rightwing. Let me tell you something—and we can argue about this at some other time—I’ve always thought the American eagle needed a left wing and a right wing. The right wing would see to it that economic interests had their legitimate concerns addressed. The left wing would see to it that ordinary people were included in the bargain. And both would keep the great bird on course. But with two right wings or two left wings, it’s no longer an eagle, and it’s going to crash.
... I closed the broadcast one Friday night by putting a flag in my lapel and said—well, here’s exactly what I said. Here’s a copy of what I said: "I wore my flag tonight, first time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans. Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustain me, whose armed forces protected me and whose ideals inspired me. I offered my heart’s affection in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother’s picture on my lapel to prove her son’s love. Mother knew where I stood. So does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15th. So what’s this doing here? I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo, the trademark—the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On most Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it’s the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official labels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book of orthodoxy on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.
"But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapel while writing books and running web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They’re in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks, even as they call for spending more on war.
“So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks. or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government, and it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war, except in self defense, is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.”
... It turned out there was a blacklist of people who had been removed from the list of prominent Americans sent abroad to lecture on behalf of America and the USIA. What’s more, it was discovered that evidence as to how those people were chosen to be on the blacklist, more than seven hundred documents, had been shredded. Among those on the blacklist of journalists, writers, scholars and politicians were dangerous left wing subversives like Walter Cronkite, James Baldwin, Gary Hart, Ralph Nader, Ben Bradley, Coretta Scott King and David Brinkley.

[emphasis added]
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/5/1...cpbs_tomlinson
http://www.freepress.net/news/8120

MrRelevant · #26 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 07:01 AM

US military lost the Vietnam war?...lol

General Giap:

"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it.

But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!"

Do you know who Giap is?

justabubba · #27 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrRelevant

US military lost the Vietnam war?...lol

General Giap:

"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it.

But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!"

Do you know who Giap is?

the US military did NOT lose the war. the war was lost by our federal government which established the flawed strategy. the military was not allowed to fight the war they were only allowed to serve as the targets of the guerilla opposition.
notice those parallels to iraq?
notice that we should not have fought either?
notice that we provoked an incident for both to justify our involvement?
notice that we supported corrupt politicians in both wars?
notice that in neither we had no established end game?
Colin Powell's autobiography is stocked with observations he made from his experiences in vietnam ... about what NOT to do in fighting these kinds of wars. his doctrine was totally ignored in iraq. the chickenhawk neocons have screwed the pooch in this war just as they did in vietnam
no, it was not the military that lost vietnam

BroncoBilly · #28 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fear-And-Loathing

I've been studying this quite alot recently and I have come to the conclusion that the Vietnam war signified the beginning of another 'power' bloc within the US that is, one that equals if not surpasses the power of government. I would argue that the new 'Pillar' which arose from Vietnam and continues to dominate American life is of course, the Media.

During the Vietnam war, because many news companies did not approve and wanted to gain ratings they LIED about what was actually happening. This painted a very gloomy picture of what was happening on the ground which turned public opinion against the war and forced our withdrawal. However, when looking at the evidence in key battles such as Khe Sanh, Hue and many others the Media deliberately lied about what was happening and missed out news which would've increased support for the war, such as the massacres at Hue and the resounding failure on the Viet Congs part during the Tet offensive.

This hangover from Vietnam, that is the Media's control over the American population is incredible. The power of the Media is so strong now that our leaders have to lie to us about the real reasons for going to war. This is the legacy of Vietnam.

I have to say, I appreciate you studying this part of our American history, as I served a one year tour of duty in Vietnam, and what I read from the media when I was there, was most of the time BS. My parents subscribed for me a one year of the LA Times, and I can tell you, "if it bleeds it reads".

My ultimate gratitude that I derived from that terrible war, was emersion of 10's of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians, that get to now experience the greatness of our society here in the United States, and I know that they aren't of the opinion that the United States is some kind of evil conquering empire, they are very grateful to be here.

The sadness that I see now, is the media portrays America's war on terror in Iraq and elsewhere in the same scathing light, as evil conquerers, and there are millions that buy into it.

BroncoBilly · #29 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fear-And-Loathing

The problem I have with the Media is that they have gone from being a check on the government to being just as powerful and similar to government. It's like a new government has arisen.

Over time, the truth usually emerges, and yes, the media is as powerful as any government, that's why they are referred as "the fifth column".

This fifth column tactic is being effectively used by the terrorists that want to destroy western civilization, that's why I am confident that history will again prove the one's that digest the media hyperbole, to be dead wrong.

BroncoBilly · #30 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KOD

Sometimes lying is what's necessary to achieve the noble end. We communists have lied about who we are since the McCarthy era. Otherwise we would have never gotten so many young and poorly informed people to follow the Democrat Party agenda. Today, however, we no longer need to keep up the facade.

American pride and conservatism have been defeated and we're entering the dawn of real change. Liberty is a romantic ideal who's time has passed. We have too many important issues today to allow selfish whims to impede the progressive movement.

Politicians like Hillary and Obama must say whatever is necessary to achieve victory over Republicans in order to secure real change. The ends justify the means.

You represent what evil is all about. The reason why your goofy ideology never works, is that after communists slaughter and starve most of their population, there are few left to do the slave labor. But there are loons that keep buying the BS that communism is good, how incredibly stupid.

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