Viet Nam War

[Lazlo]

I read Michael Herr's Dispatches in my teens, the heroic story of Sean Flynn, erstwhile photojournalist and son of Leg-End, Errol Flynn...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Flynn ... rnalist%29

Weird guy, pronounced dead in absentia!

[Libero]

The My Lai (pronounced 'Me Lie') massacre sure has a crop of items that jump out that might make one question the event, aside from the probable play on words of the naming of the event itself.

Firstly, here's a bit of the background. Many familiar numbers and number combos can be observed.

On the morning of March 16, 1968, soldiers of Charlie Company, a unit of the Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade arrived in the hamlet of My Lai in the northern part of South Vietnam. They were on a “search and destroy” mission to root out 48th Viet Cong Battalion thought to be in the area.

The unit met no resistance in My Lai, which had about 700 inhabitants. Indeed, they saw no males of fighting age. They only found villagers eating breakfast.

Nevertheless, over the next three hours they killed as many as 504 Vietnamese civilians. Some were lined up in a drainage ditch before being shot. The dead civilians included fifty age 3 or younger, 69 between 4 and 7, and 27 in their 70s or 80s.

...When Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot, claimed that civilians had been murdered, Charlie Company’s commanding officer, Ernest Medina, was asked how many civilians had been killed. Even though he had personally seen at least 100 bodies, he maintained that between 20 and 28 civilians had been killed by gunship and artillery fire. That conclusion was echoed in a report submitted a month later by the commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, Col Oran K Henderson. He claimed that 20 civilians had been killed inadvertently...

After coaxing the 11 Vietnamese out of the bunker, Thompson persuaded...

Upon returning to their base at about 1100, Thompson heatedly reported the massacre to his superiors.

The massacre was covered up until a 22-year-old helicopter gunner in another unit, Ron Ridenhour, wrote letters to 30 congressional and military officials a year later detailing the events at My Lai.

Army investigators concluded that 33 of the 105 members of Charlie Company participated in the massacre, and that 28 officers helped cover it up.

Ronald Haeberle is a former United States Army photographer best known for the photographs he took of the My Lai Massacre.

According to Camilla Griggers, professor of Visual Communication and Linguistics at California State University:

The Army photographer, Ronald Haeberle, assigned to Charlie Company on March 16, 1968 had two cameras. One was an Army standard; one was his personal camera. The film on the Army-owned camera, i.e., the official camera of the State, showed standard operations ­ that is “authorized” and “official” operations including interrogating villagers and burning “insurgent” huts. What the film on the personal camera showed, however, was different. When turned over to the press and Government by the photographer, those “unofficial” photographs provided the grounds for a court martial. Haeberle's personal images (owned by himself and not the US Government) showed hundreds of villagers who had been killed by U.S. troops. More significantly, they showed that the dead were primarily women and children, including infants.

Ernest Medina who was acquitted in a court-martial of war crimes charges related to the event looks to have secured F. Lee Bailey (Sam Sheppard case, Boston Strangler confession, Patty Hearst case, O.J. Simpson case) as his lead council. According to Medina's Wiki, he eventually resigns from the army and obtains employment with a helicopter manufacturing plant that Bailey evidently owns.

William Calley, the only soldier convicted or war crimes from the event, is given a limited Presidential Pardon from Nixon after serving just three-and-a-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Ron Ridenhour, the letter-writing Army whistleblower highlighted above eventually moves on in life to become an investigative journalist.

The Ridenhour Prizes, which "recognize those who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society," are named for him.

Some (most? many? all? ) of the past winners of the various categories may raise an eyebrow or two...

(Kristen Breitweiser, one of the four 9/11 "Jersey Girls or Jersey Widows" should be a good start.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ridenhour_Prizes



http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learni ... _mylai.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
http://life.time.com/history/my-lai-rem ... ch-1968/#3
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/noto ... dex_1.html

[Libero]

Here are a few famous Pulitzer Prize winners from the Vietnam years.

"Vietnam Napalm"


Before and after pics from wiki.

A cropped version of the photo with the press photographers to the right removed was featured on the front page of the New York Times the next day. It later earned a Pulitzer Prize and was chosen as the World Press Photo of the Year for 1972.

Video of event
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x71ks1 ... apalm_news

Soon after newspapers in the U.S. published is iconic photograph, president Richard Nixon spoke with frustration to his chief of staff Harry Haldeman calling it into question and suggesting it could have been 'fixed'.

Ut wrote when wires of that conversation were released 30 years later: 'Even though it has become one of the most memorable images of the twentieth century, President Nixon once doubted the authenticity of my photograph when he saw it in the papers on June 12, 1972....

'The picture for me and unquestionably for many others could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam war itself. The horror of the Vietnam war recorded by me did not have to be fixed.

'That terrified little girl is still alive today and has become an eloquent testimony to the authenticity of that photo. That moment thirty years ago will be one Kim Phuc and I will never forget. It has ultimately changed both our lives.'

His life now could be no different to the time he spent charting the horrors of the Vietnam war. He works from the bureau's Los Angeles office in Hollywood and submits courtroom photographs of celebrities or high-profile legal cases, and his images continue to adorn newspapers and websites across the world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... m-war.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc


Kent State Shooting

The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre) occurred at Kent State University in the U.S. city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.

Mary Ann Vecchio (born December 4, 1955) was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by photojournalism student John Filo in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970.

The photograph shows the 14-year-old Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot by the Ohio National Guard moments earlier. Vecchio had joined the protest while visiting the campus, where she had befriended two of the other students who were hit by gunfire that day: Sandra Scheuer, who was killed; and Alan Canfora, who was wounded. Other photographers also captured the scene from other angles.

Vecchio was a runaway from Opa-locka, Florida, where she attended Westview Junior High School. She bartered her story after the shootings to a local reporter in exchange for a bus ticket to California. She was found by police before she boarded the bus, and sent back to her family, who reportedly later sued T-shirt companies for 40% of the profits of sales featuring Filo's photograph. Following Filo's publication of the photograph through the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review satellite paper Valley Daily News and its subsequent pickup internationally, Florida governor Claude Kirk labelled Vecchio a dissident communist.

Can anyone explain why Mary Ann appears to be much older than 14 and appears to be the only one excited in the photo after the National Guard is purported to have rattled off a barrage of gunshots and downed lots of people ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings


Saigon Execution

The photograph that has become known as the Tet Execution captured the precise moment that a Viet Cong prisoner was executed at point-blank range. On February 1, 1968, Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the South Vietnamese National Police, shot the prisoner with a small Smith & Wesson detective pistol in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams, as well as NBC and ABC camera crews. The execution was aired on television, but it was the still photograph that captured the “decisive moment.” According to Sturken, this photo acquired far greater currency than the video footage of the event. The photograph highlights the facial expressions, it circulated more easily due to the tangible nature of a photograph versus the reliance on the network broadcast of the event, and the video footage of the events is actually more chaotic and horrific. The photo won the Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography in 1969.

“Eddie Adams’ still photo appeared on the front page of most major newspapers; it was to be reprinted ad infinitum in magazines and books to the present day,” fulfilling both the instantaneous and prominence categories of an icon. The photo’s prominence in the media yielded the credit of changing the course of history. In his Time magazine eulogy for General Loan, Eddie Adams said, “Still photographs are the most powerful weapons in the world.”Adams was tormented by the ramifications of his photograph. He said, “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.” Also in the article, Adams mentioned that photographs can lie even if they are not manipulated because his photograph could not depict the good that the general accomplished during the war and it could not explain the circumstances in which the general pulled the trigger.

Video of event and photographer commentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrsw6m9UOY

A year later in 1969, Adams won both the Pulitzer Prize and the World Press Photo Award, something he was surprisingly very unhappy about. He had wanted to win the Pulitzer Prize for years, but to no avail and suddenly he had achieved his dream, so what was the problem? “Photographs,” he said, “they’re only half truths.” From then on, he insisted it should not be included in exhibitions and refused to talk about the photograph; the ethical and moral questions surrounding it became something that greatly troubled him. Like Lewis Hine, he wanted to ‘show the things that had to be corrected; to show the things that had to be appreciated.’ (Lewis Hine, 1985), the photograph was only half of the bigger picture. As a photograph itself, unpicking the story beneath and analysing the depiction in terms of photographic codes is very important in coming to a conclusion about some of the ideas surrounding the photograph and furthermore the creator of the image.

http://elliesparrow.blogspot.com/p/essay-2.html

http://vietnamiconicphotos.wordpress.co ... -massacre/



Additional photograph (not Pulitzer winner)

A South Vietnamese woman mourns over the body of her husband, found with 47 others in a mass grave near Hue, Vietnam.




http://www.businessinsider.com/horst-fa ... 012-5?op=1

[lux]

Kent State Shooting

The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre) occurred at Kent State University in the U.S. city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.

Mary Ann Vecchio (born December 4, 1955) was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by photojournalism student John Filo in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970.

The photograph shows the 14-year-old Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot by the Ohio National Guard moments earlier. Vecchio had joined the protest while visiting the campus, where she had befriended two of the other students who were hit by gunfire that day: Sandra Scheuer, who was killed; and Alan Canfora, who was wounded. Other photographers also captured the scene from other angles.

Vecchio was a runaway from Opa-locka, Florida, where she attended Westview Junior High School. She bartered her story after the shootings to a local reporter in exchange for a bus ticket to California. She was found by police before she boarded the bus, and sent back to her family, who reportedly later sued T-shirt companies for 40% of the profits of sales featuring Filo's photograph. Following Filo's publication of the photograph through the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review satellite paper Valley Daily News and its subsequent pickup internationally, Florida governor Claude Kirk labelled Vecchio a dissident communist.

Can anyone explain why Mary Ann appears to be much older than 14 and appears to be the only one excited in the photo after the National Guard is purported to have rattled off a barrage of gunshots and downed lots of people ?

Indeed.

Or, why is there not a drop of blood in this or any other "Kent State Massacre" photo of "slain students"?

Amazing that not one person in the photo above is even looking at this "dead body."

[lux]

Being old enough to have lived through the 1960s-70s Viet Nam War era and residing in the politically intense San Francisco Bay Area to boot, I could probably fill a book with my thoughts on this topic (but relax, I won't), not to mention many other interconnected political and social forces going on at the same time. The decade was one hell of a socially chaotic period in the USA's history and one which has a great deal to do with the current state of American culture and mind-set.

Though I was never a fan of Dickens, I have to admit his opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities in which he describes 18th century Europe fits perfectly with my perception of the USA in the 1960s:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ...”

Looking back it is difficult to separate the Viet Nam War from the myriad other intertwined social forces, issues and media hoohah happening at the same time. The 1960s presented a perfect storm of propaganda, psy-ops, manias and media shockers that kept the public in what I can only describe as a sort of prolonged simmering gleeful hysteria through much of the decade. The media hoaxsters were flexing their newfound TV muscles to the max. It was an era of a virtually continual media roller-coaster ride of ups and downs: violent riots, “Free Love,” high profile assassinations, Beatlemania, war atrocities, ridiculous fads, looming nuclear threats, hippies, bloody domestic serial murders, The Cold War, recreational drugs (a new idea at that time), the sexual revolution, untimely rock star deaths, Peter Sellers comedies, the Communist threat, James Bondian fantasies, and a panoply of new social “movements” like civil rights, gay rights, “woman's lib,” draft resistance, free speech, etc, etc. and lots more.

And, through it all men were supposedly flying through space and walking on the moon!



It was heavy, man.

Meanwhile the Hollywood Social Engineering Dept. was busy inventing the psycho-terrorist, creepy serial killers
...


..., nuclear paranoia, the ultra cool intelligence agent, the evil Human Race, unprecedented graphic screen violence and the criminal-as-roll-model among many other memes that are so prevalent in our “entertainment” today.

Top box-office star John Wayne, one of my childhood favorites quickly became one of my most detested sell-outs. This actor-hypocrite, who never himself spent one minute in any real military service, suddenly became the media symbol of military might and rightness and urged America to support the Viet Nam War. Wayne also starred in and co-directed the only pro-Viet Nam War film of the era, “The Green Berets,” which even the puppet media rated in the range of laughable to vile.



Being “draft bait” myself during this period and being dead-set against participating in the military in general and the VN War in particular, I spent several years fending off and finally escaping the grasp of my Draft Board's conscription efforts, all the while feeling more than a little resentful of Wayne's propaganda. And, the whole time I couldn't help wondering: Why is it that American rock stars of the 1960s never seemed to get drafted while all the other young males did? Go figure.

I think there was much more public awareness of the unpleasant and illogical side of that war than there is today about our current “conflicts.” Perhaps because the USA Propaganda Machine wasn't as well organized as it is today. In any case, unlike today, there was a much greater public disagreement with the VN War by Americans and that opposition grew as the decade worn on.

The manipulators of our society responded to these “dissenters” (the term used at that time) by creating a host of fake anti-war personalities and spokespersons. I suppose this was done to try to steer things in a direction more suitable for their purposes or to simply make the protesters think they were accomplishing something. The obnoxious Jane Fonda being one of the most visible of these shills.


Even many anti-war folks thought she was nothing more than a media whore. There were also some media-created “radical militant groups,” the most amusing (for me) being the Symbionese Liberation Army with their comic book persona and slogan, “Death to the Fascist insect who preys upon the life of the people!” and their completely implausible media circus “kidnapping” of Patty Hearst, the whole fiasco being just too silly for words.



Despite these and other efforts the war never won broad public approval and, I think, was eventually abandoned as unworkable and scrapped. Later, in the 70s and 80s a new plan emerged -- a Hollywood-produced curriculum employing people like Stallone, Peckinpah, Eastwood, Bronson, and many others.



This new program was much more successful in conditioning the public into accepting the sheer joyous thrill and adrenaline rush of blowing away one's fellow humans. So, this new attitude along with a series of psy-ops that gave Americans a new set of bogeymen we arrive today “in the wake of 9/11” or whatever they're calling it now.

But, I digress ...

Meanwhile, back in the 1960s Viet Nam War war era recording industry, you might remember a thing called folk music.



All but forgotten now, it was all the rage in the early 1960s. Being mostly about peaceful things such as love, life, toil and lemon trees -- folk music doesn't mix well with the idea of senseless warfare, especially anti-war songs like Bob Dylan's bitter “Masters of War” -- my point being that folk music was likely seen by our social manipulators as something that needed to be re-directed if the public was going to accept nasty things like the Viet Nam War and such. So, by the mid 1960s folk music morphed into...



... folk-rock music and most of the true-blue folkies fell into obscurity. Then the folk-rockers urged us to stop protesting and being "paranoid” and to just relax and go “8 miles high” instead. Folk-rock then either withered away or morphed into just plain rock and instead of the old lemon trees we now had much cooler things like social apathy, purple haze, and cocaine.

So, what does all this mean?

I can only say that, as the old saying goes, “If you remember the 60s, you weren't there.”

Well, I can honestly say that I was there but I forget what I was talking about. Sorry.

[hoi.polloi]

Well, I can honestly [say] that I was there but I forget what I was talking about. Sorry.

I assume you meant to say, "say" there in the end.

Thank you for writing such an interesting piece confirming the oddity of that era. I think you are right about them stretching their technicolor TV prowess to give us all sorts of bizarre PR/propaganda stories. Not to digress further on the folk music front, but it is interesting how Bob Dylan has come to be a person that will willfully accept a commemoration from the genocidal maniac/puppet George Bush. Is he just being an unflappable optimist, or did he never really stand for anything in the first place? He himself has said he doesn't believe his writing is all that good and it just flows from him like poetry. I personally think, not being a big fan of Dylan, that he could just be channeling the hippie movement around him to create a unique, strange sense of pop out of recycled subconscious bits, and he doesn't actually give a shit about peace or statements or anything of that kind. Even though he is a simple and cool guy, he is wealthy and privileged and a quirky celebrity and not a politician. I could be wrong. He seems awfully quiet for supposedly being for anything but his own success. Not saying he should be more like that terrible Bono.

Anyway, about the My Lai incident being faked, I have heard stories from a Vietnamese perspective that My Lai is just one example of an atrocity that was taking place all over the country. If that's true, My Lai could actually have been a highly publicized media-controlled "event" in order to cook a specific propaganda story that forever overshadows the true level of debauchery that occurred. In short, a glistening, calculated aesthetic choice to take control of the reporting under the guise of honest journalism.

Imagine if you are part of a wave of idealist journalists just out of school in the 60's saying journalism is going to the toilet and you need some bold, activist coverage. Handing My Lai to those people and giving them the illusion that they have power to reveal truth (when in fact it's all controlled behind the scenes at AP and Reuters and so on) will sate their idealism and let a bit of steam out of the boiling pot.

[lux]

I would agree about My Lai. I believe it was simply to give the impression to the public that Uncle Sam always sees to it that justice prevails and badness is always punished.

[fbenario]

Why is it that American rock stars of the 1960s never seemed to get drafted while all the other young males did?

Many famous rockers, including Zappa, J.Morrison, Jackson Browne, had fathers who were CIA/Intelligence/military, and likely protected their sons. Read Part One of Dave MacGowan's Laurel Canyon series.

[Libero]

I would agree about My Lai. I believe it was simply to give the impression to the public that Uncle Sam always sees to it that justice prevails and badness is always punished.

Or, conversely, to perhaps give the impression to the public that the people in charge were untouchable, as the 3 1/2 years of house arrest and subsequent pardon for a single individual found guilty could be interpreted as hardly a slap in the wrist for the wanton murder of so many civilians. And as for the trial following the Kent State event, no one was found guilty there either, although a monetary settlement was reached. In San Quentin and Attica events, no one found guilty yet again. Perhaps this letter from Angela Davis, supposedly written by her in prison, may best sum up the mood (desired feeling to project?) of the times (boy the media sure gave attention the prisons, prisoners and 'revolutionaries' back then, didn't they?...)

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/h ... ssons.html

Additionally, in going with the same 'untouchable' theme, we should likely take into consideration each of the earlier assassinations and assassination attempts of the various leaders at the time along with the impact of associated conspiracies behind them for those not accepting the 'official' stories. One thing is for sure... a free and separate media sure appeared evident, no? And it's very obvious through the stories and imagery they released of the opinion they wanted the impress upon the audience for each of the various events.


In viewing the Phan Thi Kim Phuc video from my post above, it doesn't appear that she is in any pain when the soldiers are giving her water, which is a very good thing. In her wiki you will find that in an amazing twist of fate, the communist government of Vietnam actually ended up using her as a propaganda symbol and she becomes a pal of the Prime Minister.

As a young adult, while studying medicine, Phúc was removed from her university and used as a propaganda symbol by the communist government of Vietnam. In 1986, however, she was granted permission to continue her studies in Cuba. She had converted from her family's Cao Dai religion to Christianity four years earlier. Phạm Văn Đồng, the then–Prime Minister of Vietnam, became her friend and patron.

Another person fortunate enough to get close to the Prime Minister, at least for an interview, was the French journalist, François Chalais. François also got to meet a future U.S. Senator to boot while filming this same TV special.

In one of his reports for the French television program Panorama, titled "Spécial Vietnam: le nord vu par François Chalais" (Vietnam Special: The North as seen by François Chalais), Chalais interviewed an American pilot who was in a North Vietnamese prison hospital. The pilot's name was John McCain. The report offered a rare glimpse of everyday life in North Vietnam during the war, and featured an interview with the North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong.

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyi8X4SgQV0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Chalais


And lastly, this was a truly unexpected find. Of all people to have been the court-appointed Special Settlement Master for the Agent Orange product liability litigation, say 'hello' again to the ever present, Kenneth Feinberg.

As a reminder for those that don't already know, he was additionally involved in the following:

One of three arbitrators who determined the fair market value of the Zapruder film (JFK)
September 11 Victim Compensation Fund
Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund (Virginia Tech)
Penn State Settlement (Sandusky)
Aurora Victim Relief Fund (Batman Shooting)
Boston Marathon Bomb Victims - One Fund Boston
The Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation (Advisor)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Feinberg


P.S. Lux, thumbs up on your essay above... it was a cool read.

[lux]

Why is it that American rock stars of the 1960s never seemed to get drafted while all the other young males did?

Many famous rockers, including Zappa, J.Morrison, Jackson Browne, had fathers who were CIA/Intelligence/military, and likely protected their sons. Read Part One of Dave MacGowan's Laurel Canyon series.

Yes, a fact I now know well but had no clue then. In fact, one of my best friends at the time who went on to join a famous SF rock band had such connections but I didn't connect the dots until much later.

P.S. Lux, thumbs up on your essay above... it was a cool read.

Thanks!

[MrSinclair]

Lux, Libero and Hoi, thanks for some great posts.

What about the Jackson State College shooting 11 days after Kent state when two young men were allegedly killed? I don't find it all that hard to imagine Mississippi cops killing young black males but it may have been another hoax as Kent state increasingly appears to be on the basis of the official story and photographic evidence. It sure was easy to get duped back then...

[lux]

^ You're welcome.

I vaguely remember the Jackson State College shooting. It was largely overshadowed by the Kent State hoax at that time and I don't find much info on it now except for general media statements. No photos of the victims to critique, etc. like we have for Kent State.

But, you're right about how easy it was to dupe the public back then. As an example, I remember back then thinking how phoney the Apollo astro-nots looked while "on the moon" but even though I thought that it still never occurred to me (or anyone else I knew) that it could really have been faked. And, that wasn't the only example of that sort of thing -- noticing how fake something looked but buying it anyway, I mean.

[fbenario]

one of my best friends at the time who went on to join a famous SF rock band had such connections but I didn't connect the dots until much later.

Name, and band, please.

[Libero]

*Warning* Conspiracy Theory Follows

So you have this war going on. Your media starts to show extremely unpopular footage to sway your opinion such as an innocent naked little girl running down the street with her skin burnt off from an accidental napalm drop and the friendlies' police chief taking matters into his own hands with a very gruesome public execution -- no trial, no jury, no justice. You are pissed off as all hell and want to do something about your government's decision to be involved in this war, but you see on the news and read in the paper that the cops, jailers and military all appear to have a twitchy trigger finger these days. And for whatever reason, something in the country appears broken as no one gives a damn about punishing them, let alone giving any attention to the recent wave of bizarre assassinations. On top of everything, you've got these militant groups such as the Weather Underground who are apparently trying to help out but their random acts of bombing and violence are much more than you want to take on... after all, what good are you to the cause if you are maimed or dead. History is happening and you need to be a part of it, so you rush back to your home to catch it on TV, safe and sound. Besides, there are many other revolutionaries on the ball with much more power and influence that have already grabbed the media's attention-- they can handle it. And lucky you...their story is coming up in the next news segment.

The Viet Nam War may have just been the catalyst to get everyone hooked to their idiot box. And it makes one wonder if the timing and repercussions of 'closing the gold window' during this period while everyone's minds were so occupied fits into any of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock

Repost of the video from Hoi's post on page 1 (commentary 1:29-2:12)

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVQK8fU99Sc


Repost of Saigon Execution from above (commentary 2:15 to end)

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrsw6m9UOY

[hoi.polloi]

Oh my god. You could be so right.

The TV has that power — to grasp everyone's imagination, no matter which "side" of the debacle you want to be on, and it's been that way ever since. One big entertaining puppet show! For goodness' sakes. No wonder nothing ever gets solved. Everyone's waiting for their chosen TV hero to fix it all for them!