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Ditto forgetting this had started since watching the preview almost a year ago. Very cool that it's online for cord cutters like me so I don't have to wait a year for Netflix to grab it. And it sounds like the doc presents the politics pretty objectively so I'm hyped to marathon through.
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Sep 20, 2017 03:37
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:37 |
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ewe2 posted:But I'm more saddened by that same realisation that nothing got learnt except media management. The leadership learnt to blame the media instead, which is not an obvious conclusion from the documentary. I'm in the middle of the Tet Offensive and there's been a couple "the media was saying this when this was actually happening" moments and I haven't even gotten to Walter Cronkite's line yet. But I guess that's the Tet Offensive's "thing." I'm curious how it'll play out over the rest of the episodes. I really like this so far and echo the sentiment that it's a depressing spiral of just about everyone in charge privately knowing better. And for as little as it's worth because we've learned nothing as a country, it was cathartic to hear the former CIA officer say the US should have viewed Vietnam as the end of colonialism in Southeast Asia, but our Cold War tunnel vision doomed us. Can't wait to watch the same thing in 30 years but with HD video when we eulogize Iraq/Afghanistan.
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Sep 26, 2017 15:00
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boner confessor posted:after the war, when americans grappled with the idea of losing a war (puncturing the myth of the all powerful american military) as well as the fact that the vietnam war was founded on and perpetuated by lies (puncturing the myth of the benevolent, honest government) many americans found it comfortable to believe in a noble, underdog soldier who was attacked by uncaring and vicious forces. this is literally the plot of the movie rambo. combine that with the idea that the drat hippies ruined it for everyone and then you get the popular lie that the uncaring, vicious hippies attacked the underdog soldiers I never made the connection before, but your post flipped the lightbulb that this is the Vietnam version of the Lost Cause and that every nation must do this when reconciling being on the losing end of a war. ewe2 posted:And I was reminded that the protest generation either didn't learn from their own experience to perpetuate more military dumbness or the MilInd complex has far too deep a hold on that society and warped any lessons into self-serving bullshit. The documentary doesn't outright say that, it's perhaps implicit but you can't help but wonder after seeing it that Americans have a kind of starship trooper relationship with their military to have kept repeating those mistakes. No doubt a number of them became cranky middle aged people or 9/11 broke their brains, and that military contractors wield huge influence, but I think it's easy to forget there were still plenty of young people who supported the war. Bill O'Reilly certainly wasn't out there protesting.
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Sep 28, 2017 15:16
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Dude, relax. I don't think anyone here is saying the Vietnam War was a good thing. People were right to protest, but your indictment of the population benefits a little too much from 45 years of hindsight and declassified documents.
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Sep 28, 2017 16:18
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Do you really think it's plausible for everyone, even the lower class, to have fully understood the conflict in the context of French colonialism, US imperialism, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and whatever was going on in their own lives as it was happening? And that everyone who died had it coming - even if they were conscripted? Can you not see how that position comes across as incredibly naive and raging against the machine? Yeah a lot of people saw the war for the avoidable mess it was. But everyone?
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Sep 29, 2017 06:18
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The documentary literally talks about the massive urbanization of South Vietnam during the war and how many women went into prostitution because of all the American military personnel. Are you people even watching this thing or do you think it's 18 hours of F-4 napalm attacks set to Let The Bodies Hit The Floor?
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Oct 2, 2017 05:16
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