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LarryW
09-17-2017, 20:45
I left my youth and innocence in places I will never see again. Maybe no great loss. Just watched Part-1 "Deja vu" and wonder if Burns might have better served the subject if he had left it in the film can for another 10-15 years, or maybe it's just that I would feel more comfortable if he had. What came to my mind was that history and truth wear many masks.

I have a feeling if I come to a conclusion too soon whether it's any good or not I'll regret it. I purchased an advanced copy online to share with the local DAV Chapter. Emotions re: the war still look like spaghetti models of a hurricane 10-days out...all over the place. I've visited the Wall more than once and each time I do I grieve. There's something about that war that marks a person like a tattoo.

It just brought to my feebled mind a renewed confusion. It's like being in a bar with friends and all of a sudden a fight breaks out and no one knows why, and chairs start flying and people who five minutes before were laughing and scratching are now beating the hell out of one another in a rage. You want to stand up and say, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! What the hell's happening?" Yet no one stops, no one is listening, and you never got an answer to your question.

Part-2 tomorrow.

PRB
09-17-2017, 22:33
Burns has a lefty agenda and always has had...I suspect it will be a central theme to this 'event'....

I'm sure the whole picture will be a dark evil one....screw him.

Penn
09-18-2017, 04:16
In a war for philosophical dominance, or hostile takeover, is systematic discrimination, most effectively distributed through cultural institutions. Educational or media.

https://reclaimthewarrior.com/2013/02/21/those-who-win-the-war-write-the-history/

JJ_BPK
09-18-2017, 04:18
Here is Steve Sherman's take on Burn's Folly..

Burns is a left wing nut with a flair.
He is loved by the kalifornicate SJW.
Nuff said..



Sent: 7/17/2017 5:41:22 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

Subj: Commentary on Burns Vietnam series from VVFH


Here is a nice piece on the upcoming Ken Burns series on the war. In service to full disclosure, this is from Vietnam Veterans for Factual History, of which I am the secretary, and in fact contributed some parts of this myself. So take you can blame me for anything you don't like.... (But please pass this on far&wide)

=======================

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/are_pbs_and_ken_burns_about_to_rewrite_history_aga in.html#ixzz4n7wVrx3Q
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July 17, 2017

Are PBS and Ken Burns about to Rewrite History Again?

By Stephen Sherman

PBS is planning to run a new documentary series this September on the Vietnam War, produced and written by Ken Burns. Burns is a left-wing "historian" and documentary film producer with a history of having his politics shape the narrative of the story he is telling, with a number of resulting inaccuracies.

Ken Burns correctly identifies the Vietnam War as being the point at which our society split into two diametrically opposed camps. He is also correct in identifying a need for us to discuss this aspect of our history in a civil and reflective manner. The problem is that the radical political and cultural divisions of that war have created alternate perceptions of reality, if not alternate universes of discourse. The myths and propaganda of each side make rational discourse based on intellectual honesty and goodwill difficult or impossible. The smoothly impressive visual story Burns will undoubtedly deliver will likely increase that difficulty. He has done many popular works in the past, some of which have been seriously criticized for inaccuracies and significant omissions, but we welcome the chance of a balanced treatment of the full history of that conflict. We can only wait and watch closely when it goes public.

The term "Vietnam War" itself, although accepted in common parlance, would more accurately be called "The American Phase of the Second Indochina War" (1965 to 1973). The U.S. strategic objectives in Vietnam must also be accurately defined. There were two inter-related goals: 1) to counter the Soviet and Red Chinese strategy of fostering and supporting "Wars of National Liberation" (i.e., violent Communist takeovers) in third-world nations, and 2) to defend the government of the Republic of (South) Vietnam from the military aggression directed by its Communist neighbor, the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam.

Arguments offered by the so-called "anti-war" movement in the United States were predominantly derived from Communist propaganda. Most of them have been discredited by subsequent information, but they still influence the debate. They include the nonfactual claims that:

1) the war in South Vietnam was an indigenous civil war,

2) the U.S. effort in South Vietnam was a form of neo-colonialism, and

3) the real U.S. objective in South Vietnam was the economic exploitation of the region.

The antiwar movement was not at all monolithic. Supporters covered a wide range, from total pacifist Quakers at one end to passionate supporters of Communism at the other. There were many idealists in it who thought the war was unjust and our conduct of it objectionable, as well as students who were terrified of the draft, and some who just found it the cause of the day. But some of the primary figures leading the movement were not so much opposed to the war as they were in favor of Hanoi succeeding in the war it had started.

The key question is whether the U.S. opposition to Communism during the Cold War (1947 to 1989) was justifiable. The answer is that Communism (Marxism) on a national level is a utopian ideal that can function only with the enforcement of a police state (Leninism) or a genocidal criminal regime (Stalinism). It always requires an external enemy to justify the continuous hardships and repression of its population and always claims that its international duty is to spread Communism. When Ho Chi Minh established the Vietnam Communist Party in 1930, there was no intention of limiting its expansionist ambitions to Vietnam, and he subsequently changed the name to the Indochinese Communist Party at the request of the Comintern in Moscow.

The people of Vietnam today live in one of the most corrupt and despotic regimes in the world, with one of the worst records in upholding basic human rights, as documented by several international agencies. Laos and Cambodia are vassal states of Vietnam, and Hanoi has many powerful agents in each, with enormous influence on events there. When the tanks of the North Vietnamese Army rolled into Saigon in 1975, the "anti-war" movement congratulated itself on facilitating that victory. In the U.S. cultural media and academia, that same self-congratulatory mentality is reinforced despite the fact that more people were killed in the ten years following the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam than in the preceding fifteen years of war. Infant and maternal mortality doubled under Communist rule, and well over a million people went into concentration camps, some for up to 18 years. Under the Saigon government, despite corruption and favoritism, there was a free press, with many publications thriving. All that stopped dead in April '75.

Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden both expressed their belief that if the diminutive Vietnamese could defeat the Americans, they could do so as well. The antiwar faction should take responsibility for the wars we have had to fight since Vietnam because of their encouragement of our enemies.

There is a profound difference between being defeated and forfeiting a game. That is what happened after Kissinger brought back a less than ideal, but politically acceptable, peace accord in 1973. It was fundamentally flawed in several ways, such as allowing 150,000 NVA to remain in South Vietnamese territory, but its main valid points were the promise of the North to never invade the South and the promise of the USA to support the South as needed to offset Communist strengths. In 1972, the North trashed their promise and invaded with multiple divisions in fully conventional warfare, and the USA kept its promise by supplying the air power that gave the ARVN an even chance to defeat the invaders – which they did, in larger battles than any ever fought by U.S. forces. Vietnamization had worked.

But then Congress undermined the agreement by cutting the replacement material promised to our ally and codified in the agreement. That same Congress further nullified the accords by forbidding the use of any U.S. air power to punish egregious North Vietnamese violations of the agreements. Those members of Congress should have known what the result of their actions would be but never acknowledged it. Thus, the North Vietnamese leader boasted then that "the Americans will not come back now even if we offer them candy." With massive support from Moscow and two years of very detailed preparations, the fate of South Vietnam was sealed.

Historians and serious viewers of Burns's narrative should study the factual history of the Second Indochina War to detect any misleading implications and factual omissions that may be found in his visual narrative. PBS would do well to offer more than a token effort to promote Burns's wish for open discourse on this important and extremely relevant subject.

Stephen Sherman is the series editor for the VVFH publications on the Second Indochina War. He served as a civil affairs/psy-ops officer with 5th Special Forces Group (Abn) in Pleiku and Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1967-1968. He acts as an archivist and historian to document the efforts of Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1954-1975. He has also been a frequent presenter and participant in the Vietnam Symposia at Texas Tech University.

(TAB C) September 13, 2017

JJ_BPK
09-18-2017, 04:23
Another, by John Del Vecchio
Burning History: Ossifying the False Narrative, Pretending to honor those who served while subtly and falsely subverting the reasons and justifications for that service is a con man’s game.

By John M. Del Vecchio

The Vietnam War, a new 10-episode, 18-hour documentary series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, will begin airing on PBS stations in less than a week. From a cinematic perspective it will be exceptional. Burns knows how to make great scenes. But through the lens of history it appears to reinforce a highly skewed narrative and to be an attempt to ossify false cultural memory. The lies and fallacies will by omission, not by overt falsehoods.

Here’s what to look for in Episode 1: Deja` Vu (1858-1961):

· If the episode indicates the ancient state of Vietnam was one nation prior to 1858, it’s not history; it’s a set up for skewing the story. Although there were periods (totaling approximately three decades) when North and South were united, what was then North and South included limited coastal and river population centers, and did not include the Mekong Delta, the highlands, or any of the territory that became border lands between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Wars between North and South dominate Vietnamese history, but many of the wars are between the area north of the Red River (Haiphong/Hanoi) and south of the river. The ancient capital city of Hue was established at approximately the same time as the ancient city of Philadelphia.

· If the episode mentions the French colonial administration of Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China but does not include The Crown Dominion Lands, it’s not history, it’s a set up for skewing the story.

· If it mentions Ho Chi Minh’s nationalism, his quoting from the American Declaration of Independency, and the allies arming “his” Viet Minh at the end of World War II; but does not mention that the allies armed resistance movements in virtually all countries occupied by either Germany or Japan during the ‘40s, and that in all those countries (including Italy and France) the nationalistic resistance groups attacked the occupiers while the communists attacked the other resistance groups, it’s not history, it’s a set up for skewing the story.

Regarding Ho’s nationalism, this paragraph is from VN scholar William Laurie: “In 1945 Ho Chi Minh launched a veritable pogrom against any anti-French, non-communist nationalist groups. Hundreds were killed. Members of nationalist anti-French parties such as Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, Dai Viets, Dong Minh Hoi, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai were all targeted. Ho Chi Minh, a Stalinist adherent, even had VN's Trotskyites killed. Non-political, moderate, anti-French independence people such as Bui Quang Chieu and Pham Quynh were also assassinated. This political blood-lust is not the hall mark of a ‘nationalist.’”

· If the episode mentions that the First Indo-China war was fought to preserve French colonialism, but does not mention France granting Cambodia de jure independence in 1949 and full independence in 1953, or why that is relevant, it is not history, it is propaganda. The war in Vietnam was pursued by the French in a manner consistent with fear of genocide in the international communist prevailed. Recall that much of Eastern Europe fell behind the Iron Curtain in the early post-WW II years, and that China fell to the Red Chinese in 1949. In an attempt to forestall a repeat of the human rights abuses and mass execution reported from all countries which fell to communism, the French opposed the Viet Minh. In Cambodia, where that threat did not exist, France pursued a far more peaceful reversion of power to legitimate native administrations. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, the man who, in 1975, received the surrender of Saigon, and who had been a cohort of Ho Chi Minh’s from the 1940s, lamented a few years ago in an interview published in a Vietnamese language paper in France, that independence could have been achieved earlier and with much less bloodshed had Ho Chi Minh been willing to work with non-communist anti-French groups.

· If the episode mentions how France lost at the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu, but does not mention the Chinese army and artillery being the deciding factor, it is not history, it is propaganda. In 1952 the French established the base at Dien Bien Phu along the main road from Hanoi to Vientiane, Laos because a year earlier Vietnamese and Chinese communist armies had begun a terrorist campaign in northern Laos with the intention of overthrowing the Lao government. The supply route from the Hanoi, through Dien Bien Phu and south through Laos later became communist Route 959 (see relevance below).

· If the episode mentions Ho consolidating power in the North after 1954 but does not mention the murderous Land Reform Campaign of 1954-56, it is not history but is propaganda. Historians have debated the number of land owners and merchants killed during this period, some claiming 50,000, others doing their best to reduce the number to 5,000. The prior number was confirmed by North Vietnamese scholars during the short period in the late 1980s when their archives were open, but even if one chooses to use the lowest estimate that needs to be placed in context. At the time North Vietnam’s population was approximately 12 million, 1/30th of today’s U.S. population. The atrocities would be the equivalent of 150,000 (or up to 1.5 million) farm and home owners being summarily executed in America in a two-year period.

· If Burns mentions that the Geneva Accords were not lived up to by America or South Vietnam without mentioning that neither government signed those accords (indeed no party from either sidesigned the Final Declaration), it’s not history, it’s propaganda. How often have we been told that the U.S. blocked the proposed 1956 election to reunify the country as if that had been a previous agreement? No agreement existed. That the North, by 1956, was a closed, highly controlled and completely terrorized society was of paramount concern.

· Finally, if the episode indicates the North sought unity, but does not mention the tacit Declaration of War produced during the 1959 winter-spring session of Hanoi’s Politburo, it is not history but is propaganda. It was during this session that infiltration routes 559, 759 and 959 were authorized. The numbers indicate the date of inception: 559 being May 1959, etc. Route 559 came to be called by most western sources the Ho Chi Minh Trail; 759 was the sea route to bring men and materiel along the coast from Dong Ha down around the Mekong Delta all the way over to the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville; and 959, as mentioned above, was the route west through Dien Bien Phu and south along the Mekong River through Laos into Cambodia. In 1960 insurgents (today we’d call them terrorists) began an assassination campaign which murdered approximately 18,000 South Vietnamese hamlet, village and province officials by the end of 1962. Another 50,000 individuals were “disappeared.” Government officials included hamlet chiefs, school teachers, and often their families. Again using equivalent U.S. population figures, this would equal nearly 400,000 terrorist murders in three years, or 1.5 million if those who were abducted and never heard from again are included. This was the situation that the U.S. responded to at the end of the Eisenhower and beginning of the Kennedy years. Not understanding the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis may lead one to assume all justifications for American intervention were neo-colonial. That’s a set up worthy of a great scam artist not a great filmmaker.

A few thoughts; a few questions:

Why have Mr. Burns and his backers chosen to present these events in this manner? What is their motivation? What is behind that motivation? Who is behind that motivation? Who financed the work? What do those who created or backed this series gain, or seek to gain, by slanting history via massive omissions?

Is the purpose of burning history a desire to ossify an existing, highly-skewed narrative, and to cover-up the “sins” of the “anti-war” left? Or might it be more? Without the skewed base-narrative the rationalization and justification for much of the left’s agenda at the time and since, simply falls apart.

I believe that few people who support that agenda are cognizant of the covert motivations at its very foundation; nor do they recognize the unseen machinations that driving it forward. Most people are motivated by the positive messages. Most people want to do good. They are not looking to destroy freedoms or the American dream. Indeed, they believe they are doing the opposite. They believe they are enhancing freedom for all, and that they are opposing people, organizations and/or movements that are anti-freedom. But factors driving the agendas—as we have seen in all countries taken over by fascist or communist regimes over the past century—may be something quite different than hyped or broadcast. One must ask: Why destroy history? Why destroy cultural memory? Why supplant that which is verifiable with that which is partisan? One does not honor the sacrifice of those who served by supplanting the meaning and justification behind that service with falsehoods. Why, Mr. Burns, have you chosen to go this route?

False narratives create aberrant behavior and cultural complications. For more on this and for the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and many other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues.

Trapper John
09-18-2017, 06:54
Another, by John Del Vecchio

Thanks for posting this JJ! :lifter

John Del Vecchio and Steve Sherman have done some excellent work to fight back against the revisionists. Presenting the historical omissions that these revisionists (including Burns) make it clear that the "Vietnam War" is propaganda: set the conclusions and present only the facts that support that conclusion.

I hope you will keep posting similar responses to each episode.

I am watching this series from a different perspective and am looking for tactical and policy mistakes that have been made in light of current foreign policy and military tactics to affect that strategy.

So far we see failures in every administration from Wilson through Eisenhower to recognize Ho Chi Minh as a potential ally. I think the most effective strategy is always to co-opt your enemy or potential enemy to your side. The OSS was doing this and Truman/Eisenhower dropped the ball. Looks like Kennedy was beginning to understand.

I am very interested to see if Burns presents the story of Landsdale's briefing with McNamara in the next installment. I noticed that Rufus Phillips had a cameo appearance in the first installment. Look for him to tell that story in episode 2.

No doubt Burns is setting this series up as revisionist history propaganda, but there are lessons to be learned nonetheless.

Thanks again, for an excellent post -FINEST KIND Brother! :D

Dean Jarvis
09-21-2017, 03:54
Nothing new here to see. I don't know why it took Ken Burns 10 years to recycle the same old shit storyline. So far he hasn't trotted out the homeless drug attic loser vet. But we do have a 70 year old something that needs his night light on because he's got a gook still living under his bed.

I did like the suggestion that the FBI and CIA had infiltrated the peace movement to cause trouble in an effort to make the peaceful marchers look bad.

It still pisses me off to see these protesters carrying the NVA flag. Hell, they weren't protesting the war so much as cheering for the other side to win. Their protests prolonged the war and caused many more lives to be lost because their actions gave hope to the enemy. They could see that if they just held on a little longer we would lose our will to win.

LarryW
09-27-2017, 20:42
The war in Vietnam came to its conclusion 34 years ago. Doesn't seem that long to me. Ken Burns ten-part documentary film of the war is one summary, and there were parts I think are compelling and parts that are obvious liberal crap. Other similar commentaries will probably be produced because those years included the kind of historic military naïveté, political hubris, and social upheaval historians find irresistible. Deep passions over the war still divide America, and they will for years yet to come. Maybe in another 34 years some brilliant film maker will make perfect sense out of it. I won't see it.

RIP hereos.

JJ_BPK
09-28-2017, 06:56
Another good read..


Sinh Hoạt QLVNCH

Đêm đêm mẹ đốt cây hương ngát / Mẹ khấn đôi lời con có nghe / Vì nước bỏ mình là bất tử / Xưa nay chinh chiến mấy ai về.


In response to the preliminary showing of film “The Vietnam War”
Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Sang

I was fortunate to receive invitation from the PBS television station and local library to join the discussion panel about the film “The Vietnam War” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novik, after ten years collecting documents for the 18 parts “Vietnam War”. The movie will be played on the 17 September, 2017 on the PBS.
Estimated around 200 people attended mostly American except me and my assistant, a young medical doctor Quyen Huynh. I felt uneasy but decided to accept the invitation. It was an opportunity to speak out for the service men of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). This is not an easy task, especially my English.
After the movie, members of the discussion panel were asked a question. In the movie, a former NVA soldier was interviewed and he said that in the Vietnam War, there was no winner. The discussion monitor asked me, what do I think about this? Before answering, I expressed my point, to find out who was the winner, who was the loser, there were three principle views:

The goal for joining the war.
The casualties
Evaluation of the war.

continue (http://vnchtoday.blogspot.com/2017/09/in-response-to-preliminary-showing-of_19.html?spref=fb)

WarriorDiplomat
09-28-2017, 07:46
The war in Vietnam came to its conclusion 34 years ago. Doesn't seem that long to me. Ken Burns ten-part documentary film of the war is one summary, and there were parts I think are compelling and parts that are obvious liberal crap. Other similar commentaries will probably be produced because those years included the kind of historic military naïveté, political hubris, and social upheaval historians find irresistible. Deep passions over the war still divide America, and they will for years yet to come. Maybe in another 34 years some brilliant film maker will make perfect sense out of it. I won't see it.

RIP hereos.

Vietnam.....what a time it seems I was too young I was 5 in 73 and remember uncles and neighbors who had been there and came home or were coming home it was surreal looking back a mix of disappointment and relief....When we pulled out of Iraq it was similar for the SF community and I am sure for many others. It certainly seems the left hijacks the view of history and with media on the left it gets mass distribution..the medias portrayal of Trump is working its magic I tell guys to ignore the skewed liberal bombardment and look at results the bombardment is too much for so many.