1967

[Octafish]

...or 2010?



Untitled by Sture Johannesson

What have we learned since then?
What have we done since then?
What has changed since then,
besides the nicer televisions?

[TacticalPeek]

1. And that irksome Designated Hitter rule.

:hippie:

[Octafish]

4. True, dat.

Plus, I wish I'd been nicer to Dr. Dean when he ran in '04. Partisanship...and I'll do all I can to make it up to him and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.

[RagAss]

2. We walked on the moon and then took a collective shit !

[Octafish]

6. We need that kind of thinking again -- the idea that we can do anything.

If we can go to the moon -- considered impossible since memory -- we can do the impossible things on earth.

One example was to create a peaceful occupation for humanity, say the exploration of space. This one program provided solid returns on the investment, such as the computers we now use.

[G_j]

3. great read

I think I must be close to the same age as the writer, I have similar recollections.

..but I had forgotten about that Biker-LBJ poster!

[Octafish]

9. 1962. Incredibly prescient poster.

James K. Galbraith: 'Exit Strategy - In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam'

Just 9 years after release of 'The Wild One' and 17 after the end of WWII. How long have we been at war, now?

[femmocrat]

5. I think Bethlehem Steel went belly-up

They used to be the major employer in the town where I grew up. No more Esso, either.

Is there still a Pan-Am? Philco? Sinclair? Interesting old logos, though!

[Octafish]

10. 2010. The names change, but the message lives on.

"Money trumps peace." -- George Walker Bush

[bluesmail]

18. When they're backed in to a corner, they just use the handy dandy law they've written

for themselves to get them out of all those tight squeezes. Corporations...UGH...Fascists

[maryf]

19. Wow

great stuff (actually horrible, but you know what I mean...)

[pinboy3niner]

7. WoW! That kinda hit me where I live...

I volunteered for the draft, and was inducted in '67.

I ended up serving as an Infantry platoon leader in Vietnam, 1969-70, until I was seriously wounded by AK fire and Medevc'd out.

What did we learn from Vietnam? For a time we DID learn something, and that's what kept the warmongers from engaging us in useless wars in Central America. Thank God--or whoever--for that!

Of course, we soon forgot the lessons we'd learned, and we've engaged in more useless wars. When I protested the Iraq War, I proudly wore my VN jungle shirt, with all my shit on it, but it didn't make any diference.

Today, the same neocons who who led us into recent ill-advised wars want to lead us into further misbegotten wars in the Middle East. These insane warmongers envision some grand struggle between Christianity and Islam do not even realize how their fantasies would harm our country. Patriots, my ass. The real patriots are those who oppose this kind of unchecked militarism.

During my war, Vietnam, the antiwar protesters had something to say that ALWAYS is true:

[Octafish]

14. You are a patriot, Sir. Thank you for your service to our country.

I am infinitely sorry for your personal sacrifice, pinboy3niner, and that of your comrades in arms.

The commanders-in-chief have been less than forthcoming in regards to our nation's involvement in Vietnam.

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest?

From "The Secret History of the CIA" by Joseph Trento

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodtge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

SOURCE:

“The Secret History of the CIA.” Joseph Trento. 2001, Prima Publishing. pp. 334-335.

Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

My ex-wife's first cousin and two of my good friends' brothers died in Vietnam. Their families were never the same.

[EFerrari]

8. That's the year I went to El Salvador for the first time.

All our pop songs were played in translation and I saw real poverty for the first time. The minutero (a street vendor of something like a snow cone only with real fruit on it) told me to marry him so he could go to the United States. I was 11.

[pinboy3niner]

12. A couple of decades later, I was tutoring Salvadoran kids in VA

The school system in Arlington, VA , went to all the local civic groups, asking for help, and they all said no. When they came to our samll Vietnam Veterans of America chapter, we thought about it. We figured, shit, we don't know a thing about tutoring, but if these kids need help, we'll give it a shot.

I was the project manager, and I considered it a privilege. I remember the first night, when one little girl showed up without her homework, so I walked her back to her apartment--where er parents were fighting-- to get it.

The next week my little girl, Reina, came back beaming. She'd gotten an 'A' on her homework, for the first time ever.

We had no idea of the impact we'd have. Our kids went from flunking to the Dean's list in one semester.

Over the years I've purged many of my possesions. One thing I never purged is a beautiful Thankyou card I received from Reina...

[EFerrari]

13. That's a great story.

Thanks. :)

[Octafish]

15. Pobresito.

El Salvador became one of our hemisphere's killing fields -- where innocent people fell victim -- solely for wanting justice.

"Reagan was the butcher of my people."

Elisita, almost all of the poor I've met in my life are good people. Imagine what a different world this would be were we to invest -- through education, healthcare and good work -- in each person? My guess is we'd be exploring the stars.

[leveymg]

11. Time:

Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour) 7:06

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.


Pink Floyd (1968)

[Octafish]

16. More precious than gold.

You got it, leveymg. Right on the...



Money

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay
And your O.K.

Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands
And make a stash

New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team

Money get back
I'm all right Jack
Keep your hands off my stack

Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that
Do goody good bullshit

I'm in the hi-fidelity
First class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet

(Sax and guitar solos)

Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly
But don't take a slice of my pie

Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil
Today

But if you ask for a rise
It's no surprise that they're
Giving none away
Away
Away
Away
Away...

"Hu Huh! I was in the right!"
"Yes, absolutely in the right!"
"I certainly was in the right!"
"You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!"
"Yeah!"
"Why does anyone do anything?"
"I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!"
"I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number 2. He was asking
Why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was yelling and
Screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out"

-- Pink Floyd

Thanks for understanding, my Friend: They don't give up power, either.

[pinboy3niner]

17. "Deja Vu (All Over Again)"

"Deja Vu (All Over Again)" by John Fogerty

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio
Did you try to read the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I've heard it all before
It's like Deja Vu all over again

Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio
Could your eyes believe the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I've heard it all before
It's like Deja Vu all over again

One by one I see the old ghosts rising
Stumblin' 'cross Big Muddy
Where the light gets dim
Day after day another Momma's crying
She's lost her precious child
To a war that has no end

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio
Did you stop to read the writing at The Wall
Did that voice inside you say
I've seen this all before
It's like Deja Vu all over again
It's like Deja Vu all over again

[maryf]

20. love this one

[bleever]

21. "The Vietnamese conflict is the right war in the right place at the right time."

Time magazine...had supported the U.S. war in Vietnam from the start. Time defined its editorial stance in its May, 1965 edition: "The Vietnamese conflict is the right war in the right place at the right time." (One can hear echoes of Obama’s assertion that Afghanistan is the "right war.") This was pretty much standard fair from mainstream publishers and broadcasters of the period; as a for-instance, the April 21, 1967 edition of Life magazine described Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beyond Vietnam speech as "demagogic slander that sounded like a script from Radio Hanoi."

What have we learned, when the idea that there is such a thing as a "right war" still holds so much currency?

Maybe the key word there is "currency".


Fascinating reading.