"I know that's the popular version of what went on there..."
This was episode #1. It laid the groundwork from WWII and the history of Ho Chi Minh.
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If it comes from PBS, its BS!
Enough of their bovine excrement!
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Reasonably, for Ken Burns, straight-forward presentation of history from French colonialism to JFK election. The manipulation that started was the juxtaposition of US-era video with French colonial times, IMO. Throw in equating Ho Chi Minh with Thomas Jefferson and the table is set.
Won’t watch anything of Burns.
He ‘grew’ after he did the Civil War series thirty years ago.
Overall I think it was fair. It was titled "There is no one truth" or something to that effect. Max Cleland was one of the first speakers. Some may not have noted it.He was the democrat mascot during the 2004 campaign (no mention of how he received his injuries).
First Episode went back to the beginning of French Imperial rule and worked its way to the early 60s. They did an interrupted flash-forward with intermittent personal accounts from some involved in the heavy years of the late 60s.
I thought the content was fair. I just didn't care for the flash-forward style. Seemed to interrupt the flow to me. That was my only negative perception. Format choice, not a content issue.
Terrible! Biased as hell! Horrible!
...and that’s without watching it. But I know what to expect, since it’s a product of the media.
I saw it. PBS did a Vietnam documentary over thirty years ago. This was a rehash. Uncle Ho was a swell guy. Bad America. Bad French. (well, they WERE bad.)
History is written by the winners and we did not win the Vietnam War.
Anyone wanting to know how the Vietnam War really became the US war, and the criminal-level malfeasance of LBJ and the JCS needs to read “Dereliction of Duty”... by H.R.McMaster
The truths he tells therein almost stalled his career at O-5 / LTC.
Really appreciate the thread. I recorded the series but have not started to view it.
Hope you guys continue to analyze the programs. I appreciate it, since I too distrust sources.
No, I don’t intend to watch this PBS version of the Vietnam War. I was there for most of the war, and I prefer to remember it the way it was, not the way some PBS Liberal tells me it was.
Burns is a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, with almost $40,000 in political donations.[16] In 2008, the Democratic National Committee chose Burns to produce the introductory video for Senator Edward Kennedy's August 2008 speech to the Democratic National Convention, a video described by Politico as a "Burns-crafted tribute casting him [Kennedy] as the modern Ulysses bringing his party home to port."[17][18] In August 2009, Kennedy died, and Burns produced a short eulogy video at his funeral. In endorsing Barack Obama for the U.S. presidency in December 2007, Burns compared Obama to Abraham Lincoln.[19] He said he had planned to be a regular contributor to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Current TV.[20]
No thanks.
bfl
I wonder if the leftists Burns runs with will take him to task for comparing Ho chi Minh to Thomas Jefferson. After all, to the left Jefferson is a racist, rapist, slave owner, and Ho Chi Minh is one of their many idols.
Not directly related to the documentary, but highly recommended reading:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/629438.Unheralded_Victory
You can’t read one book or watch one documentary and really understand any historical event. You will have an understanding of one person’s view.
You really have to commit to reading at least 4-5 books from different viewpoints before you really can begin to formulate your own understanding as to what really happened. For me, watching only one is a waste of time.
Democrat hawks like RFK (who worked for Joe McCarthy) supported LBJ when he ginned up the war. Maybe Beaver Boy was still smarting over his Pappy being an unapologetic English hating Nazi sympathizer.
Johnson wanted his own war so he could be like his hero FDR. After fabricating a pretext in `64 for war then getting things squarely wrapped around the axle over the next three years, he just quit—professing shock at students chanting things like “Hey, hey LBJ, How many kids did you kill today’. And it was dumped in Nixon’s lap.
But the fact was that Johnson got steamrolled in New Hampshire.
Then the stuttering Kennedy’s put on their anti-war halos and pointed fingers at Nixon. So the `rats got us into it, then bailed.
Now they’re going to give Jabba the Moore a rest and call this shill from the bullpen? So teachers have something to indoctrinate school kids with the same BS?
After reading reviews here I trust, I’ll pass on this fink’s revisionist history. Sometimes you just have to decide based on the source. Life’s too short for Jane Fonda lies put on film, passed on as fact.