Posted on 07/17/2017 7:08:59 AM PDT by rktman
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
With regards to Civil War era stuff...just fyi, a biography of Grant is coming out in the fall written by Ron Chernow (Hamilton, Washington). It definitely will go into Grant’s presidency, but I’m sure will be good on the Civil War era also. :)
Vietnam was a Democrat Party war. LBJ deserves the lionshare of the blame, but JFK looked like he had every intention to start some crap in Vietnam. He had his fingerprints on the assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem several weeks before his own demise to an assassin himself. JFK always gets a pass by historians because of his early death. Frankly, he would be preferable to any Democrat today, but let’s acknowledge the mistakes he made from the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam.
Well we “lost” when we allowed the French to have back her colonies in exchange for them agreeing to join NATO.
“The war greatly escalated under LBJ. “
And Nixon ran on ending the war.
The bottom line is that the ineffective South Vietnamese government, which favored Catholics over the majority Buddhist population, lost the war.
And JFK was a Catholic, so that explains a lot why he wanted us to be in the war.
Which he did, with at least some bit of honor.
Ping!
Yes, I wonder if Burns will talk about the hundreds of thousands that Ho Chi Minh killed.
American involvement. But the French had been fighting it on and off for 100 years previous. It was already a "quagmire".
Yes his stuff is usually quite good. I have his Morgan, Washington & Hamilton books
you are welcome.
I wonder how Burns will stack up vs. The 13-Part History Of Vietnam War from PBS or the earlier 25 book set of the Vietnam Experience that was released over time from 81-86.
Should be interesting.
“”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.””
Also known as the propaganda of history.
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Also known as Revisionist History.
Lest we forget it was the Democrats holy figure St. John of Kennedy who first sent advisers to Vietnam in the early sixties. Leftist historians are running with the narrative that if JFK had lived we would of gotten out of Vietnam. All speculation on their part, but this was a war started by a Democrat president.
Then, in 1954, Eisenhower took over with advisors and assistance to the south.
JFK increased the number of advisors dramatically and then, of course, LBJ started with actual ground troops, the first being perimeter protection for US air bases in the south.
And Nixon ran on ending the war.
Which he did, with at least some bit of honor.
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Most VN Vets I came back from Nam with voted for Nixon in 1972.
wanna really melt them down?...tell them that it was Kennedy that put 16,000 so called “advisers” in Vietnam, the real American involvement....they really freak.
And...how could anyone fault his work on Baseball?
He turned an otherwise arcane history into...well...Baseball and Apple Pie, pure Americana.
A work of art.
So when Ken Burns goes to the barber, does he tell them to “cut it like Moe’s”?
That I haven’t seen.
I don’t trust nonvets with our history
Burns will undoubtedly distract from the Dems’ determination to give away South Vietnam in order to hurt Nixon (and to buy votes by redirecting funds for material support to RVN forces - remember ‘revenue sharing’ to the states?)
He will also claim blacks were more affected than whites. (You can count on footage from big city race riots in the ‘60s.)
He certainly won’t say the war was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union (instead he will connect the war to escalating tensions in the Cold War).
The only useful part will be interviews with Vietnamese participants from both sides. Those guys won’t be around that much longer and getting their experiences recorded will be of use to a future historian.
Maybe one additional benefit will be giving vets a look at how some of the places they served look today. Burns is a great camera guy.
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