On Aug 1, 9:36*am, wrote:
On Sat, 1 Aug 2009 09:09:50 -0700 (PDT), george9219
wrote:





On Jul 31, 11:12*pm, pittendrigh wrote:
Saw the Jane Fonda/Donald Sutherland FTA movie tonight,
about the forgotten and covered-up enlisted man's protest against the
war
in the early 70s.....about soldiers refusing to fight, fragging
superior officers, etc.

I never knew that happened. I was living in the sticks in Colorado in
the 70s, without
electricity and with little contact to outside world. *Pretty
interesting stuff (the movie, not me).

Made me think of Dave. So I logged in here for the first time in a
half a year.
Reminded me how the right-wingers told us we had to fight the Viet Nam
war, else all hell would break loose.
And then we lost and retreated in disgrace. And as it turned out, we
were right. Viet Nam didn't matter at all.
Here we are 40 years later and Viet Nam means nothing to nobody. *And
all those right wing
morons who made us fight that stupid war were never made to pay the
price they should have paid.
You should watch it Dave. I recommend it.

Grasshopper fishing is getting good too, by the way.
Might be the best hopper fishing since way back then: rivers are high
fast clear and cold.
And it's August. *Amazing.

Minor correction. LBJ of the "great society" was the major architect
of the war. It ended under the ultra conservative Richard Nixon.

Er, no. *Kennedy and his crew really ramped it up after guys like the Dulles'
talked Eisenhower into buying the war from the French (after Roosevelt and
Truman sorta rented it...)...and guys like the recently-departed Bob McNamara
and Westmoreland were more of architects than LBJ, and "liberal" and
"conservative" as an overall philosophy had little to do with much of it, and Rs
and Ds were equally involved. *They were anti-communists first and foremost
insofar as Vietnam was concerned. *Of the period Presidents, Kennedy was the
only POTUS who whole-heartedly supported a US involvement in Vietnam, and LBJ
was probably the POTUS who least supported it (personally).

TC,
R- Hide quoted text -

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Richard is accurate I believe. IE both R&Ds are culp for Vietnam. And
Carter has some culp for Afghanistan, which was probably better off
and modernising under Communism. But . . . we wanted some payback for
Russky ****ing with us in Vietnam etc and so supporting the Mujahideen
and a few stingers was sweet revenge for a bit. But in retro it was a
mistake. The jury is still out on Clinton's use of the Mujahideen in
Bosnia, and his slick covert moves per Croatia. Daddy Bush in Iraq was
simply about protecting the oil we all slurp. But the Neocons, Shrub,
and reactionaries get 90% of the blame for amplifying Carter's
mistake, Iraq, and almost Iran, much to Likud Israel's disappointment.

Thru the 80's there was a strong strain of anti communism in BOTH
mainstream Demotown, and mainstream Republaville. This rightwingnut
Coulteresque FOX bull**** of pretending that mainstream Democrats are
just a step away from Communists was a successful INVENTION of the
wingnut fascists and entertainers who grabbed control of the
Republican Party and greased the slide to the Right with the electoral
popularization of simplistic nonsense and fear. They can take most of
the credit for tax policies that starved US physical and social
infrastructure, and incentivized movement of industry offshore. There
are still a few of our friends here in ROFF who spout this dinosaur
stuff, but by and large the political mainstream of the USA is moving
towards the centrist policies and politics that characterize the
Western and developed world. IMHO, there is building a strong bi-
partisan swing favoring a producer economy, over the consumption
economy. ie much greater investment in infrastructure, health and
education, as well as incentisizing technology and domestic industry.

Enuf
Dave