All posts filed under: Vietnam

WATCH: Truth At Last: The Assassination of Martin Luther King

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Released last year, to mark the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination, James Corbett’s documentary examines King’s attempt to reconcile the civil rights and anti-war movements of the late 1960s, and dispels the many myths that have grown up around both King and his alleged assassin. On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered a passionate speech at Riverside Church in New York staking out his opposition to the war in Vietnam. One year later to the day, he was assassinated. Now, 50 years after that fateful day, the truth about the assassination of Dr. King can finally be told. A full transcript, along with links and sources, can be found here.

The Killing of History

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One of the most hyped “events” of American television, The Vietnam War, has started on the PBS network. The directors are Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Acclaimed for his documentaries on the Civil War, the Great Depression and the history of jazz, Burns says of his Vietnam films, “They will inspire our country to begin to talk and think about the Vietnam war in an entirely new way”.

Greatest threat to peace? No contest: a response to Pepe Escobar

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by Philip Roddis In a Sputnik article last month (republished here) Pepe Escobar sets out a useful appraisal of the conflicting interests of China and the USA in the South China Sea. It’s a well informed piece and I recommend it wholeheartedly … … though not unconditionally. Escobar begins: The South China Sea is and will continue to be the ultimate geopolitical flashpoint of the young 21st century – way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands. Given that I agree with pretty much everything that follows this opener, am I nitpicking in my objection? You tell me. I travel frequently to Vietnam and agree that territorial rights in the South China Sea, the narrow context of Escobar’s piece – the broader context being Sino-American rivalry – are a sensitive issue for the reasons he sets out. These are as follows. One, western colonialism is responsible for a “currently incendiary battle” in the South China Sea. Two, the late 19th century creation of Asia’s nation states by colonial fiat overlaps with China’s ‘century …

Viet Nam a half century later

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by David Swanson Jimmy Carter called a war waged in Vietnam by the United States — a war that killed 60,000 Americans and 4,000,000 Vietnamese, without burning down a single U.S. town or forest — “mutual” damage. Ronald Reagan called it a “noble” and “just cause.” Barack Obama promotes the myth of the widespread mistreatment of returning U.S. veterans, denounces the Vietnamese as “brutal,” and has launched a 13-year, $65 million propaganda program to glorify what the Vietnamese call the American War: As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we reflect with solemn reverence upon the valor of a generation that served with honor. We pay tribute to the more than 3 million servicemen and women who left their families to serve bravely, a world away . . . They pushed through jungles and rice paddies, heat and monsoon, fighting heroically to protect the ideals we hold dear as Americans. Which ideals might those have been? Remember, this was the bad war in contrast to which World War II acquired the ridiculous …