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I ordered it, oh, three or so months, and have been unable to watch it. So it just sat here. That era is just so painful to me. And Iraq has been an almost exact, word for word, heartbreak for heartbreak, repetition. To see it all happening again is appalling. But I finally watched it. I watched it back to back with "Uncovered: the Whole Truth about Iraq." Boy, is THAT an experience!
Someone in "Truth" says something about American policymakers and the military seeming to have been "lobotomized" after Vietnam. They're doing Vietnam all over again! Same lies. Same rhetoric. Same imposition of US will where it is not wanted. Same devastating modern killing machine against virtually unarmed people. Same aerial bombing of a country that has no air force. Same kind of racism and cultural ignorance, and brutality. And the same utter stupidity of trying to crush a people who are defending their homeland!
But I don't know about the "lobotomy." I think something far worse has happened in this case--and that is, the criminal disenfranchisement of the American people, and the ascendancy of a fascist coup.
Let me remind you, if you don't know this:
58% of the American people opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion. I'll never forget that stat. Feb. '03. BEFORE all the lies were exposed. That indicates to me a peaceful people who had learned many lessons from Vietnam. Despite 9/11, and even with all the fearmongering, they just didn't buy it.
And opinion polls continue to show huge disapproval of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range. You name it. Iraq. Social Security. The deficit. Torturing prisoners (which 63% of Americans are opposed to, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!). And, of course, Bush's personal approval rating stands at 42%, and has sunk like the Titanic since the invasion.
This man represents the fringe of our society--rightwing Christians, a few really dumb conservatives, and a few billionaires, greedbags, dittoheads, armchair "patriots," and Corporate CEOs. And yet he has been able to drag us back into Vietnam, merely because he (or his Cartel) holds the reigns of power.
This is a very critical difference from the Vietnam era. Americans' disgust with the Vietnam war drove LBJ from the White House. He could not run for a second term, he had become so unpopular. The Bushites have found the answer to that problem: Diebold and ES&S--Bushite electronic voting machine companies gaining control of the vote tabulation, with SECRET, PROPRIETARY software.
I am convinced--on the basis of all the 2004 election evidence--that the American people rose up, on Nov. 2, 2004, in revulsion at the Bush Cartel, and threw them out of office by a very big margin, around 10%--and had that victory just outright stolen from them, mostly by what has become a completely non-transparent election system. The TV networks then, acting in concert, falsified the exit poll data (Kerry won) on everybody's TV screens that night--"adjusting" the exit polls to fit the official Diebold/ES&S result (Bush won), thus depriving the voters of major evidence of election fraud, and squashing protests and calls for investigation.
I DO think this major crime will be generally known, sooner rather than later. Our new people to people networks, and alternative media, are getting stronger every day. People know they have been lied to. They know something is very wrong. They just have to realize what the main mechanism of the theft was--the insecure, privately controlled electronic voting systems--and start fixing this problem, at the state/local level, where power over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some influence. (We have the daunting problem of bipartisan corruption in the billion dollar deals that our election systems have become--but that is another discussion, and state/local election reform is still the best answer to it.)
In 1968, Americans still had the right to vote. That power is fundamental to our ability to influence our government. Without it, they have no reason to listen to us. And that is exactly what is going on with the Bushites and their "pod people" in Congress. They have no reason to listen to the majority. They are not beholden to the people, and they know it.
But it's going to be a long, hard struggle to reform the election system, and there are many ways that the Bushites and the War Party (combo of Bushites and bad Dems) can still foil us. But we must try. It is, really, our last chance to save our democracy.
Over 100,000 Iraqis were killed by our bombs, according to the British doctors' report, and many more have been killed since the bombings, and some 2,000 US soldiers have been killed (if the Pentagon is giving accurate figures--which is very doubtful). In Vietnam, at least a million Vietnamese were killed, and 55,000 US soldiers. Although the Iraq carnage isn't at that level yet, it's going to get worse before it gets better, and the Bush Cartel very likely has plans to nuke Iran and Syria. (That's one of the reasons they outed the CIA's covert WMD expert, Valerie Plame, and her entire CIA company network of eyes and ears on WMDs around the world--so the Bush Cartel can operate freely to plant and use WMDs to start more wars, and to profit from illicit arms deals.)
I don't think either film dealt enough with the war profiteering issue. I think that's what really and truly drove the Vietnam war, and is driving this one. In this case, also, there is the matter of Israel--a much bigger driver of the Iraq war than most people realize. I think ideology has very little--almost nothing--to do with this war. It's all about money (even the Israel issue--Israel is receiving billions in US support--although Israel has additional homeland and religious aspects).
Both films dwelt on ideology, and policy mistakes--and didn't really mention war profiteering at all. That's a big black hole in these films. "Hearts and Minds" focused more on ordinary people--Vietnamese and US soldiers and how they were experiencing the war. I don't think they gave nearly enough credit, or footage, to the anti-war movement, although they did reveal that a half a million soldiers deserted, and interviewed one in depth. "Truth" focused quite deliberately on policy and policy-makers (both Bushites and insider dissenters). That was okay--they were trying to make a particular point (exposing the Bush Cartel's lies).
I'm wondering tonight how we can stop war. And I'm thinking, 1) We MUST restore our right to vote! --because most people hate war and WILL stop it, or find a way around it, if they can; and 2) We MUST, we simply MUST, seek world disarmament, or our species WILL not survive, nor will our planet.
Imagine a world without armaments. Imagine all that money and energy and human ingenuity put to the uses of the common good. We can do that. We can help save the future. And we MUST. That's all. We MUST.
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