It is just dawning on me that the election is a couple of weeks away. Dwayne's description of his office mate's support for Bush...and the reasons for it are beyond scary. Greek tragedy and most of the twentieth century recount what happens to blind hubris.
The plot begins to resemble Schindler's List more and more, which I have said for years has nothing to do with WWII and everything to do with
the realization that they want us to conceive of the future as a choice between sane capitalists (Kerry/Schindler) and psychopathic capitalists (Bush).
History shows that psychopathic capitalism is fairly short lived....but takes a lot of people with it.
I'll stop now. It just really hasn't been such a terrific day.
Joanna
Michael Pugliese wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:29:21 -0700, Leigh Meyers
> <leighcmeyers at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Veteran files libel suit against director of anti-Kerry film
>> 10/18/2004, 10:42 a.m. ET
>> By DAVID B. CARUSO
>> The Associated Press
>
>
>> ...Kenneth J. Campbell, now a professor at the University of
>> Delaware, said
>
> in the suit that "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" combines footage
> of him appearing at a 1971 war protest with narration that claims that
> many of the supposed veterans who took part in the event were later
> "discovered as frauds" who "never set foot on the battlefield, or left
> the comfort of the States, or even served in uniform."
>
> Chomsky rubbished this book by Guenter Lewy: America In Vietnam,
> Oxford Univ. Press.
> http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/staticpages/index.php?page=20040216201143824
>
> www.wintersoldier.com - Excerpt -- Guenter Lewy
>
>> ...Another organization active in airing charges of American
>> atrocities in Vietnam was the Vietnam Veterans Against the War
>> (VVAW), which was founded in 1967; by 1970 it was said to have 600
>> members. From 31 January to 2 February 1971, the VVAW, with
>> financial backing from actress Janes Fonda, convened a hearing,
>> known as the Winter Soldier Investigation, in the city of Detroit.
>> More than 100 veterans and 16 civilians testified at this hearing
>> about "war crimes which they either committed or witnessed"; (26)
>> some of them had given similar testimony at the CCI inquiry in
>> Washington. The allegations included using prisoners for target
>> practice and subjecting them to a variety of grisly tortures to
>> extract information, cutting off the ears of dead VCs, throwing VC
>> suspects out of helicopters, burning villages, gang rapes of women,
>> packing the vagina of a North Vietnamese nurse full of grease with a
>> grease gun, and the like. Among the persons assisting the VVAW in
>> organizing and preparing this hearing was Mark Lane, author of a
>> book attacking the Warren Commission probe of the Kennedy
>> Assassination and more recently of "Conversations with Americans", a
>> book of interviews with Vietnam veterans about war crimes. On 22
>> December 1970 Lane's book had received a highly critical review in
>> the "New York Times Book Review" by Neil Sheehan, who was able to
>> show that some of the alleged "witnesses" of Lane's war crimes had
>> never even served in Vietnam while others had not been in the combat
>> situations they described in horrid detail. Writing in the "Saturday
>> Review" a few days later, James Reston, Jr., called "Conversations
>> with Americans" "a hodgepodge of hearsay" which ignored "a soldiers
>> talent for embellishment" and a "disreputable book." (27) To prevent
>> the Detroit hearing from being tainted by such irregularities, all
>> of the veterans testifying fully identified the units in which they
>> had served and provided geographical descriptions of where the
>> alleged atrocities had taken place. Yet the appearance of exactitude
>> was deceptive. Sen. Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon was impressed by the
>> charges made by the veterans and inserted the transcript of the
>> Detroit hearing into the "Congressional Record." Furthermore, he
>> asked the commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the
>> numerous allegations of wrongdoing made against the Marine in
>> particular.
>
>
> The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval
> Investigative Service, are interesting and revealing.
>
> Many of the veterans, though assured that they would not be
> questioned about atrocities they might have committed personally,
> refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told
> investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership
> not to cooperate with military authorities. A black Marine who agreed
> to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he
> had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam War "one huge
> atrocity" and "a racist plot." He admitted that the question of
> atrocities had not occurred to him while he was in Vietnam, and that
> he had been assisted in the preparation of his testimony by a member
> of the Nation of Islam. But the most damaging finding consisted of
> the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses,
> that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit. One of
> them had never been to Detroit in all his life. He did not know, he
> stated, who might have used his name.(28) Incidents similar to some
> of those described at the VVAW hearing undoubtedly did occur. We know
> that hamlets were destroyed, prisoners tortured, and corpses
> mutilated. Yet these incidents either (as in the destruction of
> hamlets) did not violate the law of war or took place in breach of
> existing regulations. In either case, they were not, as alleged, part
> of a "criminal policy." The VVAW's use of fake witnesses and the
> failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide crucial
> details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed
> desire to serve the causes of justice and humanity. It is more likely
> that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily
> political motives and goals.
> <SNIP>
>
>
> "America in Vietnam", Guenter Lewy, Oxford University press, 1978,
> Chapter 9, Atrocities: Fiction and Fact, pgs. 316 - 322.
>