How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird @vikxin @roknrol about how I remember being taught the about the Enlightenment. Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door?! [They maybe mentioned that this was very typical and all sorts of people nailed stuff to the church door because it did double duty as the community bulletin board]. It wasn’t until I read Golub’s History of Art (outside of any class context, I was used to Art History being a “joke major”) that I had enough information to see the feather that broke the camel’s back for Luther (the selling of indulgences, shortening the sentences of people allegedly in Purgatory [there appears to be no Biblical text about Purgatory, so it seems to be a Catholic-specific idea]) was a business decision by the Catholic Church, being rich in land but a little cash-strapped by the construction of St Paul’s Bascilica (maybe that one, it was the Renaissance and they were paying for buttresses and frescos and all kinds of acclaimed artists whose work still impresses).

[wyatt_h_knott@mstdn.social]

@3janeTA @futurebird "big feelings and opinions" I think this is very true, because The Deerhunter is 1978 and Apocalypse Now is 79 and Platoon is 86, so there's an almost decade where Vietnam was basically out of American media conciousness and growing up in that period I feel like it was very deliberate. Like, we lost, then reflected a bit on the loss, decided we didn't like it, and stopped talking about it until it aged a little and was less painful.

[makary@meowing.men]

@3janeTA@beige.party @futurebird@sauropods.win

Are we collectively yelling at Fukuyama?

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@wakame @futurebird @vikxin @roknrol 1776 (further notes): the Italians and other Mediterraneans were also suspect, we’d fold them into whiteness later

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@makary @3janeTA

Every day!

"end of history"

the NERVE of that man... "end of history my ass"

[dgold@goblin.technology]

@futurebird quite honestly, if you're coming in that cold, Ken Burns' documentary is a decent jumping off point.

And no, it's not perfect by any measure, but it does an extremely good job of demonstrating the pressures and mindset which led to five presidents, from both parties, making the place a charnel house.

And in a very short answer: Truman had signed security guarantees to the French to get them to join NATO; France called those in in 1950

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@nazokiyoubinbou

Yes. Normalizing propaganda specifically. War is in inevitable and unquestionable condition. War and conflict are like the weather, a natural disaster rather than a man made one.

And we must cope, we must survive but never question the entire premise?

Does that make sense?

[nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social]

@futurebird Alright, I think I see what you're saying. I honestly feel like that's not what they were trying to do (bear in mind the time frame in which it came out) but I'll be the first to admit I'm not really in a position to know for sure.

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@nazokiyoubinbou

It's a good show with good writing and the writers did some good work.

But why was it allowed to exist? What role did it play in shaping the story we tell to ourselves?

It's like "Law and Order" and other cop shows in that way. (I love Law and Order, but it's also propaganda) ... this is the effective kind of propaganda, admitting many truths.

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@nazokiyoubinbou

I don't use "propaganda" as a synonym for "bad" or "evil" ...

[nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social]

@futurebird I'm really not sure. I know there was a lot of anti-war sentiment going around at that time. I honestly feel like it would be enough so that Hollywood would be more willing to cross that boundary. Especially under the guise of "oh it's just a comedy, it's all in good fun!" to get away with stuff they otherwise might not be able to. It definitely managed to get in some points like the general that was racking in massive losses just to keep taking a hill no one needed. And the whole fake appendicitis thing.

But I get that you're talking about normalization, not, say Dragnet. It's really hard to say one way or the other looking at it this way. There is some just accepting it, but I really feel like there is an awful lot of raging against the machine.

[dedicto@zeroes.ca]

@futurebird Our history books mostly can't even acknowledge unequivocally that the Civil War was about slavery.

[ailbhe@mendeddrum.org]

@vikxin @futurebird @roknrol ...OH. Wow. Gosh. That's like how English schools used to teach the Irish famine.

[bucknam@mastodon.social]

@futurebird I remember how amazed I was to learn (not in high school) that the colonial occupation of Vietnam began waaaay back in the 1800s by the French, and it was that occupation that fomented the eventually successful communist state movement led by Ho Chi Minh.

Of course, now, I know I should not have been so surprised about such a colonial arc, as they were and are so common to the story of so many countries and peoples — not least of all our own.

[cshlan@dawdling.net]

@vikxin @futurebird @roknrol
It wasn't public knowledge for a long time.

[michaelporter@ottawa.place]

@wakame @futurebird @vikxin @roknrol General Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" offers an interesting perspective from someone in the know. A bit dated - he died before WWII, before long-range missles and the atomic bomb. I wonder if he would be as much of an isolationist with those technologies in existence.
https://www.heritage-history.com/site/hclass/secret_societies/ebooks/pdf/butler_racket.pdf

[jhaas@a2mi.social]

@futurebird @wyatt_h_knott @roknrol It becomes important to follow history via power first and stated ideology as a thing only in service to power.

I had a class on Soviet politics years ago at U. A lesson from the prof was critique of what was stated to be the state philosophy vs. what was implemented. The ready example was how everyone in the state was supposed to be equal, and the highlight privilege within party leadership.

Then he'd hold the mirror up and ask the same.

[cshlan@dawdling.net]

@futurebird
I learned a lot about the politics of that war from Ken Burns' The Vietnam War.
Years ago I ran across Gloria Emerson's Winners & Losers and it looks very interesting. I'm still only 63 pages into it, though, because I got sidetracked. I should pick it up again.

The Vietnam War, like abortion being illegal at the time, is one of my personal... I don't really have a word for it. But they're both connected to my birth while I wish neither had happened.

[illuminatus@mstdn.social]

@lizzard @futurebird Would you say you learn about the causes so much as about the process itself? Because looking at some stuff, I would have my doubts.

[carl@chaos.social]

@futurebird History is not about the past. It is about the reception of the past by present powerful and ruling class. @roknrol