in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue
Lots of folks don’t see Columbus as a hero.
Any feelings on this issue?
194 Thoughts to “Open Thread Monday, October 11”
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Pat, I think there is a general consensus that people who want to dress up as SS officers might have a not so hidden agenda. Regular German army? Not so much. SS –not so good. Some of the problem might also be terminology.
I don’t bellieve we can blow it off.
Why is Beck scary? Of course he picks and chooses authors. He’s not going to say, “Go and read anything.” He’s not secretive about what he’s doing. He’s trying to educate people according to what he believes is important. AND he says, “Don’t take my word for it. Go find your own sources.” THAT is scary? What you find scary is the fact that he is resonating with millions of Americans. Yet, none of those Americans are doing anything threatening. He is on record of espousing non-violence.
He has become a preacher. Not a televanglist. Those, in my opinion, state, “I have the truth. I’m right. Trust me and only me.”
Beck states, “I think I have the truth. Here’s my evidence. YOU go check it out.”
Everybody is selective, especially when presenting an argument for their position. Why do you expect him to be different? Why should he not be selective? He admits that he is trying to educate and inform and change points of view.
How is Beck a hack? Because he makes money at what he does? I’d say he does pretty well at actually influencing people and making them think. Can you think of anyone else that could get 300,000 people to DC to listen to preachers and other inspirational speakers. AND NOT TALK ABOUT POLITICS.
Is he controversial? Yes. Is he melodramatic? Yes. Is he wrong? I hope so. He wants you to disprove him.
Please do so. Because if he IS right………
More on Iott-
From Answer.com
The entire idea of SS and the Holocaust is certainly enough to make a person question why any normal thinking person would want to join an organization that reenacted anything done by the SS.
I am surprised by some of the comments here and I am surprised that pinko would be more or less attacked for voicing what many Americans want to know. Rep. Eric Cantor has blasted this guy. That takes care of the R’s. I am sure we can find a D to blast. I don’t think we can whitewash anything having to do with the Holocaust. When do we invite the White Supremists and the Neo-nazis on over?
Stay tuned. There is a lot more to come on this issue. And trust us, it has very little to do with who is liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. I don’t think Eric Cantor has had a brain transplant.
Oh, and if Beck is at fault for nutjobs being violent, then shall I begin to list the violent leftists that act out because of (insert name here). There are many, many violent leftists that act out because of what is written and said by leftist authorities.
So, again, another drive by squirrelling…..
I’m surprised that no one has drawn the comparison between Iott and Robert Byrd, who was a Confederate Civil War reenactor in the movie Gods and Generals. Given Byrd’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan and his (I’ll be generous) checkered history on civil rights, I think that’s a lot bigger deal than Iott. But yet, there are no shortage of people here who made apologies for Byrd but are now critical of Iott. Sauce for the goose…
With respect to Iott (the issue not the man), it’s not a particularly good idea to run for Congress if one of your hobbies is dressing up and playing Nazi. Iott was very insensitive to how others might perceive this and I’m certainly not going to defend him. But being stupidly insensitive is a long way from being White Supremacist like Robert Byrd.
I’ll admit to being very biased against Byrd for familial reasons. Some of us don’t have to look in history books to know about the evil of the Klan. I know a lot of people think he changed his hood, err stripes, but he never made any effort to come clean about his activities in the Klan and certainly never met with or apologized to any of his victims.
Iott may have figuratively put red paint on his hands with his Nazi games, but Byrd had real blood on his hands. Anyone who can live with that has no standing to complain about Iott’s Nazi fetish.
@Moon-howler
Eh, no biggie, MH, though thanks for asking why I am getting blasted. I am sure it’s because I don’t like behavior that harkens back to the WWII era and I have never been afraid to say so. Just as SA thinks some Dems are actors, I think some act like Nazis, and this Iott guy is no exception.
@Formerly Anonymous
Then I don’t like Byrd, either. However, Nazis directly represent the holocaust. Confederates did not. That’s where I make the distinction. In the first case, Byrd is misrepresenting the South. The KKK didn’t exist during the Civil War. In the second case, Iott is representing holocaust participators. Big difference, though Byrd should be thrown out of his regiment and into jail as far as I am concerned.
@Emma
I’m glad you know how to read and remember what you read.
Day 2 and still no BVBL to sign into.
DOS can generally be cleared up in 24 hours, so this is looking more like a hosting issue… perhaps a down server? unpaid bills? too many complaints of content delivered to host?
amature mistake in formatting? or maybe…
Ah, the speculation is endless… but one thing is certian… Karma Reigns
@cargosquid
And he sounds amazingly like people I heard on God in America, 100 years ago.
He is scary because of what he says. I don’t trust his ‘academics.’ He stirs people up. People acting on emotion is never a good thing. I don’t agree that he isn’t a televangelist. He is evangelizing and he is on TV.
I hate church and state being intertwined. That is what he does.
As for the ‘don’t take my word for it.’ That is a ruse. Many people wont. I know that old trick.
@Formerly Anonymous
There is a huge difference in what one does with American history and what one does with German history. We were at war with Germany. Twice. I don’t recall anyone else defending Byrd other than me. Might as well just address the Byrd remarks to me.
I said he was an old old man and that he apologized for his membership in the KKK. Once a person does that….there is little else he can do.
I mainly defended him because he was an old man. If you know of something Byrd did that was illegal then by all means let us know.
No one is damning Iott. Pinko wanted to know why anyone would want to be a Nazi re-enactor. Her question brought about a barage of crap. I think many of us want to know what would motivate an American to want to be a Nazi reenactor.
@Moon-howler
And we never fought the Confederacy?
The Confederacy and Nazi Germany have at their heart the same evil premise: That some people are less than human and therefore it is permissible to enslave them or execute them. What country that gives birth to that evil is irrelevant in my opinion. The Nazis and Confederates shared the same evil aims, just with different victims. And the pre-Wannsee Conference bears more than a passing resemblance to slavery in America.
What is so shocking about Byrd is that even after seeing the survivors of the Holocaust, he was still involved with the Klan until the early 1950s. After that, he took off the hood and worked to deny his fellow Americans equal protection under the law from within the system until at least the late 1960s.. The man spent at least 30 years working to promote the White Supremacist agenda and led the filibuster against the Voting Rights Act. 30 years is a long time and an “Opps. My bad.” doesn’t wipe away the blood that was spilled directly because of him.
Byrd’s apology would have been more legitimate if he had made any effort to cooperate with investigations into what his actual role in the Klan was. Needless to say, the Klan didn’t take attendance when had a meeting or attack, but there are people who state that Byrd was more than just the recruiter he grudgingly admitted to. Did he participate in lynchings or cross burnings? We don’t know. He took those answers to his grave. I’m all for forgiveness and redemption but there has to be an accounting for what the person did.
You say there is little else he could have done besides apologize? He could have met with victims of Klan violence from his days if not victims of his own attacks. And maybe, just maybe he could have realized that it was inappropriate for someone with his past to play Johnny Reb in 2003. But I guess old habits die hard and nobody was filming a remake of Birth of a Nation.
Obviously, you have your opinion of the man and I have a much different one. I just find it very odd that anyone who can give Byrd a pass for his far, far greater sins can cast a stone at Iott. (And I will get in line to cast a stone at Iott if it turns out that his Nazi play time was motivated by support of their ideology or if he is involved with some White Supremacist group.)
Robert Byrd was an evil man who eventually stopped doing evil and *may* have repented when he was an old man. But that does not erase or excuse the fact that that he was an evil man.
FYI – The large crowd at the Harris Pavillion in Old Town Manassas this
morning standing front of a large Hugh Jidette for President sign are extras.
Turns out Hugh Jidette is a fictional name and all of it is part of a conservative
political commercial. Hugh Jidette = Huge Debt .
They have rented the Pavillion for today and tomorrow.
Was told they wanted extras who looked like “typical Democrats” so put on
your silly hat and come on down (: .
You can Google – The Peter G. Peterson Foundation
They are apparently the ones sponsoring the commerial.
“Our America. Our Future”
You might want to rethink that WE since we are in Virginia. WE is the new THEY. I don’t think the Confederacy ever attempted or thought about exterminating an entire group of people. Additionally, contrary to popular opinion, slavery did exist in places not in the Confederacy. The Emancipation Proclamation also did not free those slaves.
as for Byrd, there are sure a lot of unsubstantiated charges being made. You also mistakenly think I like Byrd. I respect what he did for his state and his service to the country. More on him later.
Back to Byrd. I have a lot of friends from West Virginia. That happens when one lives in Manassas. Most people have a great deal of respect for what Senator Byrd did for the state and for the people. He gave them dignity and pride.
I believe his last kkk entanglements were in the 40’s. I had lunch with a couple of West Virginians today and I asked them about his activities. Supposedly there were no lynchings in West Virginia. If you would like to document the information you think you know on Byrd then I will be open to discussion. My sources say it never happened and that it was a different era then. These are not people who would take kindly to klan activities. IN fact, they are fairly neutral about Sen. Byrd.
It just sounds like a whole lot of finger pointing at this point. Unsubstantiated finger pointing.
I find the comparison between Nazis and Confederates to be laughable.
Who was the last Civil War general to free his slaves?
Hitler’s entire focus from the get go was a supreme race. Mein Kampf the first widely circulated written document (as I am aware) where Hitler addresses Aryan or “supreme” race was written in 1923. The German Worker’s party had long discussed ideological theories on race prior to being renamed Nazi’s.
I can’t make a leap from that to Robert E. Lee.
If I were running for Governor of VA, I wouldn’t dress up in a Confederate Uniform or prominently display a Confederate flag…. oh, wait, when George Allen moved here from CALIFORNIA – he became a confederate and hung the Stars and Bars in his law offices – there are plenty of photos of that.
So lets see, I mention ‘the enemy’ meaning those we fought during the war, and somehow people think I’m referring to Holocaust survivors? I mention kids costumes without any specifics, and somehow that translates into little Nazi outfits? Talk about adding information where there is none. I feel like I’ve been made the subject of a Democratic TV ad. Lighten up!
Oh, come on, guys and gals. It was a friggin’ re-enactment, not the symbolic second coming of the SS. At the Battle of the Bulge, for instance, the main German strike force in the north was the 6th Panzer Army commanded by Sepp Dietrich. It was composed of the elite of the Waffen SS. Its target was the key Allied port of Antwerp, the principal goal of the “Wacht am Rhein”, the German desperation counterattack in the Ardennes. The German center was led by the 5th Panzer Army under Manteuffel, also a Waffen SS unit. The First SS Panzers were one of the units which had Bastogne surrounded until the American units were rescued by Patton’s troops. The Battle of the Bulge was one of the greatest victories in the history of the American military. It broke the German back and allowed us to liberate the camps where those Holocaust survivors were kept sooner rather than later. Imagine if we had lost in the Ardennnes. How many more in those camps would have been exterminated before we could get there? Now, if you wanted to re-enact a part of a glorious feat of arms like the Battle of the Bulge, how could you do so without having some of the re-enactors dressed up like Waffen SS? Some of you are off on a tangent here. You’ve gotta lighten up a bit. Save your anger for guys like that young chap in Arizona who seems to think he and his tiny armed group are reincarnations of the National Socialist Party. Then I will be grumping and fulminating right alongside the rest of you.
I’m going to dig up a uniform from Santa Anna’s Mexican Army…..
Juturna, you would fit right in down there in Texas. Just fill out an application, get a copy of the standing rules, and don your uniform. They hold re-enactments frequently down at San Jacinto, complete with a “Mexican Army.” I hear it’s pretty tough to slip by the sentries in the Mexican Camp — sort of like the Mexican immigration laws. Probably easier to sneak into the Texan Camp.
No kidding. That’s a pretty horrible situation down there on both sides – the Falcon Lake murder and the violent death of the Mexican Police Chief. Couple of hours drive from San Antonio.
@Juturna
I hear he gave a wicked Rebel yell also…but that could just be an urban legend. Then there were the other rumors….
@Second-Alamo
I can’t speak for others, SA. I was being sarcastic.
Ha, my one southern relative an Uncle from Lexington KY, let one of those loose on a NYC subway at Columbus Circle. That was exciting. We kids drove him crazy about that for years.
Too cool. I am jealous. I have no relatives that could do that.
I don’t think that having a blow up set of bad guys is what this is all about. Wolverine, I think you are trying to turn it into cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers.
I got involved originally because Pinko asked why anyone would want to reenact being a Nazi. Sounds like a fair question. Another reader took a rather severe reaction to her question. And one thing led to another.
I have spent more time on this than I feel it is deserving of. Not even one of my guys. I can’t vote for this dude. I sure don’t think he deserves a pass though. Lots of people have done things in their lives that might make a voter question their past behavior. They should be able to look everyone in the eye and explain themselves. Elena, Alanna and I all three conference called this one and dug up as much info as we could. There was much discussion and at least Elena and I were at times excitable. (aka loud). Alanna was sorry she called us. She was ambushed by a trip into Nazi-ritaville.
This guy had some lame answers for some pointed questions. If you have to spent that much time explaining why what you did is a good thing, maybe you shouldn’t have freakin’ done it, much less taken your kid along for the ride.
My mother thought my father was in the Battle of the Bulge. He was in Antwerp as it turns out. The only thing I remember him saying about it is that he will always remember the smell of burning flesh (from bombings) and he was never able to erase it from his mind.
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/antwerp.html
He came in with transport after the V2 bombings. Nice people, those Nazis.
Since it’s an open thread can we celebrate the Chilean miners?!!!! They are down to two.
Their rescue really is a miracle. I have hesitated commenting for fear of jinxing.
Moon, perhaps that candidate had to spend so much time trying to explain his position because some in our media seem bound and determined to push a non-issue to the forefront. In other words, they play right along with the opposition apparatchik who published the photo in the first place because he knew that the media would take the lead for him. From what I hear, the “opposition” in Ohio is getting pretty desperate.
What bothers me is that, when a certain female candidate in Virginia is shown in old photos to be playing with a dildo on some guy’s nose (her ex-husand, was he?), this is classified as dirty pool; but when a guy on the other side has a photo exposed, he must pay for the sins of his past (even though no one can show how it was a sin to begin with). I don’t like either incident. It’s all dirty pool. We get distracted from the debate over the issues by extraneous crap. The curse of the internet, to be sure, as well as the curse of both current politics and the media.
Now, as for the rescue of those miners, that is positively uplifting. Kudos to the Chileans and everyone else involved
The Chilean’s…what a great story and so glad there is good news on that end.
I would like to remind any hypocrites out there though, that those Chilean miners are just men, just like any humans, and if any of them had decided to come here illegally, well then they just become vermin or parasites in the view of some people. There is absolutely no difference between any human on earth and for human beings to be considered vile because they dared to enter OUR great country without authorization does NOT make them evil or child molesters or drunk drivers or any other stereotype.
Just a thought, but it be OK to be a 9-11 reenactor? I mean, if I dressed as a guy with a box cutter and pretended to hiijack a plane would that be OK?
Apologies in advance to all who are about to be offended by what I say. I’m a half Jew who happens to have two Grandfathers walking with permanent limps as a result of Ardennes. If you stuck a .45 in my mouth and said “wear this SS uniform or eat the bullet” I’d say “pull the trigger motherfucker.” There’s no way in hell I’d don that uniform.
But, I’d defend to the death the right of some other dude to wear that uniform and participate in whatever. I just don’t know that I’d vote him in as a member of congress.
@Cato the Elder
Cato, I just posted something similar on the other thread. WEIRD! LOL!
It was great to see people around the world pulling for their fellow man as the rescue operation unfolded in Chile. It’s too bad that tomorrow mankind will focus again on manslaughter as so many devote so much to killing each other, mostly in the mistaken belief that they are doing God’s will. Imagine what we could do if we spent half as much on each other as we do against each other. I guess we should be happy that we had a few hours when most of the world from here to Iran to China paused, set everything aside, and all had a good thought for their fellow man. Maybe the lesson from Chile is that there’s still a little hope left.
Thanks for the wonderful comment Cato. I think that pretty much says it all.
He has a right to do it and we have a right to question his motives and also not vote for him.
@Morris Davis
I always feel a thread of hope when I witness people pulling together.
Wolverine, I don’t know where to start. I see no comparison between a dildo on someone’s nose and being a nazi reenactor. One is examining a person’s motives. The other is an invasion of privacy.
Exposing pictures of Krystal Ball was sexist and holding her to a different standard than any male counterpart would be held to. Had Ms. Ball been at a party in a Nazi costume, she would have to answer the same questions that Iott had to answer.
Additionally, Ms. Ball was at a private party with her husband. Mr. Iott was at a public event which advertizes to get more people to join. I don’t feel his privacy was violated. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been on a website.
Both candidates had to address uncomfortable issues. We feel that Mr. Iott fell short. No one is saying he is a Nazi, or believes it. We question his common sense. (sort life Prince Harry’s common sense which was obviously lacking when he did it.)
The point being, Moon, that in both instances the public exposure of a single photo or set of photos is a blatant attempt to derail a political campaign for reasons having nothing at all to do with the expressed contemporary beliefs of the candidate or the issues on which an important election ought to turn. The different content or circumstances of the Ball and Iott cases are not, in my view, the issue They are both simply attempts at using underhanded tactics for personal attack. The expectation is that one single extraneous event or photo will cause the voters to make a decision which ought to be made on things which are far more contemporary and critical. In effect, the attacker believes that we, the voters, are so shallow that we will make our decisions in this manner.
I have seen the photos of Krystal Ball. So what? Can anyone show me where this kind of behavior is a pattern on her part to the point where she should not be considered for office in the now and present.? Or was it just a youthful anomaly of the past? The same goes for Rich Iott. Why is this one issue to be considered the defining one for a man with a long and honorable career as a business executive and family man and, through statements of others, not at all the “Holocaust minimizer” which some are trying to pin on him as a negative label. Nonsense in my book. We are doing a disservice to both these individuals. We keep up this sort of thing and someone might suggest we lift the title of “Saint” from St. Paul because he at one time actually persecuted Christians. At this rate, and given the “skeletons” of this or that sort in the closets of most of us, we soon will be in a position of deeming no one fit for public office.
O.K. Question Iott’s “common sense” if you will and say that he fell “short.” But, in future, never refer to John F. Kennedy as a great or good president. Because that guy spent a whole lot of his married life, in and out of the White House, philandering to beat the band. In his case it was a pattern. Obviously the man had not a lick of “common sense” and should never have been in public office. And don’t get me started on that feller they came to call “The Lion of the Senate.” Nor on our beloved four-term president of old who had a “lover” stashed away during most of his White House years.
The real point is that I am getting sick and tired of the “gotcha” politics which are starting to shame our electoral system. I am not doubting your own expressed opinion about Rich Iott , but you can bet the farm that there are other people out there who are now thinking that a guy who was simply a military re-enactor probably has a secret wish to have been able personally to turn on the gas at Auschwitz. Thank you, Joshua Green and your so-called academic “experts”, who probably don’t know Rich Iott from King Tut. Cripes. Huey Long once observed that the only thing which could get him out of office was if he was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. Now all you have to do is be an historical re-enactor.
I guess you don’t approve of the swift-boating that Sen. John Kerry got when he was running for office?
I feel we gave Krystal Ball her day in the sun. Someone isn’t her friend, that’s for sure. However, what do we do with these things when they are leaked? Do we shut our eyes and pretend we don’t see them? I sure didn’t post the pictures of Ball on here. I didn’t and I wouldn’t.
For that matter, until someone over reacted, we didn’t call much attention to Iott either. I had never heard of the guy. However, once one of our contributors gets her face ripped off for asking why a person would want to be a Nazi reenactor, then I felt it was time to discuss it. As much crap as Elena and I have taken over it, I really wish I hadn’t. I feel like no good deed goes unpunished.
Why on earth should I devote time, and I mean several hours, including some time at lunch with friends, to a tea party candidate who doesn’t even live in my state? We could have just labeled him a Tea Bag Nazi sympathizer and blown it off. But that isn’t what we did.
Elena tracked down the Anderson Cooper interview, and the wiking site, I tracked down the info on the unit and waffen SS, and then we got on the phone and had a few loud at times discussions. Poor Alanna got dragged into it.
Here is the point. Someone did bring up Iott’s re-enactment history. I didn’t. I had never heard of the dude before. So what do you do with the information? I ignored it when I heard it. It was only after the explosion over NAZI that I got involved.
I feel like there are parallel universes running right now, side by side. You and Slow live in one and everyone else lives in the other. Why is it not acceptable for us to question the wisdom of doing WWII reenactments as a Nazi if you are running for office? Even 65 years later, most of us are so horrified by the discoveries made of events during WWII, we still don’t fully believe our eyes and ears.
I thought Elena and I ended up being fairly gentle on the guy. We didn’t deny his right to e a Nazi re-enactor, we just suggested that people who have anomolies in their past either 1. not run for office 2. Be prepared for a full disclosure that makes sense to the electorate.
As for Holocaust minimizers, maybe that is a term we need to explore also. I would say my parents were minimizers. Why? They lived during the war. My mother worked for the dept of the army and my father was on active duty. Their thoughts and concerns simply didn’t include the Holocaust. They didn’t know about it during the war. After the war was over, their thoughts were comprised of what they themselves lived. It was my generation, the baby boomers and subsequent generations, who really carried the Holocaust banner and who absorbed the horrors and studied it. I know that is a sweeping generalization but I think I am right. My parents in law didn’t have the same interest my husband had.
I don’t think who a person sleeps with is what makes or breaks a great president. And you left our Dwight David Eisenhower in the list of philanderers. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that just Democrats were the bad boys of lust. I am leaving out another of the bad R boys because he and his wife are still alive. There are probably bunches more.
I doubt that there is a person alive who has ever heard me call Kennedy a ‘great’ president. I am not sure he was.
@Moon-howler John Kerry’s “swiftboating” happened because of the lies he told about his own service record. It wasn’t based on some youthful indiscretion or since-evolved world views. He wasn’t a victim of some random and baseless attack.
I wonder what decorated war veteran is next to be villified. What a sad commentary on American politics. My guess is that only Democrats will be on the list. Reminds me of Max Cleeland, the vietnam vet who lost three limbs in the war. He was accused of being a bin laden sympathizer. Pretty disgusting in my opinion, pretty disgusting. We can disagree civily, which we have done in regards to Mr. Iotta, at least most of us, and I hope that sets the tone for future discussions.
Emma, that is an opinion. I think the argument that he falsified his war records is very weak. The swift-boating was a cheap trick. Too bad he was a gentleman. He should have fought back.
Kerry had enemies because of his views and actions following Vietnam.
It is immoral how horrible Max Cleeland was treated. He spent 2 years in deep depression over what was done to him.
Elena, we tried to bring Iott to civil debate. I knew nothing about the man or the topic. I didn’t want to just dismiss him as a tea party candidate and neither did you.
I didn’t want to swift boat him or Cleeland him.
Kerry did not fight back because he knew that the charges were true. As for Cleeland, I agree. Kerry aided and abetted the North Vietnamese as a Reserve Naval Officer when he returned to the States. He met with North Vietnamese delegates to bring THEIR demands to the public. He is listed as a hero in Vietnam today. He lied about his medals. He lied at the Winter Soldier hearings, blanketing our troops with blame. HE is one of the reasons that returning troops were spit upon and called “baby killer.” He is a disgrace to the uniform of the United States Navy. It is a black mark upon the people of MA that they keep electing this fool to office.
and lets not forget about John McCain being smeared for the untruth of fathering a black child out of wedlock (I guess a white child would have been ok). Or that Cindy McCain was a drug addict.
Disagree. Opinion. Were you there? What people do not seem to understand is that he was just as entitled to his opinion as the next guy. People were called baby killer because of people like Lt. Calley and also because of the anti war movement.
I am not even a big Kerry supporter. I think he was politically vilified because of his post war anti war stance. For everyone who thinks he is a fool, an equal number think of him as a hero for having the guts to stand up for what he believed.
I would be ok if what you said was classified as opinion. But you are stating your opinion as fact. I should probably also throw in that I supported the war as a young woman…so what I say has nothing to be with anti war.
Pat, further proof no good deed goes unpunished. He had adopted that child and made her a part of his family. Wasn’t she from Bangladeesh or someplace like that?
Aiding and Abetting:
He was in the Naval Reserve during these actions.
http://www.wintersoldier.com/staticpages/index.php?page=puppets
Two recently discovered documents captured from the Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War strongly support the contention that a close link existed between the Hanoi regime and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) while John Kerry served as the group’s leading national spokesman.
The Circular: International Coordination of Antiwar Propaganda
The first document is a 1971 “Circular” distributed by the Vietnamese communists within Vietnam. It discusses strategies to coordinate their national propaganda effort with their orchestration of the activities of sympathetic counterparts in the American anti-war movement. Specifically, the document notes that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese delegations to the Paris Peace talks were being used as the communications link to direct the activities of anti-war activists meeting with them in Paris. To quote from the document:
The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly ((VC/NVN)) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.
— Circular on Antiwar Movements in the US. The reference to “VC” indicates the Vietcong; “NVN” is the North Vietnamese government.
This sentence is particularly important in light of John Kerry’s admission that he met with leaders of both communist delegations to the Paris Peace Talks in June 1970, including Madame Binh, foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam, also known as the Vietcong. FBI files record that Kerry returned to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese delegation in August of 1971, and planned a third trip in November.
Prior to the discovery of the Circular, there was no direct evidence that Hanoi was actually steering the U.S. antiwar movement’s activities by conveying Hanoi’s goals and wishes to movement leaders during their frequent visits to Paris, though many investigators had assumed that to be the case. Further analysis of this document supports the contention that Madame Binh used her Paris meeting with John Kerry to instruct him on how he and the VVAW might best serve as Hanoi’s surrogates in the United States. In the spring and summer of 1971, a key strategy of Hanoi was to advance what was known as Madame Binh’s Seven Point Peace Plan.
The plan was cleverly constructed to force President Nixon to set a date to end the Vietnam War and withdraw American troops. According to the 7-Point Peace Plan of Madame Binh, the only barrier to Hanoi setting a date to release American Prisoners of War was President Nixon’s unwillingness to set a specific date for military withdrawal. Of course, accepting the full terms of the 7-Point Peace Plan would have amounted to an American capitulation, a virtual surrender that included the payment of reparations to the Vietnam communists as an admission that America was the wrongful aggressor in an immoral war.
As I said in another post, I worked for a time directly with Swift boat skippers and their crews in Vietnam in an operational action situation. Kerry and I, in fact, are more or less contemporaries with regard to service in Vietnam, although I never met the guy. I did not know the specific charges against him with regard to his Vietnam service until I read the Swiftboaters’ 2004 book, although I was certainy aware of his post-Vietnam activities against the war and the claims that he was a purposeful liar. All I can say is that, if virtually every one of your contemporary officer peers, the guys who lived and worked with you in a very difficult and dangerous war theater, stand up and say that you are cutting some foul wind with your claims of heroism and accusations of personal perfidy against your former comrades-in-arms, I would think that there is more than just smoke out there.
Moreover, the “Swiftboating” did not begin when Kerry ran for the Oval Office. This conflict between Kerry and his former comrades began long before that, back when Kerry was in his immediate post-Vietnam anti-war phase. There is on the record, in fact, a rather notable debate between Kerry and his chief antagonist, John O’Neill (a Swift boat officer/skipper at An Thoi with Kerry) during that very period. It happened on the old Dick Cavett Show in 1971. They also clashed in other forums of that period.
Isn’t that swiftboater book written by a guy who is a Holocaust denier? Is that the person Elena was telling me about?
Someone whose opinion differs from mine is not necessarily a purposeful liar.
There are also a bunch of people who stood up and behind John Kerry.
The Vietnam War and people’s opinions on it will continue to divide this country. I just don’t like seeing people attacked like Kerry was. I am not even a big Kerry fan although I would not have voted for Bush.
Perhaps if more people had stood up to the lies and BS the American people were told during that war, fewer Americans would have lost their lives. I sure got snowed by my government.
from CNN money:
If all we do is villify anyone and all that put themselves out there, then why do we expect them to behave well once they get to the hill?