Watched the Netflix documentary series on the Vietnam War. Not bad; a little sketchy on details; not the equal to the PBS series from 1983. But that was 13 episodes and this was 8, so…
Salient bits I had forgotten:
1) Kent State Massacre happened in March, 1970. A group of Guardsmen knelt and opened fire on kids protesting the war, some of whom were throwing rocks. A guardsman in historic footage said it was his job to shoot kids who were responsible for protesting the war. Four students died, 5 were wounded. None of the dead were protesters.
🎶”What if you knew her and/found her head on the ground?/How can you run when you know?”🎶*
The national response was mostly “They deserved it.” Nixon said, privately (it was on tape. Remember? He taped everything.) that it was a good thing because it might give the protesters pause. He hoped more protesters would get shot, to slow down the protests.
2) LBJ and McNamara knew by ‘67 that they couldn’t win the war; but the sunk cost fallacy and the fear of failure kept them from trying to end it. They started peace talks, but during the ‘68 campaign Nixon secretly intervened to convince North Vietnam to keep fighting so he could offer a “secret plan to end the war” if he won the election. So they did, even as soldiers in the field wondered why peace talks were not producing at least a ceasefire.
3) Nixon won, and expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia, ushering in the killing fields of Pol Pot. He also upped the bombing campaign, ultimately dropping more bombs (by tonnage) than were dropped in WWII.
And peace talks continued.
Nixon wanted to end the war, too. But he also wanted to get re-elected, and he and Kissinger (may his name be a sign of evil) knew “losing” the war was no way to win an election. So they postponed peace and prolonged the war until 1973, when an agreement to end the war was signed.
I remember it well. It was the last year of the draft lottery (every year they selected balls from a spinning cage and used them to rank birthdays. All I remember is mine was very high on the list, well above the midpoint, below which you were more likely to be drafted, above which you weren’t. I was going to college anyway: automatic deferment. But I was relieved nonetheless. And then the war ended, as did the draft. All so Nixon could be re-elected.
He resigned in disgrace in 1974, to avoid being the first President to be removed from office.
This doesn’t even consider the tracks Nixon laid that Reagan rode to power in ‘80 through ‘88, and then Reagan’s people under W after 4 years of Poppy and his self-pardon from Iran/Contra (and Ronnie manipulating the mullahs to hold the hostages until he took office, to secure the defeat of Carter); all of which leads us to Trump The Relentlessly Incompetent. With Biden playing Carter’s (undeservedly) “hapless” role again.
History rhyming? Or repeating itself? I don’t know, but don’t be surprised I’m not that afraid of Trump. I’ve seen real American authoritarians and ruthless leaders.
Trump is a piker who’s so stupid he shits his own bed and calls it roses. He has nobody like Kissinger, much less Cheney or Rumsfeld, not even McNamara, in his entourage. On a clear and present danger scale, Trump is so far down he has to look up to see those guys. He’s a toddler with a shotgun when it comes to the economy, right now. Otherwise, he’s a clown. And clowns are…mostly harmless.
*Someday I’ll tell you what that song means to me, still. No, I probably won’t. I’m not nearly that good with words. I don’t think I even know the words for it.
