Propaganda

[Otto]

From: Richard Fiero:
> Otto wrote:
> >  . . .
> >The rest of the Chomsky-article isn't much better. As I share his
critical
> >view of American foreign policy throughout the post WW-2-decades
> >and especially on Vietnam, I see that he fails to explain how the
> >Vietnam-war could become so unpopular that it even gave birth to a
> >counterforce, if the US really had been under that massive
> >propagandistic influence since 1921 as he asserts in the article
generally.
> >  . . .
>
> A mental lapse on my part makes it impossible for me to follow
> the logic in the above.  The Vietnam-war (an undeclared war,
> certainly) has never been unpopular in the U.S. for any reason
> other than the fact that the U.S. lost it.  It would be a
> national treasure had it been won, I'm sure.
> =====
>

(snip the obscene part)
Well, come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam
Way down under in Vietnam
(Country Joe McDonald)

Or Neil Young's "Ohio":
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

Or "Mom and Dad" by Frank Zappa:
Mama, Mama
Someone said they made some noise
The cops have shot some girls and boys
You'll sit home and drink all night:
They looked too weird
It served them right

Where have all the hippies gone? To Vineland?

Rich, got my point? The Vietnam War and the resistance against it by
American citizens, the whole "second culture" around it had a massive
influence on young people all over the world back in those days. It has been
widespread knowledge, even in the US, that this war was nothing but a crime
against the Vietnamese, an unlawful, undeclared war. As an editor of the
school magazine I had nearly been fired for an US-critical article (I was
sixteen), but the young US teachers being at my school saved me, pointing
out to the director that the freedom of speech is a highly regarded American
value.

Otto