VLVL 4: War, politics and love

[pynchonoid]

RJ: 
> I disagree, and I'd say a lot of Vietnam vets didn't
> go on a pro-war or
> anti-war song and dance once they returned either,

Interesting. You believe what your Vietnamese
informants tell you -- if indeed you have any and
aren't just blowing smoke like your buddy T with his
stories of surfing portfolio managers and Brazilian
girlfriends & etc. when not flogging his Jose Jimenez
[<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2190089430&category=14438>]
schtick under an unacknowledged email personae -- even
those who through no fault of their own may be
misinformed or ignorant of the role the US played in
dividing their country then trashing it, but you're
suspicious of what Vietnam veterans have to say about
their experiences in the war and of their motivations
for  choosing to respond politically afterwards except
for some Vietnam vets you claim to have talked to who
may be just as misinformed on the broader policy
issues or  historical facts themselves -- which might
explain your fuzzy grasp on the history of that tragic
conflict in the first place, if it's true, as you also
claim, that you really haven't read much about the war
-- all the while having had no experience yourself as
a Vietnam or Vietnam-era veteran:  An excellent
demonstration of what an old journo used to to say,
"Never let the facts get in the way of your story."
But, thanks for the laughs all the same.

P.S.  I don't mean to blame or demean any Vietnamese
or Vietnamese refugee who found him- or herself in a
world of shit due to believing US propaganda about the
war, no more than I can blame supporters (present
company excepted of course -- everybody on Pynchon-L
has access to lots of information about what's
happening in Iraq, far more than Americans did in the
early innings of the Vietnam War) of Bush's war on
Iraq for falling for US propaganda, and especially the
Iraqis and others the US will eventually leave to fend
for themselves after creating a new Hell on Earth to
take the place of the one the previous regime gave
them (and which the US left in place as long as Saddam
served US interests). 
  


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