Ken Burns latest - just some brief impressions.

Submitted by arendt on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 9:32pm

Well, I was certainly not expecting real history. I watched to see the pictures.

Real history? In the first episode, they interview Donald Gregg, whom they caption only as "CIA". (factoid: Gregg joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951. He served in Japan from 1964 to 1973.) He voices the opinion that Viet Nam was a mistake.

Yeah, that Donald Gregg:

Iran-Contra

A friend and associate of Bush, Gregg was involved with the Iran-Contra scandal from the inception. On March 17, 1983, Felix Rodriguez (yeah, that Felix Rodriguez) met with Gregg at the White House and presented his five-page proposal for the creation of a "Tactical Task Force" for the "pacification" efforts in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Gregg then recommended Rodriguez' plan to National Security Council adviser Robert McFarlane, with a secret one-page memo on "anti-guerrilla operations in Central America". This marked the beginning of U.S. support for the Nicaraguan contras. In June 1985, Gregg met with Rodriguez and U.S. Army Col. Jim Steele of the U.S. Military Group in El Salvador during the height of the guerrilla war.[citation needed] In December 1985 Rodriguez attended Bush's White House Christmas party and was introduced as an old friend of Gregg's. In January 1986 Rodriguez met with Gregg's deputy in Salvador. In May 1986 Rodriguez met with Gregg, Bush, and Oliver North in Bush's office. In August 1986 Gregg met with Rodriguez and Bush. (Gregg soon met with Alan Friers to support arms purchases from Rodriguez instead of Richard Secord.) John K. Singlaub warned North in September 1986 that too much contact with Rodriguez would be bad for the Administration.[citation needed]

-Wikipedia, Donald Gregg

And, being a charter member of the Deep State (born Hastings-on-Hudson, NY - downtown Westchester County - in 1923) he got away with it:

September 1989: Former Bush Adviser Weathers Iran-Contra Questions during Confirmation Hearings

President George H. W. Bush nominates his former foreign policy adviser, Donald Gregg, to become the US Ambassador to South Korea. Gregg is one of the architects of the Contra funding and supply program (see March 17, 1983). Gregg faces some difficulty in his Senate confirmation hearings stemming from his linchpin role in Iran-Contra, with Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA) telling him: “You told the Iran-Contra committee that you and Bush never discussed the Contras, had no expertise on the issue, no responsibility for it, and the details of Watergate-sized scandal involving NSC staff and the Edwin Wilson gang [a group of ‘rogue’ CIA agents operating in apparent conjunction with Bush] was not vice presidential. Your testimony on that point is demonstrably false. There are at least six memos from Don Gregg to George Bush regarding detailed Contra issues.” But Cranston is the only member of the committee to vote against Gregg’s confirmation. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007]

- History Commons, Iran Contra

--------

Yeah, Donald Gregg, just one of many honorable, faceless CIA men, fighting for truth, justice, and the American Way. Donne moi une break.

Fifty years after the fact, its hard to deny Viet Nam was a clusterfuck, but Mr. Burns is, so far, doing his best to make it look like an "honest mistake" made by men with "honorable intentions", perhaps a little paranoid because of the Cold War.

He is quite fair to Ho Chi Minh so far. Portrays him as a peace-desiring nationalist, not a doctrinaire Communist. Mr. Burns seems to shift the hard-line ideologue role onto Le Duan. The French come off looking simultaneously arrogant, incompetent, and cruel - which is historically accurate.

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Submitted by Bollox Ref on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 9:57pm

I'm sure Ken Burns

could make The Somme plausible and palatable care of PBS. 3rd Ypres also.

The man is a 'story teller'.

—

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 10:27pm

If they quote Nick Turse --

or discuss Operation Speedy Express, they're redeemed. Otherwise I dunno.

—

The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by arendt on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 11:03pm

If the first episode is any guide, not a chance in hell.

@Cassiodorus @Cassiodorus

All I've seen is a bowdlerized narrative to retroactively transmute the mother of all CIA black ops gone bad into the fault of the hapless "civilians" (including the non-CIA connected parts of the military) who made "honest mistakes", but are nevertheless culpable for being steered into a meatgrinder.

Meanwhile, other than letting the Bush/North crony, Donald Gregg, pontificate about said "mistakes", I have yet to hear Mr. Burns mention the CIA.

Submitted by Amanda Matthews on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 9:28am

We have what, 6 or 7 wars going now.

@arendt @arendt
And the shits on both side are trying to gin up a couple more. Iran is the prize.

Burns is helping TPTB and the military not only sanitize the US killing innocents in their own land, but to try to get us used to eternal war.

EDIT: the:their

—

I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:12pm

@arendt Mistakes my ass.

@arendt Mistakes my ass.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 9:36am

Binh Xuyen - Another detail that sorta got lost

The episode briefly mentioned the Binh Xuyen, who were referred to simply as "street gangs" and a "French-supported crime syndicate". I dug into that, and quickly found:

Just as the relationship between the OSS and the Italian Mafia during World War 11 and the CIA-Corsican alliance in the early years of the cold war affected the resurrection of the European heroin trade, so the French 2eme Bureau’s alliance with the Binh Xuyen allowed Saigon’s opium commerce to survive and prosper during the First Indochina War...By 1954 the Binh Xuyen controlled virtually all of Saigon’s opium dens and dominated the distribution of prepared opium throughout Cochin China (the southern part of Vietnam)...The 2eme Bureau’s pact with the Binh Xuyen was part of a larger French policy of using ethnic, religious, and political factions to deny territory to the Viet Minh. By supplying these splinter groups with arms and money, the French hoped to make them strong enough to make their localities into private fiefs, thereby neutralizing the region and freeing regular combat troops from garrison duty.

The Binh Xuyen: Order and Opium in Saigon - Excerpted From "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" by Alfred McCoy

Way to go, Mr. Burns. Just leave out a drugs narrative from Alfred McCoy, the most celebrated chronicler of the SE Asia Drug Industry. Nothing to see here, just move along.

And, so I will, I will move to the meat of the article:

After having allowed the Binh Xuyen to develop this financial empire, the 2eme Bureau witnessed its liquidation during the desperate struggle it waged with the CIA for control of Saiaon and South Vietnam. Between April 28 and May 3, 1955, the Binh Xuyen and the Vietnam ese army (ARVN) fought a savage house-to-house battle for control of SaigonCholon. More troops were involved in this battle than in the Tet offensive of 1968, and the fighting was almost as destructive. This battle had been a war by proxy; the Binh Xuyen and Diem’s ARVN were stand-ins, mere pawns, in a power struggle between the French 2eme Bureau and the American CIA. ...

The question, whether Diem should continue as premier, provoked the CIA-2eme Bureau war of April 1955. Diem was a political unknown who had acceded to the premiership largely because Washington was convinced that his strong anti-Communist, anti-French beliefs best suited American interests. But the immediate problem for Diem and the Americans was control of Saigon. If Diem were to be of any use to the Americans in blocking the unification of Vietnam, he would have to wrest control of the streets from the Binh Xuyen. For whoever controlled the streets controlled Saigon, and whoever controlled Saigon held the key to Vietnam’s rice-rich Mekong Delta.

While the French and American governments politely disavowed any self-interest and tried to make even their most partisan suggestions seem a pragmatic response to the changing situation in Saigon, both gave their intelligence agencies a free hand to see if Saigon’s reality could be molded in their favor. Behind the smiles on the diplomatic front, Colonel Lansdale, of the CIA, and the French 2eme Bureau, particularly Captain Savani, engaged in a savage clandestine battle for Saigon.

In seeking to depose Bay Vien, Colonel Lansdale was not just challenging the 2eme Bureau, he was taking on Saigon’s Corsican community -Corsican businessmen, Corsican colonists, and the Corsican underworld. From the late nineteenth century onward, Corsicans had dominated the Indochina civil service. (101) At the end of World War II, Corsican resistance fighters, some of them gangsters, had joined the regular army and come to Indochina with the Expeditionary Corps. Many remained in Saigon after their enlistment to go into legitimate business or to reap profits from the black market and smuggling that flourished under wartime conditions.

-ibid

Gee, Mr. Burns. Don't you think the CIA fighting Corsican mobsters for control of what would later be the Air America drug trade might be worth a mention? Or is the heroin epidemic going to get a whitewash in your magnum opus?

I guess I will have to stay tuned.

Submitted by arendt on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 11:05pm

McCoy says that the CIA brought in Diem, whereas Mr. Burns...

@arendt @arendt

...portrays Diem as some kind of homegrown phenomenon who (paraphrase) "had Washington by the balls" after he declared S. Viet Nam to be free. And, somehow, without any assistance, under the nose of the CIA, he went "off the reservation" to declare he had won election with a 98% majority. (No sir, the US had nothing to do with that.)

Really, this is the third major CIA-related whitewash I have dug up so far.

Mr. Burns is sure carrying the CIA's water.

The episode briefly mentioned the Binh Xuyen, who were referred to simply as "street gangs" and a "French-supported crime syndicate". I dug into that, and quickly found:

Just as the relationship between the OSS and the Italian Mafia during World War 11 and the CIA-Corsican alliance in the early years of the cold war affected the resurrection of the European heroin trade, so the French 2eme Bureau’s alliance with the Binh Xuyen allowed Saigon’s opium commerce to survive and prosper during the First Indochina War...By 1954 the Binh Xuyen controlled virtually all of Saigon’s opium dens and dominated the distribution of prepared opium throughout Cochin China (the southern part of Vietnam)...The 2eme Bureau’s pact with the Binh Xuyen was part of a larger French policy of using ethnic, religious, and political factions to deny territory to the Viet Minh. By supplying these splinter groups with arms and money, the French hoped to make them strong enough to make their localities into private fiefs, thereby neutralizing the region and freeing regular combat troops from garrison duty.

The Binh Xuyen: Order and Opium in Saigon - Excerpted From "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" by Alfred McCoy

Way to go, Mr. Burns. Just leave out a drugs narrative from Alfred McCoy, the most celebrated chronicler of the SE Asia Drug Industry. Nothing to see here, just move along.

And, so I will, I will move to the meat of the article:

After having allowed the Binh Xuyen to develop this financial empire, the 2eme Bureau witnessed its liquidation during the desperate struggle it waged with the CIA for control of Saiaon and South Vietnam. Between April 28 and May 3, 1955, the Binh Xuyen and the Vietnam ese army (ARVN) fought a savage house-to-house battle for control of SaigonCholon. More troops were involved in this battle than in the Tet offensive of 1968, and the fighting was almost as destructive. This battle had been a war by proxy; the Binh Xuyen and Diem’s ARVN were stand-ins, mere pawns, in a power struggle between the French 2eme Bureau and the American CIA. ...

The question, whether Diem should continue as premier, provoked the CIA-2eme Bureau war of April 1955. Diem was a political unknown who had acceded to the premiership largely because Washington was convinced that his strong anti-Communist, anti-French beliefs best suited American interests. But the immediate problem for Diem and the Americans was control of Saigon. If Diem were to be of any use to the Americans in blocking the unification of Vietnam, he would have to wrest control of the streets from the Binh Xuyen. For whoever controlled the streets controlled Saigon, and whoever controlled Saigon held the key to Vietnam’s rice-rich Mekong Delta.

While the French and American governments politely disavowed any self-interest and tried to make even their most partisan suggestions seem a pragmatic response to the changing situation in Saigon, both gave their intelligence agencies a free hand to see if Saigon’s reality could be molded in their favor. Behind the smiles on the diplomatic front, Colonel Lansdale, of the CIA, and the French 2eme Bureau, particularly Captain Savani, engaged in a savage clandestine battle for Saigon.

In seeking to depose Bay Vien, Colonel Lansdale was not just challenging the 2eme Bureau, he was taking on Saigon’s Corsican community -Corsican businessmen, Corsican colonists, and the Corsican underworld. From the late nineteenth century onward, Corsicans had dominated the Indochina civil service. (101) At the end of World War II, Corsican resistance fighters, some of them gangsters, had joined the regular army and come to Indochina with the Expeditionary Corps. Many remained in Saigon after their enlistment to go into legitimate business or to reap profits from the black market and smuggling that flourished under wartime conditions.

-ibid

Gee, Mr. Burns. Don't you think the CIA fighting Corsican mobsters for control of what would later be the Air America drug trade might be worth a mention? Or is the heroin epidemic going to get a whitewash in your magnum opus?

I guess I will have to stay tuned.

Submitted by bygorry on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 10:40pm

saw a guy wearing a tee shirt today

front said "Veterans for Peace"

back said "hey Ken Burns, how many Americans did the North Vietnamese kill on American soil? zero."

To expect Ken Burns and PBS to tell unofficial truths, or even to suggest that other truths exist, would be doublethink ungood. thinking they'll show the naked napalm girl but not the admission of the Tonkin Gulf fabrication. not planning on watching.

heard Ramsey Clark is putting together a history film too.

—

bygorry

Submitted by arendt on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 10:49pm

Many "tells" will be forthcoming...

@bygorry

Tonkin Gulf is certainly the biggest - admitting we were lied into the war.

Then, let's see how they handle JFK's intent to wind down the war by 64. (which just might have had something to do with his assassination).

Then, the contents of the Pentagon Papers (as opposed to just trashing Tricky Dick for spying on Elsburg).

And, as Cassiodorus says:

The Phoenix program (including Speedy Releif).
My Lai, and all the other massacres.

Yeah, after one episode I'm already chronicling what was airbrushed out. The only way this series is going to be a good experience is if I fact check everything my BS detector turns up.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:36am

@arendt

@arendt

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by karl pearson on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 10:50pm

Vietnam and Mess-o-potamia

I am wondering if viewers will make any connection between the disasters of the Vietnam War and our lengthy involvement in the Middle East. Last night I watched a documentary on the Vietnam War produced in 2000. At the end, the narrator hopes that the U.S. has learned from the mistakes made in Southeast Asia.

Submitted by arendt on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 10:59pm

We're rebooting Afghanistan, again.

@karl pearson

We can't connect what we did in the same country (Afghanistan) 15 years ago. How could we connect VN to Iraq when they are on opposite ends of Asia and separated by 35 years?

The people running this country "have learned nothing and forgotten nothing" from seventy years of unrelenting neocolonial warfare and subversion.

Lefties (from doctrinaire commies to mere attendees of Burning Man) are still the eternal enemy of our glorious MIC. Can't wait to see how Mr. Burns will damn the antiwar crowd with faint praise.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 12:07pm

On the contrary

@arendt

to what you say here:

The people running this country "have learned nothing and forgotten nothing" from seventy years of unrelenting neocolonial warfare and subversion.

The people running this country have learned everything they need to know about war. IT IS PROFITABLE. They will continue to do it as long as it is profitable.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 11:44pm

I have heard that a lot

@karl pearson

"America didn't learn from their mistakes from Vietnam."
This too is more propaganda bullsh*t. One lesson that they learned from it was do away with the draft. Another one is don't show caskets of the soldiers who were killed in whatever war TPTB sent their cannon fodder. And instead of telling us how many innocent civilians who were killed by our military and their drones, label every male an enemy combatant, and just don't count the number of women and children.

In one article I recently read, Obama and the CIA's program of arming, funding and training the terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is much like the Iran-Contra scandal.

How many people are going to watch his program and believe that it's the truth? Let's not forget that Obama made the government's propaganda scheme legal again. It took me a long time to understand that what I learned in school was lies. Especially when it came to the Native Americans.

—

Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 7:29am

Most of all they learned to "embed" reporters

@snoopydawg

It was more than mere censorship. It was saying "if you don't report it our way, you don't report at all".

and they rapidly neutered the liberal press. Honest reporters like Sidney Schanberg had their careers dead-ended if they refused to get with the new program.

All very subtle, all deniable.

Submitted by FuturePassed on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 8:39am

MOST of all . . .

@arendt
they learned the value of an all volunteer army. Nice clean wars in which poor Americans get killed.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:35am

@snoopydawg Remember when that one

@snoopydawg Remember when that one brave reporter took that photo of caskets during the Iraq War? Didn't the Bush administration go ballistic on her?

I can't remember her name, dammit.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:44pm

You are right about the woman who lost her job because

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

she took photos of returning caskets. I'll try to find her name.
While I was looking for this, I found this article which states that the ban was lifted by Obama. But I'm not sure which types of photos that were allowed.

The photos that Bush didn't want you to see

So people want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that no one is dying from the wars that 1% of Americans are fighting and dying in. People should not only have to look at these photos, but they should have to look at photos of the innocent people that our military is killing.
Why not? They showed people jumping to their deaths when the towers fell.

News organizations—especially television—have discovered that Americans don’t want to watch the war in progress. Newscast ratings actually decline when reports from Iraq and Afghanistan appear on television.

In the wake of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier speech in 2003, U.S. news organizations—especially television—have discovered that Americans don’t want to watch news of the war. Newscast ratings actually decline when reports from Iraq and Afghanistan appear on television.

—

Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:54pm

Is this who you were thinking of?

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
A Glimpse of the Iraq War That Cost a Military Contractor Her Job

In 2004, the Seattle Times published the first photograph of the coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq being shipped back to the United States. Tami Silicio, the woman who took that photograph, was a military contractor working at the airport in Kuwait where the coffins were loaded onto planes to be flown back to the U.S. Ms. Silicio had taken the photograph with no thought of publishing it, even though she later said she was unaware that there was any ban on taking photographs of coffins.

Wasn't the reason for blocking the photographs of coffins implemented because Bush 1 was giving a televised speech and a split screen showed him and flag draped coffins?

—

Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 11:04pm

@snoopydawg Yes, she's the one.

@snoopydawg Yes, she's the one. Didn't know she was a military contractor.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:16pm

Remember though --

@snoopydawg that the US was engaged in an important task of "nation-building" in southern Vietnam. The Republic of Vietnam was viewed as a pilot project, with the proliferation of "strategic hamlets" as designed by the brains of the good people at Michigan State University. So in the escalation they sent cameras, news crews, and Time/Life and National Geographic reporters down to southern Vietnam in the hopes that with a few puff pieces they could show everyone that the US was doing great things in Vietnam. The folks who want to make money off of wars these days no longer employ this strategy.

—

The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by Citizen Of Earth on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 12:55pm

In Vietnam History According To Burns

@karl pearson

The French were Colonizing Vietnam, not the US. So not our fault. We were just there to help keep the peace. Haha.

Of course anyone who tries to do a film for the masses that tells The Truth, will get skewered by a dumbass public that can't handle the truth (aka why do you hate the troops?).

—

Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Sun, 09/17/2017 - 11:13pm

Burns left a lot of stuff out of his Jazz documentary too

Not quite as controversial, at least not to those who aren't jazz aficionados. It was still a great TV series.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 7:23am

Offending a jazz lover is less hazardous than offending the CIA

@Timmethy2.0

I think you are comparing apples and hand grenades.

Minimizing the CIA's role in the Viet Nam debacle is not my idea of a great TV series.

It is early yet, but what I have seen is not encouraging.

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:44am

More than offending, it's about pushing a particular viewpoint.

@arendt See my comment below. Jazz was basically Burns relying one group of people's viewpoint and pushed to the exclusion of any others. In the case of Jazz, they were writers and musicians who had a vested interest in that viewpoint being the official story. If the same thing happened in the Vietnam series, I'm sure you can see the problem there.

—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:36am

Jazz: a film by Stanley Crouch

@Timmethy2.0 That's the one Burns doc where I know enough about the subject to know where it gets it wrong. More or less, Burns himself knows little about the subject, so he leans on a few "experts" who all share a particular point of view. In this case, it's Stanley Crouch and his subjects (such as the Marsalis brothers) who reflect a narrow, neoconservative traditionalist view of what jazz is. The series reflects their biases with regards to who is featured, who is left out, what developments are covered and how, etc. I've read enough Crouch and Marsalis to know what their slant is and I feel Jazz was the history of the music those guys would have written.

Maybe Jazz was an aberration. I really don't know. But it made me a bit skeptical of any of Burns other work. I suppose the truth is you can't really make an objective documentary anyway. It's important to realize where the point to view is coming from though.

—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:50am

@Dr. John Carpenter I am unsure how to view

@Dr. John Carpenter I am unsure how to view Ken Burns. It's clear he's no Ed Murrow, but beyond that, I don't know.

Certainly Burns' 2014 documentary on the Roosevelts did not seem in any way supportive of the establishment. What the establishment currently requires is a character assassination on FDR and Eleanor, because their domestic policies are unacceptable to the current group of tyrants (TR is a more difficult call for the powers-that-be, because he has acceptable foreign policy, but unacceptable domestic policy). Unlike other movies which clearly exist to tarnish FDR's reputation for the benefit of the current bastards (which is different than giving an honest, rather than hagiographic, accounting of the man), Burns did a reasonably good job. He perhaps dwelt too lightly on the execrable Dulles brothers, and their near-treasonable behavior during the second world war, a matter which holds significance because of their later prominence in creating a shadow government when JFK took power. I heard a writer say once that we were living in J Edgar Hoover's world. That's true, I guess, but it's even more true to say we are living in the Dulles' world. Disgusting sociopathic bullies.

Anyway, I don't know how to take Burns as a writer/producer/director, but I'm unsurprised that anybody talking about any war from a prominent public platform would produce something attractive to the DOD.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 2:35pm

IMHO, Burns is someone who will not rock the boat.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

His pitch of "tell all sides and let the viewer decide" falls quite flat when he is leaving out basic facts, such as Edward Lonsdale and the drug wars.

He is technically quite good at his craft; but it is hardly sticking your neck out politically to do documentaries about Jazz or Baseball.

When it comes to wars (Civil, WW2, and now VN), he goes for the cloying "up close and personal interviews" to "humanize" the subject. That meshes nicely with his tell all sides methodology. Both techniques are great for avoiding the big picture and leaving you with a collection of ambiguous vignettes.

Also, this method depends on which persons you interview. As with politics, personnel is policy. Given that he doesn't interview Ellsberg, and he does interview several CIA folks and many military folks, I think the editorializing in this series is plain to see.

Bottom line: technically very good, politically neutered/Koch-ized just like the rest of PBS.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 4:57pm

@arendt Up till now, I

@arendt Up till now, I haven't seen that level of, shall we say, selectivity, from him.

At least in the Civil War documentary--which I actually like--he was telling it from most, if not all, sides; sounds like this documentary on Vietnam is another thing altogether, if he doesn't even interview Ellsberg. Does he interview Kerry at least? Or anybody from the VVAW?

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Lookout on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 8:08am

PBS is corporate funded

...and so is Ken Burns. The Koch's carry big influence over the network...
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/17574-pbs-and-the-koch-br...
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16538-the-corporate-dictatorship-o...
And have loaded the PBS and NPR board with their representatives.

Don't expect truth telling.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 8:26am

(Official) History is written by the winners

@Lookout

And, if anyone has "won" the last fifty years, its the Koch Brothers.

They own or heavily influence everything of importance in the country, from the government (ALEC) to the media (as you say) to education (part of the Billionaire Boys Club of charter school pushers) to science (Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, which is across the street from Eli Broad's hitech sweatshop, the Broad Institute). If they can make a buck out of it, or promote Libertarianism, you will find their agents.

So, as you and many others in this thread have pointed out, it is no surprise that this is going to be 20 hours of whitewash and apologetics, all the while (finally) thanking the poor grunts for their service.

What was I thinking, hoping for the truth?

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:53am

I know this is a tangent, completely unrelated, sorry.

@arendt

Its a tangent about how the Broad Institute has pioneered a new way to legally grab government funding for private gain.

I focus on the Broad Institute because, as a scientist, it really gets up my nose. It does cutting edge research, but it does it on the backs of underpaid postdocs hoping for a break. IOW, it continues the serfdom of scientists past grad school slavery, on into their actual areers. All part of reducing every formerly middle class job to some form of indentured servitude.

The Broad is sorta like a hitech version of Walmart. If you are a scientific customer, you get really cheap research results. But, if you are a worker there, you are sweated and treated poorly.

If you duckduckgo {"broad institute", low pay}, you certainly get a lot of items like:

The Broad Institute - Broad | Glassdoor
Pay is insufficient considering cost of ... I'm pretty low on the ... Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was launched in 2004 to improve human health by ...

But, its worse than that. As usual, Broad, like his allies, the Kochs, is busy finding new ways to loot the public:

When a federal patent court ruled that the nonprofit Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard could legally license its version of the CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing system, it opened the door to millions of dollars of revenue for the institute. It also contributed to the seismic shift occurring in science whereby tax-exempt research institutes established under an emerging model of “free market philanthropy” can amass money to further their research and protect their commercial interests.

The Broad Institute is testing the limits of what ‘nonprofit’ means

Submitted by Lookout on Wed, 09/20/2017 - 8:27am

A new 30 min documentary

@arendt

on the Koch's is out and disgusting as you might expect. (30 and text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 12:53pm

Look at the funders of this series

@Lookout very establishment including David Koch. That pretty much makes the bias clear.

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:14pm

Other than Elsberg, I haven't heard any other big name anti-s

@Lookout @Lookout

I saw Todd Gitlin's name as an advisor to the project. But, I lost track of TG's politics a long time ago.

Mr. Bass does list some of the CIA/military gangsters who get air time:

A partial list (which is pretty icky in itself) includes:

• Lewis Sorley, a third-generation West Point graduate who believes the US won the war in 1971 and then threw away its victory by “betraying” its allies in the south (even though they had been supplied with $6 billion of US weapons before they collapsed to the advancing North Vietnamese in 1975).

• Rufus Phillips, one of Lansdale’s “black artists” who worked for many years in psychological operations and counterinsurgency.

• Donald Gregg, organiser of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages scandal and CIA adviser to the Phoenix program and other assassination teams.

• John Negroponte, former director of national intelligence and ambassador to international hotspots targeted for covert operations.

• Sam Wilson, the US Army general and Lansdale protégé who coined the term “counterinsurgency”.

• Stuart Herrington, a US Army counterintelligence officer known for his “extensive interrogation experience”, stretching from Vietnam to Abu Ghraib.

• Robert Rheault, who was the model for Colonel Kurtz, the renegade warrior in Apocalypse Now.

Not very promising. Unless you love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 10:33am

I've tried to talk before about the phenomenon I call

"the warding off," but it hasn't engendered much discussion. I can't tell whether that's because people think I'm a crazy coot, or because people just take it as read that the government, and in particular the CIA and DOD, have their bloodstained hands all over the media.

When Fox Mulder talked about the "military-industrial-entertainment complex" in 1996, we all laughed.

Little did we know how true it was, and how much truer it was about to get.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 11:19am

Most people (vs those on boards like this) are clueless

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

about what is done by spook shops.

It's no accident that I started unraveling Burns's latest from the CIA angle.

I mean how do you make a documentary about the 1950s in Viet Nam and leave out Edward Lansdale - a figure so legendary that he was the basis for "The Ugly American?

(Lansdale's) biography, "The Unquiet American", was written by Cecil Currey and published in 1988;the title refers to the common, but incorrect belief, that the eponymous character in Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American" was based on Lansdale. According to Norman Sherry's authorized biography of Greene, "The Life of Graham Greene" (Penguin, 2004), Lansdale did not officially enter the Vietnam arena until 1954, while Greene wrote his book in 1952 after departing Vietnam. More likely is that he was the inspiration for the character Colonel Hillandale in Eugene Burdick's and William Lederer's joint novel "The Ugly American" published in 1958.

- Wikipedia, Edward Lansdale

Here is the kind of stuff that Lansdale did:

The Saigon Military Mission (SMM) started printing and covertly distributing “black leaflets” that were purportedly from the Viet Minh. These leaflets gave instructions to citizens on how they should conduct themselves when the Viet Minh takeover of Hanoi occurred in October. Included in the disinformation was the Viet Minh’s program for “monetary reform.” The leaflet ignited anxiety that gained momentum among the populace.

Within two days of the leaflet’s distribution, the Viet Minh currency reportedly fell to half its previous value. At the same time, the number of North Vietnamese registering to emigrate south tripled. The Viet Minh leadership, which quickly understood what was happening, took to the airwaves to denounce the bogus leaflets. But, as a testament to the effectiveness of the ruse, many Viet Minh and their supporters were convinced that the Communists’ radio denunciations themselves were actually a psychological warfare trick undertaken by the French.

With this one black leaflet, Lansdale’s team was able to sabotage the Viet Minh currency and subvert Viet Minh population-control efforts. It also managed to throw rank and file Viet Minh cadre into a state of confusion and disarray—just weeks before they were to assume control of Hanoi.

Ed Lansdale's Black Warfare in 1950s Vietnam

That is a great story. If you were in any way proud of the CIA's fight against Communism in 1954, you might want to put it into your documentary, Mr. Burns. The silence screams.

Lansdale's spook operations were secret until:

Edward Lansdale’s SMM operation in Vietnam only became known to the public with the release of the Pentagon Papers and the declassification of other confidential Pentagon documents in 1971.

There's a reason why Mr. Burns don't shine a light on this guy. He is down there with Ted Shackley as far as rotten spooks go:

L. Fletcher Prouty alleged that Lansdale can be seen in one of the "three tramps" photographs that were taken near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.

- Wikipedia, Edward Lansdale

I am reminded of one of my favorite Hannah Arendt quotes:

It takes power, not propaganda skill, to circulate a revised history of the Russian Revolution in which no man by the name of Trotsky was ever commander-in-chief of the Red Army.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:00pm

@arendt Oh, fuck that guy.

@arendt Oh, *fuck* that guy.

I was already there, and then this:

L. Fletcher Prouty alleged that Lansdale can be seen in one of the "three tramps" photographs that were taken near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.

I'm inclined to believe he was assassinated because he wanted to disband the CIA, not just get out of Viet Nam, but YMMV.

#8 about what is done by spook shops. It's no accident that I started unraveling Burns's latest from the CIA angle. I mean how do you make a documentary about the 1950s in Viet Nam and leave out Edward Lansdale - a figure so legendary that he was the basis for "The Ugly American? (Lansdale's) biography, "The Unquiet American", was written by Cecil Currey and published in 1988;the title refers to the common, but incorrect belief, that the eponymous character in Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American" was based on Lansdale. According to Norman Sherry's authorized biography of Greene, "The Life of Graham Greene" (Penguin, 2004), Lansdale did not officially enter the Vietnam arena until 1954, while Greene wrote his book in 1952 after departing Vietnam. More likely is that he was the inspiration for the character Colonel Hillandale in Eugene Burdick's and William Lederer's joint novel "The Ugly American" published in 1958. - Wikipedia, Edward Lansdale Here is the kind of stuff that Lansdale did: The Saigon Military Mission (SMM) started printing and covertly distributing “black leaflets” that were purportedly from the Viet Minh. These leaflets gave instructions to citizens on how they should conduct themselves when the Viet Minh takeover of Hanoi occurred in October. Included in the disinformation was the Viet Minh’s program for “monetary reform.” The leaflet ignited anxiety that gained momentum among the populace. Within two days of the leaflet’s distribution, the Viet Minh currency reportedly fell to half its previous value. At the same time, the number of North Vietnamese registering to emigrate south tripled. The Viet Minh leadership, which quickly understood what was happening, took to the airwaves to denounce the bogus leaflets. But, as a testament to the effectiveness of the ruse, many Viet Minh and their supporters were convinced that the Communists’ radio denunciations themselves were actually a psychological warfare trick undertaken by the French. With this one black leaflet, Lansdale’s team was able to sabotage the Viet Minh currency and subvert Viet Minh population-control efforts. It also managed to throw rank and file Viet Minh cadre into a state of confusion and disarray—just weeks before they were to assume control of Hanoi. Ed Lansdale's Black Warfare in 1950s Vietnam That is a great story. If you were in any way proud of the CIA's fight against Communism in 1954, you might want to put it into your documentary, Mr. Burns. The silence screams. Lansdale's spook operations were secret until: Edward Lansdale’s SMM operation in Vietnam only became known to the public with the release of the Pentagon Papers and the declassification of other confidential Pentagon documents in 1971. There's a reason why Mr. Burns don't shine a light on this guy. He is down there with Ted Shackley as far as rotten spooks go: L. Fletcher Prouty alleged that Lansdale can be seen in one of the "three tramps" photographs that were taken near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. - Wikipedia, Edward Lansdale I am reminded of one of my favorite Hannah Arendt quotes: It takes power, not propaganda skill, to circulate a revised history of the Russian Revolution in which no man by the name of Trotsky was ever commander-in-chief of the Red Army.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Nastarana on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 11:15am

It seems to have been an equal opportunity hit.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Kennedy made the CIA mad for reasons detailed above.
He made Israel mad because he wanted to force either AIPAC or a precursor org., I forgot which, to register as agents of a foreign government.
He made the military industrial complex mad because he was carrying out secret negotiations with Khrushchev and trying to also contact Castro by back channels.
Plus it had been assumed that he could be controlled because of the excesses of his personal behavior, and some folks just don't like to be proved wrong.

—

Mary Bennett

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:02pm

@arendt Wow. Lenin actually did

@arendt Wow. Lenin actually did that? or was it later?

#8 about what is done by spook shops. It's no accident that I started unraveling Burns's latest from the CIA angle. I mean how do you make a documentary about the 1950s in Viet Nam and leave out Edward Lansdale - a figure so legendary that he was the basis for "The Ugly American? (Lansdale's) biography, "The Unquiet American", was written by Cecil Currey and published in 1988;the title refers to the common, but incorrect belief, that the eponymous character in Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American" was based on Lansdale. According to Norman Sherry's authorized biography of Greene, "The Life of Graham Greene" (Penguin, 2004), Lansdale did not officially enter the Vietnam arena until 1954, while Greene wrote his book in 1952 after departing Vietnam. More likely is that he was the inspiration for the character Colonel Hillandale in Eugene Burdick's and William Lederer's joint novel "The Ugly American" published in 1958. - Wikipedia, Edward Lansdale Here is the kind of stuff that Lansdale did: The Saigon Military Mission (SMM) started printing and covertly distributing “black leaflets” that were purportedly from the Viet Minh. These leaflets gave instructions to citizens on how they should conduct themselves when the Viet Minh takeover of Hanoi occurred in October. Included in the disinformation was the Viet Minh’s program for “monetary reform.” The leaflet ignited anxiety that gained momentum among the populace. Within two days of the leaflet’s distribution, the Viet Minh currency reportedly fell to half its previous value. At the same time, the number of North Vietnamese registering to emigrate south tripled. The Viet Minh leadership, which quickly understood what was happening, took to the airwaves to denounce the bogus leaflets. But, as a testament to the effectiveness of the ruse, many Viet Minh and their supporters were convinced that the Communists’ radio denunciations themselves were actually a psychological warfare trick undertaken by the French. With this one black leaflet, Lansdale’s team was able to sabotage the Viet Minh currency and subvert Viet Minh population-control efforts. It also managed to throw rank and file Viet Minh cadre into a state of confusion and disarray—just weeks before they were to assume control of Hanoi. Ed Lansdale's Black Warfare in 1950s Vietnam That is a great story. If you were in any way proud of the CIA's fight against Communism in 1954, you might want to put it into your documentary, Mr. Burns. The silence screams. Lansdale's spook operations were secret until: Edward Lansdale’s SMM operation in Vietnam only became known to the public with the release of the Pentagon Papers and the declassification of other confidential Pentagon documents in 1971. There's a reason why Mr. Burns don't shine a light on this guy. He is down there with Ted Shackley as far as rotten spooks go: L. Fletcher Prouty alleged that Lansdale can be seen in one of the "three tramps" photographs that were taken near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. - Wikipedia, Edward Lansdale I am reminded of one of my favorite Hannah Arendt quotes: It takes power, not propaganda skill, to circulate a revised history of the Russian Revolution in which no man by the name of Trotsky was ever commander-in-chief of the Red Army.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:20pm

It was Stalin

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Stalin hated Trotsky, eventually had him assassinated in Mexico.

I think Stalin thought Trotsky was smarter than himself, and therefore a threat who must be eliminated. Even posthumously, Trotsky's heroics during the Russian Civil War of 1919-20 were a threat. Hence Trotsky was airbrushed from history.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:32pm

@arendt I don't idealize

@arendt I don't idealize Trotsky. But Stalin was one of the worst people the human race has yet produced (that I know about).

Ironic that it required Stalin to stop Hitler. Worth pondering.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 6:08pm

Absolutely. Top Gun was funded by the military

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
And who knows how many other movies they funded? Wasn't the one about the killing of Bin Laden written with a slant on more propaganda than on the truth?
The military has been making or funding the video games that are about the wars. I call those games practice for future drone operators.
I wonder how many of the ones who quit because they couldn't handle seeing the number of people who were killed by their drones and now have severe PTSD?

—

Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.

Submitted by MrWebster on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 11:34am

Adam Johnson posting twitter insights into Burns and warmongers

Been following Adam Johnson of FAIR and he has noted a certain kind and common rhetoric among pro-war reporting and pundits regarding N. Korea--the US always gets sucked into unwanted wars by bad players. The mistakes were all done in "good faith"--seems the same happened in Viet Nam. Johnson posts links to some serious take-downs of the series.

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 11:50am

Thanks for the links n/t

@MrWebster

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 12:31pm

Wow. Even Newsweek is calling bullshit!

@MrWebster @MrWebster

“By Episode Two...the war has been framed as a civil war, with the United States defending a freely elected democratic government in the south against Communists invading from the north,” notes Vietnam scholar Thomas Bass

Vietnam War: New Ken Burns Documentary Dismisses the Origins of the Futile, Disastrous Conflict

And Newsweek also notices the disappearence of Colonel Lansdale:

“The historical footage in episode one…which disputes this view of the war, is either ignored or misunderstood,” Bass wrote last month in the tiny Mekong Review, an independent literary quarterly founded in 2015. The fact is, “defeated French forces regrouped in southern Vietnam after 1954, which is when U.S. Air Force colonel and CIA agent Edward Lansdale began working to elevate this former colony to nationhood,” Bass continues. “The U.S. installed Ngo Dinh Diem as South Vietnam’s autocratic ruler, aided him in wiping out his enemies and engineered an election that Diem stole, with 98.2 percent of the popular vote.” (Oddly, although the influential Lansdale is shown in a photo standing right next to Diem, nothing is said about him.)

Vietnam War: New Ken Burns Documentary Dismisses the Origins of the Futile, Disastrous Conflict

Finally, here's the link to the Thomas Bass article:

America's Amnesia

Mr. Bass tells us all we need to know:

Ellsberg today is a fierce critic of US nuclear policy and military adventures from Vietnam to Iraq. His absence from the film, except in archival footage, confirms its conservative credentials. Funded by Bank of America, David Koch and other corporate sponsors, the documentary relies extensively on former generals, CIA agents and government officials, who are not identified by rank or title, but merely by their names and anodyne descriptions such as “adviser” or “special forces”.

No Ellsberg, but a parade of generals and spooks.

What a waste of any left-leaning person's time to watch yet another whitewash of our neocolonial sojourn in SE Asia. CIA? Never heard of them.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:03pm

@arendt Oh shit. Oh SHIT.

@arendt Oh shit. Oh SHIT.

This is not who Ken Burns always was. So he was never a boat-rocker, OK; this, however, is historical revisionism of a most poisonous kind:

“By Episode Two...the war has been framed as a civil war, with the United States defending a freely elected democratic government in the south against Communists invading from the north,” notes Vietnam scholar Thomas Bass

Goodbye to Ken Burns, as I've previously said good-bye to everyone from Rachel Maddow to the Intercept (Greenwald excepted).

#9 #9

“By Episode Two...the war has been framed as a civil war, with the United States defending a freely elected democratic government in the south against Communists invading from the north,” notes Vietnam scholar Thomas Bass

Vietnam War: New Ken Burns Documentary Dismisses the Origins of the Futile, Disastrous Conflict

And Newsweek also notices the disappearence of Colonel Lansdale:

“The historical footage in episode one…which disputes this view of the war, is either ignored or misunderstood,” Bass wrote last month in the tiny Mekong Review, an independent literary quarterly founded in 2015. The fact is, “defeated French forces regrouped in southern Vietnam after 1954, which is when U.S. Air Force colonel and CIA agent Edward Lansdale began working to elevate this former colony to nationhood,” Bass continues. “The U.S. installed Ngo Dinh Diem as South Vietnam’s autocratic ruler, aided him in wiping out his enemies and engineered an election that Diem stole, with 98.2 percent of the popular vote.” (Oddly, although the influential Lansdale is shown in a photo standing right next to Diem, nothing is said about him.)

Vietnam War: New Ken Burns Documentary Dismisses the Origins of the Futile, Disastrous Conflict

Finally, here's the link to the Thomas Bass article:

America's Amnesia

Mr. Bass tells us all we need to know:

Ellsberg today is a fierce critic of US nuclear policy and military adventures from Vietnam to Iraq. His absence from the film, except in archival footage, confirms its conservative credentials. Funded by Bank of America, David Koch and other corporate sponsors, the documentary relies extensively on former generals, CIA agents and government officials, who are not identified by rank or title, but merely by their names and anodyne descriptions such as “adviser” or “special forces”.

No Ellsberg, but a parade of generals and spooks.

What a waste of any left-leaning person's time to watch yet another whitewash of our neocolonial sojourn in SE Asia. CIA? Never heard of them.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 12:56pm

And here the funders are (copied from local PBS web site)

The Vietnam War is a production of Florentine Films and WETA

Funding is provided by:
Bank of America
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
David H. Koch
Blavatnik Family Foundation
PBS

and by members of the
The Better Angels Society

Jonathan & Jeannie Lavine • Diane & Hal Brierley • Amy & David Abrams • John & Catherine Debs • Fullerton Family Charitable Fund • The Montrone Family • Lynda & Stewart Resnick

The Golkin Family Foundation • The Lynch Foundation • The Roger & Rosemary Enrico Foundation

Richard S. & Donna L. Strong • Bonnie & Tom McCloskey • Barbara K. & Cyrus B. Sweet III • The Lavender Butterfly Fund

and by:
Park Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
The PEW Charitable Trusts
Knight Foundation
The Andrew W Mellon Foundation
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
JustFilms Foundation
Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 2:42pm

Blavatnik - another name to watch (out) for

@Roy Blakeley

Sir Leonard "Len" Blavatnik (Russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник, Leonid Valentinovich Blavatnik; born June 14, 1957) is a Soviet-born British-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He made his fortune through business via diversified investments in myriad companies through his conglomerate company, Access Industries.

In 2015, he was named Britain's richest man with an estimated net worth of £17.1 billion as of April 2015.

Blavatnik was born in Odessa to a Jewish family. He attended Moscow State University of Railway Engineering, but did not complete his coursework due to the family's request for emigration visas. His family emigrated from Soviet Union to the United States in 1978, and he received a masters in computer science from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989.

Career
In 1986, Blavatnik founded Access Industries, an international conglomerate company located in New York, of which he is chairman and president. Access has long-term holdings in Europe and North and South America. Initially, he moved into Russian investments, just after the fall of communism. He and a friend from university, Viktor Vekselberg, formed the Renova investment vehicle, and then the two joined with Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group to form the AAR venture.[7]

- Wikipedia

The man is an oligarch. He is the richest man in Britain, and he got that way looting the Soviet Union. But, he spreads a little dosh around, and he is "sir" leonard, a noted philanthropist. I wanna puke.

This is the man I want funding major works on US history? Next, he is going to fund a documentary about Boris Yeltsin, and what a great guy he was, and how the Russians deserved the screwing they got from the US "shock therapy".

Submitted by native on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 1:02pm

Legalized terror

has been a specialty of the CIA from its inception, and it's only gotten worse over the years. I keep hoping in vain that somehow, someone will be able to disband it. The Kennedy brothers made a valiant effort but tragically, they were not nearly careful enough. Theoretically at least, a US President does have the legal authority to break the CIA apart. But since that 1963 coup, none have dared to challenge its power and reach.

—

native

Submitted by Not Henry Kissinger on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 3:24pm

Am I the only one...

who truly doesn't give a shit?

So great: an establishment propagandist with a bad Moe wig decides to produce yet another hackneyed Viet Nam War documentary. As if we all haven't been subjected to enough of this crap over the past forty years.

I know people of a certain generation just love rehashing the topic ad nauseum, but for the rest of us, the prospect of watching yet another retelling of our Imperial Southeast Asian debacle is about as compelling as listening to yet another remastering of the Beatles' catalog in nostalgia-hazed hopes of finding some new and original insight into the same material we've heard countless times before.

At some point, there is no point.

—

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:24pm

Having seen the first episode, I agree with you; but...

@Not Henry Kissinger @Not Henry Kissinger

Just like with Trump, prior to its release, one could have entertained some infinitesmal possiblity that he might actually take a shot at TPTB. In Burns's case, it was possible that he might, even inadvertently, lay out enough of the truth to get the record corrected.

He didn't; and therefore the discussion is a waste of time, as you say. His version is just he same old argument - the one with the censorship lid on all the bad shit we did and all the bad reasons we did it.

Nevertheless, it is important to be able to say WHY it is a waste of time. It is a waste of time because it is premised on denying the fundamental reason we went there: neocolonialism. America dined out on FDR's anti-colonialism for 50 years; but it started collaborating with and funding ex-colonialists before FDR's corpse was cold. We basically took responsibility for keeping Britain's and France's former colonies from becoming independent under genuine nationalist leaders, instead of puppets and compradors. We hid that purpose under the guise of anti-Communism, which allowed us to rehabilitate Nazi spies like Gehlen and French torturers. And Ken Burns is just another recitation of that Magic Bullet Theory, another instance of the "nobody could have predicted" bullshit.

It is important to try to get the basic facts into people's heads before the actual living witnesses are all dead. Because once they are gone, the propaganda machinery cannot be beaten; the lies will be repeated ad nauseam, ala JFK, MLK, RFK, and 911.

I understand everyone is sick of the VN argument. That is how TPTB win. They have infinite resources. They follow the CIA's playbook: deny, stonewall, and counter-accuse (while scrubbing the evidence and witnesses). It worked for the 60s assassinations and for 911. It takes a lot more work to whitewash 20 years of war and millions of soldiers' experience. But Ken Burns is up to the task. I predict this pile of avoidance and apologetics will become the go-to documentary on Vietnam.

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:11pm

@arendt Then there needs to be

@arendt Then there needs to be a counter-record.

#12 #12

Just like with Trump, prior to its release, one could have entertained some infinitesmal possiblity that he might actually take a shot at TPTB. In Burns's case, it was possible that he might, even inadvertently, lay out enough of the truth to get the record corrected.

He didn't; and therefore the discussion is a waste of time, as you say. His version is just he same old argument - the one with the censorship lid on all the bad shit we did and all the bad reasons we did it.

Nevertheless, it is important to be able to say WHY it is a waste of time. It is a waste of time because it is premised on denying the fundamental reason we went there: neocolonialism. America dined out on FDR's anti-colonialism for 50 years; but it started collaborating with and funding ex-colonialists before FDR's corpse was cold. We basically took responsibility for keeping Britain's and France's former colonies from becoming independent under genuine nationalist leaders, instead of puppets and compradors. We hid that purpose under the guise of anti-Communism, which allowed us to rehabilitate Nazi spies like Gehlen and French torturers. And Ken Burns is just another recitation of that Magic Bullet Theory, another instance of the "nobody could have predicted" bullshit.

It is important to try to get the basic facts into people's heads before the actual living witnesses are all dead. Because once they are gone, the propaganda machinery cannot be beaten; the lies will be repeated ad nauseam, ala JFK, MLK, RFK, and 911.

I understand everyone is sick of the VN argument. That is how TPTB win. They have infinite resources. They follow the CIA's playbook: deny, stonewall, and counter-accuse (while scrubbing the evidence and witnesses). It worked for the 60s assassinations and for 911. It takes a lot more work to whitewash 20 years of war and millions of soldiers' experience. But Ken Burns is up to the task. I predict this pile of avoidance and apologetics will become the go-to documentary on Vietnam.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:26pm

Agreed

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

But who has the resources to create it; and then to defend it from the inevitable accusations of "fake news", "Russian propaganda", etc. ?

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:34pm

@arendt Oddly, Ray

@arendt Oddly, Ray McGovern comes to mind. He was in the CIA at the time, has a big network of people and some fame.

It needs to be done fast, though, while we have a living record.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:43pm

I would crowdfund Ray McG. n/t

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 11:10am

@arendt Me too. The

@arendt Me too. The issue is, as always, who here is famous enough/connected enough to get his attention for ten minutes?

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Not Henry Kissinger on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 12:04pm

Fair Enough.

@arendt Nevertheless, it is important to be able to say WHY it is a waste of time.

As an exercise in media criticism, you postings on Burns' whitewash certainly have real value.

Whether Burns' latest offering has any historical value is another story entirely.

BTW: My comment above was not meant in any way as a criticism of you or your excellent essay; just a complaint about the media's need to endlessly furrow the same ground on the same topic. Must be pledge week.

#12 #12

Just like with Trump, prior to its release, one could have entertained some infinitesmal possiblity that he might actually take a shot at TPTB. In Burns's case, it was possible that he might, even inadvertently, lay out enough of the truth to get the record corrected.

He didn't; and therefore the discussion is a waste of time, as you say. His version is just he same old argument - the one with the censorship lid on all the bad shit we did and all the bad reasons we did it.

Nevertheless, it is important to be able to say WHY it is a waste of time. It is a waste of time because it is premised on denying the fundamental reason we went there: neocolonialism. America dined out on FDR's anti-colonialism for 50 years; but it started collaborating with and funding ex-colonialists before FDR's corpse was cold. We basically took responsibility for keeping Britain's and France's former colonies from becoming independent under genuine nationalist leaders, instead of puppets and compradors. We hid that purpose under the guise of anti-Communism, which allowed us to rehabilitate Nazi spies like Gehlen and French torturers. And Ken Burns is just another recitation of that Magic Bullet Theory, another instance of the "nobody could have predicted" bullshit.

It is important to try to get the basic facts into people's heads before the actual living witnesses are all dead. Because once they are gone, the propaganda machinery cannot be beaten; the lies will be repeated ad nauseam, ala JFK, MLK, RFK, and 911.

I understand everyone is sick of the VN argument. That is how TPTB win. They have infinite resources. They follow the CIA's playbook: deny, stonewall, and counter-accuse (while scrubbing the evidence and witnesses). It worked for the 60s assassinations and for 911. It takes a lot more work to whitewash 20 years of war and millions of soldiers' experience. But Ken Burns is up to the task. I predict this pile of avoidance and apologetics will become the go-to documentary on Vietnam.

—

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:09pm

@Not Henry Kissinger It's more my informal

@Not Henry Kissinger @Not Henry Kissinger It's more my informal record of which people have fallen to the warding.

Like I said to arendt above, Burns was never a firebrand; he was no Ed Murrow either. But he wasn't a straight-up poisonous historical revisionist. What's next? A film on how Batista was a democratically-elected leader of Cuba who protected people's rights, but fell to the scourge of Communism?

I grew up with this shit being shouted at me from most sides, but back then, almost all of us knew it was bullshit. We didn't credit it.

I'm keeping a very informal record in my head of which people have been persuaded to spout ridiculous shit, because, although we often wish it were true, not all these people have been outright propagandists from the get-go. They are being gotten to, one way or another. It's good for me to know which people are wholly untrustworthy.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by arendt on Mon, 09/18/2017 - 5:41pm

Thanks for expanding on "warding"

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

I didn't appreciate that it was your personal tally.

But, doesn't it become a judgment call when some ill-defined tipping point is reached?

For example, I mentioned that I had lost track of Todd Gitlin. So I looked at his Wikipedia page. He is a professor at Columbia (which is awfully Ivy League/establishment). But he works on various leftie causes and is in leftie media (Moyers, the Nation(not so left on Russia anymore)).

OTOH, he is against BDS for Israel. So his Jewish background trumps the truth about Israel.

For purposes of this example, I am still on the fence about TG. I would have to study the arc of his career to see where he has been trending lately. (I sorta doubt I will find the equal of Noam Chomsky.) But, frankly, I don't care enough about him to do that kind of study.

Limited mental bandwidth is increasingly a problem as the internet drowns us in facts and opinions that all have to be vetted (Its even harder because most of the honest opinion gatekeepers have either been fired or turned).

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 11:28am

@arendt Actually, the

@arendt Actually, the warding isn't my personal mental tally.

It's my name for the establishment's censorship of ideas it doesn't like and promotion of ideas it does like, which I believe is happening systematically and has been for a long time, probably from about 1983. joe shikspack unearthed an article by a journalist working in the Reagan library, I think Robert Parry, who discovered that the first Reagan administration made a deal with the CIA to counter what they called "the Vietnamization of America," by which they meant "large groups of left-leaning people marching in the street." The CIA said "We have methods that have worked really well to prevent that in foreign countries." The Reagan administration said "Goody!" and, in 1983, installed an actual guy with an actual office in DC and an actual line in the federal budget to be the liaison between the Reagan administration and the CIA on a project that can only be described as propagandizing the American public. So it's been going on for a while, but it went into overdrive after 9/11, and particularly (for some reason) after 2005. Now it's not only all over the news, but also all over entertainment, to the point that it's difficult to find a movie that is, in my family's terms, "not warded."

We took the terms "warding" and "warded" from Fawlty Towers. In one episode, Basil and Sybil have this exchange:

Major Gowen: Going to have a flutter, Fawlty?
Basil Fawlty: No. No, no, no, no, no.
Sybil Fawlty: No, Basil doesn't bet anymore. Do you, dear?
Basil Fawlty: No, I don't, dear, no. No, that particular avenue of pleasure has been closed off.
Sybil Fawlty: And we don't want it opened up again, do we Basil?
Basil Fawlty: No, YOU don't, dear. (to himself) The great warding-off of May 8th.

We called it the warding-off because the establishment is taking what used to be fun (movies, television shows, even music in some cases) and closing off those avenues of pleasure.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 11:35am

@arendt As for the judgement

@arendt As for the judgement call and the ill-defined tipping point, yes, of course--ultimately it's up to the individual to decide whom they deem trustworthy--but sometimes the establishment helps out by giving me an excellent litmus test. Right now, it's Russia. If you believe Russia hacked the election to get Donald Trump in office, you've probably been propagandized. Either that, or you are a propagandist yourself. It's an evidence-free position that's been heavily promoted in an unusually ham-handed way by the CIA and the NSA, and it obviously serves their needs (both of upholding establishment politics and providing a justification for a hot war with Russia.) So anybody promoting that view is either a dupe or, well, has very dirty hands.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Linda Wood on Tue, 09/19/2017 - 12:50pm

Thank you,

for your excellent work on this challenge by Burns. I agree now that we have to watch it and counter it.

But I have to say, I don't think there are many people who will believe a CIA version of the war in Vietnam. Too many veterans of the war are still alive and cogent. No one in their right mind believes that crap. No one believed it in '68. With all the propagandistic blather that befell us, the truth of the wrongness, the slaughter, the endlessness, the repeated failures, the light at the end of an ever-lengthening tunnel, spoke truth to power no matter how arrogant that power. The truth has a way of being there.