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Ken Burns New Vietnam War Doc (1 Viewer)

BigSteelThrill said:
Nixon was ####### Evil.

No wonder Cheney, Rove and such are also so anti-American and pro pure power in their ways.
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@wikkidpissah are you up to the '68 election yet? How good was that when Nixon sent some guys over to make a back-door deal with the South to stall on negotiating to help his campaign and then we had tape of him lying to LBJ, who knew exactly what Nixon had done?

Younger conservatives may not want to hear this but crap like that was why millions of boomers turned away from the Silent Majority generation in general and the GOP in particular.

 
Smack Tripper said:
I stupidly thought the doc would end with mogey some how making it... his death was a gut punch 
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Cardinal rule of most war documentaries: Unless they tell you up front that someone they're focusing on lived, assume they didn't. I learned this watching the Civil War doc.

 
Richard Nixon was obviously just an awful human being and President, but we (liberals) shouldn't give LBJ a pass either. Johnson obviously accomplished some great things legislatively, but he was also, IMO, the single person most responsible (if I had to pick one) for the disaster that was the war in Vietnam, while totally misleading the country about everything related to the war.

Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon are all repulsive in that they obviously based their decisions regarding the war in part, if not primarily, on politics back home. Letting tens of thousands of Americans die in a needless lost cause (which the government obviously knew from Kennedy on) to save face and try to get re-elected should have landed all three of them in prison IMO.

 
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roadkill1292 said:
@wikkidpissah are you up to the '68 election yet? How good was that when Nixon sent some guys over to make a back-door deal with the South to stall on negotiating to help his campaign and then we had tape of him lying to LBJ, who knew exactly what Nixon had done?

Younger conservatives may not want to hear this but crap like that was why millions of boomers turned away from the Silent Majority generation in general and the GOP in particular.
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As i said earlier in this thread, up until very recently, i thought that getting continually better at being right, finding answers was part of a natural chain of human legacy, led by the good ol' U. S. of A. I was wrong.

America was able to struggle with a chance at freedom for almost 200 years because, if they ####ed it up, they could move west (go away, red man) and try again, with those "States" of America eventually ending up United. With a land so grand and an idea so bold, we got good at trying new stuff without the built-in failure wish of Calvinism and other Euro pessimisms. The industrial revolution was then a total right-place-right-time thing for us so we were easily best at it. We became a country that don't take "no" so, everyone throughout the world flooded our shores for their chance at "yes" and when enemies across each our shores said "no" to us, together we kicked their ###, though it took every molecule of material & essence to do so.

America came out of it history's first and only Hero of the World.. Half the USA said "what's next?", the other half said "what do we win?" "Next" was freedom & opportunity for ALL the people of America, because Negroes & women were among the materials & essence that made our victories happen. This got badly in the way of the plans of the "win" guys and America, with no new frontiers to let it spill over to, have indulged the struggle between "us"es and the "i, me, mine"s ever since and the immaturity of both sides illustrated in this story of Vietnam has shown precisely how America cancelled its own Hero of the World status and started rotting from within.

It never was Progress of Man, always Same Ol ####. nufced

 
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:blackdot:

Just finished episode 4.   This has been a nice way to start each morning with a cup of coffee now that I've been on my personal sabbatical between jobs.   I normally don't like war content, but something about Vietnam and the 60's is always intriguing to me being born in 68.  

 
Wikkid, how did you like the tape of Nixon ordering that creep Haldeman to go blow the safe at the Rand(?) Corp to get their copies of the Pentagon Papers? Also, I really liked the House committee voting for impeachment -- "Yes," "yes," "yes," "yes," (Trent Lott) "No." I laughed.

Liked this doc very much and, being between tv shows at the moment, decided to take a second run at Burns's Prohibition. Early on, as the movement gathers steam, they flash up a map of the country with dry states and counties colored red and it startled me for a moment. Save for Colorado and the Pacific Northwest, it was Trump's electoral map. 

 
roadkill1292 said:
Wikkid, how did you like the tape of Nixon ordering that creep Haldeman to go blow the safe at the Rand(?) Corp to get their copies of the Pentagon Papers? Also, I really liked the House committee voting for impeachment -- "Yes," "yes," "yes," "yes," (Trent Lott) "No." I laughed.

Liked this doc very much and, being between tv shows at the moment, decided to take a second run at Burns's Prohibition. Early on, as the movement gathers steam, they flash up a map of the country with dry states and counties colored red and it startled me for a moment. Save for Colorado and the Pacific Northwest, it was Trump's electoral map. 
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That was the killer - we knew all along that Nixon was just that cynical & corrupt without knowing how deep it went, but we were the dirty bums in America's eyes. But Rand & the treason footage in '68 were the real hindsight kickers in this show.

I was looking for more answers but quickly realized that, except for the assertion that if JFK had won Bay of Pigs it would have been easier for him to shut down on Vietnam, there just wasnt going to be any because there aint any. That we didn't and haven't learned the lesson of puppet regimes breaks my heart still. Glad i watched Vietnam, glad it's over. Prohibition was just OK. My favorite of the smaller Burns films is Brooklyn Bridge.

 
Streaming of episodes 6-10 is expiring on Wednesday Oct 3rd.  For some reason, the first five episodes will be around for two weeks beyond that date.

I have to finish off 8-10 in the next two days although I'd prefer to watch something a little lighter right now.

 
i dont stream. if there are any like me anymore and you have gaps, PBS will be showing The Vietnam War for the next 10 Tues nites @ 9pm

 
urbanhack said:
:blackdot:

Just finished episode 4.   This has been a nice way to start each morning with a cup of coffee now that I've been on my personal sabbatical between jobs.   I normally don't like war content, but something about Vietnam and the 60's is always intriguing to me being born in 68.  
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Agreed.  I got virtually no Vietnam education in HS or college, so this has been a wonderful way to take a crash course.  

 
Just finished episode 8. Continues to be extremely moving and the Kent state portion just is another piece of the senselessness of it all 

I thought having the two great novelist about the war (Tim O'Brien and Bao Ninh) each telling their experiences was incredibly well done. 

 
I haven't watched this yet, but I have all the episodes recorded. I'm going to watch them over a couple of days. I remember very vividly being in Vienna Virginia in 1974 at my parent's friend's house, and we were watching the judiciary committee voting on impeaching Nixon on TV. My parent's friends worked for the CIA, and they were just riveted to the television. My parents are actually with those friends right now going to Amish country in PA to have some fun. 

 
simey said:
I haven't watched this yet, but I have all the episodes recorded. I'm going to watch them over a couple of days. I remember very vividly being in Vienna Virginia in 1974 at my parent's friend's house, and we were watching the judiciary committee voting on impeaching Nixon on TV. My parent's friends worked for the CIA, and they were just riveted to the television. My parents are actually with those friends right now going to Amish country in PA to have some fun. 
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hmmmm......what a perfect cover for a CIA megabunker. Put on a smiley beard & straw hat, hook your top hook, stop by and see Ernest Grunschweiler, move the handle of the butter churn to the left which opens the secret chamber and, BAM, you're running the world. hmmmmm......

 
Took a break from this for a bit. Just finished episode 4. Burns did a good job getting me connected with "Mogi" and his family. I knew it was inevitable that this guy wasn't going to make it but when it played out in this episode, my heart broke for his family! 

 
Finished it as well recently.  I think we need to look ourselves in the mirror and what Vietnam teaches us and our current predicament in the middle east.  

 
Wish I could watch this but Comcast wants to charge me to view it On Demand.  A show broadcast on PBS and Comcast wants me to pay for it.  :thumbdown:

 
A logistics guy McNamara might have been good to have running a more traditional war but he was poorly suited for an asynchronous conflict like Vietnam.   But I don't know who Kennedy or Johnson could have found in the 60s with the proper attributes.  

 
For those that have interest while they are still up, following are links to the series from youtube, Vietnamese (and Kissinger) subtitles not available in this version....

1      -- Great mini-history lesson -- I had no idea.

2      --   0-1:40  Wow, I can't even imagine.

3      --   3:10   LBJ:  "It looks like to me we're getting into another Korea...". Oh, the irony...

4      --   9:30-10:10   :lol:       56:48-60:00 I was aware that Trent Reznor was among those that contributed to the score -- I'm guessing this music was just one example.

5      --  No link :shrugs:

6      --  2:20-4:00   Whoah....

7      --  50:30-53:30  We've all heard this before but it still makes me see red.

8      --  6:27-8:00 It's amazing that so much societal progress was made...with such an amazing sound track of the times....all while Vietnam was burning.

            12:40-14:05 I simply can't imagine.

            1:08:13  - 1:12:03     :shock:   I'd previously heard of My Lai and associated it with some type of massacre w/o knowing any details....until now.... :shock:  

9      -- 16:00-17:30  this #######' guy :angry:

10    -- 16:50 I can't help but wonder if The Orange One could similarly be projecting himself onto others when uttering a similar blurb in 1/2 year.

 
Johnson didn't get vilified in the '60s or '70s because people didn't want to admit that Vietnam was a mistake. Same reason George W. Bush had high approval ratings in the 2000s and then gets booed at Trump rallies.

 
zamboni said:
Always looking for more books to read from that era - thanks.
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The book is a novel not an autobiography but after listening to the podcast, it's more than loosely based on his time as a LT in Vietnam and the guys he served with. Really liked how the book was written. James Webb career is a pretty cool study in American success.

 
on my 3rd rewatch of the series (over the last number of years). 

it gets harder to watch every time  :cry: that ####ing Mogie Crocker  :cry:  

 
I can watch the same WW2 stuff over and over but for this I keep falling asleep.

for those interested, Burns' documentary on New York is also phenomenal up until about 1980s.  

 
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