The Goat Pen

Even before LBJ, here you have Kennedy sympathizing with Ho Chi Minh on their plight but still working against him as president.

It boils down to the word communism. We were in the middle of the cold war with Russia and still hurting over China arming the North Koreans.

I haven't watched episode 3 yet.

"LOL, thats how it works. Almost every single cocksucker in politics will do the thing that's better for them or for their party over whats the right thing to do every time."

Like keeping heroin illegal!

aTm wrote:LOL, thats how it works. Almost every single cocksucker in politics will do the thing that's better for them or for their party over whats the right thing to do every time.

Every fucking time.

Yep. People fucking suck. Communism tends to suck more, but let's not act like the European colonial powers were doing shit due to noblis oblige.

Communism, by the dictionary definition, has never happened anywhere in the world that I know of. But yes not having any privately owned property sounds pretty shady to me. On the other hand people spend too much time talking about -isms and miss the big picture. Practical applications of so called "communism", "socialism", "capitalism", "democracy", "nationalism", whatever, all tend to lead to the same rule and exploitation by the 1% that took place in the kingdoms and empires of the distant past. And of course it's silly to boil a country's government and economy down to one word. The USSR really didn't have any socialism, much less communism, under Lenin or Stalin, the US really doesn't have capitalism considering the massive and systemic intervention by the state on behalf of the rich, etc.

As far as the PBS piece on Vietnam I'm looking forward to watching it. Yes we were fighting Communism but on a deeper level we were fighting against a rival region popping up that could have caused us considerable problems maintaining our global power structures. In general, if you play ball with the US, it doesn't matter what kind of government you have. This is why we have supported countless brutal dictators, and we tend to frown heavily on democracy in places we don't have our hooks into. And if you don't play ball, whether you're communist, democratic etc doesn't matter. We will take efforts to dominate and control you, or in the case of Vietnam, we'll simply destroy your country and kill millions of your people. The underlying objective was accomplished.

Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to Ike telling him not to get wrapped up in the word communism. That he was seeking freedom for his people from French Colonialism.

The letter was supposedly never delivered by the state department.

When you talk about -ism's though, I have real concerns about 23 year old college juniors marching in the street demanding socialism and fighting against facism - like they really know what either one is. All they really want is to have the government dismiss their student loans and hang out with funny gay people.

another thing that needs to calm down is all these people who are jumping on the "we fought the nazi's in WWII and we're going to fight them at home"

first of all, anyone comparing Nazi's from WWII to the Neo Nazi's we have in America today is a complete moron. There may be 5,000, maybe 10,000 people total in the United States that claim to be nazis. By comparison, with an completely abstract fact, there are 7,000 people in America that have Tigers as pets. You know anybody that has a pet tiger? If the Neo Nazi's number has grown, its not because of Trump, its because the media has put a spotlight on them as some salient group in the American landscape.

If the internet didn't exist, you wouldn't know they existed unless you lived in some out of way burg in Idaho or West Virginia.

Secondly, they are not a political party nor do they have political allegiance. David Duke has (had) a freaking radio show - he has no more influence than mad dog and the baby morning drive by show on WQQK.

They would "support" any political candidate from any party if they felt they would have some ability to support their agenda.

People losing their damn minds because some rednecks show up at a rally to fly their flags and drink beer. Its been happening well before Trump. And its been about as effective.

this is the view of Ken Burns of course, but he's framing a documentary that shows we escalated the war to 200K soldiers or whatever ( I haven't seen episode 4 yet) on the basis our leaders had no exit strategy and didn't want to admit it.

I can understand having a brother marine die next to you and having a life long hatred for our government as a result of that.

"Communism, by the dictionary definition, has never happened anywhere in the world that I know of."

It worked pretty well in North America before good christian Europeans came over here and committed genocide on the native population, then threw the few survivors into concentration camps, I mean reservations. Sound familiar?

"first of all, anyone comparing Nazi's from WWII to the Neo Nazi's we have in America today is a complete moron. There may be 5,000, maybe 10,000 people total in the United States that claim to be nazis. By comparison, with an completely abstract fact, there are 7,000 people in America that have Tigers as pets. You know anybody that has a pet tiger? If the Neo Nazi's number has grown, its not because of Trump, its because the media has put a spotlight on them as some salient group in the American landscape.

If the internet didn't exist, you wouldn't know they existed unless you lived in some out of way burg in Idaho or West Virginia."

Those numbers look somewhat similar to recent heroin deaths. Is it possible that the media making so much of it is part of the "problem"? Admittedly, it appears that twice as many people died last year from heroin as people who own tigers, but, as you asked, do you know anybody that owns a tiger?

a tiger didn't break into my car and steal my fucking stereo!

eCat wrote:Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to Ike telling him not to get wrapped up in the word communism. That he was seeking freedom for his people from French Colonialism.

The letter was supposedly never delivered by the state department.

When you talk about -ism's though, I have real concerns about 23 year old college juniors marching in the street demanding socialism and fighting against facism - like they really know what either one is. All they really want is to have the government dismiss their student loans and hang out with funny gay people.

Twenty-three year old college juniors? That must be a Kentucky thing...

DooKSucks wrote:

eCat wrote:Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to Ike telling him not to get wrapped up in the word communism. That he was seeking freedom for his people from French Colonialism.

The letter was supposedly never delivered by the state department.

When you talk about -ism's though, I have real concerns about 23 year old college juniors marching in the street demanding socialism and fighting against facism - like they really know what either one is. All they really want is to have the government dismiss their student loans and hang out with funny gay people.

Twenty-three year old college juniors? That must be a Kentucky thing...

yes, they actually have to go to class

eCat wrote:

DooKSucks wrote:

eCat wrote:Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to Ike telling him not to get wrapped up in the word communism. That he was seeking freedom for his people from French Colonialism.

The letter was supposedly never delivered by the state department.

When you talk about -ism's though, I have real concerns about 23 year old college juniors marching in the street demanding socialism and fighting against facism - like they really know what either one is. All they really want is to have the government dismiss their student loans and hang out with funny gay people.

Twenty-three year old college juniors? That must be a Kentucky thing...

yes, they actually have to go to class

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b ... ted_States

What the fuck is this Mr. Robot thing?

Domo

Dammit I thought you drowned.

hedge wrote:"Communism, by the dictionary definition, has never happened anywhere in the world that I know of."

It worked pretty well in North America before good christian Europeans came over here and committed genocide on the native population, then threw the few survivors into concentration camps, I mean reservations. Sound familiar?

True. Back when we were all hunter gatherers things were different. Then came the agricultural revolution, food hoarding, and the concept of wealth and class. You'd have rogue clans going around killing everyone that didn't conform to their religious beliefs, which was the first imperialism. Things kind of went downhill from there.

hedge wrote:"Communism, by the dictionary definition, has never happened anywhere in the world that I know of."

It worked pretty well in North America before good christian Europeans came over here and committed genocide on the native population, then threw the few survivors into concentration camps, I mean reservations. Sound familiar?

I guess, then, you cant say it worked out well...

Like I said, until your kind arrived...