“Among the vets, there are as many different opinions about the war as there are vets…. There is one thing any Vietnam vet, regardless of his political views, is sure of: The custodians of the official versions lie. Governments lie. Histories lie, and few people care that soldiers and others die for the lies.”
As you know if you’ve been following Healing America’s Narratives, ignorance, arrogance, fear, bigotry, violence, greed, excess, bullying, and untrustworthiness are nine traits of the collective national shadow of the United States (there may be more).
Over the centuries, lying, covering up lies, and the issues and activities about which the lies are told carry a hefty price tag—millions of lives and trillions of dollars (and remember that 1 million seconds = 11.6 days; 1 billion seconds = 31.7 years; 1 trillion seconds = 31,710 years).
There are ways out of this that require us to move out of our ignorant, helpless moderate comfort. Places to start learning include Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny (online video lessons) / book; Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless (online) / book; and Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy (downloadable online) / book.
Notes and Sources
Doug Anderson, Keep Your Head Down: Vietnam, the Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery, (New York: Norton, 2009), 248-49.
Dave Phillips, “‘In the End We Felt Betrayed’: Vietnamese Veterans See Echoes in Afghanistan,’” New York Times, July 7, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/us/vietnam-war-veterans-us-afghanistan.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
William D. Hartung, “Profits of War: Corporate Beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending Surge,” Center for International Policy & Watson Institute, International & Public Affairs at Brown University, September 13, 2021, (3) https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/ProfitsOfWar
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/08/summary-of-boeing-problems.html
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-boeing-737-9-max-aircraft
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