Aired on CBS at the height of the Vietnam War, this song holds just as much truth today
Portside readers continue to weigh in to The Vietnam War, PBS series by Burns and Novick, The impact of the war on the country, the role of the peace movement; and today the impact of discussion of the war and the new series on a country living in the "time of Trump".
The current PBS series on the war in Vietnam is stirring discussion throughout the country on the U.S. war in Vietnam; the longest war in Afghanistan; and now Donald Trump's threat to use nuclear weapons to annihilate the people of North Korea. Portside readers have responded to posts about the series in emails and posts on Facebook. Here are comments by Portside readers on the Burns and Novick series. Reposting by Portside is with permission of the writers.
With The Vietnam War, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have created a film that rehashes some old, tired tropes. In doing so, they distort what soldiers, veterans, and antiwar activists alike know about the war and its aftermath, especially inside the United States.
Song by Jesse Winchester, from The Wire, Season 1. Winchester opposed the Vietnam War, moved to Canada in 1967, and after a Presidential amnesty in 1977 resettled in the United States.
What is the appropriate response to the banality of the Op-Ed: “Vietnam’s Unhealed Wounds” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick in the 2017 Memorial Day edition of The New York Times? Such a trite pronouncement is surely destined for the dustbin of history. But already accompanied by much media hype, Burns and Novick are set to launch their PBS documentary: THE VIETNAM WAR, a ten-part, 18-hour series in September 2017.
In his signature song released 50 years ago Arlo Guthrie tells a true and powerfully understated story of draft resistance that encourages listeners to sing together, resist together and end war.
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Half a century after United States B-52 bombers dropped more than 500,000 tonnes of explosives on Cambodia's countryside Washington wants the country to repay a $US500 million ($662 million) war debt. The demand has prompted expressions of indignation and outrage from Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.
Why we should not forget the role our endless wars over the last sixteen years have played in creating the refugee crisis we now so earnestly decry.
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