Post Mortem - Memorial Day

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I had a post up here displaying further proof of the atrocity that is 'dressy shorts' (believe me it was disturbing as it contained the double whammy of 'dressy shorts' and the near nip-slip) followed by an image of a dude vomiting. Yesterday that seemed funny and scampy.

Then I watched American Experience | Two Days in October. I don't normally watch or enjoy war history programs but I forced myself to watch the entire show because it was Memorial Day after all and I figured it was an appropriate way to calibrate my mind to the reason for the holiday, and I don't want to be one of those people who are all "What are you doing for Labor Day -- Memorial Day -- whatever! Let's get fuuuuuucked up!!"

The program juxtaposes 2 days in October 1967 "when history turned a corner". One is the day when 61 (out of 142) men were killed in an ambush in Vietnam, due arguably to a series of lies, miscommunications, and ineptitudes by higher ups in the military. The other recounts the day that University of Madison, Wisconsin students staged a peaceful protest against Dow Chemical recruiting on campus. Dow was the manufacturer of the jelly fuel weapon, napalm. The students were against their university providing subsidies to Dow in the form of space and access to students to recruit fresh meat for their workforce. The students ended up getting severely beaten by a small group of (provincial) local Madison policemen who came onto campus. Both incidents were glossed over and "spun" by the media to serve the goals of The State.

Through a series of interviews with some of the men who survived the battle in the Vietnamese jungle, punctuated by cuts to yearbook photos of the men when they were in school, I learned about how these guys - some as young as 18 - went off to serve the country pretty blindly. In other words, these soldiers didn't necessarily have an opinion about whether or not the war was justified; that was outside the scope of their service, they trusted their government to make those decisions. I can not convey how moving it was to see these men, some big burly veterans, getting choked up as they recounted the horrors of watching your comrades and friends die in the jungle and then being abandoned by your superiors. When these soldiers regained consciousness in hospitals, often times they were tools of the Media Machine as they were presented with medals on camera and told to lie about their experience. To make matters worse, the few men who were fortunate (?) to survive and go back to America were faced with a nation that not only didn't welcome them, but was actively protesting their service in Vietnam.

Cut to Madison.

Hundreds of progressive anti-war students staged a sit in in the halls of the building where Dow was to conduct their recruitment. The university chancellor William Sewell, was considered an ally of the students and sympathetic to their cause. Unfortunately, due to pressure, he had to bow and called in local police who showed up and very quickly began clubbing students and eventually hurling tear gas into the crowds. Some of those Madison police officers are interviewed and I found myself cursing at the television as I listened to their narrow, herdlike justification for their excessive violence. 65 students ended up in the hospital.

In both cases the aftermath via media reports spun the incidents to show the government and police were 'right' or victorious (against communists) and completely justified.

The main thing I took away from watching the American Experience program was pretty simple. War is really bad, rarely a clear cut case, and should be avoided.

The United States today is again in a war that many find unjustified. The domestic authorities are using excessive force, surveillance, and intimidation to squelch dissidence. The death toll of American men and women in Iraq lies somewhere around 2,500. The number of Iraqi civilians killed (the "IBC" or Iraqi Body Count, I've learned) is estimated between 38,000 - 42,000. And just like in the Vietnam war, the government is controlling and manipulating the news you and I receive to further their own goals.

The one thing I took away from watching the American Experience program was simply "war is really bad and should be avoided at almost any cost". I can't wrap my head around the fact that 40 years later we've not only made no progress, but things have escalated. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do about it.

I took Memorial Day seriously.

Today, 'dressy shorts', Lindsay Lohan, American Idol, utter shit "news" like this, no longer seems funny or entertaining.