Burns Blew It

Many VFP members have first-hand knowledge of the broad anti-war movement, some as participants in the active-duty G.I. resistance where they conducted peaceful protests, sabotage and outright mutiny, and some in the civilian peace movement after their military service.  Nowhere in 18 hours of programming does the G.I. resistance movement merit mention and “instead of honoring the civilian peace movement for its accomplishments, activists are generally belittled as self-interested and self-indulgent, with stress on its supposed deep antagonism toward American soldiers,” the ad protests. 

VFP concludes its ad, just above an iconic photograph of protesting G.I.s holding a banner emblazoned with, “We won’t fight another rich man’s war,” by saying that if the Burns/Novick series is “crowned with an Emmy, this defective history of the Vietnam era will become required viewing for generations of young Americans—a seductive, but false, interpretation of events.”--MF

My take is Burns and his collaborator wrote and presented another mythology.  No Pentagon Papers, no examination of the interior of military resistance?

After resisting the war and then studying it in detail as an undergrad and beyond by delving into innumerable enlightened texts, such as Michael Herr's Dispatches, Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War and many others, I knew Burns had sold out.

This happens when you get a big contract from PBS to write a corporate-friendly version of reality.

Keep those donors away from the fires, tell more lies, and life goes on for the comfortable war-makers while the soothing myths expand many times over.

FWIW, I didn't bother with the doc.  I knew it would be awful.


TS