SusanSunflower

I had to laugh when Paige said Elizabeth had no bedside manner, coming after Elizabeth lightly but bluntly demanding to know if Paige was sleeping with Matthew ... of course she wasn't ... Paige isn't "that kind of girl" ... My mother tended to be similarly matter-of-fact no-romantic-sentimentality-allowed about sex ... somehow part of her brand of feminism that was sex positive, but like Elizabeth suggested that sex was something that might well make you do "bad" or "dangerous" or "reckless" things... certainly the number of marriages of friends' parents that broke up during my teens over infidelity suggested a very very powerful force indeed. I had to laugh and wonder how well Paige would countenance P&E majick bed hopping in service of the motherland ... not well. This struck me two fold -- first reminding me of how unsympathetic/supportive P&E are to Tuan's constant references to the suffering and losses of his short life ... at the same time, both P&E grapple with reevaluating and "wallowing" in the hardships of their own (which barely compare). We don't know much about Tuan, but few among us would thrive being left "home alone" for days and nights, weeks on end. Related, is how deaf and cold both P&E are to Tuan's isolation. He asked for a puppy to keep him company, maybe just to give him a pretext for walking around the neighborhood at night (something that might otherwise raise questions -- with no puppy -- with neighbors). Tuan resents the hell out of Pasha's whiny complaining ... I'm guessing he's none too impressed with P&E and would loathe Paige on principal. Tuan can't have friends over when P&E are out of town, again, likely to raise too many questions or invite temptation. (I was an extreme latchkey kid ... other kids, accustomed to being supervised, often act badly when "home alone", while latchkey kids have been trained to be very cautious and avoid the prying questions of "well-intentioned" neighbors and teachers). P&E were (pleasantly) surprised by Henry's sudden academic prowess (apparently to impress a girl -- which they still haven't recognized) and greeted the news less with an "AttaBoy!" than with a "Who knew?" ... still not really seeing Henry as more than a reflection of their parenting/genes. They really need to reassure Paige that she can and will have choices and the ability to have her "own life" ... or she will find the family secrets even more burdensome if tinged with resentment of Henry's relative freedom to choose his own independent path. Gabriel reminded me of Scrooge in Christmas Carol (old fashioned traditional version) having been visited in the night by ghosts from his past. So many horrors over these last 4 seasons ... starting with the first illegals' second generation ... probably ending with William's last minute revelations as to his lonely despondency (relevant to Tuan) preceding his "ultimate sacrifice" for the cause. P&E's relationship with the Centre may go to hell in a handbasket quickly without Gabriel's long-standing "support" and comfort giving "good father" (which they both have needed) ... with Claudia the Witch -- the demanding bad mother in charge. The theme of this season seems to be "sins of the fathers and mothers" ... what we can and should forgive because of circumstances, "fate", and -- likely -- how one reconciles one's personal legends (about one's family and history) with evidence that some of those we love have done truly terrible and/or despicable things. Phillip was likely bullied by the neighborhood thugs because his father was hated for being a prison guard ... the bullying led Phillip to commit a brutal crime in revenge that has haunted him, raising questions about his own "true nature" ... Elizabeth is the product of her icy "survivor" mother; Elizabeth still unaware of how unseen those around her feel and what that will -- likely -- ultimately cost her ...

after that, I fell asleep before it started and saw only the last 15 minutes (incomprehensible) ... my internet is in the dumps so I haven't been able to watch on line ... so, no comment.

8 episodes focused on Fashion in Paris in 1947 ... can't find any reviews beyond the pay-walled Boston Globe -- suggesting preview videos were not sent out or were ignored -- various levels of "not a great sign" and as far as I can tell zero "buzz" ... but it looks "maah-vahlous ... Please delete this if a duplicate -- Previously's search engine is endlessly "fetching"

thanks for the heads-up. My internet speed has inexplicably tanked (again) to below 0.15 mbps ... but I'll keep trying.

I might have chosen "What's so Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding" -- either the original (1974) or Elvis Costello's later revival (1978) ... still relevant, still challenging. I don't like it when very personal songs are turned into anthems (see also: Leonard Cohen's Hallulujah which is pretty much totally unrecognizable from the original) ... See Also Joni Mitchell's Woodstock (she wasn't there) which is used (and was used in this) as a prophetically foreboding. The Vietnam War has been a gaping wound -- politically, spiritually, morally and -- most importantly -- personally, for thousands of vets ... "Let it Be" is simplistic pablum for those with PTSD ... (Note "Let it be" morphs from Paul's happy surrender/acceptance to a demand or exhortation that others should "Let it Be" already ... as in "just stop"). There's still lots of anger and pain and sadness ... Bridge Over Troubled Water would asked "who/what is this entity that is the voice of this song?" There was a lot of focus on Veterans -- well and good -- even deserved, but the lessons of Vietnam extend beyond "thank you for your service" and "honoring the troops" ... "we shoulda given them a parade!!! ... America seems unwilling to learn anything beyond the personal ... be nicer to Veterans ... so be it. eta: What's so Funny is still part of Costello's set list, also often Springsteen ... very much deliberately an anthem ... "Where are the strong? Who are the trusted?" http://preview.tinyurl.com/yc3xp62f used tiny url to avoid big picture youtube -- just one of many versions.

A lot of the musical choices (from the very first episode) took me "out of the story" because they were at odds with the timeline, and/or had no connection to Vietnam. Let It Be was released in 1970. I don't know any "greater significance" to the song beyond Paul McCartney's happy marriage to Linda. Paul has never been particularly "deep" or socially conscious (and has been rather notoriously nitpicky/resentful) ... I always took this song as aspirational to his own life and likely the breakup to the Beatles ... and have always thought it was deeply personal and not generic or "universal" or deep. IMHO, Paul is at his best taken at face value ... I didn't like the series closing on that song for those reasons -- it was released 1970 when the war ended years later; it suggested some perhaps aspirational spiritual reconciliation that both the war and Paul's future belie. Having nothing to do with Vietnam or my own interpretation, here's what Paul had to say: https://mattandjojang.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/the-story-behind-paul-mccartneys-song-let-it-be/ We project onto things we like whatever story and congruence we want to believe in ... from John Wayne/Liberty Valance: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. I' think that Burns & Company did more of that than I would have preferred. Ymmv. ETA: in 1970-71, I thought with the release of his solo album, that Paul McCartney with his non-matieralist, happy marriage had "won the lottery" ... I thought the song strangely religious (I'm not) and "simple" even saccharine, but I too "love it" in the sense of remembering what it meant THEN ... to me, that Paul was safe and happy in domestic bliss -- and that made me happy.

I also may have missed, but I don't think so, the lingering taint of so many poorly readjusting veterans who where I lived (Santa Monica) encamped on the beach and in the parks in large numbers (there being a very large VA hospital in West Los Angeles). The ugliness of these veterans having to battle to get the medical and psychiatric care they needed was second only quickly to deplorable conditions in some hospitals and then quickly the refusal to acknowledge the lingering effects of Agent Orange (and ugliness repeated with the veterans of the first gulf war who were similarly suggested to be malingerers and/or preexisting psychiatric issues. The end of the draft and the "all volunteer army" I have read was instigated by officers (and up) who didn't want to ever again deal with conscripts (did we ever hear from them). The disproportionate number of African-American and other POC in the grunt / conscript squads also became conspicuous. Someone elsewhere wondered if McNamara's Project 100,000, the enlistment of same number of previously ineligible low-IQ or medically compromised conscripts would be mentioned ... did I miss that? My point(s) are mostly that there were a lot of lingering bad feelings, many having nothing to do with the anti-war movement or even the counterculture, that many veterans were eager to join (another reason for conservatives to malign them). As I mentioned last week, my local VFW refuse admission to Vietnam vets on the pretext that it wasn't a "foreign war" but a police action. Basically they didn't want to open their veterans' clubhouse to the next generation who -- afterall - in their eyes had been responsible for the first war America had ever (fairly unequivocally) lost. They had damaged the brand.

Unless I missed it, I also expected some coverage of the war in the media ... the Smothers Brothers, the movie and then series MASH, as well as All in the Family and other sitcoms (as others have mentioned wrt to Gerald McRainey who was one of self-proclaimed rare Hollywood conservative (they're not rare, most just aren't actors -- see The Smothers Brothers). I don't recall Pat Paulson's run for president, even the Yuppies (much less the Trial of the Chicago 7 ... or the decimation of the Black Panthers and Cointelpro). There was so much more abuse of power (and more lies) than simply Watergate ... and the legacy of J. Edgar Hoover ... Yes, Laugh In and Goldie Hawn ... there was a lot of uneasy circling ... The intersection of "the war" and the counterculture might have been interesting but only in a 50 years later appraisal. In fact, much of the 1960's counterculture was aborbed into the 1980's "Me-Generation" and Yuppies (or at least thats how the media presented it).

It was indeed a shock to watch John Negroponte holding forth as a talking head throughout that episode, demonstrating just how "tolerant" of human rights abuses and general atrocities we have been for so very long. Negroponte came to prominence in the next decade in Central America [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52001-2005Mar20.html] and then to renewed prominence in Iraq. If you don't believe we tolerated, armed, aided, abetted and helped conceal the existence of death squads, etc., then nevermind. [Confirmation of our cooperation with death squads in Iraq was a major finding in the Iraq Wikileaks]

She's been apologizing more or less for 30+ years ... her blog is not linked to "prove" she has apologized, but to answer that other question, "what the hell was she thinking?"

Oh, and aside from being Barbarella, as Henry Fonda's daughter, Jane Fonda was one of America's Princesses. It's a bit hard to remember how important an actor Henry Fonda was, playing the decent everyman who was not John Wayne ... His era's Tom Hanks. While the usual chorus deplored "actors talking about politics", many were unsurprised and glad to see Fonda join the anti-war movement and then horrified by her trip to Hanoi. The over-reach and bad behavior of the anti-war movement has been I feel disproportionately highlighted throughout. There was too much support FOR the war for anti-war sentiments to become mainstream or heard much in the media. John and Yoko could say "give peace a chance" and Chronkite and others could "question" and "have doubts" about the war, but yeah, the Nixon White House had an enemies list and the plumbers and your taxes might get audited or you might find your phone tapped or utility vans parked outside your house. Blacklisting hadn't really ended and retaliatory use of the FBI / IRS were recognized. Wiki says Cointelpro began in 1956 so it was fairly "mature" .. I had no idea. Anyway, it was considered "brave" for Fonda at the height of her career (so far) to risk everything to protest the war. Her statements while in Hanoi were callous and her behavior thoughtless. And then she founded a fitness empire and later married Ted Turner, divorced Turner after 10 years largely "retired", found Jesus, and more recently come back, etc. I've always found her considerably less interesting than I think she should be somehow. For someone so privileged, talented, intelligent, socially concerned, and accomplished. Regardless, I think it's wrong to let that trip to Hanoi define her. As mentioned, others went to Hanoi and made statements. No, I don't think the outrage was "all about sex fantasies" ... she was (and still is) denounced, her acts considered unforgivable. fwiw, from her blog: The Truth about my trip to north vietnam https://www.janefonda.com/the-truth-about-my-trip-to-hanoi/

Jane Fonda was under pressure to prove to her new radical politics comrades that she was genuinely committed to the Vietnamese (and other) liberation movements. (Tom Hayden had people scoffing his choice of partner, particularly since Fonda was generously supporting many groups). She was genuinely more of a neophyte than she knew and the North Vietnam videos were a disaster, particularly as she smiled and posed "like a movie star" for the camera, even with her no-make-up, severe haircut, dressed-down styling. It took her a long time (in most people's opinion) to do so, but she has apologized continuously for the last 20-30 years (if not longer). In the binary of the war, the Vietnamese were then (and still) fighting for their freedom, self-determination, and we were fighting to thwart that. It was an error in judgment. Nuf. I had forgotten or never known that there were 500+ POWs. They were clearly "bargaining chips" and (although many died) many survived their ordeal. As with our prisoners at Gitmo (and Baghram and Abu Ghraib) I'm not sure what they information they were being tortured to reveal, or if anti-American videos the end-game. Most individual soldiers have limited knowledge that would be "useful to the enemy" or still be "fresh intel" after 6 months or so. This wasn't a high-tech war and there was a lot of changing of tactics and focus. An individual pilot might represent a massive loss in terms of $$ training and skill-set, but they never controlled or were necessarily privy to broader future plans. We tortured at Abu Ghraib due to the (mistaken) belief that someone-who-knows-something would be present amongst the witnesses to truck bombings and other acts of terrorism, however, in fact, the perpetrators were usually dead and there was no information to be prised from the innocent bystanders. Apparently the fact that "torture doesn't work" doesn't stop people from practicing it... although it does matter quite a lot the nature of the objective... videos versus intelligence versus vigilante punishment. My memory is that the vietnamese torturer were a continuation in the American imagination of the Japanese torturers and continuation also of exotic-Asian-cruelty stereotyping left over from WWII. I thought the episode where they talked about all of the racist and misapplied slang "hootches", "mamma-san" from other conflicts used regularly in vietnam really pulled its punches by leaving the subject "just lying there" without saying anything about its relevance. Demonization of the enemy occurs in (virtually) all wall propaganda and continues today, even just yesterday wrt to the ISIS families fleeing lost territory who were stopped not allowed to progress (despite prior arrangements) until the stalemate was broken by cooler heads who reneged to allow them to proceed (as by prior arrangement) ... women and children being used a pawns, declared a "threat" I felt this last episode (9) was overcrowded and left too many punches pulled and too many sentences and thoughts unfinished. Yes, it was compelling and being more recent, it touched on more commonly shared memories, but it felt like perusing a pile of old Life Magazines, great photographs, artfully arranged, but not "meaty"

I had forgotten (or never known) that after the shooting at Kent State, the guard threatened the students with more shooting if they failed to disperse .... man, that's colder than I could have imagined. (I was out of the country at the time, but had experienced a "police riot" 2 years earlier in which (nonviolent, middle aged and younger) friends had been beaten when trapped by circumstances (some jokers at the front of a peace march decided ad hoc to sit down and refuse to disperse .... the 5000 people behind them had no idea and nowhere to go as they converged on what was supposed to be a round-about. I simply turned tail and ran and ran as it became obvious (by the loud arrival through the demonstrators of about 50 LAPD motorcycle policemen)

I suspect that the "elites" of North Vietnam were concerned about the survival of the "next generation" of the revolution ... even about their children, by virtue of their position, being at specific risk because they were likely targets. The brain drain and exodus of the educated and middle classes are a very real problem in all war zones. In Afghanistan, with the rise of the Taliban, the educated elite decamped in large numbers or stayed very close to home in the cities (The taliban's consolidation of power was never strong). In Iraq, the educated elites, doctors, lawyers and managers all decamped after a few years of patient hoping that things would improve and/or the ban on Sunni/Baathist party member employment would be lifted ... terrible, even catastrophic loss. Syria has also lost many members of its elites who simply bailed after 3+ years of things getting worse and no end in sight -- they had the means ($$) to leave and the skills (language and others) to make a new and they did often citing their children's education and safety. The peasant whose child helped maintain the trail was also investing themselves and their child's future (as they saw it). That is one thing worth a mention was how young so many American soldiers, volunteers in particular, were. ... or maybe not ... The internet by the google first page of hits proves this is also a "fact" also in contention. https://www.quora.com/Why-were-American-soldiers-in-the-Vietnam-War-so-young-The-average-age-was-19 So what else is new? I suspect the "average age" varied by region and year of the war ... In a big city, people could with little effort "dodge the draft" because catching draft dodgers was lower in priority than rounding up the newly eligible/notified. In other areas, where quotas were harder to meet, vigorously tracking down "draft dodgers" had benefit for those on the local selective service panel (and made room even with quotas for deferrals of the "more worthy" or better connected). Regardless, yes, they looked awfully young to me. The draft had been active for years ... I'm not sure of the history but Korea was involved less-than-eager draftees. Many countries even now have mandatory voluntary service. I never really understood why the use of National Guard volunteers in Iraq (particularly with stop-loss) was not a bigger deal. Joining the national or state guard was also a way for the less than wealthy to pay for college and get a valuable career-enhancing resume items.

yes, people "volunteered" to avoid being drafted with the promise that they might get better assignment or even some choice of service ... rather than being put in the pool of unwilling conscripts. I'd knew but had forgotten. High school student groups fought to have draft counselors as well as recruitors ... as I recall, we/they lost

I grew up around WWII vets who -- to a man -- refused to talk about their war ... to a degree that I suspect that "not talking about it" was advised for those haunted by memories, before we had the PTSD diagnosis. Jim, Kathy's father, said he hated every minute of his time on a battleship in the Pacific. Although not to be mentioned, Kevin and Greg's father suffered a nervous collapse the first of a lifetime of psychiatric hospitalizations when he was abandoned without relief serving all alone in an "observation outpost" in Alaska. Burns' series on WWII was memorable to me for detailing just how badly managed the "war in the pacific" was in the first years ... It was not remotely as I imagined and -- beyond McHale's Navy, Bridge on the River Kwai and Heaven Help Us Mr. Allison, suddenly my utter ignorance seemed likely "intentional" ... Much of the "war in the Pacific" seemingly was a tragic "comedy of errors" and mismanagement. YMMV.

My mother was involved in an "underground railroad" for southern black war resisters ... in the small town south, anyone who didn't immediately show up to be inducted was a "marked man" ... they were shipped up north and then out of the country.... how dare they chose to petition for deferrment. Even in my middle class, southern California hometown, poor kids had no resources to question their draft status (and often had parents loathe to make waves or appear "unpatriotic") --- throughout the nation, WWII veterans were not happy if their sons questioned showing up at the date and time that some bureaucrat declared. None of the kids (white, middle class) I grew up with went to vietnam -- they had resources, lawyers, doctors, congressmen, teachers, clergy to (often eagerly) press their case for deferrment.

"We" couldn't reach out to Ho because he was a communist ... end of story ... utterly our way or the highway ... see also Cuba ... Didn't matter how corrupt or despotic the alternative and many countries newly liberated from colonialism were attracted to communism for various reasons, both ideological (they had experienced various aspects of "capitalism" under colonial rule) and practical (their countries were very poor and needed to devote all labor towards survival, not so much room for some business class to be extracting profits from an impoverished people just trying to stay fed, clothed, housed ... and Western aid came with certain conditions or strings different from those attached to aid from the communist countries. Our way or the highway ... we chose Diem and other similar "legacies" of colonial rule (which often featured a native "elite" class) ... it was not "by accident" ... it was consistent ideology.

according to Zap2it TV guide (which I've used for years and recommend) on September 24th (Sunday) my local primary PBS station (I have two) will be showing the first 6 episodes ... beginning at 10:30 am wrt Diem: He makes some of our more recent puppets seem "good" in comparison ... we knew he would stuff the ballot boxes and warned him not to be too grotesquely obvious ... he did so anyway .... Karzai maintained that Holbrook and Company stuffed the ballot boxes to make him look bad (which is actually not only possible, but even plausible since we had grown tired of Karzai's refusal to be fully "cooperative"). A savvy politician, it's unlikely that Karzai would have done something so stupid. Diem simply was that arrogant, and so tied to the colonial mindset that he assumed he could get away with it (and he did). Karzai may have been sabotaged to make him look bad or -- overzealous supporters may have acted stupidly. Regardless, he "got away with it" too. Yes, the footage of the army of women and children repairing the ho chi minh trail was the highlight of the episode for me ... and it was difficult how despite being moved to tears of Moogly's death, those dump trucks full of vietnamese dead (and "body counts") were not erased. eta: There were many "joking" at the time that Karzai would do well to remember Diem's fate ... (Maliki as well, before his siege on Sadr City, but that's another story for another day)

Their player is just awful (at least for me) ... there's no way to fast-forward and if you exit, you start at the beginning when you try to resume ... I loathe / despise it ... (I did notice that that the interminable cruise-ship ads at the start of the last thing I tried to re-watched appeared gone ... having to watch and rewatch the ads part of the burden of watching on line). I'd check youtube as well ... PBS seems to make a lot of money selling DVDS and their shows usually impossible to download, but this -- as a prestige public-service type offering -- may have been made more accessible.

no, you don't have to join PBS to watch the videos on their website (and apparently all 10 episodes are now available) ... google "watch PBS on line" ... They don't stream well on my terrible slow internet (they are apparently high-def and require a good connection) ... Also, I'd check your TV listings because I'd bet PBS will do some weekend marathon for those wishing to watch what they missed and/or record at home.

for some reasons, I can't get Previously TV add this thread to my "followed content" queue. There is such a blizzard of information, I'm not sure how much "confirmation bias" is controlling opinions ... There's a lot that really happened -- our support of the Diem -- that's so hard to fathom, so in contradiction to all we believe about ourselves (almost no matter how cynical or jaded the last decade may have made us) -- like the up close and personal massacres as well as "raining fire from the sky" relentless bombing of civilians -- it may well take repeated viewings (if one can bear it) to "decide" what Burns & Company are trying to say as they juggle and juggle to present all (or at least divergent) viewpoints. Facts/documentary evidence that does not have preexisting context often fails to take hold and be remembered. It's actually better than I expected. I've realized reading comments how old I am -- that my memories are first hand (born 1952) and begin with the relative maturity of middle school, versus those whose knowledge base was primarily built by the stories of others or what one was taught in school, a narrative that has changed and been reconfigured several times -- who can forget the sudden appearance of "they wouldn't let us win" that arose in the late 1980's or the missing/forgotten POW fervor of Rambo and Chuck Norris films.

And yet, it's also clear that despite his brief time at Oxford, Morse made a lasting impression and his leaving college is considered with regret by the professors who knew/taught him. It's reinforced that (despite some backstory about his failing grades resulting from despondency over a failed love affair) he was considered brilliant, with a bright future and, I think, boldly someone who chose not to be reinstated ... he walked away from a golden opportunity

I'd also add that 1960-70's feminism was called second wave because it was built on the back of earlier feminism which was part of the earlier progressive/leftist wave of the 1930-40's and opportunities for women and economic parity never stopped be part of progressive agendas... Many in the anti-war movement of the 1960's were the children of progressives as well as the newly self-interested (don't wanna get drafted, not wanna go to vietnam) The new Vietnam War miniseries may (or may not) open up myriad old wounds and issues. From what I've seen in previews, it seems almost deliberately revisionist and provocative.

There was, and still is in many people's minds, the "need" for children to have a stay-at-home caretaker which is for many a privilege that is (and always has been) far out of reach and not really some simple matter of preference or priority. After WWII, which mobilized armies of women laborers, there was pressure to get women back in the kitchen as some ordained "norm" or better-for-the-children (when with good or even just adequate childcare, children do just fine the world over). eta: When the war was over, they needed to get women out of the workforce to open up jobs for returning GI's. Note that about half the country was still on-the-farm at that time, so this urban workforce was more of a subset than it is now. Stagnant real wages post-1970's, also worked to get women into the workforce as one-paycheck was no longer enough to be comfortable. Most of my peers' mothers were stay at home in the 1950's with some part-time jobs or school/church volunteering. Many of these moms moved into the workforce in the 1970's and '80s as rampant divorce (probably a good thing) made financial independence a necessity and the stigma of a wife needing to work was lifted. Women still do get married and have babies and desire/need to stay-at-home for months, even years (in part because good reliable childcare is so expensive and often hard to maintain). My younger brother's generation seemed to take stay-at-home moms as a for-the-children necessity although that may be class-based and/or some odd resulting function of child support enforcement (my generation's mother were often stiffed by walk-away dead-beat dads (or just games-playing manipulative bastards like my father). The selling of the working woman as "liberating" was as I recall embraced by Madison Avenue, even with the assumption that women yearned to be SAHM when the time came. The "mommy wars" have seemingly only gotten worse and societal surveillance and judgment of parenting (still mostly directed at mothers) has redefined parenting to something which resembles the frantic helicopter parent who replaced the ubiquitous soccer mom. I guess I'm just saying that it's hard to even imagine doing both ... much less doing both well. A lot of the oft-cited feminist denigration of "women's work" I think was a direct response to the suggestion that working women were -- "in fact" -- neglecting their children and/or that working women were thereby "selfish" and "ambition" or money-grubbing greedy. Latch-key kids used to be fairly normal -- now it's a secret shame, considered close to child abuse. I had two (female) managers in the 1980's and 90's who (bizarrely to me) let it be known that they were working for career ambitions and luxury items ($$ independence), not because they had to -- oddly they were both bean-counting martinets, but whatever. Back in the 1960 and 70's "having a good life" meant having a steady low-stress good-enough job and (cough) being debt-free (home ownership -- like college loans -- were out of reach for most). I suspect the average satifaction/happiness index was higher.