Daniel Ellsberg (Narration): “The hundreds of thousands we were killing was unjustified homicide and I couldn’t see the difference between that and murder. Murder had to be stopped.” 

Pres. Nixon: “Henry, you don’t have any idea. The only place where you and I disagree… is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.” 

Henry Kissinger: “I am concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher”

“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” - A Documentary Film. Watch it. It was excellent. It’s streaming on Netflix. It was nominated for an Oscar.

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

Too Far? Family Guy’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial ‘Joke’

Here’s what happens: On a search to find the source of all dirty jokes (which eventually leads them to Virginia) Peter, Quagmire, and Joe pass through Washington, DC where they see the Washington Monument, the Obama Monument (it’s black) and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This is the part that is going to ruffle some feathers. Standing in front of the Memorial are two Vietnam Vets and a Vietnamese man who calls the Memorial a “scoreboard” and says “aw, what happened to your friends? Hey I know that guy, I killed him, he cried like a bitch. Vietnam! Undefeated!”

mediate says the funny is “lost on them”.  me? I cracked up.

It Was Forty Years Ago Today… Kent State

Despite the event’s historical significance, the New York Times  reports that many current Kent State students feel little connection to what happened:

Fourteen of 15 freshmen interviewed on the campus said they did not feel any connection with the lives of the students who were protesting the United States’ invasion of Cambodia at the time.


The university requires first-year students to watch a historical video of what happened that day and the events leading to it: the violent confrontation between protesters and local police and the burning of the R.O.T.C. building near the Commons.

huffpo 

Watch The Associated Press reports on the anniversary from the school

My Lai

What drove a company of American soldiers — ordinary young men from around the country — to commit the worst atrocity in American military history? Were they “just following orders” as some later declared? Or, did they break under the pressure of a vicious war in which the line between enemy soldier and civilian had been intentionally blurred? AMERICAN EXPERIENCE focuses on the 1968 My Lai massacre, its subsequent cover-up, and the heroic efforts of the soldiers who broke ranks to try to halt the atrocities, and then bring them to light. - American Experience 

“It is told superbly by Barak Goodman in his documentary “My Lai,” a presentation of PBS’s “American Experience” tonight…

…The dense and complex tale goes beyond the actions of the American soldiers — from Charlie Company of the First Battalion, 20th Infantry — to explore the nature of combat in Vietnam. The documentary also delves into faulty intelligence and failures of command (as well as flashes of heroism); the cover-up, investigation and series of trials; and the poisonous domestic politics of late-1960s America.

Mr. Goodman has had to leave out a lot, and many viewers may fault him for this or that omission. But any reasonable viewer should be amazed by how much he has been able to fit within the limits of a 90-minute television documentary. (Some will wonder why the role of the journalist Seymour Hersh in exposing the massacre is not covered. At a screening of the film last week, Mr. Goodman said that Mr. Hersh turned down his request for an interview.)”…

continue reading NYTimes’ Mike Hale’s review here.