35 Years After Vietnam

Was it only six years ago when I realized that the Vietnam war, contrary to the historic record, was not over after all? I'm talking, of course, about Vietnam vet John Kerry and what he did (or didn't) do in protesting a war he once fought in, dredged up during the 2004 Presidential election between Kerry and George W. Bush, whose own military record also came into question.

I admit to have been one of those people who actually supported the Vietnam war in the beginning of 1967. After all, it was an American war, I was an American, ipso facto, Q.E.D. My opposition to the conflict evolved over the next year or so, starting with the Beyond Vietnam speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he died. (Was that just coincidence?)

The group that most influenced me at the time was the VVAW, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It was one thing for civilians to oppose the war. It was quite another thing to see soldiers who had been fighting the war then come out against it.

In time, I found about some of the history of conflict in Vietnam, the fighting against the Japanese and the French, among others. The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 might have signaled the end of colonial occupation, but it led to greater involvement by the Americans, first in small numbers of analysts in the 1950s to massive numbers troops in the mid-1960s, facilitated in no small part by the prevarication that was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in August of 1964.

No doubt that many of the soldiers may have operated honorably, but it's also true that the My Lai massacre in 1968 was not the only atrocity in this drawn-out engagement. My buddy Steve Bissette wrote a piece about a couple films delineating military failings during Vietnam and a more recent conflict. (I actually chuckled when I discovered his post was dated February 2, for that was the date in 1972 when the draft for those born in 1953 took place; that's a LONG story.)

My general disinclination towards war is fueled by the belief that even in a "good war" (a true oxymoron), bad things, unintended things occur. Even the "good guys" get it wrong sometimes, regardless of the safeguards. Thus war should always be a last resort, not a first option.

In a bold attempt to be "fair and balanced, I point out to you The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam WarK -- "the latest installment in Regnery Publishing’s bestselling Politically Incorrect Guide™ (“PIG”) series -- [Phillip] Jennings gives you the surprising truth, and backs it up with facts that liberals ignore."

I should note that I haven't read the book. Among the assertions:
*The Tet offensive was a debacle for the North Vietnamese
*Communist Vietnam is now trying to emulate a more capitalist approach
I actually agree with both of those statements, but not with most of the others.

Thirty-five years after Vietnam and we're still fighting the war.

***
Pete Seeger: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Pete turns 91 on Monday.

ROG

A Couple Lennon Flicks

Sometimes I see October 9 creeping up on the calendar and have not much to say past "Happy birthday, John." This year, though, as a result of the 09/09/09 VH1 Classic extravaganza, there were a couple Lennon-related items worthy of noting, neither of which I had ever seen before.

One was a live concert in New York City in 1972, a benefit for the mentally handicapped (the preferred term in the day). It was odd, though. It all SOUNDED particularly familiar, such as him referring to his old group as the Rolling Stones. That's because I own the album that was released posthumously in 1986; I have it on vinyl, perhaps one of the last LPs I ever bought. A photo of Lennon given to me by my friend Rocco was almost certainly from the same set of concerts. (Yes, the same Rocco who gets a mention in Love & Rockets 40.)

VH1 bleeped a couple words in the concert, one of them a pronoun. One was in the title of Woman Is the N***** of the World, which was excised several times. The other word was from Well Well Well. In the line, "She looked so beautiful, I could eat her," the "her" was clipped. The interesting thing about the technology is that it didn't affect the backing track, only the vocal track.

Something that I DIDN'T know until recently is that there were two concerts. And Elephant's Memory, John and Yoko's backing band, was reportedly really ticked off with Yoko Ono, believing she should have released the music from the tighter second concert rather than the first. A few of those second show performances appear on the box set Lennon Anthology. John messes up the lyrics to Come Together in both.

Here's a performance of Instant Karma, followed by Mother.

The other item I saw was the 2006 feature film, the U.S. vs. John Lennon, which chronicled the development of John Lennon's evolution from moptop to the famous/infamous "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus" comment to John & Yoko on the cover of Two Virgins. But ultimately, he was recognized as a political creature - black activist Angela Davis, e.g., took notice of the Beatles song Revolution. Many may have thought John and Yoko's bagism and bed-ins were silly; John didn't seem to care. Yet "Give Peace a Chance", recorded at the Montreal bed-in, became as much the antiwar anthem as "We Shall Overcome" was the anthem for the civil rights movement.

Post-Beatles, John and Yoko's activism became more pointed, hanging out with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale (who appears in the film). When John was seemingly successful in freeing activist John Sinclair, the Nixon White House became concerned about the 1972 election, especially given the passage of the 26th Amendment allowing 18-year-olds the right to vote for the first time nationally.

What to do? Based on a suggestion by Senator Strom Thurmond, the Nixon White House decided to try to deport John Lennon. The basis was a marijuana conviction that lots of pop stars in England had been subjected to, all performed by one overzealous officer.

The twists and turns of that four-year journey are fascinating, especially as told by among others, Walter Cronkite, Mario Cuomo, John Dean, Ron Kovic, George McGovern, Gore Vidal, and Geraldo Rivera, who had broken the story of the abuses in the mental health system, and was MC for the One to One concerts. Most interesting, though, was Watergate convict G. Gordon Liddy, who freely confirmed that the Nixon White House WAS out to get John.

October 9, 1975 was not only John's 35th birthday, it was the date of Sean Lennon's birth AND the day their immigration lawyer Leon Wildes informs John that he'd won the case. In some ways, I think the movie should have ended there. Instead, we get happy scenes of John, Yoko and Sean for a few minutes, followed by four gunshots. It seemed tacked on, though Yoko's only complaint was that the bullets should have been louder.

Still I learned a LOT in this film that I did not know. Recommended. Here's the trailer.

ROG

Student Demonstration Time

When I first started this blog four yeas ago, someone asked me, some point after May 4, 2005, to write about Kent State. I'd written a paragraph about it, but I didn't have more to say. But now I do, and it's all about that maligned (by me, and others) Beach Boys song, Student Demonstration Time.

For it reminds me that ten days after that headline-grabbing Kent State, there was Jackson State, though it appears earlier in the Mike Love narrative.

The violence spread down South to where Jackson State brothers
Learned not to say nasty things about Southern policemen's mothers
Nothing much was said about it and really next to nothing done
The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun.

I always hated the glib tone of the second line, but now that I think on it, the third line was profound in its accuracy. How many of you who remember Kent State also remember Jackson State? I'm guessing not many, but it's not your fault.

America was stunned on May 4, 1970
When rally turned to riot up at Kent State University
They said the students scared the Guard
Though the troops were battle dressed
Four martyrs earned a new degree
The Bachelor of Bullets
I know we're all fed up with useless wars and racial strife
But next time there's a riot, well, you best stay out of sight

Well there's a riot going on
There's a riot going on
Well there's a riot going on
Student demonstration time

I was in high school at the time, but both Kent State and Jackson State had a profound effect on me. Fear, yes, but also a sense of resolve to keep up the struggle against "useless wars and racial strife". Yet this song, coming out a year after the events chronicled, totally undercuts it. Meh.



BTW, I found on the Internets lyrics to the song, but one source had replaced "The Bachelor of Bullets" with "badge of eternal rest". Was that just misheard lyrics or something else?

ROG