PBS turns blind eye to the racism behind The Vietnam Experiment.

::::::::

In revisiting the PBS series on Vietnam, it is even clearer to me now that Burns' intention was more about bolstering his self-created image as america's chronicler of culture and benchmark events than it was to providing journalistic integrity in an attempt to uncover the many truths that still remain buried in mainstream accounts of Vietnam. But to do that, Burns would have had to stand up to his bosses at PBS who are solidly in the pocket of the neoliberal/neocon establishment.

Ten hours of dramatic footage and cherrypicked interviews does not tell the true story of how the invasion of Vietnam was planned before WWII had even ended. Or how the massive US military machine that was created during that war was eager to test for itself the evolving technologies that the Axis powers had been developing before their defeat for the control of developing nations -- particularly those intent on self-determination and guerrilla resistance. The genocidal experiment began in earnest long before troops were committed when the following steps and events began taking shape:

• the relocation to Bethesda and Aberdeen of various key members of the Third Reich and the scientists who ran the infamous Japanese torture center, Unit 731;
• the Pentagon's designing the "electronic battlefield" strategies for efficient carpet bombing of infrastructure;
• massive testing of bio-defoliants, "rainbow herbicides" and chemical weapons by Dow, Monsanto and others leading up to Operation Ranch Hand where the chemicals, like dioxin, were sprayed directly on millions of Vietnamese civilians to test mortality thresholds;
• drafting plans for sabotaging rice paddies and dams to force mass starvation through crop destruction and flooding to test human endurance;
• forced mass-relocation campaigns to subvert all sense of cultural identity and ancestral tradition;
• new interrogation, humiliation and torture techniques along with creation of programs like the State Department's Phoenix Program designed to destroy all will in the hearts and minds of the peasants who resist complete subjugation.

The following quote by the great war-photo journalist, the late Philip Jones Griffiths, will provide the needed contrast and perspective on Ken Burns' collaborationist tripe. In his book Vietnam Inc, Griffiths quotes a US officer reviewing the effectiveness of napalm on site in Vietnam in language that reveals the deep racist undercurrent of the US military. Race was a most critical factor in gaining approval in government funding for the atrocities, yet overlooked or downplayed by Burns, as it has been with every other revisionist "historian" of the US campaign of terror in Southeast Asia, specifically the Vietnam Experiment in Counterrevolution, a/k/a the Vietnam War:

We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn't so hot -- if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene -- now it sticks like sh*t to a blanket. But if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willie Peter (white phosphorus) so's to make it burn better. And just one drop is enough, it'll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorus poisoning.

***image source: John Pilger

(Article changed on November 5, 2017 at 04:40)

Authors Bio:

film business professional

https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/settings?trk=prof-0-ovw-public_profile-secondary

I have worked in the motion picture industry since 1988, when I produced and directed DOMINOES: PORTRAIT OF A DECADE, a critically acclaimed documentary on the Vietnam era that was featured on PBS and HBO.

In 1990, I co-founded Northern Arts Entertainment -- noted US distributor of award-winning international films -- where as Chairman and CEO, I presided over the release of over sixty motion pictures, including Oscar nominees CHILDREN OF NATURE and HEDD WYN; Ken Loach's Cannes Special Jury Prize winner, RAINING STONES; Oscar winner WALLACE AND GROMIT: A CLOSE SHAVE; Steven Soderbergh's SCHIZOPOLIS and GRAY'S ANATOMY; Pavel Lungin's Palme d'Or nominee, LUNA PARK; Pupi Avati's David di Donatello award winner, INCANTATO; and NON TI MUOVERE which won a David di Donatello for its star, Penelope Cruz and its director, Sergio Castellitto.

In 2000, I created International Arthouse Features, and in 2007, served as a managing partner of iArtHouse.com, a premiere downloading website dedicated to the best in world cinema.

Presently, I have optioned all rights to THE BARDOT EFFECT a feature film that I co-wrote and am producing with Rome producer, Giuliana Del Punta (Scorsese's, MY VOYAGE TO ITALY).

In addition to my producing and stewardship of Northern Arts and International Arthouse Features, I am a member of Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative's Board of Directors and serve as Vice-Chairman. I am also on the Board of Directors for Reader to Reader -- organization dedicated to expanding literacy and learning opportunities for the nation's most chronically underserved and vulnerable communities, including inner-city schools, Native American reservations, and poor rural towns.

After college, I created a street academy with the Urban League to teach inner city youth expelled from HS for violence. I also taught college curricula in an alternative-to-jail college program designed for students arrested for drugs.

While in graduate school at Columbia I was in the leadership of CAIM (Columbia Anti-Imperialist Movement) as well as VVAW (Vietnam Vets Against the War) and the Chile Solidarity Committee.

Upon graduation from law school and before founding Northern Arts, I served on the Superfund litigation team in the Region I Office of the United States Environmental Protection Agency for four years.

I have a BA in philosophy from Fordham University, a MA in English from Columbia University Teachers College, studied film at the graduate level at Columbia University School of the Arts and earned a JD degree from Northeastern University School of Law.

I am also the co-owner of Copper Beech, a real estate investment LLC.