No News on the Front
It was a few weeks ago I put on the first part of a t series by the great Ken Burns. Vietnam it’s called, perhaps with a subtitle. It’s a story I’ve heard shards of but this was my first committed dive into the mess of it. The story telling and research Burns and his team does for such a production is awe inspiring. That is as far as the amazement runs as these heartbreaking and gut wrenching stories unfold in what feels like real time.
The series, which I have watched halfway though, has thus far left me depressed and agitated. A man can’t watch these lies unfold before the American people without developing a greater appreciation for why and how faith in American politics eroded to such a degree that we see today. To think the President himself, LBJ, was so hungry to save face that he was willing to let countless thousands spend their lives in a country the Red White and Blue had no purpose in. To see Nixon follow these treacherous footsteps, committing treason by speaking to leadership of the South Vietnamese to prevent peace talks paints a picture of greed greater than Da Vinci could have managed. Such a crooked villain can only be described as Devilish in the truest sense.
These of course are not novel takes. There were plenty among his contemporaries who saw the poison he served the public. I am not a crook, so says the wicked. Meanwhile those who prefer not to kill the innocent or waste their lives fighting for unattainable grounds were bludgeoned and pepper sprayed into silence.
I think back to the campus protests from not so long ago. There were less clubs this time around and the mace fire hoses were kept in storage but the thought crossed enough minds that one ought to wonder when is the next time we’ll be drug through the streets by our civil Protectors in the name of liberation.
These are troubling times, so it seems. Either that or I’ve got my phone too near to my mind. A little of both perhaps. In the meantime I’m not fighting for my scraps at the table. Today there is plenty but we all see the rations are emptying fast. But this is a matter to think of tomorrow, the day that never comes. Today we feast. In Canada we are royalty neighbouring the richest empire history has seen so far. That is until the War Pigs in five-grand suits decide to shovel thousands of young men into some unheard of stretch of land to die next to our American allies in the name of Liberty and Profit.
O’ Canada.