In his essential history of the anti-Vietnam war movement, Out Now, the late Fred Halstead tells of the activist newspapers that were written by veterans and, in time, by active duty servicemen, newspapers that detailed the atrocities of war and urged soldiers to resist in ways grand and small.
By about the 1960s, most Marxists had begun to realize that the international class revolution wasn't going to happen.
Industrial workers had gained enough concessions from the Plutocrats and Oligarchs that they were able to buy a house in the suburbs, so shopping in strip malls, and enjoy beer and hot dogs at baseball games.
Marxists like Herbert Marcuse were deeply offended by the low suburban tastes of the lumpenprotelariat and industrial working classes.
Thus, Neo-Marxism and postmodern-deconstructionist ideologies were used to popularize the idea of "cultural revolution", the destruction of the non-revolutionary working classes and the system that created the non-revolutionary working classes.
The elitists and snobs on the cultural left, unable to destroy capitalism head on, set about creating ideologies that would destroy the basis of the unsophisticated suburban middle classes, which is to say, all of western civilization if necessary:
1. high-social-trust Constitutional order and the rule of law, participatory democracy
2. modern rationalism and the classical liberal arts curriculum (replace actual critical {rational} thought with critical {deconstructionist} theory)
3. industry: off shore working class jobs, or at least refuse to protest offshoring
4. wealth: allow the erosion of working class wealth and power
See Richard Rorty's comments on the above, and how the abandonment of the lower and working classes by the professional upper-middle class would cause "something to crack" after which a strongman would be elected in a populist backlash.
I can already hear the keyboards chattering, but please, save it. These guys attacked a population with many profoundly vulnerable people inside of it. They did so with maximum callousness and maximum cynicism, stoking exactly the kind of fires that are most professionally useful in our current era. And I got heated. You think this goes too far, it isn't what you paid for, fine. You want to cancel your subscription, go ahead. I am in earnest and I do not apologize.
While I'm 100% in agreement with you on this piece, a big part of why I subscribe to you is because we don't agree on everything and I enjoy your thoughful and cutting take on things. I enjoy different perspectives even if I'm not always convinced of them and I imagine many others here do too. Let the moral narccisists go. Your subscriber base will be better for it, as will you in the long run.
Wow, I bet you feel a lot better after writing this take. Punishing this kind of clueless arrogance is a vital public service and this post was a job well done.
This is the kind of post I subscribed for - thank you for writing it.
If the authors of the book had dug a tiny bit into the history of PTSD, they'd have found that apart from war veterans it particularly affects victims of sexual abuse (especially in childhood). Not too long ago, social justice implied you had some sympathy for rape victims, have the white ones stopped mattering too? (I've also read your post about that therapist.)
This piece was rhetorical fucking napalm, and I loved it. These two are trying to profit and gain status for themselves on the backs of others' suffering. I'll save my tears for those who deserve them, like Cal Walker. Darda and Lehmann won't be getting a single damn one.
Freddie I am not going to complain about your opinions but your methodology.
1. The draft and breakdown of troops in Vietnam- you seem to ignore that multiple things may have an impact on the breakdowns of the draft pool. Staying in college got people a deferment and connections could get you in national guard or a doctor. see below for more causes rather than your raw explanation of the draft breakdown. http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/the-military-draft-during-the-#:~:text=The%20Draft%20in%20Context,eligible%20pool%20of%2027%20million. "One year later, the Pentagon acknowledged the usefulness of conscription, because one-third of enlisted soldiers and two-fifths of officers “would not have entered the service if not for the draft as a motivator.” The Selective Service also authorized deferments for men who planned to study for careers labeled as “vital” to national security interests, such as physics and engineering, which exacerbated the racial and socioeconomic inequalities of the Vietnam-era draft. Of the 2.5 million enlisted men who served during Vietnam, 80 percent came from poor or working-class families, and the same ratio only had a high school education."
2. your chart crime of the lowering number of veterans in congress. World War 2 had 12 million soldiers involved and us population at the time was 149 million, there was also only 10 women in congress in 1945 which gradually grew over time. That when 12 million people are soldiers in a population of 149 million and with mostly men serving basically 74 million or fewer who were of military age means that most will be veterans. Especially due to GI Bill that sent a lot of people to college post world war 2. you totally ignore all that context Freddie.
the policy stuff is above but the rest below is going after your stupid opinion. Yes White Men suffered in Vietnam and had mental trauma, but the white men still dominate the country and white male aggrievement is used and exists. you are not a deep thinker. your piece is basically the same argument of white privilege doesn't exist because there are poor white people in West Virginia or Kentucky.
The onus is on you to demonstrate why your data supports your conclusion that Vietnam Vets used white man grievances to amass more power which was disproportionate to their numbers, and why the fact that some white men have power means the ones who don't deserve no compassion or activism to address their suffering. That's your final point, which you present as the salve to stupid opinions as opposed to the cruelty it is.
I imagine that, since Freddy's not a "deep thinker," that would make you a veritable titan of intellect, right? It probably took you an hour to put together that soup-sandwich of a comment. You sound like someone on a drunken Wikipedia tour.
excellent article, classic Freddie, deconstructing horrible lies! keep up the good work.
besides all of the ugly little details of the Vietnam war that the writers Freddie is criticizing left out that didn't fit their narrative, the fact is that the totalitarians on the cultural-left have had, sadly, a lot of success in turning the US military into a corrupt, "woke" mess (as president Eisenhower pointed out in 1960s, it was already corrupt, but the corruption is now off the chart, with the percentage of psychopathic careerists in the capture of defense contractors at a ridiculous high).
I came here specifically to say "Damn, I feel like Freddie held back." Funny how different people's interpretations can be.
As someone who has a shred of human compassion I found myself having a visceral reaction to their depravity. As someone who grew up around a lot of men who saw combat in Vietnam, I was disgusted.
This also fits with the piece from last Monday. These two clowns have probably never even met a black Vietnam War combat vet. Although I suspect if they had they're so craven they wouldn't give a shit what the people they claimed to be aggrieved for thought.
Thank you for this powerful piece. This is the sort of writing I used to relish from Alexander Cockburn (before he died) and Christopher Hitchens (before he went over to the dark side).
Man.... a whole article painting white male veterans suffering from PTSD as just another form of white identity politics? That's one of those things that sounds like something Sean Hannity would make up. But lo and behold, there it is in TNR.
I've had that feeling A LOT since 2016. I think "Oh no way. That's ridiculous. Sounds like a Fox News parody of social justice." Then I go to Twitter and find it's real.
And people wonder why Trump got more votes than expected in 2020 (I didn't vote for him btw). This Woke shit is the ultimate own-goal on the part of liberals.
I have only watched Fox for one year. I was a CNN acolyte before that. Now I watch both. I always watch both, I think that is a necessity.
Fox thrives on pointing out the logical non sequiturs of the other side. It is fun making fun of the whole victim thing. Trump rally‘s, they were hilarious rants against the stupidity , illogic and dirty tricks of elite. I liked Trump, he was colon Hydrotherapy for the elite; an imbecile that was correct, he beat them at their own game. He short circuited the game and boy are they mad now. Establishment has unified around the Dems and they are aggressive - white supremacy, hate speech, Russia - no more on authorized presidents. They lost control of democracy and the Rabble got their guy!
This was good. I have, for a long time, think people on the left have developed this really bad habit of using film/media criticism as a way to avoid doing any actual research in regards to history, demographics, or anything else. I'm not sure how this happened, too many English majors who only had those tools in their toolkit (I was one, believe me, I know). Maybe everyone saw Zizek doing it and bastardized it. Who knows? It's as if they somehow forgot that Hollywood isn't what actually happened, or they're frustrated and lazy and the don't want to accept the boundaries of their academic abilities.
Writing, even academic writing is trendy, shallow business. Fashion trends in these circles change just like clothes and music. Right now, the absolute worst sort of liberal idpol is in. Publishing companies are trying to wring every last red cent out of it and writers like this are trying to milk it for all the clout and cultural capital they can. This is another way of saying, they don't even really give a shit about the subject matter they are covering. It's hardly real to them, the sufferings of Vietnam vets are treated as fictional Hollywood films instead of something that affected actual people.
This has gone on too long, but it can't be said often or loudly enough. It's not even really about politics for people like this. Political views are just a biproduct, something produced as secondary to social and economic ladder climbing. It's naked careerism all the way down.
I am a widow of a VN Veteran who died of wounds. He was drafted because he was working class, a carpenter from rural American, not in college. It is Memorial Day and I can't write everything I am feeling just now. Only 30% of the men who served in VN are still alive.
Academic men who taught Darda had student deferments during the VN era so anyone who was in college during the VN era did not go. I have found that the group of men--the wealthy, the college educated-- who avoided the draft found ways to justify. Controlling the narrative as they would, they taught people like Darda. (Darda isn't a minor academic- he has books by major university presses). Also they likely knew ppl on draft boards who controlled who was drafted. The National Guard was an out for those who knew someone like GWBush.
My husband did not want to go to VN. He joined Veterans for Peace when he returned after Tet. A professor at a rally asked him, "was he too stupid to get a college deferment?" It is so much more complicated than Darda knows because he was educated by teachers who had to self justify. (probably alive in much higher numbers than the men drafted). Senator Blumenthal from CT where Darda was educated campaigned as a VN Veteran but was not.
And you are 100% right about _The New Republic_ . Leon Wieseltier was many years their muse. I unsubbed years ago. Thanks for reminding me why I did.
My father was a member of Veterans for Peace as well. Both my father and my uncle signed up "voluntarily" to avoid being drafted - exactly the scenario that Freddie wrote about. My father (who at one point was homeless) passed away last year. My uncle has permanent lung damage from Agent Orange and still gets visibly anxious when he hears a helicopter. Thank you Freddie for this article. I hope others pile on and trash Lehmann's revisionist history.
An older cousin was a marine combat vet early in the war, probably enlisted since he came from a patriotic family (his father was a WW2 era Italian-American son of immigrants). When he got to Vietnam, around 1965-66, he realized it was a giant lie, and went AWOL as soon as he had the chance, and entered the "underground" anti-war protest movement. Eventually he was captured by the FBI and "disappeared" into the military prison system. (The Pentagon claimed they had no record of him ever even being in the Marines.)
There was a Congressional investigation (by William Proxmire?) of such "disappearances" which my father, a senior USAF combat fighter pilot (veteran of WW2, Korea, Vietnam) participated in by roaming the halls of the Pentagon for months asking where the hell his nephew and the other vets were.
Eventually they found a bunch of the "disappeared" vets, including my cousin, and got them out of the military prisons that had "disappeared" into.
---
The astonishing thing is that the immense cruelty and corruption of the war machine, the military-industrial-complex, appears to now go un-recognized by the totalitarians on the cultural-left, perhaps reduced to an after thought.
The reason for that appears to be that the totalitarians on the cultural-left have been infecting the US military with "woke" bs for many years, and want to preserve the military *for their own purposes*.
Over on reddit, on one of their leftwing communities that is essentially just screengrabs of woke idiots saying incredibly dim things, someone posted a grab of a tweet from a white woman claiming to have exorcised terms like "summer" from her vocabulary because the global south don't experience the same seasons at the same time, and thus such terminology centres the western perspective.
I wrote what I thought was a clever-arsed but clearly ridiculous response along the lines of "when you're having a heart attack be considerate and ensure you're not centering your medical needs over that of an indigent person of colour. Loudly wailing "it hurts oh god it hurts" while demanding an ambulance when most of the world don't have recourse to emergency vehicular assistance is gross." I hoped it might get a few upvotes and promptly forgot about it until now.
A couple of days ago I landed upon an episode of The Day Today from 1994, in which a scandal breaks out when the Queen and John Major get into a punch-up. As the Queen rides en route to Downing Street in order to formally reciprocate the drubbing, a patriotic feel-good film is broadcast to placate the outraged masses. The film ends with two brawling men hugging at the sight of a union flag. The calming voiceover says something like "this is Britain and we know that conflict will always perish in the brotherhood of flags" and I had a chuckle at how prescient the programme was at predicting what British politics would descend into 30 years later. These days satire lasts about 30 seconds before it's superceded by the insanity of our reality.
Your "clever-arsed but clearly ridiculous response" was funny until I realized that I could actually imagine someone these days putting forth such an argument w/o a hint of irony. (I'm reminded, for example, of Freddie's recent post about one of his subscribers being told her suffering and mental anguish didn't compare to women of color.) I'm sure this was your point since you conclude with "These days satire lasts about 30 seconds before it's superceded by the insanity of our reality."
I have a more meta question that came up as I was reading this piece.
You begin by stressing the importance of individual choice (in particular the moral choices made by veterans). You then, later in the piece, go on to stress a materialist conception in which people's choices are (to be reductionistic) a function of their material circumstances. So, I'm uncertain how to square these two viewpoints? I've only been following you for a few months now, so maybe you've already written about this somewhere else but it does seem to be a tension.
(My--scantily substantiated--theory is that it follows from your commitment to existentialist-type views which I gather you hold given your admiration for de Beauvoir and more traditional materialistic leftism)
Our choices are forever constrained by what the existentialists called "facticity"; the choices we choose within those limitations define ourselves. All manner of people were in some way or another forced to go to Vietnam. Some of them did good things and some did bad. The responsibility for the conflict writ large falls on those who authored it from the heights of power. The individual choices made by the men at war that created greater or lesser suffering fall on them.
I have a game I play with my kids - they get to decide if they are going to eat brussels sprouts for dinner, or broccoli. The important thing is - they have a choice.
To vastly oversimplify, conventional (mythic) morals are mostly about subjective experience: spiritual salvation and liberation from evil, sin and suffering.
With the invention of the steam engine (building on Enlightenment rationalism), the tremendous advantage of objective awareness began to change things. Slaves were much less necessary for instance.
5,000 years of people praying for an end to the sin of slavery came to an end (mostly) because of the rise of objectivity, rationalism and engineering innovation, not because of prayer.
(Similarly, we are now in a postmodern era of disruptions to the industrial system and its sense making capabilities, such as the fragile "Blue church" as described by Jordan Hall. Network effects are having a similar impact as did steam engines to the existing paradigm).
God, Freddie, this was magnificent. Truly. When I was 18 I was drafted to serve in another war, and 40 years later the emotional scars are still with me. So, thank you. (My only small quibble is that from what I've read by him, I am not sure Serwer deserves to be named in the same article as these two.) Thanks again.
Christ Freddie. This is horrifying. I read as much of this despicable article as I could stomach, and your take is correct. Thank you bringing it to light.
Please let anyone who objects to your characterization respond. It’s time to start addressing this mindset.
Freddie, this is one of the best things I have ever read. I am going to re read and digest, and make a more thoughtful comment later. But this hits on the head the nail i keep swinging at. thanks
By about the 1960s, most Marxists had begun to realize that the international class revolution wasn't going to happen.
Industrial workers had gained enough concessions from the Plutocrats and Oligarchs that they were able to buy a house in the suburbs, so shopping in strip malls, and enjoy beer and hot dogs at baseball games.
Marxists like Herbert Marcuse were deeply offended by the low suburban tastes of the lumpenprotelariat and industrial working classes.
Thus, Neo-Marxism and postmodern-deconstructionist ideologies were used to popularize the idea of "cultural revolution", the destruction of the non-revolutionary working classes and the system that created the non-revolutionary working classes.
The elitists and snobs on the cultural left, unable to destroy capitalism head on, set about creating ideologies that would destroy the basis of the unsophisticated suburban middle classes, which is to say, all of western civilization if necessary:
1. high-social-trust Constitutional order and the rule of law, participatory democracy
2. modern rationalism and the classical liberal arts curriculum (replace actual critical {rational} thought with critical {deconstructionist} theory)
3. industry: off shore working class jobs, or at least refuse to protest offshoring
4. wealth: allow the erosion of working class wealth and power
See Richard Rorty's comments on the above, and how the abandonment of the lower and working classes by the professional upper-middle class would cause "something to crack" after which a strongman would be elected in a populist backlash.
The US Constitution was written by the rich, for the rich, and you worship that same order, you right-wing shill.
another boring, mentally dysfunctional sociopathic troll. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
toxic
For those that love academic-style jargon, neo-marxism explained:
https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-neo-marxism/
They were one part of a massive level of collateral damage on both sides.
McNamara had possession of an independent intelligence report early in Johnson's administration that told him the war was doomed.
Do you really think that the USA should have stayed longer, and killed something like another million people so more boat people could get out???
I can already hear the keyboards chattering, but please, save it. These guys attacked a population with many profoundly vulnerable people inside of it. They did so with maximum callousness and maximum cynicism, stoking exactly the kind of fires that are most professionally useful in our current era. And I got heated. You think this goes too far, it isn't what you paid for, fine. You want to cancel your subscription, go ahead. I am in earnest and I do not apologize.
Cancel? This is why we subbed in the first place.
Frankly, I'd only consider cancelling if you *did* apologize.
While I'm 100% in agreement with you on this piece, a big part of why I subscribe to you is because we don't agree on everything and I enjoy your thoughful and cutting take on things. I enjoy different perspectives even if I'm not always convinced of them and I imagine many others here do too. Let the moral narccisists go. Your subscriber base will be better for it, as will you in the long run.
Cancel? People are canceling over this?
I just upped my sub from $50/year to the $200/year "founding member" version.
Wow, I bet you feel a lot better after writing this take. Punishing this kind of clueless arrogance is a vital public service and this post was a job well done.
This is the kind of post I subscribed for - thank you for writing it.
If the authors of the book had dug a tiny bit into the history of PTSD, they'd have found that apart from war veterans it particularly affects victims of sexual abuse (especially in childhood). Not too long ago, social justice implied you had some sympathy for rape victims, have the white ones stopped mattering too? (I've also read your post about that therapist.)
Freddy, you'll likely end up doubling your subscribers and deservedly so. As a veteran, I say thank you and well done.
New subscriber here. I paid up solely because of this piece.
This piece was rhetorical fucking napalm, and I loved it. These two are trying to profit and gain status for themselves on the backs of others' suffering. I'll save my tears for those who deserve them, like Cal Walker. Darda and Lehmann won't be getting a single damn one.
Agreement to the sentiment above--this is another piece of wonderful writing, the very reason I have followed Freddie for a long time.
Freddie I am not going to complain about your opinions but your methodology.
1. The draft and breakdown of troops in Vietnam- you seem to ignore that multiple things may have an impact on the breakdowns of the draft pool. Staying in college got people a deferment and connections could get you in national guard or a doctor. see below for more causes rather than your raw explanation of the draft breakdown. http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/the-military-draft-during-the-#:~:text=The%20Draft%20in%20Context,eligible%20pool%20of%2027%20million. "One year later, the Pentagon acknowledged the usefulness of conscription, because one-third of enlisted soldiers and two-fifths of officers “would not have entered the service if not for the draft as a motivator.” The Selective Service also authorized deferments for men who planned to study for careers labeled as “vital” to national security interests, such as physics and engineering, which exacerbated the racial and socioeconomic inequalities of the Vietnam-era draft. Of the 2.5 million enlisted men who served during Vietnam, 80 percent came from poor or working-class families, and the same ratio only had a high school education."
2. your chart crime of the lowering number of veterans in congress. World War 2 had 12 million soldiers involved and us population at the time was 149 million, there was also only 10 women in congress in 1945 which gradually grew over time. That when 12 million people are soldiers in a population of 149 million and with mostly men serving basically 74 million or fewer who were of military age means that most will be veterans. Especially due to GI Bill that sent a lot of people to college post world war 2. you totally ignore all that context Freddie.
sources https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-us-military-numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_United_States_census https://cawp.rutgers.edu/history-women-us-congress
the policy stuff is above but the rest below is going after your stupid opinion. Yes White Men suffered in Vietnam and had mental trauma, but the white men still dominate the country and white male aggrievement is used and exists. you are not a deep thinker. your piece is basically the same argument of white privilege doesn't exist because there are poor white people in West Virginia or Kentucky.
ugly pc-left polemic rhetoric, explained:
From another discussion:
Cultural Marxist, PC left, SJW rhetoric*, explained:
0. gaslight
1. Deflect from what was actually said/done
2. Distort or lie about facts and evidence (such as straw manning)
3. Cherry pick evidence to fit the (victim/diversity) narrative
4. Engage in emotive, feel good bs (special pleading) rather than use rational, objective thought
5. Use guilt by association ("you are a K-K-K/n-a-z-i") to smear people that dare to criticize PC/SJW leftist ideology.
[->] Use groupthink and scapegoating to marginalize critics of the PC left.
6. Demonize the personalities of opponents/critics.
7. Destroy the reputation, character and career of critics of the PC left
8. Use psychological violence, which could include doxxing, and threats of actual violence, against critics of the PC left.
-----
*Note: the above can be generalized to fit any ideology.
e.pierce care to comment on the actual data i presented? sick copypasta maybe you can use the navy seal one next?
since you have been banned, I'll keep this as simple as possible:
my comment is that the (cherry picked) data is used to support your toxic narrative.
Dude, you need to settle the fuck down. You're embarrassing yourself.
Do you recognize the cruelty in yourself, or nah?
great job engaging with the data and conclusions dude.
The onus is on you to demonstrate why your data supports your conclusion that Vietnam Vets used white man grievances to amass more power which was disproportionate to their numbers, and why the fact that some white men have power means the ones who don't deserve no compassion or activism to address their suffering. That's your final point, which you present as the salve to stupid opinions as opposed to the cruelty it is.
... this all points to the fact that the Vietnam veterans movement was proportionally representative, which strengthens my point, not undermines it.
Your example of the polling data is not a research question at all; it's an interpretation of the data I cited. And not a compelling one.
Since you're being intentionally inflammatory, you're gonna take a little break from commenting.
I imagine that, since Freddy's not a "deep thinker," that would make you a veritable titan of intellect, right? It probably took you an hour to put together that soup-sandwich of a comment. You sound like someone on a drunken Wikipedia tour.
excellent article, classic Freddie, deconstructing horrible lies! keep up the good work.
besides all of the ugly little details of the Vietnam war that the writers Freddie is criticizing left out that didn't fit their narrative, the fact is that the totalitarians on the cultural-left have had, sadly, a lot of success in turning the US military into a corrupt, "woke" mess (as president Eisenhower pointed out in 1960s, it was already corrupt, but the corruption is now off the chart, with the percentage of psychopathic careerists in the capture of defense contractors at a ridiculous high).
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-is-the-woke-military-really-preparing-us-for/
I came here specifically to say "Damn, I feel like Freddie held back." Funny how different people's interpretations can be.
As someone who has a shred of human compassion I found myself having a visceral reaction to their depravity. As someone who grew up around a lot of men who saw combat in Vietnam, I was disgusted.
This also fits with the piece from last Monday. These two clowns have probably never even met a black Vietnam War combat vet. Although I suspect if they had they're so craven they wouldn't give a shit what the people they claimed to be aggrieved for thought.
Great piece Freddie. Thank you!
I'm another person who subbed because of this article (and others that I've read here, but this tipped it for me), well done.
Serious inquiry: what publications, if any, are capable of doing the kind of sympathetic, humane, well-written work you're espousing for here?
Substack writers.
Yes, substack is a godsend. You can click on any commenter's name and see what other writers they subscribe to, this is how I find new (to me) ones.
Thank you for this powerful piece. This is the sort of writing I used to relish from Alexander Cockburn (before he died) and Christopher Hitchens (before he went over to the dark side).
Well, and necessarily, said, Freddie.
Man.... a whole article painting white male veterans suffering from PTSD as just another form of white identity politics? That's one of those things that sounds like something Sean Hannity would make up. But lo and behold, there it is in TNR.
I've had that feeling A LOT since 2016. I think "Oh no way. That's ridiculous. Sounds like a Fox News parody of social justice." Then I go to Twitter and find it's real.
And people wonder why Trump got more votes than expected in 2020 (I didn't vote for him btw). This Woke shit is the ultimate own-goal on the part of liberals.
I have only watched Fox for one year. I was a CNN acolyte before that. Now I watch both. I always watch both, I think that is a necessity.
Fox thrives on pointing out the logical non sequiturs of the other side. It is fun making fun of the whole victim thing. Trump rally‘s, they were hilarious rants against the stupidity , illogic and dirty tricks of elite. I liked Trump, he was colon Hydrotherapy for the elite; an imbecile that was correct, he beat them at their own game. He short circuited the game and boy are they mad now. Establishment has unified around the Dems and they are aggressive - white supremacy, hate speech, Russia - no more on authorized presidents. They lost control of democracy and the Rabble got their guy!
This was good. I have, for a long time, think people on the left have developed this really bad habit of using film/media criticism as a way to avoid doing any actual research in regards to history, demographics, or anything else. I'm not sure how this happened, too many English majors who only had those tools in their toolkit (I was one, believe me, I know). Maybe everyone saw Zizek doing it and bastardized it. Who knows? It's as if they somehow forgot that Hollywood isn't what actually happened, or they're frustrated and lazy and the don't want to accept the boundaries of their academic abilities.
Writing, even academic writing is trendy, shallow business. Fashion trends in these circles change just like clothes and music. Right now, the absolute worst sort of liberal idpol is in. Publishing companies are trying to wring every last red cent out of it and writers like this are trying to milk it for all the clout and cultural capital they can. This is another way of saying, they don't even really give a shit about the subject matter they are covering. It's hardly real to them, the sufferings of Vietnam vets are treated as fictional Hollywood films instead of something that affected actual people.
This has gone on too long, but it can't be said often or loudly enough. It's not even really about politics for people like this. Political views are just a biproduct, something produced as secondary to social and economic ladder climbing. It's naked careerism all the way down.
Agree. Academics know where the prizes are today.
Awesome. If this article were a song, I'd say it's a banger and it slaps.
I think that's what I'll say about it as an article too, actually.
I am a widow of a VN Veteran who died of wounds. He was drafted because he was working class, a carpenter from rural American, not in college. It is Memorial Day and I can't write everything I am feeling just now. Only 30% of the men who served in VN are still alive.
Academic men who taught Darda had student deferments during the VN era so anyone who was in college during the VN era did not go. I have found that the group of men--the wealthy, the college educated-- who avoided the draft found ways to justify. Controlling the narrative as they would, they taught people like Darda. (Darda isn't a minor academic- he has books by major university presses). Also they likely knew ppl on draft boards who controlled who was drafted. The National Guard was an out for those who knew someone like GWBush.
My husband did not want to go to VN. He joined Veterans for Peace when he returned after Tet. A professor at a rally asked him, "was he too stupid to get a college deferment?" It is so much more complicated than Darda knows because he was educated by teachers who had to self justify. (probably alive in much higher numbers than the men drafted). Senator Blumenthal from CT where Darda was educated campaigned as a VN Veteran but was not.
And you are 100% right about _The New Republic_ . Leon Wieseltier was many years their muse. I unsubbed years ago. Thanks for reminding me why I did.
My father was a member of Veterans for Peace as well. Both my father and my uncle signed up "voluntarily" to avoid being drafted - exactly the scenario that Freddie wrote about. My father (who at one point was homeless) passed away last year. My uncle has permanent lung damage from Agent Orange and still gets visibly anxious when he hears a helicopter. Thank you Freddie for this article. I hope others pile on and trash Lehmann's revisionist history.
An older cousin was a marine combat vet early in the war, probably enlisted since he came from a patriotic family (his father was a WW2 era Italian-American son of immigrants). When he got to Vietnam, around 1965-66, he realized it was a giant lie, and went AWOL as soon as he had the chance, and entered the "underground" anti-war protest movement. Eventually he was captured by the FBI and "disappeared" into the military prison system. (The Pentagon claimed they had no record of him ever even being in the Marines.)
There was a Congressional investigation (by William Proxmire?) of such "disappearances" which my father, a senior USAF combat fighter pilot (veteran of WW2, Korea, Vietnam) participated in by roaming the halls of the Pentagon for months asking where the hell his nephew and the other vets were.
Eventually they found a bunch of the "disappeared" vets, including my cousin, and got them out of the military prisons that had "disappeared" into.
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The astonishing thing is that the immense cruelty and corruption of the war machine, the military-industrial-complex, appears to now go un-recognized by the totalitarians on the cultural-left, perhaps reduced to an after thought.
The reason for that appears to be that the totalitarians on the cultural-left have been infecting the US military with "woke" bs for many years, and want to preserve the military *for their own purposes*.
Over on reddit, on one of their leftwing communities that is essentially just screengrabs of woke idiots saying incredibly dim things, someone posted a grab of a tweet from a white woman claiming to have exorcised terms like "summer" from her vocabulary because the global south don't experience the same seasons at the same time, and thus such terminology centres the western perspective.
I wrote what I thought was a clever-arsed but clearly ridiculous response along the lines of "when you're having a heart attack be considerate and ensure you're not centering your medical needs over that of an indigent person of colour. Loudly wailing "it hurts oh god it hurts" while demanding an ambulance when most of the world don't have recourse to emergency vehicular assistance is gross." I hoped it might get a few upvotes and promptly forgot about it until now.
A couple of days ago I landed upon an episode of The Day Today from 1994, in which a scandal breaks out when the Queen and John Major get into a punch-up. As the Queen rides en route to Downing Street in order to formally reciprocate the drubbing, a patriotic feel-good film is broadcast to placate the outraged masses. The film ends with two brawling men hugging at the sight of a union flag. The calming voiceover says something like "this is Britain and we know that conflict will always perish in the brotherhood of flags" and I had a chuckle at how prescient the programme was at predicting what British politics would descend into 30 years later. These days satire lasts about 30 seconds before it's superceded by the insanity of our reality.
Your "clever-arsed but clearly ridiculous response" was funny until I realized that I could actually imagine someone these days putting forth such an argument w/o a hint of irony. (I'm reminded, for example, of Freddie's recent post about one of his subscribers being told her suffering and mental anguish didn't compare to women of color.) I'm sure this was your point since you conclude with "These days satire lasts about 30 seconds before it's superceded by the insanity of our reality."
Absolutely. Satire is lapped by reality within seconds.
I have a more meta question that came up as I was reading this piece.
You begin by stressing the importance of individual choice (in particular the moral choices made by veterans). You then, later in the piece, go on to stress a materialist conception in which people's choices are (to be reductionistic) a function of their material circumstances. So, I'm uncertain how to square these two viewpoints? I've only been following you for a few months now, so maybe you've already written about this somewhere else but it does seem to be a tension.
(My--scantily substantiated--theory is that it follows from your commitment to existentialist-type views which I gather you hold given your admiration for de Beauvoir and more traditional materialistic leftism)
Our choices are forever constrained by what the existentialists called "facticity"; the choices we choose within those limitations define ourselves. All manner of people were in some way or another forced to go to Vietnam. Some of them did good things and some did bad. The responsibility for the conflict writ large falls on those who authored it from the heights of power. The individual choices made by the men at war that created greater or lesser suffering fall on them.
I have a game I play with my kids - they get to decide if they are going to eat brussels sprouts for dinner, or broccoli. The important thing is - they have a choice.
I tried that once but it led to a general strike. 😂
Very good meta question.
To vastly oversimplify, conventional (mythic) morals are mostly about subjective experience: spiritual salvation and liberation from evil, sin and suffering.
With the invention of the steam engine (building on Enlightenment rationalism), the tremendous advantage of objective awareness began to change things. Slaves were much less necessary for instance.
5,000 years of people praying for an end to the sin of slavery came to an end (mostly) because of the rise of objectivity, rationalism and engineering innovation, not because of prayer.
(Similarly, we are now in a postmodern era of disruptions to the industrial system and its sense making capabilities, such as the fragile "Blue church" as described by Jordan Hall. Network effects are having a similar impact as did steam engines to the existing paradigm).
God, Freddie, this was magnificent. Truly. When I was 18 I was drafted to serve in another war, and 40 years later the emotional scars are still with me. So, thank you. (My only small quibble is that from what I've read by him, I am not sure Serwer deserves to be named in the same article as these two.) Thanks again.
Christ Freddie. This is horrifying. I read as much of this despicable article as I could stomach, and your take is correct. Thank you bringing it to light.
Please let anyone who objects to your characterization respond. It’s time to start addressing this mindset.
Freddie, this is one of the best things I have ever read. I am going to re read and digest, and make a more thoughtful comment later. But this hits on the head the nail i keep swinging at. thanks
ric
Wonderful writing style.