Click here to access article by Don North from ConsortiumNews.
Not sure how valuable this piece is to my blog's mission, but as an anti-Vietnam War activist I must respond in the way I and most of my fellow activists saw the news coverage. First of all, I don't cast blame on most journalists and North seems rather defensive in this piece. Journalists know what their bosses want like all "good" employees. Some will try to tell the truth, but some will easily cave in to pressure and the considerations about their careers in corporate media and engage in self-censorship.
In any case from my perspective at the time, the war was covered abominably. I was a student at a university whose library I often made use of. By reading foreign coverage and alternative news sources I soon learned the main truths about the war, and that corporate coverage was all a pack of lies. I and my fellow activists started handing out I.F. Stone's Weekly report to other students so that they could learn the truth.
I won't go through the thousands of lies that were told, but the big lie was that Vietnam was a weak domino that would soon fall prey to the nearby Chinese "commynists". And anti-communism was the primary theme that motivated all actions by the embryonic US empire. It became the new religion and anyone in the US who didn't subscribe to its teachings were essentially excommunicated, and those abroad were subject to invasion and occupation.
In reality the Vietnamese were fighting for independence and they had no fondness for the Chinese--North reports that such feelings still exist even today. They had been fighting for independence ever since the end of WWII, first against the French colonialists who were supplied with generous US military aid, and then directly against the US when we took over from them. The leaders initially had a general fondness for the US and even used our Declaration of Independence as a model for their own constitution. Ho Chi Min appealed to Truman for help in securing Vietnam's independence from French colonial rule. Yes, he had joined many Communist parties both in Vietnam and China, but it was because they were leading the fight against foreign domination. So, what happened after the Vietnamese forced us out of their country, and what kind of economy do the Vietnamese have now? I rest my case.
Today, the lies spread by corporate media and Empire directors are worse than ever before.
