Remembering

The first step is to convince you that you're remembering certain events in your life incorrectly.  If those events make for crappy memories - like having been in combat, or that you may have done things you know were wrong, or that you fell for a scam and got played for a sucker - well, then I can substitute an alternative version of history and you'll be more than a little happy just to go along with it.

From truthout:

With George W. Bush's wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and Barack Obama's drone wars in seven Muslim-majority countries and his escalating wars in Iraq and Syria, we have apparently moved beyond the Vietnam syndrome. By planting disinformation in the public realm, the government has built support for its recent wars, as it did with Vietnam.

Now the Pentagon is planning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War by launching a $30 million program to rewrite and sanitize its history. Replete with a fancy interactive website, the effort is aimed at teaching schoolchildren a revisionist history of the war. The program is focused on honoring our service members who fought in Vietnam. But conspicuously absent from the website is a description of the antiwar movement, at the heart of which was the GI movement.

Thousands of GIs participated in the antiwar movement. Many felt betrayed by their government. They established coffee houses and underground newspapers where they shared information about resistance. During the course of the war, more than 500,000 soldiers deserted. The strength of the rebellion of ground troops caused the military to shift to an air war. Ultimately, the war claimed the lives of 58,000 Americans. Untold numbers were wounded and returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. In an astounding statistic, more Vietnam veterans have committed suicide than were killed in the war.

If we know the real story about what "our" government wants done, most of us are going to be pretty reluctant to do it.  And that's always a problem for governments.

So I have to ask - What's the story here?  Why now?  Are we getting this Happy-Talk-History because we need solace about another shitty chapter in USAmerica Inc's past, or are we being softened up for the next little adventure that we'll end up feeling shitty about all over again 40 years down the road?

Also too, Veterans' Day is coming up, and we're losing veterans of "the good war" at a very brisk pace.  So maybe we just need a little good ol' American PR know-how to take the Vietnam shit brick and polish it to a bright lustrous sheen blah blah blah - we need heroes, and heroes don't come from stupid little corporate sponsored wars.