This article really hit me. I've been saying that the Palestinian struggle is this generations Vietnam for months, except the Palestinian struggle existed during the Vietnam War and has endured for 76 years. I made a decision to educate myself and have been studying the history of Asia and what is considered the middle east (and North Africa). In March I visited Egypt and Morocco, next year I'm going to Thailand and Vietnam. My worldview has completely changed. I no longer rely on the western, i.e. American POV. My government probably now considers me radicalized.
Super well argued. It's become increasingly difficult to engage with American Media over the years and it's embarrassing to admit at the same time how inescapable it is.
It also feels like Hollywood is a lab playground to see how consumers respond to different narrative framings and level of violence towards different populations.
"This was the first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors, courtesy of the most efficient propaganda machine ever created [Hollywood] (with all due respect to Joseph Goebbels and the Nazis, who never achieved global domination)."
Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer (p. 159). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition.
Brilliantly written. I too have seen the parallels between the Vietnam war and the Gaza/West Bank genocide and our reaction to it as a society. The gaslighting by Israel and its supporters, the blind allegiance to the Israeli military machine by US politicians of all political stripes, the hypocritical criticism of student protesters by many so-called civil rights leaders – – the Reverend Al Sharpton to name just one. I find it gutturally repulsive, and a flashback to the 60s and 70s when I was a young person opposed to the Vietnam war. I wonder every day when my fellow Americans will wake up and see this for what it is – – a modern genocide by a society dedicated to the evisceration of the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the nightmare continues.
I, too, protested the Vietnam war as a student, and experience the parallels among those who are calling for peace now in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon. Just as in Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, the U.S. is deeply embedded in a vast, incomprehensible war-making machine and the politicians play along to get funding for their campaigns. It's utterly disgusting! But we won't be silent...our voices are powerful. I'm so grateful for all of us who are speaking the truth to stop this genocide.
I lived through the Vietnam war period as a student who protested the war. The current student demonstrations against the Gaza war, and the reaction to them, are an uncanny reminder of the Vietnam period in America. Despite the differences, I think the students protesting Vietnam held the morally correct position, and I believe the protesting students today are also on the right side of history. Sadly, American society as a whole seems to have learned nothing in the interim.
Just before this email arrived in my inbox I had been watching a piece on YouTube by Jay Shapiro. I found him by accident. The title, ‘Do you condemn Hamas’? caught my attention and I was soon engrossed. I have 🤞copied the link 🤞 and would urge everyone to watch. It's just over 30 minutes long and is well worth your time.
Was the other one, ‘Kamala’s Blue Box and the Zionist Stranglehold’? If so, I can highly recommend that too especially if voters are in a quandry about who to vote for. Jay is so easy to listen to. My attention never wanders and that is very unusual.
How many innocents has the U.S. been guilty of wiping off this earth? A staggering number over the years but most of the population there are still hugely nationalistic. On my visits to the States I have been stunned to see the number of Flags flying just abut everywhere. I think extreme nationalism is dangerous, it gives one the false impression that they are above others.
That has got to be the point! I was just in north-central Pennsylvania. Lots of Trump signs with American (and police) flags. They hate the multiculturalism America has been moving toward but see Trump as a way to bring back white supremacy America.
excellent article. As always, very thought provoking. The struggle against Apartheid and Racism in-beded in both Israel and the US society should be brought to surface for masses to face the reality of our lives, the fact that it is our tax money that is funding the Genocide!
this is a brilliant analysis of the important role that cultural codes communicated through spectacle have in sustaining popular identification with and support of policies carried out in the interest of those who rule and benefit from colonial policies. Thank you, Viet Thanh Nguyen for your film your television spectacle and your thoughtful insights!
I remember being so shocked when someone shared with me the use of "Agent Orange" in the Vietnam War. I don't know how people remained silent at that time, and I don't know they remain silent now.
These photos of the Vietnam War next to photos of Gaza live in my head.
Overtime, many of those "hawks" who enabled the Vietnam war changed their minds. These images brought to us on TV screens every evening in 1968, along with the US body count graphically noted on screen---affected us. One of those "hawks"gave me MLK's essay, Letter from from a Birmingham Jail, after the war was over. Film, words and pictures change hearts and minds.
Thank you for this extremely necessary perspective! Keep writing and teaching us here in America, where we allow ourselves to be captured by mindless spectacle to avoid feelings of shame, guilt and responsiblity. It's too much for most Americans to bear.
It occurs to me that it might be worth publicizing the 58,000 US Vietnam war dead you cite alongside the 41,000-and-climbing documented dead (not counting those under the rubble) in Gaza inside of a year in order to give Americans some perspective or at least make them stop and think a bit.
I am a British born, Naturalized American. My father spent his last WWII couple of years in the Middle East area, so as I grew up he told me that the Israelis and Palestinians would never get along. The British tanks were actually stoned by Israeli Jews who disliked having to share the land with Arabs, and disliked the British for their colonialism. I was in school and college in the UK during all the years of the American war in VietNam. If I am remembering correctly, the British mostly thought the war foolish and foolhardy. Young people like myself loved the American culture of movies, music and cars, but many older British who had lived through WWII had little sympathy for America because they felt abandoned for so many years fighting the Nazis in Europe that was being destroyed. My dad joined the war the day it was declared in September 1939 and did not return home until 1946. He fought in France, Belgium and Italy before going to North Africa and what is now Iraq. He hated war, (like so many who had experienced it first hand), so I grew up being against all future wars and I am still anti-war. What the thugs in the Israeli military are doing in Gaza and the West Bank is not “just” war, it is genocide. They appear to want to rid the area of all Palestinians, and some in the government there have even stated that. I am sad, disappointed and disgusted that our government here continues to see the images of death and destruction by the Israeli military and do nothing. We continue to support Netanyahu, who is coming here on Thursday to speak at the UN. I will join the protests in NY to support American Palestinians, and the Palestinian people who are suffering in Gaza. Although I am a lifelong Democrat and will vote for Harris, I am disappointed by her continuing the same support given to Netanyahu as by Joe Biden. All weapons of war and financial aid should end NOW. Discussions by our administration have done zero to help the death and destruction of so many innocent people. I hope that movies, articles and healthy truthful dialogue about the deaths will move the needle, but we MUST continue to speak up, to protest and to call on our government to stop the madness. Being pro Palestinian is not being antisemitic. All people should be treated equally. We can hate terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, but we have a moral obligation to help Palestinians or any others being targeted. And even though I am against war, we should continue to help Ukraine fight off Putin’s attempts to increase his territory. He too is acting like a terrorist organization.
This article really hit me. I've been saying that the Palestinian struggle is this generations Vietnam for months, except the Palestinian struggle existed during the Vietnam War and has endured for 76 years. I made a decision to educate myself and have been studying the history of Asia and what is considered the middle east (and North Africa). In March I visited Egypt and Morocco, next year I'm going to Thailand and Vietnam. My worldview has completely changed. I no longer rely on the western, i.e. American POV. My government probably now considers me radicalized.
Strange how knowledge, about the "other" POV can be judged as radicalized. Safe travels!
Super well argued. It's become increasingly difficult to engage with American Media over the years and it's embarrassing to admit at the same time how inescapable it is.
It also feels like Hollywood is a lab playground to see how consumers respond to different narrative framings and level of violence towards different populations.
"This was the first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors, courtesy of the most efficient propaganda machine ever created [Hollywood] (with all due respect to Joseph Goebbels and the Nazis, who never achieved global domination)."
Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer (p. 159). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition.
It is an industry populated with "Richard Hedds."
Brilliantly written. I too have seen the parallels between the Vietnam war and the Gaza/West Bank genocide and our reaction to it as a society. The gaslighting by Israel and its supporters, the blind allegiance to the Israeli military machine by US politicians of all political stripes, the hypocritical criticism of student protesters by many so-called civil rights leaders – – the Reverend Al Sharpton to name just one. I find it gutturally repulsive, and a flashback to the 60s and 70s when I was a young person opposed to the Vietnam war. I wonder every day when my fellow Americans will wake up and see this for what it is – – a modern genocide by a society dedicated to the evisceration of the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the nightmare continues.
I, too, protested the Vietnam war as a student, and experience the parallels among those who are calling for peace now in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon. Just as in Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, the U.S. is deeply embedded in a vast, incomprehensible war-making machine and the politicians play along to get funding for their campaigns. It's utterly disgusting! But we won't be silent...our voices are powerful. I'm so grateful for all of us who are speaking the truth to stop this genocide.
I lived through the Vietnam war period as a student who protested the war. The current student demonstrations against the Gaza war, and the reaction to them, are an uncanny reminder of the Vietnam period in America. Despite the differences, I think the students protesting Vietnam held the morally correct position, and I believe the protesting students today are also on the right side of history. Sadly, American society as a whole seems to have learned nothing in the interim.
Just before this email arrived in my inbox I had been watching a piece on YouTube by Jay Shapiro. I found him by accident. The title, ‘Do you condemn Hamas’? caught my attention and I was soon engrossed. I have 🤞copied the link 🤞 and would urge everyone to watch. It's just over 30 minutes long and is well worth your time.
https://youtu.be/uH2iS4rxX9M?
si=U6Lie6YOPT08GCjl
Thank you for the link. I have watched that video and another one of his, lengthier. Brilliant history and perspective.
Was the other one, ‘Kamala’s Blue Box and the Zionist Stranglehold’? If so, I can highly recommend that too especially if voters are in a quandry about who to vote for. Jay is so easy to listen to. My attention never wanders and that is very unusual.
How many innocents has the U.S. been guilty of wiping off this earth? A staggering number over the years but most of the population there are still hugely nationalistic. On my visits to the States I have been stunned to see the number of Flags flying just abut everywhere. I think extreme nationalism is dangerous, it gives one the false impression that they are above others.
That has got to be the point! I was just in north-central Pennsylvania. Lots of Trump signs with American (and police) flags. They hate the multiculturalism America has been moving toward but see Trump as a way to bring back white supremacy America.
excellent article. As always, very thought provoking. The struggle against Apartheid and Racism in-beded in both Israel and the US society should be brought to surface for masses to face the reality of our lives, the fact that it is our tax money that is funding the Genocide!
sadly i think many americans [perhaps even some british]see news as entertainment, rather than informative data :(
Their attention span (or available time?) is too short for anything longer than a sound bite.
Brilliantly put.
this is a brilliant analysis of the important role that cultural codes communicated through spectacle have in sustaining popular identification with and support of policies carried out in the interest of those who rule and benefit from colonial policies. Thank you, Viet Thanh Nguyen for your film your television spectacle and your thoughtful insights!
I remember being so shocked when someone shared with me the use of "Agent Orange" in the Vietnam War. I don't know how people remained silent at that time, and I don't know they remain silent now.
There is no conscription…so far.
When that happens there will be spectacle…
These photos of the Vietnam War next to photos of Gaza live in my head.
Overtime, many of those "hawks" who enabled the Vietnam war changed their minds. These images brought to us on TV screens every evening in 1968, along with the US body count graphically noted on screen---affected us. One of those "hawks"gave me MLK's essay, Letter from from a Birmingham Jail, after the war was over. Film, words and pictures change hearts and minds.
Keep Hope Alive
Thank you for this extremely necessary perspective! Keep writing and teaching us here in America, where we allow ourselves to be captured by mindless spectacle to avoid feelings of shame, guilt and responsiblity. It's too much for most Americans to bear.
It occurs to me that it might be worth publicizing the 58,000 US Vietnam war dead you cite alongside the 41,000-and-climbing documented dead (not counting those under the rubble) in Gaza inside of a year in order to give Americans some perspective or at least make them stop and think a bit.
I am a British born, Naturalized American. My father spent his last WWII couple of years in the Middle East area, so as I grew up he told me that the Israelis and Palestinians would never get along. The British tanks were actually stoned by Israeli Jews who disliked having to share the land with Arabs, and disliked the British for their colonialism. I was in school and college in the UK during all the years of the American war in VietNam. If I am remembering correctly, the British mostly thought the war foolish and foolhardy. Young people like myself loved the American culture of movies, music and cars, but many older British who had lived through WWII had little sympathy for America because they felt abandoned for so many years fighting the Nazis in Europe that was being destroyed. My dad joined the war the day it was declared in September 1939 and did not return home until 1946. He fought in France, Belgium and Italy before going to North Africa and what is now Iraq. He hated war, (like so many who had experienced it first hand), so I grew up being against all future wars and I am still anti-war. What the thugs in the Israeli military are doing in Gaza and the West Bank is not “just” war, it is genocide. They appear to want to rid the area of all Palestinians, and some in the government there have even stated that. I am sad, disappointed and disgusted that our government here continues to see the images of death and destruction by the Israeli military and do nothing. We continue to support Netanyahu, who is coming here on Thursday to speak at the UN. I will join the protests in NY to support American Palestinians, and the Palestinian people who are suffering in Gaza. Although I am a lifelong Democrat and will vote for Harris, I am disappointed by her continuing the same support given to Netanyahu as by Joe Biden. All weapons of war and financial aid should end NOW. Discussions by our administration have done zero to help the death and destruction of so many innocent people. I hope that movies, articles and healthy truthful dialogue about the deaths will move the needle, but we MUST continue to speak up, to protest and to call on our government to stop the madness. Being pro Palestinian is not being antisemitic. All people should be treated equally. We can hate terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, but we have a moral obligation to help Palestinians or any others being targeted. And even though I am against war, we should continue to help Ukraine fight off Putin’s attempts to increase his territory. He too is acting like a terrorist organization.