russ (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} goulo) wrote,@ 2004-10-01 22:51:00 |
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going upriver: the long war of john kerry
Holy smokes, in 24 hours I've seen two different things that really impressed me about Kerry. Until now, I'd regarded Kerry as a decent but not great Democrat candidate (I'd have prefered Dean or Kucinich); I didn't know that much about him, and mostly considered him as an ok candidate and primarily a great way to get Bush out of power. But now I actually have a lot of respect and admiration for Kerry. The two events are last night's debate, and the new documentary film Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry about the Vietnam era, which I strongly recommend seeing.
(1) The debate: Kerry kept his cool while Bush seemed confused and angry and and kept blustering "hard work but necessary", "mixed signals", "can't show uncertainty", blah blah. Sure, there was a lot of stuff I wished Kerry had said, e.g.:
But upon reflection, it's easy to play monday morning quarterback, and in fact Kerry made some excellent points I hadn't thought of, e.g.:
In any case, it made me realize I'd previously been thinking of Kerry in terms of a sufficiently good alternative to Bush - but now I was impressed by Kerry himself. He's not just more sane and intelligent than Bush; he actually seems to handle pressure and have more leadership and confidence.
(2) The fascinating film Going Upriver tonight. Holy shit, this is an amazing film. I learned a lot about the Vietnam war and about Kerry. The 2 friends I saw it with felt the same, and in fact the film got enthusiastic applause at the end. From a filmmaking standpoint, it's very well done: lots of archival footage, good soundtrack by Philip Glass (reminiscent of The Fog Of War, another excellent documentary from this year with lots of Vietnam footage and Glass music), lots of current interviews with people who knew Kerry in Vietnam and afterward, with old footage of them then too. There's also some good footage with Max Cleland (who lost 3 limbs in Vietnam and was the victim of one of Karl Rove's smear campaigns, as discussed in the film Bush's Brain.)
But the information is the important thing. I learned more about the war, specifically about the swift boats and their use (and misuse) during the war. I learned a lot about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the amazing bivouac in Washington, when a huge number of veterans went to Washington to speak out about what they'd seen in the war and to say this insanity must stop. They camped out for days in a park in DC. A surprising number of congressmen agreed with them and met with them. I learned about how these veterans first started meeting, and how groundbreaking and scary and brave it really was for veterans to speak out about this stuff back then (now I'm used to Iraq veterans speaking out against the Iraq war frequently). There is some heartwrenching archival footage of some of the veterans talking very emotionally about their experiences. I wondered why I never learned about this in history class.
And Kerry was one of these veterans. The rightwingers like to portray him as some sort of traitor for condemning the war after he fought in it. To me, this exemplifies the divide between left and right now. For rightwingers, supporting the government war policy equates to supporting the troops and supporting the country. But of course the war policy is not the same as the troops which are not the same as the country. You can love your country and support the troops but still say a war is wrong. Bush doesn't get that. Kerry does. As Theodore Roosevelt said: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Nixon, by his own admission, didn't want to be the first US president to lose a war. That sort of attitude does not serve the country well, and someone who loves the country not only has the right, but the duty, to point this out. Kerry recognizes this; I don't think Bush does. If anyone can watch this footage and still think Kerry is a traitor, their mental processes are utterly alien to me.
Seeing Kerry's testimony before a congressional committee, hearing him talk on Dick Cavett's tv show, hearing him talking with fellow veterans, it is totally clear that he does indeed love the country and care about the troops, and that is exactly why he worked to end the war. And watching Kerry help lead and coordinate this large group of veterans in a march on Washington, including seeing him calmly keep people from reacting angrily and violently when the Nixon administration pulls various dirty tricks to try to discredit and discourage the group, made it totally clear that Kerry has strong leadership skills. He was able to seamlessly move between the world of high-powered respectable politicians and the world of long-haired counterculture veterans. It makes Bush's claims to be a "uniter not a divider" look laughable by comparison.
It was particularly fascinating learning more, via archival recordings from the White House, of Nixon and his aides explicitly hiring John O'Neill to start a group of pro-war veterans specifically to discredit Kerry. O'Neill resurfaced recently with the ironically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, formed to discredit Kerry. The film, by the way, includes interviews with people who served with Kerry and tell a different story than the O'Neill group, who didn't serve with Kerry.
Much has been said about the relevance of the Vietnam combat experience, or lack thereof, of the presidential candidates. It's certainly true that Kerry was a more impressive leader than Bush was during the war. And behavior under stress says something about a person's character. But indeed, commanding a group of a half dozen men on dangerous riverboat missions doesn't have much obvious direct relevance to running a country. What really impresses me is Kerry's leadership after the war. Having the guts to call bullshit on bad policy (even knowing that this was a very risky thing to do, given his political aspirations), having the ability to unite and organize and lead large groups of people... these are things which have great relevance to running a country. Going Upriver makes me believe that not only does Kerry care about our country in a deep thoughtful way, but that he is able to lead and manage and inspire people.
One can argue that this was 30 years ago, and maybe the Kerry of today has become too much a part of the mainstream political system, with too many corporate ties, etc. This is no doubt true. And sure, I have disagreements with Kerry on specific current policy issues. (But then, I do with every candidate.) Regardless, I now believe that nonetheless Kerry has a sincere desire and deep understanding to make the US a better country; and Kerry knows how to lead well - two things which I don't believe are true of Bush.
As a thought experiment I imagined someone trying to make a flattering documentary about Bush in the 1960s and 1970s. How does it compare? Mediocre college record, weasely AWOL service, failed businesses, drunk driving conviction...
The upshot of all this is that I find myself feeling much more enthusiastic about voting for Kerry the person I respect and not just Kerry the guy who can defeat Bush.
I highly recommend seeing Going Upriver. Not only will it inform and move you, it will almost certainly cause you to reevaluate what you think about Kerry.
La debato kaj la tre impresa dokumenta filmo Irante Supren la Riveron: La Longa Milito de John Kerry forte efikis min. Mi ege rekomendas la filmon. Mi lernis pri la historio de la vjetnama milito, kaj mi lernis pri John Kerry kaj lia kapablo estri kaj inspiri kaj konduki. Antaŭe, mi plejparte pensis pri Kerry kiel sufiĉe bona kandidato por venki Bush, sed nun mi tre respektas lin. Mi ne konsentas kun Kerry pri ĉiu politiko, sed mi nun scias ke li profunde komprenas ke Usono ne devas militi stulte, kaj ke tiu, kiu amas Usonon, havas ne nur la rajton sed la devon plendi pri aĉa militado. Kaj mi nun scias ke Kerry ja povas unuigi anstataŭ apartigi homojn, pro lia sperto en la grupo Vjetnamaj Veteranoj Kontraŭ la Milito. La filmo enhavas multan arĥivan filmon el tiu tempo. Tre fascinas kaj ofte kortuŝas.
Holy smokes, in 24 hours I've seen two different things that really impressed me about Kerry. Until now, I'd regarded Kerry as a decent but not great Democrat candidate (I'd have prefered Dean or Kucinich); I didn't know that much about him, and mostly considered him as an ok candidate and primarily a great way to get Bush out of power. But now I actually have a lot of respect and admiration for Kerry. The two events are last night's debate, and the new documentary film Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry about the Vietnam era, which I strongly recommend seeing.
(1) The debate: Kerry kept his cool while Bush seemed confused and angry and and kept blustering "hard work but necessary", "mixed signals", "can't show uncertainty", blah blah. Sure, there was a lot of stuff I wished Kerry had said, e.g.:
Why did he twice let Bush get away with saying we've trained 100,000 Iraqi troops, when Rumsfeld said only 90,000, and Allawi said only 50,000, and some Pentagon documents say only 10,000?
Why didn't he list a long laundry list of documented lies instead of just naming a few of the general well known ones?
When Bush kept saying "what kind of message does it say to our troops when you criticize the war?" why didn't Kerry respond "What kind of message does it say to our troops when you told the insurgents to Bring It On?"
When Bush said that in 2000 he "never dreamed" he'd have to send troops to Iraq, it would have been excellent if Kerry hadn't retorted "But you surrounded yourselves with advisors and staff who had already been writing and lecturing for years that we should invade Iraq. You sure didn't know your own staff at all."
But upon reflection, it's easy to play monday morning quarterback, and in fact Kerry made some excellent points I hadn't thought of, e.g.:
You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.
We can remember when President Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with DeGaulle. And in the middle of the discussion, to tell them about the missiles in Cuba, he said, "Here, let me show you the photos." And DeGaulle waved them off and said, "No, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me." How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of what we've done, in that way?
It was very nice and succinct when Kerry said: It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong.
In any case, it made me realize I'd previously been thinking of Kerry in terms of a sufficiently good alternative to Bush - but now I was impressed by Kerry himself. He's not just more sane and intelligent than Bush; he actually seems to handle pressure and have more leadership and confidence.
(2) The fascinating film Going Upriver tonight. Holy shit, this is an amazing film. I learned a lot about the Vietnam war and about Kerry. The 2 friends I saw it with felt the same, and in fact the film got enthusiastic applause at the end. From a filmmaking standpoint, it's very well done: lots of archival footage, good soundtrack by Philip Glass (reminiscent of The Fog Of War, another excellent documentary from this year with lots of Vietnam footage and Glass music), lots of current interviews with people who knew Kerry in Vietnam and afterward, with old footage of them then too. There's also some good footage with Max Cleland (who lost 3 limbs in Vietnam and was the victim of one of Karl Rove's smear campaigns, as discussed in the film Bush's Brain.)
But the information is the important thing. I learned more about the war, specifically about the swift boats and their use (and misuse) during the war. I learned a lot about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the amazing bivouac in Washington, when a huge number of veterans went to Washington to speak out about what they'd seen in the war and to say this insanity must stop. They camped out for days in a park in DC. A surprising number of congressmen agreed with them and met with them. I learned about how these veterans first started meeting, and how groundbreaking and scary and brave it really was for veterans to speak out about this stuff back then (now I'm used to Iraq veterans speaking out against the Iraq war frequently). There is some heartwrenching archival footage of some of the veterans talking very emotionally about their experiences. I wondered why I never learned about this in history class.
And Kerry was one of these veterans. The rightwingers like to portray him as some sort of traitor for condemning the war after he fought in it. To me, this exemplifies the divide between left and right now. For rightwingers, supporting the government war policy equates to supporting the troops and supporting the country. But of course the war policy is not the same as the troops which are not the same as the country. You can love your country and support the troops but still say a war is wrong. Bush doesn't get that. Kerry does. As Theodore Roosevelt said: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Nixon, by his own admission, didn't want to be the first US president to lose a war. That sort of attitude does not serve the country well, and someone who loves the country not only has the right, but the duty, to point this out. Kerry recognizes this; I don't think Bush does. If anyone can watch this footage and still think Kerry is a traitor, their mental processes are utterly alien to me.
Seeing Kerry's testimony before a congressional committee, hearing him talk on Dick Cavett's tv show, hearing him talking with fellow veterans, it is totally clear that he does indeed love the country and care about the troops, and that is exactly why he worked to end the war. And watching Kerry help lead and coordinate this large group of veterans in a march on Washington, including seeing him calmly keep people from reacting angrily and violently when the Nixon administration pulls various dirty tricks to try to discredit and discourage the group, made it totally clear that Kerry has strong leadership skills. He was able to seamlessly move between the world of high-powered respectable politicians and the world of long-haired counterculture veterans. It makes Bush's claims to be a "uniter not a divider" look laughable by comparison.
It was particularly fascinating learning more, via archival recordings from the White House, of Nixon and his aides explicitly hiring John O'Neill to start a group of pro-war veterans specifically to discredit Kerry. O'Neill resurfaced recently with the ironically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, formed to discredit Kerry. The film, by the way, includes interviews with people who served with Kerry and tell a different story than the O'Neill group, who didn't serve with Kerry.
Much has been said about the relevance of the Vietnam combat experience, or lack thereof, of the presidential candidates. It's certainly true that Kerry was a more impressive leader than Bush was during the war. And behavior under stress says something about a person's character. But indeed, commanding a group of a half dozen men on dangerous riverboat missions doesn't have much obvious direct relevance to running a country. What really impresses me is Kerry's leadership after the war. Having the guts to call bullshit on bad policy (even knowing that this was a very risky thing to do, given his political aspirations), having the ability to unite and organize and lead large groups of people... these are things which have great relevance to running a country. Going Upriver makes me believe that not only does Kerry care about our country in a deep thoughtful way, but that he is able to lead and manage and inspire people.
One can argue that this was 30 years ago, and maybe the Kerry of today has become too much a part of the mainstream political system, with too many corporate ties, etc. This is no doubt true. And sure, I have disagreements with Kerry on specific current policy issues. (But then, I do with every candidate.) Regardless, I now believe that nonetheless Kerry has a sincere desire and deep understanding to make the US a better country; and Kerry knows how to lead well - two things which I don't believe are true of Bush.
As a thought experiment I imagined someone trying to make a flattering documentary about Bush in the 1960s and 1970s. How does it compare? Mediocre college record, weasely AWOL service, failed businesses, drunk driving conviction...
The upshot of all this is that I find myself feeling much more enthusiastic about voting for Kerry the person I respect and not just Kerry the guy who can defeat Bush.
I highly recommend seeing Going Upriver. Not only will it inform and move you, it will almost certainly cause you to reevaluate what you think about Kerry.
La debato kaj la tre impresa dokumenta filmo Irante Supren la Riveron: La Longa Milito de John Kerry forte efikis min. Mi ege rekomendas la filmon. Mi lernis pri la historio de la vjetnama milito, kaj mi lernis pri John Kerry kaj lia kapablo estri kaj inspiri kaj konduki. Antaŭe, mi plejparte pensis pri Kerry kiel sufiĉe bona kandidato por venki Bush, sed nun mi tre respektas lin. Mi ne konsentas kun Kerry pri ĉiu politiko, sed mi nun scias ke li profunde komprenas ke Usono ne devas militi stulte, kaj ke tiu, kiu amas Usonon, havas ne nur la rajton sed la devon plendi pri aĉa militado. Kaj mi nun scias ke Kerry ja povas unuigi anstataŭ apartigi homojn, pro lia sperto en la grupo Vjetnamaj Veteranoj Kontraŭ la Milito. La filmo enhavas multan arĥivan filmon el tiu tempo. Tre fascinas kaj ofte kortuŝas.
