I did not have the same reaction to Moyer’s piece that you describe here. I listened to most of it and was, at the time, a few days ago, interested in writing about it.

The part that interested me had to do with the argument that Johnson had with his advisers about what options he thought he had. It was for him either go in with his military or leave completely. The people he spoke with most argued that he should go in because, well, he would be seen as a coward if he left. The only Senator to advise him to leave, according to these tapes, was my Senator Morse.

Moyers set up all these tapes as a historical set of documents which he(Moyers) thought would inform his audience about some of the issues Obama has to deal with in trying to decide what to do about Afghanistan.

After hearing what tapes Moyers had I now suspect that the analogy between Vietnam and Afghanistan is pretty accurate. Obama would be criticized by his conservative military industrial base if he gets out of Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else.

I thought the tapes to provide us, an audience interested in getting the U.S. disengaged from its destructive military commitments, with important information about what kind of arguments we might make that would be more effective to get that goal accomplished. So, is it true, both for LBJ and BHO that they have only those two choices? It’s a fight or flight situation?

You seemed to be pissed off with Moyers for not explaining that LBJ used deception to get us into Vietnam, much like Bush later used deception to get us into Iraq and Afghanistan. This seems like a good complaint to make to Moyers and it would seem that his response would be interesting.

I would think that the response to his piece about these LBJ tapes should be to engage him on these failings or deceptions rather than to ignore him.

I guess, I suspect that there are very few people who make no mistakes or tell no lies. Maybe Moyers would change his mind after having your points brought up to him?

R Ap

I clicked on the “Laotians” link above, but got a message that said I was looking for something that wasn’t there. Reason I clicked on it was, when I was in, JFK took our outfit off Guam and sent us to Okinawa, where they picked details of us to send to “secret places, to do secret things.” I was in the Army Engineers.

This wasn’t too long after he took office, as I remember it, and not too long after him and Ike had got together to go over ‘trouble’ spots in the world.

Anyway, some of us got send to some secret place that I think might have been Laos, and to this day, I think the things we were doing there were things designed to create a ’situation’–things they called flood control, but things that had about as much to do with flood control as that shipping canal that wiped out the Lower 9th Ward.

All this comes out of my memory (such as it is), and not out of any history book–but it’s stuff that happened, and might be in a book.

R Ap

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/awfultin#p/p

Yeah, notice Alex Jones and Dylan Avery change direction there?
while laying the foundation of getting listeners/viewers by releasing free versions — now vids like Fall of Republic and Loose Change Part IV: the final final cut —- it’s a joke.

I’ve moved away from all of this – and have a new outlook on the little cash cow vids that people hoc around at events and online…

Jones and Avery are at the epicenter — ooh, may Glenn Beck will wade into filmmaking since he’s got authoring books down to a science and packaging them for those that want “reading candy”…..

That’ why this site is refreshing with discussion about pieces within the landscape like this, regarding what we call ” the truth movement” or whatever label we apply to it.

You have an exalted leadership of a select few created by viral marketing videos and internet radio shows — who command an audience — and yes, take all that potential energy and funnel it to DVD and book sales….

They are tapping into a common shared belief that something needs to be done — but then they are dropping that mantle and dishonoring everyone by lining their pockets — with the refrain of “hey, just a squirrel trying to get a nut”…