Obama said something that is not true
Tue May 13, 2008 at 04:30:16 AM PDT
Obama is my candidate, and has been since he won Iowa, and I started entertaining the possibility of him as president and decided I felt good about it.
Talking in West Virginia yesterday Obama struck a sour note. I am happy to see him wearing a flag pin, or not. I am happy to see him trying to connect with conservatives, even if most of them won't vote for him. When he is president, we'll all have to work together. That is the most appealing idea of his campaign.
But when Obama implies that people opposed to the war in Viet Nam were disrespectful of returning veterans, he is buying into, and keeping alive, a falsehood.
The American people were the same then, as now. The American people, when they oppose a war, do not blame it on the young people sent out to risk their lives for the likes of Dick Cheney or Dick Nixon. There are exceptions, of course, but they are very rare.
I participated in many demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, and got arrested once. At the big demonstrations there is absolutely no question that organizers and participants were eager to embrace returning veterans. The slander that it was otherwise was a propaganda invention of right wingers.
At speeches from podiums, the troops were respected. Veterans returning were sought out and cultivated by the anti-war movement.
For a year, a returning veteran with severed post traumatic stress disorder stayed in my home. He told me that when he was back in the states, in uniform, he happened to be walking near a big demonstration in Washington and he was cheered (with calls of 'Join Us!") a number of times.
Veterans were leaders of the anti-war movement. Veterans were a huge part of the so-called counterculture. The youth culture of the time had a strong egalitarian tendency. For the second half of the war you could pretty much assume that a veteran was opposed to the war. Veterans and non-veterans were together, a lot. We hitchhiked around together, we smoked pot together, we loved the same pop music.
The lie that war opponents were disrespectful of returning Viet Nam veterans is an earlier version of the propaganda attack against Obama and his supporters - you know, Birkenstock wearing, latté drinking blah blah. President (to be) Obama, please stop buying into the earlier falsehood. It exposes you to the more current version.
All evidence I have about Obama -- his performance in the campaign, his book Dreams from My Father, the humor he injects into his public appearances -- makes me like him, and I am more enthusiastic about him than any presidential candidate I have ever voted for before.
But I don't like his breathing life into this old myth. I think there is plenty enough true things you can say to connect with conservaties without having to do that.
