Interesting post on this morning's Daily Kos considers the myths spawned by the Vietnam War. This is hardly unusual. Mythology from earlier wars has found itself perpetuated in novels, poems, movies, etc. Not hard to understand. Myths provide a comfort level to help explain the inexplicable. Read on...
"Those Who Blame America"
by Devilstower
Feb 04, 2007 at 06:02:23 PM PSTThis week NPR's On The Media featured Jerry Lembcke, whose book The Spitting Image helped debunk the myth that Vietnam vets were widely reviled on their return to the United States. The primary purpose of Lembcke's visit was to fend off similar stories now being built by those who want to vilify opposition to Bush policy in Iraq.
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But while the initial focus of the story was on spitting then and now, another myth of Vietnam also got some air time, and in its long-term effect, this one is far more important than whether or not anyone was ever struck by a loogie. If it took ten years after the end of the war for the first stories of spitting to emerge, it took a similar amount of time for this other myth to solidify in the public mind: we could have won, if we'd only kept up support at home. This is the betrayal narrative, and it comes in the form of a hundred statements starting with "if only."
If only the protesters hadn't undermined our will...
If only the press hadn't turned on our troops...
If only we'd sent in more men, spent more money, exerted more will...
In many ways, this is the central narrative of the modern conservative movement. Rarely voiced in "mixed company," but often voiced at right wing gatherings. If only the left had not betrayed us, we would have won Vietnam. All the "embolden" statements the right is pushing today are only variations on this theme of the left's Original Sin.
On the Media: Why are we so prepared to believe that these were commonplace incidents in the Vietnam era?
Lembcke: Well, it's a face-saving device. It helps construct an alibi, the alibi being that we beat ourselves, that we were defeated on the home front, and that we -- the most powerful nation on earth -- was not defeated by this small upstart nation of Asian "others."
It's always been clear that those who call themselves conservatives today have only a token relationship to the political movement that operated under that name previous to 1980. And this is the difference: today's conservatives aren't united by a theme of limiting spending or concerns over changes in our society. Their real heart is a festering ball of bruised ego.
The big irony is that the right, having refused to accept the facts on the ground, has instead created a mythology that requires traitors in the heartland. Though they so often point at the left as willing to "blame America," the whole mindset of those in support of the action in Iraq requires that they blame Americans, both then and now, for the failures of bad strategy, miserable planning and sorry execution.
The war in Iraq was supposed to be their vindication, proof that enough bombs could bring flowers. Proven wrong, their reaction is to create an even more vile narrative in this cycle. The right doesn't just blame America first, they blame Americans first, last, and only for every mistake they've made. Now, bolstered by the myths they've built since the end of Vietnam, not only are right wing pundits spreading lies about protesters at home, right wing politicians are willing to denounce reasoned objection with terms just short of treason. In insisting that there must be a threat to American democracy at home, the right has done more than just build a mythology around this theme, they've created that enemy. And they only have to look in a mirror to find him.
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