Tuesday
Another day of news. What is to be done for wrecked Puerto Rico? It is surreal. The residents of Puerto Rico are US citizens. For all practical purposes the island has been treated as a colony, stripped of wealth. The hurricane, a random, impartial Act-Of-Nature has pushed the island deeper into the debt-hole that was already there. Debt is anything but an impartial condition. It’s a human catastrophe. What are the odds that the institutional lenders will extend any debt forgiveness, given the circumstances? Slim and none.
We watched another of the Ken Burns-Lynn Novik series on the Vietnam War. I was living in Japan in 1069 -1970 and had Japanese friends that opposed the war. Japan was a major staging area for war material, and a convenient R&R venue for soldiers. I remember a trip to Yokota airbase to visit a childhood friend who was convalescing in a military hospital. Luckily he was not badly injured. The atmosphere in that hospital ward was something I’ll never forget. I also remember two phantom jets taking off in tandem on the runway just the other side of a chain link fence. The afterburners roared with blue flame. Japan was as close as I got to the war.
The Burns-Novik telling of the story, brought back memories of the time, of my generation. Seeing the story honestly and straightforwardly told, stuned me to silence. Now it seems far darker, with a greater intentional evil than I remember. There was a growing consensus that the war was unwinnable, some years before it’s conclusion when Saigon collapsed and the Americas were evacuated. A win means a ceasation of hostilities, and end to the orgy of murder and devastation. Our presidents, Johnson and Nixon decided that given the doubtful ability to win—they’d just keep our troops fighting. Why? Because they could.
To see this played out in granular detail, by newsreel footage left me vertigious, nauseated.
Go ahead and view the Burns Novik series. It is a responsibly told tale of our history; one snapshot of who we are as Americans.
Beware! The mind of the believe stagnates. It fails to grow outward into a unlimited infinite universe.
–from Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
