It's funny because Vietnam was pretty damn censored itself. It just happened to be the first war that most of the American public could see news footage of, rather than just hearing reports from news radio or reading in print (with a handful of photos)
So naturally, the military assumed that the weak public was swayed by such edited news footage, rather than that they may have been swayed by the idea that the US was tearing apart a country and losing people for no real, discernable reason other than 'communism bad'.
He mentions that earlier in the book. How My Lai was actually just a relatively tame example of business as usual in Vietnam, and that didn't get published until years later. The coverage was fawning and praising US empire the whole time and the resistance had nothing to do with the media (maybe some more radical/underground papers that helped organize protest marches and stuff).
Manufacturing Consent? Yes, I was drawing from that a bit
Yes, I am aware. The book (Manufacturing Consent) fails to draw really robust conclusions and outline the class antagonisms behind the media narratives though. Parenti did a better job of tying the threads together and writing something actually challenging the power behind media narratives.
Manufacturing Consent is good, but it's still kinda toothless compared to Inventing Reality.
Will have to put that one on my list. What all does it cover?
Basically a complete history of American/Imperialist news media, their propaganda tactics, their class composition, their methods of control (both control of reporters and readers), the efficacy of that control, the consequences of that propaganda, and the imperialist nature of even the "leftists" in imperial media.
Reading this, it feels like Chomsky skimmed the introduction and wrote a book that would actually get published. This one has been out of print since it was published the first time in 1992. (Still available on libgen and his website)
The Viet Cong were destroyed in the Tet Offensive. Thereafter they were never a factor in the war. The media made it sound like they won. Imagine the media doing the same with the Battle of the Bulge.
The US was nowhere near defeating the Vietnamese. At most, they managed to deplete local partisan forces.
This was no "Battle of the Bulge" lmao. Empire brains will always minimize away failures
The American's only won a single battle against the British over the course of the entire revolution, they won by making the goals of the British state untenable. In a similar way to how the Vietnamese won by leveraging their greater commitment and tactical ability.
It's also why the confederacy almost beat the north in the civil war and proceeded to win the reconstruction despite their numerical and industrial inferiority they had much more heart for the fight and therefore willingness to accept losses
Damn, wild people will upvote just blatantly wrong information.
Americans won far, far more than a single battle during the American Revolution, lmfao.
Here, I will name two off the top of my head: Battle of Trenton and Ticonderoga. Among many, many more. Actually giving me a conniption over here as a history buff.
After the defeat of the Viet Cong in the Tet Offensive, the remaining opposition to imperialism was the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA.
It is surmised that the NVA didn't like the competition and encouraged the VC to rise up so that the Americans would crush them. Whether that happened or not, the effect was the same: the VC were not a factor for the rest of the war.
The Viet Cong were destroyed in the Tet Offensive
This is not quite accurate and:
Thereafter they were never a factor in the war
Sadly holds up the fiction of US military superiority.
I understand that you want to say that the massive reinforcements of US troops and wide areas shortly controlled by the Viet Cong couldn't be held, combined with the losses in people and organizational capacity (by increased air bombardments and long supply lines) meant that the Tet couldn't stop the assault in short time - as (freely quoted from Viet Cong leadership) 'no offensive operations seem possible till replenishing of the troops' (which was supposed to take up to four years).
However it wasn't that the Viet Cong would've been defeated after the operation.
Furthermore I agree with you that the media impact in the US was important for the medial "homefront", though lets not act as if the anti-war movement was really as important as sometimes claimed. Nixon did shift from infantry and such to air bombings and forced intensification of South Vietnamese drafting so that more "South Vietnamese"-forces would be killed in operations. This is a very different logic in my opinion from "the media made it impossible to stay in Vietnam" - it was quite possible (would've been a bad move, but was possible non the less).
I understand that you want to say that
Nah, it's not what I want to say. What I want to say is that the VC ceased to be a factor in the war after they were all but destroyed in the Tet Offensive. Thereafter it was the NVA that did the fighting. Moreover the NVA may well have encouraged the VC to stand and fight and thus be eliminated.
The media did mislead the American people just like they did decades later in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
That was not the media's fault, the military had been giving official statements that American troops were winning and the resistance posed no real threat. Then the Tet Offensive happened which, yes destroyed the VC, but also totally blew a hole in the military's official story: if the resistance posed no threat, how could they launch a massive nationwide offensive? Tet just exposed the already dire situation
A disturbingly high amount of military guys a way into it which tbh isn't that surprising
Seeing people on Reddit talk about Starship Troopers has depleted my brain cells faster than nearly any other topic
starshiptroopers but instead of mechanical-technology based transport, all the earth troops ride giant insects into battle while invading klendathu, against other people that are also riding giant insects.
the giant insects were genetically modified on earth and brought to klendathu.
:im-doing-my-part:
Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti It's on libgen and his website
http://31.42.184.140/main/2969000/2cc8c6a49d1c01074cdd9686729a8e3f/Michael%20Parenti%20-%20Inventing%20Reality_%20The%20Politics%20of%20News%20Media-St.%20Martin%27s%20Press%20%281993%29.pdf here is a link for the second edition if anyone wants it. I've been meaning to read this, Parenti rocks. I think Citations Needed just recently mentioned it, can't remember what I was listening to
edit: I just looked at the one I linked and someone drew lines around paragraphs or under certain sentences. idk if this is gonna bother you but just a heads up in case you wanna try the first edition one.
This book is basically Citations Needed in novel form. He cites FAIR a bunch too.
Whrere'd you manage to get a physical copy of Inventing Reality? been looking for ages
Literally popped up on eBay suddenly. Some Christian college in Wisconsin purged it from their library and I got it for like $35
i was just listening to an early bonus ep from Blowback season 1 talking about this.
