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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
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- From: nyxfer%panix.com@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
- Subject: MIA Myths Kept Alive by Hollywood
- Message-ID: <1992Sep4.193651.13711@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
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- Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
- Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 19:36:51 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 57
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-
- Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit
-
- POW-MIA myth kept alive by Hollywood
-
- By Andy Stapp
-
- "The Vietnam war is not over yet. And the Americans have tried to
- win a victory through movies in order to save face," declared
- Radio Hanoi in an Aug. 29 commentary. The broadcast continued:
- "The fact was made obvious when the advertisement for the film
- `Missing in Action' was released with the sensational words: `The
- war won't be over until the last American returns home.' "
-
- Radio Hanoi ridiculed the cottage industry that has grown up in
- this country churning out grade B films about U.S. prisoners
- supposedly still held in Vietnam. "The POW-MIA myth reached its
- peak with the introduction of the second installment of the Rambo
- series titled "First Blood,' starring Sylvester Stallone, who has
- become a contemporary superman," the commentary said. Stallone
- wasn't exactly a superperson during the actual fighting over
- there. Like born-again war lovers Dick Cheney, Pat Buchanan, Dan
- Quayle and Bill "Bomb Belgrade" Clinton, "Rambo" Stallone
- adroitly sidestepped the 1960s military draft.
-
- The broadcast concluded by noting: "In reality there are
- thousands of homeless American Vietnam war veterans now living on
- the streets of the United States. They should not be called
- missing in action, but rather missing in America."
-
- Most of the 2,226 members of the U.S. armed forces unaccounted
- for in the conflict were ground troops blown to bits. A few are
- pilots who were blasted from the air in flames. Some went down
- into the South China Sea or over impenetrable jungle.
-
- Of course the Vietnamese endured much more formidable casualties.
- Washington would like to erase the memory of what the
- Pentagon--with its helicopter gunships, Mylai-style massacres,
- free fire zones, Agent Orange, white phosphorus and
- napalm--inflicted on that poor Asian nation. Sentimental TV shows
- like China Beach can't change the truth of what they did. There
- are provinces in Vietnam where not a single square mile escaped
- saturation bombing. These areas are cratered like the surface of
- the moon. At Vinh, a provincial capital, only one building stood
- after the B-52 raids ended in 1973.
-
- And hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese are still missing.
-
- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
- if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
- St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@igc.apc.org".)
-
- -----
- NY Transfer News Service
- Modem: 718-448-2358 nytransfer@igc.org nyxfer@panix.com
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