John Kerry’s 1971 Testimony Before Congress
I just heard John Kerry’s 1971 testimony about the Vietnam war shown on C-SPAN. His sentiments were unabashedly anti-war. He appeared disturbed at the behavior of U.S. servicemen which he alleged committed crimes, the type of cruel guerilla war activities that anyone who’s seen the movie, Apocolypse Now understands.
A couple of moments perked my attention. One instance was when John Kerry implied that President Nixon wanted U.S. servicemen to die so that Nixon wouldn’t be “‘the first president to lose a war.’” Nixon will probably never be thought of as angelic, but probably doesn’t deserve such condemnation based on one man’s interpretation of motives. Nixon got the U.S. out of the Vietnam war through the process of “Vietnamization,” which Kerry seemed to be against.
John Kerry made another point that seemed disparaging if not discriminatory toward Asians which he began by saying that “We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy.” The thought that anyone of any race would not know or care about the difference in the slavery of communism and benefits of freedom sounds strange.
Another interesting moment was to hear John Kerry state that “we cannot fight communism all over the world.” It makes me wonder if he might make the same conclusion about the world-wide war on terrorism.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 27th, 2004 at 3:04 pm
Apocolypse Now
I would not base my views on a film made in Hollywood.
he thought that anyone of any race would not know or care about the difference in the slavery of communism and benefits of freedom sounds strange.
How do you know that you are not a slave?
How about the people of Nicaragua, are they enjoying their freedom which we brought them through our friends, the Contras?
Have you asked them?
Emory Says: August 27th, 2004 at 4:13 pm
Keep going… I want to hear a defense of communism.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 27th, 2004 at 4:17 pm
What you want and what you get are like what you think and what you know.
Two completly different things!
What the weather like over there?
censor Says: August 27th, 2004 at 4:25 pm
Communism:
Equal pay for unequal work.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 27th, 2004 at 4:35 pm
Communism:
The Military Industrial Complex? No sorry, thats socalism.
Less pay for more work.
I will not play your games!
zoot potatoe Says: August 27th, 2004 at 11:33 pm
“We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy.”
What’s so wrong about that? There are, indeed, people that are uninformed about the world outside of where they live. It was even worse back then. The government shrouded real facts from its civilians. That was terribly dumb to say it was discriminary, to say the least. Some of us just take democracy for granted..
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“we cannot fight communism all over the world”
Sometimes I wonder why we fought communism in the first place. I know that i’ll be bashed by conservatives that follow their party to death, because Nixon, Raegan, and McCarthy all hated communism to the extreme and often times gave the impression all communist countries are places where people line up every morning to get their blood sucked out by their leader.
Communism overall wasn’t even the biggest threat at the time. The USSR was, and while they are communist, they didn’t represent every communist nation in the world.
Terrorism is different because it only involves threat to people’s lives. It is much more urgent then communism was back then, so, No, what Kerry said 34 years ago doesn’t somehow foreshadow what he’ll do in office if elected (god hope he does)
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your slave comment is your biggest mistake up there, emory.
Emory Says: August 28th, 2004 at 3:22 am
Zoot, I think it might surprise some of us at how much the Vietnamese knew about Communism and freedom during the cold war. Here’s more of the context that follows what John Kerry said: “We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone on peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.”
“Terrorism is different because it only involves threat to people’s lives?” Communists killed many many more people than terrorists could ever hope to. Both communism and terrorism are totalitarian.
zoot potatoe Says: August 28th, 2004 at 4:00 am
oh, well, sorry emory, i dont watch C-SPAN, so by only quoting that small portion, you look a bit oblivious to the world around you… but you aren’t so there
zoot potatoe Says: August 28th, 2004 at 4:03 am
’twas not communism itself that killed as many people as terrorists, it was leaders of communist countries that did. Communism wasn’t only about killing people, as terrorism is.
Emory Says: August 28th, 2004 at 5:07 am
Communist leaders inspired by communism killed them. Hence, communism. The Islamist brand of terrorism is not only about killing people, but about establishing Islamist sharia style states like Afghanistan formerly was.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 28th, 2004 at 8:44 am
Zoot, I think it might surprise some of us at how much the Vietnamese knew about Communism and freedom during the cold war.
Ye, They fought and won their freedom!
From us.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 28th, 2004 at 10:25 am
It is being broadcast on American television that the Iraqi people think that Kim il Bush is a strong leader.
If he were taken from his office and placed in the slums of any capitalist country, I wonder how long he would survive. Not very long I would think.
Maybe he would be able to dig a spider hole and live on mars bars.
Maybe he would shoot himself and become a purple heart for it.
Emory Says: August 28th, 2004 at 4:42 pm
Regarding “Ye, They fought and won their freedom From us,” you should say the North Vietnamese. Many South Vietnamese were killed and driven out because they didn’t want to be ruled by communists.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 28th, 2004 at 9:21 pm
No,for now, I’ll stick with “From us”.
Thanks.
I’ll look up a little information, and get back to you on this one.
It might take a little while.
But I hope you have a nice day anyway.
zoot potatoe Says: August 28th, 2004 at 11:28 pm
I see. Osama isn’t a bad person. he was raised extremly religous, so clearly the islam religion is to blame, not Osama bin Laden for taking it too far.
There are really religous muslims that arent terrorists, just as there are (or, i guess, were) communist governments that werent all killers.
zoot potatoe Says: August 29th, 2004 at 2:35 am
in fact, pretty much everyone that practices islam not only doesn’t practice terrorism, they also dont hate USA. I dont want to sound stupid and make it seem i was saying it was split.
and, also, communism is a form of economy…
sadam Hussein Says: August 29th, 2004 at 5:17 pm
Communists killed many many more people than terrorists could ever hope to. Both communism and terrorism are totalitarian.
Capitalism killed many many more people than terrorists could ever hope to. Both capitalism and terrorism are totalitarian.
How many people have we, the capitalist democracies in our nobel endeavours erased from history? Does this discount capitalism as a workable social order? If not, why not? What does this tell us about ourselves? Can we condemn others for using violence, while we carry out much greater crimes? Is this not hypocrisy? Should we not work to end violence, at home, rather than always pointing the finger at others?
Just a few thoughts, I hope you will think about a few of them.
Sadam Hussein Says: August 30th, 2004 at 7:57 am
Censorship is not good [possible copywritten content removed by webmaster]
Sadam Hussein Says: August 30th, 2004 at 4:42 pm
18 Censorship is not good…
I hope you took away the rest of the post to show to your friends, that they also after 35 years may start debating something substancial instead of who shot who and in what foot.
Please, after you have censored all the opposing posts, do not start crying, Where are all the Liberals now?
Which seems to be a tactic frequently used on forums like these.
Emory Says: August 30th, 2004 at 4:50 pm
Saddam, I saw your previous posts before they were removed and noticed that they consisted mostly of lengthy cut and paste Noam Chamsky articles. Why are you cutting and pasting articles from other writers on this site?
Sadam Hussein Says: August 30th, 2004 at 4:54 pm
Is it forbidden. And whenyou didnt delete the post, what business have you to ask.
Emory Says: August 30th, 2004 at 6:25 pm
Is it forbidden to publish someone’s work without their permission? Yeah. Did Noam Chomsky et al give you permssion? I don’t know. Didn’t mean to offend you by asking.
zoot potatoe Says: September 15th, 2004 at 12:31 am
“Communists killed many many more people than terrorists could ever hope to. Both communism and terrorism are totalitarian.”
If so-and-so were elected president of USA in 2008 and murdered millions of people, whos’e fault is it? socialism, or the person in office?
Emory Says: September 15th, 2004 at 3:46 am
Neither. It’s John Kerry’s fault!
Serb National Says: November 24th, 2004 at 3:11 am
Communism is a type of economy. Let’s get that straight – it just breeds totalitarian governments. The entire system of Communism relies on the good will of the people, which we all know is non-existant.
Capitalism, however, breeds democracies (or republics), because it encourages free will, free thinking and free speech. Also, because of the laizze-faire approach to economics in capitalisms, the government maintains less control over her citizens than in a communism, giving the people more freedom.