The Republicans want to revisit the days of the Vietnam War and antiwar protests? John Kerry isn't the only one who's looking forward to that fight.
Tom Hayden - civil-rights and antiwar activist, a founder of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), former California state senator, ex-husband of Jane Fonda (who the hardcore rightwingers still hate worse than Osama bin Laden or Bill Clinton) - thinks it's a great idea: You Gotta Love Her Nation 04/04/04.
Unlike the Republicans who are opposed to recognizing gay families, Hayden values family enough to defend his controversial ex-wife from the macho blowhards who still trash her for her trip to North Vietnam in 1972. His brief discussion of that trip is very much worth reading, because he puts it in a context one is unlikely to ever hear on Fox News.
It includes some telling quotes of then-President Richard Nixon discussing with his National Security Adviser Kissinger what should be done about "this shit-ass little country" (Vietnam). It's a reminder that Bush and Rummy and Chaney are in many ways very much the political spawn of Richard Nixon.
Hayden is more than willing to see a discussion of Vietnam that many Democrats have preferred to avoid and for which "the Republicans substitute the politics of scapegoating and sheer fantasy." He's literally correct about the "fantasy" part. And Hayden realizes what doesn't seem to have occurred to a lot of Republican attack dogs yet:
Neoconservatives and the Pentagon have good reason to fear the return of the Vietnam Syndrome. The label intentionally suggests a disease, a weakening of the martial will, but the syndrome was actually a healthy American reaction to false White House promises of victory, the propping up of corrupt regimes, crony contracting and cover-ups of civilian casualties during the Vietnam War that are echoed today in the news from Baghdad. Young John Kerry's 1971 question--"How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?"--is more relevant than ever.
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