@BorislavX Communism doesn't kill people, humans in power do. And I'm not defending communism, it's a backwards system, but nothing Karl Marx said anything about killing people.
I agree with Bill on most things, but then & now his knowledge of foreign policy is occasionaly embarassing. Bill, Gene, and Dennis Prager seem to be unfamiliar with the concept of self-determination. Regardless of what you think of authoritarian Communism, it's for the Vietnamese to decide, not the US gov't (& Ho Chi Ming undoubtedly had a lot of public support within North AND South Vietnam- would have easily won elections to reunify country in '56 which is why Diem/US refused to participate)
Did America liberate Chile, or Guatemala, or El Salvador, or Greece, or Iran, or the dozens other countries it satellized in the Cold War? The answer is obviously no, most of these nations had their burgeoning democratic institutions destroyed, and were ruled by military dictatorship decades after.
@vavan100 It cannot, it will not, and it should not. Communism is immoral and goes against basic human nature. It will never work, except for ants and bees.
Goldberg, you idiot! Those friends of yours, those German "artists" fighting with communism were people of the REGIME! How I know? Because nobody else in communist Germany would be allowed ANY contact with American foreigners, any such contact would be a ticket to JAIL you stupid cunt! Common people would pass you by 100 meters, because shaking hands with a foreigner would be enough to get into troubles, you idiot!
There's no need to "fight" Communism militarily. As every nation competes against every other nation for wealth and resource acquisition, Communism is consistently out competed by capitalism. Let Viet Nam, Korea, S. America become Communist. In a generation, they'll be in poverty. China starved under Mao, begins to prosper under Deng Xiaoping, Viet Nam stagnated under Uncle Ho's policies, blossomed under Doi Moi. Anti-communism would have been better served letting it fall on its face.
@bapyou While I think America shouldn't have gotten involved in Viet Nam either, I think you're buying into leftist propaganda a little too much. It'd be more accurate to compare Ho to Stalin than to Washington.
@AliceNchainz011 "It'd be more accurate to compare Ho to Stalin than to Washington."
Except that I didn't make the comparison of Ho to Washington. It was made by a Republican Senator from Kentucky, Thruston Morton, on camera. Morton went on to serve as the head of Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. If Morton's observation amounted to "leftist propaganda," that would have been news to Richard Nixon and Nixon's millions of slavish admirers.
@bapyou Then why'd you bring it up if you didn't agree with that assessment? The context was obvious. So Thurston Morton said it. So what? It's not like he was really in charge of policy despite serving in Nixon's administration. Even Robert McNamara changed his tune about the nature of the war. What's glossed over is that Ho ordered the arrest and even murder of non-communist nationalists as well as other communists (such as Trotskyists) that he disagreed with.
Again: There is little being talked about here except ideological positions.
In 1948, as they recolonized Vietnam, the French comandeered an entire year's worth of rice production for the European market resulting in the starvation of about 2 million Vietnamese. Why would the Vietnamese people acquiesce to such inhuman pigs as the French?
Read about the conditions in which the Vietnamese lived with few rights under the French & you will understand why they fought a war against them.
KILLING IS NEVER FUCKING EXCUSABLE, DO NOT DEFEND EITHER FUCKING SIDE. I am fucking sick of it people trying make killing acceptable. Sure in certain cases...Nazi Germany, were we all had to decide that that was the threat to lives of many people, and there are other such cases, but all modern war, even the U.S. V Japan in World War 2 was a damn cash crop, people should not lose their lives in order to make big brother his fucking paycheck, fuck em, make them volunteers an have jobs of their own
Chant USA #1 all you want...Dumb Americans....Your country is OWNED by the Government of China and The Saudi Royal Family...and whatever they don't own is owned by the Mafia. A ridiculous "action movie" of a country that the rest of the world tolerates and snickers at like we all snicker at the loudmouth, douchebag at the party. The USA has gone from "country" to "cartoon" in the last 25 years. If I was an American I would be ASHAMED!
I am an American, and I precisely share your sentiments. We have allowed retarded morons to run the country so long that they have crashed it into the sea.
Debating with Gene Simmons....might as well debate with a dog. Nobody cares what you think, Gene....You make your living in an absolutely ridiculous way and nobody takes you seriously....NOBODY!
Everyone knows that the killing in the soviet union was done by stalin. but why does no one realise that stalin wasnt a communist, he was power hungry paranoid dictater. he was a thug who used the communist party to gain power. when lenin was in control, the soviet union did fine, it wasnt till stalin took power that it wen to shit. it wasnt a communist state under stalin but a dictatorship!!!!!!!!!!
@TomKeeley1991 Because Stalin is the closest thing to a "communist dictator" they have. It's OBVIOUS where right wing politics lead...Nazism, ovens and mass murders. Conservatives like to PRETEND that Stalin is the "communist Hitler" because they need to attach communism to atrocities even though it's historically made countries BETTER not worse. Seems to be working for China. Every day the USA CRAWLS on it's hands and knees and BEGS China to lend it money.
@farawayreach I may hate capitalism farawayreach, but to think the atrocities committed under 'communist' regimes can be thought away for the benefit or material progress, is the same irrationality which led to the Vietnam war by America. It seems capitalism and communism are ends which justify any means.
More like dangerous petty power play. The USA, USSR and China are all victims of it.
@farawayreach Yep, communism works better than capitalism. That's exactly what we see when we compare East Germany to West Germany, and North Korea to South Korea. :-/
Also, nobody's more conservative than a ruling communist party. The minute they acquire power, they drop any ideas of progress and do everything they can to maintain the status quo, i.e. their unlimited power.
One day soon China will get sick and tired of the USA's "Begging Junky" behaviour and cut them off like any addict should be cut off. When China won't lend the USA another dollar you can kiss goodbye the "American Capitalist Experiment"
The salient point is that the North Vietnamese were nationalist anti-colonialists. American involvement in this region, trying to oppose Chinese expansionism, turned local independence movements to communism to compete. The alliance with France put America on the wrong side of this. The smart anti-communist move was backing anti-colonialism. By '68 the US knew this and extended the war to win domestic office. That's Stalinesque criminality. I'd never followed that logic through. Hitchens rules!
Communism ended with Gorbachev, not Reagan. (Perestroika, Glasnost, etc)
On Viet Nam: It's a sad thing that whenever we look at the world, we look at everyone as though they're pieces on our chess board.
Our mistake; consistently supporting imperial regimes that oppressed indigenous independence movements. That's something the Communists did right, but instead of standing up for what's right--also supporting the indigenous people's freedom from oppression--we make it about opposing Communism.
@rrrrrrrush cont: ... And ignore that we're talking about real people with real hopes of self-determination; inherently a white man's mistake, denying the humanity of the yellow man.
Wrong. Hitchen's statement about NVN fighting for independence is wrong. Watch Frontline with Neil Davis. Everyone with any real bg in history knows that they were the aggressors against the RVN who weren't politically string enough to fight off the communist bloc. In the end the RVN got played by both the U.S. & the Commie Bloc.
to say that the wall fell because of the Americans completely disregards the inner struggle in Soviet Russia and in Eastern Germany, not least because of economic problems.
the only distinction between comunists and fascists is that the first ones killed far more people then second ones,and they did it in far horrible ways,and for a longer time!
Is NOBODY here horrendously offended at Maher's comments? His defence of the Vietnam War as a propaganda victory? His disingenuous analogy to Stalin? His dishonest assertion that all Communist regimes are the same?
My god..I would have liked to see at least one comment here agreeing with what Christopher was trying to say about how the Vietnam War was unjust, fought for nothing and unbelievably cruel; as well being founded on a lie.
@BelfastAtheist I don't agree with Maher, but he is wright on this issue another thing there are some facts that they left out such as Russia and China did support the Communist Vietnamese giving troops and weapons. The problem with Vietnam was people like McNamara and Kennedy not listening to military and intelligence agency.
Pardon me for saying so, but you give me the awful impression if disingenuity here. You really don't appear to have any clue what about you're supposed to be talking about. First of all, the USSR did support Hi Chi Minh and the North - Economically and Militarily to a lesser degree. China however did not..
Kennedy's Anti-Communism was the problem, he was the President who started the lie the Vietnam War was based on.
Your blanket statement is a little unimpressive, to be terse. As well as rather offensively Reductionist in nature...
You say 'The problem' as if there only was one, there were innumerable flaws with the Vietnam War. It's blatant Imperialism, it's base in Anti-Communist Policy, it's allegiance with the French, America's offer to France to give them Nuclear Weapons to use against the Koreans...etc.
Perhaps you could give me specific advice that Kennedy and Robert McNamara ignored?
@BelfastAtheist i don't know what you are talking about Korea had nothing to do with Vietnam, second why would we tell the "French to use nukes on Korea when he U.S. was fighting Korea. We could have used are own. The report that the JFK administration ignored were the ones by the our military advisors/CIA on what the situation was in Vietnam.
I would have thought from the context of my comment, it would have been pretty easy to deduce that it was a typo on my part. My apologies, but in all seriousness; I did mean to say Vietnam. It was early in the Morning..
You didn't even quote me accurately, I infered that the U.S Goverment at one point; offered France a Nuclear Arsenal to use against the Northern Vietnamese* troops they were fighting. Of course, this was before U.S troops even got there to defend French Imperialism.
@BelfastAtheist then why did you say the French were offering nukes?
The reports i'm talking about were the military advisors sent by Eisenhower and CIA reports about Vietnam can't get any clear than that. Go to Library of Congress, has the documents from IKE, JFK, and LBJ records on Vietnam also there are several detailed books you find as well.
@BelfastAtheist I am from an "ex-communist" country. And I must say in all the videos I watched Americans have shown absolutely no knowledge of what "communist" governments were actualy like. They were terribly oppressive and lacked the intelligence to run the state most of the time. But there are two sides of the medal. We had free health care, free education for all and no unemployment, cheap and plentyful food, high standart of living and a lot of other benefits. Sorry, but this is fact.
@BelfastAtheist Disingenious? Ho Chi Minh was just as bad a dictator as Stalin, and Mao and Kim Il Sung are even worse. Same goes for Ulbrecht and Honecker in East Germany. The only real mistake the US did in Vietnam was chickening out and not wining. They had more success in Korea, hence ROK is a decent nation. North Korea and the entire Vietnam are still dominated by a group of repressive scumbags. Thank goodness the Eastern Bloc is over
@MeatTycoon Important to note that Ho Chi Minh fought with US against the Japanese. He declared independence quoting parts of the US declaration of independence. He also didn't live to see his side win. That is not to say he was a good guy.
But US was propping up a dictator in south against popular opinion in the country. They did this with enormous force. Vietnam also fought the Khmer rouge when no one else did. Get a broader view please.
@ckerton1 All of which does nothing to change the end result - Vietnam being ruled by a group of slavedrivers who repress freedom of speech, creativity and changing the political system for its citizens. Compare it to South Korea and Japan - countries where the "US-propped dictators" successfully held to their power - and feel the diffrerence.
@MeatTycoonDevious The quote marks on "US-propped dictators" seems to imply you think the death and torture of Vietnamese and Koreans by those dictators and regimes is some how not valid or important.
The death of millions of Vietnamese, destruction of the country, and the international isolation resultant from the war has probably not helped the country. I don't think the US could have failed more badly its involvement in Vietnam.
@ckerton1 Oh, they're valid and serious all right. However, they don't come close to the oppression and terror that the communist regimes of North Korea and North (and later all of) Vietnam inflict upon their citizens. Besides, South Korea has gradually evolved into a bona fide democracy; no part of Vietnam had that kind of chance after 1975.
Not really, but the rule of the communist party hasn't helped the country. In fact, it hasn't ever helped any country.
@MeatTycoonDevious The point that you miss is when the US, instead of supporting Vietnamese independence after WW2, it supported the French and inherited a war where they were the enemy of most of the Vietnam people.
I'm certainly not going to defend the regime there after, but nor would I defend that which the USA defended of which you are doing because you believe in this deterministic route to some modern Japan. Now that is incredibly simplistic and implicitly condones those crimes.
@ckerton1 Obviously US did a lot of things wrong, but communists represent, to me, absolute and unquestionable evil. Any war against communism is a good war. As for the Vietnamese independence, Vietnam, if freed from the French colonial rule, could easily become a victim to the lure of Soviet communism.
Now, I'm not saying that the US imperialism is a good thing. However, if it helps save the world from the Soviet of Chinese imperialism, then long live.
@MeatTycoonDevious Perhaps to take risk and openly influence Ho Chi Minh would of been successful, especially with Vietnamese hostility to China. I think maybe America's paranoia did more to sabotage any chance of success, and the need for militaristic imperialism.
The USA more than anyone should of understood the need for Vietnamese self-determination against colonial power. That is why the US would always lose unless it acted as an ever greater monster in words Nietsche. Luckily it stopped.
@MeatTycoonDevious Though Communism has arguably failed around the world in the way its been applied, to what degree can Capitalism be called a success. Most discoveries, technological breakthrough, and cultural evolution happens away from crude monetary flows.
It is unfortunately immeasurable the opportunity cost to humanity of continuing with Capitalism, or certainly US style Capitalism.
@ckerton1 Matter of fact, most great scientists do (and did, if you look at the 20th century) work in capitalist countries. Why? Because they can expect to be compensated for their efforts, and because great discoveries make great money - as they should. Except for the communist states, where all significant discoveries are aimed at killing "Western imperialists".
Capitalism is a flawed system, but there are none better at the moment. Or do you know any?
@MeatTycoonDevious Well I think greater freedom is actually why science is more successful in the West. I'm not talking about some ridiculous freedom to start a business and be forced to implicitly exploit and compete with everyone regardless of effect. I mean the freedom to en-quire the truth in our lives and to be ironic with it. The killing "Western imperialists" bit is surely a slander of most ordinary scientists in those countries.
Don't make profit from others is a good rule maybe?
@ckerton1 Freedom - sure, but comfortable living conditions also have something to do with it, I'm sure. Generally, emphasis on the individual and aim for personal success is what makes Western capitalist democracies good and prosperous.
Not exploiting others is a good rule. Let's have a society where all the people are involved in mutually profitable trade. Hey, wait a minute... That IS capitalism. :-)
Nope, no slander. I'm a huge fan of Sakharov, but he participated in making bombs.
@MeatTycoonDevious I don't know if overly emphasized individualism can logically help a group or society. Nor can personal success always lead to 'good'. Nor that 'mutually profitable trade' is a prerequisite of Capitalism. Sounds like a load of platitudes like those in Soviet Russia comrade ;)
Capitalism can exist and thrive even if people starve, or are ignorant or live in destitution. Formal slavery could exist in Capitalism, not mentioning implicit exploitation. Its not a Good system.
@ckerton1 Actually, your anti-capitalist ideas sound very much like the Soviet anti-Western propaganda. :-)
The state should exist to satisfy the needs of an individual, not the other way around. Hence the capitalist system is the most effective system yet invented. And yes, it can lead some of its members to poverty and exploitation. However, in a communist regime, everyone is guaranteed poverty and exploitation - other than high-ranking aparatchicks.
@MeatTycoonDevious Well that me split the question. 1) Why does a scientist have the right to make money of a discovery? 2) Why does money motivate a scientist to work at science? You may think it simple but please indulge me.
@ckerton1 1) Because the discovery is a scientist's intellectual property, or, to put it in not so legal terms, the result of their work. And I believe that any beneficial work should be paid for. 2) Money generally motivates people to work, no matter in what branch.
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So would E=Mc2 count as Einsteins intellectual property, or Newtons equations of moving bodies. How is it their 'intellectual property'? 2) How does money motivate people? I'm just trying to get at the detail here.
@ckerton1 1) Absolutely. 2) When you get up in the morning and get your ass to work despite feeling sleepy and hating to get from under the blanket, that's a good example of how money motivates you.
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So approximations of truth can belong to people? Can the news be patented? HOW does it belong to them? 2) Okay that's the effect I want cause, WHY does money motivate?
@ckerton1 1) News themselves cannot be patented, but the videos, texts, audio recordings etc. that deliver them to the people are fruits of someone's labor, and hence their intellectual property. 2) Because money can lets you buy the goods and services you choose among all the offerings of the capitalist society. Apart from providing you with the necessities of life, money also gives you a degree of economic and social freedom.
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So is E=Mc2 intellectual property or just Einsteins papers on subject? 2) So if you had enough money to cover your needs you wouldn't want anymore? Does it matter if the money is from your own labour?
@ckerton1 1) The formula is his intellectual property, the paper is his physical property. 2) If it covered ALL my imaginable needs, sure, I wouldn't need more. How can it not be from my own labor?
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So you think people who use the formula E=Mc2 could pay royalties to Einstein. Don't you think that is an extreme view? 2) You have money in the bank don't you, you don't 'earn' the interest. Why do millionaires exist if money only satisfies 'needs'?
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) Because to pay royalties on a scientific formula could not be a greater debasement of freedom, yet you endorse it for the petty accumulation of monies. Why shouldn't knowledge be free, and not a first come first served monopoly. 2) Because beyond your needs all spending is discretionary and guides all the forces of production towards diminishing amounts of value for yourself. Democracy does not exist when a sole person can dictate millions or billions of spending.
@MeatTycoonDevious Just the point that capitalism is undemocratic, unjust, immoral, inefficient, damaging and alienates humans to absurd forms of behavior. Everyone should today disregard intellectual property, the only credit being the honor of first creating such a thing.
A voluntary bloodless enlightened revolution against capitalism is the only hope for any type of future which isn't a petty waste of humanity's potential.
@MeatTycoonDevious Hell if I know. But I can at the very least see this current turd sandwich for what it is, and atleast limit being an alienated means to some pointless illusory end.
@ckerton1 As Churchill once said, the democratic capitalist system is the shittiest one ever - except for all the others. The Marxist experiment has failed, so the US model is apparently the best.
The closest thing to an alternative you can find is the democratic socialism of today's Scandinavian countries.
@MeatTycoonDevious To say the US model is the best is surely to disrespect man's creative powers entirely ;) Though its fiction I'd would love to see something akin to Star Trek. The project at CERN shares this hardworking, collaborative and disciplined group of free individuals without any emphasis on material gain or competition. Indeed it is the artist, scientist, philosopher and common grafter in all of us which must be developed in any new system.
@regelemihai And some liberal democracies kill millions as well such as the USA. This is either been on its own lands in case of the Native Americans or the supporting of despots abroad. You could then state this isn't in the core ideals of the country. But then the Soviet Union certainly perverted any ideals in Communism.
Specifically, the unreasonable slander of any opposition to the depressing mess which is capitalism has certainly held humanity back.
That depressing mess has furnished you this computer you're using to type your comments to me. The real depressing mess is that communist regimes, time and again, have marred and destroyed every country they have infected. What's more depressing is that despite all of that, there are still those who romanticize about it.
Perhaps more depressing is your assumption I romanticize about Stalinist regimes. Depressing that you don't recognize most of the scientific work to make computers which didn't come from profiteering companies. And most depressing how you think that its impossible for any society to exist which didn't need to make a profit.
Your not an enlightened realist buddy, but an unimaginative apologist for the worst side of humanity. Take the good, but don't defend the bad.
"impossible for any society to exist which didn't need to make a profit."
People seek to make a profit. It's part of human soceities, and it always has been. Those who choose not to can and some indeed don't pursue them. That doesn't make them by themselves bad.
I'm probably the only realist in this discussion. It's precisely because I recognize that this "bad part" of humanity (greed) exists and always has that makes me a realist. It's those who fantasize about communism that seeks to..
@regelemihai Profit arguably is quite a new concept which only came into being with monetary exchange (arguably your being revisionist here). Further profits don't really exist. Its extra notes or digital dollars separate from any goods or services produced. Thus "profit" will allow you to buy and own vast resources for yourself even if you don't deserve it.
The stock market is the living embodiment of making money without effort. Its strange behavior when you think about it.
"Profit arguably is quite a new concept which only came into being with monetary exchange"
Monetary exchange for you is a recent phenomenon? Wow. I guess that before the 20th century people were in large scales were still using barter. I believe your (sic) the revisionist, not me.
"Its extra notes"
That's what a profit is by definition. Profits are necessary because they serve as a signal for producers in the market to know how to adapt to flow of demand. Without them you have a...
...a centrally planned economy whichleads to misallocations of resources and to many other disasters resulting from it.
The stock market offers people like you and me to make money by purchasing shares from other successful companies who have indeed made their money "with effort." Besdies, I dunno why you pose this as a requisite condition as if people can't be free to make their money without effort (so long as they make it honestly).
@regelemihai To make money without effort, and use this money to buy things is the height of dishonesty. Its similar to counterfeiting a ration book during WW2, you don't deserve what you appropriate with it. Difference is because it is deemed legal, thus many believe it is honest. On a completely logical level it is morally wrong.
@regelemihai "a centrally planned economy whichleads to misallocations of resources and to many other disasters resulting from it".
Are you being serious. Is not the concept "creative destruction" not this same concept by a different name. Why is the devolution of decision from a small group of human beings to a larger group better? Aren't they both flawed. I'd argue you are again accepting one ideology without question and being illogical in process.
@regelemihai Well modern man is tens of thousands of years old. You did say monetary exchange has 'always' been around. That is not the case, thus, logically, you have revised history, yes?
Why do you need an illusion of profit to signal producers? Is there no better way without this false pretense?
@regelemihai "No, there isn't. Unless you have a way of creating a rosey utopia on earth you have to accept it."
Who said capitalism isn't a religion lol. "You have to accept it", its not gravity or evolution, it doesn't have to be accepted. Is it unreasonable to think that it just might be a false dichotomy between profit making and rosy utopia? Though if utopia was a choice its certainly the better one.
@MrFarcry1966 To be fair though Hitchens is more knowledgeable about most things because he's a fucking genius. Normal people eat food. Hitchens eats knowledge.
@MrFarcry1966 yeah jackass , the british guy who was acommunist in the sixties, as oppossed to two men who were of draft age in the sixties in america, prager and simmons who LIVED through. You're a jackass. Get an education kid.
Go back to your keg, you pathetic idiot. Typical American mental patient who hasn't read anything because he doesn't want what he already believes complicated by facts. As though simply being of draft age in the '60s means you know anything about the real causes of the war in Vietnam. To know such things, one must STUDY history, and Hitchens is the only one on this program who has read anything. The rest of them are going on myths and their gut.
Hitchens is an uneducated fool, go back & review his educational background. You limey prick. Secondly, of age meant you could be drafted you fucking imbecile, I would take the accounts of men who were of age at that time a lot more than I would some limey douchebag who protested the war from the safety of being a Brit. If he had such heart and character why didn't the fucking jerk become a citizen and really put his money where his mouth was in protest? Maybe he was like you, a liberal pussy
From the safety of being a Brit? Lord knows what you're even trying to stipulate here, but I'll hazard a guess. You appear to be offended at the fact that Christopher led and spoke at (And debated Vietnam with several Politicians at his university) innumerable rallies against the Vietnam War from his homeland of Britain - without taking the protest over to America...? America already had hundreds of thousands of protestors and an International outcry does a lot to end unjust wars.
As has already been pointed out by other astute youtubers. Christoper Hitchens is the only individual on this programme who even cared enough about Vietnam to educate himself on the issue. Whoopie Goldberg had some interesting notions from East Germany, didn't get to speak a lot, seemed erudite. Prager was being a snide populist. Gene thought the first Indochina War (i doubt he even knew about it, actually) and Vietnam were about Oil...and as for Maher, i'd only be repeating myself.
@BelfastAtheist your comments alon e prove you have no education on the vietnam conflict. For starters, Britian sat out the conflict like the chicken shit cowarss they are, only NZ and Australia came to our side. Secondly, the domino theory was proven to be a reality as evidenced by Cambodi and other nations falling to communism. Christopher hitchens is a hypocrite, look at his comments about the analogy of Dresden and Bob Kerry's recollection of killing some civilians. Total hypocrite he is.
Calm down JFK, 'containment was' a load of old nonsense. I'm getting the distinct impression that you don't know very much about the topic here.. considering what you said about Cambodia was erroneous and the rather telling fact that you don't know how to spell Cambodia. Also, your utterances are so lacking in composure or Historical veracity that I feel awkward even addressing them..
I don't particularly want to talk to you, I could gather from the first few words of your comments that you have not the capacity to even express your disgusting, revisonist views in an eloquent manner. So I intended to to wish you all the best and say goodbye politely even before you disgraced yourself by agreeing with a coked-out rock-stars disingenuous assertion that the fight against Nazism and the pointless brutalizing of Indo-China were the same..
@BelfastAtheist For starters douchebag, it is obvious Cambodi was a type-o you imbecile, secondly in keeping with your uttter ignorance to the topic, the US went into Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration ASSHAT it was not a JFK containment policy as the US was there in an advisory capacity in the 50's. The fight against Nazism huh lol. Well we didn't have a problem with the Nazi's until December 8th 1941 but an ignoramus like you obviously is not aware of that fact.
Oh my.. you've left me a comment I didn't even notice. Again, if you're going to use ''ass hat'' in every comment, I'm just going to laugh at you. You know this, right?
Okay.. either you can spell Cambodia and you're just so lazy with your linguistics that you typed it incorrectly (In which case, you're a hypocrite for attacking my linguistic skills) - or else you couldn't spell it and lied. In either case, I'm not particularly impressed.
I see this is the third time you've used ''ass hat'' in your comments, oh well.. it's not like you want people to take you seriously or anything, right? The caps lock really helps on that front - it's the true sign of intellect.
I never said JFK was responsibile for the original ''Containment'' Policy, as a matter of fact. I called YOU JFK, in a facetious remark because of your self-righteousness about the reds. JFK did start the lie that got America into Vietnam though.
@BelfastAtheist Yeah well let us try an American history lesson for you imbecile. JFK was elected in Nov of 1960, and US troops and advisors were in Vietnam prior to 1960 so again you prove yourself to be an imbecile of the highest order. Secondly, you sound like a jack ass, Cambodi instead of Cambodia is a type-o you tool and since the country is now called kampuchea what difference does it make. You as is the case with most foreign douchebags repeat PC revisionist history and not the facts
It's a sign not only of your intellectual weakness that you feel it necasarry to pump up every comment you leave with fatuous, tautological insults. It's a sign of bad character too.
Conduct yourself like an adult. If you can't make it through one comment without doing so, you deserve neither my respect nor my time.
Even if you are willing to retract your contemptible remarks (People like you never are..) - I'm also still waiting on you to point me in the direction of which words or phrases I used incorrectly. Of course.. you could just admit you were wrong and that you misread my comments. But then, that would be achknowledging you were wrong - wouldn't it?
Nothing in the rules of argument requires one to bestow bogus repsect for an asshole. I don't have to abide by some faggoty Marcus Of Queensbury made op rules of argument with you. You're an ass, who started this debate by bestowing respect and compliments on an ego maniac, bisexual, uneducated dolt like Christopher Hitchens who is neither educated in general nor specifically on the Vietnam conflict. He is an Oxford flunkie who fled to the world of journalism as he can't hack the real world
@Belfa For starters asshole, Christopher Hitchens is the KING of ad hominem attacks, he is a smug douchebag who has not problem maliging a person's manners right before he blows his cigarette smoke in somebody's face. He is the text book definiton of a self important twit, right behind you that is. Vietnam fell a full two years after the us ceased all open combat operations and AFTER we stopped suppling the south vietnamese. So to say it was a mistake is absurd, the mistake was not staying
Secondly, asshole, to answer your question, you used the word linguistics improperly, as linguistics has nothing to do with spelling you fucking moron. Linguistics is the study and investigation of human languages you dipshit. Not how to spell a word. Nor did I attack your linguistics skills jackass, I attacked your intellect or lack there of. The old, tired left wing notion that the US lost in Vietnam or that it was unneccessary is neither born out by fact or history and assholes like Chris
@BelfastAtheist Hitchens do nothing but beat a 40 year old drum about how great the 60's were and how awful Nixon and LBJ were and how vietnam was so baddddddd. Additionally, I find imbeciles and those with NO factual merit to be contemptible, hence my contemptible remarks. Here endeth the lesson. By the way, I've been to Belfast in 1998, it's a shit hole
Is there any particular reason why you've decided to insult my hometown? I fail to see any relevance it has to this particular debate. Anyways, Belfast is pretty diverse.. it has rich areas and poor areas like any other City.
As for Nixon being awful.. I'm assuming you don't seriously think he was great? As for L B. J - the longer the Vietnam War went on for - the lower his approval rating went. You think the entire American population voted that way out of ignorance or...?
@ Because I think a person who is from the western worlds epicenter of terrorism and religious fantacism for the last 80 years ( Belfast) Ireland making comments about the morality of US combat operations to be hypocritcal and laughable and because I took a bus tour of Blefast from Dublin in 1998 and thought it was basically on par with Calcutta, ie a shit hole. I'm getting rather use to giving you history lessons at this point. LBJ declined to run in 68 the US pop didn't vote him out you tool.
@ As seems so typical of you politically correct douchebags you try to make things so much more epic on your end and you marginalize things on the other end. The only reason why Vietnam would not be absolutley analogous to WWII is it was politically and social fashionable to malign the US in 1965 and not in 1944. Dresden, Schweinfurt, Berlin, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc... infact were worse than any bombing campaigns engaged in by the US forces in vietnam. Try cracking a history book open You pansy
You call people pansies when you're trying to debate them..? Hm.
I wouldn't have minded - it's just; you're so fatuous and petulant that first of all, you don't appear to have properly read my comment and secondly, you've not only misinterpreted my argument - you've conversed it entirely.
If you really think I was making an anology between WWII and the Vietnam War, don't leave me any more comments - i said precisely the opposite.
Also, for such a Military Historian as yourself I find it conspicuous that you didn't mention Wesel in your pointless list. I don't think I've ever had anyone read a comment of mine and aquire *exactly* the opposite connotation in their quarrelsome, bored minds.
Anyways, WWII good. Vietnam bad. Is that simple enough for you? Christ..
@BelfastAtheist why don't you try learning the meaning of some the words you try using. Incorrectly using words to try to sound smart actually has the opposite effect you ass hat. LOL
Not to be rude (You know..and sink to your level) but do you have mild dyslexia? First of all, you misinterpreted my original comment and then now this. Which words did I use incorrectly? I re-read my comment and there are none. Incidentally, if you wish to insult other peoples linguistic skills.. you really must avoid using the phrase 'ass hat''. It makes me think you're a child.
If you want evil to stop, you have to let their own citizens fight the battle. When other countries get involved, they usually have their own agenda and outcomes for going into their. It creates a conflict of interest. When it's a superpower, they usually want to install a puppet government for economic purposes.
Oh and p.s. that last comment about smoking was fucking stupid!!!!! If he's not allowed to smoke, tell him before he has a cig. That point grinded my gears. Irrelevent even in the shallow context he put it in.
This whole debate span utterly out of control... Whoopi and Hitchens made good points... but there was only Maher asking questions & Simmens seemed totally flawed. The other guy seemed off point & of context. There was no structure to this debate... I can only blame Maher for that.
Gained a ton of respect for Whoopi with this video. Being a libertarian socialist myself, it's nice to see someone in America who can understand the disconnect between the ideas of Karl Marx and the ideas of Josef Stalin.
Vietnam was a dreadful war, poorly fought for all the wrong reasons.I t was a political device that only squelched Amercia's youth, vitality, and good name.
Vietnam was not about fighting totalitarianism (communism) although that fact was hidden from the American people, mostly by ignorance, arrogance and out-right self deception. If Vietnam was about stopping totalitarianism, I would have supported it.
It's incredible how people use the word "communism" to refer to the USSR and Stalin, China and Mao, Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh etc. (but capitalists do that, they say communism is misery). Communism is the exact opposite of what existed (and in of China, still exists) in all of these countries. Nor were they even socialist, the only country that has ever come close to socialism is Cuba and Venezuela is getting there. I'm probably gonna get an ultra-lefty go off at me for the Cuba bit but hey.
How do you counter evil? By not being evil. There you go.
latequilera22 1 week ago
@latequilera22 mind = blown
MrGidderz 1 day ago
I'm a HUGE fan of The Hitch but Gene Simmons makes a good point when he reminds everyone that Stalin killed at least as many people as Hitler.
PaladinHero 2 weeks ago
@PaladinHero what point is that?
cygnusx555 1 week ago
Goldberg is ridiculous. Communists killed billions of people... It is a shame this person is giving a platform.
BorislavX 1 month ago
@BorislavX Communism doesn't kill people, humans in power do. And I'm not defending communism, it's a backwards system, but nothing Karl Marx said anything about killing people.
sapzap96 1 month ago
I agree with Bill on most things, but then & now his knowledge of foreign policy is occasionaly embarassing. Bill, Gene, and Dennis Prager seem to be unfamiliar with the concept of self-determination. Regardless of what you think of authoritarian Communism, it's for the Vietnamese to decide, not the US gov't (& Ho Chi Ming undoubtedly had a lot of public support within North AND South Vietnam- would have easily won elections to reunify country in '56 which is why Diem/US refused to participate)
dt106102547 1 month ago
Did America liberate Chile, or Guatemala, or El Salvador, or Greece, or Iran, or the dozens other countries it satellized in the Cold War? The answer is obviously no, most of these nations had their burgeoning democratic institutions destroyed, and were ruled by military dictatorship decades after.
JimmyeDallas 1 month ago
I don't understand. Maher is a hawk? Hitchens a dove? What happened in ten years?
fences22 2 months ago in playlist Christopher Hitchens
that black chick is beast!
BROCKtheyoutubr 2 months ago
there was never such a thing as communist country.
Money grabbing fucks, would never allow 1 to exist.
vavan100 2 months ago 5
@vavan100 Actually, the truth is that communism cannot exist. Nobody prevented it from happening, it simply cannot happen. That's reality.
wereaux 1 month ago
@wereaux it can and it should, the problem is people are to attached to private property thingy.
vavan100 1 month ago
@vavan100 It cannot, it will not, and it should not. Communism is immoral and goes against basic human nature. It will never work, except for ants and bees.
wereaux 1 month ago
I believe that Hitchins is the only one who actually knows what happened in Vietnam.
zrdragon1 2 months ago
Whoopi always surprises me. She is a deep person.
joesim12 3 months ago
Goldberg, you idiot! Those friends of yours, those German "artists" fighting with communism were people of the REGIME! How I know? Because nobody else in communist Germany would be allowed ANY contact with American foreigners, any such contact would be a ticket to JAIL you stupid cunt! Common people would pass you by 100 meters, because shaking hands with a foreigner would be enough to get into troubles, you idiot!
BandytaCzasu 3 months ago
@BandytaCzasu Your crazy anf know nothing
Salment 2 months ago
@BandytaCzasu I bet your're not german and have never been to East Germany, before 1989, because whatyou said is just bollocks!
TheTradSkin1969 2 months ago
Boy, you can tell this is old school because Hitchens is smoking a cigarette...oh the horrors...
darkdee5150 3 months ago 5
Prager and Simmons are dumbasses.
thundermorphine 4 months ago
There's no need to "fight" Communism militarily. As every nation competes against every other nation for wealth and resource acquisition, Communism is consistently out competed by capitalism. Let Viet Nam, Korea, S. America become Communist. In a generation, they'll be in poverty. China starved under Mao, begins to prosper under Deng Xiaoping, Viet Nam stagnated under Uncle Ho's policies, blossomed under Doi Moi. Anti-communism would have been better served letting it fall on its face.
vwgolf1991 4 months ago
So according to these know-nothing buffoons, the entire Vietnamese population was "evil"? What absolute scum these people are. ABSOLUTE SCUM.
The Vietnamese people wanted to be FREE OF FOREIGN DOMINATION. Why is that difficult to grasp?
Republican Senator Thruston Morton called Ho Chi Minh "The George Washington of his people." Ho liberated his nation & was beloved because of it.
The people on this program are complete idiots. They speak of things about which they know almost nothing.
bapyou 5 months ago
@bapyou While I think America shouldn't have gotten involved in Viet Nam either, I think you're buying into leftist propaganda a little too much. It'd be more accurate to compare Ho to Stalin than to Washington.
AliceNchainz011 5 months ago
@AliceNchainz011 "It'd be more accurate to compare Ho to Stalin than to Washington."
Except that I didn't make the comparison of Ho to Washington. It was made by a Republican Senator from Kentucky, Thruston Morton, on camera. Morton went on to serve as the head of Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. If Morton's observation amounted to "leftist propaganda," that would have been news to Richard Nixon and Nixon's millions of slavish admirers.
bapyou 5 months ago
@bapyou Then why'd you bring it up if you didn't agree with that assessment? The context was obvious. So Thurston Morton said it. So what? It's not like he was really in charge of policy despite serving in Nixon's administration. Even Robert McNamara changed his tune about the nature of the war. What's glossed over is that Ho ordered the arrest and even murder of non-communist nationalists as well as other communists (such as Trotskyists) that he disagreed with.
AliceNchainz011 5 months ago
Again: There is little being talked about here except ideological positions.
In 1948, as they recolonized Vietnam, the French comandeered an entire year's worth of rice production for the European market resulting in the starvation of about 2 million Vietnamese. Why would the Vietnamese people acquiesce to such inhuman pigs as the French?
Read about the conditions in which the Vietnamese lived with few rights under the French & you will understand why they fought a war against them.
bapyou 5 months ago
Christopher Hitchesn is one of the best!
MrSethg17 5 months ago
Comment removed
Bremerxxxx 5 months ago
lmfao. when Hitchens lit up a smoke it took me off guard. I forgot what year this is from.
lovebaked 5 months ago
After the applause somebody should have said: If you don't like it, go to Russia.
ReX342 5 months ago
The scars of Vietnam are visible as ever. You can also witness the limited range of accepted thought on network television.
jasondelauro 5 months ago
KILLING IS NEVER FUCKING EXCUSABLE, DO NOT DEFEND EITHER FUCKING SIDE. I am fucking sick of it people trying make killing acceptable. Sure in certain cases...Nazi Germany, were we all had to decide that that was the threat to lives of many people, and there are other such cases, but all modern war, even the U.S. V Japan in World War 2 was a damn cash crop, people should not lose their lives in order to make big brother his fucking paycheck, fuck em, make them volunteers an have jobs of their own
BeardleProductions 6 months ago
4 people who haven't got a clue talking over hitch as he tries to explain it to them
thepigofhappiness 6 months ago
Whoopi speaks the most, complains the most about not being allowed to speak.
detectiveschitz 6 months ago
Chant USA #1 all you want...Dumb Americans....Your country is OWNED by the Government of China and The Saudi Royal Family...and whatever they don't own is owned by the Mafia. A ridiculous "action movie" of a country that the rest of the world tolerates and snickers at like we all snicker at the loudmouth, douchebag at the party. The USA has gone from "country" to "cartoon" in the last 25 years. If I was an American I would be ASHAMED!
farawayreach 6 months ago
@farawayreach
I am an American, and I precisely share your sentiments. We have allowed retarded morons to run the country so long that they have crashed it into the sea.
MrFarcry1966 5 months ago
@MrFarcry1966 Fight That! America was originally a GOOD IDEA!!! Fight For That!!!!
farawayreach 5 months ago
Anyone else start reaching for their cell phone at 7:22?
farawayreach 6 months ago
Debating with Gene Simmons....might as well debate with a dog. Nobody cares what you think, Gene....You make your living in an absolutely ridiculous way and nobody takes you seriously....NOBODY!
farawayreach 6 months ago
Everyone knows that the killing in the soviet union was done by stalin. but why does no one realise that stalin wasnt a communist, he was power hungry paranoid dictater. he was a thug who used the communist party to gain power. when lenin was in control, the soviet union did fine, it wasnt till stalin took power that it wen to shit. it wasnt a communist state under stalin but a dictatorship!!!!!!!!!!
TomKeeley1991 6 months ago 2
@TomKeeley1991 Because Stalin is the closest thing to a "communist dictator" they have. It's OBVIOUS where right wing politics lead...Nazism, ovens and mass murders. Conservatives like to PRETEND that Stalin is the "communist Hitler" because they need to attach communism to atrocities even though it's historically made countries BETTER not worse. Seems to be working for China. Every day the USA CRAWLS on it's hands and knees and BEGS China to lend it money.
farawayreach 6 months ago
@farawayreach I may hate capitalism farawayreach, but to think the atrocities committed under 'communist' regimes can be thought away for the benefit or material progress, is the same irrationality which led to the Vietnam war by America. It seems capitalism and communism are ends which justify any means.
More like dangerous petty power play. The USA, USSR and China are all victims of it.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@farawayreach Yep, communism works better than capitalism. That's exactly what we see when we compare East Germany to West Germany, and North Korea to South Korea. :-/
Also, nobody's more conservative than a ruling communist party. The minute they acquire power, they drop any ideas of progress and do everything they can to maintain the status quo, i.e. their unlimited power.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
One day soon China will get sick and tired of the USA's "Begging Junky" behaviour and cut them off like any addict should be cut off. When China won't lend the USA another dollar you can kiss goodbye the "American Capitalist Experiment"
farawayreach 6 months ago
Too much comedy for such a serious, tragic subject...
StigJensen123 6 months ago 3
Wow, Bill is completely horrible in this clip.
Foreverclever87 6 months ago 3
@Foreverclever87
Yep, sounds like any other right-wing douche.
MrFarcry1966 5 months ago 2
The salient point is that the North Vietnamese were nationalist anti-colonialists. American involvement in this region, trying to oppose Chinese expansionism, turned local independence movements to communism to compete. The alliance with France put America on the wrong side of this. The smart anti-communist move was backing anti-colonialism. By '68 the US knew this and extended the war to win domestic office. That's Stalinesque criminality. I'd never followed that logic through. Hitchens rules!
mcnesta80 7 months ago 2
hitchens is the only guy who makes sense or knows what he is talking about on this panel!!!
its like socrates debating apes!
LadyScorpio39 7 months ago 2
Bill Maher IS A MOTHERFUCKING MORON.
darkillity 7 months ago
Communism ended with Gorbachev, not Reagan. (Perestroika, Glasnost, etc)
On Viet Nam: It's a sad thing that whenever we look at the world, we look at everyone as though they're pieces on our chess board.
Our mistake; consistently supporting imperial regimes that oppressed indigenous independence movements. That's something the Communists did right, but instead of standing up for what's right--also supporting the indigenous people's freedom from oppression--we make it about opposing Communism.
rrrrrrrush 7 months ago 2
@rrrrrrrush cont: ... And ignore that we're talking about real people with real hopes of self-determination; inherently a white man's mistake, denying the humanity of the yellow man.
rrrrrrrush 7 months ago
God I love Hitch. He is the only one who knows what the fuck he is talking about.
goamerica76 7 months ago
Wrong. Hitchen's statement about NVN fighting for independence is wrong. Watch Frontline with Neil Davis. Everyone with any real bg in history knows that they were the aggressors against the RVN who weren't politically string enough to fight off the communist bloc. In the end the RVN got played by both the U.S. & the Commie Bloc.
twinqletwinqle 7 months ago
Bill is not letting Hitchens get his word out. He keeps talking over him.
ProRanting 7 months ago
to say that the wall fell because of the Americans completely disregards the inner struggle in Soviet Russia and in Eastern Germany, not least because of economic problems.
ModernBabylon 8 months ago
Is he smoking? Wow that really dates it!
yourfaceandmum 8 months ago
smoking on a show?
damn this is old...
MarjoSpineL 8 months ago
the only distinction between comunists and fascists is that the first ones killed far more people then second ones,and they did it in far horrible ways,and for a longer time!
foameasetea 8 months ago
@foameasetea .no The communist regimes, none f which have ever begun to compare to actual communist ideology.
laudrup90 7 months ago 2
Is NOBODY here horrendously offended at Maher's comments? His defence of the Vietnam War as a propaganda victory? His disingenuous analogy to Stalin? His dishonest assertion that all Communist regimes are the same?
My god..I would have liked to see at least one comment here agreeing with what Christopher was trying to say about how the Vietnam War was unjust, fought for nothing and unbelievably cruel; as well being founded on a lie.
BelfastAtheist 8 months ago 24
@BelfastAtheist I don't agree with Maher, but he is wright on this issue another thing there are some facts that they left out such as Russia and China did support the Communist Vietnamese giving troops and weapons. The problem with Vietnam was people like McNamara and Kennedy not listening to military and intelligence agency.
lovejen01 8 months ago
@lovejen01
Pardon me for saying so, but you give me the awful impression if disingenuity here. You really don't appear to have any clue what about you're supposed to be talking about. First of all, the USSR did support Hi Chi Minh and the North - Economically and Militarily to a lesser degree. China however did not..
Kennedy's Anti-Communism was the problem, he was the President who started the lie the Vietnam War was based on.
BelfastAtheist 8 months ago
@lovejen01
Your blanket statement is a little unimpressive, to be terse. As well as rather offensively Reductionist in nature...
You say 'The problem' as if there only was one, there were innumerable flaws with the Vietnam War. It's blatant Imperialism, it's base in Anti-Communist Policy, it's allegiance with the French, America's offer to France to give them Nuclear Weapons to use against the Koreans...etc.
Perhaps you could give me specific advice that Kennedy and Robert McNamara ignored?
BelfastAtheist 8 months ago
@BelfastAtheist i don't know what you are talking about Korea had nothing to do with Vietnam, second why would we tell the "French to use nukes on Korea when he U.S. was fighting Korea. We could have used are own. The report that the JFK administration ignored were the ones by the our military advisors/CIA on what the situation was in Vietnam.
lovejen01 8 months ago
@lovejen01
I would have thought from the context of my comment, it would have been pretty easy to deduce that it was a typo on my part. My apologies, but in all seriousness; I did mean to say Vietnam. It was early in the Morning..
You didn't even quote me accurately, I infered that the U.S Goverment at one point; offered France a Nuclear Arsenal to use against the Northern Vietnamese* troops they were fighting. Of course, this was before U.S troops even got there to defend French Imperialism.
BelfastAtheist 8 months ago
@lovejen01
The French did not have any sort of functional Atomic arsenal at this point. Okay...
You're still being annoying vague. Which reports are you trying to cite here?
BelfastAtheist 8 months ago
@BelfastAtheist then why did you say the French were offering nukes?
The reports i'm talking about were the military advisors sent by Eisenhower and CIA reports about Vietnam can't get any clear than that. Go to Library of Congress, has the documents from IKE, JFK, and LBJ records on Vietnam also there are several detailed books you find as well.
lovejen01 8 months ago
@BelfastAtheist I am from an "ex-communist" country. And I must say in all the videos I watched Americans have shown absolutely no knowledge of what "communist" governments were actualy like. They were terribly oppressive and lacked the intelligence to run the state most of the time. But there are two sides of the medal. We had free health care, free education for all and no unemployment, cheap and plentyful food, high standart of living and a lot of other benefits. Sorry, but this is fact.
decrux47 8 months ago
@BelfastAtheist Disingenious? Ho Chi Minh was just as bad a dictator as Stalin, and Mao and Kim Il Sung are even worse. Same goes for Ulbrecht and Honecker in East Germany. The only real mistake the US did in Vietnam was chickening out and not wining. They had more success in Korea, hence ROK is a decent nation. North Korea and the entire Vietnam are still dominated by a group of repressive scumbags. Thank goodness the Eastern Bloc is over
MeatTycoon 7 months ago
@MeatTycoon Important to note that Ho Chi Minh fought with US against the Japanese. He declared independence quoting parts of the US declaration of independence. He also didn't live to see his side win. That is not to say he was a good guy.
But US was propping up a dictator in south against popular opinion in the country. They did this with enormous force. Vietnam also fought the Khmer rouge when no one else did. Get a broader view please.
ckerton1 7 months ago
@ckerton1 All of which does nothing to change the end result - Vietnam being ruled by a group of slavedrivers who repress freedom of speech, creativity and changing the political system for its citizens. Compare it to South Korea and Japan - countries where the "US-propped dictators" successfully held to their power - and feel the diffrerence.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious The quote marks on "US-propped dictators" seems to imply you think the death and torture of Vietnamese and Koreans by those dictators and regimes is some how not valid or important.
The death of millions of Vietnamese, destruction of the country, and the international isolation resultant from the war has probably not helped the country. I don't think the US could have failed more badly its involvement in Vietnam.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 Oh, they're valid and serious all right. However, they don't come close to the oppression and terror that the communist regimes of North Korea and North (and later all of) Vietnam inflict upon their citizens. Besides, South Korea has gradually evolved into a bona fide democracy; no part of Vietnam had that kind of chance after 1975.
Not really, but the rule of the communist party hasn't helped the country. In fact, it hasn't ever helped any country.
US failed by losing the war.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious The point that you miss is when the US, instead of supporting Vietnamese independence after WW2, it supported the French and inherited a war where they were the enemy of most of the Vietnam people.
I'm certainly not going to defend the regime there after, but nor would I defend that which the USA defended of which you are doing because you believe in this deterministic route to some modern Japan. Now that is incredibly simplistic and implicitly condones those crimes.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 Obviously US did a lot of things wrong, but communists represent, to me, absolute and unquestionable evil. Any war against communism is a good war. As for the Vietnamese independence, Vietnam, if freed from the French colonial rule, could easily become a victim to the lure of Soviet communism.
Now, I'm not saying that the US imperialism is a good thing. However, if it helps save the world from the Soviet of Chinese imperialism, then long live.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Perhaps to take risk and openly influence Ho Chi Minh would of been successful, especially with Vietnamese hostility to China. I think maybe America's paranoia did more to sabotage any chance of success, and the need for militaristic imperialism.
The USA more than anyone should of understood the need for Vietnamese self-determination against colonial power. That is why the US would always lose unless it acted as an ever greater monster in words Nietsche. Luckily it stopped.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Though Communism has arguably failed around the world in the way its been applied, to what degree can Capitalism be called a success. Most discoveries, technological breakthrough, and cultural evolution happens away from crude monetary flows.
It is unfortunately immeasurable the opportunity cost to humanity of continuing with Capitalism, or certainly US style Capitalism.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 Matter of fact, most great scientists do (and did, if you look at the 20th century) work in capitalist countries. Why? Because they can expect to be compensated for their efforts, and because great discoveries make great money - as they should. Except for the communist states, where all significant discoveries are aimed at killing "Western imperialists".
Capitalism is a flawed system, but there are none better at the moment. Or do you know any?
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Well I think greater freedom is actually why science is more successful in the West. I'm not talking about some ridiculous freedom to start a business and be forced to implicitly exploit and compete with everyone regardless of effect. I mean the freedom to en-quire the truth in our lives and to be ironic with it. The killing "Western imperialists" bit is surely a slander of most ordinary scientists in those countries.
Don't make profit from others is a good rule maybe?
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 Freedom - sure, but comfortable living conditions also have something to do with it, I'm sure. Generally, emphasis on the individual and aim for personal success is what makes Western capitalist democracies good and prosperous.
Not exploiting others is a good rule. Let's have a society where all the people are involved in mutually profitable trade. Hey, wait a minute... That IS capitalism. :-)
Nope, no slander. I'm a huge fan of Sakharov, but he participated in making bombs.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious I don't know if overly emphasized individualism can logically help a group or society. Nor can personal success always lead to 'good'. Nor that 'mutually profitable trade' is a prerequisite of Capitalism. Sounds like a load of platitudes like those in Soviet Russia comrade ;)
Capitalism can exist and thrive even if people starve, or are ignorant or live in destitution. Formal slavery could exist in Capitalism, not mentioning implicit exploitation. Its not a Good system.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 Actually, your anti-capitalist ideas sound very much like the Soviet anti-Western propaganda. :-)
The state should exist to satisfy the needs of an individual, not the other way around. Hence the capitalist system is the most effective system yet invented. And yes, it can lead some of its members to poverty and exploitation. However, in a communist regime, everyone is guaranteed poverty and exploitation - other than high-ranking aparatchicks.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@ckerton1 If you want effective, humane examples of socialism, look at Norway and Sweden, not at USSR, China and their satelites.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Not to be a bother, but you said that scientific discoveries "should" make money. Why is that?
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 Because it stimulates the scientists to make them. (Duh.)
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Well that me split the question. 1) Why does a scientist have the right to make money of a discovery? 2) Why does money motivate a scientist to work at science? You may think it simple but please indulge me.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 1) Because the discovery is a scientist's intellectual property, or, to put it in not so legal terms, the result of their work. And I believe that any beneficial work should be paid for. 2) Money generally motivates people to work, no matter in what branch.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So would E=Mc2 count as Einsteins intellectual property, or Newtons equations of moving bodies. How is it their 'intellectual property'? 2) How does money motivate people? I'm just trying to get at the detail here.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 1) Absolutely. 2) When you get up in the morning and get your ass to work despite feeling sleepy and hating to get from under the blanket, that's a good example of how money motivates you.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So approximations of truth can belong to people? Can the news be patented? HOW does it belong to them? 2) Okay that's the effect I want cause, WHY does money motivate?
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 1) News themselves cannot be patented, but the videos, texts, audio recordings etc. that deliver them to the people are fruits of someone's labor, and hence their intellectual property. 2) Because money can lets you buy the goods and services you choose among all the offerings of the capitalist society. Apart from providing you with the necessities of life, money also gives you a degree of economic and social freedom.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So is E=Mc2 intellectual property or just Einsteins papers on subject? 2) So if you had enough money to cover your needs you wouldn't want anymore? Does it matter if the money is from your own labour?
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 1) The formula is his intellectual property, the paper is his physical property. 2) If it covered ALL my imaginable needs, sure, I wouldn't need more. How can it not be from my own labor?
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) So you think people who use the formula E=Mc2 could pay royalties to Einstein. Don't you think that is an extreme view? 2) You have money in the bank don't you, you don't 'earn' the interest. Why do millionaires exist if money only satisfies 'needs'?
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 1) He should have the legal right to demand the royalties, if he so wishes. 2) Because their needs are big enough to be worth millions.
I still don't see what you're getting at.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious 1) Because to pay royalties on a scientific formula could not be a greater debasement of freedom, yet you endorse it for the petty accumulation of monies. Why shouldn't knowledge be free, and not a first come first served monopoly. 2) Because beyond your needs all spending is discretionary and guides all the forces of production towards diminishing amounts of value for yourself. Democracy does not exist when a sole person can dictate millions or billions of spending.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1 And your point is..?
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Just the point that capitalism is undemocratic, unjust, immoral, inefficient, damaging and alienates humans to absurd forms of behavior. Everyone should today disregard intellectual property, the only credit being the honor of first creating such a thing.
A voluntary bloodless enlightened revolution against capitalism is the only hope for any type of future which isn't a petty waste of humanity's potential.
ckerton1 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@ckerton1 A revolution to establish what kind of social system exactly?
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious Hell if I know. But I can at the very least see this current turd sandwich for what it is, and atleast limit being an alienated means to some pointless illusory end.
ckerton1 5 months ago
@ckerton1 As Churchill once said, the democratic capitalist system is the shittiest one ever - except for all the others. The Marxist experiment has failed, so the US model is apparently the best.
The closest thing to an alternative you can find is the democratic socialism of today's Scandinavian countries.
MeatTycoonDevious 5 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious To say the US model is the best is surely to disrespect man's creative powers entirely ;) Though its fiction I'd would love to see something akin to Star Trek. The project at CERN shares this hardworking, collaborative and disciplined group of free individuals without any emphasis on material gain or competition. Indeed it is the artist, scientist, philosopher and common grafter in all of us which must be developed in any new system.
ckerton1 5 months ago
@MeatTycoonDevious it was the stalinist and leninist experiment that failed. don't make that mistake
redryan20000 4 months ago
No, not all Communist regimes are the same--some kill millions, other tens of millions. There is a subtle variation.
regelemihai 7 months ago 3
@regelemihai And capitalist systems never kill anyone?
DrinkSkateSleep 7 months ago
@DrinkSkateSleep
Yes they do.
regelemihai 7 months ago
@regelemihai Depends on a country's population more than anything.
MeatTycoonDevious 6 months ago
@regelemihai And some liberal democracies kill millions as well such as the USA. This is either been on its own lands in case of the Native Americans or the supporting of despots abroad. You could then state this isn't in the core ideals of the country. But then the Soviet Union certainly perverted any ideals in Communism.
Specifically, the unreasonable slander of any opposition to the depressing mess which is capitalism has certainly held humanity back.
ckerton1 6 months ago
@ckerton1
That depressing mess has furnished you this computer you're using to type your comments to me. The real depressing mess is that communist regimes, time and again, have marred and destroyed every country they have infected. What's more depressing is that despite all of that, there are still those who romanticize about it.
regelemihai 5 months ago
@regelemihai
Perhaps more depressing is your assumption I romanticize about Stalinist regimes. Depressing that you don't recognize most of the scientific work to make computers which didn't come from profiteering companies. And most depressing how you think that its impossible for any society to exist which didn't need to make a profit.
Your not an enlightened realist buddy, but an unimaginative apologist for the worst side of humanity. Take the good, but don't defend the bad.
ckerton1 5 months ago
"impossible for any society to exist which didn't need to make a profit."
People seek to make a profit. It's part of human soceities, and it always has been. Those who choose not to can and some indeed don't pursue them. That doesn't make them by themselves bad.
I'm probably the only realist in this discussion. It's precisely because I recognize that this "bad part" of humanity (greed) exists and always has that makes me a realist. It's those who fantasize about communism that seeks to..
regelemihai 5 months ago
...create a childish utopia where no profits, no human greed, and no poverty exists who are unrealistic.
regelemihai 5 months ago
@regelemihai Profit arguably is quite a new concept which only came into being with monetary exchange (arguably your being revisionist here). Further profits don't really exist. Its extra notes or digital dollars separate from any goods or services produced. Thus "profit" will allow you to buy and own vast resources for yourself even if you don't deserve it.
The stock market is the living embodiment of making money without effort. Its strange behavior when you think about it.
ckerton1 5 months ago
"Profit arguably is quite a new concept which only came into being with monetary exchange"
Monetary exchange for you is a recent phenomenon? Wow. I guess that before the 20th century people were in large scales were still using barter. I believe your (sic) the revisionist, not me.
"Its extra notes"
That's what a profit is by definition. Profits are necessary because they serve as a signal for producers in the market to know how to adapt to flow of demand. Without them you have a...
regelemihai 5 months ago
...a centrally planned economy whichleads to misallocations of resources and to many other disasters resulting from it.
The stock market offers people like you and me to make money by purchasing shares from other successful companies who have indeed made their money "with effort." Besdies, I dunno why you pose this as a requisite condition as if people can't be free to make their money without effort (so long as they make it honestly).
regelemihai 5 months ago
@regelemihai To make money without effort, and use this money to buy things is the height of dishonesty. Its similar to counterfeiting a ration book during WW2, you don't deserve what you appropriate with it. Difference is because it is deemed legal, thus many believe it is honest. On a completely logical level it is morally wrong.
ckerton1 5 months ago
@regelemihai "a centrally planned economy whichleads to misallocations of resources and to many other disasters resulting from it".
Are you being serious. Is not the concept "creative destruction" not this same concept by a different name. Why is the devolution of decision from a small group of human beings to a larger group better? Aren't they both flawed. I'd argue you are again accepting one ideology without question and being illogical in process.
ckerton1 5 months ago
@regelemihai Well modern man is tens of thousands of years old. You did say monetary exchange has 'always' been around. That is not the case, thus, logically, you have revised history, yes?
Why do you need an illusion of profit to signal producers? Is there no better way without this false pretense?
ckerton1 5 months ago
@ckerton1
No, there isn't. Unless you have a way of creating a rosey utopia on earth you have to accept it.
regelemihai 5 months ago
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@regelemihai "No, there isn't. Unless you have a way of creating a rosey utopia on earth you have to accept it."
Who said capitalism isn't a religion lol. "You have to accept it", its not gravity or evolution, it doesn't have to be accepted. Is it unreasonable to think that it just might be a false dichotomy between profit making and rosy utopia? Though if utopia was a choice its certainly the better one.
ckerton1 5 months ago
@BelfastAtheist I agree it is the one time I have disagreed with bill mahers ideas.
BeardleProductions 6 months ago
@BelfastAtheist I agree, bro.
farawayreach 5 months ago
What the fuck is Simmons talking about Oil and Vietnam? I think he is getting his wars mixed up.
RightWingHunter666 9 months ago
@RightWingHunter666 No,he did not.
flatwoundtickler 8 months ago
@lol97d they all starve equally, wow
DawnOfTheDead991 9 months ago
The only one on this screen who knows anything about Vietnam is Hitchens. The rest of them together couldn't fill up a thimble with their knowledge.
MrFarcry1966 9 months ago 27
@MrFarcry1966 To be fair though Hitchens is more knowledgeable about most things because he's a fucking genius. Normal people eat food. Hitchens eats knowledge.
CenkIsAdorable 7 months ago 2
@MrFarcry1966 yeah jackass , the british guy who was acommunist in the sixties, as oppossed to two men who were of draft age in the sixties in america, prager and simmons who LIVED through. You're a jackass. Get an education kid.
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
Go back to your keg, you pathetic idiot. Typical American mental patient who hasn't read anything because he doesn't want what he already believes complicated by facts. As though simply being of draft age in the '60s means you know anything about the real causes of the war in Vietnam. To know such things, one must STUDY history, and Hitchens is the only one on this program who has read anything. The rest of them are going on myths and their gut.
MrFarcry1966 5 months ago
Hitchens is an uneducated fool, go back & review his educational background. You limey prick. Secondly, of age meant you could be drafted you fucking imbecile, I would take the accounts of men who were of age at that time a lot more than I would some limey douchebag who protested the war from the safety of being a Brit. If he had such heart and character why didn't the fucking jerk become a citizen and really put his money where his mouth was in protest? Maybe he was like you, a liberal pussy
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
From the safety of being a Brit? Lord knows what you're even trying to stipulate here, but I'll hazard a guess. You appear to be offended at the fact that Christopher led and spoke at (And debated Vietnam with several Politicians at his university) innumerable rallies against the Vietnam War from his homeland of Britain - without taking the protest over to America...? America already had hundreds of thousands of protestors and an International outcry does a lot to end unjust wars.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@bnsaints
As has already been pointed out by other astute youtubers. Christoper Hitchens is the only individual on this programme who even cared enough about Vietnam to educate himself on the issue. Whoopie Goldberg had some interesting notions from East Germany, didn't get to speak a lot, seemed erudite. Prager was being a snide populist. Gene thought the first Indochina War (i doubt he even knew about it, actually) and Vietnam were about Oil...and as for Maher, i'd only be repeating myself.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@BelfastAtheist your comments alon e prove you have no education on the vietnam conflict. For starters, Britian sat out the conflict like the chicken shit cowarss they are, only NZ and Australia came to our side. Secondly, the domino theory was proven to be a reality as evidenced by Cambodi and other nations falling to communism. Christopher hitchens is a hypocrite, look at his comments about the analogy of Dresden and Bob Kerry's recollection of killing some civilians. Total hypocrite he is.
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
Calm down JFK, 'containment was' a load of old nonsense. I'm getting the distinct impression that you don't know very much about the topic here.. considering what you said about Cambodia was erroneous and the rather telling fact that you don't know how to spell Cambodia. Also, your utterances are so lacking in composure or Historical veracity that I feel awkward even addressing them..
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@bnsaints
I don't particularly want to talk to you, I could gather from the first few words of your comments that you have not the capacity to even express your disgusting, revisonist views in an eloquent manner. So I intended to to wish you all the best and say goodbye politely even before you disgraced yourself by agreeing with a coked-out rock-stars disingenuous assertion that the fight against Nazism and the pointless brutalizing of Indo-China were the same..
We're done here.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@BelfastAtheist For starters douchebag, it is obvious Cambodi was a type-o you imbecile, secondly in keeping with your uttter ignorance to the topic, the US went into Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration ASSHAT it was not a JFK containment policy as the US was there in an advisory capacity in the 50's. The fight against Nazism huh lol. Well we didn't have a problem with the Nazi's until December 8th 1941 but an ignoramus like you obviously is not aware of that fact.
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
Oh my.. you've left me a comment I didn't even notice. Again, if you're going to use ''ass hat'' in every comment, I'm just going to laugh at you. You know this, right?
Okay.. either you can spell Cambodia and you're just so lazy with your linguistics that you typed it incorrectly (In which case, you're a hypocrite for attacking my linguistic skills) - or else you couldn't spell it and lied. In either case, I'm not particularly impressed.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@bnsaints
I see this is the third time you've used ''ass hat'' in your comments, oh well.. it's not like you want people to take you seriously or anything, right? The caps lock really helps on that front - it's the true sign of intellect.
I never said JFK was responsibile for the original ''Containment'' Policy, as a matter of fact. I called YOU JFK, in a facetious remark because of your self-righteousness about the reds. JFK did start the lie that got America into Vietnam though.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@BelfastAtheist Yeah well let us try an American history lesson for you imbecile. JFK was elected in Nov of 1960, and US troops and advisors were in Vietnam prior to 1960 so again you prove yourself to be an imbecile of the highest order. Secondly, you sound like a jack ass, Cambodi instead of Cambodia is a type-o you tool and since the country is now called kampuchea what difference does it make. You as is the case with most foreign douchebags repeat PC revisionist history and not the facts
bnsaints 5 months ago
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BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
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BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@bnsaints
It's a sign not only of your intellectual weakness that you feel it necasarry to pump up every comment you leave with fatuous, tautological insults. It's a sign of bad character too.
Conduct yourself like an adult. If you can't make it through one comment without doing so, you deserve neither my respect nor my time.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@bnsaints
Even if you are willing to retract your contemptible remarks (People like you never are..) - I'm also still waiting on you to point me in the direction of which words or phrases I used incorrectly. Of course.. you could just admit you were wrong and that you misread my comments. But then, that would be achknowledging you were wrong - wouldn't it?
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
Nothing in the rules of argument requires one to bestow bogus repsect for an asshole. I don't have to abide by some faggoty Marcus Of Queensbury made op rules of argument with you. You're an ass, who started this debate by bestowing respect and compliments on an ego maniac, bisexual, uneducated dolt like Christopher Hitchens who is neither educated in general nor specifically on the Vietnam conflict. He is an Oxford flunkie who fled to the world of journalism as he can't hack the real world
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
I urge you - please try again, without the Ad Hominems - there's SO much of your comments I'm just waiting to destroy!
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@Belfa For starters asshole, Christopher Hitchens is the KING of ad hominem attacks, he is a smug douchebag who has not problem maliging a person's manners right before he blows his cigarette smoke in somebody's face. He is the text book definiton of a self important twit, right behind you that is. Vietnam fell a full two years after the us ceased all open combat operations and AFTER we stopped suppling the south vietnamese. So to say it was a mistake is absurd, the mistake was not staying
bnsaints 5 months ago
Secondly, asshole, to answer your question, you used the word linguistics improperly, as linguistics has nothing to do with spelling you fucking moron. Linguistics is the study and investigation of human languages you dipshit. Not how to spell a word. Nor did I attack your linguistics skills jackass, I attacked your intellect or lack there of. The old, tired left wing notion that the US lost in Vietnam or that it was unneccessary is neither born out by fact or history and assholes like Chris
bnsaints 5 months ago
@BelfastAtheist Hitchens do nothing but beat a 40 year old drum about how great the 60's were and how awful Nixon and LBJ were and how vietnam was so baddddddd. Additionally, I find imbeciles and those with NO factual merit to be contemptible, hence my contemptible remarks. Here endeth the lesson. By the way, I've been to Belfast in 1998, it's a shit hole
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
Is there any particular reason why you've decided to insult my hometown? I fail to see any relevance it has to this particular debate. Anyways, Belfast is pretty diverse.. it has rich areas and poor areas like any other City.
As for Nixon being awful.. I'm assuming you don't seriously think he was great? As for L B. J - the longer the Vietnam War went on for - the lower his approval rating went. You think the entire American population voted that way out of ignorance or...?
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@ Because I think a person who is from the western worlds epicenter of terrorism and religious fantacism for the last 80 years ( Belfast) Ireland making comments about the morality of US combat operations to be hypocritcal and laughable and because I took a bus tour of Blefast from Dublin in 1998 and thought it was basically on par with Calcutta, ie a shit hole. I'm getting rather use to giving you history lessons at this point. LBJ declined to run in 68 the US pop didn't vote him out you tool.
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
The ''Western Worlds epicenter of terrorism'' ... ?
Anyways, this is getting a little convuluted. So let's swap format and do this in PMs.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@ As seems so typical of you politically correct douchebags you try to make things so much more epic on your end and you marginalize things on the other end. The only reason why Vietnam would not be absolutley analogous to WWII is it was politically and social fashionable to malign the US in 1965 and not in 1944. Dresden, Schweinfurt, Berlin, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc... infact were worse than any bombing campaigns engaged in by the US forces in vietnam. Try cracking a history book open You pansy
bnsaints 5 months ago
@bnsaints
You call people pansies when you're trying to debate them..? Hm.
I wouldn't have minded - it's just; you're so fatuous and petulant that first of all, you don't appear to have properly read my comment and secondly, you've not only misinterpreted my argument - you've conversed it entirely.
If you really think I was making an anology between WWII and the Vietnam War, don't leave me any more comments - i said precisely the opposite.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@bnsaints
Also, for such a Military Historian as yourself I find it conspicuous that you didn't mention Wesel in your pointless list. I don't think I've ever had anyone read a comment of mine and aquire *exactly* the opposite connotation in their quarrelsome, bored minds.
Anyways, WWII good. Vietnam bad. Is that simple enough for you? Christ..
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
@BelfastAtheist why don't you try learning the meaning of some the words you try using. Incorrectly using words to try to sound smart actually has the opposite effect you ass hat. LOL
bnsaints 5 months ago
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BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
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@bnsaints
Not to be rude (You know..and sink to your level) but do you have mild dyslexia? First of all, you misinterpreted my original comment and then now this. Which words did I use incorrectly? I re-read my comment and there are none. Incidentally, if you wish to insult other peoples linguistic skills.. you really must avoid using the phrase 'ass hat''. It makes me think you're a child.
BelfastAtheist 5 months ago
If you want evil to stop, you have to let their own citizens fight the battle. When other countries get involved, they usually have their own agenda and outcomes for going into their. It creates a conflict of interest. When it's a superpower, they usually want to install a puppet government for economic purposes.
thedailyblazer 9 months ago
Oh and p.s. that last comment about smoking was fucking stupid!!!!! If he's not allowed to smoke, tell him before he has a cig. That point grinded my gears. Irrelevent even in the shallow context he put it in.
MrLittletomdj 9 months ago
This whole debate span utterly out of control... Whoopi and Hitchens made good points... but there was only Maher asking questions & Simmens seemed totally flawed. The other guy seemed off point & of context. There was no structure to this debate... I can only blame Maher for that.
MrLittletomdj 9 months ago
Gained a ton of respect for Whoopi with this video. Being a libertarian socialist myself, it's nice to see someone in America who can understand the disconnect between the ideas of Karl Marx and the ideas of Josef Stalin.
3Reviews 9 months ago
I would hate to be around a table with any of them except Whoopi.
AuroraGreenleaf 9 months ago
Why did the dumbest person talk the most?
5506 9 months ago
@5506 they often do.
shwwnn 9 months ago
Vietnam was a dreadful war, poorly fought for all the wrong reasons.I t was a political device that only squelched Amercia's youth, vitality, and good name.
Vietnam was not about fighting totalitarianism (communism) although that fact was hidden from the American people, mostly by ignorance, arrogance and out-right self deception. If Vietnam was about stopping totalitarianism, I would have supported it.
drfoxcourt 10 months ago
I love @ 2:13 Hitchens saying 'nonsense' haha
RyanRedd 10 months ago
It's incredible how people use the word "communism" to refer to the USSR and Stalin, China and Mao, Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh etc. (but capitalists do that, they say communism is misery). Communism is the exact opposite of what existed (and in of China, still exists) in all of these countries. Nor were they even socialist, the only country that has ever come close to socialism is Cuba and Venezuela is getting there. I'm probably gonna get an ultra-lefty go off at me for the Cuba bit but hey.
xtremelygoodlookin 10 months ago