Silence. That’s the overriding theme of this episode. Silence, as in Martin Luther King’s admonition that “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Does that not perfectly frame Nixon’s so-called “brilliant” maneuver of celebrating the amoral, even cowardly, silence of the majority of Americans in the face of this war’s immorality and in response to the righteous anger of young and old who raged against it? Nixon’s infamous “silent majority” speech kicks off this episode. To counter this political maneuver, one activist seared our TV screen last night with this placard: “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men – Abraham Lincoln.”
And then there is the silence of the filmmakers themselves, when it comes to the incredibly important GI resistance movement that rose up as Nixon tried to wind down the war. Where is that story? Passing references to disgruntled veterans voicing their anger, as important as those voices are, does not do it justice. We needed more. In an 18-hour series, one could expect time to adequately examine the courageous resistance waged by active-duty GIs to an unjust war they were ordered to fight and die for.
Continue reading “PBS Series, The Vietnam War, Receives Emmy Nomination. Should It?”