Image via Wikipedia
Like all craftsman and builders in history, Mao worked with the materials available at hand– peasants. It wasn’t the crisis of overproduction, or the alienation of the worker, that mattered to them. No, what a Chinese peasant dreamed of was land; Mao understood this well… More>>
Posted in Asia, Essays, Philosophy, Vietnam, War
Tagged Asia, China, Communist China, Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, Mao, Mao Zedong, Peasant
Image via Wikipedia
Check out various YouTube vids of the Vietnam War. See Khe Sanh and Con Thien, Hue, and the Fall of Saigon… More>>
Posted in Asia, History, Movies & TV, US Military, Video, Vietnam, War
Image via Wikipedia
the French theory of colonial exploitation held that the colonies should enrich the mother country, but all Paul Doumer could do was to bring self-sufficiency. He could raise enough through his taxes to support the cost of the huge bureaucracy and that was about it. The French talked about their civilizing mission, but in fact the result for the peasant was social dislocation and impoverishment. The French did build up the economic infrastructure—railroads, bridges and the like—but by and large it benefited only the wealthy and the French themselves… More>>
Image via Wikipedia
On this date:
March 18 – 20, 1970 – Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia is deposed by General Lon Nol.
Sihanouk, who had been out of the country at the time of the coup, had been walking a fine line for years between the Americans and the North Vietnamese– he allowed the U.S. to conduct strategic bombing against NVA targets inside Cambodia while at the same time he was the one who granted those same NVA troops sanctuary within his borders. Sihanouk was desperate to keep his country out of the fighting war so he played both ends against the middle, and was remarkably successful at it. In the end it was his inability, or lack of effort, to stop supplies destined for the NVA and Viet Cong from traversing his ports and countryside that finally led the US to support his removal… More>>
Posted in Asia, Essays, History, Sunday Almanac, US Military, Vietnam, War
Tagged Cambodia, Khmer Rouge, Lon Nol, Norodom Sihanouk, Polpot, Richard Nixon, Vietnam War
BBC In Our Time The Guardian Talking Points Memo The Intercept France24 Media Matters For America Currently Reading Recently Read
Parallel Narratives 