Letters to the Editor
kenkapkk
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 13
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Buzzing Lightly
[Read the article: The waning power of the War Myth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Read "Fire in the Lake" by Frances Fitzgerald and maybe learn something beyond your myopic tunnel vision. Are you possibly insinuating the Vietnan War was justified under any circumstances? That the moral honor of those who opposed the war is somehow compromised because perhaps it fortified the Vietnamese?
Here's a shock, pal. I SUPPORTED the Vietnamese because WE were the bad guys. This apparent "America right or wrong" don't fly. If America is going to engage in a perniscious imperialistic or neofascist exercise, then
1) I will not support it, as in the present circumstance
or
2) Support the other when they are justified in their resistance, as was the case in Vietnam.
Poor, poor Johnson, et al that a significant amount of Americans actually recoiled in horror at their lies and murder and did something.
BTW, the Vietnamese would have fought forever. Read the BOOK, "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young". The North Vietnamese deliberately used the battle as a field test as to how they could defeat the invaders, not by victories, but by assessing the rate of attrition and what it would cost. They came away satisfied that this plan would work, as it well did.
And OUR destabilization of both Cambodia and Vietnam fomented the excesses and genocide there. Nixon only had to falsify the bombing runs in Cambodia for three years, but I guess that also is some delusion of the "looney left and its prejudices".
Good for us that some took comfort in our efforts.
Now go and watch "The Green Berets" if it will molify you.
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The difference
[Read the article: The best TV show of all time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The Sopranos" is a tour de force. "The Wire" is a masterpiece. Therein lies the difference between the two shows.
I remember watching the commentary part of one of the "Wire's" DVD's. The desire to work with and create a cinematic form and experience was exquisitely realized. In nearly every scene, character, shot. The writing, concept, and execution of "The Soprano's" was great, extremely powerful but also highly uneven. "The Wire" works at a level of power and sublimity that never wavers. The humanization, the depth of exploration of the drug world and underclass is unparalleled.
Chase is a great writer, Simon and Burns are better. The meticulous imnterweaving of "The Wire", the stripping away of the masks of the present world to reveal the reality we constantly ignore is extraordinary.
The death of Stringer Bell and others was as or more powerful than any hit in "The Sopranos". The ending of season four carried more pathos and tragedy than any moment I can remember in "The Sopranos".
"The Sopranos" is Richard III. But "The Wire" is King Lear. Which is the greater play? The more mature achilevement, vision realized?
I truly think "The Wire" compares to Shakespeare as great tragedy. I do not believe the same of "The Sopranos", and I am a fan.
"Oz", "Deadwood", "Six Feet Under". Phenomenal shows. We are lucky to have had them.
"The Wire" is the greatest program produced for television ever.