How does it happen that in a history program which states it’s factual something so inaccurate gets presented as fact and gets blasted out on the air unquestioned and uncorrected?
Is this worthwile any effort or should we allow such misinformation to rest as fact, even though factually incorrect?
I’ve seen others dismiss the Domino Theory as well.
It’s one of those things that can only be explained as a liberal mental disorder.
Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam all went down together in April 1975.
Well, they often do give differing opinions, and if you only hear part of a program, one "expert" verses the other, you can get the wrong impression. But even on the straight documentaries, they do get things wrong, although I certainly don't catch them very often.
In general though, aside from a tendency to editorialize when not appropriate, they generally are pretty good. Especially the "tech" shows, be they military or otherwise. From time to time they show episodes of a show called "Tales of the Gun", which usually feature an NRA expert, curator of the NRA museum, I think. Their "Dogfights" is also good and seems accurate.
The History Channel is a joke - a while back they were advertising a series on The Battle of New Orleans and in the background they were playing “Dixie” ... Dixie wasn’t written until 1859 .... the Battle of New Orleans took place in 1810 or there abouts ....
I did not see the program; however, it depends on what is meant by the domino theory. I teach American history and Cold War chronolgy reflects several different foreign policy approaches beginning with Kennan’s containment, the Truman doctrine etc. The domino theory did presuppose monolithic communist agression with the key word here being “monolithic” and a (wrong) assumption that communism was united in its opposition to the United States and its allies. That this united opposition was manifest in the falling of nations to communism like a “line of dominoes” was proven wrong as seen in often chilly relations between the Soviet Union and Communist China, China and Vietnam etc. Cold War communism is now viewed a something less than monolithic and its “wars of liberation” more a reflection of nationalistic impetus than a communist conspiracy and a domino theory. So in that regard, the statement on the History channel may not have been too far removed from historical validity.
At least Robin Williams, the star of "Good Morning Vietnam" has been in the sandbox, both this go round and the last, IIRC, entertaining the troops, and not just at the big (and safer) bases either.
Boy, was I wrong, and I didn’t realize it until the Professor introduced himself at the beginning of the course and proudly boasted he was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, had ran away to Canada, received a degree in History of the British Empire, Jimmy Carter pardoned him in 1978, and he returned to the U.S. to teach history.
As we all know, the only way you can get through college is to give the professor what he wants to hear, but I’ll be damned if I could do that and it almost caused me to fail the course. Every time this professor spouted something like, “The Domino Theory was false, or the 1968 Tet Offensive was a great communist victory, etc, etc,” I openly challenged him. To have to sit there quietly as this draft dodger spouted untruths about the Vietnam War was more than I could force myself to do.
What we now see on the History Channel and most of the other “educational channels” are only products of our leftist dominated institutions of higher learning. It was once said that the victorious are the ones who get to write the history of a conflict, but that is no more. Now, sadly, it is the ones who run away and hide who get to write the history of what took place.
I think the justification to most libs for dismissing the domino theory is that communism didn’t ultimately show up on our doorstep, which was originally part of the concern. It did sweep through southeast Asia, however, killing 3 or 4 million after we fled Vietnam, which the mainstream media promptly ignored. See any similarities between that and what the libs want for Iraq?
It’s the Hystery channel, now.
Doesn't surprise me. I saw a History Channel crapumentary on Castro and the HC was practically giving him a "Lewinsky".
Than was crounough, the guy Robin Williams played in good morning vietnam. BTW, I told my wife the same thing.
One of the best( not perfect) films on Viet Nam I’ve seen is “Viet Nam, The 10,000 day warâ€. It was played on PBS years ago, but I have been unable to find it anywhere since. I’ve checked the library, Ebay, Internet, ect. It’s like it never existed. It was something like 13 1 hr episodes. I thought Time-Life books might have done it in writing. They showed the NV leaders on camera saying they were losing the war but they hung on because of Jane Fonda and the anti war left. They named names and showed footage of Kerry and the left. They showed the VVAW in Paris and other stories of the commies in America. If anyone knows where top find it, I would be interested.
Very highly recommended reading. Tells the history you'll never hear. And completely validates the domino theory. South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Phillipines (among many more SE Asia countries) had active communist movements, all held at bay the the US taking action.
History channel is still spreading the debunked fiction that the US army deliberately spread small pox to the Indians. (Ward Churchill made that up and it has since been proven false)
Only response i make is not to watch them anymore. Just cause everyone lies, doesn’t make it right. For me, credibility means alot and the History Channel has forfieted theirs.
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