Tag: Vietnam

Tet Offensive and the Emergence of Fake News

George Noga

More Americans believe Elvis is alive (8%) than trust the media (6%).
Tet Offensive and the Emergence of Fake News
By: George Noga – January 26, 2020

        We begin with the facts which, with 52 years perspective, are now clear to all. January 25, 2020 was Tet, the beginning of the Vietnamese lunar new year. In 1968 Tet was on January 30 and brought a shock wave to Vietnam as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong began a coordinated surprise assault unprecedented in scale and ferocity. More than 100,000 strong, they attacked over 100 towns across South Vietnam.

        Enemy goals were to inflict massive US casualties, collapse the South Vietnamese army and overthrow its government. Although Tet surprised the US, it regrouped, fought back and by late March had achieved total victory. Enemy casualties were 60,000-70,000 (mostly KIA) while US losses were 2,000-3,000. Enemy losses were so severe they were unable to mount an offensive again until 1972. The NV/VC achieved none of their military or civil goals and suffered a complete and crushing defeat.

     But in living rooms throughout America, nightly television news reported an overwhelming American defeat. Most reporters never ventured outside of Saigon and then media stars descended on the scene from New York and Washington with their ideological baggage. The most prominent was Walter Cronkite who peered into the camera and said the war couldn’t be won, whereupon President Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.” Today, one of the highest journalism awards is The Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

        To be clear, the Vietnam War was an unmitigated American disaster; over 58,000 brave Americans died. It was predicated on the ersatz domino theory; our objectives never were clearly articulated; we hamstrung our military and did not try to win; and our military and political leaders were inept, dishonest and bereft of credibility. Given this miasma, we probably would have lost even if Tet had been honestly reported. Nonetheless, the Tet reporting was the modern advent (or revival) of fake news.

       The media always were scurrilous. Joseph Pulitzer was a muckraking publisher best known for fake news promoting the Spanish-American War. It is an indictment of journalism that its most prestigious awards are named after Pulitzer and Cronkite, purveyors of fake news. We now have fake reporters, reporting fake news, receiving fake journalism awards named after fake journalists famous for fake reporting.

An Antidote for Fake News: Fair Witnesses and Mentats

         Americans want the plain truth even if it shatters cherished shibboleths. So-called fact checkers (Facebook, PolitiFact, Snopes) are dishonest and unprincipled. America needs unimpeachable sources for determining facts, i.e. Fair Witnesses and Mentats.

       Fair Witness is a product of Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land). In a future dystopia, citizens counter despotic government with Fair Witnesses, recognized as so truthful and objective as to be unimpeachable. They have an eidetic memory and receive deferential treatment. Fair Witnesses are only a small part of one of Heinlein’s books published in 1961; nonetheless, there are 125 million internet entries, the same as for Pope Francis. The idea clearly resonates. Mentats, created by Frank Herbert (Dune), are similar. Like all great science fiction, it speaks to us in our own time.

      Such a concept is needed today and it would work! Fair Witnesses would transform debate about any issue lending itself to logic or proof. Imagine the possibilities for politics, business and advertising. Above all, the media would no longer decide which truth Americans are allowed to know and which truth they are not allowed to know. It would spell the end of progressivism which is based entirely on lies. Finally, Fair Witnesses would put to rest the Elvis myth and end the plague of fake news.

Next on February 2, we demonstrate the advantages of the Electoral College.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Why I Write This Blog?

George Noga
By: George Noga – September 10, 2014
        This posting marks the beginning of the end. Between now and mid-December I will publish the final MLLG posts. I often have been asked why I have taken the trouble. Why have I spent 1,000 hours writing 300 posts filling 900 pages containing 500,000 words since November 2007? Why have I written fact-based and principled tracts about public policy even though I am unenamored with politics and politicians? This post answers the question: why. In the Federalist, Alexander Hamilton questioned and challenged his fellow Americans thusly:
“Whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend on accident and force.”
       If any society of men fails to get its politics right, it affects every aspect of life and life itself. Get politics right and we live our lives in freedom, prosperity and pursuit of our dreams. Get politics wrong and liberty, happiness and property are forfeit and life itself is nasty, brutal and brief. Politics, grubby as it is, is the sine qua non to having a life worth living.
      Examples abound of those who got their politics wrong: Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Imperial Japan, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Stalin’s USSR were all black holes where life and liberty were trampled. Today we have,inter alia, Putin’s Russia, the Jongs’ North Korea, the Castro brothers’ Cuba and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. And don’t forget the entire Arab world, nearly all of Central and South America, Africa and any place ending in “stan”.
       If you believe the western world is exempt, think again. WWI was a senseless slaughter with 40 million casualties; its politically inept conclusion led to WWII with its 150 million casualties. This was due to a failure of politics in Europe and also in the USA. In the past century and continuing to the present, “civilized” Europe has experienced 100 genocides, pogroms and ethnic cleansings. Vietnam was a  colossal failure of American politics to get it right; it cost 58,220 American lives and 303,644 more wounded. Nor have we learned; we continue to get it wrong right up to this day.

       If we don’t get our politics right, our children and our children’s children will live in an Orwellian torpor with their lives, liberty and property constantly at risk because of obeisance to failed ideologies, fantasies, vote buying, political correctness and the never ending and fruitless search for Utopias. Politics is inherently personal. Following are but some of the ways I have been directly harmed throughout my life by our failure to get politics right.

  • I had no father at home for 4 years during WWII which resulted from government ineptitude in fighting and ending WWI. Father was in Korea, also the result of political blunder, for another year during my childhood.
  • I received an execrable, pathetic non education in government schools from age 5 to 18.
  • The Federal Reserve created economic conditions that resulted in severe cycles, bubbles, panics, meltdowns and deep recessions throughout my life continuing to the present.
  • I was subject to income taxes of over 90%, creating perverse, uneconomic incentives.
  • It now requires $15,000 to buy what cost $1,000 when I was born due to government currency debasement.
  • Regulation run amok made owning my business onerous. The regulations, all in the guise of protecting consumers, in actuality, caused them (and me) great harm.
  • The politically micromanaged Vietnam War disrupted my life for the 6 years I served in the military.
  • The Fed has brutally devalued a lifetime of hard work via chronic negative real interest rates intended to protect a feckless government from the consequences of its ongoing debt binge.
  • A torpid, Europesque economy has been imposed, dooming me to economic stagnation instead of robust  growth.
  • The current crisis of spending, debt and deficits ultimately will result in a lost generation.
  • Our government has recklessly created and/or exacerbated dangerous situations throughout the world by weakening our military and appeasing tyrants. An existential crisis likely will result.
  • Obamacare death panels will ration and deny medical care and ultimately could kill me.
       Due entirely to failed politics I was fatherless for five years and lucky I wasn’t orphaned into a life of poverty. I survived utterly wretched government schools, incessant and severe economic cycles, debilitating inflation, astronomical tax rates and hyper regulation. Vietnam discombobulated my life. And all this was because of a government most consider one of the best extant. And all because we failed to get our politics right.
       Now, in my eighth decade of life, our once vibrant economy is riven by government-created anemia. America has transmogrified into sclerotic Europe where men lead lives of quiet desperation. Government has created a crisis of spending, debt and deficits, one consequence being sustained negative real interest rates that savage my decades of prudence. My final indignity is Obamacare; its rationing and death panels may end my life prematurely.
       Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with me. Our children and our children’s children are doomed to a much poorer and more dangerous future; they will be a lost generation. They will pay for our debt binge and generational theft with vastly reduced opportunity. They will inhabit a Clockwork Orange world where nuclear arms proliferate in places committed to our destruction and solely because we weakened our defense and kowtowed to tyrants. Our weakness invites terror and slaughter for which they will pay dearly, perhaps with their lives. And all this from a government most consider one of the best extant. And all because we failed to get our politics right.
“The correct answer to Alexander Hamilton’s question may be in the negative.”
       As you can see, if we don’t get our politics right, our lives are vastly diminished and trivialized in countless ways; we condemn our progeny to economic stagnation and loss of freedom. Their lives and liberty are at grave risk because we failed to get our politics right. It appears the correct answer to Alexander Hamilton’s question may be in the negative.
       I have tried mightily through this blog to show that the answer lies in more liberty and less government. Hopefully, my efforts have given our children’s children that infinitesimally better chance for liberty. And that is my answer to the question: why I write this blog.
        Note to readers:  I am striving to make the final postings between now and mid-December special as I seek to end my MLLG blog on a high note. I hope you enjoy them.