THE notorious 'wall of silence' which surrounds the media in Britain suffered sufficient shock on television earlier this You line up a panel to knock down the offending documentary, Heroes.
John Pilger, whose documentaries on Kamdid so much oucned puncture the imperialist world's myths about that country after the overthrow of Pol Pot, looked at the region through different eyes in his latest forage.
Heroes took up the story of the American veterans ot the Vietnam war, in parof the wounded veterans and their fate. The of Did You See obPilger assembled demonstrate ns Case and that of the vets.
Horrors Having been subjected to the horrors of the war in Indo-China, the vets now are given little pensation for their injuries.
LiKe Ine Vietnamese they are the isolated victims of the Us deteat.
One leader of the vets said on the programme:
infantry commander could order strikes that cost government that that tells me it can't afford medical aid tor the veterans wounded there.' Interview after interview revealed government neglect and veteran anger. Comparisons were made the treatment veterans returning from the Second were paid to go to university and provided with business 'As loans the Benefits under that Bill are now lower in money terms than in the 1950s.
The official statistics of nealect in the documentary rejected out of hand by Did You historian, John Keagan 'Heroes' on the US vets Wall Street, New York: May 1970. Students demonstrating against the Vietnam war. The US government wants to erase memories of the anti-war GI Bill. came from Teoorl which released from pression by a Freedom ot in formation Act suit brought by the vets military story, recalled evener a government only official supthe government Far from overtelling their returning cheering Pilger undertold it. He the powerful US emphasis).
white-collar workers sell their labour for a wage or not?
DOWCI Which class does Ine writer think they belong to?
CHRIS BERTRAM, Oxford REPLY: Chris's points are pedantic and nit-picking. If the article was 'unreadable' then that's not Brian's fault it was substantially edited.
Second, our insistence on a priority orientation to workers not because we have redefined the proletariat, Poulantzas only those who directly produce surplus value. We accept the traditional definition of the working class as all those who sell labour power.
The point is: there are 'historically fixed' decisive The 1945 soldiers, the US veterans as the ched of Force unpaid their veterans war greeted anti-war movement and the vets' involvement in it. But he implied that the resulting unpopularity of the war and reluctance of the march the soldiers through welcomes simply spilled over into the sectors working class, whose social weight is crucial for any revolunonary or socialssa. present neglect.
GI Bill was not the result or a government par ting its boys on the back for duing a good job in winning popular war. The demobilisation of 15m Gls in followed massive demonstrations by Those Guam to Paris, demanding to be sent home and released from the army. The militant mood of soldiers prevented the invading China after the Second World War. Veterans more, the of the •revious had given the wal governate to expect too expect neglected veterans. In 1932, depression struck, Thousands over scl on DC They were part of hundreds 'Bonus Expeditionary who verged on the capital and set up a camp demanding their bonuses, promised at the end of the war.
After two months the army was sent in to destroy and several were killed. The episode cannot have been forgotten when the GI Bill was passed veterans ot the two World Wars were greeted as neroes. out us notrue ludi the left in the US regards all veterans as babv killers, as Pilger claimed. The veterans played a vital role in the anti.
movement, them warmly, and it's for this reason that the government now them out of sight. Crossfire The real target ot the government's policy, cruelly catching the vets and the Vietnamese in the crossfire 'Vietnam Syndrome' tegy anu unese are lie the miners, the car workers, transport workers, engin How the vets were fêted during the war - the still persistent senti ment among the Americar people against any more It kept the US i out of wars Angola; it prevented an in vasion of Iran last year, and it is spurring a new move ment against the US invasion of El Salvador When the anti-war move Vietnam go Ente there Tull SWInd were already 500,000 troops there It is a different story today Pilger powerfully concludec his documentary with com parisons between the in the US press that heralded the Vietnar war and those now neare over El Salvador.
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