Indochina Quotes

“Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.”
― Edward R. Murrow

“A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The hypothesis advanced by the propaganda model, excluded from debate as unthinkable, is that in dealing with the American wars in Indochina, the media were "unmindful", but highly "patriotic" in the special and misleading sense that they kept -- and keep -- closely to the perspective of official Washington and the closely related corporate elite, in conformity to the general "journalistic-literary-political culture" from which "the left" (meaning dissident opinion that questions jingoist assumptions) is virtually excluded. The propaganda model predicts that this should be generally true not only of the choice of topics covered and the way they are covered, but also, and far more crucially, of the general background of the presuppositions within which the issues are framed and the news presented. Insofar as there is debate among dominant elites, it will be reflected within the media, which in this narrow sense, may adopt an "adversarial stance" with regard to those holding office, reflecting elite dissatisfaction with current policy. Otherwise the media will depart from elite consensus only rarely and in limited ways. Even when large parts of the general public break free of the premises of the doctrinal system, as finally happened during the Indochina wars, real understanding based upon an alternative conception of the evolving history can be developed only with considerable effort by the most diligent and skeptical. And such understanding as can be reached through serious and often individual effort will be difficult to sustain or apply elsewhere, an extremely important matter for those who are truly concerned with democracy at home and "the influence of democracy abroad," in the real sense of these words.”
― Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

“No doubt the foregoing litany of obstacles in the path of success stands out more sharply in retrospect than it did at the time. Hindsight can distort; prophets become prophets only in time.”
― Fredrik Logevall

“Alles flonkerde. Er werd muziek gespeeld, er werd gedanst. Beeldschone vrouwen met lang zwart haar walsten met heel kleien pasjes, met de aristocratisch zelfbeheersing waar militairen van het expeditieleger hopeloos verliefd op werden.”
― Alexis Jenni, L'Art français de la guerre