In 1972 Sanders told VT jr high students that US policy in Nam was almost as bad as what Hitler did

[highplainsdem]

I've mentioned here recently that I wondered just what Sanders might have said during his four campaigns as a candidate (twice for US Senate, twice for governor) for the radical Liberty Union Party in the 1970s.

I just ran across one of these statements in an article published less than an hour ago by NBC:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/will-sanders-long-ago-praise-socialist-regimes-hurt-democrats-november-n1139811

In 1972, Sanders told junior high school students in Vermont that U.S. policy in Vietnam was "almost as bad as what Hitler did," according to the Rutland Daily Herald.

I found out doing some checking on other articles referring to that ridiculous statement, which I hadn't run across before, that this was said while Sanders was running for governor of Vermont.

God only knows what other statements like this are out there, statements most people haven't heard about yet.

The odds are the GOP has them compiled, though, in the massive oppo file Kurt Eichenwald says they have on Sanders.


That NBC article. by the way, asks in the headline

Will Bernie Sanders' long-ago praise of Socialist regimes hurt Democrats in November?


Yes, it will.

Sanders' radical background could prove to be a minefield for the Democratic Party, if we make the mistake of nominating him.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

1. That article doesn't tell us what he was specifically talking about.

We did some really shitty stuff in Vietnam. Or are we now pretending that we didn't? Because, you know, Bernie.

[polichick]

9. Bingo.

[ms liberty]

30. This. n/t

[SweetieD]

2. This is complicated. I don't think anyone in 2020 is going to argue in favor of the US in the

Vietnam war. And I wasn't born when it was the worst fighting, neither were most voters my age range and I'm in my 40s. It is one of those events that is fading from the public perception. And from watching documentaries about it it seems like the US did have periods when it appeared to be supporting genocide.

[nobuddy]

10. Plenty of boomers believe we would have won

if not for the media. They still look back on it as a noble cause.

[karynnj]

27. Most DEMOCRATIC boomers would completely disagree with you

In fact, if you watched any of Ken Burns' excellent documentary, you would know that many Republican politicians who fought that war eventually agreed that there were things that should not have happened. That includes people like John McCain. Others, like Chuck Hagel were very open about using caution in Syria because of his Vietnam experience. Even John Warner, who had been Secretary of the Navy then expressed misgivings.

I think most Democrats agreed with John Kerry, who in 1971 argued that war was unwinnable -- and he was right.

Here, Sanders used a comparison that he should not have used, but it was something said decades ago.

[5X]

3. almost...

it was a war started on a lie.
we used napalm on villages.

[highplainsdem]

7. And you consider that comparable to the Holocaust?

[abqtommy]

13. Yup. My Lai. Agent Orange, the gift that keeps on giving the Vietnamese birth defects TO

THIS DAY. That's my perspective.

[highplainsdem]

15. So I guess you'd think that our firebombing Dresden and dropping atomic bombs on Japan

made us comparable to Hitler then, too?

[essme]

18. Dresden should never have happened...it was to make a point, that's obscene...so yes. nt

[abqtommy]

22. I guess you like to change the subject. Different war, different enemy. That's what I think.

[5X]

14. of course not.

Minuscule in scale, but certainly was no moral high ground there.

[Cal Carpenter]

4. Read the history of the American War in Vietnam from the perspective of Vietnamese

people. It ain't pretty. American Exceptionalism is not a good lens through which to look at this.

Here's a recent book by a Vietnamese immigrant writer, for example:

https://bookshop.org/books/nothing-ever-dies-vietnam-and-the-memory-of-war/9780674979840

(Viet Thanh Nguyen is one of my favorite contemporary writers, btw)

[Kingofalldems]

5. Well Trump and the GOP will NEVER bring that one up!

Only every freaking hour.

[highplainsdem]

12. Especially in ads aimed at veterans.

[UniteFightBack]

6. Very few can come close to 'almost as bad as Hilter'? And sorry but the USA, warts and all ain't

one of them.

[Kingofalldems]

8. Kick this one.

[nobuddy]

11. And?

[essme]

16. "Almost" is almost right. BBC "Industrial-scale slaughter"

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23427726

"The amount of ammunition fired per soldier was 26 times greater in Vietnam than during World War II. By the end of the conflict, America had unleashed the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs on Vietnam.

Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air and strafed by helicopter gunships before ground troops went in on search-and-destroy missions.

The phrase "kill anything that moves" became an order on the lips of some American commanders whose troops carried out massacres across their area of operations.

While the US suffered more than 58,000 dead in the war, an estimated two million Vietnamese civilians were killed, another 5.3 million injured and about 11 million, by US government figures, became refugees in their own country."

Sure beats other colonial numbers and scale. Probably second to the Nazi's. 2 million killed is probably a low estimate. Doesn't take in Agent Orange deaths after we left.

Want some Orange Crush?

[highplainsdem]

19. Good luck trying to convince the electorate that high casualties in a war are comparable

to concentration camps and gas chambers used for the coldblooded murder of several million people.

[essme]

20. The gas chambers are the one thing that set the Nazi's apart. That's for sure.

But camps are used by Turkey, Serbs, the US and others. It is called "internment". The quality, if that really matters, can be disputed.

Targeting civilians with technology never seen before is its own sin. Industrial scale killing.

That's why it is "almost" not "worse" or the "same". It's still really bad.

I'm not that concerned about this one. Hyperbole is all around us. I hate Nazis just as much as the next person. But when taken in context (and when that tape was made) Vietnam was far too close to what the Nazi's did for my liking.

[highplainsdem]

21. What Sanders said is disqualifying for a presidential candidate. And I ran the comment past

two people I know offline who were in the military then (of a number of relatives and friends who served then), and they both thought it was a crazy thing to say. Including the one who supports Sanders. He still thinks Sanders was out of his mind for saying that, and that it will hurt his campaign if more people find out about it.

[denem]

17. Mike will get it done.

I doubt he feels constrainted by the be nice to Bernie strategy, that the candidates followed throughout the campaign up until recently.

New Hampshire eve, did Biden attack Bernie? Of course not, he kneecapped Buttigieg.

[BeckyDem]

23. lol

[dalton99a]

24. Rutland (Vt.) Daily Herald, October 19, 1972:

[highplainsdem]

25. So Sanders thought McGovern "had made too many concessions to be supported." Sanders helped

Nixon get re-elected.

[JFlash]

26. I have a lot of worries about a Sanders candidacy

but this old quote from 48 years ago is not one of them.

[polichick]

28. Well, it was pretty damn bad.

[OAITW r.2.0]

29. I had a social studies teacher in the 7th grade (1969) explain what was really happening in Vietnam.

He had been an analyst in DC in the 60's working SE Asian intelligence (not sure who, I'd like to say CIA, but it probably would be an embellishment). Vietnam had been arbitrarily demarcated after WW2 to provide a state presence to counteract China - Communist dominated SE Asia. The problem was the North had the population, but the South had the agricultural benefit. Civil War.


Regardless, I had a fundamentally changed my view of what the Vietnam War was all about.

BTW, this teacher (and he was an excellent one; I looked forward to his classes, every day) eventually became Maine Secretary of State in the 70's.