Fighting America’s Communist Sympathizers 50 Years after the Vietnam War

For those who fought and served honorably during the Vietnam War there is a still a struggle going on for the hearts and minds of the American people.

The Vietnam War continues against those in American politics, on university campuses, in business and serving in think tanks who are self-identified Communist sympathizers. The media has given them many names such as Statists, Socialists and Progressives.

Ayn Rand wrote a short nineteen page paper asking: What is the basic issue facing the world today? Rand, in her paper makes the case that, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” Rand defines these two principles as follows:

• Individualism – Each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.
• Collectivism – Each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

Ayn Rand wrote:

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

John Kerry

To demonstrate how powerful these Communist sympathizers have become is best shown in a column by Tom Pauken, the founder of the National Student Committee for the Defense of Vietnam who served as a Military Intelligence officer in South Vietnam. In a column titled The Vietnam War: Still opposing the New Left at Home Pauken writes:

The LBJ Presidential Library is hosting a Vietnam War “Summit” from April 26-28. I put the word Summit in quotes because normally one would expect a true summit to reflect the major viewpoints associated with the event. That is not the case with this program about to unfold at the University of Texas.

The keynote speaker for the “Summit” is John Kerry who trashed his fellow American soldiers on national TV once he came home from Vietnam as a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Also prominently featured is Tom Hayden, a leader of the New Left who supported the North Vietnamese in that war and served as a useful tool for the Communists by making a trip to North Vietnam with his then wife actress Jane Fonda where propaganda film footage featuring Hayden and Fonda was made by the Communists. Hayden is featured in the session entitled the “War at Home.” There is no one represented on that panel from our Vietnam generation who opposed the New Left at home – even though our opposition to the student radicals from many of us as college students and our fellow soldiers was very strong at the time. I would have been open to discussing the other side of the war at home, but neither I nor others capable of representing our point of view were invited.

The Communist Ambassador from Vietnam to the U.S. is a speaker, but there appears to be no representation on the program from South Vietnamese refugees who are critics of the regime.

For “balance,” the Vietnam “Summit” features former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who was the architect of what became known as the Kissinger Accords, which paved the way for the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam. Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State and a Naval Academy graduate who served three tours in Vietnam, resigned his military commission over Kissinger’s deal making. Armitage was not invited to be a speaker at the LBJ Library “Summit.” Nor was John O’Neill, another Naval Academy graduate and swift boat veteran of Vietnam (who graduated first in his class from the University of Texas Law School). O’Neill debated John Kerry on the war on the Dick Cavett TV show after both men returned from Vietnam. There are many other knowledgeable Vietnam Veterans, historians, and journalists who would have made themselves available to speak at a true summit, but who were not invited.

The guest list for LBJ Presidential Library Vietnam War Summit says it all. As Pauken concludes, “It is sad to see a prestigious institution like the LBJ Library miss an opportunity to have a real exchange of views about what went wrong in Vietnam and what lessons of history are to be learned from that war.”

It appears the ideal of collectivism is alive and well. Collectivism is what drives the followers of Marx, Mao and Mohammed. The new left is now in power. The war goes on.

UPDATE: Here are videos of the Vietnam War Summit hosted at the LBJ Library.

The Vietnam War Summit: An Evening with Henry Kissinger [Day 1]

The Vietnam War Summit: The War at Home [Day 2]

The Vietnam War Summit: Country Joe McDonald Performs “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” [Day 3]

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