Sunday, October 31, 2004

Only Hollywood could make him a Hero

Well, ladies and gents, tonight was Halloween night. Tonight was the night I do the usual” stay home, pass out candy to trick-or-treaters, wear my wolfman mask to shake a few kids up and sit down to watch a few horror movies. And so I decided to watch two of the political world’s most recent and finest pieces of horror. First up was “Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry,” a horror film in the sense that it made John Kerry look like a war hero and an American patriot during and after the Vietnam War. The second was “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” a horror film in the sense that it depicts the real horror that the Vietnam vets went through as a result of John Kerry’s anti-war activities. I had planned to watch both of these movies in that particular order in case “Going Upriver” turned out to be another liberal fluff piece and “Stolen Honor” was the antithesis to get me out of its spell. As usual, I was right. And so, as I watched these movies through a masked that was starting to skew my vision and make me go buck-eyed, what came across was presented so clearly that I saw it crystal clear.

As I watched “Going Upriver,” I kept in the back of my mind all or most of the points that the Republicans have made about him regarding his Vietnam service and his activities afterwards. I went into watching this film expecting that those points be either refuted or exposed as lies. Then I remembered that I haven’t seen a single Democrat properly defend themselves in a long time. So instead, the points made against Kerry, the irrefutable facts, were dodged.

I’ll start by making a few good points about the film, because even with America’s favorite flip-flopping presidential candidate, there’s a good side to him. The good news about Kerry was that he was up to apologize for participating in the Vietnam War. One cannot say that fighting a war for the wrong reason was an entirely honorable thing to do. To follow orders from your country to kill any Vietnamese you see is not an honorable thing to do for your country. John Kerry saw this and felt that he had to do something about it. That is honorable.

And now for the film’s flaws. The points made against John Kerry for his war record were not addressed in this film. I haven’t seen anyone address these points and I feel that they will never be properly be refuted. The film talks about how when John Kerry returned, he participated in the anti-war movement and when a fence was built around the White House, he along with thousands of others threw his medals over the fence. One by one, you see these guys throw the medals over the fence. John Kerry, one of the last to throw his medals, didn’t throw with a lot of momentum. Instead, he gave them a brief underhand toss with little momentum at all. What they don’t tell you is that months ago, John Kerry used those medals so that he could further his political agenda and become the lead Democratic candidate. What can one conclude from this? He tossed those medals with little momentum so that he could find them later and keep them for when he could show them off.

The movie also mentions that John Kerry got to testify his Anti-War case in front of the Committee of Foreign Relations. He rallied up a few more Vets for this cause and took his case in. He spoke with a chillingly somber tone about the evils that the war had brought upon the people of Vietnam and that America had created monsters. This was a major boost for the Anti-War movement and all that, but there’s just one problem. You know that part in the testimony that they keep running in the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” ads that has Kerry talking about soldiers cutting off limbs, raping, tying electrical wires to human genitals and turning up the power as a way of treating the Vietnamese? That part is cleverly skipped over in “Going Upriver.” Why? Because it was a false testimony. Ask the majority of Vets themselves. They know Kerry slandered them all some thirty years ago, but they exclude that in this movie for the purpose of making Kerry look good only.

All in all, “Going Upriver” does have a bunch of very good points. It’s built on a good premise which is realizing that Vietnam was a war that shouldn’t have happened and doing something to stop it. For that I give it credit. It’s weaknesses lie in the topics that it doesn’t tackle and leaves any curious Republican such as myself still looking for a few answers. So if you can watch this movie, please do, but make sure that you watch it along with our next movie “Stolen Honor.”

I also thought this was an amusing idea to interject. Apparently, the director of “Going Upriver” was the same director of “Pumping Iron,” the documentary that turned Ah-nold Schwarzenegger into a movie star. Months ago, I heard on the news that a Vietnam Veterans was saying that John Kerry was the kind of soldier that only Hollywood could turn into a hero. So I guess if director George Butler can make Arnie look like a movie hero, then whoever said that tidbit about John-boy was right on the money.

“Stolen Honor” is to “Going Upriver” what movies like “Fahrenhype 9/11” and “Celcius 41.11” are to “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Although “Going Upriver” and “Fahrenheit 9/11” are vastly different in the honesty department, there’s one thing that ties them together. They are Liberal propaganda pieces that cast a spell on their viewer that will make them want to go out and spread the news about it. The only problem is that neither movies are entirely correct and whoever watches them needs to go under treatment, take two right-wing pills and call their doctor in the morning to counter the illness. “Stolen Honor” is the best way to do it and it’s a damn good treatment too.

You see, when John Kerry returned from the war and joined the anti-war movement, the extent of his actions led to the unfair torture of thousands more Veterans that the ones you saw in “Going Upriver” tossing their medals over the fence. Matter of fact, as this film will tell you, many of those guys weren’t even in the Vietnam War. They were phonies who tossed either fake medals or ones they didn’t earn over that fence. But back to the point, John-boy’s testimony in which was branded the Vets as psychos not only slandered them but prolonged the sentences of captured American troops. Thanks to John, these Vets were subject to torture until they confessed to crimes they hadn’t committed against civilians. They signed a piece of paper and it went down in history that all these men were crooks and when they returned to the country they so loved, they were spat on, hated and even roughed up by their fellow citizens. Carlton Sherwood, the director and host of this feature, knows what he’s talking about. He was there in Vietnam too. He remembers being slandered by Kerry and hated by his fellow people.

So basically, the actions of John Kerry were far from Patriotic. He had the right idea, which was stopping the war, but he had the wrong way of going about it and that led to the suffering of even more people than those he represented. I’m going to paraphrase my grandfather on this one: It’s a bit like playing chess. In order to win, one needs to think at least two steps ahead. This same rule applies for real life. The rule applies for Bush whose actions were not pretty but ultimately led to the Freedom of two oppressed nations. Now Kerry liked to brag about how he was such a war hero by ending the Vietnam War. He didn’t think two steps ahead though. Step one was stop the war. Step two would have been the right way to do it, but slandering good men doesn’t count as a right way. So instead, his actions led to worse things than intended. Now since he his war record as a centerpiece for his campaign, even though it was a grave error, why should we trust him as president?

As you go into the voting centers this Tuesday, think about that.

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