136 - The Vietnam War - Part 2

As we mentioned last episode, public opinion was turning strongly against the Vietnam war by the late 1960’s.  President Johnson’s administration was coming under more and more criticism for how it had handled the war, and for the first time in US history, people are going to turn against the soldiers themselves.  For most of US history, soldiers returning from war were treated as heroes.  Soldiers returning from Vietnam were often treated like criminals.  This was a new, horrible thing for the soldiers, coming back to a country that regarded them with suspicion and even hatred. And on top of that, the experience of the soldiers while in battle was horrific.Much of the fighting was at night, at close range, in dense jungle, in horrible weather.

Well, last episode was kind of depressing, talking about JFK being assassinated and the end of American innocence.  And this episode, well, I guess it’s in the same theme, kinda. We’re talking about the Vietnam war, which is not the best period of American history.  Divisive, unpleasant, and another turning point in the way America was seen by the world, and how it sees itself.  This was originally going to be just one episode, but it was getting pretty long, so I’ve split it into two.  I guess that makes some sense anyway, since the Vietnam war lasted almost as long as World War 1 and 2 combined, and I did a total of 22 episodes on those two wars.  Kinda hard to condense Vietnam into one 20 minute episode.  

In the last couple of episodes, we talked about the birth and rise of rock n roll, and how it shaped the modern world.  The birth of Rock n Roll coincided with a kind of golden age for the United States.  The US emerged from WWII with a booming economy, the most powerful military in the world, and a manufacturing sector that had been kicked into high gear by the war.  So the 1950’s and the early 1960’s were a time of growth and prosperity for the US.  And of course, after the war, as one of the two world superpowers, the US took a leading role in the politics of the western world, and the politics of containing the other superpower, namely, the Soviet Union.  

As I said last episode, a lot of the energy of rock n roll came from youthful rebellion against the culture, values, and politics of the older generation.  This was a big deal in the 1950’s, with Elvis and his dancing, and suggestive songs and bands, but the youthful rebellion thing went to a whole other level in the 1960’s. While pop rockers like the Beatles created sort of sappy love songs, there were also a bunch of rock n roll musicians whose music was a more direct and critical rejection of old people culture.  

Episode 132 - The Birth of Rock ’n’ RollYes, that intro was the song Subdivisions, by Rush.  My normal intro music is an acoustic clip of that same song.  One of my all time favorite rock 'n roll songs.    How in the world can I do one podcast episode on the history of rock 'n roll?  There’s just no way.  So I’ve decided to do split it into two reasonably short episodes, and try to work in some of the actual music that I’m talking about, because where’s the fun in talking about rock 'n roll, if you can’t play some of the music?   Also, in this episode, I’m going to talk more about the birth of rock 'n roll, and next episode, talk a bit more about its cultural impact.  (Which, just as a bit of foreshadowing, is going to be huge)

Ok, yes, I know, I’ve already talked about the Cold War, just a few episodes ago, but I feel like I need to spend another episode talking about all the important things that happen in the late 1950’s and 1960’s as a part of the cold war, that I didn’t get to talk about in the previous episode.  A lot of things are about to happen, and they are all important to our modern world, and they are all related to the ongoing cold war between the west and the communists. In fact, the polarization of the world between the communists and the west is going to be the dominant factor in all that happens in the 1950s, 60s, 70, and 80s.  Everything that we’re going to talk about that happens in these 40 years will be happening against the backdrop of this ongoing cold war.  

We talked last episode about the Communist Revolution in China, and apparently there was a two for one special on revolutions, because this episode also has a revolution, but this one is VERY different than what happened in China.  Part of the reason that the revolutions were so different was that what is about to happen in India is not a communist revolution.  Communist revolutions are usually destructive, as the old order of things is being aggressively done away with, and so communism is expecting to do away with the old order by using force and violence.   The Indian revolution is going to be done exactly the opposite, using peace and non-violence.  And that is largely due to the person who is going to lead the revolution in India - Mohandas Gandhi.  

We were talking last episode about how the western allies tried to contain the spread of communism in Europe, but I mentioned that Communism was spreading in Asia as well.  This is about to be a problem in China, which, on the face of it, seems an unlikely hotbed for communism.  Back in 1912, before both world wars, the last Chinese dynasty, the Qing dynasty, collapsed.  The Qing had ruled China since the 1600’s, but the dynasty had fallen into disarray, and China was really being ruled by a loose system of sort of feudal warlords.  When the dynasty collapsed in 1912, it was replaced by the Chinese Republic, but the republic’s hold on power wasn’t very strong, and in many places, the warlords still ruled.  In 1921, the Chinese Communist party was created, and in 1927, a civil war broke out between the communists and the nationalists, who were strongly anti-communists.  

As you might remember from episode 124, which was about the Allied victory in Europe, Germany was basically cut in half by the invading Soviets in the East, and the Allies in the West.  The Soviets had captured Berlin, and they had also occupied the eastern part of Germany.  But they also had occupied all of eastern Europe, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.  And they had no intention of giving those countries up.  

Ok, WWII is over, and so I’m done talking about famous battles and cool fighter planes for a while.  But I do feel that I need to go back and talk about a really important and horrific story of WWII, and how that affects our modern world.  And that is the story of the Holocaust.  It’s not a pleasant thing to talk about, but it’s really important, and has a big impact on the world after WWII, and on our modern world as well.  And just a bit of a warning here, this episode is a bit longer than most, because I feel like I needed to re-cover some history that we’ve already talked about in older episodes.