Counter Punch has the article Getting the Gulf of Tonkin Wrong: Are Ken Burns and Lynn Novick “Telling Stories” About the Central Events Used to Legitimize the US Attack Against Vietnam?.

Framing the US attack on North Vietnam as “retaliation” in this PBS documentary, which purports to tell truths about this horrific war, is a fundamental, serious, and consequential defect, one which must raise the question of why, after all these years — and when the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin “incidents” has been known for years — Ken Burns and Lynn Novick would engage in this kind of (albeit strangely belated) pro-war propaganda. (Or is it better understood as indoctrination.)

There is a lot of good information in the Counter Punch article to backup the accusations made against the PBS documentary.

Well, we have known for years that PBS has turned to the dark side, but now it ought to be apparent to the doubters.

I stopped watching NOVA on PBS years ago when they advertised that it was sponsored by the Koch brothers.

The Week has the article This radical money policy would easily pay for Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for all.

Now, it would still be prudent for Sanders to match some of the new spending with new taxes because as the economy improves, there will be less wiggle room to spend. But he hardly needs to match all of it. Reasonable assumptions suggest his plan would already result in a bit over $1 trillion in new revenue.

The article depends on the premises of Modern Money Theory (MMT), but it also emphasizes the reality of future inflation issues.

This article also fails to talk about the savings from eliminating the private health insurance overhead. The assumption that the country has to pay about the same amount of money for health care after single-payer as the country did before, is not realistic.

There also needs to be a discussion of one of the ways inflation was kept in check during WWII. That is the selling of war bonds. The purpose of war bonds was to encourage workers to put some of their earnings aside for a while instead of trying to spend it on goods that the economy could not provide at that moment. I don’t know how you do the equivalent of war bonds in a time of peace. That’s why we need to start thinking about this now.

I find this article to be a nice complement to my previous blog post Robert Reich: A Handful of Ultra-Rich Families Are Bleeding the Country Dry.

Clearing The Fog Radio has an episode with two interviews titled The Truth About the Vietnam War.

PBS is currently airing a ten-part documentary about the Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that is financed by the Koch Brothers and Bank of America and promoted by the Pentagon. We speak with Vietnam scholar, Professor Bob Buzzanco about the real history of the Vietnam War, what led to it and the opposition that developed. He emphasizes that it is important to understand this history so that we do not repeat it in North Korea or the Middle East. Then we speak with Vietnam Vet, David Ross, about his experiences in Vietnam and subsequently in organizing veterans to stop the war.

Pay attention to who is sponsoring the PBS series. Are you in the habit of praising what these sponsors usually promote? Does it raise any doubts in your mind?