ONE BRIGHT SHINING MOMENT

Every person in America who cares ought to be forced to watch this DVD. What I thought I was renting from Netflix and what I got weren't the same. I've never even thought much about McGovern. What I remember about the Presidential election in 1972 was that McGovern lost in a landslide. I was on the other side and only watch and bow my head NOW in retrospect. One Bright Shining Moment really shows all those awful times of the Vietnam era. It is 1972, I was in the Army. Seeing what was going on in Vietnam during this time and comparing it to Iraq today with all the denial of what we're doing in that mismanaged war is unbelievably excruciatingly sad.

I've never been much of a conspiratorial type and the idea that Nixon was such a scoundrel is hard to realize. He surely was. Now in hindsight, to me, it was about the war. For Americans who literally operate in a state of denial, the same thing that happened then is with us today. Gross denial.

Where in this world would we be today had McGovern won the Presidency? A man, even if sanitized in the DVD, still came across as dull as a butter knife but truthful and with one goal: get us out of Vietnam. One statement he made sounds so much like one heard over and over today: he said about Vietnam, "if we continue to bomb for another five years, it is not going to make a difference." In Iraq, if we stay there a hundred years, it is not going to make a difference.

Watching One Bright Shining Moment, I think as a country, we probably deserve what we get. The DVD again shows how media driven we are. What we see on TV, how it is spun, this is what most Americans go for. I guess many of us still are naive about life and politics in America and what is right as opposed to wrong is going to eventually out. It's pretty sad if you asked me. One place where our hope lies is that the Internet spawning blogs and websites make the process of 72 at least more difficult. Today it is much more transparent and that is some of our hope that the McGoverns of the future get a true chance at serving the country.

In 68, Nixon promised that we'd get out of Vietnam, if elected. He lied and 20,000 more young Americans died. McGovern's Speech Come Home America is one of the best I've ever heard.

Ron Kovac, author of Born on the 4th of July in the documentary says something like, we will never let something life Vietnam happen again. Guess what, Ron? We have. This DVD is like looking through a mirror. On one side is Vietnam and on the other is Iraq. They are the same. Even today, I often am simply overwhelmed with the idea that after Vietnam, we have another Vietnam in Iraq.