Writer and activist Frank Joyce says, “The Ken Burns PBS series on Vietnam gives its corporate sponsors little to worry about.” That in itself should raise a cautionary flag for those who watch. I encourage all to read Joyce’s article, “A Ball O’ Confusion Is Comin’ to Your TV,” at alternet.org.

Summing up the results of the Vietnam War, and the years of endless war since then, Joyce writes that “the Pentagon has clearly been decisive in the war that matters most; it has conquered Washington.” War is, above all, the profitable thing for corporate America.

Being neutral like Burns and saying there are many views of the Vietnam War is not the way to get serious about the fact that war and the Pentagon have captured Washington. A parallel treatment of another historical case would be a TV series on slavery in America that treats slavery as an event about which there are many views.

John K. Stoner
Akron, Pa.