Question for Vietnam era people:

[SouthernDem2004]

Hard not to notice the end-of-the-world posts from time to time. The ones stating the US is about to collapse and that type. Was there alot of the same type of stuff during the Vietnam war?

[NV Whino]

1. I don't remember any.

[acmejack]

2. No

it was till a time of hopefulness, we thought we were going to change the world for the better.

[unhappycamper]

3. The country was too busy tearing itself apart - I didn't notice.

[wtmusic]

4. It's worse now

Junior makes Nixon look like a prankster.

[Hosnon]

35. Really? My dad says it was worse back then because the war

was to stop Communism so the protestors could more easily be called America Haters...

[wtmusic]

43. Even in the worst of the Nixon years

there was not this idealogical bloc of government so hellbent on controlling the world, and willing to trash the Constitution and foreign relations in the process.

Although not so in the particular case of North Vietnam, the fear of communism taking over the world was far more legitimate than that of terrorism. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, North Korea, Yugoslavia, and Albania had all become "satellites" of the Soviet Union.

IMO the PNAC mindset is equivalent to that of the expansionist postwar Soviet Union, and equally (or more) dangerous.

[yella_dawg]

5. There was a lot of concern about riots and stuff

but that was seen as more of a hurdle than a brick wall. There was the cold-war nuclear threat.

I don't remember it being the same kind of worry, and not as bad as now.

[cosmik debris]

6. Remember the Cuban missile crisis?

In the sixties we all knew that the end of the world might be just around the corner. It was an obvious fact, not a paranoid delusion. We knew that the USSR wanted to bury us. It was not a secret. They told us so. That made it necessary to deal with the doomsayers a little differently. Some of them actually had valid and logical reasons to believe that the world might end soon.

And then there were the religious kooks who wanted to "imminitize the eschaton" as Robert Anton Wilson used to say.

Short answer to your question: yes and no.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. I remember it well. I was an 18 year old marine.

In the Air Wing. Our planes had been junked in preparation for our deployment overseas. The other squadrons on the base had been deployed to smaller bases to avoid getting nuked.

They literally locked us in the barracks and posted MPs to make sure that we wouldn't come to our senses and head for somewhere that wasn't a target.

Fortunately, Krushchev and Kennedy decided not to blow up the world and we were released to get some beer.

[DarbyUSMC]

42. I was an 18 year old Marine also.

Six weeks into boot training, we filled canteens and weren't told much. Training went on as usual, but there was a change in the air. Any trepidation I had left in me about being able to earn those emblems disappeared into the swamp as the seriousness of life hit me like a two by four.

Semper Fidelis,

Darby W712865

[SouthernDem2004]

34. I read about it in history books. ;)

[ima_sinnic]

7. actually I do remember my brother-in-law feeling this way, and

buying land in northern Maine with my sister, and living a primitive life there, raising 3 small children, for several years. I remember him saying something in about 1969 or 1970 that a turbulence of some sort was just ahead and he wanted to dig in. But maybe he's just the paranoid type . . . :eyes:

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

8. There wasn't any of that plus

we didn't have the Internets :)
We did have a media that was not totally in the controlof the ruling class. I graduated high school in 1968 and news from Vietnam was almost always the lead story every night by 1967..............

[KarenS]

13. I was going to make these two points as well,,,,

1. It was on the News every night with horrible film clips (not necessarily from that day) ~ but they left a lasting impression. I was in my teens, too.

2. There was no internet to communicate with others.

[Laughing Mirror]

9. It was the Age of Aquarius, remember?

At least that's what the Fifth Dimension told us in their song. Harmony and understanding, peace and trust abounding. Let the Sunshine in, and all that.

Meanwhile, a lot of the supposedly desegregating country was in a state of collapse. The cities were rioting, burning and rotting. We were bombing away in Southeast Asia, murdering millions, many of our own, assasinating our leaders, infiltrating "subversive" political organizations, shooting on students... I could go on and on.

No, it was not at all a time of gloom. Not at first. It started getting gloomy with the Pentagon Papers, the energy crisis, Watergate.

[Pathwalker]

10. Pat Robertson was predicting THE END OF THE WORLD,

but he was wrong then, and he was wrong predicting it would end in the 80's,90's, and 2000, as well.

[ginnyinWI]

29. LOL

He does like to go on and on, doesn't he? (and keeps those donations coming in) What a joke.

[IChing]

11. The models were not there at those times

What don't you understand? We still had a democracy then. So the collapse of the republic or loss of the republic? (Revenge of the Sith)

1 The constitutional crisis is much more real than in those times, Your Bill of Rights is under attack (not then, we protested and debated by the millions)

2 Scientific Economic models of collapse occurring now are real and alarming.
Deficit spending and who owns US bonds (debt) Ford and GM in junk status.

3 Scientific Environmental models of major global change

4. The loss of the 4th estate is much greater now than in anytime in our nations history
it is now owned by corporations or very few individuals.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. No. We were still young and thought America could be changed.

Most of us still thought America was still redeemable and worthy of redemption. We were still hopeful. Kent State and Ronald Reagan proved us wrong.

[Hubert Flottz]

15. No!

Nobody but the snake handling type TV preachers were saying anything like the world was about to end, back then! Those wigged out guys are always trying to scare people! We grew up in the shadow of the Manhattan Project though! "MAD" was always in the back of anyone with any sense's mind! I never figured back then that the Nazis would take over America like they have now! My teachers in school taught me that the Nazis were the BAD GUYS! Things sure have changed for the worse in the USA!

[mopinko]

16. i think a lot of people were very frightened

by the vietnam protests, and by the civil rights movement. i was a kid, but i remember very well the fear in my small town when MLK came to chicago, and the rumor went around that he was coming to our town. we wondered if there would be tanks in the street.
the same people who are swallowing the fear mongering today were afraid then. the difference now is that fear is manufactured to stampede the simple. the unrest was genuine, and frightened many people. but the fear was not created as a smoke screen and a weapon. it was not then used against people.

[Laughing Mirror]

18. Just the opposite occurred in my town when MLK came

It was DC, August of 1963, the famous Civil Rights march. Hard to believe that the city still had Jim Crow laws in employment and housing. A wave of change swept over the city. (We couldn't vote for president yet either.)

All of that was changing when MLK came. He put a voice and a face to the change. He came to a church in our neighborhood. You could feel the electricity his being there generated in the simmering summer streets. Attitudes were changing. It was tangible.

This mood or feeling of hope and the necessity of change stayed with me, and I would think with the others who shared it, not only through the Vietnam years, but to this day.

[Mz Pip]

17. It was there.

I remember the "Repent now, for the end is near" crowd being out and about back then. THe fear of a nuclear war with the Soviets brought out a lot of it.

There weren't the 24 cable news channels so those nut jobs didn't get the publicity they are getting now.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[ginnyinWI]

30. in the early 70s

That was the time the "Left Behind" type books started to circulate in Fundy groups. They were all convinced that the end times were upon us and that the Rapture could happen at any time. A predictable reaction to unsettling social upheavals, not unlike the post WWI times when the Pentecostalists got their start and the Rapture theories were born.

[Speck Tater]

19. I recall one "Astrologer" predicting global cosmic catastrophe...

but she certainly wasn't taken seriously.

However, there WERE a handfull of "gold bugs" and hard currency fanatics like author Harry Browne that have been predicting the collapse of US currency more or less continuously ever since we went off the gold standard. Books like "How you can profit from the coming devaluation" (1970 Harry Browne) and "The collapse of the dollar & the approaching catastrophe in the world monetary order" (1977 Glenn Mitchell) and "The New Inflation: The Collapse of Free Markets" (1979 W. David Slawson)

Going back even furth, however, we have the predection of the collapse of all of western civilization in "The Decline of the West" (1918-1923 Oswald Spengler) and theories on how civilizations disintegrate in "A Study of History" (1947 Arnold Toynbee)

Then there is Revelations in the New Testament which according to that book was supposed to happen "before this generation passes". (Modern Christians just gloss over that part of the prophecy.)

The history of doom and gloom pedlers is a long one indeed. Just for fun, here are several hundred scheduled end of the world dates: http://www.abhota.info/end1.htm

[kevsand]

40. Toynbee rocks!

Revelations was just some bad shrooms, I think.

Great link on the history of the Apocolypse! Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that ALL of those dates had actually been right?

Love your sig line, btw...

[BringEmOn]

20. Hal Lindsey came out with "The Late, Great Planet Earth"

along with other authors of similar books. This was toward the end of the Vietnam Era.

[Individualist]

21. There was concern during the cold war

about global destruction resulting from nuclear attacks. Several movies were made with that theme in the '60s such as On The Beach, Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe and others. However, the rapture was considered screwball by most people.

[chieftain]

22. There was a lot of hysteria on both ends of the spectrum.

Some of the New Left thought that a revolution was just around the corner and the paranoids around Nixon were afraid of the same thing. In reading the inside accounts of Nixon henchmen, it is clear that Watergate and all of the abuses that are subsumed in that name were attributable, at least in significant part, to the Republican belief that the whole country was coming unraveled.
Posting this reminded me of the great line from the respected journalist Peter Lisagor, who at the height of Watergate said " Nixon is paranoid and he is right, there are people out to get him."

[IChing]

23. "The ones stating the US is about to collapse '

You have two questions on this thread, could you add one or two more?

[SouthernDem2004]

24. If you do not have anything productive to add, why post? Are you always

negative?

[thebigidea]

27. talk about ironic.

[SouthernDem2004]

33. Hmmmm another witty non-statement. reply:

I post my opinions, not some short meaningless quips. I state my opinion even when it goes against the far-left posters around here. Most of my post about LE are merely stating of facts without an opinion. I am not a "me too!" poster that feels the need to chime in everytime I agree with someone.

What about you? What did you add to the discussion here? Do you have anything to actually say?

[IChing]

36. I have posted constructive analysis

which is a better use of the word productive,
on post #10.
You have two different questions in your post and need to specify in order to get better productive results.

speaking of which where are yours?

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. No

Not that I can remember. Those who supported the war claimed we were preventing the rise of communism (the implication being that if the Soviet Union became too powerful, we too could be taken over).

But I can't remember any end-of-the-world nonsense.

'America, Love it or Leave it' - that was the battle cry of the day.

[LoneDriver]

26. No, we were winning

Overall there was a great hope for the future at that time.

[Jacobin]

28. Not at all

The fundie end of the worlders are a relatively new phenomenon (there were a few back then properly classified as nut cases, who were kind fun to watch).

There was optimism that things were/could get much better, people were much more secular and in the moment and not fixated on going to heaven fantasies....the thought was this was the world, you were lucky to be alive, have fun, do good work, help other people, this is your chance and you'd better use it.

The backdrop of an idiotic war for no good reason depriving humans of their lives and limbs, not counting the poor Vietnamese who were being slaughtered for nothing.....

The movement was about stopping a stupid criminal war.

I wish that movement could be re-started, but I think it will take the draft to do it

[charlyvi]

31. No

Religion wasn't part of the equation back then. We didn't have any rapture loonies on the other side. In fact, the only time I remember religion entering the fray is when conscientious objectors and churches protested the war. Religion hadn't melded with patriotism and the republican party back then.

[The Magistrate]

32. It Depended On Where You Were, Sir

In my circles, many were expecting revolution, or a fascist pre-emptive counter-revolution. In others, an apocalyptic collapse in morals was being talked up loudly. In the latter portions of period, which over-lapped the OPEC embargo, there were wide predictions of complete economic collapse.

[cosmik debris]

37. I'm curious

There are clearly two different schools of thought here. It clearly is not a matter of factual differences, but of perceptual differences. So why do some of us see it as a real problem and others see it as non existent? Is it geography, educational level, urban v. rural???

I also noted that some of us see the "Viet Nam" era as the early seventies and others, like me, see it as the late sixties. Perhaps I see it that way because by 1970 I had established my draft dodger status and no longer feared dieing for their country. Any comments?

[kevsand]

41. I think you may be on to something.

I tend to think of Vietnam as the sixties. That's when it heated up, and I grew up watching it every night on tv. The peak periods of chaos and angst, however, were on either side of 1970: from about 1967 to 1971 or 72.

I think that people's memories of it may depend on just how old they were at the time. I turned eighteen in '72. I grew up knowing I was going to have to go, and was greatly relieved when the combination of the war winding down and a high number for my birthday meant I would never be reclassified from 1H (administrative).

On the other hand, I remember thinking very clearly that everything was falling apart in 1968. The year started with the capture of the Pueblo. MLK was shot at Easter, RFK just after Memorial Day. Civil unrest in the urban centers during the summer, just as the year before. Russian tanks in Prague (after having seen U.S. tanks in Detroit). Grant Park. Daley's goons beating up Mike Wallace on the floor of the DNC, and Gore Vidal punching out Bill Buckley in the middle of a broadcast (great dialog: "crypto-nazi" led to "goddamn queer" led to bloody nose). Tricky Dick elected prez. I literally thought I was watching absolutely everything unravel.

Then at the end of the year, the Pueblo crew was released, and Apollo circled the moon. We saw the earth from deep space for the first time. Maybe we were gonna be okay after all...

[POAS]

38. Not to throw this into left field BUT

While the 60's and 70's were an era of conflict and dismay it was also an era of hope and vast idealism.

Even as the war dragged on there was the feeling among the young that gradually we were becoming the force that would change the world.

We would be the generation that would turn the world away from war and turn everyone onto love and peace. Look at the clothes we wore. Those bright, tie-dyed colors weren't things you put on out of depression. They were the symbols of our hope for a brighter future, for ourselves and our children.

Now, where are the bright colors? Where is the hope? Where is the drive to create that better world?

We have forgotten how to do tie-dye. We have forgotten to hope. We have forgotten to keep fighting.

Or perhaps we have had those things we valued back then driven out of us by the relentlessness of the jack-booted right.

The time of the hippie is past. We let it pass. I hope the new young idealists will learn from our mistakes, take up the cause anew and win the fight we seem to have abandoned or lost.

[Jose Diablo]

39. I don't remember any discussion during 60-70's about end times

Trying to think when I first noticed increased thinking about end-time, it seems like it was late 80's.

Now the Beatles had Rev album, and there was some mystic stuff, but it wasn't like the fundamentalist today.

Maybe its the turn of the millennium that has caused people to look into this. Or maybe its the pulpit's doing it, that could be. LaHay you know, and Moon not to forget Robertson.

The Moonies were out in force, but near as I can tell it was to sell flowers and snag young people into joining with sex and whatnot.

No end times talk though that I remember.

Edit:Wait a minute, there was a couple of songs, but the songs were about the future, like "in the year 2525". There was nothing nearly as fatalistic as these end times scenario though. There was never a doubt that there would be a future.

[eridani]

44. We all really thought that if we reminded other Americans--

--of our finest ideals and best selves, that they would listen and change. It's harder to hang on to that sense of hope these days, a lot harder.

Could a song like "Abraham, Martin and John" become popular now? Hell, not even Dean or Kucinich supporters write songs like that about their candidate.

[LandOLincoln]

45. Possibly because their candidates are all

still alive?

Just sayin'...

[eridani]

46. I mean even if one or both had been taken out

No one thinks that just electing one or the other would have been more than a start on cleaning up the horrible mess that we are now in. Recall that it wasn't until 1973 that average American family income peaked.

[Steel City Slim]

47. No, People Were Working To Make Things Better

Not whining about them.