To all the older members of DU

[Lester222]

I have a question.

Considering the amount of mud being thrown around in the current political debate in the US, I was wondering how it was like during the Vietnam War. From what I hear people were argueing along the same lines fourty years ago, as they are now with phrases as "Sympathizing with the enemy", "Convention of Geneva", "Human Rights Violations", "Treasonous behaviour" and "Threat to our Freedom" being tossed around. Only I would assume that back then the tone was even worse because the scales were even bigger. I don't know since I am to young to have witnessed it, so I ask you folks to share your impressions with me.

[Bluebear]

1. Well, I was quite young, but I remember far, far, far more protests

On OUR soil. I don't know if it was because there was a draft, because there was the "flower power" 1960's generation, whatever, but there were HUGE demonstrations. Now? Well...not at all the same outrage or interest.

[silverojo]

22. To answer your question

It was all about the draft. A generation that grew up to be Reaganauts cared nothing about values. They simply wanted to make sure THEY weren't sent to war. Once the draft existed no longer, they became even more materialistic and self-absorbed than their parents had been.

It's good that they got rid of the draft, but it would've been better if they'd stuck to those principles of love and peace...rather than backing Cold-War-Nuke-Buildup Ronnie and his evil ilk. :(

[symbolman]

34. Yep

I have an old saying, "Where have all the Flowers gone.. GONE TO WALL STREET, EVERY ONE."

When will they ever learn.. as the song goes.

I wrote about this in my book. All about how the "Hippie" Generation created all the Peace and Love movement (tho many were just there to suck up the drugs and get laid, to a lot it was just a FAD, marketed in the Media), and then LEFT it for MY Generation, the one that came after. Once they'd claimed the "Dream was Over" We got PISSED, because WE were LIVING those values.

MY Generation is the "LOST" generation, they left US twisting in the Wind.

So now I've written a book, that hopefully will get them back UP and OFF their asses.

Me? I'm 54.

Oh, and the right wing ditty of those days was, "America, Love it Or Leave it.." Sounds pretty much like NOW, eh?

[crikkett]

54. no fair plugging your book without even a title

or a url.

And 54 ain't so old, it's my husband's age, sez this GenXer.

I wonder if the problem you complain about was that the people who left (outgrew?) the Peace and Love movement (to get jobs?) might not have left it in good hands.

It was all fun and games until 900 people drank Kool-Aid and AIDS struck the gay community, and I think the handling of those tragedies killed the Peace and the Love.

Best,
C

[frogcycle]

78. yeah, AIDS kind of put a damper on the "make love not war" thing

I sure was trying hard to live up to that slogan; probably would have been easier to go to Nam and shoot people than to find a willing accomplice in that other :)

[jaysunb]

120. Aids came long after " make love not war"

it was the babies that got in the way of that period.... :evilgrin:

[G_j]

93. note from a "flower-child"

It has been my own view that "flower children" as myself, truly believed in and were deeply committed to the values of peace, love, justice, human rights etc. Most all of us still hold those same values I think. But we were the minority.
Many more were simply "hippies" for a while. Most young people want to be accepted by their peers and feel "in" somehow. You might have a better chance of meeting girls etc. if you are cool.
This is true for all generations. The Flower children who really held those "sixties" values did not suddenly morph into something different.
And we did not seek positions of wealth and power as our fellows who jumped on the Reagan band wagon and declared war on US the real hippies and flower children. They have systematically attempted to marginalize us ever since. I think that lumping us all together as you seem to be doing unfortunately just fits in with this marginalization.
My society has declared war on me since I was a youth.
But, we are still out here.

that is my take, having lived through it.

[Joe Fields]

105. Agree. There has been a war against us, perpetrated by our

government and the media, ever since we became a "threat" to the established way of life.

Many people I know became teachers, politicians, community leaders, activists, or just sought a quiet life out in the country.

There was no exodus to Wall Street, and we didn't abandon our beliefs.

[Le Taz Hot]

139. We have a winner

We were and, I feel, STILL the minority including in the Democratic party. Just my take.

[G_j]

154. certainly

perhaps more than ever

see: Kucinich and the media, not that he is a hippie but he clearly articulates much of the same strong human rights, compassionate, altruistic, idealistic goals.
The media mostly ignores or ridicules him.
just one example

maybe it is the vision
that threatens them
fairness threatens the powerful

peace and love

[zanne]

144. I agree with you 100% nt

[cascadiance]

95. Yes, I agree that a lot of what happened was that it was "popular" then...

Read my post at the end of this thread now about my history living overseas at that time. I think being in the trenches and seeing others living in Asia and in the middle east as a young person (and earlier having grown up as a "white minority" in neighborhoods in Washington DC as well as in Hawaii, I came to appreciate more as a kid the needs of protecting the rights and respect our diversity from a very early age. When I came back to a more lily white neighborhood in Michigan as I finished high school, I felt out of touch with that mentality there then.

I've noticed recently that younger people and others who'd I earlier respecting for having an independent point of view while I lived in the Bay Area in the 90's have become more sucked into being Bush enablers too, with stuff like Fox News, etc. creating the illusion of that set of culture being "popular" and the "in thing" now. It's hard to reason with them now when they don't have the same perspective growing up where I did, etc.

It's a bit frustrating. We now have folks like Cindy Sheehan and others that are leaders of today's resistance movements, but it is still hard for that to build up to a popular movements amongst the youth who are so HEAVILY targeted by advertising for things like video games, cell phone technology, Clear Channel censored music, etc. There are SO many distractions that kids have these days that I and many of us older folks didn't have growing up. Our diversion was doing something like reading Crawdaddy and trying to find Grace Slick exposing herself at a protest concert or something like that in it.

[hfojvt]

111. you should be old enough to have been one of the hippies

I do not buy the hippies became yuppies meme. Lotta hippies are still protesting the war and working in co-ops, as college professors, etc. I don't think they ever were the majority, not the sincere ones. Lotta band-wagon jumpers and as a group they made alot of noise, and got alot of publicity, but for God's sake, they could not even defeat Nixon! So I do not see how they can be blamed for Reagan.

[troubleinwinter]

131. Symbolman...

Fuck you (said with deepest affection, as you know).

Wall Street my ass. Go LOOK at the 1967 photo in post #129 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=726355&mesg_id=730625

I only still know two people in that photo (40 years later). One is currently involved in working for a company that prvides home repair and materials to the poor and elderly

"environmentally friendly, socially responsible business that provides funding for a non-profit organization addressing the urgent home repair needs of low-income, disabled and elderly".

The other is involved with LEED:

LEED® Green Building Council

LEED is a voluntary, consensus-based national rating system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. USGBC's members, representing every sector of the building industry, developed and continue to refine LEED. LEED addresses all building types including new construction, commercial interiors, core & shell, operations & maintenance, homes, neighborhoods, and specific applications such as retail, multiple buildings/campuses, schools, healthcare, laboratories and lodging.

Based on well-founded scientific standards, LEED emphasizes state of the art strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. LEED promotes expertise in green building through a comprehensive system offering project certification, professional accreditation, training and practical resources. excerpts from articles)

And then there is me, of course. A member of DU. I am that "hippy generation".

Who told you "The Dream was Over"???

"they left US twisting in the Wind"? Was I responsible to force you to pick up the torch? Why are you "the LOST generation"? I did not lose you.

For some it was "a fad", helped by the tour buses through Haight Ashbury (hahaha!). But most that I knew that fought then have lived it for 40 years now.

"Left it for your generation"? Well, so? We protested for peace and womens' lib and Peoples' Park and civil rights and burned draft cards and I ate Gov. Reagan's tear gas, I helped the blind school children run through tear gas, saw friends badly beaten by batons, someone shot off a rooftop by the state police, military tanks rolling down the street of my town. We all knew friends who died in Viet Nam. Friends who came back ruined - mentally destroyed. Friends who went to Canada we never saw again.

"Left it" for you? Maybe we broke ground for you. If you feel your generation was lost, I will not take blame. I paid too damned much. If you feel your generation was lost, you take blame.

So, with great affection, nonetheless: fuck you. I paid and I saw many others pay and suffer great pain and loss. We never abandoned you. We paid a high price to try to do the right thing.

[Le Taz Hot]

140. Yesssss!!!!!!!!!!

:yourock: :woohoo: :applause:

[raccoon]

145. Right on!

And don't let it be forgotten it was the boomer generation who protested the draft. Otherwise, the US would still have a draft and a lot of people who like to complain about boomers would have the draft to worry about.

[G_j]

155. yes, it has been a long road

and a hard one too
I have friends still reeling from Viet Nam.
A lot of us suffered greatly.
We have never really been accepted
if you notice "we" often seem to catch blame and ridicule from all quarters
maybe one of us should write a book

[RagingInMiami]

135. Altamonte

December 1969. The end of the Age of Aquarius. Then came the 1970s and with it heroin and later cocaine. Things seemed pretty jaded by the late 1970s, but they were innocent compared to the 1980s when cocaine wars (in Miami) and crack cocaine blighted already blighted neighborhoods.

I was born in 1968. I grew up in a neighborhood filled with hippies. Or former hippies. Maybe this was the lost generation you mentioned. They had a huge influence on me. I remember the hair, the music, the cars, just how cool they seemed. Much cooler than my parents.

By the 1980s, when all my friends were listening to Culture Club, Michael Jackson and Madonna, I was listening to Hendrix, the Stones and the Doors.

You think you were pissed. I was furious.

[FredStembottom]

146. I first read that idea somewhere like TIME magazine..........

....about 25 years ago - and haven't seen it in real life even once!

I was too young to be a hippie - my gen. was at the Disco - but I was involved in community (public) broadcasting back then as one of the youngest of a very large group of older, well, hippies.

I was soaking in hippies all my life and never saw even one of them "go to Wall street" in later life. Some went into academics. Some went into genuine social welfare work. Some into the arts.

There is an all too common dark side of this group that lives in genuine poverty. Often this has to do with on-going drug dependencies - but not always. A good number seem to really enjoy a very simple life and live just above poverty level in a still pretty hippie-like environment in the city or out in the country. Aging quietly.

Never saw anyone become s financial guru. Not once. But this is Minnesota and not California!

Just my view.

[Patiod]

44. True of my brother

He protested the war, but he was REALLY interested in saving his own ass

Now he's a Rushbot, who got furious with me for suggesting that since he was A) unemployed and B) a big fan of Bush's war, that he should apply to one of the many, many war contractors in his town and go earn some money where his mouth was.

[Cha]

108. Sorry about your brother..

I hear my former husband, the father of my children, is a bushbot even though he was able to get out of the Vietnam War because of being married with babies.

Hypocrisy hits the The Big Time.

[Name removed]

67. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Toots]

71. BS..

It was about Basic Human/Civil rights. Most marches were about Blacks trying to be treated like human beings. Then of course women wanted liberation as well. So did college kids. They wanted to wear their hair long and dress in whatever manner they chose. Remember in early to mid sixties we lived in a quite oppresive country where both women and blacks knew their place. War also was a huge cause but certainly not the main one. It may surprise you to learn, a great portion of the war protesters were women and they were never subject to a draft. It was about the devastation of a country and a people that we protested about. I was one and yet I served in the military at the time..

[loudsue]

106. So true, Toots! Many of my women friends carry BIG SCARS on their heads/faces/bodies

from being beaten with police batons, and a great many of us still remember the taste of tear gas. We fought long and hard for

1) The equal treatment, and equality UNDER THE LAW, for our Black brothers & sisters

2) Equal treatment of our sisters -- of every color -- for employment without having to put up with sexual harassment

3) The right to have a SAFE abortion, if ANY of our sisters found themselves in desperate straights

4) An END to the military draft that saw many of our brothers & classmates being slaughtered in an idiotic, undeclared war-for-profit

5) An END to an idiotic, undeclared war

6) An END to the corporate polluting of our land, rivers/streams/air

7) The rights for ourselves and our brothers if we wanted to wear our hair any way we damned well pleased

8) The rights of our gay/lesbian friends to live whatever lifestyle they felt was right for them

9) An END to government run in "secret" by those who were stealing us blind and spying on us

But what brought us out in the greatest numbers, and created the most physical and urgent confrontations, concerned the war, the draft, and the integration into all areas of our society for Americans of EVERY color/race/creed/gender.

We didn't always come away from those confrontations with "the establishment" (the ESTABLISHED order that we disagreed with) with our bodies in the same condition they were in before the confrontations.

And the "establishment" didn't like it. They killed our leaders and our heroes, and various and sundry innocent students (Kent State massacre), who died trying to set this country on a straight and moral path.

The "establishment" lost at the polls for a while, but they regrouped, and set out a plan of action to use their money to take over the media, the colleges/universities, and to put an end to the labor unions. That PLAN they devised was called "The Powell Manifesto", which was the 1970's version of PNAC (Project for the New American Century), except it dealt more with domestic issues than with global dominance.

Ever notice how EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT since 1960 (Kennedy) has either been HAMMERED (or assassinated, or impeached) by the "establishment"? Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton.... there has obviously been a MAJOR undercurrent of mafia-style destruction of the party that represents THE PEOPLE, instead of corporations. Bush's cabal was the complete take-over of the country/our government by that same mafia.

Read it and weep:

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=21


:kick::kick::kick:

[Joe Fields]

89. It wasn't JUST about the draft. And as for painting my generation with

the same brush, your statement about us all becoming Reaganites, and becoming self absorbed simply isn't true.

[smoogatz]

115. It wasn't just about the draft. By late '68 or so, it was clear

to all but the most ideologically blindered that Vietnam was nothing but a meatgrinder and that a military victory was impossible. That meant that a lot of rich old white men were sending a lot of young, disproportionately poor, disproportionately black men to die for nothing. The protestors didn't just oppose the war because they were afraid of the draft--they opposed it because they didn't want to be sent to die (or see their friends and family mmbers sent to die) in a rice paddy for nothing, by a bunch of old men who were just trying to save face. It was, by that time, a deeply unpopular war; not just because of the draft, but because everyone but the most deluded wingnuts knew it was unwinnable and ultimately not WORTH winning--meanwhile we were killing millions of people in SE Asia.

Also, as others have pointed out, you're conflating the war protestors with the hippies/flower-children. While there was some overlap, they weren't all the same people. The war protests were partly about the war, but they were also about demanding that government be responsive to the will of the people. It wasn't so much about peace or love as it was about bringing an end to America's role in the killing. In that regard, the protestors succeeded. Then, like normal human beings, they went on with their lives. To suggest that they then went on to become Reagan Democrats is also probably a misunderstanding--the typical "Reagan Democrats" were blue-collar, working-class people who disliked the leftward turn the Democratic party took in the early 70s, and who probably supported the Vietnam war (or at least felt stung by our "loss" there).

[1monster]

128. Not just all about the draft. Remember, we had a news media with

integrity and Edward R. Murrow ethics.

We had the war in all its blood, death, displaced peoples, and futility brought into our living rooms EVERY NIGHT at dinner time.

The body counts every night from both sides. Young men in US military uniforms who should have been enjoying the first freedoms of young adulthood reduced to BODY COUNTS.

The Vietnamese body counts always so so many of them.

The fierce battles that cost obscene numbers of lives on both sides for a hill, that once won was then abandoned, only to be fought over again a week or a month later.

The "bodies" that were our classmates, our neighbors, our brothers, our fathers.

They were old enought to fight and kill and die, but not old enough to vote or even legally drink.

The emotionally and physically scarred and maimed young men who came back. Some to die soon after or years later by their own hands because they couldn't live with what they were made to do and witness at a sensitive and formative time of their lives.

It wasn't just about the draft. The Vietnam War was impossible to ignore. It was shoved in our faces all the time. And rightfully so.

The Iraq War is hidden from us. No one really knows what is going on. It is sanitized when it is mentioned at all. Whenever a little bit of truth seeps through, there is a great media campaign that swiftboats that truth immediately.

It wasn't just the draft. The draft played a part. But it wasn't just the draft.

[yardwork]

148. The lack of media integrity is the biggest difference I see today

It's just horrible to see how the media is now completely controlled by the corporations.

The things that bushco have done are worse than anything Nixon did - as bad as those were! Yet there is silence on the part of the so-called media. Silence.

And we're facing much bigger stakes now. We know that the world's climate is changing but there is still nothing being reported.

It's very discouraging.

[tblue37]

52. I am not entirely sure about that.

Even when hundreds of thousands of people march and protest these days--or millions around the world before the invasion took place--the corporatist media lowballs the protests and tucks them on a back page or buries them late in a newscast.

By making it seem as though there are only small, infrequent protests, the media keeps protesters feeling isolated and hopeless and allows warmongers to claim they have popular support.

In fact, I think the coverage of war protesters during the 1960s taught the corporatists that it is better to bury these stories to take the steam out of the movement, in the same way that they learned to not show soldiers' coffins or scenes of violence from the war itself. Many beleived that the media's role in bringing the war home to Americans had a lot to do with turning us against the war, so the media is palyign good little lapdog this time.

And don't forget the way the powers that be play along by arresting everyone within an area where protests take place. In New York City, during the RNC in 2004, even people who just went out to get doughnuts for breakfast were swept up and held for days, because protesters were being arrested left and right, and no one in the area was safe from the sweep.

The powerful delight when they hear us say that there are not the sort of protests this time that there were last time, becuse it means their strategy has worked. Also, notice that this time protesters are everyone, not just hippies and teenagers. Grandmothers, businessmen, and others who would not have been in the streets in the sixties are out there now.

[frogcycle]

60. in the "Shut Down Washington" march

they rounded people up and hauled them (oh the irony) to RFK stadium; just left them milling around for the day, never even took names. Let them all go at the end of the day.

They actually were pretty successful. The effort to block the bridges and snarl traffic failed.

I was commuting to DC from N Va.; when the bus got across 14th St bridge, a VW beetle in front of us did not move when the light changed to green. Cops came from somewhere; smashed windows on both sides simultaneously, opened doors and hauled off all occupants; a cop jumped in and drove the car away, and the bus made the next light.

And lets not forget the 1968 Democratic Convention.

[Beam Me Up]

79. I agree 100%+ and it wasn't only the war

More people protested the Iraq war before it even started than protested the Vietnam war at the height of the anti-war movement. But, of course, no one KNOWS this because talking heads didn't make a big deal out of it. Gee, wonder why? /sarcasm

True, the draft was one of the impetuses for the anti-war movement but it wasn't all of it. If you haven't watched the film Sir! No Sir!! the OP should.

The demonstrations in the sixties weren't only about the war. There was civil rights and the free-speech movement and a lot else, too.

I'm 59

[midnight]

I was speaking to my mom about the state of this country

recently and she said that she thought if the draft was brought back this war would end.

[Lorien]

66. NPR did a report where they said that there are far more protests NOW

than during the Vietnam era. The difference in perception is due to media coverage of protests; the media spent loads of time on them then, hardly mentions them now.

[IndyOp]

96. Chomsky & Zinn agree - Far MORE protests now than at a similar point in Vietnam...

The American public was totally tuned out about Vietnam at the point where 3,000-4,000 American troops had died in Vietnam (causing by then, perhaps up to a million deaths of Vietnamese).

[loudsue]

109. The protests in the 60's/70's were also more violent.

Whether that was a result of FBI infiltration (which happened regularly), or whether protesters were just reading the literature on how to effectively fire bomb certain buildings -- the news covered it more. There were some groups who were armed and trained to fight, but the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful-by-intent. It didn't matter...us peaceful ones were also abused physically.

The whole protest movement was more physical in those days. It was pretty rough at times.

And John Kerry was right in there with the best of us!


:kick::kick::kick:

[Bluebear]

124. Well, where are the photos of campus protests to match those I posted?

Really, NPR can report anything they want, I just don't see the same type of outrage and depth of involvement today, but maybe it's just my perception.

[wryter2000]

69. As one who protested, let me say

True, the draft was a big issue. But we also had the feeling that we could change things. We'd just witnessed the movement for civil rights, and it was a clear call to all of us that if we worked together, we could make this a better world. I sure as hell don't have that feeling anymore.

[roguevalley]

126. I remember. I also remember squads of soldiers refusing to go out

on patrols to do their assignments. I remember one group sitting and smoking marijuana while being interviewed. LOL! I remember great unrest among the populace and Nixon being bunkered down like Hitler. It was an amazing thrilling time of people flexing their muscles and ending a war. Lots of demonstrations and lots of name calling. Lots and lots of name calling. But they always impugn your
patriotism and honor. Its the last refuge of a prick.

[chknltl]

134. Bluebear

Here is a big reason for those large protests, I am paraphrasing my college professor here:

"The Great Student Revolt" by Herbert C Taylor, (As best as I can remember)
After WWII the troops came home and took advantage of the better life that they now had access to. Middle class life, all but unreachable to many if not most of these vets prior to their enlistment was now easily in their grasp. The first thing that happened from this was a rise in babies...the birth of the "Baby Boomers"

As these babies grew into children, classroom sizes were also forced to grow...there simply was not enough schools to go around. There were also not enough playgrounds and etc. for them either but then they were "just kids" so nobody paid attention. Eventually this mass of young Baby Boomers arrived at college age. Yep, not enough colleges so college classroom sizes were forced to expand...dramatically, until more Colleges and Universities could be built. At this point those children, now young adults, were in need of something more than crammed playgrounds for recreation.

Our nation in the late 50s early 60s simply was not prepared to handle the massive explosion of young adults seeking places for recreation. There were not nearly enough tennis courts, swimming pools, bowling alleys or dance facilities for them. So what America ended up with was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. (Looking for a cause)

The draft eased this but only a little, there were still hundreds of thousands of students overcrowding our Colleges and Universities with little to nothing to occupy their free time. They were unaffected by the draft because exempt status was granted College students back then. Remember these are college students, they were at the for-front of education, many could easily see that the war in Viet Nam was a farce. They knew that the widely held notion called the "Domino Theory"* was wrong and likely a lie perpetrated by our government in order to fuel an insane war. They could see no clear reason for America to be over in Viet Nam. Many believed that this war was actually a testing ground for America to test out it's newest weapons and strategies against the forces of Communism.

At this point, we begin to see protest gatherings around ROTC buildings and "Sit-Ins" in and around other public campus buildings. Not every student was inspired by thoughts against the war, there were actually a great many students who cared less one way or the other about the war. Remember how there was nothing for them to do? Well they found their "entertainment" in these on campus protests. It became the "cool" thing to do. Maybe skip a class or two and go "hang out" with a bunch of other "groovy" folks their own age.

Then along comes Kent State and a nervous governor. Those 4 students, shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard became the rallying cry for all students everywhere around our world. Massive protest rallies were soon taking place, not only in America but in large cities all over the world. The common themes: the average protester was college age, the protest was against the "MAN"!

The "MAN" was the government, and the "ESTABLISHMENT", (basically those who upheld the status quo and abided by the dictates of the government), were the true enemy of the Great Student Revolt. The war in Viet Nam was supported by "The MAN" and much of "The ESTABLISHMENT" so it became the easy target. (The ONLY target we remember today) Two other terms which saw popularity back then: "Don't trust ANYONE over thirty" and "The Age Gap" reinforces this revolution of the worlds youth.

Viet Nam was critical here as it became the general focus of the Great Student Revolt after Kent State but it was not what instigated it. We have a simular circumstance going on right now with the Iraq War but yet no large protests like we had in the mid-late '60s and early '70s. The explanation: Colleges have learned their lessons, there are lot's and lot's of recreational facilities for the students...and we have the better distractions: computers and video games to name two. (We do have "raves" and the "MAN" is cracking down on them but I fear this is not enough)

No even if we have a draft, (students then were unaffected by and large because students were exempt back then), we won't see another Great Student Revolt. The draft was not what affected them as much as MASSIVE BOREDOM of all things. We may have some other kind of mass revolt over this war but we'll not see another like the one we had in the late 60s.

Bluebear, go back and look at those wonderful photos you have posted...notice any "old" folks anywhere in them?

A ps to my dear Doctor Taylor: I hope I have not too terribly messed up your fine speech from 20-plus years ago, your students miss you. R.I.P. Herb



*Domino Theory: The notion that if we don't stop the Communists from over-running South Viet Nam, they will spread to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and eventually we will be fighting the "commies" over here!!!! (Hmmm where have I been hearing something similar...????)

[onethatcares]

2. a lot more protests,

a lot of Love it or Leave it types, Kent State was a tipping point. I don't know if that woke the masses up to what was going on or if it was just the huge amount of dead in small communities.

Of course, when the protests were being broken up by "Union" personnel, the police stood back and let them have at the hippies.

Gaud, we don't even have "Union" personnel anymore to beat on us. WTF happened?

[Patiod]

46. All the "Union" personnel are knocking on doors for Dems

At least in our neck of the woods they are. They realize that their "Strong Defense" Republicans were just out to screw them.

[crikkett]

88. now we have Blackwater. n/t

[onenote]

3. it was different in several ways

On the one hand, there was a more vocal, visible anti-war movement, focused primarily, at first, on college campuses. This led to a generational divide within the public. There was a lot of love it or leave rhetoric directed at those who opposed the war, labelling as commie (pinko) sympathizers. Because it was generational, it also had a cultural component --- the way you dressed, the music you listened to, your lifestyle choices -- all became fodder for the debate.

At the same time, however, the level of political discourse -- that is, the debate among politicians -- generally did not sink to the level it has today. I don't recall LBJ making a habit of attacking the patriotism of those in Congress who voiced opposition to the war. Even Nixon generally directed his lowest attacks (often through his surrogate -- VP Spiro Agnew) at the media and the young, but not at other politicians or the Democratic party in general)

[T Wolf]

6. Right on - to borow a phrase from back in the day.

The main reason for the difference in intensity of protests was that, with the draft, more people were directly at risk from the war.

Today, the war does not affect as many people so it is easier to go along. Americans are notoriously parochial - if it does not directly affect "me" then I do not care is the attitude most of us have.

And yes, politics is much nastier. Thank the pukes (see?) for that.

[Hamlette]

68. I'm not sure it was the draft that led to the protests

it looks that way now but polls from that time show the highest support for Vietnam and the president was among people aged 18-30. The lowest was among people over 50. (Incidently, the same is true today.)

I'm 56 and was a protestor. I don't remember anyone at any protest being over 50 but that might be a function of 2 things: my memory and that many protests were on campus. As a woman I wasn't at risk of the draft although most of my male friends were. So...I think it was more than the draft. (I'm just getting my head around this after reading about the polls from the time. I was surprised. I too believed it was the draft but I'm rethinking as I now think that is too simplistic.)

There was lots of "stuff" going on at the time that might have had an influence as well. By the time Vietnam happened, I had a long history of being involved in protests....over civil rights. (By long history I'm thinking maybe a half dozen protests in my lilly white very red state.) My mom took me.

We were also anti-establishment which I thought was all about the war but maybe it was about "other stuff" too like civil rights, pot, and general conformity (some of which occurs in every generation of young people...or most generations.)

I think it was a big deal because of WWII. Our parents "lost" that portion of their lives because they all went to war. That war was justified (our involvement...) so our parents' generation didn't "get" our anger at government.

I'd also point out that this was not about party. We were protesting the dems.

My generation aruges about this all the time: did the protests help or hurt? The protests were HUGE in 1968 and the war didn't end for another 5 years (!). And there was a huge backlash that was at play in 1992 when Clinton was elected. He was seen as one of those counter culture types and the right went nuts and tried to impeach him.

[cascadiance]

98. Another factor could be cost of college tuition too...

Back in those days, there would be less cost for a student to cut back their class load to only a few classes or none for a semester and then finishing up their degree later. Perhaps you had many also in school also trying to avoid the draft too (someone else tell me if that was a factor as I wasn't college age then)? But today with the costs of a college education SO high where it's almost a mandatory debt load for so many that are going to school these days, that you:

a) have less kids willing to take time out from a four year schedule to get their degree, as they simply can't afford to do so.
b) have less kids going to college (who might be the types that would be involved in a protest), with the costs being so prohibitive and demanding on students these days.
c) more relative foreign students (who have their tuition subsidized) that don't have as much interest in our own internal politics, or if they do because their country is affected (middle easterners, etc.) are trying to keep a lower profile to avoid being deported, etc. with the very real threat that our Patriot Act gives them today.

In short, today we have more of a prescription for a "compliant" student body than we had then. Heck, for California kids, when Jerry Brown was governor, tuition was free then in California schools! Quite a different story today here in California.

[proud2BlibKansan]

137. The boys couldn't take a semester off or they would have been eligible for the draft

I think they also had to go full time to keep from being drafted.

[chknltl]

136. Hamlette see if you concur with my professor:

about The Great Student Revolt, in post #134 above

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. Nixon had to tread lightly there. Both houses were...

>>>Even Nixon generally directed his lowest attacks (often through his surrogate -- VP Spiro Agnew) at the media and the young, but not at other politicians or the Democratic party in general)>>>

in DEM hands and the Dixiecrats ( precursors to todays DLC) thought the war was just great... and in fact helped to start it.

I don't agree completely that other politicians escaped fire from Nixon-Agnew. Remember Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativism"... ok, I think that was for the media. But also that Sen. Goodell ( liberal antiwar republican from upstate NY) was 'the "Christine Jorgenson of the republican party"?

Other folks like Gore Sr. , Birch Bayh, Fulbright, Morse, were also successfully targeted for political elimination... though they may not have been vilified openly in exactly the same way as anti-Iraq war people are today.

[bigbrother05]

61. DixieCrats became Pukes

They brought the worst part of southern, Jim Crow to the Republicans. They didn't grow their party with their values, they bloated it with racist/sexist venom.

[jimshoes]

4. Well, the short answer might be

back then, people felt they still had free speech rights and were not afraid to exercise them. Still, there were those (many of them are still at it today) that wanted to stamp out any opposition and even back then there were organized smear campaigns against some who did speak out, Jane Fonda for instance. Eisenhower knew that there was a small group that wanted to hijack the country for their own personal enrichment, (the Texas oil men a.k.a. bushco) who sought perpetual war so they could feed that beast that Ike correctly called "The Military Industrial Complex". We're seeing today the evil plans laid back in those early days come to fruition and a truly disgusting fruit it is.

[54anickel]

18. I remember the "support the troops" mantra was also alive and well

back then. Difference was the anti-war movement of the troops themselves. I remember watching the news one night with my dad (yes, we had a "real" independent media back then). We saw these soldiers wearing peace symbols on their sleeves and bandanas and waving the peace sign to the camera. Dad said, something to the effect of "that's it - might as well bring 'em home - it's not their fight anymore so they won't do it". I think those images invigorated the movement back here at home too.

Johnson used to show up on the tube talking about all the great progress being made - most people called BS right away. I remember John Wayne on some show criticizing Johnson and hawking the idea that we just needed to drop more bombs, take out the bridges and infrastructure to stop the flow of supplies to the enemy. That seemed to become the battle cry for the hawks. Not unlike some of the wing-nuts today talking about bombing the ME into a sheet of glass.

The anti-war movement really began on the college campuses where they would have, I think they were called, "Teach-ins". Not sure that would work today...totally different demographics attending college now. So many now are enrolled in business/marketing related degrees with aspirations of getting out and making big bucks in business. Seems so many want to be the next Jack Welch or something. :eyes: Back then college was much more affordable, people would feel free to change majors (several times for some of us) and it wasn't that unusual to take and extra couple of years or more to finish. It was more of a journey to "find yourself" than a paper-mill. Can't really explain it, it was just different back then. :shrug:

[MADem]

5. Don't trust anyone over thirty.

There was a real divide between the young and the old back then. And there were CONSTANT protests, not halfassed ones, either. Huge things, thousands of people, they were protest + social event, really. You could go to several in a month without blinking an eye, and often there wasn't much in the way of "agenda" (not like these ones where there's a stage, and speeches)--just some baaastid with a bullhorn, and everyone's signs were HOME MADE.

It was a different feeling too, much more grassroots, I guess.

The older people were steeped in the tradition of WW2--most parents had come up at that time, and they believed in 'just' war and couldn't believe that the government would lie them into a bullshit war. It took the longest time, and the greatest angst, for the Silent Majority to pipe up and say "Enough dead kids, enough!!!" It was a very hard thing for them to do.

[Wiley50]

57. Yeah. And back then the Whole Country was a "Free Speech Zone"

Why are we letting them do this to us now?

[FloridaJudy]

75. There were an awful lot of older people who opposed the war

Where I lived, but then I lived in Berkeley and San Francisco.:hippie: :headbang: We used to have massive protests at least once a month. Count me in as one progressive boomer who never felt the lure of either Wall Street or the Weathermen. I'm hoping the tactics of Ghandi and King still work.

Dang! We would have traded valuable organs for the Internet back then. We mostly had to organize with hand-bills, underground newspapers and word of mouth.

[MADem]

103. That was actually unusual, at least at the outset. It wasn't until after

VVAW took hold and the "silent majority" started piping up that you saw older folk (neatly dressed, like they were going to church) turning up at the odd protest.

In your end of the world it was a bit more "progressive" I guess.

Phone trees! Definitely handbills!!! Underground papers, some printed on MIMEOGRAPH machines!!!

Good lord, people have no idea how primitive it was! It wasn't quite a chisel and stone enterprise, but damn, it sure wasn't point and click!

[Breeze54]

117. Sort of like now, huh?

"It took the longest time, and the greatest angst, for the Silent Majority to pipe up
and say "Enough dead kids, enough!!!" It was a very hard thing for them to do."

:shrug:

[MADem]

143. Actually.....no. Because the majority now are still SILENT. It's not their kids getting ripped

from hearth, home, and future plans, and being forced, with no recourse, to go fight a war not of their choice. And also, the generation that now is seeing their children die are not the "Greatest Generation" who were accustomed to sacrifice. And many of them aren't even Vietnam era, except the late bloomers--the Vietnam types, many of them, are grandparents. These parents are the Partridge Family generation, a lot of them. And their kids aren't being FORCED to go.

Really, it was an easy thing there, for a time, back in the day, to go to a protest a WEEK if you lived in a major metropolitan area. If you lived in the sticks, you could easily find a protest a MONTH. Now, there are just a few "major" protests a year, always put on by the same crowd, and always piling on twenty or thirty issues that have NOTHING to do with the war--everything from Fair Trade to Equal Rights, and atrocities hither and yon. I'm not saying these things are not worth protesting, but they tend to dilute the efficacy of any antiwar protest, because the multi-issue approach makes the media, well, bored. And if the media doesn't turn up, it didn't happen (or so we've come to learn).

Back then, it could be a big deal, like the Pentagon:



Or a local thing, like a college campus (the first shot is UCONN, the second, with the bunch of Frasier Cranes, Princeton!):



And, there were actually PROWAR demonstrations back then. Not like these lame things with 20 people and eighty portapotties, either. They weren't as big as the antiwar demos, but they existed and they had some "mass" to them. And sometimes, heads got broken when the two sides met:



And this was one of the ubiquitous posters of the era:

[liberalpress]

7. The Draft..

That was the deal. If we still had the draft, this war might never have started, but surely would have been over three years ago.

"Hell No, We Won't Go"
"Hey, Hey, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?"

[SoFlaJet]

8. good points made by all

there was a more "in the streets" feel to the opposition back then-you felt you were a part of something bigger.For instance; I remember when Kent State happened (you know Neil Young's "4 dead in O-hio") that radio stations out of NYC told us if we were outraged by the killings we should ride around with our headlights on and when someone passed by you on the road you gave each other a right on fist.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. The similarities are striking and scary. The *difference*...

... is that back then "the war" was *everywhere*. Everyone had an opinion.

Antiwar sentiment... though probably a minority of the general public... was everywhere. It was reflected not just at demos but in the way people dressed and looked. It was also much more *vehement* than it is today.

Today, people... even intelligent people... go for weeks without discussing the war with anyone. There's American Idol and all sorts of other reasons NOT to discuss it , not the least of which is the fact that there's no draft.

There was escapist entertainment in those days too but the media ... which was *exclusively* corporate media... did report on the war daily, in DETAIL. Most of the media was perceived as being at least moderately "antiwar". (They were certainly denounced by the right for encouraging public opposition to the war.)

>>"Sympathizing with the enemy", "Convention of Geneva", "Human Rights Violations", "Treasonous behavior" and "Threat to our Freedom" being tossed around>>>

That's all old familiar stuff. In fact the RW had been saying this stuff in the 50s during the McCarthy scare and reprised it in the 60's for Viet Nam.

In short.. everything is as it was. The difference is more of the public is oblivious to the issue due to corporate media's rightward drift since the 70's and also due to the fact that the average family has to sacrifice only money... not family members... to fuel the war. They don't really see the money so it's not real to them.

If we institute an 'Iraq war tax' the war will end the next day.

[acmavm]

26. There was entertainment back then all right. But that entertainment

many times was very very political and anti-war (Smothers Brothers, Laugh-In, All In the Family). Today it's entertainment for the lazy, politically ingnorant, and brain dead.

I agree with everyone here that said the draft was a major cause of the anti-war sentiment. The constant protests were on the nightly news. And I think a big part of the anti-war movement is that kids were getting their news from kids. And these kids were smart. They were the kids in the universities who were organizers of major protest movements. And they were trusted and believed. Most of the kids now are too lazy, isolated, and insulated from the reality of this war. That's why I keep saying we need a draft. Let them know what kind of future they are really facing with the corporatists at the helm of our ship of state. College will soon be out of reach for most kids, what with the cost of tuition and the cutting of student loans. What do these kids think the neocons and EXXON have in store for them?

And us old croaks, we're not doing our part either. Yeah, we make calls, sign petitions, spook our reps on every vote. That's water of their backs. We need to shake up things, like was done back then. But that won't happen either.

It was a different time all right. Seemed like the whole country became politically 'conscious'. Of course we didn't have obvious creeps looking at brain scans of women missing half their brains telling us that she was gonna wake up and be okay some day. Or that we needed to give up our civil liberties, such as unmonitored phone calls or privacy on the internet or anyone of the horrific abuses of this bunch of cowards. But most of all, we did not condone torture or extraordinary rendition.

I don't know what we're going to do, but we need to do something soon.

[Smarmie Doofus]

33. I was reading yesterday about McCain being tortured...

...in the "Hanoi Hilton" and the (alleged) fact that the US and its surrogates in SVN also used torture on captured VC and NVN soldiers. This is the still the official position of the gov't of VN.: We were tortured too.. so don't complain.

Our rationale was apparently " it's not a 'war', so they are not POW's and no rules apply". The VN's government's rationale for McCain's torture is *exactly* the same.


>>> But most of all, we did not condone torture or extraordinary rendition.

I don't know what we're going to do, but we need to do something soon.>>

How about DEM reps introducing an explicit "Iraq War Tax"?

If folks see what it's costing them in dollars , maybe a few brain cells will start to fire.

[acmavm]

37. Yeah, people do tend to worry about their money before they worry

about right or wrong anymore.

A draft and a tax. Might work.

[frogcycle]

43. that is actually an excellent idea

insist that we have to pay as we go. If we can't have a draft, then get their attention via the pocketbook.

I wonder if it could be a tax on big business - what about a targeted tax on defense contractors - nahh... never get that through

[Smarmie Doofus]

Doesn't really *have* to get thru, seems to me.

>>> wonder if it could be a tax on big business - what about a targeted tax on defense contractors - nahh... never get that through>>>

Successful or not it provides a good way of framing the issue: DEMS can say : "This is how much money it's going to cost you ( citizenry, contractors, corporate world) to continue this insanity."

Do you want to pay it , or not?

I suspect that if that question is put directly before the public, more than a few minds will change and more than a few rear-ends will rise from sofas all over the land.

[frogcycle]

51. yep

this should absolutely be "on the table"

screw the outcry about "tax and spend democrats"

make it a pure "earmark"

shit, they should include it in the emergency spending bill. drop the deadlines and add an invoice.

this is brilliant

[Smarmie Doofus]

58. I haven't seen the idea advanced in exactly this form.

I'm not sure someone hasn't tried it in the House in a different, more roundabout way.

I may email Kucinich or someone similar to see if there's any interest in the idea... as a *tactic*, if nothing else.

[cascadiance]

99. I like where you're going with this!

Perhaps an update to the income tax laws so that we reintroduce the heavy 70-90% upper income tax bracket like we did during the 60's.

Except perhaps what we could qualify it as is the "Iraq War surtax". Perhaps have other surtaxes for things too that are a problem for us now where Bushco is spending money where we don't want them to be spending money too. That way it will affect all of us, but it will affect the elites HARD!!! And therefore you can tell them that if they want ANY tax cut, we need to get those in government to stop spending money on the war, and the other Bush misadventures of spending, and they THEN would get their tax cut. I wonder if that were the law if we might get some folks at the top starting to push the corporate dollars different ways through K-Street then! They'll want their income tax deductions more than they'll want corporate money paybacks in exchange for corporate bribes to politicians!

Nice idea!

[fasttense]

10. The difference is the media tried to be objective.

Though they seemed more pro-war than anti-war at first. After the murders at Kent State, they moved a little more to the left. But when you heard pro-war commentary you also heard anti-war commentary. You couldn't avoid hearing both sides of the argument like you can today. You didn't have a whole news network slavishly devoted to the administration. If you watched any TV, listened to any radio news, or read any newspapers you had to hear from both sides. You couldn't pick just one side to listen to. You couldn't avoid hearing opinions and news that that went counter to your own beliefs.

The media also just mostly reported the news. They didn't have talking heads who would spin and lie. In fact telling the truth was very important to the news networks back then. They would be in trouble if they repeated a lie and not followed up on the facts. They would never have reported the fake swift-boaters information without the facts first. They would never report a Korean man as a Chinese man without a correction and frequently an apology.

Today, you can live in a little bubble without ever hearing the truth or the other side of an argument.

[Bluebear]

12. A VERY good observation. nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

15. That's the most significant difference.

>>>You couldn't avoid hearing both sides of the argument like you can today. You didn't have a whole news network slavishly devoted to the administration. If you watched any TV, listened to any radio news, or read any newspapers you had to hear from both sides. You couldn't pick just one side to listen to. You couldn't avoid hearing opinions and news that that went counter to your own beliefs.>>>

The media has literally been transformed. Not that it was so great back then but there were multiple POVs expressed. Now the same monolithic nonsense re Iraq is regurgitated by the very same fools that justified the war in the first place.

How may times does one have to be proven wrong before one loses one's credibility ?

[merh]

81. It was journalism as it was supposed to be

the who, what, when, where and how of things. Never the why - never an injection of opinion or speculation.

The Doris Day/Clark Gable movie "Teacher's Pet" was about the beginning of the revision of journalistic standards.

I wish someone would do a remake and update the story to comport with the bastardization of the journalist ethics of today.

[loudsue]

113. And don't forget that THE POWELL MANIFESTO was the PNAC of the day.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=21


:kick::kick::kick:

[Divernan]

116. Walter Cronkite & non-embedded war reporters vs. Katie Couric.

Every night on the news, film of firefights, jungle patrols, wounded Vietnamese civilians, dead bodies, napalm explosions. Has anyone seen any video of the white phosporous shells hitting Fallujah? I mean up close and personal shots of explosions - not video taken with zoom lenses from safely embedded reporters.

[Wiregrass Willie]

13. Back then we wanted to kill the messenger

At least that's the way I saw it.  In the late 1960s,  we
conservatives knew that involvement in Viet Nam was crazy.  
But we hated the "hippy type"  protesters so much
that we ended up supporting the war and a President we hated
just because of the social pressures being exerted by the
"hippy types".   That may be hard to understand.  I
just hope we don't make that mistake this time around.  Any
time the people at Fox News start demonizing "war
protesters""  you will know they are trying to
divert the argument to the messenger and away from the
message.  I hope the younger people don't let them get away
with it.   

I say this s a "recovering" Conservative :-)  

PS  --  A great book is "Up From Conservatism" by
Michael Lind 

[annabanana]

24. Welcome to DU, Wiregrass Willie.

I expect we will end up with about 70% of the population here, at some point... And we will STILL be demonized as the "loony left" by corporate media. .

[merh]

77. And there are those on the right and many conservatives

and the media that HAVE demonized liberals. If the media reports fairly and actually reports the failings of this admin, they are the liberal media. Lefties and liberals are seen as fanatics and anyone opposing the war are supporting the terrorists.

Don't let it happen? It has happened and is one of the problems. Liberals are dirty, evil, anti-Americans.

As a recovering conservative I hope you enlighten those conservatives that you know to this tactic and the reasons for your change of heart.

You can still be a conservative, many against the war and that post here are conservative in many ways. They just don't support the war or this administration's destruction of the nation.

Welcome to DU. :patriot:

[cascadiance]

97. I can see similar issues with unity today amongst us too...

As an older dude, I still can't get into rap music, and the cultural emphasis that a lot of it has that disrespects women and also seems to worship more a macho image and a lot of violent undercurrents in it. The music itself for me isn't really music, so I fall back to music of ealier times.

I do see some potentially promising changes though that might be side effects of the recent incident with Don Imus/Rutgers womens basketball team, as well as the VT massacre.

Hopefully those two incidents will help reshape the younger "rap generation" folks into looking more for music and cultural identity that looks more to respect women rather than to look at them as "ho's" or something like that, and also will look to find ways to scale back our thirst for violence, etc. in so many "entertainment" diversions such as video games, movies, music, etc. with the brutality of what happened in Virginia. Perhaps even a side effect of the supreme court that is taking away more rights for women's choice will also help as a rallying cry too. I really hope there's ways to break through that media distraction marketplace of the youth of today and have some leadership that can take them in new directions. Perhaps not like the way Timothy Leary did with the direction towards drug use of the 60's, but something similar in terms of a rallying cry to get them on board with us. If and when the youth of today realize how powerful a voice they are, both in their energy and ability to change more aspects of their life at earlier ages than the rest of us now who have our lives already shaped now, as well as their pure buying power being directed in other directions where corporate america wants them to go, we can turn this generation around and have a formidable force once again like we did in the 60's that can help us change things. If we did that, I'd probably change my tune and start liking some of the newer forms of rap music then too! :)

I have a feeling if the kids can settle into a message that is more attractive to me as an older generation progressive, that that will also help attract more from folks like you Wiregrass who are looking for a more unifying message too that isn't so mired in the conservative/liberal divide, but perhaps more at the wants/rights of the many vs. the wants/power of the corporate elite few.

[radfringe]

14. a couple "sound bites" from that era might give you some insight

My Country Right OR Wrong

America: Love it or Leave it

sound familiar?

The big difference between Viet Nam and Iraq is in how quickly it has taken the public opinion to turn.

In 1956, advisers were sent to Viet Nam and assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. President Kennedy increased America's troop numbers from 500 to 16,000. Large numbers of combat troops were dispatched by Lyndon Johnson beginning in 1965. Almost all U.S. military personnel departed after the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. The last American troops left the country on April 30, 1975

With Viet Nam the protests were "portrayed" by the media as the actions of "left-wingers". This was with LBJ and into Nixon.

In 1968 Nixon ran on a platform of having a "PLAN" to end the Viet Nam war. We were still in there when he ran for a 2nd term. By now, with Watergate looming, the "tide turned" in the media, more graphic footage and photos of death and destruction began appearing on the nightly news.

Nixon started to pooh-pooh the protests as being the work of a "VOCAL MINORITY", and claimed the "SILENT MAJORITY" supported the war.

He soon found the Silent Majority joining the Vocal Minority - pressure by the public was placed on Congress, purse strings were tightened.

Depending on how you want to split hairs - Viet Nam lasted 19 years (from our first involvement) or 10 years (from the big escalation by LBJ). It then took a few more years before the "silent majority" started really putting pressure on Congress and Nixon to end the war.

We went into Iraq in March of 2003, it's now 2007 (4 years) and public opinion has flipped from support to opposition in a short amount of time.

[12string]

91. love it or leave it

we had another saying back then also.America,change it or lose
it.Seems like its time again.

[izzie]

16. I was in the South next to very large bases and it seemed to me

to tie into the civil rights movement. We were getting both of these things. Base told the men not to wear uniforms in matchers, as some were doing that, and schools were shut down and state police moved into them and the whole thing on buses being turned over. In the south it was more that civil rights thing then the war matches going on. Since my husband was in the service and my daughter was working as a red cross girl at a navy hospital we got the death and hurt people in our face. I never met a service person that liked the war, They were always mad about Jane Forda but seemed to not care about matching. It was some thing they understood as most did not wish to go to Vietnam. Many I head say that they had to go and one good thing was they would make a rate if nothing else. Many of us service families and also the men were talking about sending our children to Canada if they kept the war going. This was in the 60's and early 70's. I frankly felt the whole country was coming apart.

[DrRang]

29. The beginning was not so clear. Like Izzie said, civil rights dominated the

news during the first few years of Viet Nam. There was more of a sense that the U.S. had sort of slid into a mess that already existed, as opposed to * just deliberately starting a war by marching into Iraq in March of 2003. The "Domino Theory" guided discussion, the idea that if Vietnam became communist, the rest of Southeast Asia's countries would fall like dominoes to Soviet influence. Sort of the mirror image of the Bush screed that we'd turn Iraq into a marvelous democracy and then all the other Middle Eastern nations would become democratic. There was not such a distinct and obvious propaganda push to start a war. And Vietnam didn't have enormous quantities of oil.

In short, there was more a sense that foreign policy had blundered, but not that it had been deliberately falsified. But some crap never changes. We had to fight them in Vietnam or we would have been fighting them in the streets of Honolulu and San Francisco.

[izzie]

138. The domino thing was talked about a lot. Also I forgot that and

this. Their were talks on the Fr. not being able to fight yet not looking into that they had and hard but that they, the Fr., had looked into why they lost and the whole time in history of the Eur. powers giving up these countries world wide. Self rule was in. The Fr, found they had lost the war before they started the fight just as we did but no one faced the time in history and what was going on in these countries. It is sort of the same thing now. We seem to be staring at the Middle East as the stare back, each not facing the fact that we do not belong there and they, that they have to move into the modern world.

[mcscajun]

17. The tone *was* worse, because the draft meant that most families

had or knew someone involved in the conflict, and the protesters were viewed as "goddamn draft dodgers" (for the men), and "Commie Pinko whores" (for the women). "Goddamn dirty hippies" was common abuse on the street when not engaged in protests (whether you had bathed or not; sporting "counterculture" paraphernalia or long hair (again, for the men) was sufficient "cause" to be abused verbally, and sometimes more.

We had all the usual epithets thrown at us in conversations and at protests, plus bottles, cans and rocks thrown at us During protests, along with shouts of "Commie", "Pinko", "Love it or Leave it", and of course, for the men, "draft dodger" and "Coward!" Each epithet was generally proceeded by one or more obscenities to strengthen the phrase.

On television, and to some extent, on radio, we had the "spiritual" progenitors of Limbaugh, Hannity, et al: the most notable being Joe Pyne and Alan Burke. It's Joe Pyne that's the better-remembered of the two.

Talk radio host Ray Briem wrote in 1985, "Joe Pyne was the only radio personality who had higher ratings than Dodger baseball. (He was on KABC nightly against the Dodgers, who at that time were being aired by another LA station). He was also number one in the mornings at KLAC and was perhaps the first to bring a telephone talk format to that time period and make it the top-rated program in the market - overtaking such heavyweights as Dick Whittinghill on KMPC."

On his TV show, perched on a set awash in cigarette smoke, Joe hosted a wide assortment of colorful visitors, anyone who had a weird story (like being abducted by aliens or having seen Bigfoot) or possessing an extreme point of view (against the war or for Women's Lib).

He would often start out an interview with an insult to get his targets off-guard and flustered. One of the most famous tales about The Joe Pyne Show involved the wooden leg he earned from service in WWII.

-snip-

During the interviews, Joe played up to his audience which consisted largely of older folks and arch-conservatives who were unwavering in their support of the war in Viet Nam, their disgust for hippies, atheists, and the Women's movement, and their utter contempt for the minimum wage law, affirmative action and any other progressive cause that threatened to bring on a frightening liberal humankind.

http://www.tvparty.com/empyne.html

The next portion is more timely, as a Secretary for the West Coast "War Resister's League" argues that the conflict in Vietnam (still escalating at that time) is a waste, and that Americans never should've entered this civil war. Of course, the red, white and blue-blooded Pyne rudely disagrees (at one point, calling Hiroshima and Nagasaki "the greatest thing that ever happened"), while his hostile audience merely labels the guest a coward, traitor and Commie.

http://members.aol.com/shockcin/joepyne.html

[Laughing Mirror]

74. Joe Pyne was a scream, came on Sunday night after Mission Impossible, 11PM to 12:30, in my town

Smoked himself to death. He had all kinds of kooks on that show. Pimps with hoods on to mask their identity, the grotesque bigot Gov Lester Maddox. Maddox stormed off in the middle of the interview, or maybe Joe Pyne threw him off, I can't remember exactly. Pyne would not suffer kooks gladly.

[VP505]

90. I remember

watching Joe Pyne, really enjoyed his show, and I did see that show where Maddox stomped off. As I remember it Maddox got real angry about something Pyne said and threatened to leave, Pyne told him something to the effect that he had more important people than him walk off the show so Maddox got up and left. As Pyne would say, he put him in the hot seat , put some steam under his chair.

[Laughing Mirror]

94. Thanks for your memories vpilot

That's the way I remember it too. Thanks for filling in the details. It wasn't often that a guy of 15 at the time felt much common ground with Joe Pyne, politically, or with those old gray-haired fogies in the audience, but, on a personal level, I certainly did that time. But he was always fun and politically educational to watch. That time he pulled a gun on a guy on camera. I wish I could remember the time he had George Lincoln Rockwell on.

[Kolesar]

19. See "The Year That Trembled", 2002

I grew up a few dozen miles from Kent State University. That story fundamentally changed our culture in this part of the country. Note that our Democratic Congressional representatives in Ohio all voted against the Iraq War Resolution and were among the most outspoken of those opposing the war.

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=291005">The Year That Trembled
2002-USA-Anti-War Film/Coming-of-Age


PLOT DESCRIPTION
American independent filmmaker Jay Craven directs the Vietnam-era coming-of-age drama The Year That Trembled, based on the novel by Scott Lax. Using stock footage along with a traditional narrative, the film takes place in Ohio following the 1970 student murders at Kent State. Right after high school, best friends Casey (Jonathan Brandis), Jim (Charlie Finn), and Phil (Sean Nelson) move into a cottage with activist-on-the-run Judy Woods (Meredith Monroe). The cottage is next door to their former teacher Helen (Marin Hinkle), who gets fired for her antiwar activities. Her husband, Charlie Kerrigan (Jonathan M. Woodward), is a lawyer torn between his moral opposition to the war and his own ambitions.

Also starring Fred Willard, Martin Mull, and Henry Gibson. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This movie really captured the feeling of the era. I know what it was like to grow up with a teenage brother during the draft.

[Vinca]

20. It was all the poster said and more. The demonstrations were monstrous

and every 18 year old male in the country had a stake in the outcome. There was a great divide between the young and the old, but it wasn't just the war, it was a whole cultural thing. My most vivid memory is my brother eating box after box of confectioner's sugar trying to raise his blood sugar before his physical. It didn't work, but someone he convinced them he was a CO and didn't have to go.

[frogcycle]

50. I didn't think of that

I went to the physical one month before I was to graduate, with lottery number of 27 (they were already into the hundreds). Marched dutifully through the charade of a physical, stripped and coughed, etc, pretty much in a daze that this could not actually be happening. That is the day i learned I have high blood pressure, and I will be forever grateful.

[Vinca]

53. SOMEHOW he convinced them he was a CO.

I hate when I have a brain cramp, make dumb typos and don't catch them until it's too late to edit.

[Bluebear]

21. P.S. kicked and recommended, an excellent question & invaluable memoirs

[enough]

23. Much higher US death toll, much greater social turmoil.

http://thewall-usa.com/summary.asp

(This chart is easier to read if you go to the link.)

U.S. MILITARY CASUALTIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA -
- DEATHS BY CALENDAR YEAR -

- Year of death may either be actual or based on a presumptive finding of death -
- (originally declared missing and later declared dead). -
- AS OF MARCH 31, 1997 -
Since 1997 75 names have been added to the memorial
that are not show in the stats below.
YEAR USA USN USAF USMC USCG TOTAL
1957 1 0 0 0 0 1
1958 0 0 0 0 0 0
1959 2 0 0 0 0 2
1960 0 4 1 0 0 5
1961 7 1 8 0 0 16
1962 27 3 18 5 0 53
1963 73 4 31 10 0 118
1964 147 15 39 5 0 206
1965 1,079 114 162 508 0 1,863
1966 3,755 279 246 1,862 2 6,144
1967 6,467 583 317 3,786 0 11,153
1968 10,596 598 345 5,048 2 16,589
1969 8,186 426 305 2,694 3 11,614
1970 4,972 219 201 691 0 6,083
1971 2,131 55 90 81 0 2,357
1972 373 77 172 18 0 640
1973 34 52 75 7 0 168
1974 49 23 80 26 0 178
1975 23 22 83 32 0 160
1976 29 6 29 13 0 77
1977 29 24 39 4 0 96
1978 158 42 219 28 0 447
1979 38 3 101 6 0 148
1980 - 1995 25 5 22 14 0 66
TOTAL DEATHS 38,196 2,555 2,583 14,837 7 58,178

[EFerrari]

25. The student movement went global in 1968. Looks like that was

the year we had the most casualties, too.

[frogcycle]

36. 16,589

in 1968

that's 45/day

that is the year I became draft-eligible

I agonize now when I have to add one - the days it hits 4 or 5 are really tough - to my "faces" website.


Perspectives change, and technology has changed. I heard the numbers reported daily. When someone I knew got it I generally heard via the grapevine. I don't recall much, if any national news publicity about who they were, personal stories. But then there were just the three broadcast networks with their 30-minute nightly news, and the newspapers and newsmagazines.


It MAY be that it took longer for the majority to realize Tonkin was a scam than it took for a large number to be skeptical of this war's rationale. So until the draft-age kids (plenty of women, so not just the eligible) started screaming "one two three four, we don't want your fucking war" the "establishment" was rubberstamping like crazy. This time around, they anticipated that and bought the establishment.

[Major Hogwash]

123. "This time around, they anticipated that and bought the establishment."

Yeah, they bought the media outright- lock, stock, and barrel.
What we'll hear next year is that Democrats are losers, wimps, sissies, cowards, and suffer from Vietnam syndrome.
We'll be told that "we have to win" in Iraq, that we "just have to" because the consequences are so dire.
Just like we were told about the Domino effect that never came about in Southeast Asia when we pulled out of Vietnam.

It's a civil war now only because we removed their dictator.
They are going to have to settle this themselves.

[Mend]

27. individually it was considered morally wrong to go to war....

each person had to make a choice....and the liberal position was that you did not go. You stayed in school if you could, you burnt your draft card, you protested, but you refused to take part in an immoral war. To go to war was to support tyranny. This time the individual soldier is not being held accountable.

[tomg]

28. The biggest differences

for me - in addition to all of the sharp observations upthread - was the sense that in the 60s, we were not only going to end the war, but we were also going to change the world. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/But to be young was very heaven." (Wordsworth, who , alas, turned far right in old age). Now, it seems, we are simply trying to hang on and survive. The anti-war movement, if you were young and left and I was 17 in 1967, was, when seen in light of the civil rights movement which acted as a moral model for many of us and the overall cultural changes, simply the next step in a kind of spiritual and political revitalization. The Irag war is now seen as the next step in the loss of civil liberties, in the erosion of human human rights, in the destruction of our country and the globe.

If you were young and left, it seemed, there was a sheer intensity to it where you lived, slept and breathed the possibility of change. I teach college now in the same region where I was an undergrad in 1967 and I am still active. The sheer indifference on the part of most of the general student body where I teach is staggering. They are all "against the war," but too distanced from it to act. Cultural change ( for many) is voting Sanjaya ( sp?) off American Idol. In fairness, I have to ask how active would I have been at the time had there not been a draft. The reactionaries learned a great lesson from Vietnam - eliminate the draft and you more or less eliminate a lot of the people who are immediately invested in not having a war. Had there been no draft, though, I wonder if I would have gone the way I did (CO and activist).

Lest I seem too despairing about the present, a quick note. What I always liked about the older folks is that they tried to remind us that making change was like a marathon, not a sprint. One of the great marathon runners is Pete Seeger. When I was 17 I heard him at a local rally and got to shake his hand. Three years ago at a local rally (same town, too), my son and I got to hear him and my son shook his hand.

[frogcycle]

38. yeah that "Age of Aquarius" sounded good, didn't it? n/t

[tomg]

49. I was so much older then/ I'm younger than that now nt

[TreasonousBastard]

30. American politics has always been vicious...

and such terms have always been used. The Goldwater-Johnson race was particularly nasty, with most of the mud being dumped on Goldwater.

Two things that haven't been mentioned were the photo of the murder of a presumed Viet Cong spy on the cover of Life magazine and the overall importance of politics in American life back then.

Besides Kent State, possibly the most important event was the publication of that picture of an American Army officer blowing a Viet Cong's brains out. It seemed like the continent shuddered to a halt with that and suddenly realized what war is. I don't doubt that the effect was so startling and immense that it took newsroomas by surprise and started the "too graphic for our readers/veiwers" nonsense we have now. The Pentagon certainly understood its power, and the news blackouts we now have of the damage done by war are no accident.

The other thing I remember was the involvement of just about everyone in politics back then. I remember fistfights in the streets between candidate supporters. Maybe it was just the time for "revolution" with environmental and civil rights movements running alongside anti-war movements and a huge dose of stoned hippie anarchy thrown ito the mix, but we were all involved.

[frogcycle]

39. it was a Vietnamese, NOT an American Army officer

[TahitiNut]

84. The historical revisionism is amazing, isn't it?

South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a single pistol shot in the head in Saigon, Vietnam on Feb. 1, 1968. Carrying a pistol and wearing civilian clothes, the Vietcong guerrilla was captured near Quang Pagoda, identified as an officer, and taken to the police chief.

AP Photo/Eddie Adams

[cascadiance]

114. Our CIA was involved with helping these folks though!

Read my post #95 on this thread here. I've been haunted since the beginning of this year of hearing some of the things that AREN'T talked about much, that affect me rather personally too!

Read that post and also watch this clip...

http://www.citizenstan.com/clips/citizen_stan_promo_cia.wmv

[TreasonousBastard]

130. Yes, alas, my memory of things over forty...

years ago isn't a sharp as it should be.

However, who did the shooting is not the point-- it was the picture that shocked the country and brought the war home.

[Breeze54]

110. US Officer?? huh??

Officer shoots man (An execution of a Vietcong prisoner) February 1, 1968


The May 8, 1970, march of an estimated 20,000 University of Texas students protesting
the Vietnam War, U.S. involvement in Cambodia, and the Kent State University killings.

[merh]

31. The draft and the media

and the medical care in theater are what are so different today.

Even the pro-war folks use the "no draft" to their advantage now. They like to slap you with the "the soldiers volunteered to fight, they want to be there" crap. I know career soldiers that don't want to be there, to think that all who are fighting volunteered and want to be there is ludicrous.

The media is so different, I remember body bags being shown on the nightly news, actual coverage and not "allowed coverage" of the war. Footage of funerals and footage of the injured coming home.

The medical care is so superior that soldiers are being saved and don't die from wounds that were fatal in Nam. (That is why the death count is so low as the pro war folks like to point out.)

[mmonk]

32. Our society was more tumultuous then

as many issues came to bear a perfect storm. Unfortunately, I see old ghosts returning.

[frogcycle]

35. agree with most of what has been said

there was a much more visible, palpable stress in daily life - but then, I was in college, draft-age, then graduated and draft-eligible, so my perspective might be different

and at some 100 fatalities/week there were certainly more people touched by it.

And yes, I feel like we're spinning our wheels, basically just yammering to each other while "the beat goes on"

You know, THAT was a major difference. I admit I don't listen to modern music; I time-warp back to the 60's and listen to oldies - But there were PLENTY of protest songs, with words you could actually UNDERSTAND, and tunes that stuck in your head. Woodstock, often described as a rock concert, was a war protest.

As much as many of us felt Johnson/McNamara and then Nixon/Laird were screwing up the war, there was less of a sense that it was with truly nefarious purpose than just that they were wrong.


I guess the polarization in today's world is the biggest contrast - we have 10% at each extreme with their heels dug in saying "tastes great"/"less filling" and 80% just doing business as usual. Back then EVERYONE was engaged in the debate; the full spectrum was represented

Oh, and the press did not belong to the administration.

[KharmaTrain]

40. A Rude Awakening...The US COULD Do Wrong

Let me add to those who put the draft as the major issue that led to the protests and outrage in the early stages of Vietnam. Many on the streets faced the definite possibility they would get hauled in...and virtually everyone knew someone who had been drafted. The war did touch a lot more lives than this invasion.

The one thing that hit me at the time might have been due to my age or other factors, but I grew up thinking I was living in the greatest country in the world...superior in all means...technical, social and so on. There would be no way our leaders would launch a war of aggression unless it was absolutely necessary...our large corporate wouldn't use a war as a mean to make obscene profit...and our leaders would NEVER LIE to the American people.

It's easy to use the word "naive" to explain how we were then vs. now, but I think the level of naivetee today is far greater...few people question, fewer care.

[frogcycle]

41. the photo of the little girl who was napalmed was a "tipping point" for many

also My Lai

[KharmaTrain]

45. My Lai Was Just Icing On The Cake For Most Of Us

Remember, the Vietnam nightmare lasted 8 loooooooooong years. I kinda break it down into three eras..."The Winning Years" ('65-'67), Tet and The Worm Turns ('68-'70) and "Peace With Honor" ('70-'73). My Lai happened around '71...it just disgusted many of us. But it also was one of the few times at the end of the war when the right wing came out...defending William Calley and after that point one started to hear how the Democrats and left had "lost us the war". Some could even say this helped Nixon win as big as he did in '72.

[frogcycle]

48. agreed w/respect to My Lai

I know I had had it by then

There was some mood of giving Nixon time to implement his "secret plan to end the war" after the 1968 election; My Lai put an end to any remaining patience.

[Lester222]

150. Wow. I just looked that up

I had now idea :(

[warren pease]

100. Naivete or complete cynicism?

That's an interesting take. I was reading through the posts and didn't see much attention paid to what, today, looks to me more like cynicism than naivete. I think people have been trained -- both right and left -- to believe that governments are inherently corrupt and only exist to perpetuate themselves and reward the filthy rich elites who allowed them to take power.

Threatening incidents, real or fabricated, result in brief periods of mindless flag waving support for whoever's in power, but these quickly dissipate back into the soul-killing pattern of work and traffic and lines and more work and more traffic... repeat ad infinitum. Wingnut radio keeps the fascist faith, but listenership is declining and only the IQ-impaired actually buy into this crap anymore. Democratic takeover of the House brought hope to the moderate left, but they still act scared of the wingnut machine and its power to demonize and destroy, and so far have failed to slow down the BushCo assault on the entire planet. So it's business as usual on both ends of the political spectrum, and I think cynicism is a logical response.

From my perspective as a draft resister, an anti-draft counselor and a member of the local SDS chapter, the Vietnam war was just another familiar tactic that capitalism uses to reward the upper 5 percent, penalize the lower 50 percent and provide the rest with just enough money and free time to keep them in line. And the whole thing gets wrapped in the flag, religion provides the moral foundation and mass media keeps everybody from looking at root causes of discontent and alienation.

So the anti-war movements of the '60s and early '70s weren't just protesting Vietnam; they were the most visible expressions of outrage at the entire American system, and that's why they attracted such diverse crowds. Blacks were still marginalized, underpaid compared with whites, and treated as hostile children by the powerful; women were still invisible (with some very notable exceptions); the usual war profiteers got their customary double-digit increases in quarterly profits; the police still served primarily to protect the property of the wealthy; and mass media, despite a relatively fact-based approach to covering the war, never questioned the institution of war itself, nor did it deal with the overarching issue of class conflict -- a war that the rich always win because they have the complete support of all governmental institutions and both political parties.

So everybody was just doing their jobs, as determined by their politics, class, race and gender.

What's different now is the shocking level of apathy, which is only partly the result of mass media stupefaction. And I think the main ingredient is cynicism, the belief (and it's certainly real enough) that no matter what anyone does, the rules of the game remain the same. The same people get screwed, the same people get richer, the same people protest, the same people remain invisible. And even given the level of revulsion that BushCo inspires in more than half the population, there's a parallel sense that the next batch of kleptocrats will probably be as bad or worse.

I don't personally believe that, since BushCo has managed to carve out a unique place in American history as the most corrupt cesspool of cronies, thieves, fascists, liars and fools ever to steal their way into the White House. But you can certainly see how people might get the idea that change won't necessarily fix anything. Even the Democratic-controlled House has rejected the use of the process required of them by the Constitution, preferring to take impeachment "off the table" and concentrate on being good little Germans (again, with notable exceptions -- Waxman, Conyers, Woolsey, Kucinich, Lee, Lewis and maybe a dozen others).

So it's easy to become cynical, because when hope dies and you've lost the class war, there's not much left except cynicism. Unless people decide they actually want real change, and not the superficial alterations represented by the pre-packaged, media-approved choices they're asked to make every four years. And that would take away valuable TV viewing time.


wp

[Cabcere]

112. Cynicism...

I wasn't around for Vietnam, but I think you may have a point there (actually, several good ones, but this is the one that caught my eye): "I think people have been trained -- both right and left -- to believe that governments are inherently corrupt and only exist to perpetuate themselves and reward the filthy rich elites who allowed them to take power." Bingo. That, to me, hits the nail right on the head.

I'm 21 years old, and I grew up with the concept that politicians are corrupt and that they care only for themselves and their cronies. Sure, some of them might do some good from time to time, but I believed that it was overwhelmingly political. And up until a few years ago, I didn't realize that people had ever felt differently about it. One day one of my teachers (or maybe a professor - I might have already been in college when this happened) said something about how people used to trust the government, and I was absolutely blown away. I talked to my mom that night and basically asked her if that was true - if people actually used to trust the government to be honest and work towards the best interests of the people. I just couldn't comprehend that at first, because for me, it had been one of the "facts of life" that I grew up with. You know, the world is round, the sky is blue, gravity keeps us from floating off into space, and politicians are corrupt. I just thought that it was one of those things that has always been, and so to find out otherwise was a shock to me.

So I think that's part of it, maybe. My generation (well, maybe I can't speak for all of us, but at least in my case it's true) has grown up with this idea that, yeah, politicians are corrupt, the government is there to screw you over...your point is...? We don't have that certain kind of outrage, because it's just a fact of life for us. So while a lot of us are pissed off that the Bush administration has gone to such extreme lengths to screw us over, it's not completely unexpected. We're angry that this madman is killing our friends and taking away our rights, but there's a certain feeling of "yeah, he's a politician, of course he's going to fuck things up" there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we feel the anger, but not necessarily the outrage, or...well, I guess "betrayal" would be a better word. Because that's just the kind of shit you expect from politicians, because that's who they are and that's what they do, and that's what they've always done - at least in our lifetime. :shrug:

[warren pease]

118. Systemically corrupt, and the pols are just the most visible elements

Thanks for the analysis. I hear pretty much the same thing from my daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are pretty bright and politically aware, but have become so disgusted with the never-ending stream of sewage emanating from Washington that they live like tourists, just observers of the culture rather than participants, and try to avoid any interactions with governmental institutions as much as possible.

And I also think you're correct in that politics draws people who tend to be corruptible and probably a little megalomaniacal, but it's a lot more complicated than that. I think most politicians babble on in support of the American creation myth because their legitimacy depends on preserving the illusion that America is a country of laws, a just society that strives to better the lives of all its citizens, and is reluctantly locked in a deadly battle pitting the avatar of goodness against the evil forces of international terror solely to preserve the safety of all Americans and allies around the world.

They need to sell the concept of America the beautiful -- not America as a genocidal, racist, brutal thug dealing death as casually as we deal cards, but as a righteous, benevolent, egalitarian society which always acts out of the purest motives and only resorts to violence when all other options fail.

This is the basis of America's extremely efficient social control system, which unites government, mass media and the war machine in a never-ending PR campaign to turn fairy tales into patriotism, and results in all the idiotic flag-waving and wingnut raving and demonization of the enemy, both external and at home. Mix in a little right wing religion to provide moral justification, and you've got instant 80 percent approval in the polls.

Among national politicians, only Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has ever called bullshit on the basic assumptions of the capitalist system, and pointed out repeatedly that it's a zero-sum game rigged to further enrich the top 5 percent while bankrupting the bottom 50 percent. Of course, Bernie's one of those raving Socialists and is not to be trusted.

And that's it in a nutshell. America the light of the world, the beacon of decency and tolerance, the land of opportunity where even the brain damaged can grow up to be president. Well, at least the last has been proven true. Unfortunately, massive stupidity notwithstanding, he and his handlers are corrupt, money grubbing, religiously insane fascists who live for power and profits and seek to marginalize or eliminate anything that doesn't fatten their wallets or those of their pals in the ruling class.

Lucky us.



wp

[KharmaTrain]

125. I Think There's A Bit Of Both

Thank you for your post...well thought and stated. There were many more dynamics, as you state, that were at play in the 60's and 70's that there's no real contemporary parallel. You state class warfare, and I am in total agreement. We had a thought, a vision about this concept where the term is considered an explative today. Call it "breads and circuses"...as long as people have things to distract them, the inequities are always overlooked.

Cheers...

:toast:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. People wanted to change the system then. Not just who was in charge.

We had emerged from the stultifying '50s and it's demand for conformity. We questioned all the sacred cows of the time. Patriotism, capitalism, materialism, religion, music, art, you name it.

The Civil Rights movement led to the anti-war movement which coalesced, for too brief a time, into a real revolutionary movement before being undermined and crushed by the bosses.

"It was the best of times and the worst of times." Charles Dickens

[frogcycle]

47. which is what some of us keep saying now

"the system" has been ravaged. What was once our form of government is no more. We need not just to get rid of the current puppets; we need vast, sweeping changes to get the big money out of its lock on everything.

Capitalism is a good economic model, but unregulated capitalism is exactly what Karl Marx objected to. Unregulated capitalism is what we returned to under Reagan and we are now reaping the "benefits" as the "robber barons" have their way with us.

[Jade Fox]

55. The Right has learned a lot....

since then. Now they come out swinging with the condemnations and name calling. I think the Right believes they let the war protesters get the upper hand and grab all the media attention during Vietnam.

[frogcycle]

56. bingo

[NewJeffCT]

82. You are right - and much of the media has been sanitized

Back then, we had pictures/film of dead soldiers coming home in body bags. Now, those types of pictures & film are banned - and any associated grieving family members that would likely get big play on local news channels when a local boy came home dead are therefore not seen wailing in grief-stricken horror...

Back then, protest music filled the airwaves on radio. These days, Clear Channel, and a few major others, control amost all the non-college radio out there. If they don't want anti-war music on their stations, then it won't get played. And, since the owner of Clear Channel is a big backer of *, then guess what does not get played on the radio on Clear Channels' six zillion stations?

[flyarm]

59. i thought i would never live to see the lies repeated again..

so many of our friends died or were mutilated for life..and i never thought i would see Americans so ambivilant again..and too lazy to take to the streets in record numbers..i never thought i would see the youth so un engaged..and let this happen again..i thought a voice was found by Americans..how wrong i was..

although Vietnam started alot along the lines of this war..most were not engaged because so few were sacrificing their lives..seemed then only the poorest among us went to vietnam.. along with the officers who were from families of officers..with career ambitions..

it was only as the numbers of deaths increased that Americans started questioning..

but it was mostly the youth and academics who questioned..
-then it became parents who lost their children that questioned..

-then it was those voices that were coming back home..that gave many of the answers to the questions that were quietly being asked.. in the corners of this country..

we didn't ask those questions early enough or loud enough..

and i see the same thing here now..

i really thought we learned a lesson for all of history to see ..and examine..

but i was wrong..

we don't change..

we only pass our mistakes onto the youth..like our parents passed it onto us..

greed..it kills nations and it kills the souls of nations..

until we all take the responsibility passed onto us by our forefathers.."we the people"..we will be a nation of wars..and blood and greed i fear..

democracy is an "IDEA"..a very fragile "IDEA"..but it takes people to protect it..it takes people being responsible..for that "IDEA"..it takes people willing to examine those from without that democracy that wants to destroy it..and it takes the utmost vigilance of the people to protect that democracy "idea"..from those within the democracy to protect the "idea" of democracy from our own who profess to care for that idea..

saying democracy is fragile..is an understatement..and our forefathers understood that..
i do believe our own destrution and demise will be from within..

and we must always be ever vigilant ..we must always question ..

we must always demand from our leaders accountability.

sorry to say.i do not see that from the american people..

there are many of us ...and we have ttied and worked our asses of to protect this country ...but not enough of Americans that care about what is being lost at this time..and we are and have lost alot in the past 6 years..

i really believe it is going to have to come from the youth joining up with the olders adults ..to take this country back..from those within who are working daily to destruct this wonderful idea of democracy.
it is going to take masses..and not on a time date stamp..it is going to have to be a constant pounding..day after day..week after week...

and it is going to have to take sacrifice from all of us to stop this evil trying to destroy us!!

fly

[The Backlash Cometh]

62. Okay, this is the major difference that I see:

The protest against Vietnam was mainly coming from a youth movement. There was a draft. Over 50,000 boys died. The draft was incredibly unfair in that it was not too difficult to avoid it with deferrments, if you had the connections. Over 50,000 boys who did not have deferrments, died.

Eisenhauer got us into the war. Kennedy tried to honor that commitment, but, he tried to bring on alot of social change and paid the price for it, LBJ didn't have much time to do anything, but stay the course, then came Nixon. At this point, I would say that it became a war of will. And the "will" came from old white men who didn't want to be proven wrong, or to look weak in the face of the growing protests because, you see, over 50,000 young men were dying in a country that was involved in a civil war and many people in America thought there was something very skewed about that.

But conservative white men didn't like to be proven wrong back then, and they don't now, so they did everything to discredit the youth movement, and it was, unfortunately, not a difficult thing to do. Drugs were rampant and youth, when they come at you with collective anger, can make many mistakes in spreading their message. All those mistakes, the conservative pro-war branch exploited.

Perhaps the biggest mistake made in the 60s, was blaming the foot soldier for going to war. And, yes, I was young and I heard the draft aged boys say it, "You have to be stupid to fight in this war, to go voluntarily." The line in the sand was drawn, and it pitted brother against brother, and the white conservative fathers were fine with that.

[frogcycle]

70. I have to call Bullshit

LBJ ratcheted the thing up big time. He contrived the Gulf of Tonkin incident; it was he who said to the generals and ceo's "I'll give you your war"

good god, man, why the hell do you think Johnson got the presidency?


I watched that lying sack of shit on television saying "ah won't send amurican boahs to die in somebody elses woah in asia" while running ads with mushroom clouds as what would happen if Goldwater was elected. 16,589 were killed in VN in 1968 - Johnson's last year in office. The Democratic convention had riots because people thought Humphrey would rubber stamp Johnson's policies and McCarthy would get us out. Humphrey probably would have gotten us out much faster than Nixon; the whole thing was contrived to get their guy in. They played the antiwar movement for fools, sabotaging the Democratic convention and leaving the campaign in shambles, while Nixon promised his "secret plan."

Johns INVENTED the shit we are seeing today.

Johnson presided over roughly 36,000 deaths; Nixon roughly 20,000

[The Backlash Cometh]

72. I'll give you LBJ.

I was about seven to ten at the time and I wasn't picking up on the fine details during his presidency. Kennedy and Nixon I remember clearly, or as clearly as one can at that age because of the incredible events tied to their presidencies and the abundance of media information. LBJ, oddly, though there may have been news junkies back then who understood the level of his trickery, I confess that I would not have been in a place that would have revealed that kind of information since I grew up on a military base far, far away and Stateside news was limited. The only thing I clearly remember about LBJ, is that he carried on Kennedy's social causes.

[frogcycle]

73. "The only thing I clearly remember about LBJ, is that he carried on Kennedy's social causes."

Purely a cover to appease while cranking up the war. He was a traitor, in my opinion. I looked him in the eye and past his big friendly grin and "aw shucks" way of talking I saw the lying evil bastard he was.

[The Backlash Cometh]

86. I have no doubt at all that you're correct on the matter.

The one thing I'm beginning to see clearly from living overseas, is that the information we were receiving from the States was somewhat handpicked. I grew up believing what the military in the 60s wanted me to believe, and that civil rights was a fight that had been waged and won against closed minded KKK type bigots. Clearly, no one else in the U.S. would be against Affirmative Action, surely? Not in a country that had such high Christian beliefs. (Not saying that there were missteps that came later with AA, I'll acknowledge that there were.)

Anyways, that's what was being pushed on the one American-military owned channel that came through. Somethings, like the assassination of a President, or the potential impeachment of another, are just not things that lend themselves to censorship.

[theboss]

141. LBJ did a hell of a lot more than stay the course

There were less than 17,000 US personell in Vietnam in November of 1963. By the end of 1965, there were 200,000.

[The Backlash Cometh]

147. I got spankied spanky for that one already.

[NNN0LHI]

63. The National Guard shot and killed four students in Ohio during that time

It was pretty bad back then.

Don

[frogcycle]

64. for your listening enjoyment

War - Edwin Starr ------ lyrics

Fixin to Die Rag - Country Joe and the Fish --recorded at Woodstock in 1969 ---- Country Joe and the Fish website
They somewhat overstate their contribution :) "the 60s band that stopped the war in Vietnam"

Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire

While listening, visit the latest fatalities and pay your respects.

Faces

[FloridaJudy]

80. Thanks for the links

Some one up-dated the "Fixin' to Die Rag" on YouTube lately. I'd forgotten the Edwin Starr anthem. That one doesn't even need a single line changed.

[NewJeffCT]

85. Great songs, but would that get played today?

Clear Channel owns like a million radio stations around the country. The head of Clear Channel is a big supporter of Bush. If playing anti-war songs will hurt Bush, how often do you think those songs will make it onto Cleark Channel? Right, el zippo.

I mean, if Clear Channel (and the other media owners) was liberal/progressive or at least anti-war, the top 10 singles would probably be made up of at least 50% anti-war stuff. And, in this day and age of MTV, YouTube, iPods and the like a popular anti-war song would quickly get a huge amount of play... imagine if Edwinn Starr's "War" or Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" were accompanied by video of dead US soldiers, crying and dead Iraqi children, bombs going off in crowded markets, etc?

[wryter2000]

65. I don't remember the Geneva Convention being discussed

Except in terms of the Viet Cong violating the Geneva Conventions, because they did. However, there was never any question that I remember about whether we should abide by the Geneva Conventions. That was a no-brainer.

There were instances of individual military personnel doing terrible things (My Lai), but the official policy of the US was to obey the Geneva Conventions.

[donsu]

76. the difference is that now our media is neo con and back then it wasn't

a favorite wording used by the dark side was 'dirty hippy'

and yes families were taking sides then as now.

[Blackhatjack]

83. The galvanizing issue was the Draft, and it will be this time as well...

We are up against the necessity of imposing a 'draft' to maintain the present troop levels in Iraq, and there are no more troop sources to call upon.

The question is how soon it will have to be implemented.

I have heard rumors that the Repubs are giving th President until August to show significant results in Iraq.

The truth is that by August the implementation of a Draft will be front burner and imperative. That is the driving force behind the Republicans splitting with the White House strategy in Iraq.

[onethatcares]

107. To that I give a big Amen,

the DRAFT, the one thing that made everyone eligible to die, not just the gung ho, but your son, your brother, your neighbor. It's close to that stage in Iraq now, no one in their right mind would want to join the Army. The future is too bleak.

[Jack Rabbit]

87. You bet you heard some of the same lines

{i}The Green Berets, starring and directed by John Wayne, is a lousy movie, but you might want to check it out if you want to get an idea of the right wing view of Vietnam was.

The US was using the Geneva Conventions as a point to make against North Vietnam in that the North Vietnamese were mistreating POWs.

Anti-war demonstrators were denounced as traitors and told if they didn't like America they should go to Russia. President Nixon at one point referred to anti-war demonstrators as "bums"; that was only a few days before the Kent State massacre. Spiro Agnew's speeches were particularly egregious; he was the Ann Coulter of the day. A popular bumper sticker on the right was "America: love it or leave it."

In addition to treason, protesting the war was conflated with the drug culture and sexual permissiveness, even long after dissent went mainstream.

The grassroots left fought back with there own slogans and nonsense (a bumper sticker provides less space for profound thought than a thirty-second spot). The bumper sticker wars escalated with "America: change it or loose it" and "Bombing to end war is like balling to end love".

The left also had its profound moments, something the right completely lacked then as now. The day so many combat veterans returned their medals was one of the most moving expressions of anti-war sentiment yet seen anywhere.

[cascadiance]

92. I was living in Thailand and Turkey during these times as a kid then...

I was a little younger than those being affected by the draft, and also didn't get the full picture like I am today as an adult. Here's a snapshot of what I experienced as a kid then.

I know that in the early half of the war while in Thailand, I'd see many GI's there that were probably in between tours there in Vietnam then. I did manage to take a trip to Cambodia as a tourist then before it got sucked into the Vietnam war then (so I was in Cambodia before John Kerry was! :) ). I had a nice long chat I remember as a kid (in 4th grade) with a GI when I was on a plane flight leaving Thailand then. He was a nice guy and I get the feeling in hindsight he enjoyed talking to kids on his way out of that part of the world then.

In Turkey, even though my father was more part of USAID there than the military, most of the kids/people I know there were military brats, etc. and we went to school at the American DOD school there, etc. Kind of the ways kids then over there identified themselves was by buying military fatigue jackets (you could easily get those at the PX there) and putting all kind of peace sign patches, etc. on them, and growing out our hair then with bell bottoms as pants, etc. We also all listened to the Woodstock soundtrack religiously, as well as many other protest songs of the day too. It wasn't quite the same atmosphere as it was here in the states then, but we had our ways of expressing our thoughts and independence those days like American kids did here then too. Turkey was also unique that drug use was pretty strongly under the table there. If kids got caught, likely they and/or their family one day would suddently be gone from Turkey the next day, as the Turks would give the American MPs 24 hours to have them leave or be subject to Turkish law enforcement as far as drugs went, which as those who watched Midnight Express would know, is not something you'd want to mess with. I remember at the time there was a British kid only 13 years old or something like that who was caught and living along with other hardened criminals in Turkish prisonss there who didn't get out under diplomatic immunity like many I knew did then. Billy Hayes talks about this kid also in his book "Midnight Express", even though it's not mentioned in the movie. So obviously we weren't in the same drug scene that many back in the states were there, even though I could pick a poppy that grew like weeds there from just about anyplace in the neighborhood I lived in there.

Got back to the states as the Watergate hearings were happening daily on just about all channels during the day when we got home from school. We couldn't avoid them unless we wanted to listen to them, play a book or game or go out and do something outside. We didn't have video games, VCRs, satellite TV, cable TV, or other similar distractions like we have today... I was a bit worried then as I was getting close to draft age, and even though we'd already left Vietnam, wondered if it would be used again with another war, and I'd be out there instead then. Fortunately, I lived through a time then, not having to deal with the draft as those older than I did.

I do recall recently having an epiphane of what might have been happening while I lived in Thailand in particular over there, though I wasn't aware of it at the time. I recently watched Citizen Stan as a documentary on Link TV, and had a wow moment when Stan Sheinbaum was noted as having started up the very controversial "Vietnam Project" in the late 50's which he was a project coordinator of while he was at Michigan State University then. If you look it up, you'll find out that he was dismayed by the undercover CIA operation that was running under his nose there into Vietnam that even helped South Vietnamese conduct torture, etc. then. with American advisors that were CIA agents posing as American professors of MSU there. This was a wow for me, because it was in the latter half of the 60's, not long after this program had been exposed and written a lot about in the independent press, etc. my dad joined MIchigan State University as a professor and that was when we moved over to Thailand with MSU's project there.

Some of the same names were involved there that were discussed in the independent press then, and it was linked with the Ford Foundation and the MSU president being given charge of USAID, etc. too then. I don't remember my dad ever being involved with the CIA, nor does my mom. He's now saddled with alzheimers, so I can't ask him any pointed questions about it now, but it has been something we've been talking about for a few months. I've actually been in brief contact with Stan Sheinbaum on this a few months ago, and hope to follow up with that later to find out more and help us both connect the dots then. Here's the web site for Citizen Stan that has some clips on it as well as a way to order the DVD there:

http://www.citizenstan.com/

My mom always wondered why one of her sisters "assumed" that she and my dad were going to go over to Thailand to work for the CIA in those days. Since that sister was one of the more actively left oriented members of her family at the time, my guess is she was reading those same independent publications and articles (one of which was written by the then left of center David Horowitz then). Now she thinks she understands more why her sister made that assumption.

[young_at_heart]

101. The media wasn't as muzzled and the Draft was a factor

Everything is "instant" today but back then we saw Dan Rather and others giving first-hand reports that were still quite powerful. Walter Cronkite was very persuasive and evidently, wasn't beholden to his corporation. Still, it took a while for steam to build up to stop the madness.....seems to be the same now.

[omega minimo]

102. Hey Ya'll-- why do you feed these fishing expeditions? Who's asking? Where'd they go?

"argueing along the same lines fourty years ago, as they are now with phrases as "Sympathizing with the enemy", "Convention of Geneva", "Human Rights Violations", "Treasonous behaviour" and "Threat to our Freedom" being tossed around."

:wtf:

[pitohui]

104. it was worse and sometimes people were attacked violently over silly stuff

something as innocuous as a young man having long hair was read as being a "commie sympathizer" and in some areas of the south the young man or teen was at risk of being beaten or even killed

i don't think too many of today's iraq war protestors are being beaten, it's more name-calling these days, but being older i might just not be aware of any violence aga. younger protestors or dissenters

we all know about kent state, jackson state, but there would also be random fuckwits beating people who even looked like they might be "hippies"

one of my friends went to a civil rights protest w. another girlfriend, the sheriff of the town dragged the other girl out of her tent, and that girl has never been seen alive from that day to this

[jaysunb]

119. same shit...different century

:evilfrown:

[Major Hogwash]

121. The riot at the 1968 Chicago Convention was a flashpoint.

People should have woke up then.

Hippies like Abbie Hoffman called Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic candidate for President, a "rubber stamp" of Johnson's policy in Vietnam.
They didn't like Humphrey.
Abbie was right.
It took the country 5 more years to get out of Vietnam.

The trial that followed the convention, famously know as the "Chicago 7", after the judge removed one of the protesters from the case for constantly disrupting the court proceedings, was a sham trial.

[blues90]

122. All I can offer to you is my experience of those times .

They were so different than now , entirely different .

We had a musical connection that was strong and a culture that seemed to be more on the same page , remember this is my experience ,

There was not the worry about finding a job or finding it necessary to have more than a high school education to have a good income for the times .

The country was not so very over crowded and there was still a mindset that was earth based and trade based .

We had news casters and reporters that diplayed experience and dignity and we saw the real damage of the war in Vietnam every evening on the tv .

We did not have the distraction of the high tech world in our daily lives , we had to invent activity and become involved rather than finding it so very easy to be isolated as it is now .

No one was worried about healthcare issues or retirement . People simply had a more calm manner for the most part .

The war then affected a great more people since there were so many more troops involved and families involved , just about every area one lived there were families who had someone known to then in this war .

All in all as I said the times were so very different than now then and now are almost impossible to compare .

I feel above all else even though the internet is a good tool it does have the draw back or isolation , people had the telephone or personal contact as their only form of communication .

You must always remember one very important thing , anyone can be anyone or anything on the internet , there is no proof to be beared , you cannot see body language and hear the voices or see the face and this to me is one of the down falls of the internet . You can be any age or race and no one will ever know , this is never the case in person , it is always the case on the internet .

I can come on this site and say I own my own grand business and tell you anything I desire and how would you ever know ? There are liars everywhere .

What I miss the most is the personal inter-reaction we had all those years ago and this was shown on the tv .

Sorry , I tend to get off topic when I think about today and what this country has become , it has not progressed at all as far as I can tell but then again this is all relative . What I do know is we have not learned a damn thing as far as a people , this is perhaps the most troublesome thing of all .

[dweller]

127. this very interesting and important thread

needs a :kick:

R!
dp

[troubleinwinter]

129. Another difference between then and now

(aside from the excellent posts above)...

It seems that EVERYONE knew someone or several people who had returned from Viet Nam. Many young men who had enlisted or were drafted felt it was a right war or at last the right thing to do. They sure as hell didn't, by the time they got back. And they told their stories to neighbors relatives and friends.

I lived in Hawaii in 1969 & 70. The troops got a couple of weeks of R&R ("Rest & Relaxation") there before going back. I met hundreds of these boys, most had thought "going in" was right, but after being there, they came to an entirely different view. They thought it was pointless, useless, ugly and gruesome to no good end and for no damned reason. They took these views home to towns and farms and cities across the country. To their neighbors, churches, parents.

Today, we never meet or talk with any of the soldiers returning from Iraq. They don't return. They serve second, third, fourth tours. We never know these people to hear of it.

Somewhat different subject: photo of my husband Oct. 1967, Oakland Army Induction Center, 'Stop the Draft Week' where Joan Baez was arrested.

[Tom Joad]

132. Les, read this post, and it sounds just like it was said last week

(in fact, a bit paraphrased, it was said last week)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=731100&mesg_id=731100

A quote from Westmorland about sympathizing with the "enemy".

[Lester222]

149. Indeed, disturbing.

I actually see alot of articles lately saying "the war is being lost at home"

[EVDebs]

133. Read Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History

and Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin. PBS has a video series of the book available too.

I remember Reader's Digest and the Washington Post being pro-war.

JFK was murdered in order to get us into that war, of that I have no doubt. Once 'all in' there was no way out except with a Decent Interval, the name of a book by Frank Snepp. Read that and David Butler's The Fall of Saigon too.

Then listen to CSN&Y and put on 'Ohio'.

[zanne]

142. Same old same old. nt

[Lester222]

151. I thank you all...

...for the great interest and the many replies. All of your posts were read and were very helpful :)

[bdamomma]

152. it was us against the establishment (the government) and we

let them have it. I only wish we still had the same rage. The draft had alot to do with it, it fuelled people even more. But these jerks we have now are same SOB's who mocked others for fighting in Vietnam and they did not do anything, Cheney and Bush, cowards all of them. Fratboys spoiled fratboys.

[Sapere aude]

153. Many of us older DUers still have the same values we had in the 60's and 70,s.

We got jobs and made a living but we are still liberals and progressives. Many of us never gave up on peace and social justice.