You’re right, all that fantastic, idealistic, effective protesting you all did in the Vietnam era, you’ve certainly made the world a great place for my generation. You’re right, we definitely should try the same tactics again since they worked so well! It saved the environment, reduced the omnipotence of Big Businesses, got rid of corruption in the government, and ended unjust wars!
…oh, wait. If anything, the world is much worse off today than it was then. Good job!
Well, it’s one less thing, isn’t it? Do you really wish you had another unwinnable war still raging, complete with conscripting the poor and politically impotent into service?
Ahhh, but there’s the point, isn’t it? The peace marches put pressure, the political rallies. Not Woodstock, or a bunch of hippies sitting around together getting high. Yet, much of the reflective media in my lifetime (as someone born in the early 80’s) idealized the protest movements of the 60’s and portrayed the drugs/free-love aspects as being a central component.
What I know looking back on it it is that it probably handicapped the protest movement and caused it’s efforts to take longer to kick in. I’d even go so far as to say that the Hippie generation mostly succeeded in tearing things down, but failed to create the societal structure to fulfill their ideals, largely because their extremist stance created too sharp of a divide between them and the rest of the country. We still have many lingering problems because of this incomplete movement.
I wouldn’t be too quick to hold up Cindy Sheehan for anything. She’s an attention whore, and I wish I could remember some of the details of her background I had learned, because she’s an irresponsible fringe-element from what I recall. It’s the old “the thing I hate most is someone using a bad argument for the right cause” phenomenon. Pick your champions wisely, because as someone up-thread said, offending people will only close their minds, not get them to think in the modern political landscape.
We do still have an unwinnable war going on. And I’ll grant that it’s not mandatory anymore (though I’ve been led to believe that the Woodstock-types really had fuck-all to do with that), but are you seriously saying that there’s been a huge shift in the demographics of the military? People are joining because they can’t afford to go to college or find another option to get their life started.
Not to mention the fact that the drunken, drug-addled, bra-burning idiots of the Vietnam era gave the ‘establishment’ all the more reason to treat protesters like idiot kids who don’t know what the hell is going on. Plus, it ingrained the deeply-unfortunate trend of “I don’t like x. Let’s have a big-ass concert which will do nothing but soothe my stupid liberal guilt!” in the public consciousness.
I’m sure some protesters back then (and today, too) had noble intentions and truly wanted to do good things. But their methods were so very misguided, and I can’t help but be kind of pissed off at what a shitty world prior generations created.*
*I know, life’s a bitch, get over it, etc. I try to do what I can to change it.
Woodstock was a music fest. It put pressure on the local plumbing and weed dealers.
War protesters were old ladies, priests, nuns, college students , business men average citizens and people who do not trust the gov. It was not a hippie movement at all. To characterize the war protesters with hippies is wrong. Hippies would not have been turned away.
Yes, and those people can be classified as such: 1) People you knew personally and felt obligated to read your crap, 2) Educators who were required to read your writings as part of their job or 3) People who were generally stupid
:rolleyes: Yet again, the self-importance of someone who scribbled out feverish bullshit in High School. The whole anti-war movement has patted itself on the back so many times it’s become almost automatic at this point. Well, guess what, you guys didn’t end the war, Richard F’ing Nixon did. In addition, all the way back in 1967, before the “movement” had most of its big rallies and protests the American people disapproved of Johnson’s handling of the war.
It doesn’t take a visionary to protest the most unsuccessful war America has ever waged. The fact that it was also the longest combat operation we were ever involved in also sort of suggests that if anything the “peace movement” should be ashamed of the fact they didn’t start catching serious momentum until years and years after the war began.
I’m not expecting anything from you, except for some grasp on reality–that being, you contributed absolutely nothing to society whatsoever and influenced no one of any importance. Our political leaders decided to end the war because it had become popular amongst the actual people who count in America, adult, middle class voters. As someone who so consistently advocates free market ideas, I find it interesting that you take any pride at being associated with a movement that was almost synonymous with pro-communism.
L-o-l.
Then I guess Lincoln was a “batshit crazy fascist.” It is my contention that during a war in which the State is fighting for its very existence the government is justified in doing just about anything to neutralize people who hurt the war effort. Lincoln summarily imprisoned 18,000 Copperhead Democrats, and he was justified in doing so. These were people who were advocating that Union soldiers desert on the battlefield, that the U.S. make peace with the Confederacy, and that individuals start taking violent acts against the government (such as sabotage and freeing CSA POWs.) Both history and the courts have completely vindicated Lincoln, you’re the only one who looks batshit crazy here.
I explicitly made it clear that in a war like WWI, the government wouldn’t be justified in doing these things. That was an action that occurred more than 3,000 miles away and was never a significant risk to the United States at all, a fundamentally different conflict from the ACW, the Vietnam War, or the current war in Iraq.
Oh, so that’s what was going on there. I was at my friend’s house and we sort of had So You Think You Can Dance on in the background (I don’t ever watch it). I looked up at the TV and said, “Why does that manly looking woman have a dress blue jacket on?”
Of course, I didn’t notice upside down chevrons and such, I just thought she looked stupid in the jacket. So, fashion statement = fail. War protest = fail (you know, especially when you apologize for it).
Right, we basically agree then, if I’m reading you correctly.
What I’m saying is that it was the direct political actions of the protest movements of the 60’s that got things done, whereas the hippie part of the scene mostly got in the way. Because they were a fringe element of the movement that often served as a way to demonize the protesters early on.
However, imo, the protest movement is often misrepresented as being entirely the work of the hippies nowadays, especially by posers (like my aforementioned neighbor) who want to idealize the period of their youth.
I brought up this point not because I thought you were associating them, but to illustrate that (while I agree Martin’s showing himself to be something of a radical) there is a point to the detractors in this thread trying to emphasize that the movements of 40 years ago were not all that fantastic themselves. They were certainly better than the lack of protest we see today, but they had more than their own share of flaws.
That any discussion of how people need to go out and be active should be careful to clarify what they mean by that. Just as many people who traditionally considered themselves conservative have had to specify the socio-political (as opposed to moral/religious) meaning of that ever since the christian fundies more or less took over the GOP back in the 80’s.
Well, for most of those years I was a kid. I graduated High School in 1972, so I guess I was theoretically in danger of being drafted (since the draft didn’t stop until 1973), since Liberal didn’t graduate until after I did, he was never in danger. I didn’t support the Vietnam war because I felt it was not in our strategic interests, I don’t feel the war was “destroying America” though. It was doing great harm to the Army, and since I ended up going to West Point and was in the Army for two decades I learned first hand about the damage it did and regret that that happened. However, if you didn’t want to go to Vietnam, you didn’t have to go. The degenerate criminal scum like Liberal who openly admit they were engaging in drug culture simply to “offend” wouldn’t have any problem draft dodging. It wasn’t exactly easy to track down a draft dodger and they eventually got amnesty anyway. So the idea that people were protesting because they “didn’t want to get their asses blown off” is hilarious. Over 100,000 people dodged the draft and almost none of them ever paid any legal price for that. This is a big country with big borders, it wasn’t a great feat to successfully dodge the draft. Many of the people protesting were in fact draft dodgers.
Note, I don’t believe the claims of drug culture to “offend.” People do drugs because they enjoy doing them. I experimented some in the 70s, but ultimately I kept with old faithful–hard liquor. I didn’t get drunk on a regular basis to rebel against my parents or to offend society, I did it because getting drunk is enjoyable. I didn’t smoke grass on a regular basis because it was way harder to get than liquor and it was my opinion getting high wasn’t as fun as getting drunk.
I guess if I was one of the moronic people who burnt flags and wore shitty clothes and grew their hair too long I could claim I got drunk and out of hand as a teenager because it was civil disobedience against the evils of government. But that’d be intellectually dishonest, I did those things because it was fun, period.
Lol, strawman much? I didn’t support the Vietnam war, and I didn’t blame its failure on protesters. I also don’t believe Vietnam was unwinnable. In general, I think almost no war is unwinnable. For a war to be unwinnable you have to have one side with overwhelming advantages, strategic, military, and et cetera. When Germany invaded Poland, Poland didn’t have a chance. Especially since the Soviets started attacking from the East, that was a genuinely unwinnable war for Poland. Vietnam wasn’t an unwinnable war, people both left and right like to say it was unwinnable for different reasons. The great failure of those on the right who say it was unwinnable is, it is a cop out. It wasn’t unwinnable, we just lost, because we made a bunch of big mistakes. People often have trouble admitting that.
I never said in an ideal society 100% of the population would blindly support a war. I just mocked the Vietnam war protesters as being ineffectual and worthless. I never said that everyone should support every war. Do you find my actual arguments so strong that you have to resort to arguing against points I never made? :dubious:
The problem is, when people are often interviewed you find out that protesting both during Vietnam and during the run up to the current war in Iraq was like a “vacation” for these people. They’re protesting because its fun, not because they have any greater concerns. Did some people genuinely care? Sure. But most of them were just wastrel scofflaws.
I disagree, I think protesting is actually the least effective form of public discourse. Speaking in the theoretical sense I’ll agree (and slightly contradict myself) that it does contribute something but in such a minor way as to be insignificant.
By coward you mean “not an idiot.” Cindy Sheehan is a stupid, emotional, piece of trash. People like that embarrass the memories of their children and should be shunned. Addressing her would be like holding a debate with a street preacher.
I pay taxes.
It is your contention that without a bunch of worthless, dope-smoking hippies the war would still be going on??
Bullshit. Nixon wanted to end the war pretty much from the earliest points of his Presidency. Nixon was certainly not a hippie.
Well, Martin, if your grandmother had balls she’d be your grandfather. Our protests brought about civil rights, women’s equality, great music, the sexual revolution, and the end of the Vietnam War. You can speculate all you like about what would have happened without our heroic patriotism, but you’re only gazing at your navel.
It didn’t take a visionary in 1965? It didn’t take a visionary in 2003 either, but look what happened.
Y’know, Martin, I don’t mind - mostly - when your interpretation of history is different than mine. I do mind when you ignore the facts of history. Major ground operations in Vietnam began on March 8, 1965; the draft card burning demonstration in Berkeley occurred on May 5, 1965. Demonstrations were wide-spread by 1967-68.
I guess we just have a different definition of “widespread.” The biggest protests came after 1967-1968. I never said there was no opposition to the war at the times you mention.
What’s your point about 2003? The Iraq war is going very well right now, the only people who say otherwise have a strong partisan interest in promoting Iraqi civil war and genocide.
Now you’re changing the goal posts. I’m talking about Vietnam war protests, not about anything else, I’ve made that very clear.
You’re also making all kinds of claims unsupported by the evidence at hand.
In what way did your (specifically your) protests bring about women’s equality? I think a lot of the female political figures from the era between 1880-1925 would disagree with that quite strenuously.
I see no real association between the sexual revolution and the Vietnam war protests. The sexual revolution was primarily a function of birth control, not any protests. When sex became something that you could engage in without life long consequences (also known as children) the sexual revolution became possible. The idea that somehow protesting the Vietnam war brought this about is…highly dubious to me. (Not that people didn’t sleep around back when sex did have serious consequences–but it definitely became more widespread because of the ability to have sex with some reasonable expectation of no pregnancy)
The Civil Rights movement was a widespread effort dating back decades, but gaining momentum in the 1950s. By the Kennedy administration it was already a significant force, it predated the Vietnam war protests and the protests against the war in Vietnam certainly didn’t “bring about” civil rights.
Our interpretation of current events also appears to differ. 
Furthermore, even in the context of the Civil Rights movement, women’s equality and et cetera. Protests never “brought about” any of these changes. Laws, SCOTUS decisions, and constitutional amendments brought these things about. Did protests have some effect on bringing about changes to the law? Yes, but in a very very minuscule manner. All the protests combined in my opinion had less effect than the NAACP’s legal campaigns.
I don’t believe protests are completely without value, I just believe they very rarely are a motivational force. They tend to be a reactionary force (we’re mad about something, we’re going to bitch about it in a big group with signs and screaming and et cetera.) Real changes happen through the court systems, the ballot box, and over many years of gradual societal change. The Civil Rights movement has a history at least one hundred years long and many would argue it goes back even further than that. As did the movement to get women the right to vote, and eventually true legal equality.