Vietnam Protests

This video certainly opened my eyes to what happened domestically during the Vietnam War. I knew the protests were a big deal but I did not quite understand the magnitude of them until now. It was interesting to see who the leaders were during these protests. I know he didn’t see it through to the end, but the video showed a clip of MLK talking about the war in Vietnam, something I did not know he was fighting against. As a college student now, it puts a lot of these things into perspective. The firing upon students from the national guard at Kent State particularly bothered me. The situation had so many parallels to the Boston Massacre once I thought about it;  protesters throwing things at the people with guns and no order to fire. History certainly does repeat itself. I think the clip of soldiers throwing their medals said everything that one would need to know about how most Americans felt about the war by the time it was over.

I think there’s a lot of comparisons that can be drawn between how divided the country was then and how divided we are now. LBJ referred to the silent majority of Americans who he believed would be in support of the war in Vietnam. Trump focused heavily on the silent majority of Americans who are thought to have won him the election in 2016. The country was so polarized, similar to how it is now. One of the things that confused me the most was why it took so long after Nixon’s election for the war to end, considering he campaigned on ending the war. This just goes to show that campaign promises not being kept are nothing new. I think the protests demonstrate the power of dissent, and I think it’s great that dissent has power in this country and can get results with enough persistence. Though if I have to be completely honest, I think attempting to raid the Pentagon was just stupid.