The Vietnam War is one that truly divided the nation and tested the bounds of our society. In watching this video something interesting that struck me was the usage of physical, violent efforts versus non-violence. It was reported that a lot of the violent efforts were carried out by college students. Specifically thinking about the March into the Pentagon that took place in Washington, this was a very bold, violent move that resulted in many arrests and prompted some of the violence that took place after this event. Although this march was very powerful, thinking about the non-violent aspects of the riots–they were also very powerful. In the video, we hear that there were multiple reports of people chanting “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today”. This chant, even for the president, was very powerful as he said it made it difficult to sleep at night knowing that his people thought this of him–he was mindlessly killing young kids. In this case both methods were effective in their own respects but, it was especially interesting to me to witness the power of verbal protests in this movement.
Another interesting part of this video was the mention of fighting the Vietnam War abroad when the government had yet to fight the War on Poverty within the states. This is a topic that I think is still relevant today because the United States government, in my opinion, takes too much value in trying to fix other nations and their governments (ex: Venezuela) when there are countless problems within the states that should take precedence. I believe when running a nation that it is one’s duty to assure that everything within their own nation is being addressed before putting themselves, or in this case, sending unwilling troops, to fight another battle overseas.
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