The Anti-war movement is one of the most interesting movements of the new left, I feel like it is very interesting because we see many different Americans from different backgrounds supporting the movement. Even MLK and Civil rights groups opposed the war. Even though it affected different groups in different ways, people still came together to fight against “tyranny”. It is in movements like these that I wonder how democratic our country really is, because of the sheer amounts of people who wanted to pull out of the war and end it, there was very little action by the government to appease the protestors until the very end. Even still it can be argued that the war only ended because we had actually lost.
One thing in this video that surprised me were the reactions of the soldiers already in Vietnam to the draft protests. They stated that if they should have been fighting than those at home protesting should be here with them or have already given up their lives for the country. I think they felt as if their service wasn’t being appreciated which was not the intention of the anti-war movement. Further, this video pointed out how political parties would use these movements to come into power. With Nixon’s rise to power.
Another thing this video opened my eyes to was the power behind college students and how dedicated they were to the movement, they fought the national guard many times and suffered many blows, however, they stayed until the end.
I think it was interesting that you brought up the different groups in the movement. Often its talked about as just the youth. In reality many people opposed it.
I thought it was pretty interesting how in the video it was clear that a lot of people utter that they had been drafted but one thing that I learned was that there were loop holes. If you had been attending college you were excused if you were married then you were excused. Super interesting topic.