Were war supporters this crazy during Vietnam?

[Renew Deal]

Did people publicly support the war? I am a little young to remember.

[ugarte]

1. There are differences, but one huge similarity

When the war is lost, they always blame the liberals.

[Mr_Spock]

2. It seems these people think violence will prevent Viet-syndrome

It's not going to work of course, but the supporters of murder are more violent than I remember during Vientam, I was taken to protests but never felt threatened - though there was some violence elsewhere. I was kinda young too :D

[uppityperson]

3. yes, I was young also, but many people did for a long time

Communism, the domino theory was the thing then. McCarthyism, OMG there goes Asia, what with USSR and China right there oooooooo. Yes they did support the war, otherwise you were a godless redlover giving aid to the enemy and all that.

[titoresque]

23. Funny.....Now I say

Better dead than Red!!!!

[The Traveler]

4. Yep. They sure were.

In a way, what we are going through now is an echo of their resentment from way back when.

[FightingIrish]

5. Before I went to Vietnam I supported the war.

I do not remember the confontations between pro-war and anti-war civilians. What I do remember were incidents where civil authorities took on protestors, sometimes for no good reason. Those who favored the Vietnam war were not followers of a cowboy cult like we have now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. No

I don't remember any public support of the war. Just huge anti-war rallies. And those damn 'America, Love it or Leave It' bumper stickers.

[understandinglife]

7. From the "hard hats for the war" to folk who'd smash your window ...

... if it had one of the original "peace" signs ... you have no idea how bitter and divisive that war was. I had people spit at me walking through Georgetown DC in the Summer of 1971 wearing my Navy officer's uniform. It was extremely ugly; it tore familes to shreds....I could go on and on....

This will be worse.


Peace.

[madeline_con]

8. Here's a site....

That has a lot of info.

If you scroll down there are poll results of LBJ's popularity before and after the Tet Offensive. It was a turning point, I think.

I was like 6 to 9 years old. I remember seeing Dan Rather in Vietnam, and the war on the evening news.

It was wild, not like the first Gulf War stuff that looked like a video game, but guys getting shot at and ducking while filming. Crazy times...


http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Viet2.html

[geek tragedy]

9. They shot people at Kent State. That's pretty fucking crazy. eom

[Webster Green]

10. Absolutely!

They were completely fucking nuts, just like the current batch of crazies. A lot of the nut jobs supporting this war were supporting the Vietnam War back then.

[longship]

11. At least noboby's been shot by Nat'l Guard.

"Four Dead in Ohio" was a bellweather mark in the Viet Nam protests. When the National Guard mowed down students at Kent State in May, 1970 the character of the protests changed. People with student aged kids don't like it when the government shoots students.

Mowing down crosses is also not a good idea. But we already know that the counter-protesters "don't care". Just like in 1970, they will do things which work against their agenda.

Let them do their worst, and we'll continue to do our best. There's no stopping this thing now.

[Hardrada]

16. Just Iraqi civilians

so far.

[wli]

18. unless I get very, very pleasantly surprised...

Bushler & Cheney will be outdoing Tianenmen Square and Kent State combined on a regular basis, until large groups of people stop appearing in public. From the footage I've seen, these fascists have more hardware and more troops on the ground dedicated to smashing WTO protests etc. than to Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

[leftofthedial]

12. no one on earth has been as crazy as the fundies and freepers

since Germany 1945.

[Boredtodeath]

15. Yes, they were

Evidently, you weren't in Chicago for the Democratic Convention in '68.

Yes, it got much worse than this before the anti-war movement became the majority. MUCH worse. Mostly because the COPS were the freepers.

[leftofthedial]

20. I was not in Chicago, although I was around then

Chicago had police street thugs

but in the 60's the fundie neo theocrats did not control all three branches of government, the media and were not bent on literally triggering Armageddon

[burrowowl]

13. Got teargassed

shot at with birdshot by campus cops, camera lens damaged by cop, etc. UNM during the late sixties.

[Matariki]

14. i just watched Easy Rider

kinda was the message

[Hardrada]

17. Yeah they were

and they thought they had God on their side too. Dylan wrote a song about that.

[Beam Me Up]

19. IMO, yep, they sure the fuck were.

Different war. Same nazi shit.

[KT2000]

21. They sure did

there were counter protests; the cops who hit protesters (me inlcuded) with clubs at one of the demonstrations I went to had taken off their identifying badges etc.
families were divided
i do think violence is more accepted now though.

[DELUSIONAL]

24. In Berkeley the cops rioted -- and my sister found

a bloody bully club (used to beat students and protesters when the police rioted) -- that had been tossed into an alley.

The cops were beating students and protesters -- similar beatings were happening at other college campuses throughout the S.F. Bay area. Campus reporters had they cameras smashed at San Jose State University.

No wonder I have no trust in cops or authority to this day -- they could not be trusted back then and I doubt they have improved much over time.

[DELUSIONAL]

22. Yes it was bad --

I was on the west coast -- living on a military base (Navy brat) -- and the Oakland Induction Center was not far from the base. A lot of the early protests were focused there. Later RayGun and Nixon teamed up and would come into town to stir up their dumb fuck supporters.

We were right about Vietnam and we are right about Iraq -- their side is either too drunk on the kool-aid or in deep denial. As it becomes more apparently that we were right in protesting BEFORE the invasion -- their side will become more violent.

The only bumper stickers I remember were the huge ones saying -- "America, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT". The drivers were always nasty buggers -- white male, middle aged. This always pissed me off -- since I had spend most of my life on military bases and my dad had served in Vietnam as well as enlisting right after Pearl Harbor. All this time the public was NOT AT ALL supportive of the military or military families -- in fact during the Vietnam war the flag waving bastards were NOT supportive of military families.

I still hear old guys pontificating about how the Vietnam war was lost because of &*&^%^% liberal college students -- and then they go on and on about the *&*&^ college professors -- and how they should all be hung. RayGun started the anti intellectual fad . . . which resulted in baby bushie -- the retarded fuck living in the white house.

The difference is that we have the Internet -- and it feels like I am taking some sort of drug which speeds up time. So many of the same things are happening just much faster.