The Anti-Vietnam War movement eventually succeeded with U.S forces exiting Vietnam. Previous to that, achievements of the movement were in public opinion not policy. The United States interfered in Vietnam for the purpose of containing the geopolitical spread of communism. The Anti-Vietnam War movement was mainly made up of baby-boom college students, as they were the people threatened by the draft. The movement co-occurred with social change for American women, black people and non-straight people. Because of the climate of change, complacency was no longer an option in the face of injustice. The Anti-Vietnam War achieved meaningful change by ending the draft and stripping away willful ignorance that allowed injustice to occur. The movement
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During the fifties, the Civil Rights movement and the New Deal created controversy and uprooted consensus in public opinion regarding most aspects of life in the nation, this lack of consensus carried into the sixties. Americans gained access to unfiltered information about the war through television. The general public was able to see the violence and bloodshed without political agendas polluting the facts. Television made it clear to Americans that policy makers chose to use force instead of diplomacy in Vietnam out of fear of a domino-like spread of communism. The change that television brought was that instead of words the public saw images of war and death that were hard to forget or ignore thus the government justifications of the war were no long sufficient. The war became real even to those who weren’t fighting it. The loss of ignorance regarding the war, either willing or unwilling created an atmosphere that was conducive to change allowing progress to be achieved. Pressure from the disillusioned public as well as less than ideal results in Vietnam led to a full withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1973. It took almost a decade. The same kind of war is now happening in the Middle East with the same ambiguous justifications. For some reason the general public has reverted to willful ignorance. The Anti-Vietnam War …show more content…
The men higher up within the underestimated the Viet Con due to a mixture of racism, classism and perceived intellectual inferiority. Helicopter was considered far superior to tools available to the Viet Cong The young men had romanticised notions of war either from the stories of their American father’s ending WWII or from the movies, their naivety made them complacent. Romanticisations and underestimations do not make for a triumphant war effort; it just breeds confusion among the men who are fighting the war. The justification of the Vietnam War was ambiguous and contradictory according to American soldier who were fighting in it. They fought alongside South Vietnamese people who they perceived as beneath them, a people unwilling to help themselves while the Americans and other anti-communist allies arrived to give aid. The disillusionment of the soldiers during and following the war is tied in with the stripping down of blind patriotism. Soldiers attempt to rationalise the actions of the state because they are the ones that carried out what the state asked for, they perceive the war as somehow tied into their own morality. The Anti-Vietnam War Movement both thrived and suffered from this disillusion. Veterans joined the movement and protested it, the latter taking offence because they perceived the movement as
During the fifties, the Civil Rights movement and the New Deal created controversy and uprooted consensus in public opinion regarding most aspects of life in the nation, this lack of consensus carried into the sixties. Americans gained access to unfiltered information about the war through television. The general public was able to see the violence and bloodshed without political agendas polluting the facts. Television made it clear to Americans that policy makers chose to use force instead of diplomacy in Vietnam out of fear of a domino-like spread of communism. The change that television brought was that instead of words the public saw images of war and death that were hard to forget or ignore thus the government justifications of the war were no long sufficient. The war became real even to those who weren’t fighting it. The loss of ignorance regarding the war, either willing or unwilling created an atmosphere that was conducive to change allowing progress to be achieved. Pressure from the disillusioned public as well as less than ideal results in Vietnam led to a full withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1973. It took almost a decade. The same kind of war is now happening in the Middle East with the same ambiguous justifications. For some reason the general public has reverted to willful ignorance. The Anti-Vietnam War …show more content…
The men higher up within the underestimated the Viet Con due to a mixture of racism, classism and perceived intellectual inferiority. Helicopter was considered far superior to tools available to the Viet Cong The young men had romanticised notions of war either from the stories of their American father’s ending WWII or from the movies, their naivety made them complacent. Romanticisations and underestimations do not make for a triumphant war effort; it just breeds confusion among the men who are fighting the war. The justification of the Vietnam War was ambiguous and contradictory according to American soldier who were fighting in it. They fought alongside South Vietnamese people who they perceived as beneath them, a people unwilling to help themselves while the Americans and other anti-communist allies arrived to give aid. The disillusionment of the soldiers during and following the war is tied in with the stripping down of blind patriotism. Soldiers attempt to rationalise the actions of the state because they are the ones that carried out what the state asked for, they perceive the war as somehow tied into their own morality. The Anti-Vietnam War Movement both thrived and suffered from this disillusion. Veterans joined the movement and protested it, the latter taking offence because they perceived the movement as