What did the Anti-War Movement Lead To?

[Russ]

>Wojtek Sokolowski:
>>What movement? Feel-good identity politics of middle class draft-dodgers,
>>maybe, but movement?
>
>This is absurd. The Vietnam antiwar movement at its height included broad
>sections of the working class and the oppressed nationalities. The Chicano
>Moratorium was a powerful component of the antiwar movement and Martin
>Luther King Jr. made opposition to the war a central part of his activity
>in his final year of life. Some surmise that his antiwar activity had more
>to do with his assassination than civil rights activity.
>
>>I think Nathan is correct linking the steady decline of the progressive
>>power with the ascent of the me-generation of the baby boomers.  They
>>protested mainly because they did not want to give their privileged life
>>style to fight in Vietnam, not because they opposed the war.  When not
>>threatened by the draft, they cheered the televised Persian Gulf war from
>>the privacy of their living rooms and suburan drinking holes.
>
>More nonsense. People who became antiwar activists were the most
>politically conscious people in the population. When you joined an antiwar
>committee, you would have probably already read Bernard Fall, Howard Zinn,
>Noam Chomsky et al. You are perhaps confused with people like Bill Clinton
>who had nothing much in common with the people I worked with.
>
>>
>>PS. From what I heard from a historian friend of mine, the only anti-war
>>movement that really mattered was the opposition to the war within the
>>military itself, that left the army deeply divided and demoralized.
>>
>
>Poor comprehension of history from your historian friend. The ranks of the
>military would never had courage to speak out against the war unless
>millions of students and trade unionists had preceded them.
>
>Louis Proyect

Wojtek is almost on target. There was an anti-war movement but its role has
been greatly overstated by both its supporters and detractors.

The military were deeply divided over the war, this was not an anti/pro
division but one of whether the war could be satisfactorily won or not.
Given the stakes of a major imperialist power being _seen_ to lose a
conflict with a third world one the heat of this debate oozed out into the
public arena. (See Schlesinger's studies of the media and the war, for
details of how various factions in the military manipulated the media for
their own ends.) Of course the major mobilisation of the anti-war movement
only took place when it became obvious that the US could not win. Those in
the military who supported continued conflict  then could then point to
dissenters, 'doves' and the media and blame them for the forthcoming
defeat.  And such was the narcisism of the anti-war movement (epitomised
here by Louis), they too celebrated  the defeat of the US as their victory,
when in reality it was achieved with Vietnamese blood.

As for the the political consciousness of the anti-war movment, well once
the acid had worn off, it soon degenerated into various forms of  me-ness
and consumer-hippydom, especially the cosy deleria of the tree-huggin
Greens.

Russ