OUCH!
> . . .
> organize. All the
> leftwing crazies who went into the workplace in the 1970s failed
> because . . .
DOUBLE OUCH!
With friends like these, I think I'll call my buddies at the Cato Institute to get a sympathetic perspective on the 1960's.
But we crazies salute your mastery of hindsight. The anti-war movement had gone mainstream and basically succeeded, so there was little left for would-be revolutionaries to do in that vein, especially with a rightward-listing white working class that needed to be organized and a black working class that seemed entirely receptive to organizing.
It turned out that labor wasn't going to mobilize and we should have been studying organic farming. Who knew? This was before veggie burgers became revolutionary, after all.
As for anti-war protest being motivated by fear of the draft, Louis is mostly right. Fact is that the draft had become voluntary, so you didn't have to protest to avoid service.
I was drafted, reported for the physical, looked the man in the eye, and asserted that I was a communist, a drug user, and a homosexual. (two out of three wasn't bad). If you were very risk-averse, you went to a certain famous NYC doctor whose name escapes me, paid $50 bucks, and he wrote a note explaining why you shouldn't be in the Army.
Of course, if you did or didn't protest, it would have no bearing on your own likelihood of being called up or on your ability to avoid service. You've all missed the real cause of the mobilization: people actually protested to get laid (it worked for me), but that's another story.
Regards,
MBS