I agree with Michael. I did antiwar organizing at the University of Denver in the early 1970s and then nationally working with College Press Service. Some of the less "political" students were concerned with the draft, and there was also a national draft resistance movement. I agree the political right has created a hyperbolic myth about draft concerns meaning cowardice, but that this is a canard does not mean there were not real concerns among some in the broader antiwar movement.
Incidently, another right-wing myth was that of returning veterans being spit on by antiwar activists. That this is a polticized urban legend was documented in:
The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lembcke
-Chip Berlet
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Perelman" <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 10:29 PM Subject: Re: Cooper: bring back the draft!
> Carroll, I think that many of the "soft" anti-Vietnam protesters were
> affected by the draft -- people who may have demonstrated, but who were
> not otherwise political. They were not leaders, but their anti-war views
> were not ineffectual.
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 10:12 PM Subject: Re: Cooper: bring back the draft!
> My experience is that almost _none_ of the war resistance of the '60s
> was particularly related to the draft. Certainly thd SDS and supporters
> here at ISU were mostly students who had no fear of the draft, including
> several veterans. I think it is a right-wing myth that leftists for some
> reason have bought into that "youth" in the '60s opposed the war because
> they feared the draft. Is Cooper the one who introduced that obscenity
> "peacenik" into this thread?
>
> Carrol