> "The Power of Protest: How the Vietnam War Was Stopped."
>
> It would have been interesting to hear the ISO's spin on this. Standard
> activist line that the peace movement stopped the war? A long ode to the SDS
> and socialist groups?
>
> As everybody knows, the Vietnam War ended several years after the protests
> died out. This is an uncomfortable fact that activists want to ignore,
> because it shows how difficult it is to stop the U.S. war machine with
> thousands of people waving signs.
>
> Chuck0
On the other hand, the US nearly imploded and it took twenty years for the crazies in charge to feel comfortable with overtly bombing people again, and these days they still have a hard time justifying anything in terms of pure national defence and fear-mongering. There has to be some 'humanitarian' angle to everything.
They know fully well how thin the ice is they are skating on. In fact it has long been recognised by the Pentagon that wars have to be quick otherwise support melts away; this seems to indicate that crowds waving signs is actually a cause of concern for these people.
(Having read through a lot of the work done by the Australian secret service in the 60s, it is remarkable just how much they overestimated - from our position - the threat of apparently insignificant Maoist groups and how much they worried about freaks with long hair or unkempt armpits. I doubt much has changed, considering the sorts of questions I get asked by the police when they arrest me at demos. (note: I have neither long hair nor maoism.) We're so used to thinking we never win that we are sometimes blind to the fact we scare the living hell out of Them.)
But anyway - so, how would you stop a war?
Thiago
------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au