On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, Carrol Cox wrote:
> > What made Vietnam a syndrome were exactly the moral qualities -- the
> > national feeling that it had been shameful and futile, a sacrifice for
> > nothing, for less than nothing, for evil to all concerned. These
> > didn't spring from the deaths themselves. They sprung from a change
> > in the climate of ideas. And from new media that started out
> > excellent churner- outers of the big lie and ended up a terrain of
> > conflict.
>
> "They sprung from a change in the climate of ideas": But this doesn't
> explain anything
I thought the change in the climate of ideas was produced by the anti-war movement, and the questions it managed to raise and to get people to ask and demand answers to. You don't think so?
The anti-war movement may or may not have stopped the Vietnam war. But I think it certainly should get credit for changing the climate of ideas that made Vietnam into a syndrome.
Michael