Alexander Bloom, professor of history and American studies at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, says the anti-war protests now underway across the country have the potential of being "much bigger and more significant than the early demonstrations against the Vietnam War" in the 1960s.
"The first Vietnam demonstrations did not start until 1965, when the war was already underway," he says. "At that time the Students for a Democratic Society, organizers of the event, were stunned when 25,000 people showed up. In recent weeks we have seen hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Washington, New York, San Francisco, London, Rome, and elsewhere. This kind of outpouring did not occur during the Vietnam era until 1968," he notes.
"When you compare the hundreds of thousands of people pouring into the streets with what was going on in the first few years of American involvement the war in Southeast Asia, this suggests a larger and more sweeping public anti-war attitude." He adds: "There is also large-scale organizing and petition gathering being done over the Internet as well as hundreds of smaller demonstrations taking place around the country and on numerous college campuses."
Bloom, a scholar of social activism, is recognized for his work studying the impact of Vietnam-era social protest on America. He can provide perspective on today's anti-war climate versus that of the 1960s and early 1970s, and can offer insights on the social atmosphere and changing attitudes toward activism during the Reagan era and the 1990s.
His books include Long Time Gone: Sixties America Then and Now (2001, Oxford University Press). He is co-editor of the anthology Takin' it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader, the second edition of which was published last year by Oxford University Press. Bloom's Web page: http://www.wheatonma.edu/Faculty/AlexanderBloom.html
The Wheaton professor's current project is the soon-to-be published book The End of the Tunnel: The Vietnam Experience and the Shape of American Life, a study of the way in which the Vietnam war has shaped American life--politically, socially, diplomatically, and culturally--since that war ended in 1975.
"Vietnam hangs like a shadow over this entire experience, from the way we measure antiwar activity to fears about a policy that will lead us into another quagmire," says Bloom. "We are still haunted by that loss."
Alexander Bloom can be reached at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., at 508-286-3673 or abloom at wheatonma.edu or by calling Mike Graca in Wheaton's communications office at 508-286-3503 or mgraca at wheatonma.edu --- Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za]