Mark Bennett wrote:
>I believe Carrol's analysis is accurate. The soldiers' revolt did much
>more to end the Vietnam war than the "vocal opposition" of the anti-war
>movement, which was effective primarily to the extent that it helped
>radicalize the G.I.s.
Doug wrote:
>How can you separate all these things? The antiwar movement was
>inseparable from the "counterculture" - which I suppose is suspect by
>hardcore politicos because it involved what Judith Butler calls the
>"merely cultural" - and those were inseparable from the GI's
>rebellion. It was mass social indiscipline and it scared the hell out
>of conservatives, from Spiro Agnew to Irving Howe.
To the extent the "merely cultural" (which I don't disparage) became threatening to the status quo it was co-opted and absorbed, and its threat neutralized. I'm sure there are any number of Marxist cultural critics who have examined this process in depth. It was the direct action, i.e., violence, that frightened Agnew, Howe, et al. You've written yourself, Doug, that, ultimately, the ramshackle edifice of capitalism rests on the corporate state's monopoly on violence. For a brief period of time, about 1965 to 1973, that monopoly was very mildly challenged and it had the ruling class, or at least its more excitable members, shaking in its shoes.