>On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:27:23 -0700, R <rhisiart at charter.net> wrote:
>
> > liberals supported the war in vietnam
>
> Carl Oglesby in '65 at the first big anti-war demo, about 30,000 in
>D.C., "The original commitment in Vietnam was made by President Truman, a
>mainstream liberal. It was seconded by President Eisenhower, a moderate
>liberal. It was intensified by the late President Kennedy, a flaming
>liberal. Think of the men who now engineer that war — those who study the
>maps, give the commands, push the buttons, and tally the dead: Bundy,
>McNamara, Rusk, Lodge, Goldberg, the President himself. They are not moral
>monsters. They are all honorable men. They are all liberals."
> (JFK recoiled at being called a liberal according to Richard Reeves,
>btw.)
> It was the combined actions of radicals in the streets, many not of the
>Kumbaya type (Scanlans in '70 in an issue of the magazine that had to be
>printed in Canada, enumerated thousands of acts of property destruction
>and other militant action against the war in the U.S.) w/liberals in
>Congress that had turned against the war, plus, of coarse, the NLF, NVA,
>PRC, USSR and anti-war movements worldwide, that won the war of national
>liberation for the Vietnamese. The left needed liberals inside the system
>just as they needed mass pressure in the street generated by the radical
>left.
need is a debatable point, michael. raises the issue of the traditional liberal pattern of co-opting left issues for self-serving purposes. the motives and goals of the left and the "liberals inside the system" were quite different. just as they are today.
R