Was the country this divided during the Vietnam war era?

[sabra]

was it more?

[Old and In the Way]

1. Not that I can remember.

Of course, we had a more objective news media and a tougher party that was willing to fight for Democratic values.

[On the Road]

2. Oh, Yes, It Was Divided

probably even more than today.

[MindPilot]

3. No where close

There was alot of disagreement, but nowhere near this level of hate from them and anger from us.

[onenote]

39. the hate and anger was far more intense and widespread back then

The Weathermen, the Black Panthers, SDS...there were bombings, Kent State. You had Nixon claiming the support of the "Silent Majority", families ripped apart far more dramatically than today...draft age males heading to Canada. Marches with a half million people...Today there is much more complacency. Yes, there are many who dislike Chimpy (and amazingly, many who love him), but neither side is motivated to change their lives to the extent and in the numbers that people did during the Vietnam era. There even was an attempt to bomb the Capitol for crying out loud...

onenote

[jaysunb]

4. Absolutely !

in addition to the cultural dynamics of the day, things were probably worse than today.

[CountAllVotes]

10. yeah you are right

I was living in Berkeley during those times. Lots of violence was breaking out and rioting ... and oh yeah, the "pigs" that were so evil bashing people with their clubs.

When it came to the streets, people woke up.

Then began the change.

Then Nixon was impeached.

and now here we are all over again except I fear it will escalate to much more heinous levels.

[DELUSIONAL]

24. Probably depends on where you lived -- my answer yes

yes the people where I lived -- also in Berkeley, and before than in Alameda, were angry.

In the early days in not that many people were involved -- however as the draft kicked into high gear the protesting outside the Oakland Intake center (I've forgotten what this monster area was called) and then there were the anti-war/free speech protests in Berkeley.

Bumper stickers most often seen: "American, Love it or Leave it"

San Jose was also another area of protest -- mostly college towns is where you'd see a real awareness of the war. Which is why the GOPigs are trying to curb the "professors".

The battle was generational -- and this is the major difference with the two eras (Vietnam & today).

Today the battle is class -- because although most of the photos I've seen are of African Americans there are also poor white families who live from pay check to pay check.

Plus there isn't a actual draft today -- but I'd say there is an economic draft. Young men and women joining the military because they have no other options. For instance the last Washington State soldier who died was an economic draftee. He lost his job in a mill and the only job he could find to support his family was to join the military. I have no idea what his race was -- he was first a poor American who thought his path to job security was through the U.S. military.

Now we see a major disaster WITH a war in which the poor are given a choice of draft or die (no job and no welfare for able bodied = draft).

Nixon was a liar -- and bushie is a liar -- and eventually the lies and cover-ups will come home to bite bushie in the butt -- just like Nixon.

However, Nixon was smarter and more competent and he was more mature than bushie will ever be.

[Jon8503]

5. No, it was not like this. I honestly believe the reason it was not

is because we had presidents back then that really were not dividers.

With all Nixon was, he was not like this president. Think about this, do you remember all the demonstrators and at Nixon and Johnson. They were not put behind barbed wire or holding pits where the president could not see them. There was more freedom to demonstrate back then.

Johnson was not.

The people themselves were somewhat divided on the war issue but not to the extent these right wingers are.

The republicans were true republicans, some conservative but not as hateful.

The media reported the news more back then instead of making it and they were not on the whitehouse payroll. You did not have the corporate media then but a more independent media that could report.

You had some entertainers like the okie from muskokee (Merle) but aI don't remember the hate that these people put out.

Somebody else might have a different opinion.

[Redstone]

6. I was going to say it WAS this bad, but I think you're right.

The pro- and anti-war groups got into some spirited discussions, but even Nixon wasn't bastard enough to dismiss half-million-people protest marches as "focus groups."

Redstone

[MamaBear]

9. Actually...

Nixon said the protestors were insignificant in light of his ten thousand telegrams.

Nevertheless, people were a bit more polite in expressing their views in the '60s, so while I believe the country itself was this divided (or more), the expression of that division was much more civilized.

The "hawks" did not have hate radio and hate TV egging them on 24/7, and the networks did broadcast some news.

That's the way I remember it.

[cmd]

20. I agree

People of both parties distrusted the young people. Remember the mantra "Don't trust anyone over thirty!" It was more of an age divide than a party divide. It was a division with out hatred. Very different from today.

[Toots]

22. There has never been a time in my life when I felt I had no President

Until now....Most of the Presidents of my lifetime have been Republicans and yet I always thought of them as MY President. I can not nor will not ever think of this man bush* as my President. He is the Republican's President and he makes no bones about it. His town meetings consist of bused in people who are Republican Bush* supporters and no one else need bother. Truman was the first President of my memory and I have respected every one until now

[Lerkfish]

23. I think the difference is you had Hawks who felt antiwar demonstrators

were commie pinkos, and "america, love it or leave it"...that sort of thing.

but what made it different is the administration, corrupt or not, did not INTENTIONALLY seek to drive wedges between an existing divide, nor create a divide where there wasn't one.

Further, because EVERY able bodied man was a potential draftee, nearly every family had a member in the forces AGAINST THEIR WILL. So, you couldn't have what you do now, chickenhawks who are prowar but don't feel they need to fight it.
When they drag your son off, it makes the issue of hawk vs. dove a lot more immediate and a lot more personal.

[G_j]

7. yes but

most people were sane enough to wake up once they were exposed to the truth of the war. Today sanity is a lot harder to come by. True Bush cult believers do not want the truth, truth is the enemy now.

[2Design]

13. exactly - that cult like loyalty - more like manson or jim jones

they are unwilling to be human or care about people - they are unwilling to follow great teachers like christ - they have no care about people only have converts to the cult

[KT2000]

8. not THIS divided

as I recall. People were divided on the issues but there was not the RW machine that churned talking points into the debates. The discussion points were almost static by comparison.

Now there is so much pumped into the debate for the purpose of confusing the issues, dehumanizing groups of people, promoting hatred as a tool and keeping people occupied while the country is picked clean by the new ruling class and their corporate sponsors.

[kodi]

28. the divisions now are wider and deeper, its much more than just "war"

you had labor standing up for the war then and regardless of other issues only the war was a strong dividing line. on other issues there was greater agreement on education, on poverty, on judicial respect, on the very use of government to do right by its citizens and the role it had to play in the society.

christ, even nixon said "we are all kenysians now" and how could you have a republican president say that today?

[FightingIrish]

11. There was division but also honest debate.

Armed with facts, you could persuade someone to see it your way. I did not sense blind obedience to leadership. I served in Vietnam and went from somewhat ambivalent on the war to strongly opposed to it.

[GeorgeBushytail]

12. There were places in the US I wouldn't go to because of my long hair.

9/11 March to Bushville, DC

On 9/11 survivors of Katrina will commit an act of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience by setting up an illegal camp on the Washington, DC Mall. Bushville, DC will stay there as long as it takes to get answers and change.

Visit http://www.bushville.org and spread the word.

We will camp on Bush's doorstep and make him face us every day until he is driven from power.

Join the March to Bushville, DC. If you can't make it on 9/11 visit us on 9/24.

[yy4me]

14. A definite yes, and it was a more violent division .

Protesting everywhere, news coverage not as biased as today. What is going on now if different. Vietnam was Johnson's war and his defeat. Todays division is over far more subjects and no-one is pushing any of them as hard as Vietnam because the efforts are diluted. There are now many areas of discontent, not just an unjust war in a far away land.

[NYCGirl]

15. Yes, it was worse. I was a student at SF State University back then. NT

[CountAllVotes]

16. hey me too!

during those lovely "Hayakawa" years ... oh how could we ever forget!!!! :grr:

[DELUSIONAL]

27. I was at San Jose State

just south of S.F. on 101 <grin>.

Those were the days?

[ramapo]

17. Yes, plenty of hate to go around back then

There was the whole America love it or leave it, My President right or wrong crowd.

There were the construction workers against the "dirty, communist" hippie anti-war protestors.

There was more overt racism.

There was plenty of hate directed at police and at returning soldiers from Vietnam.

George McGovern was Swift-boated. Here was a good, decent man who served bravely during WWII who was derided as a friend of the enemy who would give the country to the communists as an appeaser.

Nixon was paranoid and out to get his enemies. At least he wasn't an ignorant, incompetent bastard, he was a smart bastard who looks almost good in comparison.

[mmonk]

18. Hard to say

People began to know what was going on during Vietnam. Unpleasantries were reported through live cameras on the evening news.

[catmandu57]

19. It was bad, but,

if there had been the 24/7 hate media blasting back then we wouldn't have madeit, as it was we barely survived 68. If there were all these mouthpieces shooting off like now I don't want to think of what kind of world we would have now.

edit my finger didn't finish the thought.

[Jersey Devil]

21. Yes, but the dividing line was age

It was older vs younger. "Don't trust anyone over 30"

[MichiganVote]

25. Yes but we didn't have the media covering it all up w/ Aruba $ Schaivo

[jaysunb]

26. See post # 4

The republicans then as now used a war to divide the country. The social upheaval that was the civil rights movement and all it spawned--social awareness by mostly young people, were exploited to gain political advantage. It was hugely successful and is the foundation of the chasm that exist today.

Republicans were largely members of a " class " that belived simply in smaller government, and free reign for business. Once they co-opted the racisist southern democrats, the invitation to openly hate "others " was accepted all over the country....including once staunch Democrats like labor and farmers.

RACISIM + CLASSISIM = MODERN DAY REPULICAN

[bemildred]

29. Not there yet. This is maybe 1966 or 1967. nt

[Javaman]

30. Actually, it really depended on where you lived. I was on Long Island...

And there were huge HUGE rallies there. Several times, protesters blocked the northern state parkway. Thousands of protesters.

More divided than now? I think about the same, only difference, people were more informed and paid attention. Following politics and public discourse was more encouraged back then.

Now no one wants anyone to make waves. Bullshit on that.

colossal failure*.

[DURHAM D]

31. Frankly, I think the citizens are less divided today than they

were 2 weeks ago. Both of my freeper siblings have called me to confess that after watching the repugs handling of this disaster they feel foolish for blindly voting repug for the past 35 years and wanted to know where they need to get their news.

Bottom line - they (and many others) now realize these people in charge are not adults and can't possibly take care of anyone but themselves.

[VOX]

32. During Vietnam, the media reported the truth, with film and photos...

And those potent images made their way into the living rooms of America, via TV, Life Magazine, etc.

It became impossible for right wingers to argue in favor of, or defend those images of carnage.

Also, young people and African Americans didn't hesitate to hit the streets to voice their collective dissent, even if it meant getting clubbed or going to jail.

So the division was as great or greater back then, but the corporate media is in the pocket of the right wing today, so there are no serial images of confusion and death from Iraq, or now from New Orleans. And for whatever reason, nobody wants to repeatedly gather in numbers and put themselves on the line -- just yet.

[Armstead]

33. More

There were no precdents in modern history for the degree of disconnect that occurred. Society was much more conventional, and the extent of the cultural schism that occurred was much more extreme.

The hippies and radicals were like a different dimension from the mainstream,and had a completely different frame of reference...And issues like racism were more entrenched.

Also there was that little matter of the draft. Having their own butts on the line, made the issue of the war hit home much more directly to many more young people.

[Hardrada]

36. I think that's right and you had TWO preceding age groups

of veterans who hated the rads. World War I and II vets were both quite nasty to antiwar folk. Oh, and Korean War vets too. No use for us. And average people saw our freer sexual activity as somehow being a threat to their wives and daughters.

[BringEmOn]

34. Four students killed at Kent State turned things around.

I hope the deaths of thousands in New Orleans were not in vain.

[madeline_con]

35. Yes...

Kent State is a good example...

[TahitiNut]

37. During Viet Nam, it was "fractured" ... intersecting fault lines.

Today it's truly divided. During Viet Nam, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party were divided. "Democrat v. Republican" was NOT the only national division, or even the most prominent one. Nationally, people were divided most by a cultural divide ... traditionalists v. hippies. That mapped pretty closely, but not completely, to the "peaceniks v. warhawks" division as well as the "over 30 v. love children." At the same time, we had the "feminists v. anti-feminists" -- remember, "Roe v. Wade" as an early 70's decision!

Today, almost everything is aggregated onto the Democrat v. Republican divide.

So, the division today is far more stark ... but the fractures during Viet Nam were immeasurably more turbulent, with temporary alignments and allegiances being formed on an event basis.

[onenote]

38. absolutely was

in some ways maybe even moreso...I know that sounds hard to believe, but you have to realize the impact that the draft had....

onenote