Analysis Of The Vietnam War Protests

Anarchic, civil, radical, militant, and rebellions people is what police officers have to face on a regular basis. Both Vietnam protest and protest today are rebelling against the government. During the Vietnam War, citizens were protesting against the U.S government to stop the war and send American soldiers back home. Today people still manage to go out into the streets to protest for the government to stop discriminating certain groups like Muslims and immigrants. Is protesting a productive, patriotic act or is protesting a counter-productive, productive subversive act? Even though people think that protesting is a counterproductive, subversive act, protesting is a productive, patriotic act and people should be able to do it.

The Anti-war movement started during the 1960s and shaped America’s public opinion on conflicts for years to come. As in all American conflicts, the will of the people controls the actions of the military. Without Homefront support, the American war machine dies. American pop culture during the 60s and 70s, sought to change public opinion against the Vietnam War. Through blatant Anti-war lyrics to their actions, the popular artists and musicians of the era changed the mindset of a generation to oppose the military actions in Vietnam.

Public opinion did have an impact on the Vietnam War to an extent. The Vietnam War was fought between 1959 and 1975, between the communist government of North Vietnam and the democratic government of South Vietnam and its allies, the most actively involved of these being the USA. At the end of the conflict, neither side were defeated, however, it is considered a military failure and is seen as a very controversial conflict. There were a number of reasons for America’s involvement, and it was essentially a combination of North Vietnamese aggression and America’s desire to continue with their policy of containment. The war was particularly significant in the fact that

People burn the American Flag or kneel for the National Anthem never have gotten the military experience veterans have. Many people have been disrespecting our American flag to protest. It is an unfair way to protest because many men and women have fought hard, left their loved ones, and risked their lives to protect our country. Many students at Brown University on Veterans

American Public Opinion of the Vietnam War At the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, in 1965, the American Public favored the idea of war because they feared the threat of communism. Polls conducted in 1965, showed 80 percent of the

Instructions: Each group will be assigned one specific question and will have one group representative or someone in the group share their answer. Since it is a short day, we will only have time for one person per group.

Secretary of State John Kerry once said “I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.” The Vietnam War was a conflict that lasted from 1956-1975 which the United States participated in along with the South Vietnamese who fought against the Communist North Vietnamese. Many Americans strongly disapproved of the war which caused many protests and riots. The war lasted 25 years killing many people and eventually the North Vietnamese won. The Vietnam War was important to Americans back home because it tested the citizen’s right to free speech, effected future foreign policy, and created many issues for returning veterans.

Many of the democrats within the legislative branch turned against Johnson’s war. Scholar’s conflict on the reason why Johnson’s own party turned against him, some scholars attribute it to the growing number of antiwar constituents, while other scholars such as E.M. Schreiber, Burstein and Freudenburg cite the numerous deaths of American soldiers in combat. One democrat by the name of Eugene McCarthy labeled the entire Vietnam War as an “error” and describes the Johnson administration as “misguided.” McCarthy decides to run for President, but loses in the primaries by a slim margin to Johnson, further indicating that the antiwar movement was gaining significant momentum. Things were only beginning to get even worse as the Tet Offensive

has adapted to the jungle and the way of life in Vietnam, he would be

In this essay I am going to discuss the impact of the antiwar movement on the course of the Vietnam War and ultimately the role the movement had in ending the war. My argument is that the antiwar movement did influence some Vietnam policies; however it did not directly end the war. First I will discuss the impact of the antiwar movement during Lyndon Johnson’s time as President, I will then examine the impact of the movement throughout Richard Nixon’s presidency, and then I will discuss the overall impact on both presidents’ policies; I will then consider the general opinion Americans had towards the movement and finally I will evaluate the role that the movement had in ending the war.

This was a peaceful reaction I won’t say protest to social changes in our society. Most people think the national anthem represents those who died for our country which is true in fact, but what did they die for? They died for freedom, for the right to either stand or kneel. When we look at the ethical issues about the confederate flag controversy we can look deeper and what some people believe it still stands for. Some southerners see the flag as a symbol of the South’s independence, sign of pride and the brave fight their soldiers died for. When we dig deeper though, the civil war was fought over slavery, a brutal war between states. Choosing what ethical decision to make it is always a good idea to look at social changes. There are always unified alternatives to both sides. The flag can still be represented in museums and homes, but not in public places and government buildings. After all in our Pledge of Allegiance it does say “and justice for

Steve Siebold states, “Of course you are allowed freedom of speech in this country, but don’t disrespect your national anthem and everything it stands for. That’s shameful. Don’t disrespect your fans and employer…You can have freedom of speech without disrespecting the Star-Spangled Banner.” (Siebold, 2016, para. 7). In reality, it is of the opinion that this reasoning brings to light that there are indeed alternatives to the type of protesting and that it does not necessarily mean it has to be done at the expense of the national anthem. Since freedom of speech exists it can be done on a different platform. This reasoning, however, could have been stronger if the author provided exactly what it is the national anthem does stand for instead of just an implication of everything. Yet, in some ways this can be viewed as a red herring fallacy, as it does not stick to the facts of how it is wrong, but diverts to doing it somewhere

Most scholars probably think that the Americans who fled to Canada during the Vietnam war had personal reasons, but according to the latest research, most of the resisters of the Vietnam war were politically motivated. There are different kinds of motives by various resistors who took place during the Vietnam War. First were the Dodgers. These were that kind of people who left America because they did not approve what the government was doing. They resisted through making public claims, trying not to register for the draft, and not taking the oath. The second types of resister were known as the draft resistors, and these were the people who were in the military and refuted their duties. The deserters were also another group of resistors

In 1967, 64 percent of all eligible African-Americans were drafted versus only 31 percent of eligible whites (Black 2009). This fact testifies to only a small portion of why nearly all African-Americans found themselves protesting against the Vietnam War. The lack of civil rights in the U.S deterred many blacks from supporting Vietnam, a conflict aimed at liberating the rights of another people. African Americans were frustrated with a country who fought for other citizens and saw no purpose in fighting for a peoples’ freedom but their own. Although African-Americans were specifically discriminated against both in Vietnam and America, they were not alone in their anti-war position. The majority of the American public opposed the Vietnam War. As the war dragged on, people found no reason to fight in Vietnam and believed that the United States should prioritize their own citizens first. Many public figures, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali, held similar claims. Their opinions aligned with the public’s concern and suggested that the U.S withdraw troops and focus resources on the civil rights issues at home. These public figures fought for a specific minority, but, in light of the entire American population, the majority of people opposed the war.

The Vietnam War certainly left a distaste in the lives of many who have been affected by the war; scholars have become increasingly interested in the interaction between war and public opinion. There have been many scholarly works published on the Vietnam War, but the issue that will be analyzed here is how public opinion changed the course of the war. The first article by Scott Gartner and Gary Segura is titled, “Race, Casualties, and Opinion in the Vietnam War,” it examined how the diverse races within America in combination with the atrocities in the war led to the formation of opinions that were similar in one race but were different in another race. The second article by Paul Burstein and William Freudenburg titled, “The Impact of