You know, if you look on Youtube for anti-war songs you can find thousands. And of those thousands, most of them are slideshows of war images set to different songs. They are moving. They are sad. They are gruesome. They are everything that is war. I know how Iraq is being depicted, but I wonder how Vietnam would have been depicted. That war was so destructive. Some people estimate that close to 5 million people died in that war (that inlcudes the French occupation to military advisors all the way Tet and the close of the war). Of course, that set Cambodia up for Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot to sweep in and kill over a million.
Back to the focus, Americans lost over 75,000 soldiers in that war. Even Winnie's brother was killed in Vietnam. It was all over the place. The question that I'm posing here is since we have media outlets like youtube, blogs, social networking sites and tons of other cyber applications, are we getting lazy? Do you think that the public forced Vietnam to come to a close by posting video slideshows?
I know this war will come to an end and hopefully it will be sooner than later, but what does it say about the power that the American publc has? Are we strong enough stand up or are we just going to change our facebook status to "liberal" and leave it at that. This worries me. Our generation is still motivated, but what about the next one and the next one?
Does this help?
No, and this is what most people leave it at. I can't say that I've done a lot more. I did go to many anti-war marches in college and even in Cincinnati, where we were spit on by people close to our age.
Do you think that would have happened here?
This seemed to work. It did because people of all ages got on board. They all bonded together. The were mad. They wanted it to end and they fought.
I know that my whole family and all of my friends are against this war and most of them have been since it started. However, who has done something about it? I barely did and that's it.
Is this what it takes? Do we have to see this again to get people moving? I hope not.
I understand that it was a different time for America. The idea of youthful dissent was rather new then and luckily it spilled into other generations, but it seems that we have so much more power to do that now and yet it is just not happening like it was then.
We are trying though...
So, maybe it takes time. Maybe we can do it, but we need to motivate the young and keep the master's of war out of power.
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2 comments:
A big, secular Amen to all that you said, George. It pains me also that my generation who, for the most part, was against the Vietnam war and protested against it in some form or another, is so complacent now. The Bushies have taken full advantage of the reigning apathy and lack of passion. When I was talking in class a few weeks ago about the student protests in France, one my sharp students said, "If students protest here (USA), they get shot and killed (Kent State)." Boy did that get our attention!
I definitely agree to an extent, but in the end, it is the decision of the people we put in office. There is no doubt that the majority of Americans want this war to end, but we are being ignored. It really frustrates me when democrats are too afraid to stand up to the president and cut off funding. I realize this isn't the ideal way to go, but when our president leaves no other options; someone has to take a stand. So far, the democrats are too afraid they will lose votes if they go that route. I guess the only thing we can do is hope that Americans want to end this war enough to vote for a democratic president.
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