Protesting Vietnam vs. Iraq

That wasn't my experience.

I am more afraid of the hero worship that is now instilled on this nation for anything in uniform, I find that scary.

 

Do you consider the garb that nurses and Dr.'s wear as uniforms?

 

One of the things that I don't understand is why protesters treated our soldiers so badly

Badly how? My older brother served in Vietnam, and he caught a lot more hell for growing his hair long when he got home than for having served in the military. He wasn't spit on, he was welcomed with a huge block party.

 

that's a very good and valid point you bring up joe.but surgeons,nurses,corpsmen,techs,chaplins etc have been part of military operations since the beginning of warfare .they're present in iraq and afghanistan but certainly they were in vietnam also.but thinking about it a little now i think i catch your drift that perhaps they are viewed differantly now.sorry if i didn't understand your question at first.....sun lion i would have liked to have been at that block party .i bet it was a good time.i think people used to know how to have a good time more than now.it would be nice to have many of those people and good times back.i guess that's why it's so important to savor each moment.thanks for bringing back memories.

 

waukegan, all those professions are all licenced professions. That means that if they get convicted of anything they lose their livelyhood. It has nothing to do with war 'so say', but they must follow the government line or be ready to work at mickey dees. MD's make it hard to pay back what you owe. Whether they work for the war industry (ie in the military) or not, they must be more respectful of their employers in both their professional and individual lives than the average smoe must be.

20 years ago when I got my passport there was only a few professionals that could vouch for who I was. I needed 2 and since I don't hang out with the 'right' class of people I only knew 1 that that had known me long enough. I got a cop for the other but he only knew me for 6 months less then the minimum that was 'officially required'. Since my other was a JP, he probabley didn't mind fudging how long he had known me.

 

I think the whole 'block party' reception had more to do with the neighborhood... okay, I wasn't there or anything, but talking to my parents, I get the impression that most people just latched onto the fashion and music, and didn't really buy into the politics so much... especially in the suburbs, or in places where people tend to emphasize community over almost everything else. Those places never change-- there are people there who are born with strong ties and keep them forever... because they have more space and are forced to rely on each other for amusement-- which is why I love small towns.

Usually, movements like hippiedom are only dangerous when they spread into more urban environments where people are more terrified and paranoid on a daily basis, and are keen to pick up on trends but too stupid to actually think for themselves. They get so excited that they actually finally believe in something that they don't think through what they're doing, so they become these self-righteous, uncritical people acting out on some base anger that clouds their judgment at all times-- it's the difference between someone who would blow marijuana smoke in a cop's face, disrespect him, and then take a f#$%ing video right at the point when the cop gets angry... and the person who would put it out respectfully and maybe try to start up a conversation or something. A lot of people are the former, not so many the latter.

I would say the reason Iraq isn't so protested is because there's no fashion or music to go along with it this time... and if there were, then you could still have the option not to listen to it. Protest was part of something aimed at sixties youth-- it may have started off with college intellectuals asking important questions about society, but it quickly devolved into something that appealed to the masses...

Also, the kids are more distracted nowadays... by video games, better TV, ADD, fewer appealing contemporary books, stronger drugs, and a racier, more sexual culture... there aren't too many obvious human frontiers available to kids nowadays. They're saturated from birth.

On the other hand, there's nothing more obnoxious than some aging hippie thinking highly of himself because he used to have long hair, smoke dope and scream at war-mongers... because really, what did that get you besides a widespread erosion of humility and a lingering memory of a nationwide adolescent image crisis?

 

i was born,grew up and still live in the same part of this medium sized midwest city.it's changed alot in the last 40 years.many of the families are now gone.the small groceries,barber shops,restaurants,laundromats,hardware stores are vacant.the people have changed too.i guess i was being nostalgic for the days when there was a sense of neighborhood here.we had some pretty great neighborhood parties too.and everyone knew which neighborhood "kids" were overseas.and that concern for that long year when they and i would get back.i hear what you're saying about small towns.when i travel i like to go into the towns get off the freeways away from the burger kings,motels,gas stations.are small towns changing some too?i'm thinking about schools being consolidated,the old timers not being around anymore,hear about hard drug use sadly these days.but there have always been stereotypes about small towns and i suppose that may just be another one.i've been for many years a student of historic architecture.so i'll often pull off the road for a look.and small towns gladly seem to not change much....i liked what was said about the police.it is a job like any other.they have a tough job.like any other occupation there's one's that are out to do a good job and others that are sick and tired of all the senseless crap they have to put up with everyday.a little understanding and common sense can go a long way in getting along with people in law enforcement or any other occupation.....i guess i don't understand the whole fashion thing.t-shitr,jeans have been the most comfortable for me.hair length.i've kept it short in summer and long in the winter.but that's really a personal choice thing......ageing and weed smokeing i think you got me there.especially the ageing part.but smokeing and coffee.but hey there are certainly worse things in the world.yelling at war mongers.i 've been on both sides on this and although i don't feel a need to support the troops(i've never been sure what that means anyway.when i was in i didn't really care about getting support from the homefront.)they are far from home faceing danger and they are close to my heart.in that sense i do support them.i sent as many christmas cards to them as i could.i guess i do support them.but i just don't support the war effort i guess....well blah blah blah.anyway it's good to get differant viewpoints here.thanks for everyone's.thank's to joe for bringing up the question in the first place.i think it's one of the most important ones here on hip forums and i guess if we didn't care about the world we wouldn't bother to be here.

 

I was talking about 'fashion' in terms of a trend, which means not just your look but also behavior. I would argue that part of the reason there was so much protest in the sixties is that people were just realizing that it was something they could do.

I know this is a cynical generalization, but I get the impression that the sixties weren't really about selflessly standing up for anyone-- it was more about people discovering and experimenting with sex, drugs, and politics. Having an open attitude towards those things was basically a new concept at the time (or at least, hadn't been done in a while)... but when the hippies went mainstream, they kind of made it a lot less exciting for the generations that followed, in that this totally killed the thrill of discovery for everyone. They are the reason that Britney Spears and all those other nasty slutty type pop stars exist. They are the reason that so many kids are no longer terrified of trying drugs. They helped to make these kinds of thing more acceptable.

I'm not saying that it's all bad... a lot was gained in terms of civil rights during the sixties... but hippies really can't take credit for that. The majority of hippies were and still are posers, especially if they claim to be 'political freedom fighters'...

 

i see what you're saying.thanks for the clarification.it is an interesting view of history.it's a good idea to shake the cob webs out of ones head(mine included)and look at history from differant vantage points.

 

waukegan-- i'm impressed by how open you are to what I'm saying... of course, it's just my opinion and not absolute truth. I'd like to stress I'm not condemning civil rights or forward thinking, both of those things are very important, and it's good that virtues such as empathy, alternative spirituality and openness became part of the mainstream... but giving the hippies as much credit as some of them like to think they deserve downplays the fact that the younger generations made their own leaps towards these things as well. Most of the kids I grew up with were very forward thinking, and racism was a lot more reviled than you might expect... and this was a small town, with a handful of Asians and maybe two black kids in the whole school.

It's also the younger generation that helped a black man become the first president of the United States. To say they don't care about things is certainly an insult. They do protest, though it's more likely to be on the Internet (which is still a valid communication tool, despite it being dismissed by many as an ineffectual cop-out). What's the difference between holding a rally and starting up a website? A website has far less chance to turn violent... and it gets the message out as well, and can influence public opinion, which in turn influences the government (unless you're George W. Bush and you just do whatever you want, of course). If enough people do it, you've accomplished the same thing as a rally, and you've avoided a potentially violent showdown.

Give young people credit!!!

 

Maybe because alot of americans are too fat and lazy from eating mcdonalds 3 times a day...
iggy: