The Vietnam War was a war that had many emotionally conflicted. On one hand, some intellectuals believe that the government's decision to involve America in the war was in the best interest of the people in Vietnam while others believe that America should not have partaken in the overseas affair. Whichever side one is to believe, both sides had radicals who pushed for their cause. A group known as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who later split and became known the Youth International Party or Yippies were advocates for peace and for American military to return home. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were the founders of the group and they believed that acts of civil disobedience would aid in the achievement of their goal (Pollick). …show more content…
Organizing an antiwar march on the Pentagon in late October consisting of about 100,000 hippies/yippies, The Youth International Party had no idea how much this march would impact America and the war efforts. Bernie Boston was a reporter at the time for the Washington Star newspaper sitting on a wall near the march where he captured the iconic image known as Flower Power on October 21, 1967 (Conger). Soldiers fill the outside frame, all standing and holding rifles and advancing toward a group of young men who being pushed toward the right side of the photo. One man is standing a little in front of the group and is inserting flowers into the barrels of the soldiers' gun. Questions are raised about the content of the photo. Why are there no shots being fired? Who is the leader of the group of civilians? Why is this occurrence important? Why is there so much aggression against the antiwar march? Why is the photo in black and white and not in color? The most important question of all is, who is the young man inserting flowers into the gun barrels? Boston's image is able to seize the moment in time and give a clear picture of what is really going on. The position of the people in the photograph is interesting. The soldiers hold an aggressive stance, on the defensive, while the Yippies hold a more offensive stance and are more vulnerable. The flower boy, who is later identified as eighteen year old George Harris, exudes the presence of almost child-like innocence (Harris). At any moment he could be fired upon or pushed away; yet, he continues on his task of inserting the flowers. The tension between the soldiers and the protesters reflect the emotions of America's citizens at the time. Boston perfectly captures the nonviolent position of the Youth International Party and the opposition the movement had endured. Minute details of the photo are critical in the understanding of its significance. The army is dressing in the same uniform, brandishing the same M-14 gun, and putting up an organized unified force. The protesters are more disorganized, not dressed the same, but still clean cut and dressed well. George Harris in the only person who is wearing white, creating not only contrast with the dark army, but also with his fellow Yippies. Fellow Yippies do not seem focused on Harris' efforts but more on whatever is going on to the right of them where as all the soldiers' eyes are on his every move. Overall, Bernie Boston bases his photograph off of one symbolic, and critical detail. There is only one person holding flowers, George Harris. Harris' motive for the flowers is investigated. Was the image staged? Did the Youth International Party use this as part of the antiwar march? The group was known for radical demonstrations and public pranks in order to bring their point to the public (Pollick). In one case, the party made alleged statements about lacing the water supply of an American city (Pollick). From all that is known, the flowers could have just been a distraction to hide a bigger plan. Was George Harris just caught up in the moment and made an impulsive decision? Bernie Boston states, “...The rest had their guns raised, when all of a sudden a young hippie stepped out in front of the action with a bunch of flowers in his left hand”(Harris). Based on Boston's recount of the event, it has led many to believe that Harris' flower idea was a sudden act of determination and boldness, not a premeditated act for publicity. The caption of the image reads, “George Harris sticks carnations in gun barrels during an antiwar demonstration in 1967” (Montgomery).
The connotation of the words and word choice provide valuable information regarding the photo's composition. A curious detail of the caption is the mentioning only of George Harris and not the Youth International Party. Why does Boston not talk about the group who organized the antiwar event? The image is based solely off of Harris, not off of the group's goals or ideas. In the caption of the photograph, word choice is important to note. Harris “sticks” the flowers, not forces them. Just as he does not force the flowers to go down the gun barrels, the hippie movement is not forcing peace upon America, because if they did, they would be negating what peace is and what they stand for. His flowers choice is interesting. Carnations are known as flowers of the dead and are often the flower of choice for funerals. Why did Harris choose this particular flower? Did he stick the flowers in the guns to mock the soldiers, reminding them of the lives they had stolen? Or was Harris simply remembering all the fallen of the war? The title of the photograph, Flower Power, puts the hippie movement into simple terms. Flower Power demonstrates how the peace and the efforts to gain peace are powerful. Boston provides a thought provoking caption to expand on the complexity of the
war. Why do countries go to war? Who is really hurting who and who is really protecting who? Boston is able to capture this delicate balance taken at the famous Pentagon march. He is suggesting that even a simple of an act as putting flowers in gun barrels can have an impact on the mindset of a nation. Not all actions have to be grandiose and monumental to have significance. Maybe all the world needs is a little more flower power.
The 1960’s was a time society fantasized of a better world. However, the horrors of the Vietnam War soon became evident; the mass amounts of death occurring because of the war became a reality. It created a “movement”, especially in American colleges, in order to stand up for what they believed to be “right”. By 1970, many Americans believed sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake, however there were also various individuals becoming increasingly critical of the student antiwar movement
James A. Baldwin once said, “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose” (BrainyQuote.com). In the 1960s, “the man” was youth across the country. The Vietnam war was in full force, and students across the country were in an outrage. Society needed an excuse to rebel against the boring and safe way of life they were used to; Vietnam gave them the excuse they needed. Teenagers from different universities came together and formed various organizations that protested the Vietnam war for many reasons. These reasons included protesting weapons and different tactics used in the war, and the reason the U.S. entered the war in the first place. These get-togethers had such a monumental impact on their way of life that it was famously named the Anti-War Movement. When the Vietnam War ended, The United States did not have a real concrete reason why; there were a bunch of theories about why the war ended. Through negative media attention and rebellious youth culture, the Anti-War Movement made a monumental impact in the ending of the Vietnam War.
Around the time leading up to John becoming an activist there has been several groups being formed and events happening. The Vietnam War was happening aroun...
First, the city was run by Mayor Richard Daley, an old style political boss, who controlled the state Democratic Party system with unchallenged authority. Second, several groups planned to organize demonstrations against the war and called upon supporters to join them in Chicago for the convention. Finally, the Chicago convention became a symbolic forum for the conflict. Four main groups were the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, led by David Dillinger and Ronnie Davis; the Yippies, led by Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman who attempted to combine the counter Coulter life style of hippies with a political statement against war. Some McCarthy supporters also came to Chicago, despite the senator's warning to stay away.
This photograph, taken in 1967 in the heart of the Vietnam War Protests, depicts different ideologies about how problems can be solved. In the picture, which narrowly missed winning the Pulitzer Prize, a teen is seen poking carnations into the barrels of guns held by members of the US National Guard. This moment, captured by photographer Bernie Boston symbolizes the flower power movement. Flower power is a phrase that referred to the hippie notion of “make love not war”, and the idea that love and nonviolence, such as the growing of flowers, was a better way to heal the world than continued focus on capitalism and wars. The photograph can be analyzed through the elements of image as defined by ‘The Little Brown Handbook’ on page 86. There are a total of nine elements that contribute to the communicative quality of an image. The message that this particular image tries to convey is the strong sense of way that conflict should be handled; by way of guns or by way of flowers. The ‘way of guns’ is violence and excessive force which heavily contradicts the ‘way of flowers’ which is a more peaceful and diplomatic way of handling conflict or disagreement. This photograph depicts these ideologies through its use of emphasis, narration,point of view, arrangement, color, characterization, context and tension.
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
The Vietnam War was one of the most prolonged wars in US history. Although there were no exact dates, it is believed that US involvement lasted for around 20 years. The US went into this war hoping they could stop the spread of communism and defeat the northern Vietnamese. The battles were like nothing they had seen before and it was very difficult for the soldiers to differentiate between the enemies and civilians. To make it even more difficult for the soldiers, their “information was based on faulty intelligence”. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a northern Vietnamese general, believed that the US and the southern Vietnamese had an unstable relationship. He hoped that through the Tet Offensive the US would believe they were no longer worth defending. Fighting was done using guerrilla warfare which blurred the lines of legitimate and illegitimate killings and this had effect of bringing peoples morales down. Support for the war had always been split but this battle caused even the government to reconsider their involvement. The Tet offensive changed the US's attitude towards the Vietnam war by leading to further anti-war protests, a credibility gap in America, and for President Johnson to negotiate peace and not seek reelection.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
Many people in the 1960s and early 1970s did not understand why the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. Therefore, they had no desire to be a part of it. The Selective Service System, which was used to conduct the draft, had aspirations of directing people into areas where they were most needed during wartime. However, people took advantage of the draft system’s deferment policies to avoid going to war. Others refused induction or simply did not register. There were also people who left the country to escape the draft. The Vietnam War proved to be an event that many Americans did not agree with, and as a result, citizens took action to elude the draft entirely or to beat the draft system.
In 1969, at its ninth national convention, the organization of college-age activists known as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was in disarray. Having formed only nine years earlier, it became the ideological basis for the New Left -- highly critical of the government’s policies on war and most importantly, fervent supporters of racial equality. By its ninth national convention, it had grown to be 100,000 members strong, consisting of various alliances and parties, with over 300 chapters all across the continental United States. During the convention, the turmoil of its own inner-politics and conflict between parties lead to a splintering (Green, “The Weather Underground”). The expulsion of the Worker-Student Alliance and the Progressive Labor party by the Revolutionary Youth Movement was strategic -- a coup...
It was the late Beatle, John Lennon who once said that “We live in a world where people must hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.” This refers of course to his distain of the Vietnam War and frankly when you ask someone who was a citizen in America at that time, you will most likely get the same melancholy response. For the better part of 15 years, the Vietnam War was at the forefront of American society in ways that were political, social, and economical. As time went on, public opinion plummeted, leaving President Lyndon Johnson no choice but to decline the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 1968 presidential election. As the Johnson administration transformed into a lame duck, damage control factory, an incredibly intriguing race for the Democratic nomination was brewing. The race included the likes of Senator Robert Kennedy of New York, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Down the stretch, the Vietnam War proved to be the critical issue that mattered most to the electorate. The reasons were that we were spending countless dollars, risking hundreds of thousands of lives, and not making any progress. Kennedy, McCarthy, and Humphrey all agreed that it be brought to a close, however, the ways of which to go about it were in stark contrast. Throughout the majority of the race, Kennedy was the clear favorite to win. However, once he was struck down things changed much to the detriment of the Democratic Party. They would not see a successful President come of office until the early 1990’s due to the complete lack of governmental trust and the way Democrats, in particular, LBJ, handled Vietnam. The mismanageme...
On November 15, 1969, the Moratorium March against the Vietnam War commenced in Washington D.C. Pacifists and peace administrators carried banners which stated, ”A Calvinist for peace, No more war, We want peace now,” and some carried placards bearing the name of soldiers that had died during the war (Leen). The placards that had names of fallen soldiers were first used on November 13, 1969 during the protest called “March against Death.” Two days after this protest, the “Moratorium March” began. This was a massive march that consisted of over 500,000 demonstrators including pacifists, activists, college students and other organizations that were also against the war (March Against Death). The Moratorium March was an effective form of protest because even though the march did not change the U.S. administrator’s official Vietnam War policy, it was still seen as a success, with about two million people participating all over the world (War Protests). This march had effectively united people to protest against the Vietnam War and the violation of human rights.
In order to fight, they had to learn how to speak the Vietnamese language and they learned how to use the weapons that they were using (Friedel).The United States had to work hard in order to fight in Vietnam. The United States was in favor of South Vietnam (fallstrom).They wanted to help them beat the North (Friedel). The United States believed that Vietnam shouldn’t be a communist country. President Johnson was tired of the war and believed bombing North Vietnam would help end the war (locker). But indeed it didn’t end it. The war didn’t end up ending until two years after the United States left the war (fallstrom). At the end of the war there was about 58000 Americans that had died (fallstrom). Many soldiers came back with “physiological trauma” and had to go to therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Vietnam syndrome (freidman). The causes of the war led to very emotional times for not only the families and loved ones but by the soldiers who had to face the horrific war. All-in-all despite the horrible outcomes for the soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Vietnam syndrome, the United States helped South Vietnam and North Vietnam become unified into one
The Vietnam War was well on its way by the time the Democratic Convention of 1968 rolled around, and so were the anti-war protests. After the Tet Offensive in the spring of 1968 and the famous Broadcast of Walter Cronkite, the American public had begun to lose trust in the plans of Lyndon Johnson for Vietnam, and was protesting for peace. The Democratic Convention was an important time and place for protestors to display their displeasure with the Vietnam War, as many important decisions were to be made. The Chicago Seven was made up of radical protestors from two main groups, the MOBES (National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam) and the YIPPIES (Youth International Party). MOBE was the more politically focused of the two while the YIPPIES engaged in promoting an uninhibited lifestyle.
The Counterculture movement began in 1964, when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers. President Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam (Vietnam War Protests). A few months later, people began to question the rationale of fighting the war. People questioned joining the war in Vietnam due to our position in the Cold War. Both America and the Soviets had nuclear weapons, but neither country could afford an all out war. By starting another war with Vietnam that would mean placing more stress on the military forces. With two wars going on, that would require more man power. This problem introduced the draft. Many people of the counterculture movement opposed this, because they didn’t believe in fighting in a war that they didn’t support. Young men tore up their draft cards, or signed up as conscientious objectors. A conscientious objector is someone who doesn...