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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.
Teenagers in the 1950s were restless creatures, tired of listening to parents and doing school work. When they went away to university, it gave them a taste of freedom and responsibility at the same time. Unfortunately, a war was going on for the U.S.: a war not all people thought we should have been involved with in the first place. As Mark Barringer stated in his article "The 1960s: Polarization, Cynicism, and the Youth Rebellion", student radicals Al Haber and Tom Hayden from the University of Michigan formed the Students for a Democratic Society in 1960 as a scholarly arm of an institution for Industrial Democracy. In June 1962, fifty-nine SDS members met ...
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- - -, ed. "The Anti-War Movement in the United States." English.Illnois.edu. Ed. Oxford Companion to American Military History. 1st ed. Vers. 1. Rev. 1. Oxford Companion to American Military History, 1999. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .
Seattletimes.com. Seattle Times Company, 1996. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. .
Selective Service System. "The Vietnam Lottery." Sss.gov. Selective Service System, 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. .
- - -. "The Vietnam Lottery." Sss.gov. Selective Service System, 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. .
Vietnamwardraftlottery.com. Francisco Burzi, 2005. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the reader is introduced to a utopian community who practice the tradition of a lottery every year. At first glance, it seems like a nice day and the kids are just collecting rocks while waiting for their parents to arrive. All of the citizens show some excitement over the upcoming the lottery. The text states,
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
The fundamental principles of “utilitarianism” is that the moral is worthy of an action that benefits the majority of the population and minimizes the negative consequence of the action, thus the “greatest happiness rationale” rules. This further implies that the welfare of the entire population is more important than the welfare of a sole individual. Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, and the United States military draft lottery demonstrate two different examples of lottery practices – the stoning in “the Lottery” and the raising of military manpower through the draft lottery. Both of these examples claim the major aim is allegedly for the welfare of the majority, however otherwise. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” epitomizes communities, America, the world, and the orthodox society in its entirety through utilizing setting and most significantly various representations with her imaginative, enigmatic literary style. The Lottery was written in 1948 and this was approximately three years following the release of a World War II concentration camp Auschwitz. Shirley Jackson illustrates through the setting of the story, a humble, close-knit community, that despite the population’s ignorance to evil, it is still prevailing in the lottery. Lottery in the story pertains to the villagers’ yearly ritual of sacrificing and stoning a member of the community in exchange for a plentiful harvest. The façade of the lottery may appear beneficial for the majority of the villagers because, according to their belief, doing the lottery will provide them with an abundant harvest (Jackson). The sacrifice of one community member may appear justifiable because that one person’s sacrifice is for the good of the entire community. However, if we are going to...
A lottery drawing - the first since 1942 - was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This event determined the order of call for induction during calendar year 1970, that is, for registrants born between January 1, 1944 and December 31, 1950. Reinstitution of the lottery was a change from the oldest first method, which had been the determining method for deciding order of call. 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates were placed in a large glass jar and drawn by hand to assign order-of-call numbers to all men within the 18-26 age range specified in Selective Service law. With radio, film and TV coverage, the capsules were drawn from the jar, opened, and the dates inside posted in order. The first capsule - drawn by Congressman Alexander Pirine (R-NY) of the Ho...
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a chilling tale of a harsh ritualistic gathering conducted by people of a small village. The word lottery would typically remind someone of a drawing to win a cash prize. A better comparison to the story would be the lottery used to select troops for the Vietnam War; a lottery of death. Another would be the human sacrifices the Aztecs willingly made long ago.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 989.
During his testimony to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, John Kerry mentioned that in his opinion, “there is nothing in South Vietnam which could have happened that realistically threatens the United States of America.” In that same testimony, Kerry discussed that most people “did not even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart.” The Fulbright hearings were an eye-opener to the millions of Americans who watched them. They convinced many that opposing the war and patriotism were compatible. The movement against the Vietnam War could be said as one of the greatest triumphs in democracy. The war’s purpose was to instill democracy, yet the war was waged with a lack of a constitutional warrant. What started as a few people protesting turned into the majority being opposed to the Vietnam War. The movement involved only a few dozen organizations in 1960, and overtime produced twelve hundred antiwar organizations a decade later. The antiwar movement was spurred by trends and perspectives on the war changing from 1965 to 1973, and contributing events such as the Mai Lai massacre and the Tet Offensive. The impact of the antiwar movement was clearly substantial, by the time the war had ended; the last Gallup poll recorded in May 1971 indicated that public approval of the war was at an all-time low of 28 percent. The movement provoked doubts about the war’s merits among the American public and elites, including in congress and the media, who, in turn influenced other Americans. The threat the movement posed to domestic social stability also promoted public and elite ...
hard for them to understand those who were so passionate against the war. “Young protesters were often dismissed by many older Americans for being part of the counterculture that rejected traditional American values and embraced experimentation with sex and drugs. Yet the protests represented a genuine, and growing, resistance in the United States to the country's role in the Vietnam conflict.” (Doswell). Because the protesters, had a hard time connecting to the older parental generation, the nation was even more tense and divided. While there were plenty of people protesting against the war, there was also plenty of people that were against the protest. For example, many police officers disagreed with the protesters. They were often just as
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner. Boston: New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2013. 242-249. Print.
In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson we are told of a small village of about 300 and the event that takes place on June 27th of every year. All members of the community are required to participate in this lottery
Anti-war protests were one of the things off the battlefield in the United States that impacted U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The movement against the United States involvement in the Vietnam war began among peace activists, and college students across the country, but gained national prominence in 1965(“Vietnam, Protests”). This was when the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest, which made many Americans angry and question U.S. involvement in the war. As the United States became more, and more involved in the war, and the American soldier death toll began to increase, anti-war protests were becoming more common, and larger. On October 21, 1967, one of the largest anti-war demonstrations took place(“United”). More than 100,000 protesters gathered at the Lincoln
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” brings up some interesting situations which reflect certain traditions from USA in the mid-20th century. Some people might say she is out of her mind to speak about these activities in this time period, but I say it was a bold statement and was able to allow her to express her mind.
Almost all Americans questioned as to why the Vietnam War was happening. The government justified that the involvement was because they did not want the idea of Vietnam to fall to communism that would carry into the rest of Southeast Asia, creating a domino effect. Protest sprung all around the country mainly by peace activist on college campuses. The protest caused a disruption of the draft process and military morale was lowered. They began to spread amongst students, mothers, and anti-establishment hippies. Another protest not amongst campuses, but by young adults who began to burn their draft cards. The results of the Vietnam War and the protest began to take a toll on United States society. Opposition of the war spread through most of Europe and Asia. Protest sprung up and many people deemed the US to be unlawful. One of the most iconic protest in the 60s was from a Buddhist Monk setting himself on fire. The Civil Rights Movement also helped spread anti-war movements around the country. The Vietnam War left Americans struggling, to absorb lessons from military intervention and sprung new views on the American
On March 24th, nearly 2 million people in the US participated in the March for Our Lives, a demonstration in support of tighter gun control. This was said to be one of the largest protests in American history alongside the Vietnam War protests. Looking back to the anti-war movement during the 60s and now at the current movement against gun violence, we can draw stark parallels, specifically that students were at the forefront of these mass movements. Being at the march and seeing the amount of high school students who came out for the demonstration, I became interested in further exploring how students draw working people into mass struggle all over the world. In order to explore various aspects of student movements, I am going to be talking about lessons from France 1968, the current situation surrounding the Parkland shooting, and our student work internationally in Spain surrounding the education system.
When “The Lottery” was first published in 1948, it created an enormous controversy and great interest in its author, Shirley Jackson.