Public protests can be a productive and healthy way for the public to voice a dislike or a grievance. There are many things that may be changed by protesting, but a war is not one of those things. When the people protest a war, those protests hurt our militaries success and its confidence. When the people protest a war it divides the country, instead of bringing the country together for support.
The First Amendment gives the American people the right to free speech, but that right is not always guaranteed. Hateful and threatening language is not protected by the first amendment. Those who publicly protest war should not be protected by the first amendment. When there is a need for us to go to war with another country, the war protests should be considered harmful, and should not be allowed. Protesting during a time of war sabotages the government's actions, whether their intentions are good or bad. (Forster, pars. 1-2)
During the Vietnam War, many Americans did not want our military to have any involvement in Southeast Asia, even when American military ships were attacked first. The protests started out small at first, mostly on college campuses and with the group Students for a Democratic Society or (SDS). As more men were being drafted, the protests became more frequent and more people started to attend the protests. Then in 1968, fifty percent of
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The troops morale during the Vietnam War would have, without a doubt, been better if there were no protests going on. With all of the anti war protests going on during that time, the returning troops were treated horrendously. The protests had caused a majority of the people to despise them. Many people called them ‘baby killers’, they were spit on, and all around disrespected. They were not welcomed home the way that they should have been, all due to the anti-war propaganda that the protesters spread. (Forster, pars.
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.
The Peace Protest Movement was a time in the Vietnam war when people disagreed with it. This was because of a number of things. The amount of money it was costing, The amount of people killed, but it originated largely from the massacre at My Lai. The reason that the happenings in My Lai, 1968 were so unpopular is because it was the first time that people back home, in USA and all around the world saw what was actually happening to innocent citizens who had done nothing wrong, as a result of Search and Destroy missions. The My Lai Massacre was the first incident to be televised during the war and therefore, it was only then that people realised what was actually happening in Vietnam.
The Vietnam War (1965-1975)was fought between the North and South Vietnam. The North was called Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the South was the Republic of Vietnam which was supported by the United States. On August 2nd, 1964 the USS Maddox was on a secret intelligent mission on the North Vietnamese coast where in the Gulf on Tonkin they were attacked by torpedo boats. The USS Turner Joy was attacked in the same area two days later. Due to the second attack Congress declared the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which led to air strikes.In 1959 there were 5,000 guerilla fighters and in 1964 the numbers jumped to 100,000. At Pleiku on March, 1965 U.S Marine barracks were attacked causing the three stage escalation bombing of North Vietnam to begin. The 3 year lasting bombing was used to force North Vietnam to stop supporting the "National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam" by destroying their industrial infrastructure and Vietnam's air defenses. Unfortunately this did not stop the North's support for the NLF. The U.S. Air Force bases were constantly being attacked so the U.S. on March 8, 1965 the 3,500 U.S. Marines was deployed to South Vietnam. At this point in time, the U.S. public supported the dispatch because the Vietnam War had been portrayed to the American people as a war against the spread of Communism. Johnson was president at the time and he kept adding more and more troops as the war went on. As the draft quotas increased, the American public protests started. When Nixon came into presidency his policy towards the Vietnam War was "peace with honor" in other words he wanted to widen the war. After more bombing and fighting, on January 27, 1973 the Paris Peace Accords was signed, restoring peace in Vietnam and U.S. forces pulled out. Nixon stopped all American attacks on Vietnam. The condensed summary of the Vietnam War is to see what presidents were involved in this war (Johnson, and Nixon) and what foreign policies were taken towards Vietnam mostly before the protests began.
American citizens during the Vietnam War generally equally disapproved and approved of it; many protesting their dissent, and going out of their way to obtain deferments in order to avoid conscription, while many others voiced pro-war statements (Angrist 584-95). Deferments were a way to postpone your chance of conscription, which is being drafted into the military (Angrist 584-95). Although some were indeed anti-war, there was a rather equal or larger amount who voiced supportive opinions for the war, but as the war proceeded this changed (Gettleman). Such diversified opinions were the direct cause for the continuation of the war (Tomes). Peaceful protesters and radicals came into the spotlight as the war progressed, as more and more people voiced disapproving and anti-war statements towards the war (DeBenedetti 321-86).
Due to the volatile conditions of the Vietnam War, the protestors believed that they should not be involved in a war that they cared so little about. Public opinion heavily swayed during the war as only one senator dissented from the overwhelming opinion to fight the war (Amter 45). However, as President Johnson escalated the war and the Draft increased by 25% in 1968, those youths being conscripted were infuriated (Dougan 118). Not only this, the North Vietnamese began a ruthless offensive on American soldiers by merciless attacking our bases. This resulted in US victories, but also US casualties (Dougan 116). Also, the marines stationed at the bases began to use offensive attacks to deter Viet Cong assault against the wishes of General Taylor (Karnov 443). With these new less defensive strategy, Nixon announced plans to start operations in Cambodia, and to increase the bombings overall in Southeast Asia (Dougan 180). Some missions even began t...
Paul Potter, president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), held his first anti-war rally that attracted 25,000 people. The movement occurred between 1960 and 1970. Paul Potter’s speech, “The Incredible War”, was established in hopes of ending the war by creating a social movement. The only way for people to end the war is by challenging the system, creating posters, and not by having a couple marches because that wasn’t going to benefit them. “This war was mainly fought mainly by Vietnamese Communists, who were strong in the north of Vietnam.” (Britannica) The goal of the movement was to end the Vietnam War because it was taking away the American’s freedom and destroying their peace in the world. The Americans and South Vietnam were mostly involved in the movement. The movement started because Vietnam wanted to become a communist government and until then, corruption occurred.
Engaging in the war in Vietnam brought a whole different set of "American Views" to the topic of war. This time the country did not support the war like we've seen in the past. Mostly by young people, the war effort was criticized and Americans staged massive protests. The Vietnam War's controversy spurred a great many sources of protest, against our government's use of power, how far we could stretch the rights of free expression, and primarily against the violence of the war itself.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
President Dwight Eisenhower conditionally pledged to support South Vietnam’s new nation in 1955. In the time period between 1955-1961 the United States pumped seven billion dollars in aid so that Vietnam would not “go over quickly” like a “row of dominoes” (McNamara 31). In the next 6 years Vietnam would cost America billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and the disaffection of much of the United States public. Yet in the end, South Vietnam would fall to the North less than 2 years after the United States military involvement ceased.
In 1968, the United States of America was participating in a violent war that some of the general public greatly disapproved of. Tension between political parties was rising and this did not help efforts with the war. Anti-war sentiment was growing in popularity amongst the younger generation; they wanted to get their voices heard. Protests and riots were occurring more frequently and growing larger in size all throughout the United States. This was the case for eight Chicago men who protested peacefully.
The First Amendment protects our rights of free speech and assembly, the independence of the press, and prohibits official establishment or unfair criticism of any particular religion. Free speech rights can be thought of as having two parts, the right to have free access to ideas, and the right to express ideas freely. The right to calm assembly goes with free speech given that demonstrations and other political activity are protected as expressive behavior. While government actions threaten all these rights stated by the First Amendment, it is our free speech and assembly rights which are most at risk. The USA PATRIOT Act contains provisions that will criminalize people's legitimate expressions of their political views. For example, the Act creates a new category of crime; domestic terrorism blurs the line between speech and criminal activity. Section 802 of the Act defines domestic terrorism as "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of criminal laws" that "appear to be inten...
The Vietnam War created one of the most dividing periods of American history. Many saw the war as an unnecessary conflict that cost dearly in both money and lives. The United States’ involvement in the war was also considered to be unjustified. Despite the many difficulties faced during the controversial time, many activists raised issues in opposition to the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War because of its unjust nature with acts such as the high casualty rates, scorched earth policies, and the lack of an immediate threat.
When the individual gets attacked verbally because of their controversial statements, they claim that they had the right to speak their mind no matter how disturbing their words were. They use the First Amendment as a cover for their wrong-doings, and that is never okay. They need to be educated on what they can and cannot say. Just because the First Amendment guarantees a person the freedom of speech, does not mean that they are entitled to say whatever they please. The article “Freedom of Speech” explains if an individual were to use “fighting words” then they are automatically not covered under their First Amendment. The Supreme Court decided in the case Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire that “fighting words” were not constitutional, so they would not be protected under the First Amendment (2). Many people misunderstand that much of their opinions that they speak consists of words that are unclear. More than half of the time the words they use in their statements are considered to be fighting words, for they are rude and ignorant. There is no need for the obscene words that they use to be protected under the First Amendment. They must become aware of their lack of knowledge for what “fighting words” are; furthermore, they
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
The Vietnam Antiwar Movement is one of the most prominent eras in American History. Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, people across the U.S., young and old, publicly opposed the Vietnam war. Opposers of the war expressed their antiwar opinions by organizing protests and mass demonstrations. Multiple anti-Vietnam war protests significantly effected North America. Despite being underestimated by the United States government and pro-war supporters, the Vietnam Antiwar Movement led to powerful and influential impacts.