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Millions Of Americans Marching Against The War ...
Millions Of Americans March Against The War.
We well remember watching (and cheering) this, as though it were only last week.
Really.
Remember, we're oldies. (Relatively speaking of course).
A sight never to be forgotten. It was the day the world witnessed with it's own eyes - The Spirit Moving. That is to say, the (then) spirit of America.
But that particular popular uprising of the people was against the war then being waged against Vietnam - not Iraq.
And it was in 1969. Thirty eight years ago tomorrow, to the day.
That was way back when, sad to say, almost all of us had bigger (and better) balls than so many people appear to possess today.
And while your own milage may vary of course -- as our blog title states so succinctly, that's the way we see it.
Oops. We're in danger of digressing.
So, since we (strongly) suspect a serious case of mass amnesia may suddenly break out in US mainstream media on Monday, here's our own 'heads up'.
Read the rest of this reminder/report, right here.1969: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium
Americans have taken part in peace initiatives across the United States to protest against the continuing war in Vietnam.The Peace Moratorium is believed to have been the largest demonstration in US history with an estimated two million people involved.
In towns and cities throughout the US, students, working men and women, school children, the young and the old, took part in religious services, school seminars, street rallies and meetings.
Supporters of the Vietnam Moratorium wore black armbands to signify their dissent and paid tribute to American personnel killed in the war since 1961.
The focal point was the capital, Washington DC, where more than 40 different activities were planned and about 250,000 demonstrators gathered to make their voices heard.
Labels: anti-war, Iraq war, Nixon, peace marches, Vietnam
posted by Richard at Sunday, October 14, 2007
9 Comments:
Yep. Not before enough people demand in no uncertain terms that they want this war over, will it ever be over.
Only when the antis want what they want - more than the pros want what they want, will the antis prevail.
And it's not enough to WANT peace - you\we have to PROVE we want peace - beyond ANY reasonable doubt.
Those were the days my friends. Love - not war.
I'm old enough to remember that, Richard, but I'm ashamed to say that I don't. In those days I didn't have a TV and probably didn't even read the newspaper much - low point of life etc.
Speaking of low points, I feel as though the people of the USA are at one now. There isn't the community spirit there must have been in 1969. It's hard for a country as vast as this one to retain any sense of community (I often say that to my American husband), but when push comes to shove, as it did in 1969, and again after 9/11, it can be found and put to use.
I don't understand what's stopping them now - it's as though the spirit has been leeched out of them by 7 years of Bush medication.
There's no leader charismatic enough to rally them. Individual rallies and marches seem to have little effect and those who take part must soon loose heart.
Very sad - and depressing.
Don't forget that in those days they didn't have the internet like we do. Yet they still managed to get together and beat the warmongers.
Y'know what? The internet is wasted on this "chattering-rooms-classes" generation.
As the Eagles sang in Hotel California, "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969." Thanks for remembering this event, OB!
I am somewhere in that photo. I had just arrived in DC for grad school the month before, and it the first big antiwar demo I went to. The one a month later was even bigger, but was held at night (a candlelight gathering on the Mall, covering much the same ground as pictured here).
Twilight, it's not been just the past 7 years that have leached Americans of so much of their sense of community and "we're all in this together," it's been a relentless 35-year campaign -- first by Nixon, then by Cheney & Rumsfeld in Jerry Ford's White House, then Reagan and Bush41 (along with assiduous undermining of Dem. Presidents Carter and Clinton by conservatives of both parties) -- to discredit government and all its core functions in favor of the private sector's supposed efficiency that has atomized the American people and estranged them from public institutions.
The USA is near the end of a rather longer road than most realize, almost to the point where the people's values and wishes have no real place in politics. The big guns in the "private sector" (corporations) are tons more influential with legislators and other politicians than mere citizens are -- or the U.S. involvement in Iraq would have ended years ago (or even have started at all, given the Huge antiwar demos in early 2003), and we'd have had a much simpler, fairer health care system in place over a decade ago.
Even giant demos just don't have an impact anymore. All that We the People have left to use that *would* have an impact are pocketbook tools -- boycotts, general strikes, etc. -- and so many people are on the knife's edge financially that there's little chance many will use these.
Over the past 35 years the conservatives (i.e. the vast majority of Republicans and waaay too many Democrats) in public office and in concerted lobbying efforts have destroyed the faith of the American people in their ability to achieve constructive ends together through government. We now live under a cabal occupying the nation's highest offices that is gutting the last remnants of the government's ability to function as a tribune and servant of the people, by utterly perverting laws high and low at whim, and (thus far) there is no one who will put a halt to this. (Those who even contemplate such action, especially in an official capacity, are quickly intimidated somehow into reconsidering -- every time.)
[/rambling]
Mark - yes, I'm beginning to see what you describe more and more as I read here and there.
Yesterday I had occasion to read and refer someone to Harold Pinter's Nobel speech in 2005 "Art Truth and Politics"
it's reported at archives here
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1208-28.htm
It is very anti US adminstration and not for the faint of hert ;-)It ends like this:
"I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man."
We need someone like that here - NOW!
Ah yes, I remember it well. I am Class of '69. These demonstrations were real happenings. All over the US, every state, we had 'em everywhere, big cities down to little towns. The establishment backlash was incredible, but in the end, had to capitulate to the vox populis. And it STILL took us another 6-yrs after the Peace Moratorium you featured to back the hell out of SE Asia. Please don't give up on us!
One big difference between then and now was The Draft! That's what eventually brought so many people to the point of screaming en masse - Enough!
But the stablishment learned from that.
One of the few things that's stopped another draft (as this fiasco goes from bad to worse for America) is the rise of these private armies - like Blackwater and others.
Oh, yes, the warmongers have learned a lot since then.
Damn them to hell.
38mQQq The best blog you have!
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