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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (85144)	8/9/2000 8:14:05 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

It was a clash of elites vs. populists. In their smugness and arrogance, the protestors thought they were speaking for all America. Neither side, very obviously, spoke for all America. I suspect that both sides were more diverse than you think, and that the loudest and ugliest elements on both sides got the most attention. I also think that the situation probably changed over time: what started out as largely a University-based elite movement gradually developed more of a mass base. One factor influencing this, I suspect, was that members of the working class had less natural access to information on the actual situation, and were thus slower to surrender the illusion that we were fighting an updated version of World War II. The terms of debate, remember, were different then: those were the days when Conservatives backed the Government reflexively, and people who questioned the Government were radicals. An odd shift, no? What is astonishing to me is that so few of the Americans who went through those years of strife came out of them knowing anything about Vietnam, or about how the conflict began. How many Americans know when and why Vietnam was divided?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (85144)	8/9/2000 9:35:46 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 108807

Man, you do have some strange ideas. I don't think anti-war protesters thought they were speaking for "all America." How could they? There were plenty of hawks for every dove, and plenty of people who couldn't tolerate dissent. Even when marching down the street carrying signs in a largish group it was obvious we were in the minority. Smug and arrogant, I don't have a problem with that characterization. There's a wonderful feeling you get when you do the right thing. Sounds like you are focusing on the class warfare aspect of it. Blue collar workers vs. college students you have somehow translated into elites vs. populists. I don't know what college you are talking about, where I come from, the kids that go to LSU come from working class backgrounds far more often than having professional class families. My dad was the first person to go to college in several branches of his family, and my mother was the first person to go to college in all branches of hers. There aren't too many "elites" in Baton Rouge. On the other hand, I don't remember too many anti-war protestors being beaten up, either. There was one guy that was always advocating violence, like burning down the ROTC building. Funniest thing, years later a journalist obtained documents through FOIA that showed he was an FBI plant.