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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (83443)	3/18/2003 4:00:56 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Hello, Karen. Like you, I find myself running comparisons with the Vietnam War in my head. The biggest comparisons that strike me right now are twofold: speed of communication thanks to all news cable TV and the internet and the memory of Vietnam itself. On the first one, I'm struck at how quickly news (good and bad, true and false) flies around and becomes the basis for collective action--armies, politics, protests, whatever. That long article I posted sometime back on the organizing structure of both the US and global protest movement showed that. I'm certain one could use other dimensions to show it as well. So, in this respect, the difference is so large, it's as they say in my former business, a difference that makes a difference. On the second score, the memories, they haunt everyone. Military planners, politicians, everyday citizens, protest folk, you name it. Everyone seems to be saying something like, we did it such and such a way in Vietnam therefore let's do it this different way this time. It's an overdetermined structure, if there ever was one.